Podcasts about so brandon

Maria is just getting back from vacation. Brandon has pneumonia (again). So Brandon tells Maria (and you) the story of when he wrote Royal Caribbean cruiseline asking them to host a formal cat wedding. Complete correspondence in our show notes.

A special guest graced us with his takes on some debated topics.   FP was in the building to chop it up about this Momma's Cookin that Kwame Brown has blazed social media with.  The NBA Playoffs have begun.  So Brandon & Shannon definitely had to give their picks. FP is a hip-hop expert.  So we rapped about his love for the art, and everyone gave their top 5 MCs.This shows topics:Kwame Brown and NBA Playoffs '21 - 4:13Hip-Hop talk wit an expert - 16:41Scripture of the day: Ephesians 4:29 - 30:21Links:Outro Song - Apple: https://apple.co/2HtcSe7Outro Song - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/39AAQ32Overcome album by SOC - https://apple.co/325Vc3JGuilty Innocence album by SOC - https://apple.co/3mItAZx Follow Us on Social:Podcast Video Channel: https://bit.ly/2QFewOQTotallyCrossedOut.comFacebook.com/TotallyCrossedOutRebirthofSOC.cominstagram.com/TotallyCrossedOutYouTube.com/RebirthofSOCBrandon aka SOC - @RebirthofSOCtcopodcasts@gmail.com 

Despite being a pillar of modern science fiction, most of the crew has no idea about anything about it!  So Brandon and AJ try and teach Brandie, Dave, Glen, and Mike all about Star Trek... in 45 minutes! They definitely missed some stuff.  There was no way they could get almost 60 years of history and lore in in 45 minutes, so let us know what they missed!  It's the only way we'll learn.  And let us know some of your favorite Star Trek shows, movies, books, and other media by reaching out on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.  You can also send us an email: nerdingforbeginners@gmail.com

Bible Reading: John 3:16-18, 36Passenger trains no longer came through the little town of Judson, but for the city's anniversary celebration, a train was running on the old tracks once again. "Look, Dad!" exclaimed Brandon, pointing to a sign. "Free rides!" Dad read aloud. "Climb aboard and enjoy an old-fashioned train ride to Rock Island." So Brandon and Dad got on the train.After they sat on the tracks for a while, Brandon asked, "Shouldn't we be going by now?"Dad looked around. "Maybe they're waiting for more people to get on."Just then a conductor stepped into the car. "Guess you folks didn't read the sign carefully," he said. "This car's not going anywhere.""How come?" asked Brandon in surprise. "It's on a side track and isn't hooked up to an engine," the man explained. "The train on the main track is the one we're using. It will be back soon, and then you can have a ride."Brandon and his father felt a little foolish as they and several others got off the train to wait. "We got on that train fully expecting a ride to Rock Island, but we didn't get there," Dad observed. "We were on the wrong track and weren't attached to the engine." He smiled at Brandon. "You know, this isn't the first time I've done something like this." "It's not?" asked Brandon. "You mean you've sat on the wrong track before?""Yes," Dad said. "For many years!" Brandon's eyes widened. "Years?" He couldn't imagine waiting that long for the train to move.Dad nodded. "When I was a young man, I was convinced that because I attended church regularly and tried to live a good life, I would go to heaven. I fully expected that my good deeds would get me there. But what I didn't realize until years later was that I was sitting on the wrong track. I wasn't connected to the engine.""Being connected to the engine means trusting in Jesus, doesn't it?" Brandon said. "Yes," said Dad. "Only He can save us from sin and give us eternal life. We won't go anywhere without Him."Hearing a train whistle, Brandon and Dad looked up and saw their train coming. "We're hooked up to the engine now," Brandon said as they boarded the train. "So we're going somewhere this time!" (Ruth I. Jay)How About You?Are you on the right track to heaven--are you connected to the engine?The Bible doesn't say you get to heaven by going to church, giving to the poor, being kind and helpful, or doing other good things. It says you must trust in God's Son, Jesus. You must be connected to Him. Trust Jesus as your Savior today! (To learn more, click the "Good News!" button in the right column of this page.)Today's Key Verse:Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. (NIV) (Acts 16:31)Today's Key Thought:Jesus is the only way to heaven

Today, joining me on the podcast is Brandon Wenzel. Brandon is my cousin, as you could probably guess, just by the title of the podcast. Honestly, this was a treat of a podcast for me. So Brandon is a couple of years older than me, but we all had very similar shared interests growing up. Wenzel's have this proclivity to collect something, whatever it may be. So for Brandon, his big thing is retro gaming consoles, so that can be really old councils from the first generations of Atari and Sega, but really his what does closest to his heart is the PlayStation. In this conversation, I knew we had had many things to talk about, but this was a treat to understand what it was like for Brandon to grow up, being a little bit older than me and how technology has evolved for him and why he is so attached to video games in the way that he is. Outside of that, we touched on a few other things that he really enjoys, with the love of food and talking about martial arts toward the end of this conversation. In all, this conversation was something for me that I really enjoy being able to do. It's finding something people are passionate about and try to unpack why they find it fun for whatever reason it is. We did a really good job talking about why certain things are just intrinsically meaningful to us. At the very least, when you're listening to this conversation, I hope what are the things that you do because you love doing it. And have you ever been able to tell someone about that thing and don't be afraid to share those because it's through those things that you really care about that people see who you truly are And so with that, everyone, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with my cousin, Brandon Wenzel. Show Notes (00:04:09) Mega Man (00:09:15) Favorite between Mario or Mega Man (00:10:59) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (00:14:02) How Toys have evolved (00:16:11) Gas Station Story (00:19:00) Retro Gamer (00:24:28) Panasonic Console (00:25:30) Becoming a Collector (00:28:34) Tangible Collections (00:30:25) Disc Rot (00:34:04) Transition to digital (00:35:13) Keeping consoles running (00:41:16) The Original Playstation (00:46:53) N64 Controller (00:55:04) Platinum Controller Organ Transplant (00:58:26) Technology and Games (01:01:38) Streaming Retro Games (01:03:51) Light Gun Games (01:05:37) First Computer and setting up technology (01:09:13) Upscaling retro games and input lag (01:10:39)Word of caution for buying original hardware (01:15:27) High Score - Netflix Documentary (01:19:03) Why are older games more difficult (01:23:19) NES Hard (01:26:46) What goes on under the hood (01:28:01) Martial Art Films (01:33:18) Blood Fist Movies (01:34:09) Closing --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/feedingcuriosity/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/feedingcuriosity/support

Happy New Year!! Listen in as the gang tackles questions they received over the past couple weeks. We do our best to answer questions like should you cut after a holiday weight gain, whether you should wear stretchy pants when you plan on eating a lot, and the most likely reason that you're not getting as many gains as you think you are. We hope you crack a cold one open with us and get some questions ready for next time! We also wish you well and a happy and healthy 2021! The questions we answered in this episode can be found below: Would there be much reason for a tactical athlete/firefighter to cut after THICCMAS?Is it a bad idea to workout on an empty stomach or is it more of a preference?So Brandon’s teaching practices revolve around integration of Physical Movement, Emotional Life, Sensory Perception and Cognitive Function. As human beings, what are your opinions/advice on how we can integrate exercise, nutrition and other modalities/pedagogies into a broader idea of holistic health?What bad thing happened to Ro at Trader Joe’s that has left him so scarred?How can you tell when you are ready to come back after an injury?Do you wear stretchy pants if you know you are going to be eating a lot of good food?How do things like mentality and perspective affect physical aspects such as the rate of physical maturation. So really, what (if any) connection exists between mental and physical age?What’s considered a “short” and “long” rest period? Why would you use one over the other?What fruits/vegetables/food in general do you recommend in these winter months to prevent illnesses? What motivates you guys as professionals to keep moving forward?What opinions/advice do you have about the connection between mentality and body maturation? How does one navigate the changing of biological factors such as metabolism, physical energy and conscious behavioral patterns?How do you get more protein for geriatric patients? Which foods are more important for them?If you live in a different state, how often should you call your mother?Gallbladders - Having your gallbladder removed (if dealing with gallstones) vs. changing your lifestyle to maintain an organ in your body. If I have my gallbladder removed, won’t my other organs compensate and cause problems of their own?So I just got a massage gun for Christmas. Can you overuse massages in general and for recovery? Also why does my body itch a lot after using it?What is up with my lack of gainz? Be sure to follow us at @healthunfilteredpod where you can keep up to date and connect with Brooke, Nicole, and Rogelio! Logo design: Anne-Claire Houck @anneclaire_1217Intro/Outro music: Kenyadda @kenyadda  

So Brandon is back from a unexpected week off with an episode that's coming out a week early!!! This week Brandon talks about the first happiest place on earth Disneyland!Sources:https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/DisneylandSupport the show (https://paypal.me/pools/c/8l5FryWdtZ)

Eric and Brandon are back, and on Friday Brandon had a Fantasy Football Draft. So Brandon covers who he picked up in the first part of the draft and they talk about what the grades for some picks were. They also talk about who possibly should have been taken in those spots. #NFL #NFLNews #FantasyFootball --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alloutsportsshow/support

So Brandon took an unexpected vacation but now he's back and in a space to record and to keep on doing what he does best. This week were learning about schools and how it started in america to now! so pull up your school desk and sit for a bit as we talk about it!Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Boston%20Latin%20School%20was%20founded,Dorchester%2C%20Massachusetts%2C%20in%201639.https://www.americanboard.org/blog/11-facts-about-the-history-of-education-in-america/https://www.raceforward.org/research/reports/historical-timeline-public-education-ushttps://oldestwoodenschoolhouse.com/Support the show (https://paypal.me/pools/c/8l5FryWdtZ)

Have you heard of Bolus Maximus? Behind that great name are two men with type 1 looking to bring new resources to the community talk about the tough stuff. This week, Stacey talks to Brandon Denson and Matt Tarro. They share their stories and what they hope to achieve with Bolus Maximus. Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Previous episode with Brandon Denson (from 2016!)  In Tell Me Something Good, we have a few artists in our audience and some good news for the podcast. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android Episode Transcription (Beta) Stacey Simms  0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop created for people with diabetes by people who have diabetes and by Dexcom, take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom.   Announcer  0:22 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  0:27 This week, the name caught my attention, but it's the people behind Bolus Maximus, who are looking to bring new resources and talk about the tough stuff.   Brandon Denson  0:37 Type 1 diabetes or the diabetes community in general, is a very, very tight knit community. But there's still a lot of work to be done. One of the main things that is going to separate us is that we're not focused on pulling you out from where you are. We're more focused on coming to get you from where you stand.   Stacey Simms  0:58 That's Brandon Denson. And he and Matthew Tarro, the creators of Bolus Maximus shared their stories and what they hope to achieve here in Tell me something good. We have a few artists in our audience. And hey, a big honor for the podcast. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Welcome to another week of the show. I'm so glad to have along. I'm your host, Stacey Simms, and we aim to educate and inspire about type 1 diabetes by sharing stories of connection. I have to tell you I'm taping this episode a little bit more in advance than I usually do. Because as you're listening, it's last week, we took my daughter to college, as I'm taping it is this week, and the plan is to take more time than usual. I mean, nothing is usual this year. But as I shared in a previous episode, we're far from this college. This is an 11 hour road trip we normally would have flown but with things being how they We are driving, and we have to stay because every college is doing this a little bit differently. Her college is testing the students upon arrival for sequestered in a hotel. And then when they get their negative COVID test back, they can move in and you have two hours. I think that's the window to move her into the dorm. So I'm kind of thankful she's a sophomore this year. I was so nervous last year when we moved her and not just about she was leaving, but are we gonna have time? Are we gonna do everything right? And what about making up her bed and she didn't need any of that. But you only recognize that in hindsight, so if you haven't moved your freshman college student in yet and you are doing that, as you're listening, some point in the future really will be okay. They really don't need you there. You really don't need to do a lot. My husband did move some of their furniture around. I mean, it was very limited what they could do, he did help with that. So he is the one moving them in this year. I will not be going for that two hour window. But we're all going together. I will report back I'm sure if you follow me on social media. I'll be talking about it as well. I don't have any words of wisdom about schools this year, Benny, who's my son was type one, he is going to start the school year virtually because his whole district is going virtual. And you know, we'll see what happens. I am optimistic that next semester will be in person. But I don't know why I'm optimistic. There's no signs that point anything changing, demonstrably. But I'll keep my fingers crossed. All right, a lot to talk about this week, I reached out to the guys behind Bolus Maximus, because how could you not with a name like that? I saw them on Instagram. I thought What are they doing? And I found out and I'm going to share that with you in just a couple of minutes. And this is an effort that is really much needed in our community and I think these are the guys to get it done. Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop, getting diabetes supplies is a pain. Not only the ordering and the picking up but also the arguing with insurance over what they say you need and what you really need. Make it easy with One Drop. They offer personalized tester plans plus you get a Bluetooth glucose meter test strips lancets and your own certified diabetes coach. Subscribe today to get test strips For less than $20 a month, delivered right to your door no prescriptions or co pays required. One less thing to worry about. not that surprising when you learn that the founder of One Drop lives with type one fake get it One Drop gorgeous gear supplies delivered to your door 24 seven access to your certified diabetes coach, learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the One Drop logo.   A couple of weeks ago I attended I guess attended in quotes the virtual friends for life conference. And one of the topics that came up just in the conversation we were having in the equivalent of the hallway, right? We're just talking to other parents and other people with type one diabetes was men with type one and dads have kids with type one. How come there aren't more forums and places for those people to talk amongst themselves. And you know we kind of batted that around for a little while you know guys don't want to talk and you know they keep it to themselves or they want action. They don't want to talk about feelings and we've had the the dads and diabetes podcasters on the show. I think they are a great resource. There's lots of episodes I've done with men, certainly who live with type one, but just a place to like knock issues around and forums to do that. Well, that's what Bolus Maximus is all about. And yes, we will talk about that name and how it came to be. And if you haven't guessed you might be right there several reasons and things behind that name, which was fun to kind of tease out of them. So who's behind that? Well, Brandon Denson is one of the pair here. And Brandon has been on the show before he was diagnosed with type one as a high school senior, and he really wants to play college football. He joined the Michigan State football team. He earned a full scholarship there. He's a walk on and he earned that scholarship to play at Michigan State. He's played professionally and he has also been on American Ninja Warrior. Again, I'll link up our past episode with Brandon. The other half of this pair is Matt Tarro. He was diagnosed with type one in 2002. his sophomore year in high school and he will share that story in the interview. He works at tandem diabetes and one of the things that comes up when you Google Matt of like Google, everybody I talked to because I'm very nosy. One of the things that comes up is this column he wrote for beyond type one called the guy's guide to type 1 diabetes. And I will link that up as well, because as I said, There just isn't a lot of stuff. bullous Maximus has weekly discussions, they say talking about the tough stuff. And I should mention, it really isn't just for guys, I know that they're trying to walk this line here. I think they're doing a very good job of it, that these resources are mostly for men. But there are many chats where women are welcome because they really want to hear all perspectives. I will let them explain more. Here's Brandon and Matt and Bolus Maximus, Brandon and Matt, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show.   Unknown Speaker  6:41 Thank you. Thanks for having us. Yeah, appreciate it. Stacey. Thanks.   Stacey Simms  6:44 Alright, so I've talked to Brandon before, but I haven't met Matt. And before we jump in and talk about Bolus Maximus, which by the way is fantastic. Let me just ask you, Matt, What's your story?   Matt Tarro  6:57 Thanks this Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks again, for for having us on today. So I was born in a small state of Rhode Island, East Coast. And I've migrated out to the west coast now after years of working in digital advertising. I started it, you know, Time Warner and ended at Snapchat. So wow spent, I spent a career in digital marketing and advertising. And now I work at Tandem in San Diego. So I've been out here for the last 10 months and for the release of control IQ. And so it's been awesome to be here and working in that space now, doing something that I truly enjoy. And we'd like to do. When were you diagnosed with type one I was diagnosed is a sophomore in high school. And 2002 and I was 16 years old, living in Rhode Island, going to high school, swimming, you know, doing the normal stuff that I was. I played a couple sports growing up but I really just focused on swimming. So while I was playing When I was diagnosed during that season,   Stacey Simms  8:02 we're able to turn around and get back into the season.   Matt Tarro  8:05 Yeah, yeah. And that was something that was Yeah, that was really cool. There's another guy who was diabetic on the team. So I felt kind of comfortable getting back in there. And 16   Stacey Simms  8:13 were you driving? Did you do remember wondering if that kind of stuff was going to continue for you? I mean, it sounds like you went right back to things pretty easily.   Matt Tarro  8:23 Yeah, I did. Mostly because I felt like there was a need to do it. I think the delivery when I was diagnosed from my parents and the educators was that this is your disease. You can choose to live with it or not. I did tune out I mean, I don't want to sound like oh, yeah, took care of that. It was really easy. But we never really easy it just really no, true. So I came from medical family and my background. I wasn't going to go to medical school. But my background, you know, in my family's background was was medicine. So For me, I heard that every day at the dinner table it was always around my house. And it wasn't specifically diabetes, but it made it easier to deal with such a difficult thing. And yeah, then I then I started getting used to it.   Stacey Simms  9:16 Yeah, and Brandon, we as I said, we talked we talked for an episode a while back and you were diagnosed as a high school senior. Gosh, and then you but you went on to play football in college and then professionally, how are you doing these days? How are you keeping busy during an active physically during a time when we're all supposed to pretty much be staying in and staying by yourself? Yeah, it's been   Brandon Denson  9:39 it's definitely been challenging. You know, it's been a while since the last time we talked a lot of things have changed. The good worse in for better, but, but I would say just with staying active and walking a lot in always on the blades. You know the blades is I find that you know my for cardio versus running or anything crazy like that. So that's kind of homestead stand fit trying to Anyway,   Stacey Simms  10:09 when did you start? I'm assuming this is rollerblades. Pardon me. I'm an old lady. When did you start with rollerblades?   Brandon Denson  10:15 Man I started rollerblading. I actually let it people don't know I actually used to play roller hockey going on my brother. But by far you know I'm from if somebody Michigan but Metro Detroit, Detroit is not that far from where I grew up at. And I was a huge Red Wings fan. So Steve Iser, me and Chris, I'll tell you, all of those guys, I grew up watching those guys. I never played ice hockey. But I have I definitely have a passion for hockey. And also definitely roller hockey for sure.   Unknown Speaker  10:50 Alright, so tell me what Bolus Maximus is all about. Let's start before we get to the great name. What's the need here? And Matt, let me ask you what what did you two ideas defi as the need that you could fill,   Matt Tarro  11:02 when Brandon and I started to connect, it was through Instagram. And we started to communicate because I was volunteering for a nonprofit. And I didn't see what I wanted. So I didn't see somebody that I thought I should be working with President. And so I felt like I had to go out and find that person. And that search led me to Brandon Denson, because he displayed himself in such a way that it was easy for me to go, yeah, him, him and I will get along, put me in a room with that guy. And because of our personality, we're extremely outgoing. We're very charismatic, personable, and just happy individuals. It doesn't mean we don't have bad days. We learned about those bad days from each other through the conversations we started to have. And so this whole relationship really grew. From 2018 the first time we met after, you know, just kind of here in there, the diabetes space to like how many people have you met in person randomly? You like, Oh, yeah, I remember you from so so I wasn't that involved. So I never really had a chance to meet Brandon. And then by the time I did get involved, he was like the person that had to meet. And I'm glad I did.   Unknown Speaker  12:23 Yeah. So then Brandon, let me ask you. So what is the need, then that you guys are getting together? You're helping each other you got good days together bad days together? What what needs are you looking to fill here?   Brandon Denson  12:36 So So I think it's something as simple as if we thought that we needed that. Why wouldn't other people need that as well? Why wouldn't they need somebody to talk to? Why would they need somebody to engage with why would they need somebody to help them do their highs and lows and lift them up? We all go through the same thing we live with live with diabetes is stressful. It's a 200 to 365 24 hour a day job seven days a week. And you know, it can be very, very tough. Like, I know your son has it and I'm sure you know, you're his rock, you know, at the end of the day when he needs you or you need him, but you know, to have a community we wanted to establish in the community that we're here for everyone living with with diabetes, obviously, yes, a focus, we'd like to focus or we begin to get our focus with males. But you know, as a male there not a lot of knows that come on in this space, and I'm just gonna be completely transparent about it. The women are winning. They're winning down, you know, because they're, they're not, they're not and I wouldn't even say from a male perspective, a shame to show it. I think that men sometimes they wear this badge of honor that they don't have, you know, they don't have to let this worn out. It's okay to let that worn out and talk about the ups and downs that you're having living with diabetes. It's nothing to be ashamed about. You know what I mean? Doesn't matter if you're black, if you're white. If you're old. If you're young, none of those things matter, we just want to give a safe space. So people feel comfortable. And that's what we're starting. But we'll be working on a lot more things than just kind of bridging that gap in the community to cover everyone.   Unknown Speaker  14:13 Tell me a little bit about what you're trying to do, because this is such a huge challenge. As we've said, Men don't really like to talk about stuff to begin with, which is why there aren't more resources like this, it seems What are you doing to kind of help them   Matt Tarro  14:30 showing up in their space and being loud about not being quiet? And I think it's important especially now with what's happening in the United States and around the world to use your voice where you see fit and this for Brandon and eyes, but after we first met, really Hey, man, we we just communicate better with each other than we have with other people. So I was driving around I had you taken some road trips around the western part of the United States, and I was on the road for like four or 567 hours at a time. And I would use chunks of those time to call Brandon. And then we would have conversations while he was on the East Coast after work, and I would talk his ear off while I was like, I need somebody to help me stay awake. But like, we got a lot of stuff out and talked about a lot of different things where we, we understood how similar the need was, regardless of where we came from, how we were raised, who our friends were, or what we were taught, the needs still remains its support, and you need someone to show up and tell you that they're there for you to to help you.   Stacey Simms  15:44 So what do you actually what are you doing with bullets? backspace. You mentioned some zoom calls. You mentioned some other ways you're trying to get guys to kind of reach out because right now nobody's doing anything in person, but you're able to communicate. Cool.   Matt Tarro  15:58 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I So we've started with zoom calls, because obviously that's, you know, everybody's family. And that's how everyone's communicating. And we saw it as the easiest way for all of us to get together. And then we've been using Instagram and Facebook as a platform to start to advertise. And we've really been feeling it out. But that we knew, like I said, what we were talking about as far as a knee A while ago, sorry, my dog is encroaching on my space.   Unknown Speaker  16:30 That's what zoom is all about. I wish we could show that on the podcast.   Matt Tarro  16:36 He He's Yeah, he's usually with me. But so. So the, the idea was, you know, let's, let's start with zoom calls and put people in a position just to open up and see how that goes. And to say it's been rewarding as someone who knew that that was a need. And they're like, hey, let's try this. It's been great to see the reception. So we're going to start There, but our idea is to is to go and travel and find people in places that maybe they thought they, they had nobody coming to see them. So small communities, and then underserved communities, most importantly, the places that other people haven't been. And for whatever reason, won't go. So we feel like that need is a lot larger than just the male communities need to be addressed. So if we start with men, and we can address them, then I think we'll be able to, to start to maneuver our way around it to some different communities and make an impact   Stacey Simms  17:40 and branch it you've already had some experience with this, I would assume just because when you've been at conferences in the past, you know, people want to talk to you about playing football. And I'm sure you've been looked at as a role model. What are a lot of the things that that guys whether they're teenagers or adults with type one, I'm curious, like, what do they ask you about, you know, what are they curious about?   Brandon Denson  18:00 Um, to be honest, I like to, uh, after I speak or anything like that, or engage with anybody, anybody or share my story, I just say, you know, all bets are on, you can ask me about school, you can ask me about football, you didn't ask me about culturally how I came up with diabetes, you know, I don't really hold back from anything. And you know, I think when you when you kind of say like nothing is off limits, and that's kind of when the teenagers get DAX, and questions. Some of them raised some questions about girls or what should I do? When I play sports? What should I do on my pump? Do you wear your palm? You know, what teams have you played for? Things like that, but you know, I use my you know, I just try to use everything that I've been through, you know, as something to share, like, what would I be if I wasn't able to share that story? Yeah, maybe my story isn't this glamorous story like I you know, I had to walk on at Michigan State. I didn't What I was going to do when I when I was first diagnosed, but I knew deep down in my mind that I could still do everything that I set out to do. And you know, I wasn't going to let anybody in, especially diabetes get in the way of that. So I think when you're talking to individuals, whether they're 40 years old and just got diagnosed, or they're 12 years old, when you can share that story of everything that they that they're going through, or going to go through or have already been through that connection is, is unexplainable, you know, is is something that's very, very remarkable.   Matt Tarro  19:30 And I think just just to add to that, our ability to cater to different age groups, you know, just through conversations is something that Brandon and I discovered about each other, he, him and I both have shared a lot of experience working at camps. And then we've got backgrounds working with kids in general, right through camps in school programs. Riding on insulin now. We've both been coaches for writing on insulin camps, you know, at the same time on different parts of the country and that that's a really cool part to know that there's somebody else. At any given time, who you feel like you're connected with, we want to give more individuals that opportunity to feel like that.   Stacey Simms  20:13 talks to me about the name, I think people people think of the movie Gladiator, right? They think of Maximus or you know the name of the general or maybe it's maybe it's just large I don't really know. So we're just polis Maximus come from   Brandon Denson  20:29 you, you must be in like both of our heads.   Unknown Speaker  20:34 Like that. I like the way you broke that. Yeah.   Matt Tarro  20:39 And I appreciate you presenting it like that without us ever talking or like mentioning it to you. So to reference that movie, that is a perfect example. That was personally a favorite movie of my father's love growing up. So when when I would understand what people talked about as being like a man for some reason, like all these Other images kind of fade out and then this is like Gladiator looking dude standing there with the with the wind with a sword. He's like, Who's asked, we go on a kick. And so that mentality is, you know, as a diabetic, something that you would want to carry around. It's it's almost impossible though, to always be that person in this day and age. You can't be the big bad wolf all the time, yet you have feelings, especially as a man. And so there's a play on that to be certain. The easiest way to explain it is Brandon and Matt is Bolus Maximus bnm. And there's a max bolus setting on a pump, which is a real thing. 25 units, it's the most amount of insulin you could take at any one given time. And so you should put the maximum amount of effort into your diabetes at all times. I knew my high school Latin would pay off.   Stacey Simms  21:51 That's really funny. I mean, that's a wonderful explanation. I love it. In that movie, I can see that I can definitely see you as a kid, which kills me because I was a grown adult when you're away from having my first child when that movie came out in 2000. I just looked it up while you were talking. That's what happens. We're all the same age on a podcast. Yeah. But I love that because it's really, it really gets a lot of different points across. So what's your dream with this? And I know you're working together. But I'd like to hear from each of you, you know, you said when we can, again, traveling, getting in front of lots of different people who are totally underserved right now. And I think that's so needed. But it just sounds like this is a big project that you hope will will continue. So Brandon, let me let me start with you. You know, what do you really hope happens here? What's your big goal?   Brandon Denson  22:48 Like you said, it sounds like a big project. But at the end of the day, you know, Rome wasn't built overnight and there's a lot of holes and gaps in you know, in the diabetes community. And when we say community we mean community as an everybody as a whole. No matter where you're from, no matter what you look like, no matter your culture, none of those demographic, none of those things matter to you. The only thing that matters is that we bleed the same color. And we go through the same ups and downs. When we speak of the community, though, I think the main goal is to bring the community even tighter. I believe that the type 1 diabetes or the diabetes community in general, is a very, very tight knit community. But there's still a lot of work to be done. One of the main things that is going to separate us is that we're not focused on pulling you out from where you are. We're more focused on coming to get you from where you stand. And that's something a lot of organizations don't do. They expect everybody to come to them. And you know, like I said, it's a lot. It's a lot of work. It's even a lot of work up to this point. We've This will be our 10th week, hosting costs. But we understand what people get from those calls, you know, and it's, it's one of those things, we've gained that momentum, and we're going to continue to gain momentum. But there's going to be a lot, a lot more legwork that has to be done. But we're willing to do the end goal is to make sure everybody in the community has a safe place, not only just to be inspired, motivated and educated around diabetes, but they feel that they're a part of this.   Matt Tarro  24:35 In reality, when I look back between 2017, late 2017, around 2018, when Brandon and I started talking and the end of 2019, so almost like a two year time, end of 2017 to end of 2019. I traveled a lot around the western part of the United States. I would leave Los Angeles on two to three weeks with my dog and we would go out camp Every night and go to places we had never been to just learn about how to interact with people that you've never met before. And that how can you appreciate what they do different from where you grew up, and how you've lived. So after the years I spent on East Coast, New York City, Boston, I was there was an easy escape to get out to Montana in Nevada or Washington, Idaho. Some of my my favorite places are all in the states I've only been to in the last few years. So we're intending to go back not only to those places, but everything east of it, and start working our way into the communities to help bring people to places they've never been. And then to bring things to people that they've never seen.   Stacey Simms  25:45 Brandon mentioned, and you both mentioned the zoom calls that you've done, which I know isn't exactly the way you thought to kick this off, but we've all kind of had to adjust over the last couple of months. Do you mind me asking what you talk about? Are there particular topics that have come up   Matt Tarro  26:00 Our Our idea was that hosting calls was creating the safe space that Brendan mentioned before. So for us having topics that require the safe space, were obvious.   Stacey Simms  26:15 That's great.   Matt Tarro  26:16 Some of the things that we talked about during May was we had an opportunity to bring Mark Ayman and who, you know, is working as far as mental health is concerned during Mental Health Awareness Month, in a space that we asked him to come partake in a meeting, and he said, Yes. And that was awesome.   Brandon Denson  26:38 Because we got to grow to two females that were able to join. They reached out to us to make sure it was okay. Of course it's absolutely okay. If one of them was actually from South Africa, yeah. So,   Matt Tarro  26:52 so we we, you know, we probably could have made this clear in the beginning. While we do host calls for men, they are open to everybody. We spoke the   Brandon Denson  27:01 last two weeks. In regards to caregivers. That was a really huge topic that we saw. And we got a lot of feedback from in regards to caregivers joining and then also people sharing their stories about about their caregivers. We had a guy put his name out there, it's I don't know if he wants me to reference him, but he has a six year old son. And it was awesome to hear from him, you know, the things that he goes through, but he also invited one of his partners, a buddy of his and in the duel between that Father Son is unique because they both have type one diabetes, which I thought was amazing, but for him to come in, to get, you know, to listen to other people in the caregiving realm and you know, also be able to also be a caregiver for himself, but then also his son. You know, I think there's a lot of weight on that. So with that,   Matt Tarro  27:59 yeah, there's So caregivers, we've also talked, we did a couple of things in the beginning when we first started to host the calls that were more of skill shares. So hey, let's have the room, there's a soapbox in the middle of it, you want to stand on that you tell me you can. And it's not us making judgment or anything, whatever you want to bring to the group. So we had guys talk about graphic design, we have individual works with writing on insulin, who had a lengthy journalistic successful journalism career. And so that type of stuff really brought a different element. We talked about art, talked about different styles of art. We talked about movies, we did movies and music one week, you know, guy stuff, but in reality, that is also a way for us to bridge the gap between a difficult conversation, which we spent two weeks having, how to approach difficult conversations. laughter. You know, things really took a turn for the world. In the United States, after the death of George Floyd, and it's not something that we wanted to just bring people into a room and go, alright, let's talk about it. But that's actually what we did. And it was two of the best conversations to date. Yeah,   Brandon Denson  29:15 I'll say, I'll say hands down. You know, I think you never want to jump in, like, you know, and kind of discuss the things that are going on around the world. But the things that are going on around the world and in the United States affect us directly. Was it the easiest conversation probably to open up? and not so much was everybody willing to share they did, you know, and that was very, very important because, you know, you have different cultures, different races, not looking at it from a different perspective and only seeing it and then you have people saying that they're going to work to do better. And that's all we ask. We just want better, you know, better, better, better in sports, better in school better in the community and ultimately better with diabetes better But,   Unknown Speaker  30:00 you know, and   Brandon Denson  30:02 I do think it's it's so important because we, so many of us are worried and nervous to talk about race. I mean, let's just put it on the table. I've had these conversations before. There's such a lack of diversity at diabetes events and on panels. And, you know, I'm always so grateful that when my son was diagnosed, I could go to a conference and see people who looked like him. And no, people had the same traditions were Jewish. I met people right away that had the same traditions and background as us. And so I know it's so important when people, people who are black people of color to see people who look like them. It's as simple as that. But it's so hard to talk about, right? We don't want to say something stupid. We don't want to say the wrong thing. Yeah, and I think that's, you know, you hit it right on the head, you know, that's, that's a big, a big hole in itself. You know, I was a volunteer for jdrf for 12 years. And then I also was a worker for close to two years. And you know, you see this this big, get caught within the workplace outside of the workplace, and you see that nothing has changed, you know, nothing has changed. Like nothing me, I'm comfortable talking to anybody. But I can't say that if I took one of the kids that I knew from the school in Detroit that had diabetes, and I took them to jdrf event that they will feel comfortable there, because they wouldn't, you know, I'll be lying if I said that, that they would, or I took them to another community event and to say that they will feel comfortable, they will feel left out because nobody is interacting with them. Like they need to be interacted with, you know, and that goes a long way. You know, I didn't have somebody when I was growing up to talk to about my diabetes, cannot sit here and say that I may be needed someone. Yeah, I could probably say that. But at the end of the day, I knew it was my disease. I knew what I had to do. Everybody doesn't have that mindset. So you know, we want to make sure we create that space. No matter how old you are, what you look like, where you're from your culture. None of those things matter. Because we just want to help you do better in whatever it is that you want to do better.   Stacey Simms  32:04 Well, I appreciate you addressing it. I want to have a difficult question for the two of you, you have big goals. It sounds like when we can move around the country again, you want to get right out there. How are you paying for all this? What do you need?   Brandon Denson  32:19 actually gonna see if you will sponsor   you know, in a band, we'll put the logo on the side and we you know, a we will put the animated character on there. We were completely fine with that, you know, so, you know, we have a lot of work to be done as far as forming our our nonprofit and things, things of that nature. Obviously. Any nonprofit getting started from ground zero, takes a lot of work. This is grassroots, you know, but understanding the process of everything and what the process is going to be. As we look as we try to complete things they'll never be complete. It's never complete over the never be complete. And we understand that but we know that the steps to make it great are really rely on us and our board members and and, and everybody in the community.   Matt Tarro  33:14 Also we are offering videographer and photography services at a super good price in San Diego, Los Angeles. That's real because that's what Brandon and I do. And that is the type of thing that we would use to help fund this project. The easiest way for us to get information back and experiences and share experiences is to tell story and stories, many of them as many as we can. And the idea would be to do that through video and photo and to go and do that. Now. I've been doing freelance work for a couple years now. It is super inconsistent. If you get a couple of good gigs and you can, you know, put your best foot foot forward and get some more work based on it. That's what we're looking to do is is to have people see what we're already doing. We're making a lot of strides in the right direction. And I think, if anything, you know, we're going to work on our nonprofit, you know, getting everything set up, but at the very least, if we want to plug anything, it's the fact that Brandon Knight take really good photos and video, and we'd be happy to do it for anybody.   Stacey Simms  34:26 Everybody, okay.   Matt Tarro  34:27 Yeah. Oh, no, that was just my phone. Beeping.   Stacey Simms  34:30 Alright, just sounds like a Dexcom alert.   Unknown Speaker  34:34 All right, just checking the mom instincts kick right in. Okay, but so it sounds like you're gonna set up a nonprofit. You're but you end and Matt you already work at Tandem?   Unknown Speaker  34:45 I do. Yeah. So that and so.   Unknown Speaker  34:47 Okay, but I guess my question is, so tell me more about the photo and video. Is this a business you guys have as you said freelance kind of on the side?   Matt Tarro  34:55 Yeah. I never planned on even saying that on this call. We just We know that that's something that the both of us do in our own worlds that Brandon and I have operated in, you know, independently for the last 30 something years, we've put ourselves in a position now, to be in the same room with a bunch of cameras, drone tablets, I'm hosting some gallery space downtown San Diego. That's, that's what I was doing. And that's where a lot of my focus event. So for me, it's been everything, like just find what it is that you can do really well and that other people might like you to do for them. And that's been photography for me for a while. And so I've got photos and art up in there, we've created some art, we've got some t shirt designs. So the ideas have just been flowing every time we talked, like cool is another page in my notebook full. Well, I really, I've got you know, I've got a pretty good sized chunk of pages already full in that notebook of ideas, the direction we'd like to go and then reminders to ourselves about why we're doing that. Miss.   Unknown Speaker  36:01 I'm so glad to learn more about this. I'm looking forward to see what you guys accomplish. You know when, like I said, when you can get out and about but even before that, it sounds like you're already feeling a great need. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing it. I hope you keep us posted. We come back on and talk about it.   Matt Tarro  36:16 Most definitely, we definitely we're honored to do so.   Stacey Simms  36:19 Thank you. Very cool. Thanks again.   Unknown Speaker  36:27 You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  36:33 Lots more information at the episode homepage go to Diabetes connections.com. The episode should pop right up it's on the main page. Otherwise you can use the search box as well. We have a very robust search. I like to mention that all the time because there's a lot to go through especially if you are new. Tell me something good coming up in just a moment. But first diabetes Connections is brought to you by g bulk hypo pen. Almost everyone who takes insulin has experienced a low blood sugar and that can be scary. A very low blood sugar is really scary and that's rich evoke hypo pen comes in Jeeva is the first auto injector to treat very low blood sugar. GMO cocoa pen is pre mixed and ready to go with no visible needle. That means it's easy to use. How easy is it, you pull off the red cap, push the yellow end onto bare skin and hold it for five seconds. That's it. Find out more go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the G folk logo. g folks shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma visit g fo glucagon comm slash risk.   Tell me something good. I was really pleased and kind of surprised to find out that we have several talented artists in our Facebook group. Suzanne shared that she finally made time to work on my art. I've missed my pencils she wrote so I asked her a little bit more about it and she shared a picture. She's a portrait artist cartoon and realistic and a graphic designer. She's been type one since 2004 but she had gestational diabetes two times prior to that. She says she's been on the pump since 2006. Her dad lives with type two. And her grandfather and his cousin lives with type one and you can see an example of Suzanne's artwork at Diabetes Connections. The group on Facebook thank you so much for sharing that. It's just beautiful. And Callie nordgren who I've known for a long time just online you know, it's part of the we are not waiting community. She said I sold a painting and that's the calling posted when I asked her tell me something good stories like you know, oh, we'll do that sold the painting. So of course I had to ask her to share more. And she does watercolor paintings. She said sometimes people ask for specific painting. Sometimes they purchase one that she's already done and she posted one which is just beautiful and she has a Facebook page as well. And I will link that up. Calling son was diagnosed with type one at one year old, very tiny, maybe 1112 months old, and he is now a happy healthy tween and Colleen and Wes are a huge part of the we're not waiting community but I didn't know calling painted until now. So thank you for sharing that. And I have a Tell me something good. And that is that the podcast Diabetes Connections has made the top 10 for health for the fifth year in a row for the podcast awards of the People's Choice. This is a podcast award for independent podcasters. Right. No NPR, not the big Corp casters, not the ones that have 25 people working on a show. This is for the independent podcaster like myself, and I am so excited to make this list. Again. It's just a thrill. They will vote on the final winner each category. I believe that comes out in September. I never expect to win that. I mean, we are a tiny little operation here, but it's such a vindication. I don't know if that's even the right word. But you know, we work really hard on this show and it is a labor of love. It's also a commercial enterprise. You hear the commercials during this show. Man I work really hard on it and to be recognized by my peers like this by my listeners who nominate Thank you all so much for doing that. It really, really helps. It's really important to me and I'm really excited to have made this list again, when we when I don't know maybe we've lost some really interesting podcasts before my favorite was the guy who puts you to sleep. He has a podcast where he literally is boring and drones on and whispers and you go to sleep to that. And you know if we can lose to that, hey, what am I going to do? I can't compete with that. If you haven't told me something good story posted in the Facebook group, send it to me, you can always reach out Stacy at Diabetes connections.com and tell me something good. Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. When you have a toddler diagnosed with type one, you hear rumblings for a long time about the teen years. But when it hit us at full force a little early. I was so glad we had Dexcom Benny's insulin needs started going way up around the age of 11. He's grown I don't know how many inches since he was 11 years old at this point, probably eight in the last couple of years. Along with the hormone swings. I cannot imagine managing diabetes during this crazy time. Without the Dexcom continuous glucose monitoring system. We can react more quickly to highs loz see trends and adjust insulin doses with advice from our endocrinologist I know using the Dexcom g six has helped improve Benny's agency and overall health. If your glucose alerts and readings from the G six do not match symptoms or expectations, use a blood glucose meter to make diabetes treatment decisions. To learn more, go to Diabetes, Connections comm and click on the Dexcom logo. As you listen to this episode my kids are back in school if all has gone well we have dropped me off at college Benny has started school as you're listening this is scheduled to air the day after he starts school are virtually at home. I offered to make him like a homeschool virtual school nook in my house right I see all these beautiful pictures that people put on Pinterest and Instagram and their their kids desk is nice and it's like twinkly lights and a pillow or a little thing that says you know learning is great or whatever. And of course I wasn't serious because we don't do any of that were terrible parents and Benny laughed at me and said Please leave me alone.   Unknown Speaker  41:57 So if you've got   Stacey Simms  41:58 some interesting stories About your child is going back to school. And I think we all do. I'm not trying to make light Look, I know it's a serious situation. But I have only control over a few things. And that's what I'm going to concentrate on, on what I can control in my house with my kids in my community. And beyond that all we could do is vote diabetes wise, we're kind of in a groove. And with the weirdness of school this year, I don't see that changing too much. Of course, he's gonna be getting up earlier than he has since March. But other than that, I mean, we went on control IQ in January, he went off the receba and you can listen back if you're not familiar with our whole story on that he went off the trustee but in May and his blood sugar's just are great right now. Time and range is up, agency is down, predicted agency is down. I'm really really happy his independence is still really up. He's still a doofus and makes mistakes because he's a human being. And we're still compiling more world's worst diabetes monster. every couple of weeks we have a new one. That will never changed. Thank you to my editor john Kenneth from audio editing solutions. Thank you so much as you Listen, I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here next week until then, be kind to yourself.   Benny  43:10 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged   Transcribed by https://otter.ai

https://tribus.captivate.fm/ (Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player.) Brandon Doyle, a https://www.doylerealestateteam.com (Realtor in Minneapolis, MN) is also a smart home tech specialist. Brandon goes into detail about what tech clients care about, and how best you can help educate them. TRANSCRIPTION Eric Stegemann (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/TPeW4kJxx1i8sB9hfhBeWljh95l-Vb9wXBlRNIuma-4ZHxr_Jb1bpY0gg0AFin2Z_Qac55Kw_zAkNnGIGpS9k9gJIY4?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=2.52 (00:02)): Hi, everybody. Welcome to Brokerage Insider the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. I'm your host, Eric Stegemann. I'm the CEO of TRIBUS. We're a https://tribus.com/ (brokerage platform vendor). And today on the show, I have a friend and client Brandon Doyle. Now Brandon is a Realtor and a real estate team leader with https://results.net (Remax Results) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And in addition to selling real estate and being a second-generation Realtor, Brandon's also the author of three excellent books that cover specifically real estate sales, but some of them talk about general ideas for other businesses as well. Those three books are https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Methods-and-Metrics-audiobook/dp/B01IFRNYFC/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1PJ0B8DE8RS7I&dchild=1&keywords=mindset+methods+and+metrics&qid=1597674504&sprefix=mindset+methods%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-3 (Mindset, Methods, and Metrics), the https://www.amazon.com/Real-Estate-Marketing-Playbook/dp/B07PWHV3B5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33J27VDFL3MOC&dchild=1&keywords=real+estate+marketing+playbook&qid=1597674544&s=audible&sprefix=real+estate+marketing+playb%2Caudible%2C177&sr=1-1 (Real Estate Marketing Playbook) and https://www.amazon.com/Success-Rate-Marketing-Businesses-Leverage/dp/B083Z65TC2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=X1VDQNTP2IBG&dchild=1&keywords=success+rate+marketing&qid=1597674625&s=audible&sprefix=success+rate%2Caudible%2C182&sr=1-2 (Success Rate Marketing). Now I think all of you should probably read these books. And in fact, many people, I know I've personally sent copies of these books too. So definitely take a peek at them on Amazon and either download it to your Kindle or get a paperback copy of the book. So on top of all of that, of selling real estate, managing a team, writing three books, Brandon's also the creator of a smart home podcast, a video podcast called https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpZYk1Lmqna3TKUnGIq1FIg (Home Tech Decisions). And on this podcast, he reviews just about every piece of smart home tech available. And in seriously, if you haven't subscribed to it, you should just, just keep an eye on what he's talking about. Just with vacuums alone. He goes really into depth. So Brandon, thank you so much for joining us here today. Brandon Doyle (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/TPeW4kJxx1i8sB9hfhBeWljh95l-Vb9wXBlRNIuma-4ZHxr_Jb1bpY0gg0AFin2Z_Qac55Kw_zAkNnGIGpS9k9gJIY4?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=99.41 (01:39)): Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. Eric Stegemann (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/TPeW4kJxx1i8sB9hfhBeWljh95l-Vb9wXBlRNIuma-4ZHxr_Jb1bpY0gg0AFin2Z_Qac55Kw_zAkNnGIGpS9k9gJIY4?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=101.39 (01:41)): So tell us a little bit more, first of all, about just being a Realtor. What got you into the business? Obviously, I already mentioned you're a second generation Realtor and you know where things are at with your team today. Brandon Doyle (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/TPeW4kJxx1i8sB9hfhBeWljh95l-Vb9wXBlRNIuma-4ZHxr_Jb1bpY0gg0AFin2Z_Qac55Kw_zAkNnGIGpS9k9gJIY4?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=114.8 (01:54)): Yeah, for sure. So actually I went to college and I got a degree in real estate, so I got my bachelor's and shortly out of college, I was doing commercial real estate appraisal. That was around 2008. So a lot of like pre foreclosure, a bank rate finance, like their warehouses and a smaller office buildings. It was very rewarding. I...

Well, it's probably safe to say that no one was fully prepared for quarantine/lockdown/whateveryouwanttocallit to last as long as it has. That being said, most people are probably interested in finding new shows or movies to watch right now. So Brandon & Caleb join forces this week to bring you TV shows that they feel are lesser known and underrated. Some of them you may have checked out already but they're quite confident that you haven't watched all of these recommendations. #TVshows #Film #Underrated --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rockvideo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rockvideo/support

Uranium Market Commentator & Bannerman Resources (ASX: BMN) CEO, Brandon Munro, calls in for our weekly catch up about the world of Uranium and Uranium investing. Based on questions that were sent in by viewers, it is clear that there are a lot of new investors coming into the uranium ecosystem. So Brandon and i cover a little bit of old ground but with new data. We start with the relationship between spot price and term-contract in today's environment. We also look at the effect of supply and the effect on Russia v US tensions. Does Russia care about the Russian Suspension Agreement. Should they? And we get his thoughts on the timing of the US utilities coming back in to the market to help drive equities. Are US uranium juniors without a cash buffer getting nervous.  Company page: https://www.bannermanresources.com.au/ Explore More Here: www.cruxinvestor.com  Join our Club's waitlist: www.club.cruxinvestor.com  For FREE unbiased investment information, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook: https://twitter.com/cruxinvestor https://www.linkedin.com/company/crux-investor/ https://www.facebook.com/cruxinvestor If you got value from this interview, please subscribe.

How many of these ladders do we see left in the pool with nobody swimming? We are talking with Brandon Love. He's a father of Bentley Maverick Love (named after Maverick in the movie Top Gun). Brandon along with so many other parents asks the question of how can this happen to so many children, well Brandon shares a Father's Story in today's podcast. Click the play button above to listen to the full story or read our transcript below and go to the section as it is timed stamped to take you right to that part you want to listen to. His son is just like any other little boy, full of life and curious searching for things to do and to get into. Just like so many others, they just don't know what is dangerous to them. They have no fear and will unlock a door or get out of a house by any means they can to get into the things that they can have fun with all while you are in the house unaware of what they are doing. It happens to all parents at some point in time. However, for the majority of the parent without a devastating accident. A Father's Story, don't let Brandon's story become yours. Listen to what he has to say! You can connect with Brandon via his personal Facebook page here is the link to connect with him https://www.facebook.com/brandough.love Brandon mentions Melanie Brindleyley and her program in this podcast as they have teamed up to work together on water safety and drowning prevention programs in their communities, here is the link to their website and learn more. https://www.swimsafety.org/ Rick (00:00): Welcome everyone. Hey, this is Rick Kauffman your host with the drowning warrior podcast and this is DW nation. We are speaking with Brandon Love. You're gonna want to tune in and listen to this episode because Brandon's going to share with you this involved his son and a Brandon, if I remember correctly. It is. It also involved a nephew or a cousins, a child too. Is that correct? Brandon (00:24): Yes, Sir my nephew. Rick (00:26): What I'd like to do is just welcome Brandon. Brandon, welcome to the show here today. Brandon (00:31): Thank you. Having me Rick (00:32): Telling. Our stories are really, really important. I know many, many of us and I think you're a lot like I am. We want people to understand that our children were just regular everyday children. I mean there really nothing different between you as a parent and your children and all the other families and children that are out there running around today. I mean, would you agree with that assessment, Brandon? Brandon (00:55): Totally. I mean it's not like we have a, Brandon (00:58): when I was set apart from anybody, we're all pretty much the same. Rick (01:02): I know for myself and as parents we never would have believed that, uh, we would be part of this group in this club. So Brandon, why don't you just take a moment here and tell us a little bit about your son, the type of boy he was. Tell us, tell us in your words as much as you would like to let us know, tell us a little bit about what happened. Brandon (01:23): Okay. Well my son's name was Bentley Maverick Love uh, yes, he got his middle name from the movie top gun and it was very, very outgoing. I mean he only lived to be two years old, but I could tell like he would have had just a full life happiness, you know, he cleared any time grandma or his brother or me or anybody was upset. He could tell and he would just give it to latch on to you and he would do it again Brandon (01:54): to at least get you to smile. And then he would start laughing. Where do you want your smile? He was very strong, very athletic. At two years old. He blew me away when we were playing catch with a baseball, throw a baseball, head your hands up and he was going to hit you with him. And he was not afraid to stand up for himself whenever his brother got to picking on him a little-bit Brandon (02:15): and now he was just extremely outgoing and I could...

Sports and Music go hand in hand. Learn how from Brandon Bissell of Ballpark Music - I'm very, very fortunate in that I'm able to marry two things that so many people love each of them. And so many people love both of them. So, being in the middle of all of that, it's really unique. And there's something about music that just, it moves people in ways that and so do sports. I mean, both of those have such passion behind them. - So Brandon, so thank you for coming out, man. I'm really excited about today's episode because we're gonna be talking about a lot of different things. One of them is like managing large projects, managing large teams, but two topics that a lot of people really enjoy, which is sports and music. And so anybody that has ever been to a sporting event has probably seen a concert and seeing your work. - I hope so. I hope they come out wonder where they are, yeah. - So tell me your story. How did you get started all this? - Yeah, well, so going way back. I used to work for the Detroit Lions. And so we used to do the Thanksgiving Day Halftime Show. I was involved with it from the team side. So just from a basic knowledge of, we could get a stage out there and have a show. That was kind of the first part of it. I knew logistically, we could pull it off. And then when I went to the Braves, was at the Lions for I think nine years. And then I went to the Braves, and they wanted to do a similar thing, but make it more of a ticket driver and have it after the game. So now instead of just a halftime show, which is really entertainment, it's not really meant to sell tickets. Nobody's going because of a five minute halftime show. But if you put a post-game concert in and thats a full show, then you hope people sometimes just buy a ticket just to come for the concert. You obviously want them to see both. But it gives you an opportunity to expose your product to new fans. Maybe they come back one or two. They're not gonna turn into season ticket holders the next day. But maybe they say," Hey, that wasn't so bad," that the parking wasn't bad, all the bad things they might have heard. And then it gives the opportunity for like the Braves have an amazing game entertainment department. - So there's two separate events. - That's right, yeah, well, it's one ticket though. But you get them in the building, and you show them what the game looks like. And maybe they're not baseball fans, but they have such a great time. Maybe they come back to a couple more, but in the immediate you want to try to sell some of those tickets that might have gone unsold otherwise. So it's both the entertainment and hopefully you're moving tickets as well. - So they're buying one ticket for the game. And then they also get access to the concert afterwards. - Correct. - So that's a win win. - Yeah, it's a win win. And really, it comes down to an economic thing too, because if you go to we've had Sam Hunt, Chris Stapleton, those types of guys you're looking at, man a $65, if not a lot more for just the concert ticket. In baseball they have tickets as cheap as $12 or $15. I mean, obviously you can get nicer ones and spend more money. But it becomes such a value proposition of now you're getting a full concert and a baseball game for 15 bucks, if you want, and then even when the concert starts anybody that leaves you can move closer and so it's really for a value for the fan of the artist or the team or both. It's a great set up. That's it just can't get that for, I mean can't go to a fast food place and not spend 15 bucks anymore.

Workplace Culture? The Workplace Therapist tells us the secret to a good workplace - On this episode of C Level, I'm hanging out with The Workplace Therapist, Brandon Smith and the podcast host of The Brandon Smith Show. So Brandon, thank you for coming out. - I am so thrilled I get to come here and hang out with you. - I'm really excited, so you've been on several networks, you were on Ted Talks. - [Brandon] Right, I have, yup. - You have a show called The Workplace Therapist. - [Brandon] I do. - And I'm really excited about this episode because we get to talk about the emotion of a leader and how it affects the workplace, the culture of a company, and that's a big thing, so I want to hear your story. So where did you get started? Where are you from? - Oh, wow, so okay, so yeah, so today, what I do is basically help organizations and leaders to create healthier workplaces. So I'll tell you how that kind of got started for me. So I'll come jump into middle portion of the story. So I went to Vanderbilt undergraduate and got a degree in Communications, and like most good Communication majors, I was unemployed at graduation, wondering what am I gonna do with this thing? And I went looking for a job, looking for a job, and I ended up getting this job with this chain of retail stores. It was a family-owned business and it was privately held, so they've got 15 stores kind of around the metro area, and they hired me to be the assistant manager of one of these stores. So to give you a little backdrop into this business, it was a family-owned business, and the woman who started the business, her daughter marries this guy, and he becomes my boss, so the son-in-law of the business. So I show up on the first day of work and he greets me at the door. He says, "Brandon, I'm really excited to have you here. "You're gonna be the assistant manager of the store, "but before you get started, I have a task for you. "Waiting for you in the back room "is the current assistant manager of the store, "but he doesn't know you're coming, "so your job is to go back there and fire him "and you get his job." - [Chris] That's awesome, first task. - First day, first task, I didn't walk in the door yet, and he says, "Go back there and fire that guy, you get his job," and that was how my boss rolled. He'd come in, he loves surprise visits. So part of where I became so passionate about this work that I do is by having a world-class, horrible boss. So he did all the things that bosses shouldn't do. He loves surprise visits, he loved trying to catch you doing something wrong. So he would come in and surprise visit and he'd say, "I don't like what Sharon's wearing, go fire her." So I had to do more layoffs in the first six months of that job than any other time in my career, even now. And so during the time I kind of realized, really, three things. First, I realized work should not have to suck. It should be a source of fulfillment and meaning and purpose, not a source of anxiety and stress and depression. I mean, it is work. I mean, you're gonna get some of that stuff, but it should be more of the good stuff. Second, if my boss was any indication of the state of leadership today in the workplace, there was a real need, so I wanted to try and tackle that. And then third, that was where my purpose was born. I said, man, I want to fix all workplace dysfunction everywhere forever, having no idea what I just signed up for. So back in those days--

With the season just a few days away. We felt that everything has been covered plenty! So Brandon and I took time talk about how we got into college football. Our favorite past times, traditions, and much more. Sorta the moment in our lives we became indoctrinated!!! Hope you enjoy this episode! If you like what you here please subscribe and tell all your friends!! 

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below   [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/JMgEjKUCdzQ" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]   Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors)  [00:00:00] I'm Beatty Carmichael on the CEO of agent dominator and I'd like to welcome you to another session of get sellers calling you. This is both aN audio podcast and a YouTube podcast and this is where we focus on how do you get more sellers. This is also just like you know this is an Internet interview. And so we may have periodic Internet issues and if you do just bear with us on that. But I'm real excited to have actually one of our clients is how I met Brandon. But Brandon Carroll and he comes to us from Virginia. So Brandon welcome to the call. Thank you Beatty. And Brandon just for kind of perspective where in Virginia are you?   [00:00:48] I’m in Culpeper County which is the southernmost outskirts of Northern Virginia. So we are if you if you ask anybody who's from Culpeper they will say that they do not understand that. But nonetheless that is how the state has decided to categorize them.   [00:01:07] I love it. The northern most right there on the edge. So just above you. Is this the best part.   [00:01:15] Yeah. OK. So. Well tell me. So we were talking a little bit before we got started here a little bit about your real estate career saw how you got into it and the type of volume and I wanted to visit with you because I thought you had a great message to share in terms of just. I'll say just a really good strong steady business but a business where as we've kind of been talking back and forth a little bit I just get the sense that you have no worries about how your business going come in or if you're going to have business. And I just thought that was such a really neat approach that I wanted to kind of visit with you on that. So can you give us just real quick background of who you are and how you've gone in business and just some. Anything that comes to mind that you might want to share. Sure absolutely.   [00:02:02] So thirty six years old I got out of college around the age of twenty three years old worked as a chemist for several years and then went to seminary to get my degree in Christian counseling and discipleship worked in that world for about six years seven years and then had flipped a couple of personal residences and was engaged with a fellow believer who was a real estate agent who sold my house at the time and she thought that I was doing honestly a better job than what she was doing in the listing. I learned a lot and she is a very gracious woman to be able to even say such a thing. And so from there I just began to inquire a little bit more took some educational classes have been in real estate now full time since the end of 2014. And so going on about four and a half years that's really neat.   [00:03:08] You know it's interesting how the Lord takes your direction because if you were to ask my story how I got here is this very securities round but when you look backwards see guys fingerprint all over it.   [00:03:19] So it sounds sort like that happened with you with your household.   [00:03:22] Absolutely. Absolutely.   [00:03:25] That's neat. And then tell me. So we're talking also about your volume so I know that you know the typical agent out there does 15 20 transactions a year. You do a little bit more than that. So talk to me about your volume in and how consistent it's been.   [00:03:41] I have done since starting full time I've done 30 transactions a year. Okay. And that has come in many ways it sounds a little unrealistic but in many ways that has come by the providence of the Lord to speak in a little more tangible sense. I do grow up in a community where I have some family. So I would say you know maybe 15 to 20 percent of my business is come from my family. But then the other aspect is just being available taking phone calls. Being willing to do what we call desk duty in our office which is a foreign concept to a lot of agents and then engaging people chasing down every lead going above and beyond. So if somebody calls in on a warm call if you will. It calls into the office. My objective is to exceed this individual's expectations. So what are they asking me for they're asking me for the price on a house located within Culpeper County. Most often that's a realistic scenario name. But I am engaging them in conversation right. We're talking about the house we're talking about their family their children their wives what are they trying to accomplish. And we're doing this in a matter of minutes.   [00:05:18] So I've got two questions for you. So I want to kind of pursue two angles real quick.   [00:05:23] You mentioned the providence of God in terms of your your volume and you're mentioning kind of what you do when you're engaging with someone. Let me go down what you do when you're engaging with some because I think this is really cool as you're picking up these calls from from servicing the floor. You're just engaging with them at a relational level. This sounds like that was what your last comment was kind of building a relationship. Can you just kind of expand you know in terms of in your mind you've kind of had this process it sounds like that when a call comes in when you're engaging some there's sort of this the step by step process of what it is that you do structurally so that you can then take it the next step. Can you enlighten me a little bit more on that.   [00:06:06] Yeah so obviously in my mind. So if you reverse the roles and you put yourself in that individual shoes how would you want to be engaged. And I think through. If I'm on if I'm on the phone and I'm calling in. I want to be provided something of value and that is essential. So if you can give the individual value. And that's not always so easy to do to determine what it is this person perceives as value but you can ask open ended questions. I think we all know that yes no questions can make conversations and rather quickly. Yep but you ask an open ended question such as what what brings you to Culpeper you can get a myriad of things that. Somebody will tell you. And so from a structural standpoint it's just aimed at getting the individual to open up to give me helpful information so that I can provide. Excellent world class client centred experience.   [00:07:18] That's interesting because what I've learned what you don't know about me is I used to teach telephone sales and an appointment setting many years back to a totally different industry.   [00:07:29] And one of the things that I found is is if you can engage that person at a relational level just talking with them then they start to trust you. And then in that conversation you can start to determine which direction they need to be guided or which direction they want to take this approach and now you built up the trust you built up enough relation you know value that you can actually start to do something with them.   [00:07:56] Does that make sense is that kind of what you're doing that hits to hit the nail right on the head.   [00:08:01] I love it. So I want to go back to something because this is this is the thing that really kind of attracted me to you and I want to interview you on this.   [00:08:12] You mentioned that your very first year you had a first year full time you had about 30 transactions and you maintain a very level business at that point. And I asked you a question I'd like you to expand on this further because I think this is really important at least in my world view on that. And I ask you the question So are you purposely maintaining your volume steady or are you trying to grow and you've hit a ceiling. And your response was Do you remember. Not the exact verbiage but   [00:08:48] So purposely purposefully grow. I think that is how we got connected. And I'd say that the business that I've had over the last five years has just simply been the providence of God in him. It's difficult to explain as are some spiritual things but him and just providing the business. So when that outlook was rather bleak you just hit your knees you pray and then God would open up the doors and people would call.   [00:09:22] So for instance let me try to put some skin on that.   [00:09:28] This February March I was strongly considering doing a couple of different things maybe picking up some kind of a part time job in granted. This sounds like ye of little faith given God's track record. But now I have five or six listings coming on the market. So six houses in the last 45 to 60 days and I can't attribute that to much more than. Praying. I know that that may seem dissatisfying for some folks but it is all the more convicting for me.   [00:10:09] Well let's pursue that because like you I've been in similar situation. Let me tell you one this is November 2002. I'm preparing to give my stewardship testimony at my church   [00:10:23] At this time. We have had three months without actually more than three months without a paycheck. I have three months remaining in my savings and then it's all out. We maximize all of our lines of credit on the business and everything is in this shambles and I'm Wednesday night about eleven o'clock. I'm up there prepping for my stewardship test my I'm going give that Tuesday at that Sunday and one of the things I believe in is you know you cannot out give God's ability to take care of you. So I was kind of prepping this and roleplaying what I would say you know someone comes to me and says Hey baby I just lost my job my car broke down my water heater display what I do now that my standard response would be well increase you're getting right because you can't give God. And and when I said that I heard God's spirit just kind of speak in my spirit speak to my spirit this as well why don't you increase your giving baby.   [00:11:23] Well you have to. Exactly. And to make a long story really short as much as I can. I said OK now what do you want me to do. And he said well you know give it all. I said OK so here's the deal. I've got three months of cash remaining I haven't had anyone ask me for money recently. I normally have a lot of people asking for donations and stuff. And I said whoever asked me tomorrow I'll give whatever they made up to everything I have in my savings account and I'll just trust entirely on you. So I go into that day all excited that God's gonna sense our number and give it all and it's going to be you know entirely cast my trust on him and and all I had was one person that needed three hundred and twenty five dollars. So I was actually dejected I got home later that night and I said Lord how do you make it. So you know I was ready to give it all. And there's image of RAM cord with his thickets is his horn in the thickets came to mind you remember that story in the Bible. Yeah sure yeah. What was Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac and this message just kind of came to me that said I made it easy on Abraham too. But here's what happened. Within three months. We had paid off all of our lines of credit.   [00:12:47] And the third and fourth month because we give each month based on whatever our profits are. The third and fourth month were maybe his fourth and fifth. We gave more in those two months than most people earned in a year. It was just that turnaround just like what you were talking about know at that point that you're ready to give up you trust the Lord and he felt I had a rabbit out of the hat so to speak because I agree.   [00:13:12] You know I'm studying very briefly I'm studying Zachary right now. So very prophetic book. But there are some things in there. So for instance Zach Rice says when he's talking about rebuilding the temple. He says that's not not by my power. Nor by night but by my Spirit not by your power or your might but by my spirit that rings true and in many ways of course. You know the Scripture has one meaning in and of itself not reading it many meetings but applications wise a lot of times it's what we think about our strong military or our great speaking abilities. But these are all gifts things. And there are many people who have those things. You have nothing.   [00:14:03] And it is by Spirit.   [00:14:05] It is thus Zachariah Chapter Four I believe because that's one of the things he's spoken to me not by my nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord you will succeed in the work I called you to do the cause of my spirit.   [00:14:21] And he's trying to debunk their allegiance or they're their hope in their military alliances. That's what he's really trying to bring down here. And that's true. The board will do that in any of our lives right. Anything that we put trust in part from him. He will write it down.   [00:14:45] He will. So let's.   [00:14:46] I'm really interested in pursuing further just this trust in God's providence as it relates to your business because as I talked to a lot of realtors especially you know you have the realtors that are kind of in this middle area they're doing well but they're frustrated because they can't seem to break through and do great. OK. It's you know what you know. You know what I'm talking about right. Sure of course. OK. So there's obviously a lot of frustration. There's concerns just like what you mentioned. You know you're thinking about well do I get a part time job right now and then all of sudden the Lord opens up some floodgates for you and blesses you can you talk to me a little bit more about just your first off how we're on the subject just maybe bring people up to date with this reliance on the Lord. How did you get that reliance What do you you know what does that mean to you and talk to me in terms of the peace that you have in this turbulent world of trying to build a real estate business. Well that's a. That's a snippet of my testimony that would be very fragmented and I think it's it's it's worthy to mention a disclaimer that I am no spiritual   [00:16:06] Superhuman. You know I think as Paul grows in his theology he actually sees himself all the worse and thus casting himself upon the grace of God all the more. So I think it's it's notable that everybody who listens or sees this knows that there are real struggles that go on in my mind and my heart. On a day to day basis. My faith is I'm 36 years old. My faith is 18 years old so I have been saved as long as I was unsaved. It's difficult to quantify the scriptures say that each man's been given a measure of faith. Right. It's difficult to quantify how I've. Come about peace and spiritual maturity. Apart from God's grace. I have made it a pattern of behavior simply to read the scriptures and obey them in a very practical sense. What does that mean. So one of the things that you had kind of alluded to was tithing that has been a practice from day one. Just because in my mind it was never a question of why should I give 10 percent. When you come from a state of total depravity and you've been forgiving of everything that you've ever done then the question really is why not more than 10 percent.   [00:17:45] If you know that makes sense. And so in my 18 years of running from the Lord before he finally was able to pin me down I had done a lot of things in my life that one person would say they could never possibly be forgiven right. And so when you are. Forgiven. Of much it in your mind in my mind makes the thankfulness. All the more overwhelming. If that makes sense that I am grateful for what God has done for me as a result of that. I just tried to be obedient to the things that he is calling me to do. Such as taking care of my family. Building in natural spiritual disciplines such as fasting reading of scripture this sacrifice. What does it mean to to give. Jesus says to whom much is given much is required. What does that mean. Do I have a lot. Do I have a little you know. So asking those kinds of questions and then looking at it prospectively oneself.   [00:19:02] But let me ask you on that so because you know it's hard to separate your personal life from your real estate life because your real estate is you and you are your person your father your son your husband your real estate agent and this whole idea of separation of each of those compartments really does and doesn't fit. So in terms of how do you apply maybe this is a good question. How do you apply your faith within your business. And maybe if I can clarify that maybe a little bit further in terms of priorities okay. In terms of fear or peace in terms of how you interact with people let's talk first about property and then we'll talk on the other ones   [00:19:56] Yeah it's it's very difficult. I'm a single income family so there's a real struggle there to provide for your family. My wife stays home. With our two children. We have normal expenses like every other American family. Priority so obviously my priorities were set in order let's say about twelve thirteen years ago speaking with a lot of wise men men who had gone before me men who were in their 50s 60s who had raised children who have been married for 30 40 years just emphasizing to me through the study of scripture that God is first and foremost. And if you remove him out of that position then you can anticipate to have   [00:20:51] Different kinds of problems and all different kinds of areas of your life such as parenting marriage your work life your sexual life all the different kinds of things that scripture will warn you against. And so it is very difficult to be self-employed.   [00:21:11] Trying to strike a balance between OK well we need money to live day to day but yet it needs to stay in its rightful place as well. So I have missed out on business over the years going on vacations just naturally missed out on business but nonetheless. So in my mind God comes first then it's family and then it's work and then it's church.   [00:21:46] And those are you know in a very concrete way you dive into each one of those but those are the way that I have tried to keep things aligned and prioritized in my life.   [00:21:57] So in terms of God being first in your life if I were to look at the average day in the life of Brandon what does that day look like.   [00:22:05] How do you make God a priority first.   [00:22:09] Yes I'm somewhat of a nomad. I don't like structure in many ways and I think you know not to dive into that but that has a lot to do with my upbringing. But some of the non-negotiable are me spending time with the Lord by myself. Me my wife spending time with the Lord Reading the scriptures and then me and my children. Doing devotionals together. Those are non-negotiable. And so if work is stacking up for instance today negotiating two offers working on two listings that are coming this weekend it is a very busy week.   [00:22:49] But despite that those things will be put to the side at some point in time. And it is. 315 in the afternoon and the day has had its way of taking me by storm today   [00:23:06] Just because of some things that are going on in church but there will be a set of part time at some point and this happened in granite. I have the flexibility because my wife stays home to be able to do those things on a more flexible basis. I don't have a 9:00 to 5:00 am well aware of that but nonetheless no excuses or more or less are permitted. When it comes to personal awards to the side of my family.   [00:23:34] So on that. Does that mean because we were talking about this earlier today before this call.   [00:23:40] You spent time with the Lord first at the first part of your day before you get your day started. Is that correct. No not always. OK.   [00:23:49] Not always. I'd say the majority of the time morning starts out with the Lord. But that's 75 percent of the time there sometimes. For instance this morning our accountability group meets on Monday morning at 730. And if you know anything about me 730 is the crack of dawn. Oh yeah. It's not four or five o'clock. That's just not who I am. It's not how I'm wired. Some of my best devotional times with the Lord come in in the wee hours of the night when my wife and my children are asleep and I'm immersing myself in some of the songs and prayer and just find a quiet place in the house.   [00:24:30] Well let me springboard from there into the next topic on this time I was asking the three questions because I think that I think this kind of sets the stage for what I want to ask.   [00:24:39] So you put the lord of a priority in your life long before business. So then when it comes to business and you start to you know there are two ways to look at business at times. Either I'm fearful what's going on I don't have enough business how am I going to pay the bills or I'm at peace because of it I'll use your term because knowing the providence of God is going to take care of you. Talk to me in terms of that whole approach that attitude that you have as you build your business of fear or peace as you go through life. Does that make sense when I'm asking a little bit.   [00:25:17] I think if I'm reading correctly you know it is a constant ebb and flow. That's why I say this spiritual titans it's not like I wrestle with fear I had moments but in my mind the a healthy Christian. I constantly involves repentance and turning back. And so that. That is that is always happening for me in varying degrees.   [00:25:50] So could I have a couple of days strung together where I'm fearful thinking well what am I going to do tomorrow. What am I going to do today.   [00:25:59] And wrestle with that. But it is not staying in that place repenting of it and turning back to the Lord and then getting perspective right. So you had said previously looking back   [00:26:14] In your past seeing the Lord's handprint on some of the things that you had gone through and that that is looking back 18 years now I can see God's hand and that that should build on one's faith being able to see how faithful he is. And then obviously on a daily basis just constantly being reminded of his goodness in his faith and this steadfastness and. All those characteristics qualities of who God. Is   [00:26:50] And how we can draw upon that deep well it's ever sustaining. But again you know it is a struggle and it is it is a very real struggle we.   [00:27:01] And why I say that so where am I right now we are in our third house that we are flipping renovating we say and I'm about four years. This by far I'd shoot off more than I could have ever imagined with this house. It is a 5000 square foot house. It is in my mind the house had never been built because it's just so excessive. It's got five bedrooms four bathrooms a big pool out back. And I think after this one after we do this when we will downsize and build a smaller house maybe 15 her square feet something like that with the basement. And that would be more than enough. But but this house has really made me depend upon the Lord because I had about one hundred and fifty grand to spend on it and I blew through that really fast and there's still work that I get to see on a daily basis that I say well Lord obviously got myself into a big pick a bigger pickle jar that I thought I was jumping into and now I'm kind of swimming around in it and I can't get out.   [00:28:11] Talk to me. Talk to me in terms of testimonies for a moment because you know is is the Lord is leading Israel out of Egypt.   [00:28:19] He shows him his hand and his power. Time after time after time after time to create and instill in them the testimonies that you can trust me because I'd take a took care of you here and here and here and here so you can trust me to take care of you right now. You mentioned just recent you know at the first part of this call that right now in this time of your life right now and just last couple of months you were at the point of wondering if you ought to get a job and now you have like six or seven listings and everything's coming in. I am fairly confident that's probably not the only time the Lord has taking care of you can you just talk about just a couple of the times in your real estate career where you trusted on the Lord because you knew he was faithful and and he showed up. Are there some extra stories you can tell on that.   [00:29:14] Yeah there are. I'm thinking through a couple of them. One in particular was when we had moved from this house from our previous house to this house. We took somewhat of a leap of faith. We had done a a lot of work on our other house and had a lot of money equity tied up into it and we carried both houses for a while and there wasn't a lot of business on the radar either. Now granted we had some cash reserves that would never stretch myself so thin that everything would be jeopardized in one decision. But we had to dip into those cash reserves and that's obviously know again if you know anything about me that is the disavowing my allegiance to Christ. I think you may have a bank account. So so we had to do that right. And again it was a time of purifying the Lord uses those instances to refine and remove a lack of faith. To remove things that don't honor him and work by him. And that's kind of the 30000 foot view of those circumstances what I see God doing in me is purifying me in those moments because because. Of who I know him to be. He's not manipulative. He doesn't twist the truth. He's not deceptive he's he's not ill will towards me. He doesn't hold grudges. There are real consequences for sin. Of course but he is a good father and he's promised to take care of me if I put him first. So if I am doing that then there is almost an expectation on my part that God is going to step in and provide the material things that I need on a day to day basis as he does the birds in my backyard.   [00:31:28] You know I love your word. There is an expectation on my part that God is going to step in and provide.   [00:31:34] I think if we go back to I think it's Mark the story of Mark when Peter's walking on the water. OK so you kind of set it up. Jesus is walking on the waters early dawn. Everyone. All the guys get a pride in the boat and Jesus said don't be afraid it's just me. So Peter says Well I try to command me to come out now on the water to you know. Jesus says Come right. And yeah. And so he says that he stepped out of the boat and began walking on the water. As long as he trusted in the Lord. But then when he took his eyes off the Lord and put his eyes onto the wind in the waves he sunk. And Jesus says Why did you doubt your memory. I know you know that passage. Absolutely yeah.   [00:32:18] That's a very good comparison to describe. You know you can you can do miraculous things and we have to be careful too in our American Christianity to equate that to the wealth and health and prosperity gospel that is is rampant. People just in droves go into that realm. But nonetheless you worry fear God will cast all those things away and provide you.   [00:32:53] And I think put it in what it has taught me as I go through as I look back at that and look at those things in my life.   [00:33:00] And this is where I was kind of leading when you said you kind of had this expectation the Lord was going to take care of you. You had the expectation I would be willing to bet because the Lord has indicated it to you scripturally first. He's he has set a precedent. And as you follow and serve him. He takes care of you. You know he's called you to this line of work and therefore you have this expectation that he will continue to take care of you. Does that make sense.   [00:33:30] And I do. It sure does. Yeah absolutely.   [00:33:34] And that's how you and I met was God has provided and I think about. So if if we can rant if I can ram from 30 to 45 transactions each year. That would be a. Pretty significant increase but one that I see as very possible. What. What else could I do to impact God's kingdom here and Culpeper Virginia. And maybe beyond. Right. Right. You know I think it's always healthy to have a local national and international perspective on how we can play a part in what God is doing around the world nationally and here in our community. And my desire is in growing the business from 30 to 45. It's not about self consumption. There are some things that my family and I would like to do and accomplish but it's also keeping God's kingdom in mind because we are one quite quite clearly. That we are not to be about building our own kingdom here but about digging and building the Lords.   [00:34:49] So let's talk about that for a moment because you know how do we impact.   [00:34:53] Okay so years that the Lord directed me to use my distance as a platform for ministry so I internally I kind of have this description of who I am. I'm a full time minister secretly disguised as a businessman okay. And as a realtor you had the same opportunity. I remember when we bought the home that we now live in. The realtor as we were filling out the offer on the kitchen table she said Okay now let's pray about this. I thought that's a great way to do it and ask for God's blessing upon that offer. If this is his home for us and it's turned out to be far beyond every expectation we had set in a home. It's just amazing. So the third thing that we want to talk about your priorities. Fear or peace. And then how do you live your Christian faith with your clients so as we're talking about how do you make an impact. Talk to me in terms of what do you deliberately do. In working with clients. That is how you live out your faith and how you make that impact.   [00:36:02] I think the thing that comes to my mind and foremost thing that comes to my mind is again putting myself in their shoes right. And it's what is widely known amongst Christian community and the second community is the golden rule. And in doing unto them. How you would have them do unto you. And so again what does that look like. That means. So from a bear day to day to day realistic practical standpoint in the real estate world is that you listen to people you actively listen to what they want and what they need and what their desires are. And you. Aim to hit that mark for them. And I think in the real estate world. Naturally there and in any state in any business. Whether it be I.T. in the medical world there are self-serving individuals right. And so they do in many instances what is best for them. And the real estate world what does that equate to well. An agent may have very close agents to me that I can say this with. With great certainty that they will steer people away from a certain house or. Painted in a negative light because it pays less of a commission or they will do backroom deals where they will get people into houses before anybody else is privy to them. So there are there are principles and biblical principles that we live by and I'd say the main one that really is a thrust from me is doing what is best for this individual. And you could say Well Brandon how do you know what's best for that individual. And that's where I go back to listening to them and hearing what they have to say. And that's how I'm operating.   [00:38:00] Can you give me some one or two examples that come to mind of. All. Of this that you're talking about. I think that so for instance right now I have a dear friend of mine who is in the process of selling his house and he's one of the contracts or offers that we are currently negotiating and they had in their mind a price. That they wanted to give for the house and we have gotten them twelve thousand five hundred dollars more. And so they're super excited. How does that play into this situation. He's he's super anxious super nervous. A I want it now kind of guy and he's he's well aware of the temptations and when we even sat down and did the listing agreement talked through all of this he said I want you to know my my initial reaction is just going to be get to get things done as soon as possible. Now. Whatever offer comes in. Let's take it. And so we were having a conversation last night when the offer came in came in twelve five lower and he was inclined to. Don't you scare them off don't you scare em off. I don't you get greedy I don't want to get greedy and I say you know look let's let's think about this from a different vantage point and let's let's define greed. So we sat there on the phone while we're negotiating right we with. I mean this is either what we do or we don't do. And so we sat there we defined greed and we defined negotiation and what those two things look like. And then I asked him to come to a conclusion are we being greedy to which it was.   [00:39:59] No.   [00:40:00] This is this is the art of negotiation. This is this is what we are here to do. We are here to get you the best deal. Just like the other agent who put together the original offer is aiming to do with their clients. And I think that at the end of the day everybody could sit down at closing table and shake hands and say wow this is such a smooth great transaction. We got a great deal you got a great deal and and define greed in very realistic terms to him. So you know if we went back at X price and we took this this and this off the table then I think we would probably be meeting the definition of being greedy right. Well we had already in our minds decided what would be acceptable reasonable and we were operating within that Metro during. Very one you know one recent scenario I think that faith has played itself out especially with another believer.   [00:40:58] Mm hmm. So can you imagine building your real estate business without Christ   [00:41:06] Absolutely not. No. I can't. I can't imagine living today apart from Christ in our accountability group. This morning we were just talking about whether there's or I was talking about whether there's much to do whether there's little to do with those big tasks or menial tasks. I desperately need Christ so to answer your question. Not a chance. I'd look around at colleagues in our community and I see how they operate do business. And it's very alarming it's something to pray for and but for the grace of God there goes me. I would be doing the same things had not God chase me down pin me down declared me his son.   [00:41:58] You know I have a friend over in Texas who's an agent and he's a high volume producer and he's always frustrating.   [00:42:05] Frustrated and complains whenever we talk that he can't do what his competitors are doing. His competitors are hiring telemarketers calling all through the neighborhoods. He said Those people are on Do Not Call list they are violating laws and my integrity my relationship with the Lord. At least that's the way I'm interpreting what he's saying. It won't allow me to do that. I am drained. So   [00:42:30] That's absolutely right. And I was reading some 73 the other day and Issa was talking about the prosperity of the wicked and how he had become jealous. Right. You look around and you're like OK I'm selling 30 like I sell on 60 and there were all this fucking crazy stuff. And he goes in and it goes into the house of the Lord and says but I've perceived their end.   [00:42:59] Right. Mm hmm. And   [00:43:03] It's a matter of perspective. It is. There seems to be wrapping up. There seems to be just a real great contentment on your end.   [00:43:12] You want to go from thirty to forty five. You probably like to be higher but there is this I just get the sense of the great contentment with where you are. I think I know the answer but help me and help the listeners understand because I'm sure there are other listeners in that same type of boat there now who are they want to be there. How do you maintain your contentment so that you're content where you are.   [00:43:38] I don't know that I'm qualified to speak of happy I really go I just finished going to the acts of Book of Acts not too long ago and I think it was twenty twenty four policies I count my life as nothing unless I fulfill the ministry that the Lord Jesus was laid before me to do. I think in a very simple way that is and there are other scriptures to support this to that that I am not my son. And if I am in the care of someone else who is it is Zebedee.   [00:44:19] My wife more and is it my boss No I'm in the hands of the father and so if I am there what do I have to worry about. And so just from a very biblical truth simple biblical truth point of view if we are there and we are fulfilling his will for our lives there is nothing to worry about. And again I am ill qualified to speak on the topic and that's not a false humility.   [00:44:52] That's just a reality. Nobody knows me better than myself.   [00:44:56] With the exception of the Lord and He knows how weak and feeble I am. But I also have a a high and grain view of who he is and so I can   [00:45:11] I can rest securely in that.   [00:45:13] That's great. That's really good. Is there anything else you'd like to share anything on your heart. Before we wrap up this call that you just like to. Share with whoever is watching or listening.   [00:45:25] You know I operate in a pretty small town. Like I said we're on the southern most point of Northern Virginia. So we have a some of the richest counties in the entire United States that are just 30 miles drive away. And in our little Culpeper town there's probably about one hundred and fifty agents. There's a lot of competition. And I can't say that I know more than maybe one or two other agents who are Christians. And so that that makes things very difficult for me in many ways that I don't really need to expound upon now. But it's almost like. That it's good to know that there are other men and women out there who love the Lord who are doing this. This kind of business and I would just hope to provide a shred of encouragement to other agents who are out there doing things the right way that the Lord will honor them. And whether that is honored in you know you go from 15 to 30 sales maybe he does it that way. You know what. But there is a very realistic possibility and maybe this isn't. All that appropriate for the end of the year. But that glory may come and eternity as well. But stick to those things which you hold dear and those convictions which you hold dear and don't budge don't mean I'm in full agreement with that.   [00:47:12] Well Brandon thank you so much for being on this call and just sharing your heart and sharing your life. I know you got a lot of busy things right now and you still took time out for this. I do appreciate it.   [00:47:23] Thank you. Appreciate it very much.   [00:47:27] And for those of you watching or listening if you like this podcast please be sure to subscribe to it also like it. And if you want to learn more about us also how to grow your business. Lots of great free content on our Web site and get sellers calling you dot com. So thanks for watching and listening. Have a great day. We. P027  

Brandon Quittem burst onto the bitcoin scene like a mushroom breaking through three inches of asphalt when he published the first part of his bitcoin-fungi analogy in December 2018. I love biology and nature in general, and have a particular interest in mushrooms and fungi - they are incredibly interesting lifeforms - and I enjoy foraging for morels in the springtime. So Brandon was toward the top of my list of bitcoiners to talk to when I started doing these interview episodes. In this one Brandon and I start of with some talk about this Faketoshi/Hodlonaut mess and a piece about Bitcoin culture wars that Brandon published a couple months ago. We talk about potential future culture wars around privacy and fungibility vs chain transparency for supply verification and about the declining subsidy and transition to a fee market to support network security. Then we dig into the mycelium and mushroom analogy and Brandon gives us a preview of the upcoming third and final part of the series. Citizen Bitcoin on Twitter Citizen Bitcoin Podcast Citizen Bitcoin Lightning Shop Music: Moon in the Sky by Hobotek Links from the show: Cordyceps sinensis Craig Wright Threatens Libel Suit In Letter to Bitcoiner, Demands Apology Bitcoin Culture Wars: What Doesn’t Kill You Only Makes you Stronger Bitcoin is a Decentralized Organism (Mycelium) — Part 1 / 3 Audio reading of Bitcoin is a Decentralized Organism (Mycelium)  by Guy Swann of The Cryptoconomy podcast Bitcoin is a Social Creature (Mushroom) — Part 2/3 Audio reading of Bitcoin is a Social Creature (Mushroom) by Guy Swann of The Cryptoconomy podcast Brandon Quittem on Twitter Brandon Quittem on Medium

CTN 308: ControlTalk NOW -- Smart Buildings VideoCast and PodCast for week ending Mar 24, 2019 features Young Gun Brent Burrows, a Systems Integrator with ENTEK, who explains Alarm Fatigue, and much more,  ENTEK provides HVAC, Building Automation and Energy Services  in the Atlanta, GA, area and throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. Are You ready? Is Your AI Device Smarter than a six year old? Our transcription service, as you will see is not! I tried to correct as many errors as possible in the transcript of Episode 308, but could not get them all, so be kind as you read this: Episode 308 ControlTalk Now The HVAC and Smart Buildings Podcast Eric Stromquist: Do you suffer from alarm fatigue? Well four out of five facilities managers iand HVAC controls professionals do. So what exactly is this insidious disease and how can you cure it? Hi, I'm Eric Stromquist from controltrends.com and stromquist.com. And on this week's episode we're going to dive deep and into alarm fatigue and how you can solve it. Our guest this week is a young integrator out of Atlanta, Brent Burrows, he's a young gun. So Brent is going to be with us. The whole show is going to be fantastic. We get Brent's perspectives which are just absolutely stellar. So the other thing you need to know is that controlledtrends on our youtube channel, controlltrends smart buildings, youtube channel. We've started a new video series called HVAC tech school and it's designed specifically for the HVAC technician and we get into everything from how to size a valve to how to troubleshoot a gasregulator and topics specifically for the HVAC technician. So take a minute, subscribe to the Youtube Channel. All right, relax. Enjoy the show. Eric Stromquist: Alright here we go. One, two, three. Welcome to ControlTalk Now, the Smart Buildings podcast for the week ending March 24 2019 this is episode this is the show where we talk about all things smart controls, HVAC controls and pretty much anything else we want to. And I tell you what, I've got two legends today. One is the one, you know, Ken Smyers, the man, the myth, the legend, the control man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And joining us today is a legend in his own right is ControlTrends Young Gun Brent Burrows, from Atlanta, Georgia. Brent is with Entek.. He's one of the rising stars in the controls industry. And if you were at the 2018 CONTROLTRENDS AWARDSawards, you know that Brent was inducted into The Young Guns class of 2019. So fellas, welcome to the show. Eric Stromquist: Well thank you Eric. Yeah, you took away all my firepower I suppose to get some of that introduction on Brent Burrows. But uh, yeah, we got a real live young Gun here and uh, it, it, it's so good to see the right, it looks like the type of guy who's going to be taking our place one day. So he's, he's learning, he's got some great background. He's a true integrator, does everything from the programming side of it. And it was all about analytics, but he could do, you could do the terminations to make stuff work. So that's a welcome to the show Brent. Brent Burrows: It's good to have it. And that's what they're talking about on the show every once in a while. I really appreciate it guys. And uh, yeah, actually the only real thing I have in my office, the Home Office here, uh, you know, I may have to make up some more awards for myself or some certifications. Eric Stromquist: No, no young guns. Pretty much all you need man. And now you're 60 and a young gun or 65. I can send Claire and a young gun then you're doing really, really good. Okay. Brent man would move. You know, we're talking about young guns and may one of the wraps that the young guns, the millennials get his man, they just can't be on time. I know this year here, but tell us about our other guest where is he? Brent Burrows: who else was supposed to be on the show with us. Uh, I, that's going to be my new cohost, Aaron Gorka. Ah, I'm not exactly sure where Aaron is now. Maybe they don't do daylight savings time in Canada or different things. He didn't, he didn't change his clock around. Eric Stromquist: Right. Well, in fairness they are, and man, he has been traveled a lot here and Gorka from ANT technologies, one of the hardest young working guys in the industry. Uh, he is, uh, does the podcast, next generation innovation and brand. I guess the big news is you're going to be joined and Aaron as his cohost. Brent Burrows: Yeah. Um, so, um, I had been reading some stuff lately and you know, I listened to you guys on a control talk now on iTunes and I'd always wanted to get into pocket casting and uh, and it just so happened I was featured on a, on an episode, um, a few months back and just really enjoyed it. I've worked with Aaron, we actually use aunt technologies, um, to do a track or project side. And uh, so me and him get along and you know, we vibe well. So I reached out to reach out to you and was like, Hey, what do you think this idea? And uh, and you were all for it gave Aaron a call. He was excited to have a cohost. So that's what we're going to be doing. Eric Stromquist: Well, I can't wait for you guys to take to work together. Aarons just doing a fantastic job so far and it's kind of fun with the cohost, you know, so the, but if you're going to get good at this, you have to practice saying this right off the bat. The man, the myth, the legend, let me hear you say it because if something ever happens to me, you know, it's going to be between you and Aaron to step in. But Kenny is very picky about who gets to be his is to introduce them. So one time, Brent, you're on, here's your audition, Brent Burrows: here's the audition, alright, we're on control. Taught now, you know, and in memory of the late, great. Eric, strong quick. No, he's in a better place now. But I am your new cohost and I am going to introduce the man, the myth, the legend Ken Smyers: Ken Smyres take it over again. Right. That was awesome man. He passed it. He might, he might not even wait for me to die, man. He might just nice. Did you guys read the second brand? You just put no, he might. He might give me the boot right after the show did. That was a little too good bread, but well listen dude, before we get into more of the show, talks about what you do and, and in tech, I've known your dad for years and a, you guys have a fabulous company, but, but talk about about Entek and what you guys do. Brent Burrows: Uh, so in tech where our ar can about a local, regional, regional and a national company, uh, have handled, you know, many national accounts over the years. Uh, so we have that side of the business and then we have more of our, uh, what I'd call our local and core business here in Atlanta. Um, we specialize in commercial office space. Um, but you know, also do, you know, hospitals, industrial work, really anything you need, um, we can provide the service and the expertise to work in those areas. So we do anything ranging from, you know, mechanical service, installation retrofits and then, you know, hopping into the controls, the building automation, you know, H Vac, lighting, integration, all of that stuff. And we even do system access controls everywhere. So in tech really is a great one stop shop to fill all your building needs. Ken Smyers: Yeah. One of the things that I saw on the site and we'd talked offline, there is analytics and the impact we have one of our posts we'll be talking about here as we review the posts. So you're actually a delving into analytics now. Tell us about some of your experiences so far. What do you think? Is that, is that the next great a goldmine to dig into? Brent Burrows: Well analytics, no, it's, it's been around, um, in, in the HVAC industry for, for a little while now. And it's kind of, you know, it's interesting, you'll go to these conferences or you know, you'll read stuff and you've got, you know, you got kinda these bud buzzwords or one of the big ones that are, and you know, when I kind of look at buzzwords, there are a lot of terms that people throw around, but then they'll just kind of throw it around and they don't know the meaning of it and they're just like, oh yeah, Iot and analytics and, uh, and you'll just see them, they pop up a lot of conferences, but, uh, but you know, really, uh, been seeing analytics get hammered for the last couple of years now. And basically, you know, one of the great things that you can kind of, they're doing in the industry now, you know, what, you know, everything being more standardized, like, you know, backnet lawn, um, you know, different protocols come then normalizing the data. And then a, you know, a huge one that I know you guys have talked a lot about and they got the big accounts coming up is haystack. Um, you know, basically being able to take all the data in your building, you know, sensor information, uh, whether it's, you know, discharge temps, she knows zone temps, uh, you know, all those things and you're building lighting levels, all this stuff and take it in and get that data. So you kind of get to that point with an integration and it's like, okay, well let's just say, you know, I got a 10 story building, uh, so, you know, got 10 air handlers, chiller plant, and then, you know, depending on the level of integration, let's say I've got 20,000 data points in my building, you know, what are you really doing with that? They're there are, they're acting out there and they're just doing their thing. But you know, unless you can hire somebody 24, seven to watch those sites and be like, oh, this is doing this, this is doing this. Um, it's, it's, it's hard to keep track of it. You kind of get into this, uh, you know, very responsive state. Um, you know, trying to manage the building. It's not forward thinking. It's not really effective. So analytics comes in and does, is it basically, it's like, you know, it is, it's, it's a 24, it's 24, seven program that looks at your building, looks at your data and can alert you to the issues going on. And then also in some cases make responsive writes back to correct issues. Eric Stromquist: Well, that's well said. Well said. And then I think one of the things that Kenny has sort of picked up early on in, and you were talking about sky spark a little bit because that's what you're working with. But, uh, you know, for years back, even when your dad and I were doing this stuff, you know, those old guys, I mean you could always alarm, right? But it got to the point that he had so many alarms, just like my emails, you just become null and void to me just don't pay attention to anymore. So it seems like one of the things analytics allows you to do is to write rules, for example. So if something goes out of temperature for a while, you could give an expert at a time before it sends out an email or an alarm. You could also maybe we'd send a command to say, hey, try to reset it or whatever before you do that. And so are you finding that that's driving some of your customers interest into it or her? What sorts of things when, when they say analytics, like I said, it's a buzz word, but when they come to you or do they actually know what they want her, it's just, hey, I want an analytics package and you shouldn't have to talk him through it. Brent Burrows: Uh, so it, it's interesting you were talking about, uh, my dad, uh, uh, actually met with him this week and he brought up some of the alarming going on from the 90s, and he was, uh, so, uh, I won't name them, but you know, big retail client, um, and they, you know, obviously they have sites all around the country and, uh, they had like a fax machine that sat on the side of this room and this thing continually like it reports and the, I think they actually set up a system where it just like fed into like a dumpster or shredded all it did for 24 hours a day. And they were like, he was like, what is that? There was like, oh, that's the, uh, that's the alarm matrix. Yeah, I remember those things. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but you don't know the, to Eric's point, uh, I think, um, we've seen several, uh, programs now coming out like controls, condoms, coming up with Detroit with the Cochrane supply, Scott Cochran and his team put together this thing. Raven, where you could really, you could eliminate anything. You didn't want to hear all the chief, you know, and just, just get to the nuggets that you needed to know. And then they teamed that down so much that it would be in a proximity presentation. So top chef, chef get that right. We don't want people to think, okay, go ahead. I'm sorry, but God, we got that quick. I'm sorry I couldn't, I'm spit balling here too, but no, go ahead. Saving, saving, saving. Um, so the, the thing that Scott Cochran believed in is it Derek's point that we're so overwhelmed with this is data being pushed at us that we ignore it. Now again, we've always self defense mechanisms. We turn off our phones, we don't have to hear the pagan, you know, and then, but then you really could miss that one really important alarm because you're so, you know, unconditioned to respond to it. The uh, that stuff became packing. They had say, generate so much. I. Dot. Matrix printing stuff that no, he didn't shred but then that shredding to him went back, got recycled back in the, in the shipping department. But I'm so yeah, so a, the raven thing was a real clever a response. So that not only did you restrict the amount of alarms you got, but they were, they were sent specifically to who needed it and it reduced all that additional traffic. Eric Stromquist: So yeah, Brent is a cool app if you haven't seen it. It actually works like with you know, notifications on your iPhone and stuff like that. So you can just set up just the notifications you want to see. So, uh, Scott Cochran's one clever dude and controls con's going to be a great conference and uh, we get, we actually have a discount code for that, don't we county. So we should do, if you put any controlled trends when you registered and put it in a controlled trends, you get a 10% discount and that you'll get 15 but I know it's just a matter of time for you blonder and it's going to cost you an alternate code, a code word. You get 20% off if you mentioned chafing cause that's right. So you are going to be a great cohosts. He's good. He's picking right up on this. Uh, but uh, but so what else? So the analytics, are these primarily the facilities managers asking for this or should it go on up higher? Cause I know you, you know, Dana and the rest of year or down to the rest of your sales staff deals at the c level suite a lot. Is it mainly being pushed down from the c level suite or consulting engineers asking for it? Or how is this even coming into consciousness? Well, it's a, it's interesting. So I'm going to go back real quick to the original question that you asked and mentioned something that, uh, you know, it Kinda all goes along with, uh, with the APP. You're talking about the raven, the alarms, and you mentioned that, you know, just kind of getting, you know, hounded with all this data. And it really does, you know, whether it's, you know, cause I'll, I'll copy myself on the emails most of the time for the alarms. And you know, sometimes it'll just, I think I went through this morning, there was a point that went in and out of alarm, I didn't delete like 600 emails. Brent Burrows: You get into the point of getting alarm fatigue. So yeah. So in the process, let's just say that you have something that does, does alarm and you get, you know, over the course of three or four months, 600 emails, you're going to be like, oh no, just delete all those. Don't worry about that. And sandwiched in there and one or two of those. Yeah. What was important data. So that's why it's important, you know, when you're doing the integration is the freestyle. Yeah. Make sure you set up, you know, your alarms and your, so there are going to be alarms that happened, but you know, maybe just only send out, you know, prioritize with your alarm classes. Um, but, but then to get back to a, to what you're mentioning about what level do you kind of see the requests from analytics coming? Um, I think it really depends. Uh, so a lot of what we, uh, we deal with customers we deal with in the Atlanta market. Um, you know, we'll go into existing buildings and whether, you know, we're upgrading them from, you know, DDC from the 90s or just straight pneumatics and everything, uh, you just hit it. There are different levels of involvement from, you know, different companies and, you know, different positions. So, all right know, I've got to figure out what's going on and I cannot, I don't have the time to pour through this site and I don't want to, you know, pay a monitoring company, you know, just every, every month. Because you know what, that's great. You know, the, there were a few people that we followed around in Atlanta or would go to and there was like, oh yeah, we paid this company $2,000 a month. Just watch this. It's like, but it takes you six hours to get him on the phone. And then sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't. But they'll always let you know when that checks in the mail. The, um, the analytic thing, one of the big impulse or impacts was when Niagara JACE started coming with 25 free analytic points to get you a taste of it, you know, and then we started to see people dabble at it, but we really didn't have a whole lot of, uh, you know, takers. And then once they got into it, uh, so it all became, you know, a basically about templating it. But, uh, the Phil fearless fills Zito had a really nice, uh, extract on when he did a synopsis on end for about what he said that what they added to inform and to analytics too. Dot. Oh, was that make capabilities where the preexisting analytic data model it was in, it was inherent embedded a base algor algorithm library and then a realtime on premise analytic control. So one of the things that we saw now was that people, if they wanted to start to dabble, they got a good free tastes that, or a complimentary tastes of analytic points that they could take a couple of points and do exactly what you're saying. Pick out the top, maybe ones that you're getting those multiple alarms, you know, and then have it so that you could control the amount of alarms that you got from that point. So, uh, again it's, it's still, it's just touching the, uh, the, you know, the top of the iceberg because a sky founding of course was the, the industry leader. I mean they basically defined analytics to us. Well, no, it's cool. We can, I've got a question where I think we might have a new vocab word here and I wonder if you've heard of this before. No, no, no, no, no, no. Alarm fatigue has the first time I heard that if you heard the term alarm fatigue before, actually I have this, but I heard it said in that perspective, that context. But you're right, I mean, so I think Brent is coach and he's got his first new phrase, alarm fatigue. Okay. We're, we're going to give you a nickname or get you a tee shirt. It'd be Brent Burroughs alarm fatigue. So I did write that down though. So that's a great one brand. I like that a lot. So bread for our integrators out there who may be, have not gotten into analytics or you know, Skype specifically sky foundry, um, kind of walk them through. I mean, how difficult is it? Is it to get started with it because know there are a lot of integrators, outdated, heard of analytics and maybe you know, think they can do it or don't think they can do it, but what do they need to know? If you're just starting to scratch your ears, assistant center grader and you haven't worked with analytics, sort of walk them through it. Uh, so obviously, you know, um, like the sky spark, um, sky spark software, you know, like anything else, uh, to be able to sell it, you know, you have to get signed up with a distributor, all that. Um, so, you know, first need to find somebody that can not distribute it. And it's really important, you know, when you're kind of going into a new software, I believe this with anything, is to make sure that you've got a good support channel. Um, you know, like in between you and then, you know, and sky foundry, which I'll say for sky foundry, their online database of like help, documentation, everything. It's phenomenal. Um, I have used that a ton. It'll actually basically walk you through setting up site, uh, comes with a great demo site so you can look at how everything's set up and then, you know, reverse engineer. Cause you know, as a, as a systems integrator or you know, anything else, it's, it's similar. You know, it's, it's just like physically, you know, kinda like building an engine or something. How do you really figure out how an engine works? Well, take one apart and put it back together and you're going to have a good idea of what those components do, where they go and everything. Same thing applies to the software. So, uh, getting started there. Go ahead. Eric Stromquist: No, that's a good analogy. And you know, and I think that's where you're talking about the division of labor and, and the, and the support structure, you know, some of the, some of the great products. And so the great applications that have failed, uh, did so not because it wasn't a great application is because people didn't take to it well, they didn't have a support structure, he didn't have that engaging support that you're talking about. And some of these new people, new products and solutions we see coming in, especially in North America, you know, the, the contracting mentality as they wanted so they can understand it and they want to be able to do that physically create an analogy. So this is how you put it together and it's how you take apart and by the time you do that, you know, the steps are all procedural and the methodologies very consistent and then you get really good at it. I think the, the commitment, this guy foundry is significant, but once you get there, you've got it's money well spent and you just, it's a gold mine, right? Can, it will listen and Brent, this is a, that a, you're going to probably have to do with Aaron Gorka called stable datum, right? Because we, as we're assuming that our entire audience listening to the show right now understand what Skype boundary disguised park is. So Kenny, if you don't mind, would you just give our audience just a quick overview of what it is because I think people have heard of analytics, they've heard of data, but they may or may not have heard of skies park. Uh, if they don't listen on a regular basis. Kenny, let's give our audience a little stable datum on exactly what guys foundry isn't what sky's parks are. Ken Smyers: All right. Well, you know, I would recommend everybody to Google or not Google, but to come to our website control to trends. And then just to take a look at John Patsy or look at sky found in there because we have multiple videos of John explaining it, what it is through interviews or whatever. But essentially the synopsis, The Sky Spark is an open analytic platform from sky foundry that automatically analyzes building data from sensors, automation systems, meters and other smart devices to provide useful building insights, sky spark insights, help facility managers, building owners and business managers identify trends, issues, faults, correlations. And opportunities for cost reductions and building improvements. Uh, and then also the, the, the growth of it. You know, so we were asking about, you know, who wants it and how is it implemented? And it comes from all different dimensions. It doesn't come from consistently the COO or the CTO or you know, a smart building owner. It comes from people that have problems that need them fix. So just give me an idea. There's more than 10,000 facilities around the globe that are using sky spark right now. They analyze buildings, data over 650 million square feet of buildings. Imagine that. Then they went over a billion. And by the way, that's further on, but commercial buildings, apartment buildings, apartment complexes, hotels, resorts, data centers, industrial facilities, educational campuses, government buildings, large multi-use retail spaces and other large complex facilities. But if you remember the one crazy thing about it is we start small with one building using the sky, spark and sky foundry or analytics, you know, because there'll be other versions of analytics. But in order to get to the smart cities, you've got to start small. It's a modular thing. So you'd go from one building building. Exactly. But this whole thing crescendos into a smart city where you're, everybody is getting that data there knowing that usages and aren't in and we're occupancies are they knowing when they have about, you know? Right, right. And I think, you know, again, John Petze used to be president of tritium, one of the brightest guys on the planet. Great Drummer too. Buddy rich has nothing on John Petze. But uh, you know, we only all went sky spark first came out or sky founder first came out. It was kind of cost prohibitive almost just simply because to connect the data points together really required somebody to go in and link this to this, to this, to this, to this. But that's all changed now. It's gotten super formed. Super, Super Price Competitive Kenny because of drum roll. HAYSTACK CONNECT. I tried to download, try new vocab words. I need another cup of coffee. That's a good one buddy. I know you want to do that. And Yeah, because again, we're trying to promote project haystack to the best of her abilities and really get the community excited about it. But I think we're getting other people excited about it. I think there's people that are learning outside of the HVC, bas industry that understand that haystack tagging. For instance, we had Samsung, uh, from, uh, the smart car. Don't trick me again here. Most of name again, can we need first and last name for try again? Go, go, go, go, go, go to the Control Trent website, highlight her name and then have Google pronounced that JMC futurist, right when, anyhow, she took the, the haystack tagging to heart and talk. It was an, you know, it's, it's just absolutely vital to eliminate all the friction and bring down to two. We're belongs as quickly as possible. There should be cooperative. You ready for an analogy? Haystack tagging is to sky foundry every other analytics or control system as gasoline is to a car. What do you, what do you think about how, how bad is like, you know, uh, I mean, you know, and not another analogy. I think one of the great things about having haystack, it's, it's basically this organization that says, yes, you know, hey guys, instead of re reinventing the wheel, here you go, we're going to give you the tools or instead of making all your own custom stuff, here's the tools to do it. You know, it'd be kind of like every kind of like, you know, I guess it's, you know, not using haystack tagging. I feel like doing your analytics to standardize it. It's kind of like going back to the, you know, Dark Ages or the prehistoric times of, you know, where you just have different tribes and they have like all their own forms of communication. Like, you know, I don't, most marriages, well, you know what I do, I think that's going to, that's going to work there because if you hear John pets he talking about, he actually gets mad, he'll, he'll start out real calm and mellow and hills. He'll start saying, but, uh, his patients in the industry I think is waning because it's a choice. And you know, again, a lot of people have, you know, big legacy investments and they've got, you know, look at corporations are run and, and they, they really truly have to control the rate of adoption and, and, and is it his money comes it. I mean we had the guy from Sweden tell us, you know, all these things could have been fixed many, many, many years ago if there wasn't a, you know, an economic reason not to do it. So brand have an economic reason to get them right. Now where I am, Brent needs to know this, cause I know your listener brown button it Kenny. This is the part of the show where we come up with are conspiracy theories. Okay. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. And I want to do something right now too. It's certain, Huh? Jam Fee. So that's not sued. Sud h a JMT j a m t h e. Dot. The Jaffe. Right. This Suda Hey, you know what I practice, come on. Say it. And you know what? I'm going to sit on this one because I, I haven't had a chance to write it down and sanded it out. But I think this is like a good idea for like a new bit. Eric Stromquist: You should do Kenny Kenny's words a week and put a word down and then have them like phonetically sounded. I know Kenny. No, no, we got one of this when Kenny's word of the week. Shaef Chase, rub your face with a scarf or something and you scraped, I think he's in a different context today, which is like the data was shaved off of the sound. No, it was to do with the wheat and, and the other stuff. Boys in the shaft, not the shape. You're not going here. Let's get back to those two words are a little too close. Well, you know what I think so. I have a lot of those. So look at that. That's a good sign. That means that your brain's working. Okay, so let's get back to Brent. Meanwhile, back to Brent. So Brent, again speaking to integrators out there that maybe haven't taken the punch to do an analytics and his specific way sky founder, you sort of walk them through the steps, you know, they can call Ken or Eric, that should be your distributor., STROMQUIST.COM And after you get with your distributor, what happens next? So after you get with your distributor, uh, hopefully they can set you up on SKY FOUNDRY Um, so you can get into the resources you can access. Um, it's pretty cool once you get everything set up. Um, sky spark actually has a demo and all you have to do is just pretty much upload the demo and then you can go through all the steps, all the steps they give you online. Brent Burrows: They give you like a five part, um, kind of do it yourself. Um, you know, set up the data points and you know, add the equipment, add the points, add the tags, go, go view the data and do everything. So you get practice, like kind of like we talked about putting something together. So you get practice doing that and then you start going, all right, I can see this, I can see how this will work. Uh, and then after you do that, you're going to want to go to one of the sky's spark, uh, analytics, uh, classes. Typically I think it's like a two or a three day class. Um, they get you all set up on there. After that you are going to be able to, uh, to sell the product and uh, and really do it. Um, and one of the cool things is, is basically, you know, if I had to like look at it and you know, just look at, you know, your customer set and figure out 10 rules, figure out 10 things that you want to look for. You know, the last thing you want to do is be like, oh, I got to come out with, you know, 500 something rules or I've got to figure out how much, you know, k w port per square foot. You know, when people, uh, you know, have a Dell computer or laptop in there, it's like, okay, just, just kind of back it off. Keep it simple to start, like one of the biggest ones, uh, that, that I see and you know, I see it around Atlanta a lot. You've got these, um, these old [inaudible] use that still have to use pneumatic a pneumatic actuators. So, and you'll see that and you'll see, you know, you'll use a DDC controller, goes to a, uh, goes to a transducer and then that sends the air pressure pneumatic actuator and you know, it, they've, they have it that way because the cost to retrofit one of those, as you know, it's like four hours and you know, maybe like a $340 part, you guys posted something a long time ago and I think strong Quist offered a retrofit part. It's for those, uh, to basically take that internal damper and then change it over to, you know, have an external, yeah, it was, it was trying, I wasn't sure if we were mentioning manufacturers or anything. So I remember that then. And we'll, you know, we saw a lot of that too. Yeah, that was a, that was an excellent demo and I'm very successful to do, to kind of move things on. I don't know. Hang on real quick. I can't, if you don't mind. There's one other thing I wanted to sort of bring around because Brent, I think it was brilliant. You know all the rules come up with 10 you can, you can come up with, so for example, for our property management people out there, you got building a and it is using 50,000 kw per month. You've got building B, it's using 25,000 kw month and you've got building c, which is just in 150,000 kw a month. Which one is most energy efficient? One uses the most energy. Well and you do that, that's easy. But you know, basically it, you can Kinda, you can organize the data because you know, what if one is a single story building, how many square foot, how many people are occupied. So you, and part of the reason I brought that up was you used the term earlier, which for our owners out there who might not think this was, I didn't think this way, it was explained to me part of what Brent's companies able to normalize your data because oddly enough, the small, the one with the least amount you spend the amount of money on might be the most energy efficient, the one that you're spending the most on because this maybe 10 times bigger might be your most energy efficient. So unless you can normalize it. Eric Stromquist: And what I mean by normalizes taking random data points or data points, bringing them together and setting their criteria like square foot footage, occupancy times a number of people and that, so that's a big part of us gotta be one of the first ones that you guys would go for. I would take if you have multiple facilities. Right. So, um, so I'll go, I'll go back. It was just kind of that the brief example with the damper, and I know I was kind of explained some technical stuff on it, but it's, you know, like a real real simple rule is like, you know, and you can compare it, you know, how many VAVs PKI use, things like that. Kind of like you're talking about. But you know, the big ones that you can see, you know, a Vav is it open at 100% not satisfying the CFM. Brent Burrows: So either we've got mechanical problem, we've got a design problem, you know, somewhere in the chain. And also the biggest thing, one of the things I see the most money wasted on, like with that particular style of box is this thing has electric heat strips in it. So electric heat, huge energy user. I mean just unbelievable. So it's got the heat going, right? Trying to satisfy the space and you've got a bad damper bladder and there that's not in 600 800 cfm through. So I'm simultaneously heating and cooling space. I'm basically dehumidifying your space when you get to pay for it. As long as this thing has occupied and you know, put that over a 15 story building and let that happen, you know, uh, on a cup on each floor. And just remember that the first real calm I become, and you've met right? You know, Smith and he said that, uh, their biggest, um, why I got this one. Can I do this one? Okay. You just cause I don't, I normally don't know much about, I do know this. So Brandon, Darryl Smith, random Microsoft campus back when Kenny and I first met him, and this is the best example of alarm first as rules base did I ever heard. And what Daryl was saying was a, this huge campus, huge, huge energy bills. They never got an alarm because the Microsoft campus was the most comfortable campus. You could be anywhere. All those buildings were comfortable. They put in a program similar to sky's bar and they realize the reason their energy was so high and the reason nobody complained about the temperature was that their heating and cooling ran at the same time to maintain temperature. They had no idea that was happening until they put the analytics package. And so then what happened, consequently, after that was, uh, you know, they fixed that problem. They started getting a lot of alarms and Bill Gates got mad at Darryl Smith. So there you have it. You have anything you want to add to that, Kenny? I'm sorry. No, no, no. It was, it was the whole thing we said to you, you know, some of the things that they were saying is the valve of the heating valve was clogged, blocked, open, you know, it wasn't Seton properties. So then it was leaving too much heat into the space and an air conditioning or the, you know, Viv is letting, calling in. So the bottom line was that you could have no, uh, alarms are no complaints that nobody's complained about the temperature of being too hot, too cold, but that's not necessarily a good thing. So what they started to analyze, uh, was if the state changes doesn't change over a certain period of time, that there's reason for concern, something that should be going up and down based on different, uh, the different, uh, aspects of the building, different times of day, different whatever. But nothing should stay the same. No temperatures and stayed 72 for longer than maybe like 60 minutes. And if it does, that'd be one of the rules we'd say somebody needs to look at it probably got, you know, something's going on there that you said requires some investigation. But um, I am, I'm a little bit concerned that we're, we're going to get the time, uh, isn't slip away so we should throw in some of these posts so that they get more friends. Comments on your bread. Eric Stromquist: This is part of the audition here. Now we're going to go through some post of the week and you got to make it yet like really astute comments about them. Okay. I don't want to suppress them cause you know, you're, you're a systems integrator and you bring like a different perspective. Absolutely. Is this relevant to your world or not? You know, what's one posts you want to talk about? For now, we'll just go kind of lighthearted cause uh, you know, again, the two and you know, nuggets to take away into some of this has kind of superficial stuff with like the next post you want to talk about and get Brent's comments on is the, the new facility manager might be a robot. Uh, and how will artificial intelligence affect your building? We know from Ken Sinclair that artificial intelligence is common. It's a real thing, how quickly they adoption rate's going to be and whatever. Or is it happening with or without our knowledge? Uh, and he calls it automated, intelligent, not intelligence, artificial intelligence. So the question would ask you there is that you, do you think that artificial intelligence has a foothold already? Uh, w what's the adoption rate with your end of the world or your from your perspective? Um, Brent Burrows: so, uh, in, in terms of, of running buildings right now where we're at and you know, Atlanta, Georgia, um, I haven't seen a whole lot of artificial intelligence in a, and the particulars particular areas where at, um, obviously that's the way am, I mean every, everything's moving that way, you know, whether we still really haven't seen a whole ton of, you know, a voice stuff come in to, you know, the building automation world. So I feel like you're going to see that come in and then you're going to see AI. But that's kind of the analytics thing too, is, you know, and we were talking about earlier, you know, it used to be you'd pay somebody to monitor this and they would watch it and now you have a computer that's doing it, you know, a, a program that that just looks at. It looks at rules, it compares the data, and then it gives you an outcome. So go ahead. So based on how you define artificial intelligence, in many cases, some of it's already there, it's just not called artificial intelligence. God was charging two grand a month to technical data. I mean he's already been replaced by a robot. Right. Which is a shame. That'd be a sweet deal. So Eric, uh, so I got it said Jan, Jan. Okay. Now, so the next, the Kenny, he's like, it's not jam. J A M is Shanthi. It's a softer version. Okay. So if we're doing artificial intelligence, let's take this thing to the next level. And we had this very intelligent futurist and she is the real McCoy. She is internationally, globally recognized for her, her understanding and divisions that are coming. You know what our world is going to look like in five 10 15 years. But she did this thing on smart buildings and powering smart buildings, smart cars and the whole idea of sustainable building, sustainable energy cars that are driving and they're basically collect the energy, putting in a battery. The car gets to the building that it works, it's parked at and plugs in and instead of the building powering the car up again, cars powering the building up in an emergency situation that you could really exploit this cause it's just moving energy. You know, cars are literally collect the energy and then moving them to where they needed nick actually plug into a building. Um, not, not that we're going to see this anytime soon, but what do you think that, uh, the Atlanta metropolitan area is that, is that kind of technology receptive? You see that? I know that a, with Eric, with your smart car, you're a customer, your test, the, one of your biggest issues at first was the charging stations. They could be busy, it might not be available, but you know, it was, it was trying that new technology. Does it fit, do you see us moving a year end of the world there, uh, Brent taking, adopting that kind of technology or is it kind of an out there kind of like, I dunno, I'm sure had you asked the question, you know, 20 or 30 years I had like, had you asked when maybe Eric and my dad were working together a little bit, like, you know, hey, where are you thinking we're going to be in 30 years with us in buildings? It's like snack. I'd be met that it's not going to matter. All our cars going to be flying around anyway. It's kind of local conceptions out there. Oh, we'll get to your point. I mean, I look at this thing every day and I'm all, I marvel over the iPhone every day because I just, I can't get over it. Cause my wife's German, she talks to her sister's like we're talking, you know, across the street. And it doesn't cost a dime. They used to be my third biggest expense. You know, we had mortgage, car and then phone. Right. Well, you know, Kenny, I had been on my, I'm like, rephrase the question a little bit because you know, I think the car was just sort of an example of the fact that you could use a battery to power building and Nissan actually did with their corporate headquarter and a suit. The JMT talks a lot about, uh, about the fact that you can now contribute to the grid and said you're just drawing off the grid. And I think a more Germane sort of, uh, uh, question might be do see a day where maybe Ken Smyers: the batteries are powering the buildings. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, tech technology continues to evolve and to just things that you just never thought were possible. Kind of like, you know, like the analogy there of a, you know, thinking about a battery charging and building. I mean, you know, absolutely. It's possible. What, you know, what Ken just talked about, you know, with that right there, I'm sure you guys saw him back in the, uh, you know, maybe even the 80s, the early nineties. Like what are the first cell phones look like? Where did the first computers, they'll quite white mainframes hold clinic rooms and now this is more powerful than the first computer mainframe huge rooms that were created. I'm really glad you cleaned that up for me cause I'm not, hang on, hang on. I'm not done yet. I've got a Mike, my conspiracy theory and then you can come back to you Ken. So I have a conspiracy theory cat because Brent, you know, you guys hard Johnson controls is wanting the lines you handles was Honeywell on this tech Johnson controls is one of the largest car battery or manufacturers in the world. Okay. So you start thinking about that and then you put into the fact that Tesla developed something called the power wall, right in California. What that because you know, you could have the solar energy coming in but you pretty much had to use it or lose it. What the power wall, you were able to store it. Okay. So I think Johnson and Tesla are getting together right now. I think what's going to happen is you're going to have solar panels on the building. There's going to come down to some sort of a power wall that will hold the charge, that will charge the battery and then the battery will charge the building. Well Eric, to your point, I think, uh, I'm glad you did it cause I was thinking the same thing. We know that Johnson controls made a major investment and batteries. And one of the scenarios we saw Brent was really cool was that, you know, uh, with a DC AC wars mobile. Derek and I used to cover the Westinghouse versus Tesla and how, uh, it was a power station thing who could transmit the power of the further Stacy one but DC. Now it's coming back in. And many people were saying, why are we taking power, making it a scene and converting it back to DC inside of a building since every something inside of the buildings operating on DC. What about we put a big battery in the basement in, you know, some mechanical room or whatever and we power it up. And from there we power the entire building with 24 volts DC. Ken Smyers: And then you have power over ethernet and we have all these really incredible ideas. But so to your point, and I agree with you 100%, it's not, it's just a matter of when we get the opportunity to deploy these technologies are here. It's just, it's in the economic constriction. It says the economic, you know, friction, you gotta, you gotta make money and people have to transition from one technology to the other. But it doesn't mean it's not going to have, it's just the question of when. Right. So I, you know, it's really interesting to about, um, you know, buildings doing that. Obviously it'd be much easier, you know, as with anything, um, you know, if you're building a brand new building to be able to Spec that stuff and then absorb it into the cost of, you know, of doing the building as opposed to looking at a building that has everything that has ac powered, whether, you know, lighting, HPAC equipment, you know, literally everything and being like, all right, we're going to rip all this stuff out and then we're going to put all of this and, and it's going to cost you, you know, x and whoever owns the building or she come managers of the building, it's like, no, we're not. It's a great point, Brent and know that my father in law lives in New Mexico, right? And they used to subsidize solar panels, but then the electric company, conspiracy theory started, you know, not making as much money so they don't subsidize any more. So now it's cost prohibitive to do it. But I tell you what, I think, uh, I want to get back to Ed Tech and your dad a little bit because your dad is when I got to be kidding me, your dad is one of the brightest businessmen know. And when your dad would say is, if you want to have heard him say this over the years, you want to paint it blue, I'll paint it blue. You want to back you on a battery power building, not give you a battery painted battery power building. Right. So, uh, uh, and I, and I think at the end of the day, it's, this is, you know, a lot of conjecture on our part. It's fun to talk about, but at the end of the day, uh, what's going to make the most sense for the owners is what they're going to do. Yeah. My favorite ones are listen to the Paul Oswald and listen to, uh, George Thomas from contemporary controls. The, these guys are the more senior faculty in our, in our industry and they say, you know, we keep talking about this absolutely wowed off the wall technology when we still don't fix belts and we still don't do it. Most primordial maintenance you need, uh, you know, and keeping the motors running and stuff like that. So I think what you have to do is you have to keep one foot on its tectonics. It's moving and shifting when it applied. Yeah. Plate tectonics. There we go. Brent and we still have a vocabulary from you yet. What have we done? We got it. Tig. Hold on. Protect. Yes. Right. I'm sorry I got circled them when you said that. I will give you credit when I like something that somebody says something cool, I write it down and at the end of it when we have to write the show notes up or whatever, I can run through all these little circles, nuggets there and alarm fatigue is circled. We're going to, we're going to take this thing into a macro level again, and we're going to shift gears and just security, cybersecurity. We're going to go into your version of cybersecurity. How often you bump into it, what does it, what does it scare you to death or you got to, you got a handle on it. What's, what's going on from your perspective? Brent Burrows: Um, you know, cyber security, obviously you now have extremely important, I would say as important as, uh, eh, as anything you're, you're really doing in a building, you know, as long as you know you're not, when you're putting in controls, you're not just absolutely wrecking the equipment. What's the, the other thing, keeping, you know, unauthorized people from entering your site? Um, if you can isolate it. That, and that's the biggest thing was cybersecurity, uh, that I'm kind of saying, um, from our end is things need to be isolated. Um, so like you really do, you need to have like, you know, for your h Vac, building automation, security access, all that stuff. Um, like to isolate it if you can on, on separate networks. I mean, you know, you don't have to look far, uh, with different, you know, cybersecurity issues and large retailers, whether it's through, you know, the credit card scanners or you know, however these hackers get in to access, you know, a bunch of people's personal data at places. Like it's just kinda like, holy crap. I thought that was a very unimportant, this thing just turns the lights on, turns the lights off and now they've got access to, you know, social security numbers of all the data that we're keeping over here. So, um, there's some really cool products out there. I'm like, you know, one that y'all rep, uh, that, uh, yeah, that, that's it. I really liked that. Um, you want to talk about security like that is that, that is the deal. Um, the, the ease access is, you know, not as much like, you know, you can't just start grabbing a bunch of random devices and, and doing it. There's got to be a little bit more prep work, but you want to talk about secure and a and manage like dad is awesome. So it's not that expensive dye tee people. Cause I guess a part of the question would be are you running it up when you put a system or the it people now more concerned or they come, do you say you're going to try to what to my network or I know you guys work on a different sort of size building and stuff like that, but uh, yeah, uh, I actually had a meeting with a, with a 19 manager, um, just just recently within the last couple of weeks. And he was wanting to know like a, you know, what are you going to do or how does this need to be set up and everything like that. And uh, it's, it, it's a good conversation to be able to have with them in person. Like don't try and pass it off to someone else that isn't going to be working on the technical side because it's just that then things get misinterpreted and people get defensive. You're not putting this on my network and all this, you know, it turns into like a little peon contest when you don't need it. It's just, you know, a good conversation to have. And that's one of the things Tridium does a good job with is, you know, they have a, they've got it out there. I'm not sure what the most updated version is, but it's called the hardening guide, which, uh, um, basically goes through and it'll tell you how to most securely set up your system. And if you can go through that with an eye with, you know, manager or, or whoever, then everybody can be comfortable. All the data can all be out there. And then, you know, you make sure that you're putting in the most secure option. You know, so ironic you said that because I sent that to somebody this morning. Um, the issues were on the audit trails and about, you know, uh, who gets into the system and then when I have as the Niagara for hardening, it's from six 28, 2018. So I'm sure there's one, uh, more recent than that, but you're exactly right. It's, uh, I think it's a 48 page document. Let's see. Yeah. And it really goes deep dives into a 42 pages. So, um, but what we have, uh, for, for the controlled trans community is we have a responsibility to keep, keep cybersecurity as a concurrent trend is the top trend. We post the NIST released in ist and they give us, you know, the checklists and take people on an individual level and organizational level, uh, you know, a corporate level and then a city level. Ken Smyers: So we have two posts that I just want to bring them up real quick. One is the, a Schneider electric has a cybersecurity, a Webinar you can sign up for and it has a, a lot of great information. And then two, for the people that are really in the business dot have deep, we have a smart and secure city, the community challenge expo and Washington DC July 10th and 12th. And it's about security. Cybersecurity on a, on a macro level. So, and ist the US Department of Homeland Security and sciences, the technology, are they basically the sponsors of it? It's a free registration is free, but you have to preregister it's required for attendance. You can't just walk in there online and we have a hot button to it. But so cybersecurity is, you're right. So Brent, Brent, you just hit three correct answers in a row. So we're going to over and cybersecurity is one. It's as important as anything else. We're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're working with now if we have to have a responsibility, we have to own that responsibility and learn about it. We don't necessarily have the solution for it, but we can be part of the solution or part of the problem. Well said. Well said. Well, listen, dude, uh, let's, let's talk about a couple more things. A couple of other vets and then we're probably going to need to hop off here. But, uh, where Brent, you gotta talk to your dad about this cause you want to go to this conference? Edi. Oh, easy. Easy. I know they call it easy time. What are the dates on these? Okay, you want to go to Amsterdam with this bra? Yes. Sounds great. Yes we do. It's, it's May 17th through the 19th, and it's going to be in Amsterdam and it's going to be an extraordinary event. We're taking the lid off this thing now because, uh, there's, um, the importance of it is growing. Uh, what ECI is doing is they're going to really walk us through the roadmap and they'd been the innovators. It'd probably been the strongest leading innovator company of all the recent companies for just the, the ability to get things done quickly. Put an FSL server size to controller inside of a regular, you know, fit the build of a, of a know basically a controller that it's core for core processors, quad core processors and, and, and it just sort of new paradigm as shaking all the other vendors in there. You're doing something incredible now. They're kind of, they were going to reduce it. They're going to get fs 20. So it's going to use smaller compact is you had the same from inability. It's just cost less money. And so they do the wireless thing. So they've got the FTO for coming out and all those things. Clever and amazing thing. Lim who in charge came up with some very, very interesting things. Eric Stromquist: No, Kenny, you're, you're, you're so right about the technology. But listen, let's focus on the event itself because these guys know how to throw a party where up go to Europe. Okay. And write it off on your taxes. These guys, you'll learn stuff. But man, we've been to all the major soccer stadiums. I made these guys know how to throw a party. It is the best time you'll have. You'll learn a lot. You meet integrators from all around the world now Kenny, Brett and I are going to be there. Maybe Aaron Gorka even show up if he gets out of bed long enough to see what's going on here. But uh, but so that's going on. We've got that. We got real calm. Be Con coming up Kenny in Nashville, Tennessee and then we've got the Afore mentioned a HAYSTAK CONNECT. Hey look, get started. We got to start at the beginning here. We got national [inaudible] you got, what do you mean? We have to start at the beginning to see that much 26 this week we got a major event down in Baltimore. And anybody close to that, you go to it. It's one of the best, uh, you know, uh, in, in our, each department of the country and is great to network and get great training. Uh, it's start, just wait, we have controls con coming up May 2nd through the fourth up there in Detroit. And I'll tell you why that's another one. We have a discount code putting in control trends when you registered. Then we go to project haystack. Okay. May 17th and 18th. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. May I have, we just had the post up so, uh, that's on the side. You can go to the site and check it out, but I'm just with my, my, my emphasis is on bang, Bang, Bang. But the, uh, it's gonna be uh, uh, a resort area too. That's extraordinary. Anyhow, you're right, it's at the Paradise Island, Paradise Island. And uh, it's May 13th through the 15th. I ride right before we go to go to Holland. But it last but not least, June 11th through the 14th real calm. I be con that's going to be in Nashville, Tennessee. And we also have a controls trans code coming from Jim Young and the, excuse me, Howard Berger and Lisa, which too. So we're excited about it because we're starting as a pivot point for this, this incredible information. Obviously people can't make it to all of them, but that's where you need to do your homework. If you're an integrator and you're learning about this stuff, uh, you know, you might want to go to a haystack because you can start using that template. If you're, you're into the integration and you want to work with the latest and greatest set of tools, do you need to get the easy Ios Global World Conference? You get the additional benefit of some travel and they do have a spectacular today program. Uh, and then if you're in the real estate business and you're servicing people that make the need to know how they can make a smarter, more intelligent, more connected building, then you need to go to real calm. So hang on. There's one more county. Hmm. Very well done. That was nicely done. Okay. Very succinct to the point. I love it. Now, if you need an integrator to put all this great technology and we know a pretty good one in Atlanta on name Entech Brett, tell us how people get hold of Edtech and, and some of the things you guys do, Brent Burrows: uh, to get ahold of Entek.com. Uh, you know, go to our website, all the contact information, um, or call Eric and he'll get you over to us. Um, but, uh, but what we do is we try to offer, you know, an an all in one solution. You know, we'd like to thank you. Now we'll do a little bit of everything. What we'll do. Anything that you let us do, you know, Kinda like you said before, you want me to paint it green, I'll paint it green. Yeah. Um, so, uh, so, you know, we do a, the HPAC controls, uh, cardax card access, integrating those systems together. Uh, and then the mechanical HPAC, uh, you know, do all that systems analytics. Um, you know, we try and be, you know, either an all in one solution or if, you know, take one. No, extremely happy with your mechanical company. We'd love to do your controls, vice versa. Eric Stromquist: Well, the other thing too, Brent and I want to bring up your dad and your company has and more national account work. So if you're a big box or even a little box retailer that has multiple locations across the United States, your dad's been doing that for the last 40 years with major accounts. So, you know, a lot of times people that they like assist and they want something put in and uh, uh, I'm going to tell us about your dad before we go. You'll like this canning, uh, all across the country. So you guys do national accounts as well and do a great job with that. So here's the story. How many of you know who doctor Laura is? I don't. Oh Gosh. He had to talk to her. She was like a battle ax. It's like, you know, you've got to be tough. You've got to do this and you, you know kind of like a doctor Phil on steroids, although Dr Phils Kinda cuter and she is but uh anyway your dad is doing a borders bookstore and doctor Laura is, they're doing a book signing and your dad's up on a ladder working, not working on the Vav box and all of a sudden he hears this voice, hey come over here and move these books and he kind of looks down and goes, who's doctor Laura or she's asking me to go do some stuff. So I just waved at her and went right back up and just anyone you ever get a chance to talk to branch dad had worlds, one of the funniest guys and then she wanted the best story tellers rent. Man, thank you so much for being on the show this week. Very excited about what you and Erin, you're going to come up with a herons. Episode seven is up on control, a controlled product. I'm going to see control controlled fence.com was a great episode and I guess starting at episode eight will probably be you and him working together. So excited about that and they controlled trans community is lucky to have you on board, so thank you for doing this. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me looking forward. All right, so now, now I know you normally listen to the podcast so we got to practice this outro, Ken Smyers: two more things real quick. I'm sorry this is part of the show. Okay, go ahead. Well anyhow, uh, we do have a shout out. We want to shout out to Bill Schafer. He commented on the Scott Cochrane, um, article that we posted in Scott's comments and the, you know, just to give you an idea of the flavor and the interesting inputs we get controlled transits that I've read Scott Cochrane's article on automated buildings. I've been involved in a couple of projects with temporary networks were necessary. So I found Stanford solution. Interesting. Your article left me with a couple of questions and thoughts about using Ip controllers versus MSTP controllers and how vendors in it departments handle them. And so we have, uh, an opportunity for we forward that to Scott for a response, but we invite all our control trans community to please, these are the kinds of conversations and dialogues we'd love to have because everybody benefits from it. You might get your own little answer. Uh, you know, you might get your own private answer or young interest answer, uh, responded to, but we all benefit from it. And then last but not least, I want to compliment Eric Strom quest, who's the most hardest working creative, innovative social media guy out there? Eric, he put up four youtube videos. Tell us, tell us about each one real quick. One minute or less on each one of them. Eric Stromquist: Why? Can't really remember all. But as we said on the show last week, we get content up quicker on the youtube channel. So Brent, I don't know about you, but you know how long, a lot from youtube. So we get a lot of questions. Like, for example, we have one on, what's the difference between two way and three way valves, which a ghuy like you knows , but we created a video for that. Uh, and so we are going to be putting more and more HVAC TECH TRAING VIDEOS on our YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Youtube content up here. So please subscribe to the channel. New Speaker: stromquist.com dmsconytrols.com ent https://kit.com/ControlTrends/gear-we-use-to-shoot-the-show https://kit.com/ControlTrends/books-we-recommened

The fastest way to knock off 12-18 months of your company’s growth in less than 7 days. On today’s episode Russell talks about having Brandon and Kaelin Poulin trade consulting with him, and how that turned into a CEO swap. Here are some of the amazing things to look forward to in this episode: Find out why swapping consulting turned into swapping CEO’s and how it’s beneficial for both companies. Find out why a CEO swap could actually work for your business as well. And hear how the CEO swap made it possible to quickly implement things that would have taken months to implement without it. So listen here to find out how a CEO swap could be beneficial for your business. ---Transcript--- Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about the CEO swap. Alright everybody, so it’s a beautiful Sunday, I’m walking home from church today by myself. It’s kind of a long walk so I thought, what better could I possibly do than to jump on and hang out with you guys for a few minutes, so I hope that’s okay. Anyway, this last week was kind of cool. I think I told you guys before that Brandon and Kaelin from Lady Boss, and I decided to do a swapping consulting days, right. So what I wanted to work with them on, they’ve done a really good job structuring their company, their meetings, their employees, just their whole everything. They learned a lot of it initially from Alex Charfin and then they went and as Brandon typically does, went and perfected and added to the system, made a bunch of stuff and then has been beating on it for the last year and really fine tuning the process. It’s amazing what they’re doing. What I found out is that they only have like 5 funnels and they don’t do any new funnels, and they want to go cold traffic, they want to do funnels, so I was going to swap consulting, I was going to walk them through what I would do in the funnel stuff. So it was cool, so Thursday, we spent the whole day going through all our stuff, and I’m not going to lie, this is the part of business that I don’t love. If anyone is wondering how Clickfunnels has grown so big, it’s two reasons. Number one, actually three reasons, number one, we have an amazing product, number two, we have an insane team who is super talented, and super passionate, and love what we do, and number three, we’re really good at marketing and selling stuff. So we’ve done that in spite of our flaws, and that’s how we’ve grown to over a hundred million dollars a year in sales. But the down side, we’ve never been good at the business structuring and planning and meeting, all those kind of things we just haven’t been as good at. Mostly because as the CEO or leader or whatever you want to call it, the head dancing monkey, I don’t necessarily like those things or I’m not good at them, and because of that the whole culture doesn’t have them. So it’s just been a lacking thing. So as Brandon was going through it all, at first I’m getting really excited, then I’m getting all depressed and stressed because I’m like, “I would rather die than do all those things he’s telling me to do. I know they’re essential, but I’d rather just go sell something else.” So I’m kind of feeling the pressure and the stress. First I felt like a little bit of hope, followed by despair I guess is probably the best word. You mean I have to stop building funnels for like two months to get this thing to work? Anyway, fast forward to the next day. So Friday we come in and we start going into funnels, I start geeking out, I start freaking out and jumping around and having so much fun. And I feel like Brandon was feeling something similar, like, “Man, how am I going to get my team to understand all this? I get it conceptually, but how do I get them to do it?” Anyway, so we’re going forward on our consulting/swapping days, and then it’s probably like 3:00 in the afternoon, almost as a joke I was like, “You know what we should do? We should just do a CEO swap, where you become the CEO of Clickfunnels for a week, I become the CEO of Lady Boss for a week, and then we just switch roles, implement all this crap, then we’ll switch back?” And then we’re like, “Wait, what if we actually switched roles for a week…” and then we started going crazy about it, and I was just like, “Wait, that means you could come in and literally just do all this stuff for me, all t he stuff that you love to do anyway, and build it in, build the structure, run the meetings, all that stuff, until we have the process in, and I could just go and work with my funnel builders and build an amazing funnel, which is all we really want to do. And at the end of it, you end up with the funnel done, I end up with the structure and the meeting all done, and we both end up a million times better.” So instead of just swapping ideas and consulting, swapping our super powers. So we called it the CEO swap. So Brandon and Kaelin they bumped out their flight a little later, yesterday was Saturday, we went in and worked, I was there until 2:00 last night working on their funnels, they were there with my entire team working on other stuff, and it’s insane how much we got done in such a short period of time. Where literally for me to implement this process we’re going through, probably conservatively would have taken me from now to the end of the year, and it would have not been fun, it would have been a lot of pain. Now it’s like, it’s going to be, by this time next week it will be completely done, implemented and installed and running. And their funnel should be done, completely ready and handed off for them to start driving traffic to, which is the coolest thing. So I’m telling this because, you guys should do SEO swaps, not SEO, CEO, CEO swaps. Find somebody who has the opposite of your super power. Let’s say you have a company and you built it off Facebook ads and you’re killing it, find another company who’s killing it and they’ve done everything on SEO. Swap, CEO swap with them, or whatever. Or marketing department swap with them, or whatever, and figure out the other side of it. OR maybe you’re someone who’s gotta a call center that’s crushing it and another guys got a VSL that’s crushing it, swap. “Hey come build out my call center, I’ll come build out your VSL.” Boom, swap skills and now you just duplicated your super powers inside another person’s business. So powerful. So consulting days, first off, are awesome. You should be doing that anyway. But if you want to go to the next level, do a consulting day and then if it’s like, this is good, let’s do a CEO swap. Boom, then go deeper and if you have half the experience that we’re having right now, it’ll be amazing. Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you guys because I think a lot of times we get too caught up in how to do the thing, and the biggest problem with the how is you have to learn how to do the how. I did an episode here probably three or four months ago where it talked about, it’s the “who”, not the “how.” What I learned from Dan Sullivan, and his biggest thing if you listened to that podcast, the biggest problem with entrepreneurs, we see our vision, what we want to accomplish. We start moving towards it, but as soon as we get stuck in “how do I do something?” Then we instantly…if it’s not our super power, if we don’t know how to do it, then we will start procrastinating because we don’t know how to do it. And his goal in how to get out of the procrastination, is not to go learn the how, it’s to go find who already knows the how and get that who to do the thing for you. So sometimes we’re consulting, and it’s like, that’s awesome, but that’s not my super power. It’s like, cool, who’s the who that can implement it? So you find the rockstar who can implement it for you, or find a person who can coach you on how to do it, who’s done it a million times, have them actually implement it for you, and you’re going to pay them or swap them. Again, the swapping idea is super cool because if Brandon was to pay me to build a funnel for him like this, I wouldn’t even consider doing it for I don’t know, probably at least 500 grand or so for me to like stop the opportunity costs to go and focus on it. And now he’s going to have it done and completed within the week, and for him to stop his whole business to come set up my whole structure, meetings, order chart, score cards, all this insanely annoying, boring part of business stuff that we have to do that we’re not doing, how would it charge him, he’d probably charge me half a million bucks to do it. So it’s not realistic for most people to pay half a million bucks for a funnel, or to pay half a million bucks for someone to set up your meetings, but in this situation, we both value the other person’s super power, so we just swapped. Anyway, I hope that gets you guys pumped as you start looking at that, look at the other businesses around you, look at your friends, look at your colleagues, look at peers, look at all that kind of stuff who have what you want and do a CEO swap and swap for a day or a week or whatever you need to do. I remember Rand Fishkin, he used to be the owner of moz.com, which was SEO Moz before that, he used to write a book called Lost and Founder, which if you read that book, you will realize that I’m completely right about taking Venture Capitol money, so there’s a story for another day. But the books really good. One of the things he talked about in there, as he was growing his company, he was the owner of this software company to help SEO’s and it helped agencies. And he had a friend who was running agencies and needed software, so they CEO swapped. And Rand went and actually, they swapped houses. He lived in the dude’s house and that lived at his house. I don’t know how the wives were okay with that, my wife would kill me if I was like…. Anyway, that’s beside the point. So they did the swap and it was cool because Rand was able to go down into the trenches and see what it was actually like to run an agency again, and see the experience, and try to use all his tools and realize there’s all these gaps. As an actual owner, my people can’t do these things because of the gaps in our product, and he was able to make the product better. And then the other dude, who was in the agency went back and started, became the CEO for the SEO Moz for a while, first off had empathy for them now,  but second off was able to work with the team and be like, “Why are you prioritizing this? We would never actually use this. You should be prioritizing here.’ And the swap changed everything for them. Anyway, I think it’s valuable and I think it’s worth most of us all doing. So find someone with the super power you want, where you have a super power that they want, and CEO swap them, and you will jump yourself forward, six months, a year, two years in your company, literally overnight which is totally worth it in every case, every scenario. Thanks you guys, appreciate you. I’m home, I’m going to go get something to eat and I’ll talk to you soon.

Welcome to Talking Chopped the new podcast by Brandon T Gorin and David Piccolomini! This is the podcast where we review episodes of the TV Show Chopped! Why?! Wendi Starling is back and embracing her roots by picking an episode of all leftovers. So Brandon has a lot of knowledge and advice! Dig in!

Listen as “The Goat Farmer” drops some powerful Q & A during this episode of Marketing Secrets. On this special episode Russell is interviewed by Dana Derricks for Decade in a Day. Here are some of the fun and informative questions you will get to hear the answers to: What would be the one thing Russell would suggest anybody starting out in business should focus on? What’s Russell’s biggest secret to building funnels? What Russell wishes he would have done differently? And what Russell’s team relieves him from? So listen here for the answers to these questions and many more from Dana Derricks. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m so excited to have you here. Today I’m going to share with you a behind the scenes interview with my man, Mr. Dana Derricks. Hey everyone, welcome back to Marketing Secrets. If you have not yet subscribed, if you are on iTunes, please subscribe and leave us a comment. If you are watching this one YouTube, please click on our YouTube channel and subscribe so you keep getting amazing videos like this. Right now, what I want to share with you guys is behind the scenes of an interview that happened earlier last week. Dana Derricks is in my inner circle program, he just started year number two and when someone joins my inner circle, or they re-up after a year, I let them be part of what we call Decade in a Day. Decade in a Day is basically where I take a decade of my life experiences, my business experiences and jam it into a day for that person. Basically I do this about once a month with my inner circle members. And it was really funny because this time, Dana showed up and instead of just asking me a bunch of, or instead of doing a normal consult back and forth, he just came back and said, “Hey I have a whole list of questions I want for you.” Some were really good questions, some were off the wall, there were all sorts of place, it was hilarious. But there was some really powerful, strong things that came out of the interview and I thought between the humor and the gold, I thought it would be awesome to share with you. So I asked Dana if he’d be willing to let me share this with you guys. And luckily for me and for you and for everybody, he said yes. So I want to take you guys behind the scenes of a Decade in a Day call with Dana Derricks. Like I said, for those who don’t know Dana yet, you will appreciate and love his humor. He is a goat farmer, he’s speaking at Funnel Hacking Live, and some of these questions are amazing. With that said, we’re going to jump over to the interview and have some fun. What’s up Dana? Dana: Yo! What’s up? Russell: How’s it going man? Dana: Good, good. How are you guys doing? Russell: Amazing. (Other people greeting and cheering.) Dana: Oh this is going to be great. Russell: This better be great. Dana: Yeah, no pressure, right. Russell: We were betting before we turned it live, we’re like, “Is he gonna have any goats in the office with him?” Dana: Well, if it wasn’t so cold, I probably could have made that happen. Russell: That’s amazing. So obviously, I know you really well. Do you want to tell everyone who you are, who doesn’t know, and then we can have some fun? Dana: Yeah, we can do that. You’re in for a treat by the way. You’re going to like this, I’m glad I’m last. Whoever set that up, kudos to them. They deserve some treat, Mandy. Oh man. Hold your breath. Russell: Literal or no? Dana: You’ll be fine. You ready? Russell: I’m ready. Ready to rock and roll. Dana: Are we live? Russell: You’re live. Dana: I thought you had to press a button or something. Hey what’s up everybody? I’m a goat farmer, I don’t know technology very well. We’ve been live for 5 minutes, I’ve blown 5 minutes of my time. If you don’t know me, my name is Dana, I’m a goat farmer that Russell let into the inner circle. Also I write copy. And that’s about all. Russell: And books, a lot of books. Dana: Oh yeah. Russell: I got a few books from you this week and I was like, “Did you write both of these this week?” amazing. Dana: Kinda. Yeah did you get that package? Russell: Yeah, that was amazing. Thank you. Dana: Oh yeah, no, for sure. Russell: It was like, here’s the salad you can eat now and here’s what you can have after the BORT. Did you hear we changed it from BART to BORT? Dana: You did? Russell: A Big And Ripped Transformation and BORT is Big Or Ripped Transformation, so you get to choose. We’re calling Bart- Bort now. So feel free to do that, he’ll love it. Dana: Bort Miller, I love it. Yeah dude, the secret about sending stuff in the mail is it’s a lot harder to opt out of receiving mail in the mail, as opposed to like email. So that’s kind of the trick. Russell: During your presentation you should show that clip from Seinfeld where Kramer’s like, “I’m out.” And he breaks up his mailbox. Dana: That’s good. I like that. And you can tell when they do opt out because your stuff comes back to you. That’s awesome. Okay, so I guess I have something prepared. I don’t have slides or anything. I don’t really understand technology that well. So I have a list of just a bunch of questions I’m going to ask you, if that’s okay? Russell: Heck yeah. Dana: Alright cool. So there’s going to be three sections. The first is just business, the second is life, and the third is whatever questions we’re going to open it up to. You guys can ask me, feel free to pick my brain all you want. And then the audience can interject. I don’t know where they are, but if you guys can see anything that they’re saying, let’s do it. Cool? Russell: Let’s do it. Dana: Alright, I might, if you start talking too long, because I’ve got this spaced out just right, I’ll probably just cut you off, okay? Don’t worry about it, I’ll control the time. We’ll start off easy okay. What would you estimate to be the ROI on the spend of one goat over a twelve month period? Russell: For average humans or for Dana? Dana: You’d be surprised. I’d say average humans. Russell: For an average human it’s probably not very good. You can milk goats, right? Dana: You can. Russell: Can you eat goats? You probably don’t eat goats, do you? Dana: I wouldn’t advice it. Russell: You milk them, you shear them to get wool? Dana: No, they have weird fur. Russell: So just milk. Alright. Dana: Pretty much, milk and cheese. Russell: Milk and cheese. I bet you double the ROI. I bet you pay a thousand for a goat you get $2 grand back? Dana: That’s really close. That’s real good. Did John tell you that. Russell: No, that was off the top of my head. I had no idea. Dana: Nice. Good, good. You’re going to have goats soon. Russell: I have astro turf on my field now, they can’t… Dana: They’ll eat it, don’t worry. What would be the one thing you would suggest anybody starting out in business to focus on? Russell: Like the initial, when you’re first, first beginning? Dana: Yep. Russell: Probably focusing on developing yourself through serving other people, until you actually become amazing at whatever it is you want to sell in the future. Dana: So other people’s results instead of your own? Russell: Yeah. Go and serve people, get results, then that becomes the catalyst for everything else. Dana: Nice. What would be one thing you would suggest, anybody that’s already having success, to focus on? Russell: Is this going to become a book someday? This is like the chapters of a book. He’s pre-writing it, he’s making me write the book for him. Dana: Getting content one way or another. Russell: I can use this time however I want Russell. So people who are already having success, I would say the biggest thing is, a lot of times, especially with creators, we have success and then we get complacent for a while because I think initially when we start, a lot of times we are thinking about ourselves. And then you get to the point where it’s like all your needs are met. And most people sit complacent until they realize that this has nothing to do with them. Then you transition back to how do I serve people more? That’s when the next level of success happens. For me, business for me was selfish for a long time. I was trying to figure out how to make money, then my needs were met, and then more so, then it’s like, now what? It wasn’t until I really started focusing on the contribution side of it, then all the sudden, then it lights you back on fire again because you don’t….someone asked me yesterday, why don’t you sell for whatever? And I’m like, I don’t need money at this point in my life, this is about the contribution which is like, the exciting part. Money gets dumb. After you pay your house off, you’re like, well I don’t know what else to do. Dana: {Inaudible} Okay, awesome. Love it. What’s your biggest secret to building funnels? Russell: I don’t start building a funnel until I’ve found another funnel that I’m modeling, like a concept. So I’m always very clear of this is where we’re going. And number two I focus most of the effort or energy on the copy or the stories. Each page in a funnel is its own story that you’re telling, you’re crafting to get them to take the next action, and that’s where we focus. Anyone can do a funnel now with Clickfunnels. Woo hoo, I’ve got a funnel. It’s like understanding and mastering the story, even the short form story. I’ve got a headline and an opt in box, what’s the story I’m telling there? What’s the story on the landing page, and the upsell page? Basically taking the Perfect Webinar structure and breaking it down into, over a set of pages and orchestrating the whole thing together. So that’s where I spend most of my… Dana: Okay, would you also say it’s like, then connecting the dots too? It’s like taking them on a journey. Because people think you just throw them in the top and then they end up in the bottom. But you have to hold their hand throughout. Russell: Yeah, hold their hand and it’s like, when I’m doing a funnel I always think about if my mom was to come and buy this thing….like let’s say she bought this superman little thing. She’s like, “This is awesome.” And then she buys that and then she looks and “What should I get next?” and I’d be like, “Okay, let me explain to you why you need the next thing.” And it’s not like, I get people who all the time that ask me, their questions are like, “What price point should my upsell be?” and I’m like, that has nothing to do with anything. Price point is completely irrelevant. They just bought this, what’s the next logical thing that they need or they think they need to get the end result they’re trying to get. Whatever the price is, doesn’t really matter. It just doesn’t logically make sense. “I have this, now I need this, and this is where I’m going.” Dana: Dude, you’d be such a good goat farmer, because it’s like, they get out, they’re in the neighbor’s yard. So you gotta go over there to get over there, and you gotta bring just enough treats to get them back into your yard. So now they’re in your yard, which is an improvement, but they’re still not in the pen. Then you gotta get them over to the gate with another set of treats. Then you gotta keep them there long enough to get the gate open and then get them back into their actual pen. It’s the same thing as funnels, right? Russell: Goat funnel secrets. You should tell this, that’s actually really cool. That’s what you’re doing, that’s the name of the book we’re writing right now, isn’t it? Dana: Maybe. That’s awesome. What’s your biggest secret to traffic and getting people into your funnels? Russell: You know the answer to this already. But our biggest focus is Dream 100, at all levels. SEO’s Dream 100, PPC’s Dream 100, Facebook ads Dream 100. Dream 100 is affiliates. So it’s like, I’m a hyper, big believer in we’re not going to create traffic so who’s already congregating to that traffic, and then we Dream 100 them from every level, every aspect. We’re doing SEO stuff right now and it’s like, it’s funny because everyone’s like, “How do we get back links?” and it’s like Dream 100. “What do you mean?” I’m like, “Find who’s got the best blog with the best traffic, the best page rank, we Dream 100 them and get an article, and then that gets the dream link we want back and that solves all problems.” Dana: Awesome. What’s your biggest secret to converting traffic once they’re in your funnel? Russell: I always say that the world we live in right now, there’s two steps. The front end direct response, it’s all conversion to get somebody to do whatever to get them into our world, and then when they’re in our world I transition from, I don’t transition away from direct response, but I layer in branding with direct response and now it’s like personality and direct response principals together. Because the front end doesn’t, personality doesn’t get somebody to opt in, typically a new person. It’s like hard core curiosity, the right hook to get somebody in, and after they’re in, to keep them there, it’s like I instantly transform into brand and personality and things like that. The better connection I can build with people the faster, the easier the conversion is. So it’s like putting in all this time and effort into building trust, rapport and the conversions become easier and easier afterwards. Natalie Hodson did a video I think two nights ago. I watched it last night, a Facebook live. It’s her like, “Don’t buy my courses.” And then told her whole story about why she started doing this and how she, it told her whole story of how she came into this business and how much money she has to put in ads to sell a book and how she’s able to have…told that story and I told her, I voxed her like, “This is so good. Everyone who opts in, make them watch this first because they will instantly love you, and then they will buy everything else you have from that point forward.” But that would be horrible as a front end ad. Nobody would ever buy off it. But you convert them in, use that attention now to build a brand and a connection and then conversion becomes super easy. Now its just taking them on a story of your life and you’re offering them bits, the story of how you created that and how that story comes back to them. Dana: Love it. So with that too, that’s part of the strategy of entertaining and putting out, just letting them into your life. And I think it’s important for people to know too because ultimately, looking at the stats, that stuff you could argue is a waste of time, but at the end of the day it’s not because you’re doing exactly what you’re suggesting, that’s the overall strategy on that, isn’t it? Russell: 100% Because I could do an offer nowadays not to my own audience, if I try to drive traffic to it, it would never convert. But I do that same offer to my audience and we’ll do a million dollars in a webinar because it’s like, they love me, they trust me at this point, they have a connection with me, if I’m creating it, whereas with cold traffic it wouldn’t work.  It’s that, I don’t know, when I got started in this game it was 100% direct response, and there was like the branding guys who I always hated. And now it’s like, the mushing of those two worlds together. Direct response to get them in, and then the branding to build a connection and then the hand off is like, I think that’s the future of marketing. Those two schools of thought merging together into a super power. Dana: That’s awesome. I totally get that as a direct response guy. Okay, before I ask the next one, I have to just throw a disclaimer. I was not involved in all of the question selection. So, just putting that out there. Okay, so I wanted to clear the air and dispel the rumors. Is the CEO of Lowkey Pages actually running the company from prison? Russell: I think so. Dana: Okay, awesome. Russell: I’m pretty sure. Dana: Must be, with the branding it makes perfect sense. Russell: Did you know that the real CEO of the real Lowkey Pages got, anyway, I probably shouldn’t say it publically on video. Never mind. Dana: I didn’t do any back research on that one, that was a mistake. What’s your best advice for somebody deploying the Dream 100? Russell: I think it’s understanding tiers of levels. When I first got in this game I remember the people that I was trying to connect with were Joe Vitale, Mark Joyner, all these guys who were legends and I tried so hard to get their attention. No matter how creative I was it just kind of fell on deaf ears. I remember being offended and kind of upset at first, but I was, I don’t know, I was just kind of a nobody at the time. So after trying it out for a while and not having success I was like, this doesn’t work. Then I met a bunch of people that were kind of at my same level, or a little above me, but they were approachable. It was guys like Mike Filsaime, I don’t remember who it was back that, but a bunch of guys like that. We were all kind of the same level. So I started connecting with them with Dream 100, and because they weren’t up here, they were here, we became friends and we also crossed with each other, helping each other. It was cool. In a very short period of time, within a year, year and a half, all of our businesses came up to these other guys. At that point I started contacting these guys again and they were like, “Oh I see you everywhere man.” And I’m like, “I’ve been sending you stuff for years and you never respond back.” And then they answer your call and it’s like, “Yes, send a package to Tony Robins, that’s amazing. He’s probably not going to do a deal with any of us.” It took me 10 years to get Tony to finally promote something, 10 years of my life, and he was like, “Russell’s book is awesome, you should read it.” But 10 years it took. That’s awesome, but what’s better is look around at the market right now, and who’s kind of at your level and start connecting there. It may not be a billion dollar win over night, but a whole bunch of little wins add up and eventually you’re best friends with whoever you need to be up here, at that level. So I think that’s the biggest thing I would tell people. Dana: Man, I hope the inner circle is listening. Because that is a great lesson for all of us. There you go. How many times were you on the verge of completely giving up? Russell: Like how many days did that happen or like…. Dana: How many different times do you think? Russell: There were a lot, one happened early. It lasted a couple of weeks. Oh, I’m going to figure out the piece. After our company collapsed and I had to lay off 80 people overnight, it was everyday for two years. I would have quit if I didn’t have tax obligations to the IRS that would have thrown me in jail if I would have quit. I had some really good motivators. For two years I hated this business, and I did not like it even a little bit. Until we finally paid the IRS off, it took that strain off, where it’s like, now creativity could happen again and then it became fun again. But a lot of times, I sometimes nowadays even, it’s funny because some days it’s like, why are we doing this? I don’t know what causes that, but I think for me, whenever that does happen it’s like a selfish thing. When I’m thinking about myself more, but what’s cool is I’ll go to bed and sit there miserable and see my phone and I’ll see a bunch of voxers from people and every time I have a voxer and someone says something nice to me I star it. So I have a whole list of starred ones, so I’ll go and listen to those. And all these people who are like, I got one of yours in there, I got other people. It’s just like, you hear them, their gratitude for what you’re doing. Thank you for what you do…it’s like alright, that’s why we do this. Then we’re back into the game. So it’s less often nowadays for me, for sure. During the down times it’s tough and it happened a lot. Dana: That’s awesome. Okay, cool. And he’s definitely not lying folks, because when I was out there writing copy for you, I remember somebody did something stupid, I don’t know, somebody said something or whatever and you got like, “Geez, seriously?” You’re like, sarcastically I think you said, “I don’t want to be CEO anymore. I just want to create stuff.” And I’m sitting there in the corner, thinking, I glance over at Dave thinking, “I’ll be CEO.” Russell: I want your problems, Russell. That’s awesome. Dana: Yeah, so I’ll be on deck. Russell: I think about this a lot. My goal was never, 15 years ago when I started I wasn’t like, “Someday I’m going to be CEO of this big, huge company. I’ll be on video.” No, I just wanted to create. For me this is art. Why do I keep creating funnels? People are like, “Your company is doing great.” It’s the art for me. I’m an artist, this is how I do my art. I just love it. A lot of times I would much rather hang up the CEO hat and go back to the art of doing the thing. Dana: Yeah, it’s awesome. Looking back, what do you wish you would have done differently? Russell: From Clickfunnels as a whole, or business as a whole? Dana: Yeah, let’s look at business as a whole. Russell: I think, man, the first 10 years of my life I was running around trying to be all things to all people, and like 3 ½ - 4 years ago was the first time I was like, kind of set my flag in the ground what I was going to do. As far as Clickfunnels as a whole, looking back on it now, I would have started a software company way faster. That’s 100% sure. Of all the business models I’ve done, it’s the one I like the most. But I would have done it different too. I think if I was to start over from scratch, I would have just done Clickfunnels and that would have been it. We wouldn’t have had Backpack and Actionetics and all these other things. I would have made it simpler. I look at some people have software where it’s sticky but it’s simple. Like it does one thing. There’s power in that. You’re tech team can focus on making that one thing better and better and better as opposed to… Like right now, our biggest problem we’ve had until just recently is our tech team can focus on this part over here, and it’s like, “Okay, everyone move over here and over here.” So now we’re at a point where, as we did that the last time through, we are taking focus here. We hired a whole bunch of people to learn it while they were in there focusing and then we left, and now they’re focusing on making it better. The mistake is three years to get to that point. So I think I would have made simpler software that everyone could focus on one thing. That’s the thing too, with Clickfunnels I have so many messages I have to sell now, so many. I would have focused on just a simple message, simple tool, simple thing. Dana: I love that. Do you know what a Juicy Lucy is? The burger? Russell: No, sounds amazing. Dana: It is. It might be a Minnesota thing. So Brandon and Kaelin flew out for a Viking game and then we went and hung out for a while and they took me to this bar in this weird neighborhood, it was really sketchy, to get a Juicy Lucy. So it’s basically a burger with cheese in the middle, and it was this place called Matt’s Bar in St. Paul, Minnesota, it’s world famous. Anyway, we get in there, and I’m with Brandon and Kaelin, we get in line for the burger, it’s just a nasty looking place, really bad, but great burger, world famous. And what we noticed was, they served us the burger with fries and ketchup and a napkin in a crappy little basket, and then we had water. And then I think it was Kaelin, was like, “Hey, do you have ice?” And they’re like, “Nope.” A bar without ice. And I was like, someone else asked for something but then I asked, “Do you guys have a fork?” “Nope.” So they have Juicy Lucy’s and French fries, and they do that better than every other person and that’s why even despite all their shortcomings they’re the best. So it’s a good a lesson, I think, for everybody. Alright, lightening the mood a bit. Did you know that James P. Friell is actually a really nice guy, deep down? Russell: He’s actually a nice guy, deep down. Dana: He is. Russell: I see glimpses of that, I think it’s possible. Dana: Is he there? Where is he? He has the day off. Russell: Did he leave for the day? Woman: I don’t know. His computer’s here, I don’t know where he is. Russell: His computer’s here. We’ll make fun of him when he gets back. Dana: Of course he’s probably skipped out early. Okay, what are you glad you did and wouldn’t change, business wise? Russell: Biggest thing I’m glad I did, and this took me 12 years before I did it, was actually bringing in partners. I was first 12 years like, “No, I’m Russell. I’m the guy who started this business, blah, blah, blah.” So because of that, you could hire people, but that’s it. Clickfunnels came around, Todd and I sat down and brainstormed the whole thing with Clickfunnels and he’s like, “Hey, I’m only going to do this if we can be partners instead of like an employee.” And I was just like, ugh. And the prideful Russell was like, “No, I’m not…” but then I was like, witnessing my whole business crashing, I’d been humbled a lot. I was like, “You know what, let’s do it.” And it transformed everything. So grateful for that, and I think if I was ever to start a company again, I think my first step before everything, would be assembling my Avengers team, or my Justice League team, whatever you want to call it, before it got started. I need the best in the world of these 5 spots. I gotta identify, here’s the 5 or 6 people, the things we need and I’d go and spend the first year just recruiting those people and getting them in place, then create the thing. Instead of starting as an entrepreneur and hiring employee one and employee two, it’s so much faster just to go the other way around. Dana: Awesome. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever sent in the mail? Russell: Physical mail? Dana: Mmmhmm Russell: I don’t have mine, but I’m going to tell you my friends story because it’s the craziest ever. Dana: I think I know it but.. Russell: Did I tell you this already? So my friend, he pooped in a box and then he mailed it, and apparently it’s a federal offense to send poop. He did it at college and the college mail room got it and smelled it, and he actually got expelled from Brigham Young University, but it never went through the mail. But apparently it’s a federal offense to mail poop. Dana: Wow, so it got intercepted before it departed from BYU campus? Russell: It could have been bad. Dana: Wow. Okay, so I don’t recommend that. Russell: I think the weirdest thing I’ve ever mailed, not mailed but it was like pizza, I’ve done this a lot of times, called up a pizza delivery place wherever a guys at and deliver like 10 pizzas at once. Stuff like that. Dana: yeah, just to get people’s attention. Russell: Yeah, it works good. Dana: Love it. What’s something that having a team relieves you from? Russell: It lets me, like right now with Clickfunnels people ask me, “How do you keep up with the software?” I’m like, I don’t. I use it and I complain and that’s all I do. And that team does everything. So I don’t have to worry about that. I only have to focus on the part I like, which is the marketing. And that’s all I have to, I get to stay within my unique ability and not the blend of all other things. And I think that’s the key of, in fact, James P. Friell if he were here, he’d quote some famous old guy who said something that was really cool. But the division of labor, something, something. There’s the quote, he can find it for us. Basically letting me do my unique ability and having every other person do their unique ability as opposed to other things. Mandy, when she started coaching with us, it was really cool. She gets to focus on the coaching of it. At first I was like, “Okay and then do this and this and this.” And then she struggled. The administration of it wasn’t very good. Melanie is amazing at administration, how about Melanie help Mandy, and now it runs awesome. And Melanie is the most amazing person at that in the world. So it’s like, everyone has a good and unique ability, whereas I used to try to bring someone in a role and give them 30 things to do, because I thought they should all be able to 30 things. When they did one thing with their unique ability and everything else just sucked. I did a podcast on this a little while ago, but I think the reason is because as entrepreneurs, we start the business initially and we have to do all 30 things, and we suck at most of them, but because we have so much brute force, we have success. And then we hire people, expect them to do 30 things like we did, and that’s the wrong way to look at it. You bring someone to do the one thing and be the best at that. They take that piece away from you and do it a million times better and then you can keep doing that. That’s what gives me the ability to do that, just focus on my unique ability and just nothing else. Dana: Love it. I reserved 30 second timeslot for you to give a shameless plug to something you’d like to sell, starting now. Russell: Hey everybody, welcome to the pitch section of the Decade in the Day. I would really like to sell, I have nothing else to sell these guys. I kind of want to do….I got nothing man, I don’t even know. Oh I know what we can do! Okay, you see this book, it’s pretty cool. This book I’m not going to sell, but we just wrote a book called Network Marketing Secrets for MLMer’s, and it’s exactly this thin and it’s got cartoons like this in it. It’s so awesome. So that’s going to go live in like a week and a half, so you guys should go buy that, even if you’re not in network marketing. Just to support me and to funnel hack me. Dana: Awesome, love it. How do they get it? Is there even a URL yet? Russell: There will be networkmarketingsecrets.com. Dana: go there. Okay, dude that was actually really good off the cusp like that. Well done. I should have given you a heads up. Okay, now I have reserved myself 30 seconds for a shameless plug. Mine’s more rehearsed. Go. So all the time, people ask me, literally all the time, “Dana, how do you sell a book for $2,000 when everybody else sells them for $20 bucks? How do you charge $20 grand for something that other people charge $500 for? How do you make so much money as a goat farmer with only 4 goats in your herd?” and I’m just like, dude, it’s simple. It’s the Dream 100. If you haven’t had a chance, or if you don’t know what the Dream 100 is, go get Chet Holmes Ultimate Sales Machine book. If you do and you’re ready to just go hog wild in it and explode your business, then go get the Dream 100 book. Russell: Where do you get the Dream 100 book, Dana? Dana: Dream100.com. Okay, cool. Russell: What’s the price on it, is it still….? Dana: It’s $2 grand, well, unless you find the secret link where you can get it free plus shipping. But yeah… Russell: Is the secret link dream100.com? Dana: forward slash free. Don’t share it. Oh boy. What’s the biggest domino you tip over every day? Russell: Dang, these are good questions. Every day? For me now, it’s making sure that my team all has what they need to get done what they’re doing.  I look into my role now, it’s less of me doing things and more of me coaching people who are doing things. Making sure that everyone has the ability to run in the morning, so they’re not waiting on the direction. You know what I mean? And we have a lot of east coast people, so before I go to bed at night, I try to make sure east coast people have what they have, so when they wake up 2 hours before I do, they can start running. That’s the biggest thing. Dana: Awesome, that’s great. I heard the internet speed in Boise is capped at 1.5 Megabits per second. Is that really true? If so, how can such a successful tech company be headquartered there? Russell: Is that true, Melanie? Do you know? Melanie: I have no idea. Russell: I have no idea. We do get angry though, often at it. Is that really true? Dana: I have no idea. I’m in a much more rural area, so I doubt it. I just published my 5th earth shattering book for entrepreneurs and sellers, should I keep writing more and put them on the shelf for a while to collect dust and do nothing at all with, the hundreds of hours invested in them, or start promoting and sell them? That’s a jab at myself because you called me out on the last mastermind. Russell: No I think, what’s funny though, at the last mastermind is where I had my big epiphany too, of focusing on the value ladder, and then all our creativity should be focused on the front end of the value ladder, bringing people in. I spent almost every day since then, trying to get the rest of my value ladder in place. I’ve killed two businesses that both made over a million dollars a year, because they didn’t fit in the value ladder. So I took that to heart and hopefully you have as well. But I think that’s it. You can keep creating stuff, but as long as there’s the back end to support it. Dana: Love it. The only other time I went to Orlando Florida, my fiancé ended up coming home pregnant. Should we put out a PSA to warn couples traveling there for Funnel Hacking Live that there’s something in the air down there? Woman: Did you hear Melanie’s laugh? Russell: Melanie’s dying over there. Are we doing a wedding when we get down there this time too, so it could be, the first time you got pregnant, the second time you got married? Dana: I got people lobbying for it right now. It’s going to become a hashtag, yeah. Okay, I’m just going to skip to the good ones. I read about a story about a farmer who was visiting your house, that tripped into your pool, in the pitch black, and fell flat out on your pool cover and nearly ripped it apart, and scared all of your children in the process. Is that true? Russell: It is so true. I wish the camera would have been rolling for that, because it was amazing. We have a pool color that’s the same color as the cement around it, and it was dark outside. So Dana goes and walks right to the pool cover and it’s like woosh. And my kids are like, “No!” it was amazing. Dana: Oh man. Okay, finishing up here. Will you sell me your domain name Dream100secrets.com please, you’re not even using it. Russell: Do I own that one? Dana: Yeah, you’re not using it though. I could use it. Russell: I might be up for that. Definite maybe, definite maybe. Dana: Just think about it. Okay, well I’ve exhausted all the good ones. Unless there’s any good ones in the chat. Russell: Did we check the chat? I have no idea. Woman: Everyone’s going crazy. Russell: Everyone’s just laughing at you. Woman: “Loving this.” “This is amazing.” “This is gorgeous.” Russell: No good questions. Dana: That’s alright, unless you have anything for me? Russell: Let me think. When are you launching the super funnel? Actually, did I tell you what we called it inside our office now, for us? Dana: This is going to be good. Russell: Which board is it on? There it is. This is called Project Mother Funnel. This is our Mother Funnel that sends people all the way through our value ladder in the shortest period of time possible, in the most exciting way possible. AKA, Project Mother Funnel. My question for you, with your new value ladder and multiple front ends, when is your Project Mother Funnel all going live? I’m holding you accountable. We gotta cover up that wall. Dana: I know, I wish I could show you through that wall. It’s still there. I’m going to say ASAP, how’s that. Russell: I love it. I’m getting this done by my birthday, March 8th. It’s my birthday present to myself. Can you get yours done by March 8th? Dana: I’ll do it. And what’s the bet then? Who has to do what? Woman: That’s how you motivate Dana. It’s not money. Russell: That’s good. Let’s see, I has to do with wedding or goats or both. Dana: Yep. Dave: If you lose, Dana, you get married at Funnel Hacking Live. Russell: He wants that though. Dana: I actually do. Russell: They want a beach wedding. So on the beach we could do it. Dana: We could bring the beach to us. Russell: I have sand, there’s sand in Boise. We could bring it in the room. It’d be a pain but it’d be worth it. Dana: How about you have to bring a goat to your office for a day, if you don’t hit yours. And I have to sleep with my goats for a night. Dave: You’d enjoy that though… Russell: Yeah, there’s different levels of that. Dana: There we go…I have to….Don’t knock it until you try it guys, geez. Russell: How about this, if you get the whole thing live by my birthday I may be willing to sell you Dream100secrets.com, if not I’m launching a competitor product, I’m going to take you out. Dana: Geez. This is going to be a nasty smear campaign. Okay, deal. I take the deal. Russell: That’s awesome. Dana: What happens if you don’t get it by March 8t? Woman: Oh, he will. Russell: Goat for a day, I’m in on that. Dana: Okay, that’d be actually a good episode. Alright, thank you guys. I appreciate you. Russell: Thank you Dana, you’re awesome, man. Have a good weekend.

In January of 2017, Brandon reached out to me about coaching. He had just lost a ton of weight via a weight loss competition at work, but he was weak; he had lost his way around the weight room. His goal: lose enough body fat, and building enough lean muscle so that he'd have the confidence to rip his shirt off on stage and strip. (As a character he calls "The Cock Knight.") So Brandon applied for coaching, began his journey, and since January, he's: Lost more than 20 pounds of fat; Gained over 10 pounds of lean muscle; Added more than 2 inches to his shoulders; and, Erased 5.5 inches off his waist But more importantly than all that, Brandon has found a passion for fitness. So much so that he has toyed with the idea of getting certified to be a trainer. And, he even bought The Bible, aka, Arnold's The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. Over the last year, Brandon has gained massive amounts of strength as well. But he's also discovered that this journey has taught him to be easier on himself; to not be his own worst critic. In this episode, we discuss: What life was like before joining my coaching program How lifting has helped his quality of life as he ages steps he’s taken to heal injuries and prevent fear from taking over & stopping him from exercising Why he stuck with it this time, and recognized his own faults Staying dedicated to the cause The story of Cock Knight Being his own worst critic What he would tell his past self What he loved most about online training Living that life and what it means to him How getting in shape has helped his quality of life What he would tell anyone about online training

Do you remember the day that you became? On this episode Russell talks about the moment he became a wrestler and how he felt and how that relates to the moment he became a marketer. Here are some of the cool things to listen for in this episode: Why Russell nearly became a basketball player instead of a wrestler and what changed his mind. What the four or five things Russell believes he is down to core. And why as humans, we are constantly in search of good feelings and how they shape our lives. So listen below to hear about the moment Russell became a wrestler, and the moment he became an internet marketer. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, good morning. This is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing In Your Car. Sorry I’m stuttering, I’m actually on the freeway right now. Normally I do these things closer to my house so it’s a little less chaotic. But this morning I had to get up early. And I didn’t get to bed last night until almost 2 o’clock. Because we got Wynter Jones is in town and a couple of other people. So I have a good excuse to pull all nights, working on funnels. So we did last night and then I had to get up this morning because we had a film shoot at 6:30 at this amazing location we found down in Nampa, Idaho. It’s kind of out in the ghetto and then you walk through the door and it’s this amazing building with stone walls, Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, it’s amazing. A bunch of people who work for Disney, a bunch of animators in there, so it’s a bunch of super creatives….whoa, crap. I’m on the freeway, some people stopping. Anyway, all these amazing creative people in there that are building, I don’t know, movies and animations and stuff like that, a whole bunch of Macs, and smart people. It was really, really cool. So we filmed something in the basement there for Mark Joyner when we filmed his episode for Funnel Hacker TV, which is coming soon. We filmed in the basement because it was this really creepy, nasty basement. We filmed the sales video for Mind Control Marketing there and it turned out so cool. But I remember I was like, “Oh that upstairs was so cool. Someday I want to film in there.” So we were filming the book promo video for Expert Secrets and that’s where we decided to film it at. So that’s what we were doing this morning. We got there super early and we were trying to film before anybody woke up. And the crazy thing, I went to bed almost 2 o’clock and my alarm went off at 5:15 and I had two alarms, just in case I slept through them both. Anyway, at 5:45 I sat up and I was like, “What?” both of my alarms had turned off. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” So I had a freak out. I had to run and get ready and shower. I’m doing a juice fast this week, and luckily I didn’t have time to eat because I couldn’t eat. But I jumped in the car and raced down here, and I was a couple of minutes late. Then the guy who I guess Brandon said that he forgot to RSVP until we were actually coming. So the dude didn’t show up. So Brandon’s calling him at 6 in the morning. Luckily one of the employees showed up early and got us in. So we got in there and started filming and…..sorry, I’m pulling off the freeway exit right now. So we started filming and we only have like 30 minutes before their entire staff and team showed up for work. So we had to go fast. So we get everything set up, anyway, it turned out really cool. I’m excited to see what, how it all turns out. So you guys will see it soon on Expertsecrets.com, when the book is all done. But that’s what’s happening. I’m heading back from there. I’m super tired, so I might go home and take a nap for a little bit. Because we have another long day today of amazing stuff we’re building out. Not only are we trying to get the Expert Secrets funnel done this week, we’re also trying to get Super Funnel, Exit Funnel and a whole bunch of other cool things that all tie together for the whole launch. That’s a story for another day. But that’s kind of what’s happening. So I had a message I wanted to share with you guys today because I thought it was interesting. I recorded a video yesterday, and I don’t know about you but I, in Expert Secrets I talk about how everybody needs to build an index of stories you’re going to have. You never know when you’re going to use them and how you’re going to use them. So a lot of times this podcast is a testing ground for me to tell a story. Then I tell stories at the office and I tell stories when I speak and in a million different places. It’s funny, Brandon who has been filming me every day for the last two years, he was like, “dude that was a new story, I’ve never heard that one before.” I was like, “Really, I’ve never told that. It’s been in my inventory of stories forever.” But apparently I never told it. So it was basically a story about the day that I became a wrestler. When I was growing up my dad was a wrestler, but I was going to be a basketball player, because that’s what short, white guys do is we become basketball players. So every day I practiced basketball, and I knew that’s what I was going to do and be. I don’t want anything else besides being a basketball player. So that was kind of my, what I thought my future was going to be. And then my dad though, was a wrestler growing up and I guess I had wrestled for a year or two when I was, I don’t know, 5 or 6 years old. But apparently my parents said I hated it. So I dropped out of it and was never going to do it again. But then, lo and behold, in 8th grade as I’m pursuing my basketball career, it was bad because I remember Spud Webb back then, was a little short guy who was shorter than me, but he could dunk. I was like, “If Spud Webb can dunk, then I can dunk.” And I never, I got taller than Spud Webb, but I still couldn’t dunk. But that’s a story for another day. Anyway, I thought I was going to be a basketball player, but one of my buddies two doors down from me, he went to wrestling practice and came home and started to tell my dad, “I went to wrestling practice today.” And my dad was like, “What? There’s wrestling practice here? I’m a wrestler and my son’s going to be a wrestler.”  So that was kind of what happened. Sorry, I’m driving and doing three things and I keep dropping everything. So not what I should be doing. If you guys were watching, I’d probably be getting yelled at by someone. Anyway, so my dad was like, “We need to go to wrestling practice.” And he tried to get me to. I was like, “No, dad. I’m a basketball player. I’m not going to wrestle. Come on now. There’s no wrestling in the NBA, how am I going to do this?” Finally my dad forced me to go to wrestling because he’s like, “Nope, we’re wrestlers in this family.” I was like, “What? I don’t want to wrestle.” But he kind of made me go. That was 8th grade. So 8th grade I did wrestling and I kind of liked it but I was like, it’s not basketball, come on now. So I just told my dad, “I’ll wrestle right now but…” and the way school worked in Utah for me, 9th grade was basically junior high and 10th grade was high school. 9th grade had started and I was like, “Well, I’ll do wrestling in 9th grade. But my sophomore year I’m going out for the basketball team because I’m a basketball player.” And he’s like, “Okay, whatever.” So 9th grade I started wrestling and I start liking it, but not loving it. I remember my very first wrestle off, and the way wrestling works, it’s kind of cool, it’s not like the coach picks who’s going to be first tier or second tier, all that kind of stuff. You wrestle and whoever wins, wins. So they line up all the weight classes, there’s like 5 or 6 people in my weight class and then you have a wrestle off. So you wrestle everybody else to see if you’re going to be first string, second string, third string. So there’s one dude who is really good, he was varsity, then there was a JV guy and a couple of other guys and then there was me. So we all got to wrestle and the guy who had been JV the year before, I had him in a wrestling match and I was like, I had no plans of winning. I just thought, he’s a high school kid, he’s a man for crying out loud. I’m a little kid. Anyway, we wrestled and I beat him. And the coach is like, “Congratulations, you’re going to be JV this week.” And I’m like, “What?” and he’s like, “Yeah, you’re going to wrestle in a tournament.” I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” So I go home and tell my parents. I’m like, “I beat the guy in the wrestle off.” My dad’s like, “What?” and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to be wrestling this week.” And he was all excited obviously and told my mom and told, you know, everybody. Fast forward now a couple of days, it was the wrestling tournament, we were wrestling Bingham High School. I remember we get to weigh-ins and I’m a little tiny, skinny 130 lb kid at the time. So I get on the scale and you know, you strip down to your tighty-whities and you step on the scale and look at your weight. And then the guy who I’m wrestling gets on the scale, he steps up and I look at him and the dude had a mustache. I don’t know about you, but to this day I can’t grow a mustache. I’m not still not quite manly enough to do that. He had a mustache, and again this is in high school. I was like, “Are you kidding me? I’m a little kid. This guy in a mustache is going to destroy me.” I was so scared. So I remember after weigh-ins, we’re getting warmed up and I see my dad and I’m like, “Dad, the guy I’m wrestling has a mustache.” And my dad’s like, “What does that matter?” I’m like, “I don’t know but he’s like a real man Dad. I can’t grow a mustache.” Anyway, I go out there for this match. I go out there I’m wrestling, I’m going through the whole match, I’m wrestling this guy and I don’t remember much about the match. All I remember is at the end I won. I stood up and I shook his hands and I remember looking at him in the face and I was like, “I just beat a dude who’s got a mustache.” And then the ref raised my hand. As soon as I raised my hand, my head went up and I look at the audience, it’s the bleachers, and in the bleachers there’s two people, my mom and my dad. My dad’s standing up clapping and that day I became a wrestler. I was like, this is the greatest feeling I have ever felt ever. I never got that from basketball, never got it from anything else. I’m a wrestler, that day I became a wrestler. I was thinking about that. I was like, different parts of our life we identify with different things. For over a decade of my life, I was a wrestler. I still am in my mind. I identify with that, that’s who I am. At my core, there’s a few things I am, I’m a wrestler, I’m a Mormon, I’m a dad, I’m a husband, there’s a couple of things and I’m an internet marketer. There are things, four or five things I really self identify and each of those situations, I know the day that I became that person. I know the day I became a wrestler. I know the day that I became a Mormon. I know the day that I became an internet marketer. And it’s when you have that experience and you’re just like, “Dang, that feeling, I never want to lose that feeling again. That was the greatest feeling in the world for me.” For my business, I remember when it was. I got online and I was trying all these things, you’ve probably heard my back story a million times. I was trying thing after thing after thing and all sorts of stuff and nothing was working. I remember the very first time I created something and put it out there and somebody bought it. And it was $20 and the $20 came to my Paypal account and I was like, “Dang.” I remember coming home and telling my wife, I had a Paypal credit card at the time. We had no money in the Paypal account, but i had a Paypal credit card. Someone bought and we had $20, and for me as a college kid, $20 was insane. I came home and told Collette, “We made our first sale.” And she’s like, “What? You made a sale?” I’m like, “Yeah, someone paid us $20” and we were so excited we went out to dinner that night. And we used my Paypal credit card and paid for dinner. I mean, it wasn’t a fancy place, probably Burger King or something, that is my favorite restaurant. But we went to Burger King or something and I think we went to a dollar movie. But it was like, I earned this. This is something, because at that point, my parents had supported me my whole life. My, I had Summer jobs, but I was wrestling all the time, so I never had a real job. Then I got married, my beautiful wife supported me. She was doing two jobs. For the first time in my life, I had created something that made money. That night, that dinner, that was mine. That was my gift to her. I created something that paid for that dinner. It paid for that movie. That night is when I became an internet marketer. I had that feeling. I love this feeling. I never want it to leave. I want that for the rest of my life.  And then I became obsessed and passionate about it. So for you, I’m curious. I want you to think about it and hopefully it’ll be fun for you to go back and think, but what was the day, think about whatever it is your business is, the thing that you’re so passionate about giving and serving and sharing with people. What was the day that you became that person? That you became a wrestler, that you became a marketer, that you became a fitness coach, that you became whatever it is for you. What was the day that that happened? I want you to think about that, and that’s my gift for you today. Because as I thought about it yesterday I was just like, what a cool experience. It’s just cool. I hope that this gives you a minute to remember that time for you and enjoy it. Because that feeling is what drives you now. You had that feeling once and you want it again and again and again. I want you to remember that because it was interesting, when Tony Robbins came to Funnel Hacking Live he talked about why we do things and it all came down to basically we do things, everything for humans is about a feeling. We want that feeling. We want to feel good, we want to feel loved, but it’s a feeling. That’s why we do everything. That’s why people turn to drugs, to try to get the feeling. That’s why people turn to love, they want that feeling. That’s why people turn to all, it’s all about feelings. Sometimes we have a feeling and that’s what drives stuff, but forget about it. We don’t think about it, we don’t….just remembering that feeling of me getting my hand raised yesterday, it was, it felt good. You forget about that. We’re always racing for the next good feeling, but sometimes if you stop back and just think about the feeling you had, the day you became who you are, because that’s the feeling you’re chasing after every single day. That’s honestly a feeling I chased for 12 years of my life while I was wrestling. That feeling of raising my hand and looking in the stands and seeing my dad, that was the feeling. That’s why I woke up super early in the morning, that’s why I stayed up late at night. That’s why I cut weight week in and week out, day in and day out for years. It’s the reason I got my eyes cut open. I had stitches, I had blood, the reason I sacrificed my body, my time, my energy, my effort, my everything, is because of that feeling. I wanted that again. So what’s cool about us, as humans, we’ll stop and remember we can get that feeling again. So today I want you guys to sit back and I want you to remember that feeling. And that’s my gift to you. Just enjoy it for a little bit, before you go chasing it again, because it’s there and you can remember it and you can bring it back. So I hope that helps you guys, it felt good for me today. Hopefully it felt good for you as well. And that’s all I got. I’m almost back to the office, I’m going to let you guys go. Appreciate you all, have an amazing day, and talk to you guys soon. Bye everybody.

An observation on people’s webinars who aren’t having the success that they want. On this episode Russell talks about The Perfect Webinar and how people get confused about not teaching and goes over what you need to do. Here are some interesting things in this episode: How much money Russell is hoping to make this weekend at a seminar. And why you should be teaching the “What” and selling the “How”. So listen below if you are struggling with The Perfect Webinar, this might be why. ---Transcript--- Good morning everybody, this is Russell. I’m out riding my bike to the office because today is a beautiful day. I hope the wind’s not too loud. Anyway, there’s a huge hot air balloon out in the sky. This is a sign that it’s going to be an amazing day, it’s gotta be. And then this morning I woke up at 5:00, which was awesome, I got three hours worth of stuff done, well probably two and a half hours before the kids were up. I’m feeling good and excited for today. This whole week is going to be amazing. This weekend I’m flying out to speak to Grant Cardone’s audience, teach those guys about some funnels, which is going to be so much fun. In fact, I’m going to fly for forever, by I fly Friday all day, I land and speak Saturday morning and fly home Saturday night. So twenty four hours, less than twenty four hours and hopefully we’ll go and you it’s kind of funny, I used to be a public speaker. I was doing that and that was my job, my gig, my thing. I would figure out how much money I would make per attendee, then I’d be like okay, so based on this means I’m going to make x. For example this weekend Grant said there’s 2100 people in the room, if that’s true and his people, how do I say this nicely? They are funnel beginners, I’ll say funnel beginners for recorded history. My guess is if I screw it up, I should close 30% of the room. If I do awesome, it should be 50%. So let’s say 30%, let’s say there’s 2000, I’m not that good at numbers, especially while riding a bike. So that means 30% would be 600 people, what I sell from the stage is 2 grand, so 600 would be 1.2 million and then I get to keep half of that. So I would bring home 600k. So basically I’m flying across the country to go pick up a check for $600k and I’ll be back in 24 hours. Isn’t that exciting? I’m excited for it, and hopefully I’ll close more than 30%.  I’m hoping 50%, so we will see, but I’m excited. It’s funny, because I’m not allowed to share how much we spent to get Tony Robbins to come, Marcus, all those guys out it in their contract and I’m not allowed to say, but it’s a lot. Somewhere between, on the low end 70-80 thousand, to the high end, over a quarter of a million bucks and beyond. Those guys are like famous people, so I’m not famous, but I know how to sell, so my check is actually bigger than them. It’s funny, one of my first speaking mentors is John Childers, he used to talk about that, “I’m not famous but I make 10x of what Norm Schwartzkopf makes on a speech because I know how to sell from the stage.” I always thought that was cool. It’s really cool now, looking and being like dang, that actually happens now. I wanted to share something with you guys today because I think it’s so tough and you learn this as you keep doing it. So Perfect Webinar, dang I’m out of shape. I’m just moving my feet barely. I should not be this tired, but it is freezing cold out here. My fingers are red and numb. Anyway, what was I going to say? Oh yeah. So as I’ve been teaching this, the biggest thing how to get people to break, everyone was in teaching mode, and so they teach for the whole webinar and they’re not making any sales or very few sales. I was like no, the content of the webinar is not about teaching, it’s about using stories to break false belief patterns and rebuild them. So people are shifting that singular, and crushing it. For example, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to brag about this, I’ll do it anyway. So Brandon and Kaelin in the Inner Circle, who are amazing, I’ve talked about them a bunch. They joined Inner Circle a year ago. They did 80,000 dollars that month. It’s been now, almost a year, and this month they did a million dollars in a month. Which is nuts and insane and amazing. They’re amazing. So fun to watch them. So some of you will get it and just crush it. Someone will get it sometimes and forget other times, but one of the big things, mistakes people are making is they shift all 100% to belief breaking and they tell a story but they’re not teaching anything. They’re like, “Well you said not to teach.” I’m like, “I said not to teach, but if you look at the epiphany bridge script, which you guys get more access when the Expert Secrets book comes out, but I’m walking through my epiphany, you hear the back story, the internal and external fears, and from there, you go on this journey and you have an epiphany, and from there you create a plan. So what is the plan? The plan is this what. What am I going to do? So first I’m going to try this and then this, and you walk people through what the plan was. Then in the plan you hit conflict, which causes emotions. You talk about the conflict, the issues that came up. Then you got the resolution and you have the resolution of the external and the internal.” So that’s like the process. But when I’m talking about the plan, I’m talking about, I’m going through it step by step. This is me teaching. I’m showing this is my plan. This is what I did. Step one I did this, step two…..so you’re showing the “what”. You’re not going into the “how”, but you’re showing the “what” when you’re showing the plan. I can get people a plan, “Here’s the plan. You gotta build the funnel.” But they still gotta invest because they gotta understand the “How”. But I gotta give them the what. That gets them inspired, they see, “Oh my gosh, that’s going to make people feel like they’re learning” When they see the “what”, and then when you sell, it’s the how. So I just wanted to kind of throw it out there in case anyone’s like, “I’m doing what Russell said, I’m not teaching anything.” I’m like, “No, it’s not that you’re not teaching anything. You’re doing it through story, with the goal of breaking the belief pattern and then when you’re walking people through the plan, that’s where you’re doing the teaching of the “What” not the “how”. When you understand that part, that’s what makes it crush it. So I hope that helps, but I’m at the office. Not too bad, about a 5 minute bike ride from my house. Good to know now. Anyway, appreciate you all for listening. Have a great day, great week. And if any of you guys are going to be at Grant Cardone’s seminar, come say hi and please, please wear one of your funnel hacker t-shirts. Funnel Hacker, It’s a cult, we’re not confusion soft, any one you got, make sure to wear it. With that said, I’ll talk to you all again soon.

David: What does it take to start and build your own successful e-commerce store? What are the common mistakes that e-commerce stores make and how do you increase your e-commerce conversion rates? Those are just 3 of the questions that I intend to ask today's special guest, Brandon Nolte. Brandon, welcome to DMR. Brandon: Thank you so much for having me, David. David: Thanks for joining us. Brandon is an e-commerce entrepreneur. He's founded a store, bringing in over $20,000 a month in revenue. His favorite things include hiring, working with his awesome team, and saying no! So Brandon, what prompted you to start an e-commerce store? Brandon: I guess I was looking for a way out of my previous business, which was a Kindle publishing business. It was actually doing really well for me, but I wanted to grow myself and my skill set. I thought e-commerce sounded like fun. It's probably not the most scientific way to go about it. Yeah, I was really just looking to grow myself as an entrepreneur. I feel like the e-commerce business model really allows you to expand your skill set. There's so many things you can learn from e-mail marketing to customer service to building teams and stuff like that. David: How long ago was it that you actually started? Brandon: The store went live basically January 1st. It's been running pretty much this whole year. David: Okay. Wow! We're talking just the beginning of October 2014. You're talking about 9 months or so it's been going. Fairly fresh, but you're obviously doing very well already. What would you say are the things you've done so far that has driven along the furthest that made it to the success that it is today? Brandon: I think the first one is certainly finding a good market. I ended up getting into a market where I saw that there was demands. I think, a lot of times, people go into businesses because they have a great idea or they think they have a great idea, and they have to try to validate it with the market. What really convinced me to get into my particular market was just talking to somebody who was already in it. After hearing his success, I wanted to get in. That was validation enough for me to try it. I guess the point I'm trying to make is you want to make sure that there is enough demand for your store to grow. That's certainly one of the things that's important.

All three of your Writing Excuses hosts include a measure of violence in their written work. So Brandon, Dan, and Howard decide to clear the air a little bit. Why do we write about violence? What does it bring to a work of fiction, and what challenges does it pose? Is there a morally appropriate … Continue reading Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 13: Violence →