Podcasts about so chris

bengreenfieldfitness.com/chrisandben While recently in Los Angeles at the Ancestral Health Symposium, I had the pleasure of a long, sunshine walk with my friend Chris Kelly. We brought a microphone along and recorded a fantastic chat for you with topics including... The growing epidemic of loneliness and how building a community can protect you biologically. How introversion can be steered towards a great deal of social good. My formula for the best dinner party guest list. The rewards of systematic service to others. And much more... So who is Chris Kelly? Chris Kelly is a certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, a graduate of the Kalish Institute, and the founder of Nourish Balance Thrive. As a competitive cyclist, Chris trained hard and got fast, loving the buzz of a great workout session. However, at a certain point, he realized that in hindsight he spent most of his life feeling like crap—and his biomarkers spelled impending doom. Chris struggled with insomnia, fatigue, brain fog, his libido plummeted, and his recovery times took a nosedive. He wanted to train well, but he also wanted to enjoy the rest of his life. So Chris transitioned to a Paleo-type diet, reading a book a week on the subject for a year, but that was only half the solution. The other half came through experimenting with and perfecting a system of functional medicine—he effectively became his own guinea pig. Now, Chris's body is back in balance—his symptoms have disappeared, his diet's right for him, and his family life is as enjoyable as his training. In 2014, Chris quit his job as a software engineer to focus on helping athletes enjoy optimum fitness and health. Nourish Balance Thrive isn't just a diet or motivational coaching—rather, it's the perfect blend of a lab-based supplement plan, expert dietary advice, and consultative performance planning uniquely tailored to your lifestyle. It's kind of the ultimate biohacking training course with a practical component developed just for you, with the goal of arming you with the knowledge you need to stay fit and healthy for life. Chris Kelly has also been on my podcast on the following episodes: The Little-Known Test That Tells You Everything You Need To Know About Your Metabolism. 7 Signs Your Cortisol And Adrenals Are Broken. In this special two-part episode that includes my talk about loneliness given at the Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS), you'll discover: Part 1 - Ben and Chris Kelly -How Ben had a hand in founding Nourish Balance Thrive...09:15 -Why Ben chose to talk about "loneliness" at the AHS...13:15 -Ben's thoughts on the introverted personality...18:48 -How Ben has used his introverted nature to his advantage in his personal and professional life...25:15 -The thing we often get wrong when we think of building community...39:55 -Tools and resources to help build community...46:30 -How Ben's interaction with the church has influenced his person and message...55:04 -Recreating some of the community-building traditions that have been lost through the centuries...1:08:26 -One thing you can do to reduce loneliness today...1:17:55 Part 2 - Ben's presentation at the Ancestral Health Symposium...1:23:27 -Apps and technology that can enhance community... -Be active in the community...1:27:36 -Be active in your local church...1:29:00 -Engage in family relationships...1:29:57 -Reclaim Real Conversation...1:31:13 -Have a mission or purpose statement...1:32:13 -Shared experiences...1:35:57 -Embrace the sacredness of commerce...1:37:34 -And much more!... Episode sponsors: -Ra Optics -Organifi Glow -Butcher Box -Kion Serum bengreenfieldfitness.com/chrisandben

In this episode of Art of the Kickstart, we interviewed Chris Lustrino, the Founder and CEO of KingsCrowd. KingsCrowd is the private market's first and only data-driven ratings and analytics platform made to find and track the best startups across every equity crowdfunding platform. Having founded a platform that helps leverage data to support your decision to offer equity over benefits for your crowdfunding campaign, Lustrino's background helps him demystify the equity crowdfunding space. Topics Discussed and Key Crowdfunding Takeaways The main components and elements of KingsCrowd's business structure Lustrino's background and how it contributed to the company's namesake The skills needed to invest in private markets with confidence How KingsCrowd can help enable your startup investing journey Simplified logistics of how KingsCrowd's platform operates Links KingsCrowd KingsCrowd Equity Campaign Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson Screw it, Let's do it by Richard Branson Sponsors Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by The Gadget Flow, a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. The Gadget Flow is the ultimate buyer's guide for cool luxury gadgets and creative gifts. Click here to learn more and list your product - use coupon code ATOKK16 for 20% off! Transcript View this episode's transcript Roy Morejon: Welcome, entrepreneurs and startups, to Art of the Kickstart, the podcast that every entrepreneur needs to listen to before you launch. I'm your host, Roy Morejon, President and Founder of Enventys Partners, the world's only turnkey product launch company that has helped over 2,000 innovations successfully raise over $400 million in capital since 2010. Each week, I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take your startup to the next level. This show would not be possible without our main sponsor, Product Hype, a 300,000 member crowdfunding media site and newsletter that's generated millions of dollars in sales for over 1,000 top tier projects since 2017. Check out producthype.co to subscribe to the weekly newsletter. Now let's get on with the show. Roy Morejon: Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today, I am super excited because I am talking with the one and only Chris Lustrino, the Founder and CEO of KingsCrowd. And if you haven't heard of KingsCrowd yet, what have you been doing? If you're in the crowdfunding space, these guys are the private market's first and only data-driven ratings and analytics platform. So Chris, I'm super excited to have you on the show and talk about all of the cool things that you're doing over there at KingsCrowd. Chris Lustrino: Hey, thanks so much. I think this is going to be a really fun conversation. I'm looking forward to it. Roy Morejon: Yeah, it better be fun, Chris. No. So let's give a little bit of background to our audience because most of the folks that listen are usually in the reward based crowdfunding side, but you've really built out an amazing platform over at KingsCrowd on the equity crowdfunding side. So, if you will give our audience a little bit of background about KingsCrowd. Chris Lustrino: Yeah, absolutely. So if you're into the rewards crowdfunding space, you already understand the idea of, hey, if we can engage potential customers and fans and ambassadors of our business early on, that can really be a catalyst to grow our business. Well, that concept, which is phenomenal, was taken back in 2012 by the government and they created something called the Jobs Act and they said, “Hey, let's not just allow for rewards. What if we could actually enable individuals to be able to own actual equity in these companies in the earliest, earliest days of the organizations?” And so now you have an opportunity as of 2016 to begin raising capital from the general public,

Weeb's Assemble!!! Welcome into another riveting edition of your favorite anime podcast! This week, Alex had his soul sucked from him while trying to finish Soul Eater before vacation. So Chris and Alex decided to grab their garlic and wooden stakes for the classic world of Vampire Hunter D!!! Does this blast from the past survive against the test of time? Who the heck is this D guy, why does 6 palm forehead girl deserve a waifu spot, and what the heck is going on with his talking hand?! Plus, another riveting edition of: "Weeb Nation Foundation News Report!!!"

Today we have an interview with three of our ICON agents from team South Australia – Mike Lowrie, Chris Janzon and Bjorn Kunzel.   Thank you all for joining me.   In particular, I would like to mention Mike Lowrie.   Mike went from working full-time in a franchise to part-time at eXp – Miike is doing a business degree, he is working part-time and his income DOUBLED!  Let's discover how.  It's been 12 months, since you all set out on this journey together and in your first year you all helped many many sellers and buyers AND you all made ICON agent status.  Questions Asked  First of all Chris, can you explain to everyone what being an ICON agent means?   Mike, you are the most recent ICON agent in team SA. Tell us about your story. Where did you come from? What attracted you to exp and how is your life different now compared to 12 months ago? So Chris, tell us about your story. Did you ever expect that when you began? Bjorn, you were the first agent in the team in SA to hit Icon status, you started the team with Chris & Mike and you were also the first ever Icon agent in Australia.  Great achievements… so how has the journey been for you and what would you like to add?  Tell us your eXperience over the past 12 months. Thank you team eXp Adelaide.    For Anyone looking to join their team at eXp, please contact either Mike, Chris or Bjorn.

Chris Olah has had a fascinating and unconventional career path. Most people who want to pursue a research career feel they need a degree to get taken seriously. But Chris not only doesn't have a PhD, but doesn't even have an undergraduate degree. After dropping out of university to help defend an acquaintance who was facing bogus criminal charges, Chris started independently working on machine learning research, and eventually got an internship at Google Brain, a leading AI research group. In this interview - a follow-up to our episode on his technical work - we discuss what, if anything, can be learned from his unusual career path. Should more people pass on university and just throw themselves at solving a problem they care about? Or would it be foolhardy for others to try to copy a unique case like Chris'? Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. We also cover some of Chris' personal passions over the years, including his attempts to reduce what he calls 'research debt' by starting a new academic journal called Distill, focused just on explaining existing results unusually clearly. As Chris explains, as fields develop they accumulate huge bodies of knowledge that researchers are meant to be familiar with before they start contributing themselves. But the weight of that existing knowledge ? and the need to keep up with what everyone else is doing - can become crushing. It can take someone until their 30s or later to earn their stripes, and sometimes a field will split in two just to make it possible for anyone to stay on top of it. If that were unavoidable it would be one thing, but Chris thinks we're nowhere near communicating existing knowledge as well as we could. Incrementally improving an explanation of a technical idea might take a single author weeks to do, but could go on to save a day for thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of students, if it becomes the best option available. Despite that, academics have little incentive to produce outstanding explanations of complex ideas that can speed up the education of everyone coming up in their field. And some even see the process of deciphering bad explanations as a desirable right of passage all should pass through, just as they did. So Chris tried his hand at chipping away at this problem - but concluded the nature of the problem wasn't quite what he originally thought. In this conversation we talk about that, as well as: * Why highly thoughtful cold emails can be surprisingly effective, but average cold emails do little * Strategies for growing as a researcher * Thinking about research as a market * How Chris thinks about writing outstanding explanations * The concept of 'micromarriages' and ?microbestfriendships? * And much more. Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world?s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Producer: Keiran Harris Audio mastering: Ben Cordell Transcriptions: Sofia Davis-Fogel

This is the sweeps week episode, the epic crossover episode, the mega episode! We have a very special episode as Chris, and Steph teamed up with the hosts of three other podcasts to bring you one giant, mega Ruby episode! In this episode, you'll hear from the hosts of Remote Ruby, Rails with Jason, and Brittany Martin, the host of the Ruby on Rails podcast. They cover the origins of their shows, their experiences as hosts, and why podcasting is so important in keeping the Ruby community thriving. Remote Ruby (https://remoteruby.transistor.fm/) Rails with Jason (https://www.codewithjason.com/rails-with-jason-podcast/) Ruby on Rails podcast (https://5by5.tv/rubyonrails) *Transcript: * STEPH: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. This week we have a very special episode as Chris, and I teamed up with the hosts of three other podcasts to bring you one giant, mega Ruby episode! In this episode, you'll hear from the hosts of Remote Ruby, Rails with Jason, and Brittany Martin, the host of the Ruby on Rails podcast. This episode was so much fun to record, and we have Brittany Martin to thank as she organized and moderated this special event. So without further ado, here is the mega Ruby episode. BRITTANY: Welcome, everyone. We have a whopping seven podcast hosts recording today. So, listeners, you are in for a treat. This is the sweeps week episode, the epic crossover episode, the mega episode. We're going to need our editor to insert some epic sound effects right here. Announcer: The mega episode. BRITTANY: So let's go ahead and introduce the crew today. I am Brittany Martin from the Ruby on Rails Podcast. CHRIS OLIVER: I'm Chris Oliver from Remote Ruby. JASON CHARNES: I am Jason Charnes, also from Remote Ruby. ANDREW: I am Andrew Mason, also from Remote Ruby. STEPH: And I'm Stephanie Viccari from The Bike Shed. CHRIS TOOMEY: I'm Chris Toomey from The Bike Shed. JASON SWETT: And I'm Jason Swett from Rails with Jason BRITTANY: Today, we're going to cover the origins of our shows, our experiences as hosts, and why podcasting is so important in keeping the Ruby community thriving. Now I know personally, I really enjoy the origin story behind Remote Ruby. So, Chris Oliver, could you kick us off with that? CHRIS OLIVER: Yeah, we can go back maybe to the first time that Jason and I met, which was Jason emailed me out of the blue and was like, "Hey, are you going to be at RailsConf?" And I wasn't planning on it, but it was over in Kansas City, like four hours away from me. I was like, "No, I'm not going, but I'll meet you." So we went and drove over there and met and have been friends ever since. And Jason had the idea of doing an online meetup. And I'll let him explain where that started and turned into the Remote Ruby Podcast. JASON CHARNES: I thought it would be a good idea. There weren't any online meetups. This was pre even the idea of shutting down the world for a pandemic. And maybe I was just too soon because I got Chris to speak at the first one, and we had 40, 50 people. I spoke at the next one, and there were 20. And by the third one, there were five of us. So it wasn't really a super sustainable thing for me to do. So Chris and I got together and said, "What if we tried podcasting?" Chris, you hadn't really done your own podcast at that point, had you? CHRIS OLIVER: No, I don't think so. And you and I were just having calls every week or whatever just to hang out and chat. And we were like, why don't we just record that and publish that as a podcast? And here we are. JASON CHARNES: Yeah. So we've been doing that. I think we started in 2018, so yeah, three years in June, and somehow people still keep listening to us talk but probably because we brought along our friend, Andrew. ANDREW: Wow. Okay. No, that's not true. But yes, I was a guest on Remote Ruby before I joined as a host. And not to get into the details, but I was on another podcast, and something went down, and I no longer was on that podcast anymore. And Chris and Jason were like, "Do you want to come hang out with us?" And I was like, [chuckles] "Absolutely." So I started doing that, and at the same time, I also started The Ruby Blend with Nate Hopkins and Ron Cooke. And so we were doing that for a while until that had to tragically shut down. But I'm still here with Jason and Chris. I guess I should also mention that Jason Swett gave me my start in podcasting a month or two after I started full-time as a Rails developer on a now archived show called The Ruby Testing Podcast. BRITTANY: Which is the perfect segue because Jason Swett was also my first opportunity to guest on a podcast. So I was already hosting, but I hadn't guested, which is kind of the opposite order. So, Jason, do you want to tell the origin of where Rails with Jason came from? JASON SWETT: Sure. I'd been involved with podcasting since around 2016. I somehow ended up on the Ruby Rogues Podcast and was on there for maybe a year or so. And then, somehow, I got the idea that I could start my own podcast. And as an experiment, I started a podcast that I called The Ruby Testing Podcast, which I figured was sufficiently narrow that I could get some traction. And to my surprise, guests actually said yes to coming on the show. And also, to my surprise, people actually listened to the podcast. That gave me some confidence. So maybe a year later, I broadened, and I changed from The Ruby Testing Podcast to just Rails with Jason. And I have been doing that for something like two years. BRITTANY: That's fantastic. I want to move to probably our most experienced podcast veteran, and that would be Chris Toomey. When I was learning how to code, I was listening to Giant Robots and then was excited for the transition that The Bike Shed took. Chris, I would love to hear the story of what it was like taking over a really popular podcast and really maintaining the drive behind it. CHRIS TOOMEY: So, as you mentioned, I had done a little bit of podcasting. It was about a six-month run where I was a co-host on Giant Robots, which was the original podcast of thoughtbot. And that was more in the business and sort of how do we build a software company? So at that point, I was running Upcase, which was the subscription learning platform that thoughtbot had. So I was talking about the inner details of the business, and the marketing tests, and A/B tests and things like that that I was doing. And every week, I was sharing my MRR rather transparently in that thoughtbot way that we do. I did that for, like I said, about six months and then took a while off. And in the background, thoughtbot had started up a new podcast called The Bike Shed, and that started October 31st of 2014. So The Bike Shed has been going for a long time now, and that was hosted by Derek Pryor and Sage Griffin. And they ran that for a number of years. I think it was about four years that the two of them worked collectively on that. But at some point, they both moved on from thoughtbot, and there was an opportunity for new hosts to step in. So I took over in August of 2018. So I've been doing this now for about three years. And so, for that first year, I took the opportunity to do a tour around thoughtbot and talk with many different individuals from the company and a handful of people external to thoughtbot. But I knew that there were so many great voices and ideas and points of view within thoughtbot that I really wanted to spend some time getting to know more of them personally and then sharing that as much as I could with the existing audience that The Bike Shed had. But secretly, all along, I was looking for a person to hang out with all the more so, and Steph was the person that was a perfect choice for that. And so, for the past two years, Steph and I have been chatting. And I will send it over to Steph to share a little bit of her point of view on that transition. But from my point of view, it's been fantastic. STEPH: I still remember exactly when we had the conversation. You were running The Bike Shed and doing an incredible job of just having weekly guests. And then you'd reached out to me and said, "Hey, would you be interested in doing an episode?" And I thought, "No, absolutely not. I can't podcast. I can't begin to do this." So you continued to convince me. And finally, you said something that resonated where you were like, "Well, we can just show up and record, and we don't have to publish. We can just see how it goes." I was like, that's a perfect safety net. I'm into that. So I showed up, and I think the first episode that you and I recorded ended up being titled What I Believe About Software. And it was a lot of fun. I realized I have a lot of things to say. And after that, I think it was another month or so. You continued interviewing more guests, but then you reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to be a co-host. And at that point, I was super jazzed about it, and it's been wonderful. It's been a roller coaster. I have learned a ton. BRITTANY: I'm kind of seeing a pattern here where over the last three years, it seems like Remote Ruby came into place, Bike Shed transitioned. That's when I took over as host of the 5by5 Ruby on Rails Podcast. We're going to call it the golden era of the Ruby Podcasts. But for me, I probably have the longest-running podcast. It was started back in 2009 on the 5by5 Network, but it's gone through many different hosts. And so, I took over roughly about three and a half years ago as the main host from Kyle Daigle. And then, just a couple of weeks ago, as I announced on my podcast, we took the podcast independent. We are now just The Ruby on Rails Podcast. And I'm starting to change the model where I'm bringing in more co-hosts. So that way, I can get those regular updates that I really appreciate on all these podcasts we have featured on the show today. I am curious. I want to talk about how we put together the episodes and plan out how everything's going to go down. I know for me, I'm currently a mix of interviews and co-host episodes. So I'd love to hear from Andrew. How do you plan out what Remote Ruby is going to be week to week? ANDREW: This is an easy question because we don't at all. We don't plan. We do have some guests that come on, and sometimes, they may get their Zoom link the day of; who's to say? But we really don't have a plan. We don't talk about what we're going to talk about beforehand. We all just kind of show up, and I think we have that kind of relationship and flow where it always just works. JASON CHARNES: And I think part of that came from actually how Chris and I started the show because we were trying to make it as low stress as possible because we knew if we put a lot of pressure on it, we would stop doing it. Our first episodes were YouTube live links that we just shared out. And then in our next episodes, we were like, oh, we should start using some software to do this. And then eventually, we got an editor, but that same core of let's just keep it fun for better or for worse, I think, also affects our planning. BRITTANY: I've been lucky in the sense that I have guests sit on all three of the episodes. And I do want to give a compliment to The Bike Shed because it is very well run and very well planned. So I want to kick it over to Steph as to how putting together a Bike Shed episode looks. STEPH: Oh, thank you. That's wonderful to hear, by the way. That's wonderful feedback. So we predominantly use Trello to organize our thoughts. So we will have...and as we're capturing community questions that are coming in, so we will capture those on the board. And then, we will have a ticket that represents a particular episode. Usually, on the day of, we'll share some thoughts about, hey, these are the broad topics I'm interested in. And there's usually some hot takes in there, which is fun because the other person doesn't know exactly what's coming, and we can have real honest conversations on the mic. And then, every so often, we'll grab a beer, and we'll go through that list. And we'll chat through what sparks joy. What do we want to talk about? What would we like to respond to? And that's pretty much how we organize everything that we discuss. Chris, is there anything I've left out that you want to add? CHRIS TOOMEY: I think that mostly covers it. We do occasionally have interviews just as a way to keep some variety and different things going on, but primarily it's the sort of what's new in your world? And I find that those episodes are the ones that I think are the most fun to record for Steph and I when it really feels like a sincere conversation. I've recently taken to a segment I call good idea, terrible idea where I'm like, "I'm actually considering this, Steph. What do you think?" And live on-air, I'm getting Steph's feedback, and generally, we're very aligned. But every once in a while, she's like, "That's a terrible idea. Don't do that." And I love those, and I love being able to share that because I think it's really easy to talk about, you know, here's a list of things that are true about software, but really, everything depends. And it's all the nuance. And so, being able to share some of our more pointed experiences and then share the conversation that we have over those is hopefully very valuable to the audience but definitely the thing that I enjoy the most. BRITTANY: So kicking it over to Jason Swett, I really enjoy the interviews that you do. I'm curious, how do you select guests? JASON SWETT: Well, thanks. Selecting guests is tough. I had Peter Cooper on the other day, and I was telling him that I feel like every guest that I get on the show is the last guest I'm ever going to be able to get on the show. But somehow, I keep finding more and more guests. Early on, it was relatively easy because I would just find book authors, or if somebody else does podcasting, then it's fairly obvious okay, you're the kind of person who does podcasts, so I'll invite you. But it's a little bit tough because I don't want to invite people who aren't into podcasting and would be really thrown, although sometimes that happens. But let's see, sometimes I send an email out to my email list, and I'm like, "Hey, I'm looking for guests for my show." Sometimes I just tweet that I'm looking for guests. And sometimes I get some really interesting guests from surprising places. But at least in the start, it was looking for those authors and podcasters and the people who are known in the Ruby community. BRITTANY: I know for me, I strive to have at least 50% of my interviews be with people who've never been on a podcast before. And so that usually involves the top of the episode they're dry heaving into a paper bag. And I'm explaining to them, don't worry, about halfway through the episode, you're not going to remember that you're recording anymore. It'll be fine. And you know what? It's always fine. And so, I do love hearing from a wide variety from the Ruby community just because it really proves just how big it is. So I'm curious, could you host the podcast that you are currently hosting now if you weren't actively working in Ruby? ANDREW: I could because Chris is the one that has all the clout. I could sit back and make dumb jokes and memes during it. And as long as Chris is there, I think we'll be good. JASON SWETT: Yeah, I think I could because a good majority of what we talk about on Rails with Jason actually has nothing to do with Rails, so that would probably actually work out. STEPH: I think yes is the answer. While a lot of our conversations do focus around Ruby and Rails, we often use a lot of other languages and tools, and those are a lot of fun to talk about. So I think I would just talk about whatever new tool or language that I'm using. So I think yes, it would just take a slightly different form but would still be at its core the same where we're still talking about our daily experiments and adventures in web development. BRITTANY: I agree with you, Steph. I will say that it seems like Chris Oliver and Chris Toomey have an endless well of things to talk about just based on what they do day-to-day. CHRIS TOOMEY: I try and go on adventures and then share as much as I can. But to resonate with what Steph was saying there, we try to make the show more generally about software, and it happens to be that it's grounded in Ruby on Rails because the vast majority of the work that we do is in that. And I just recently started a new project. I was given the choice of I could pick any technology I want, and it remains the technology that makes sense to me to be the foundation of an application that I want to maintain for years and years and years. So, on the one hand, I think I could definitely talk about software more generally. I think I'm doing that most of the time. But at the other end of the spectrum, but it's always going to be based on Ruby because I haven't found a thing elsewhere in the world that is better than that. CHRIS OLIVER: I completely agree with that. I probably have a little bit of a unique thing doing a screencast every week. A lot of those are based on I'm building some project, and I need to build some random feature like Stripe Checkout. And that's a good one to do a screencast on and implement in the project. And then, we can also talk about the decisions along the way on the podcast, which is kind of nice. BRITTANY: Yeah, it feels like every week, Chris Oliver is like, yeah, I've created a new open-source library, and I'm fabulous. [laughs] Let me listen to this. CHRIS OLIVER: Too many of them. I'm currently rewriting a lot of the Pay gem. And it's just one of those things where you make a bunch of decisions. And then, if you make an open-source project, people use it in all these different ways that you didn't intend yourself, and so you want to support that. But then you need to rearchitect things in it. It is a lot of learning as you go, which is always a lot of fun. So those I think are really good topics to talk about when you're building something like that. I'm always amazed by how does the Rails core team make these decisions on what should be in the framework and what shouldn't? And what do they want to maintain, and how do they keep it flexible but yet have some sort of rule with how they allow things to be implemented and whatever? It is a very hard job to have. So I get my little taste of that with some open source but not on their level. BRITTANY: I always thought that you had a good contrast to Jason Charnes because Jason works at Podia. And while you do get to work on a lot of really cool technologies, I feel like the stakes are much higher. So you can't just rip out StimulusReflex and put in something else just because it sounds cool that week. And I love how you talk through the pluses and minuses to making a big change within the Podia codebase. JASON CHARNES: Yeah. I haven't really thought about that contrast before, but it's helpful for me even just to talk it out with two other people once a week, and luckily, pretty cool about me just coming on and talking about hey, these are the steps we took to get here. Yeah, it's a cool dynamic. BRITTANY: Steph, have you ever had a client from thoughtbot say, "Hey, were you talking about me?" whenever you're talking about your current client? STEPH: That is one of my fears at times that it will happen [chuckles] although we stay very positive on the show. That's something that's very important to us. There's enough negativity in the world. So we really want to focus on our positive experiences through the week. But there have been times where I'm speaking about some of the challenges or things that we are running into that yes, the engineering team is listening to the podcast, and they're like, "Oh, I heard you talk about this feature that we're working on or this particular challenge." And that's really cool because they get that behind-the-scenes peek to see how Chris and I are chatting about that. But yet they know enough, and they know which project that I'm on that they recognize exactly the technology and the feature that I'm trying to describe. So that has certainly happened, and it can be a lot of fun when it does. BRITTANY: Andrew, how have things changed for you now that you're not working at CodeFund, which was very much like an open-source thing? People could see what you were actively working on. And now you're working for a company where it's closed source. And so, you might not be able to reveal as much as what you're working on at any given point. ANDREW: It's different, but I don't think it's been an issue per se. I'm not like, oh crap, I let that slip, and I didn't mean to. That's not really an issue. I really cherish the time I had at CodeFund. When I think back on my experiences, that was my favorite time just because I was able to do that thing that a lot of people really want to do. I was working as an open-source developer. We were spiking StimulusReflex; that's when we were building up StimulusReflex and trying to build up the community. I joined Ruby. We started the Ruby Blend, and things were going good before a dramatic turn. But in terms of the closed and open source, it hasn't been that big of a shift just because instead of talking about what I'm doing at work, like, I still talk about it, but I speak about it in more general terms. But I also then kind of freed up to talk a lot more about the dumb crap I do on the nights and weekends. BRITTANY: So the majority of our podcasts either have the word Ruby or Rails in it, but I think we've all agreed that a lot of the topics that we're talking about are not specific to that community. But in a lot of ways, I feel that having podcasts in our community is how we're going to keep our community thriving. So I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts around...is there a way to market our podcasts so that other developers will listen to it? I get really excited when I get listener feedback saying, "Hey, I used to do Rails maybe ten years ago, but I've been listening to your podcast, and I really enjoy such and such episode." How can we make our podcasts accessible to the general software community as opposed to just Ruby? CHRIS TOOMEY: One thing that stands out to me about Ruby and Rails is because it's full-stack, because of its foundations, it tends to be holistically about web development. And so, whereas I look at React projects or other JavaScript or different things that are going on, I see a more narrow focus in those frameworks. And with Ruby and Rails, what I love about it is that it's really about building software. It's about building products that are valuable, that deliver value to end-users. And so that being the core of it, that's the story that constantly brings me back to Ruby and Rails. And it's the story that I want to keep telling as much as possible. And it's the thing that keeps me engaged with this community. And so, I think podcasts are a great way to continue to literally tell those sorts of stories and really celebrate that aspect of Ruby and Rails and why it remains such a productive way to build software. CHRIS OLIVER: I think related to that, one of the things that we should talk about more is the draw of Rails was look at what you can do with one person or two people. And I feel like we went down the JavaScript route, and now you need two teams of people, and you end up building bigger stuff. And Hotwire has kind of been like, hey, here's a reminder of what you can do with a very small team. And I think that resonates a lot with a lot of people building startups and trying to build side projects and everything. And that's one that is Rails-related. But there's a ton of people building Hotwire stuff in Laravel too. And they're all very similar. So I think at a certain point, yeah, we're talking about maybe Rails specifically, but you can apply all those things to different frameworks and just different tools. STEPH: I'd like to add on and extend that because I wholeheartedly agree with what both Chris Toomey and Chris Oliver just said. And in addition, a lot of the conversations that we have on The Bike Shed are focused on Ruby and Rails, but then we will extract that particular concept to the point that it really doesn't matter which language that you're using or which framework that you're using. We're talking more about the high level. What's your process? What are you thinking as you're going through and implementing this? And based on more of our recent conversations, you'd think we're more of a Postgres podcast, how much we hype up Postgres, and the things that we can do at the database layer. So I think there are a lot of ways that we can start with a foundation of this is how we're doing it with Ruby and Rails, but then talk about it at a higher level where then it's really applicable for everybody. JASON CHARNES: If talking about one technology defined your podcast, we might as well be a Laravel podcast because we talk about that framework more than we do Rails sometimes. [chuckles] BRITTANY: So that begs the question: is there room for more Ruby and Rails podcasts outside of who's currently on this call? JASON SWETT: I think so. And I mentioned that Peter Cooper was on our podcast a little bit ago. That's something he and I actually talked about in that episode. And I shared the anecdote about how in the new America's founding, Ben Franklin's brother or something like that wanted to start a newspaper. And somebody told him what a dumb idea that was because America already had a newspaper. And people might say, oh, there are already however many Rails podcasts. There are a small handful. But I think there could be ten more Rails podcasts or even more than that potentially because I think people have an appetite for help, and camaraderie, and stuff like that. And I don't think we've nearly bottomed out in terms of satisfying people's appetite for that stuff. JASON CHARNES: Yeah, I agree with that because a lot of times, when I listen to podcasts, the more you get to know someone, that connection becomes what it's about for me. So, yeah, there's plenty of room. I mean, brand it as Ruby and tell me about your life as a developer I'll listen. CHRIS TOOMEY: I'll also throw it out there that the way you framed the question is like, is there room for it? But one of the wonderful things about podcasting as a medium is it is distributed. It's not centralized. You can start up a podcast any day. And I will say, as someone who inherited a popular podcast or a sufficiently popular podcast and just got to run with that, it has been such a wonderful way to get my voice out there and provide opportunities that I want that for everyone. I want everyone to have this ability to speak about the way they think about software and then find like-minded people and be able to build even many communities within the larger community of Ruby on Rails. So beyond the question of, Is there room?” which I definitely think there is, I so wholeheartedly support anyone pursuing this for their own reason. ANDREW: Yeah, I think to bring it all the way back, one thing that Chris, Jason, and I care a lot about is Ruby as a community. The community aspects of Ruby are very important to us. And we're actively trying to build that up and bring in new people and bringing people onto their first podcast. We say it all the time, like, hey, if you want to come on the show, let us know. We've had a few people even, you know, recognition in jobs from that. So to us, that is the payoff of doing the show. Maybe our show is the first time someone learns about Rails. And that to me is the possibility in the future. It's like, how can we market our shows that markets Ruby as well so that this meme of Ruby being dead finally goes away because it's not. I think it's growing. And I think the more and more we push as people who are public figures in this space that we want to bring more people on, that this is a space for everyone, I think that's just kind of the ethos that all of us have, and I think that's great. BRITTANY: So I'm curious, on a lighter note, has anyone had the funny experience of realizing that you're not just podcasting into the ether and that what you're saying and what you're doing matters? For me, I have definitely been at conferences where people will run up and hug me just because they heard my voice, and they are like, "I didn't know what you looked like, but I have your voice memorized," and it just blew my mind. And I was like, "Thank you so much for being such a loyal listener." And it just proves that people are out there listening. ANDREW: I tend to talk very openly about mental health. And I very often fail in public and talk about it. And I've had a lot of people message me and email me over the past three or four years and be like, "Hey, thank you for talking about this thing that's not actually about Ruby. It's not actually about coding, but it's just about being a developer." And those are the emails that make me feel the best. Like, someone who's out there like, "Yeah, I also feel like this. Thank you for speaking about it." JASON SWETT: I had a surreal experience. I went to India in 2019 through RubyConf India. And this guy wanted to take a selfie with me because apparently, he considered me famous. So that was cool and pretty surprising because I definitely didn't consider myself famous. STEPH: My favorite has been when we receive listener questions because it lets us know that people are listening and engaged in the conversation, and I essentially feel like they're part of the conversation. They will write in to us and share anecdotes, or they'll share answers to some of the questions that Chris and I will pose on the show. But every now and then, we will also get an email from someone that says, "Hey, just thanks for doing the show. I listen, and it's great," and that's all they share. And that, to me, is just the most wonderful thing that I could receive. BRITTANY: Some of my favorite episodes from all of your shows is when we get an inside peek into what people are doing, like Andrew moving. Jason Charnes, you putting together a conference was actually some of my favorite episodes of yours, which was really early on, which proves that I'm a Remote Ruby OG. But I loved hearing the inside track as to what organizing a conference is because I think we need to get more content out there about how difficult but how rewarding it is. JASON CHARNES: Yeah, I hadn't really thought about...that was around those times we hadn't done... It feels like it's been ages since we did Southeast Ruby, but Chris and I actually podcasted from the last Southeast Ruby we did. We just met in a room and recorded. But when I started that conference, I didn't have a lot to go on. So I'm more than glad to share because the reason I started is there were no Ruby conferences around me, plus I'm an open book. So for better or for worse, maybe that's good podcast material. JASON SWETT: Side note, it's one of the most enjoyable conferences I've ever been to. JASON CHARNES: Thank you. BRITTANY: I completely agree. I miss the regional conferences. JASON CHARNES: We lucked out because we were already planning on skipping 2020 because we were tired, and then COVID hit. I just sat on the couch one night and looked at Shannon (she helps me put on the conference), and I was like, "Wow, that would have been terrible. That would have come out of our own bank account, all that loss if we would have already booked somewhere." So phew, when it chills out, we'll try it again. BRITTANY: So let's talk about legacies. I know that some of us have taken over from popular podcasts. Some of us have grown podcasts from the very beginning. So I'm curious, do you ever put any thought into the legacy of your podcast, whether or not you're going to stay with it to the end? Would you eventually pass it off? Do you think about whether or not it's your responsibility to the community to make sure that it keeps going? JASON SWETT: I, for one, plan to have my consciousness uploaded to a supercomputer upon my death so that the Rails with Jason Podcast can continue on indefinitely. JASON CHARNES: Did you recently watch Upload the TV show? JASON SWETT: No, I've never heard of it. JASON CHARNES: Oh, man. That's a whole nother conversation. BRITTANY: Consider that homework, Jason. JASON CHARNES: It's an interesting question because we started ours out of nothing. I wonder, is one of us going to get tired and just quit? I'd like to think that if one of us did, it would keep going because there are plenty of cool people who could hang out and talk Ruby on it. But it's interesting, something that's casually crossed my mind, but I think we're good. I think we're still doing it unless Chris and Andrew have a surprise for me today. ANDREW: Surprise! [chuckles] I've thought about it a few times, specifically because I'm the youngest member of Remote Ruby. What if Jason and Chris just left, and they were like, "Oh, it's all yours now." Could I keep running it by myself? I think honestly, the answer is I would probably still do it just to have an excuse to talk to someone. I enjoy it. It's almost like a hobby at this point. I don't feel any obligation to create it. To me, it's really like an excuse to hang out with two friends, and other good stuff comes from that. But at the end of the day, I cherish that time just us hanging out a lot. CHRIS OLIVER: Yeah. I think that's why we sometimes joke about it being a weekly therapy session where we are just hanging out and chatting about stuff. It's nice to be able to talk about programming things at a high level with people you don't work with that have totally different perspectives and stuff. So yeah, if Jason and Andrew dropped off, I would still try to have conversations with random people I know and keep it going just because it's enjoyable. I would hope that we would be able to keep it going and have other people on there. BRITTANY: I'd love to hear from someone from The Bike Shed. STEPH: I have thought about it. I've thought about it partially from the perspective that Chris Toomey brought up earlier in regards to being on a podcast is an incredible platform. You get to share your opinions, and people listen to you. And they know you, and it's really wonderful marketing. So I have thought about it from the perspective of I want other people to have access to this really wonderful podcast that we put on each week. So part of me is very aware of that and thinking about how more people can have similar exposures. So a sort of a similar event occurred when Chris was moving on from thoughtbot and pursuing other interests. And at that moment, I just thought, oh my goodness, Chris brought me on as co-host, and now I'm here alone, and I don't know what I'm going to do. And I just panicked. I truly don't think I even considered other options. I was like, well, okay, it's over now. This was fun. And then it turned out where Chris was going to stay with the show. So things have just gone on swimmingly, and it's been wonderful. But similar to what someone was saying earlier around when you start listening to a podcast, and you really develop that relationship and you go back to that podcast because you really enjoy hearing from those people and their adventures, it's very similar for me where The Bike Shed is very much the conversations and chats with Chris. So I think if we were to move on, it would be whenever Chris and I decided to move on and give the reins over to somebody else. I don't know if Chris fully agrees, so this will be interesting to find out. [chuckles] CHRIS TOOMEY: I agree with that. Honestly, I'm honored to have continued on in the podcast after having moved on from thoughtbot because, in a very real way, the show is thoughtbot's channel to talk about things. I was at thoughtbot for seven years. I think I live and breathe that truth. And to me, that's what maybe has made sense for me to continue on. But I really do feel a responsibility to keep the show in good shape so that someday someone else gets to inherit this thing because I was so happy to get handed it. It was such a wonderful thing. And it has been such a joy to do for these past three years. But at some point, I do presume that we will move on. And at that point, I do hope that other people pick up the mantle. And thankfully, thoughtbot as an organization, there is a group of individuals that I'm sure there will be someone wonderful that gets to step in, but I'm in no hurry to do that. And, Steph, I hope you're not either. So we'll continue the conversations for now, but I definitely do want to keep this thing alive if for no other reason than I got handed it. I don't feel like I could let it drop on the floor. That doesn't feel right. BRITTANY: Well, I think on that warm, fuzzy feeling, we should wrap up. So let's go through everybody and just tell the listeners where they can listen to your podcasts and follow you. I am Brittany Martin, @BrittJMartin on Twitter. And you can listen to the Ruby on Rails Podcast at therubyonrailspodcast.com. JASON CHARNES: So I'm Jason. We are Remote Ruby. I am @jmcharnes on Twitter. And I'll let the others tell you where you can find them. ANDREW: You can find me everywhere @andrewmcodes. And if you email me, there's a really good chance you're never going to see a response because my email is a disaster. Please don't email me, but you can contact me anywhere else. CHRIS OLIVER: I'm Chris Oliver, and you can find me on Twitter @excid3 or at Go Rails, and of course, gorails.com. And you can find the Remote Ruby podcast at remoteruby.com. CHRIS TOOMEY: I am @christoomey on Twitter. The Bike Shed is @bikeshed on Twitter. We are at bikeshed.fm for a URL. I'm pretty sure www works, but I'm going to go check that real quick after because I want to make sure that's true. And yeah, that's me. And I'll send it over to Steph for her part. STEPH: I am on Twitter @SViccari, and I post programming stuff, usually pictures of cute goats, cute dogs, that kind of content if you're into that. JASON SWETT: For me, if you want to find my podcast, it's Rails with Jason. And if you search for Rails with Jason anywhere, you should be able to find it. And then my website, if you're interested in my blog and all that stuff, is codewithjason.com. BRITTANY: Fantastic. Thank you, everyone, for being on this mega episode today. It was a lot of fun. We are going to be having a podcast panel at RubyConf; we're excited to announce and some of us will be present. So stay tuned for details around that. And if you enjoyed this mega episode and want to see more mega episodes, please let us know on Twitter. All: Bye. CHRIS: The show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. STEPH: This show is produced and edited by Mandy Moore. CHRIS: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review on iTunes, as it really helps other folks find the show. STEPH: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @bikeshed or reach me on Twitter @SViccari. CHRIS: And I'm @christoomey. STEPH: Or you can reach us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. CHRIS: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. All: Bye. Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

Chris Ferdinandi helps people learn vanilla JavaScript. He believes there's a simpler, more resilient way to make things for the web. His developer tips newsletter is read by thousands of developers each weekday which you can check out at GoMakeThings.com.In college, Chris had a lot of curiosities and even 4-5 majors before landing in Anthropology. He loved studying the content, but the work wasn't exactly interesting to him. His dad suggested he explore the world of HR (Human Resources) and he did, for quite a while in fact.Interested in helping people solve problems within the world of HR, he started a blog and began teaching himself WordPress, HTML, and CSS. As he was learning but still working at his 9-5 job, he and his HR manager had the idea to create a scavenger hunt app to help new hires learn more about the company. The problem was that it was WAY too expensive to outsource and have someone else build. So Chris was given the opportunity to build it himself! And while creating that app, he discovered the joy of building and creating something with code. He has since gone on to become a Sr. Front-End Engineer! He has also developed deep expertise on Vanilla JS and teaches people how to create powerful and exciting things with it!We discuss how to know when you're ready to apply for your first web development job. Chris's advice is to apply even sooner than when you feel ready! He encourages folks to teach others, help newbies, and blog about your learning to help others on their journey as it can help you find a job too! Resources: GoMakeThings.comFollow Chris on Twitter @chrisferdinandiVanilla JS Podcast Vanilla JS AcademyDeveloper Tips NewsletterWe Belong Here Podcast:Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding: https://twitter.com/LoLoCodingWeBelongPodcast.com https://webelongpodcast.com/Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-belong-here-lessons-from-unconventional-paths-to-tech/id1455784370#episodeGuid=Buzzsprout-6495208Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0YilCmVxb3t9dHAYCQoExCWe Belong Here Discord CommunityJoin us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord 

Chris Prefontaine is a three times Best Selling Author of Real Estate on Your Terms, The New Rules of Real Estate Investing, and Moneeka Sawyer's Real Estate Investing for Women. He's also the Founder and CEO of SmartRealEstateCoach.com and host of the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast. In this episode we talked about: How Chris got into Real Estate The “On Terms” investment strategy Non-bank financing Owner financing Principal only payments Family run businesses Importance of value and mission statements The value of discipline The power of self accountability The impact of Great Recession on Real Estate profitability Searching for Deals Distribution of Team Roles Opportunities in 2021 Mentorship, Resources and Lessons Learned Useful links: https://smartrealestatecoach.com Transcription: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to working capital the real estate podcast. My name is Jesse Fragale and my special guest today is Chris Prefontaine. Chris is a three-time bestselling author of real estate on your terms, the new rules of real estate investing and when Nika Sawyer is real estate investing for women, he's also the founder and CEO of smart real estate coach.com and the host of smart real estate coach podcast.    Chris, how's it going?    Chris (47s): I am doing awesome. Thanks Jesse. Thanks for having me on.    Jesse (50s): Yeah, my pleasure. Like I was saying before the show, we're very happy to have you on, I did get a copy of your book. I believe the one I received was new rules of real estate investing. I brought that into, into the brokerage into the office. So a lot of good stuff in there. I found it really interesting just because it took a little bit of a different approach as it was kind of a best or greatest hits of different people and different experts giving their view. So hopefully we can get into that. How's everything been. I mean, we're in a bit of a unique world right now.    How have you, how have you been fairing over the last, the last year or so?    Chris (1m 27s): Yeah, we're super busy. I hate to, I hesitate all the time to say that, cause I know some people get hurt, but literally from April 1st, 2020, we have crank and it got a little tight with the market being so crazy these last few months, but we're literally, as of this morning, seeing the people commenting and the deals going up through the roof again all across north America. So that's kinda neat. We built this to kind of hit all markets and it's doing well with it, you know, it's been tested.    Jesse (1m 54s): Yeah, for sure. So for listeners, a little bit of a background, your experience ranges back into the nineties for those, you know, that it's the first time hearing your name, hearing you speak. Maybe you could talk a little bit about your history and how you got into real estate. Obviously, you know, you've seen more cycles than a, well, I'd say a few of the guests that we have on more than I wanted to probably yeah. So high    Chris (2m 20s): Level, right? Cause it would be 30 years. It'd be here too long, but I, I journeyed into real estate doing some building. I never was a builder, had a partner who ran the field. I ran inside. We did everything on terms back then without knowing it without calling it terms, I was in my twenties. So we, we found lots. We pre-market them. We sold a finished package and everybody could pay it a day and it was pretty cool. I then bought a Realty executives, franchise, mid nineties, sold that to Coldwell banker, ultimately in 2000. And then I started coaching people throughout U S and Canada, heavy Canada at the time, coincidentally up in Toronto, but 48 clients or so up there that while that was going on, I started doing some of my own investments from 2000 up to the crash.    And then that brought us to today in the sense that the crash has beat us up. I mean that I was on personally on signature in the U S on loans, 23 properties or so. So in the values drop where they come in, they're coming to me, unfortunately. So that caused us though, Jesse to rewrite the rules. So to speak, not to use the book, no pun intended there, but causes us to recreate what we're doing. Re-engineer what we're doing. And that is now we buy everything on a terms. We do not use banks. We don't sign personally. We very rarely if ever used that capital and that way I can go to sleep at night, knowing that we're not at risk, if we were a pre crash, you know?    So we've gone through all those storms that you alluded to and rebuild this model to only buy on terms.    Jesse (3m 43s): So before we get into that, the clear follow up question is would, is on terms. But before we do in the nineties and subsequent to that, w w was the wheelhouse for you in real estate? What, was there something that, that, you know, gave you the bug of, of wanting to get into real estate, as opposed to, you know, other areas,    Chris (4m 4s): You know, the bug so to speak was when I was younger, my dad was not in real estate. He would, he had a welding business, but he had branches. And as he would expand, he personally would build the building and lease it back to the business. And I was young and I go, whoa, you're the same person. How does it, like, how do you do that? So that's where I started to learn real estate. And it was kind of cool. He always said that up until a few years ago. So then he would find land tracks of land engineer, do the engineering and flip them. So he just always tinkered. And I had, I really was around that environment a lot. And then, so as soon as he sold the company back in 91, I think he sold his company where I was working.    I went into real estate. That's when I started building    Jesse (4m 41s): Right on. Awesome. So let's move on to that for, for listeners. W w you know, you hear in the industry, I mean, not so long ago, the first time I heard that on terms, you know, you alluded to a little bit about getting non-conventional financing. Why don't you give listeners just kind of an understanding of what that means?    Chris (5m 1s): Yeah. So for us terms means a better word that people would recognize as creative real estate, right? So terms for us means three things. We buy, lease, purchase, owner financing, or subject to existing financing, lease purchase being, in my opinion, the simplest entry, if you're new, we're looking to expand what you're doing, because you're not taking title. Your risk is definitely minimal. You are in our agreements. Anyway, you are putting up $10 for at least prejudice. All our properties.    We could show about 80 million with our students in our own, and there's not more than a few thousand spent total on all the 80 million control, because a lot of us that own these purchase on a freelancing niche is a little bit different niche. We drill down deeper than just regular on a pricing. We look Jessie for a free and clear properties. So owners that are free and clear, they're in a good spot. Most of them not even in the market and they want longer term, they want the, the, the, the estate planning or the tax planning to be longer term my building. I'm not in it today, but my building right, five minutes from my house was bought from an investor who had this building for 120 years, 18 years, it was free and clear.    And he sold to me on owner financing. You know, I don't care where you are. If you go for a mixed use building loan right now, it's grueling underwriting. I didn't do any of that. It was a handshake quick PNS closing in 30 days done. So just,    Jesse (6m 23s): Just to recap there, lease purchase owner financing, and what was the third one subject    Chris (6m 28s): To existing finance. So sub two for slang, sub two. So that means I buy your house for those listening and you owe some money on it, but I'm buying it. And the loan is staying in your name, even though deeds transferring. And so, again, I own the house. I don't have a lease purchase on it. I own it. And I'd appreciate it. And I get all the owner benefits, but the loan stays in your name until someday I cash it out.    Jesse (6m 49s): Interesting. I, you know, I've, I've heard, I've heard this recently called something different, but that, so in the, in, so it's not, it's outright ownership. It's not a lien on the house. It's you actually owning and being like you said, being able to depreciate.    Chris (7m 2s): Yeah, no, definitely own it. It, you know, disclosure do, do people who have a ton of equity typically, are they okay with entering into that with their name and alone? No. Do do sellers who don't know you that well, gladly jump into that environment. No, not all of them. Now, many of them will enter a lease purchase. We'll build up the trust will build up the credibility and we'll transfer that to a sub to later that happens a lot or someone needs immediate debt relief, and frankly, they don't care.    They want it done. They'll do sub two.    Jesse (7m 35s): Yeah. I could see that. I mean, the logical movement from owner financing where, you know, sometimes you have two, three year debt and then having a track record and building up, and then being able to push the relationship further, the lease purchase th this, this piece here is this, would this be similar to an assignment or a wholesale or, or is this something different?    Chris (7m 57s): Good question. So the way at least purchase works and you can circle back and say, yup, bingo or no, I didn't hit it. So all these purchases like this, let's say your house, we agree it's worth about 300 grand. You owe about two 50. My lease purchase says, I'm going to start making your underlying debt payment on your behalf, but everything stayed in your name. Once I find my buyer, we put tenant buyers in these homes rent down. So once I find my buyer, I got, and I stopped making payments on your property with the promise that on or before the end of the term, I'm going to pay off your loan, which is less.    Now that's my benefit. And I'm going to give you a 50 grand equity that we agreed. You had some projecting that as long as you can wait for it. So what's the difference between that and maybe an assignment or a wholesale. We get paid three ways on all our deals. So we trade rocked out in the United States. So we get, we get payments upfront. We get payments over time. We get payments when we sell versus one payday. So, which I did for years, it's lucrative. But I don't know if that answered your question. Yeah.    Jesse (8m 52s): I think it did. In terms of, you know, you hear so many different terms in real estate and really trying to drill down on what exactly it is. And that could go from, you know, everything changes from country to country, state, to state province, the province. And, you know, there might be just a wrinkle. That's a little bit different. You mentioned patented or certain trademarks. How did you go about that process? Having that trademark? Are you talking about the, just the term itself?    Chris (9m 15s): Yeah. Three paydays. So we created that after we re-engineer things after the crash to get paid three times, I just started saying, wait a minute. It's like, I'm on a treadmill. Real estate treated me really good, but it's like, you're on a treadmill. Every January, you start over, right. If you're doing building or wholesaling or you're real tight, did that for years. So this way we get paid three times and yeah, we had attorneys file in the United States, took awhile for three pay days. We have all the things like our logo and things that in the company, but three paydays was an important one because no, one's had it.    Jesse (9m 43s): Yeah. It's almost like you want that recurring revenue in the real estate version of that. Yep, absolutely. So for, for yourself, Chris, when, at what point did you make the move or maybe it was at the beginning, but if not, what point did you make the move from going into real estate? Full-time that, that this was your full-time gig?    Chris (10m 3s): I started tinkering with it around, well, I've always tinkered with it, but late eighties, I started tinkering with it on the side, so to speak like a lot of people do. And then when my father sold his company, 91, the company lasted as a corporate structure. I was used to entrepreneurial mindset. I lasted about maybe three weeks before they fired me. And my kids were probably a two and three at the time. So that, that, you know, you get a severance practice for four weeks and then you're out. So I had to kind of move fast. Luckily I had a couple deals going and then we just ramped it up right    Jesse (10m 34s): On. So for, for the comparison, you know, we talk a lot on this show about real estate, flipping wholesaling, apartment buildings, commercial real estate is the space that I live in. You know, what's, what's the difference, you know, what's the value add here, or what's the, the value proposition or difference with this type of investing?    Chris (10m 54s): Well, first I'll say, cause I have, I have all of those niches that you just said on my podcast, good friends. So I'm not, I'm not against any niche. They're all wonderful. And they're meant for some, all the lessons are going to attach to what they want, in my opinion, why I gravitate towards this and stay with this after all the things I've done is the, the minimal risk. I'll never say none, but the minimal risk because I'm not going on any loans. That's the Milan number two from going to get paid. Why not create three pays per one deal? It's real simple. So if I do a deal today and it's, even if it's a hundred thousand all day, I'm just using that number.    It's over. If it's a build or flip or wholesale, if I do a deal today, and it's three pay days, I've got somewhere around 75 is our average, but 75 to 250 grand paying me over the next three years, next deal next three or four years or five years or 10 years. So you have this spreadsheet. Eventually we have all this income coming in. You can take six months off if you want predictably, and you can see where to, once you track all this. So the three payday and the low risk is the, is the main reason. The third is it was built. Jesse, if you remember my steroid coming out of the crash, it was built not just to kind of weather the storms and then COVID slapped us.    And then we went, okay. Work, not only at work, but we thrive. So it's a great tool for up down and flat markets really is. So    Jesse (12m 7s): What was it about the, the crash or the great recession that, that really amplified or put a spotlight on how lucrative or beneficial this type of investing can be?    Chris (12m 20s): It wasn't, it was from a defense mode. I wish I could tell you that I brilliantly thought of this thing was going to be great after, but I didn't. I, what I said was all right, I just had four years, it took from oh eight til 12. I had four years of just garbage, you know, loans being called for colleges workouts the whole bit. That was, that was stressful. So it was more, what can I do that? Doesn't go that way ever again. It wasn't, oh, I got this brilliant light bulb then organically. It evolved to the three paydays and to building what we, what we built today to be doing deals all over the country.    Jesse (12m 52s): So Chris, when, when you put these deals together, if from a high level, what type of structure do you typically use? You've talked a little bit about that. You know, you have different people on your podcast, you hear corporate structure, LLCs partnerships. W what would you use for this?    Chris (13m 9s): Ah, good question. So in the lease purchase is pretty simple, Jesse, because you're not taking title, nothing's even going to show up on record. So we just had that and we started in an LLC. It's your comfort level? It's like my attorneys to say, when the basket tips over, are you comfortable with what's in it? Right? So we would do a 10 or 12 deals in one LLC on the sub two deals. It gets a little bit more, I won't say complex. It gets a little more detailed. We take it in a land trust. A company is the beneficiary. So it's a little bit more anonymous and on the, on a Francine deal, same thing, LLC.    Jesse (13m 43s): Got it. One of the biggest things that we hear, and I'm sure you've heard it on your podcast, especially at this point in the market, even with, with the, you know, the last 18 months is just the ability to find deals or inability to find deals. How do you approach that? What's the, what's the method for yourself when you're looking at it through the context of terms.    Chris (14m 5s): I agree with you, first of all, wholeheartedly it's we are talking to more sellers to get a deal. Now there's no question about it. So I always tell my students, like literally today, we're talking about this, a fish in a different pond. So I love fishing in the pond of these free and clear properties, for example, because usually they're not dying to sell that are harder to sell. They don't want to pay a relative they're free and clear. They just have, I'll call it an ego. It's a healthy one, but it's usually I want this price. I don't care what's going on. We don't care about price if I, if we get the term.    So they love that because you're satisfying their price issue. So that's one point deficient. The second one is unfortunately now, just so you know, this, there's a lot of people that need help right now. They're kind of like below the radar, they got beat up a little bit with COVID or they had these forbearance agreements that are now coming an end or stressing about. So we're finding a lot of those finding us where we've, where we've set up our name properly in these markets. Those are two great areas to fishing because they want you, they, they want a guy and they want different, do I fight for MLS properties or properties that are, or else is going to have to know?    It's just to your point, too competitive right now.    Jesse (15m 10s): Yeah. And what I found, you know, when you described this type of investing and even in your book, what I think just comes to mind, right. Or right or wrong is I always think of more push marketing or sorry, pull marketing rather than push marketing. I feel like you put, you go out there and you put yourself, you put your name out there and have people come to you at a certain point, but it is first of all, is that, is that the case for what you do and has that evolved since you, since you started,    Chris (15m 39s): That's a great observation. So what happens is typically for us is we'll start a new student. I just had two brand new ones on today, and I'll have them doing what you just referred to as push, because they've got to start cultivating something. And as they rise in the ranks, I'll say for lack of a better expression, we teach them how to become what we call the authority so that yes, now you get more of a pull. You're establishing yourself more and more. You're layering in all this authority stuff, whether it's a book or a podcast or a blog or whatever it might be. So you are the local expert. So when these national companies come in, they're in every market we're in by the I buyers, are we calling all these other companies?    They don't really affect us because we're the local expert once we've got established. So the answer is, it's both it just transitions to more pull a little bit later on in the career. And it usually takes a good couple of years.    Jesse (16m 27s): And from a, a, you draw out a well-oiled machine now, just from a, a cost perspective, you know, does the marketing take up a large, you know, percentage of, of what you do in terms of costs? You know, after a while, I think people that are in your space seem to seem to have a knack for what they're doing. Do you guys put a lot of resources and effort into the marketing?    Chris (16m 49s): We don't mailing wise. I know like the wholesalers that I know, oh gosh. How was that? How was that a group of private group wants, and someone was spending 10, 20, 30 grand a month. Yeah. We spend to do ideals that they create three paydays. And that average us a low of 45,000, a high of two 50 per deal. All three we're spending overhead wise about a grand a month. Our students were spending more now. So what's the ramp up the ramp up would be more, I'd rather put a VA on a virtual assistant, calling more houses than I would put mailing pieces of the door only because I know, I know the metrics now, you know, he was doing terms 30 years in the biz.    I know the metrics. And then a little bit more predictable, in my opinion, in number two, I don't want a new student. It's a bummer. When you have to say to a new student, Hey, you know, you have a budget of five or 10 grand a month. So we don't do heavy marketing. Believe it or not. If we do it's in the hundreds per month, not thousands of tens of thousands.    Jesse (17m 41s): Have you found that this type of approach has, has had a, a state or two that it's something that really works and is, is really conducive to in other states not so much. And what's, if so, w what, what are those?    Chris (17m 60s): Okay. And this is a good question. You're hitting some good high points that I usually don't get. So this is awesome. It's usually not the state. It's usually, I don't care if we're in a flat or down or up market. It's usually going a little bit on the outskirts of, of kind of like, let's say, New York city, would you be doing a lot of terms deals right in the city? I'd rather you go out a little bit, cause you're gonna have a little, it's gonna be a little hectic. I want to go into the outskirts. I want to go where even in a hot market, you have some expired listings in the MLS that, you know, I want to go out a little bit to get out of the frenzy. That's all.    Jesse (18m 31s): Okay. And w w what's the, what's the rationale there? It's just that there's, there's more volume. There's, there's more of what you're looking for there. As, in terms of a,    Chris (18m 40s): You need our guidance more, you know, right now everything's selling so quickly. So like you said, we got a fish in different ponds, but one of those ways to fish differently is just go out a little bit from the frenzy. Now, keep in mind. Remember I said, one of my favorites is free and clear. Yeah. Well, a third of the property in the United States, roughly a third are free and cliff really that's all the, all the country. So how about, how about just talk to the free and clear people. They want to talk to you. They're awesome to deal with. They don't need money, quote unquote. And they would've pulled it out already. Right? So the fun to deal with,    Jesse (19m 9s): That's fascinating. Three out of four, three to four properties that are owned in the states are free and clear.    Chris (19m 16s): One, one third, one third are free and clear. Third. Yeah.    Jesse (19m 20s): Yeah. You haven't even 33%. That's pretty, that's pretty amazing. Now for, for your process to find these, whether the, you know, is it secretary of state, is it a land registry? Where do you go to find the properties that you know, are, have a mortgage paid off?    Chris (19m 35s): We have two different softwares we use that are free in our resource center, but the one that does the free and clear very well is prop stream. Let me do a great job. And then freedom soft is, is where we pull a lot of, out of the less. It's crazy. Now you can, you know, I can only set to the sky today to show. You said, you could find out, you can go geographically and go. I want everybody in this zip code that has a mortgage of this much percentage. And you know, where's pink socks. I mean, you can buy any data now. It's crazy.    Jesse (20m 3s): All right, one sec, let me make a note of pink socks here. You know, what it is, it is pretty amazing how the, I think it's a good thing. A lot of this information has been democratized, just my, you know, myself being a broker. I've never been of the mind that having this stuff unavailable to the public was, or having it just available to us with some sort of, you know, competitive advantage. I feel like if people want to get information and, and can use it properly, I mean, if it really came down to access, we would all be millionaires and ripped because, you know, w where was Google 30 years ago.    So take us to the book. I, I, like I said, in the beginning, it's, it's a very interesting book in the sense that it's, it's kind of a amalgamation of different viewpoints experts. And for those that, that want a link, we can definitely put one in the show notes, but yeah, take us back to this process. Every person I've talked to that has, has written a book. I know it's a long and challenging process. How did that go for you?    Chris (21m 1s): Okay. So here, here's how it went. And here's why, so the first book we did, and then we we've since revised it, and it's a bestseller it's called real estate on your terms. And it was very us like very niche. How do you do what we just talked about? You and I, and so some people on my show said, well, that's great, but you seem bias. I said, I'm biased because that's what I do now, but I'm not so naive to think everybody has to do that. So then we said, all right, so let's take all the podcasts interviews that we have a majority of at the time, and let's take the 24 or so that we love the most that we think that can be the most broad.    And let's have everybody do a chapter. And so that people could look at us and say, it's free info. We're going to go look at the 24 different experts in this book, we did the new rules of real estate. And then we get to pick where we want to go. And if it's termed great, if it's tax liens, great, whatever you want to do, I just want it to be more out there of prosperity mindset versus no, this is the only way you do it, even though clearly I believe that because I'm in it, but that, that everybody has their fit, right. Here's a quick formula. I say, when you read the book, do this say, okay, what niche can I get behind?    Like what, what do I get rubbed about too? Can I find someone in that niche that already did what I want to do with success? Leaves, clues. There's no reason for you to reinvent it, right? I didn't create terms. It was available in the 18 hundreds. And then third then put blinders on for 36 months. If you do that, you'll have a great experience at any niche. So I wanted to expose them all. If that makes sense. Long answer to a good question.    Jesse (22m 25s): No, it does make sense in terms of how you want about picking your, your list there. What was it, what was that process    Chris (22m 32s): Like? I wanted similar to my show recently, I'm really picky with this. Now. I wanted people that have been through market cycles and, or life events, both a great, so example for me, my son had a head injury and no three doctors told my wife and I had never walked talk or eat again. He's running the business with me then nine 11, and then COVID, and then the different market. Okay. So this some crap thing, right. That people can learn from while same in this book. If you look in there that one of the, the guy that does tax lanes, I think he's like 82 years old and still doing it.    Well, you can learn a crap load from him. Like I just wanted to experience versus brand brand new. And it's not that, that bad. My son's been, my son-in-law has been at this for seven years. He knew do hundreds of deals now, but, you know, he learned from some great mentors, but, but by and large, I wanted a lot of experience. That's all. Yeah.    Jesse (23m 18s): I, I live really like that format. I think it's, hopefully I don't butcher this, but I think it's the Titans of real estate. A book I read recently that was similar in layout. You know, it was real estate, but you would have on one side of developer, another side, a investor in industrial and other side office. So it was really good to get every perspective. And like you said, it's, I mean, it's not gonna appeal to everybody. You're gonna be biased in certain ways. There were some chapters where halfway through, I'm like, yeah, you know what? Good, nice to know. Not really, not really my cup of tea. You talk a little bit, or you, you talked a little bit about your son there.    One thing I thought was really cool, just like when we got Jake and Gino on a very family-oriented, I'm the same way your team, you picked some of, some of the people closest to you. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the team that you have in what you're doing and how that's, how that's impacted you and, and just day-to-day life. Yeah. And by the    Chris (24m 9s): Way, I hung out with them too. I think I was on their show on vice versa, that fun Jacobs, you know, they're good guys. You know what? It's somewhat of the answer I gave you that when I said I didn't brainchild that the niche and kind of organically happen, what happened to this business? And the family was, Nick has always been around me. He witnessed a lot of the stuff I went through in oh eight. We literally share an office. That's my son. So when I get busy and 14 ish, I think it was, he started as a broker at the same office as me. I'd go, Hey, I can help you on the buyer side, I get it. I not do this online. And they said, great. We started slow.    He then went full time. And then my son-in-law and my daughter, Kayla were in the bartending and personal training business in this area. That's big, it's a tourist area. And money was good lifestyle crappy. So they said in 15, is there any room for us to come in? I said, you have game for like incentive. We do deals. We make, we don't, we don't, you don't get paid if you're good for that. So they came in, everyone kind of organically took what they like, Nick does buyers still, Zach loves doing what I didn't duplicate me. Kayla ran the office. She's busy with the kids now, but the point is, they all organically, when it wasn't like I had this massive plan kid said, Hey, let's hand fuck these people.    Right. So it's good. That way it's helped because everyone does what they really like to do in their own zone. That's how it started. And now I've got a team of like 12 or 14 people.    Jesse (25m 23s): Yeah, that's great. What are you? You know, what are the opportunities at this point? And we're in 2021 or halfway through the year, it's been a tumultuous 12 to 18 months for a lot of people. But I think every person that's been on this show has talked about opportunities. We're where are you setting your sights on right now?    Chris (25m 42s): Hey, this is what I've been screaming about. And to this day, I think tomorrow night, I'm talking about it with a group. And that is, I think, as the market slowly starts to turn again. And who knows when, if you and I knew we wouldn't run the show together, it would be on a beach somewhere. But when it does, I think in the next nine to 12 months, anyone in the terms, niche or Marietta reasons for another show, and it's the opportunity to get probably a decade worth of income. And the reason I'm saying that is this. I look back to like 13 or 14.    Some of those deals are now cashing out, literally like this month. And I can equate all of the next six weeks, probably half a million to a million more in cash outs for our personal team, not the students all coming from a few years ago. Well, the, the market right now is screaming for deals outside of the conventional bank. My opinion, the amount of deals being done in the us outside of banks used to be like one or 2% in the nineties. It's I don't know the percent now, Jesse, but it's big. It's like in the teens, that's a lot of deals and need the guidance and they, they there's tied a lot of the bank crap going on.    And so I think there's a big opportunity that in our niche, that's why I'm putting full gas pedal down, starting April 20. We just not doubling down versus pulling back.    Jesse (26m 56s): Yeah, I wish there was, there was more re like there are tons of resources out there for real estate, but ones that you can trust because, you know, we're in this space I've been investing for, for quite a number of years. You have been, I have the benefit of being in brokerage. So a lot of these contracts and these things that you do outside of the normal normal realm of financing, or you know, who you're dealing with in real estate, or just something that we're surrounded by. And I think people, you know, that say the PR the private or exempt market for instance, is just one example.    I think people generally speaking are afraid to, to deal with that because it is something that looks like the gray market, something that they don't normally do every day. So that's a good point. I think that that opportunity is, is something that we're going to see more and more of and, you know, leading, leading into my next question with that in mind is you teaching or coaching you mentioned is, is that part of what you're trying to do right now is kind of explain or demystify this type of investing to others.    Chris (27m 58s): Yeah. You said it right. We literally our mission, we have a mission called the kingdom town mission. Our mission is to dominate the, the education field and real estate by helping associates. That's what we deal with. That's what we do deals with. We call them associates by helping them complete 500 deals by 2022, and then we'll rewrite that. But the reason I shared that relative to exactly what you said is so far, we've helped about 1400 families between the deal with the buyer and seller and our students do the deal outside of a bank, right?    It's a lot of families. So then you start affecting them generationally that disruptive market a bit. So we're out on a mission to do that. I know it's a long road. There's only a small percent of younger 20 of these deals that are being done and where we're a tiny fraction of that. But that's where we're going with that because lives are being changed because of it. And you said something about trust. The big thing right now is like, I call it bridging the gap from the time someone does a real estate seminar or course, but when they actually do a deal, some people don't get out of it. I get calls weekly saying I never did a deal.    I follow so-and-so. It's crazy. So, so we don't focus on selling a course. We focus on doing these deals and affecting lives. It's pretty cool. And it's rewarding as heck.    Jesse (29m 9s): Yeah. I, you touched on something great there. And I think there is, I mean, there's oftentimes a analysis paralysis and you have people that listen to podcasts and read books, and it's one thing to, that's all great stuff, but a certain point you got to take action. You don't want to be that guy or gal that three years, you know, you're hearing the same podcast. You're hearing the same people, but you've never actually taken action.    Chris (29m 30s): Yup. So    Jesse (29m 32s): For, I do have just a side question here. You were, again, like I said, you were fortunate to send me, send me the book, wicked smart is I have something to do, set it. Well, I was going to say, so for listeners, I got a shirt and a book, and I was like, you can't look at that shirt and not say wicked smart. You just think so. I think of like Goodwill hunting or a Bostonian accent is that, I mean, it tells a little bit of the background of that you're in Rhode Island right now. So I got to feeling that it's something to do with that. Yeah.    Chris (30m 2s): It's fun. It's yeah. Boston area, wicked smart. We w smart real estate coach was first. And my wife thought of that way back in like 13. We, so we started that. And then we recently trademarked the name. And then, and then the LLC, we changed names to wicked smart. It's our brand. Now the, the, the wicked smart community is all associates. The wicked smart listeners as the podcast list says, it's nothing more than kind of a new England. It don't work because the name was already smart, real estate.    Jesse (30m 29s): Careful here. I've heard a trademark three times here. I've got to be careful. What I put in the show notes. Am I to get a couple of calls from your lawyers? So we, we asked four questions to all the guests that we have on the show before we wrap up. And if you're cool with that, we, we can hit you with those. Then after we'll, we can go over, you know, where people can reach you and a little bit about what we, what we'll be putting in the show notes. Awesome. Okay. Number one, what's something you know, now that you wish    Speaker 2 (30m 57s): You knew at the beginning of your career    Chris (31m 0s): With certainty, the fact that everything you possibly could think of that you want to do, someone's done it. And I know that's easier said than done. I thought that when I was younger, but the only two times I ran into trouble in the rockets and had a tough time. I look back. If he isn't going to realize I didn't have that mental, because I got too cocky. Like I know, and I know literally everything you can think of, it's someone did it go find it and model it    Jesse (31m 23s): Right on ties in nicely to the second question we ask our guests, your view on mentorship for the guys and gals, young and old, what are, what's your take?    Chris (31m 35s): Well, look, I'll give a good example. A direct example. Again, Jesse, we have stuff we can sell people and they can disappear. Never talk to us. It's okay. But the fact is without the hands-on guidance with us or anyone else like that, formula Gabriel, you have three steps. You will leave money on the table. So why not do it more profitable, more, more quickly than the opposite? Why not? It's crazy. So I can attribute. I could pick out in the last 10 years, it'd be at a time I could pick out each mentor I've had in literally attribute for a million million to that particular relationship.    So it's, it's, I couldn't stress that enough. And people say, I can't afford it. Yes, you can. If you simply get resourceful. When I came out of the doldrums of the crash, I found some of that. I said, look, I'm going to crush it with this particular mentor. And as I do deals, I will give you a third or half whatever I told them until you're a hundred percent return on your money. You can get resourceful. If you believe in yourself and your mentor, you can go find the money when it's not certain,    Jesse (32m 33s): For sure another good lead into a resources. So right now, stuff that you've had, you know, whether it's a book, whether it's a podcast, what's a resource you're you're into right now that you'd recommend to, to listeners.    Chris (32m 47s): Okay. Depends on what stage of the business they're at. So it's, so instead of being a general and say, mentor, if you're at a stage where it's at least you and one person on your team, at least two people, and you're at a stage where you're kind of have a goal to get to that seven figure, mark, there's a group I follow still to this day. Since the day I met him at 17. Although he entrepreneurs amazing group, I attribute most of our scaling and success to them. If you're a smaller entrepreneur, solopreneur, it's back to what you and I already talked about. Find someone specifically, that's doing what you're doing and go latch on with them.    Jesse (33m 20s): Great answer. Final question. First car, make and model    Chris (33m 25s): 1978 deep wagon there Jeep wagon ear.    Jesse (33m 31s): I like it right on. Okay, Chris, you've been really generous with your time here for listeners. Where could they find you? What, what can we put in the show notes?    Chris (33m 43s): I just thought of two things, as you were talking, you asked some really cool questions about the book. So one is wicked smart, sorry. Smart realestate coach.com is the main site. So you can hit the webinar there. It's free. You can get a lot of free resources there. I'm big on free. Find out if you want to do this niche, right? Secondly, because you have so many cool questions with the book I tell you what we can do, and my support will love me. But you can put in the show notes, I'll give you the support email. I'll have you want to do it. They can get the hard copy so they can get the hard copy of the new rules and the hard copy of real estate on your terms, we'll mail or our expense.    You won't put a in, we just need an address. So put that in the show notes. And then if they want a free call, there's a really cool strategy expert we have now. And just 18 months ago, he wasn't even in real estate. His name is Brian. And if you've got a smart realestate coach.com forward slash action, you'll get a free strategy call with him. They'll tell you a story and see if it's a fit for you. And you can keep digging free until you decide what you want.    Jesse (34m 38s): My guest today has been Chris Prefontaine, Chris, thanks for being part of working capital. Thanks buddy. Thanks. Pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five-star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one.  Take care. 

This week we sit down with Tony Pereira of Breadwinner Cycles to learn more about this Portland, OR based custom builder. Tony was part of the 2021 ENVE Builder Round Up in Ogden, UT. This week's podcast is generously sponsored by ENVE. Breadwinner Cycles  Support the podcast The Ridership Automated Transcription (Please excuse the typos): Breadwinner Craig Dalton: [00:00:00] Tony, welcome to the show.  [00:00:01]Tony Pereira: [00:00:01] Thanks for having me, Craig.  [00:00:02] Craig Dalton: [00:00:02] It's great to see you virtually from your office there. [00:00:05]Tony Pereira: [00:00:05] It's funny now that we're all accustomed to this it's it makes it really easy.  [00:00:08] Craig Dalton: [00:00:08] Yeah. It really is. If you don't have your setup dialed at this point, I don't think you ever will.  [00:00:13]Tony Pereira: [00:00:13] Yeah. Right.  [00:00:15] Craig Dalton: [00:00:15] So let's start off a little bit by getting to know you and what led you to becoming a frame builder [00:00:21] Transcribing...  [00:00:22] Tony Pereira: [00:00:22] It's been a while now. [00:00:23]I worked in, I started out in the outdoor, your industry, I started working in ski shops when I was 16, which was in 1985 and grew up working in ski shops. And then in college, I started working in a bike shop and after college, I moved to Utah and skied and rode and worked in bike shops there. [00:00:44] And I got really active. Like community when I lived in salt lake did that for quite a while. Eventually got bored of being a bike mechanic, just hit my limit on that and what I've always been a tinkerer. Playing around in the garage, working on cars and motorcycles and of course, bicycles. [00:01:01]I learned how to breeze a little and weld a little bit from a friend of mine. And then just brought all those things together. And I was a fan of the old mountain bikes, the, IBUs and salsa. And of course the Richie's, the Richie has always had those beautiful, huge fillets. [00:01:18] And and I'm like, I knew how to braise. So I'm like, I wonder if I could make a mountain bike and, it was, that was two, this was 2002 or so, so almost 20 years ago. The internet was there. We were using all like listserv type communication. But there's a pretty active frame, builder listserv. [00:01:37] It's still exists. But I got on there and started figuring it out, build a couple of mountain bikes and I, after building one, I was like, oh man, I gotta do this. Bringing my love of bikes together with making things and And I just, I was hooked for sure. Riding that first bike is such a joyous,  [00:01:54]it's gotta be an amazing feeling to ride something that we've actually made super gratifying. [00:01:59] It sounds like you and I came up in the same era, which was that period of time where there was a lot of great mountain bike, frame builders and custom steel bikes. Every state seemed to have a builder of some notoriety. Yup. Yup. So how did you teach yourself? Was it really through, obviously you had a little bit of hands-on experience from your father's friend to teach you how to weld and, know what equipment was needed. [00:02:25]Craig Dalton: [00:02:25] Were you able to glean some of the basic fundamentals from that list? Serve and ask questions?  [00:02:31] Tony Pereira: [00:02:31] Yeah. Yeah, it was great. I know I, Richard Sachs is one of the. More professional frame builders that was on there. And he's always been really generous with his time. And there were a number of others as well, but I remember him in particular, but yeah, there was a great group of people that, that I, you know, some of them I'm still friends with. [00:02:49] Remember Steve  from Coconino was getting started exactly the same time. And the two of us were like bouncing things off of each other. And just getting our feet wet, but I, I'm fortunate to have, I have a natural aptitude for using tools and problem solving and, figuring things out. [00:03:08] So yeah, I was able to teach myself, with the help of that listserv, obviously how to make it all come together. And, I look back on those early frames and I still have a couple of them and they were pretty bad. The first there's 20 or so that I built for me and my friends. So they were pretty rough, I should say rough. [00:03:25]They weren't, the finish was rough. They worked fine. But I started building bikes for customers after about the first 20 or so bikes mostly worked, went to my friends and. And they were starting to get pretty good by that.  [00:03:36] Craig Dalton: [00:03:36] And did that just happen via word of mouth with the 20 out there, people would see it and say, where did you get that thing? [00:03:42] I had some, I had a core group of friends in salt lake that worked in the bike shop with me, or were associated with the bike shop called wild rose. It was a, early mountain bike scene, mouth bike shop. And two of my friends, Alex and Jeff. They were all, they were 100% on board with me. [00:03:59] They were like, yeah, you got to do this. And we're going to help you build a, some bikes, let's go racing. And we went out, we were all mountain bikers. So we were out riding a single speeds and the inner mountain cup series in Utah, which is a, I think still exists was a really popular mountain bike series. [00:04:18] There were, I think there were 10 races around the whole state. And we got out there and we were top five races. In the single-speed category we started doing that and we would do 24 hours of Moab every year. So we just got out there, we just put it out there and we were having fun and people liked what we were doing. [00:04:33] And I know our very first, my very first customer, he was a guy that we beat in a race and he came up to me at the end of the race. He was like, you guys are having fun. I want one of those.  [00:04:43]That's awesome. Were you operating under the breadwinner brand at that point? No. That was Pereira cycles. [00:04:50] The names, namesake brand at that point.  [00:04:52] Tony Pereira: [00:04:52] Right. So that was in Utah and in 2004, or so, and then I moved to Portland in 2005. And when I moved here, I decided not to get a job and go in full-time building bikes. I had a few orders under my belt. And I just, I went for it and it worked out. [00:05:11] Craig Dalton: [00:05:11] And did you stay under your namesake as the  [00:05:13] Tony Pereira: [00:05:13] Brandon? Yeah, it was prayer cycles until 2013. That's when I hooked up with IRA, we've been building under his name, I Ryan, and and we started breadwinner.  [00:05:26]Craig Dalton: [00:05:26] What about that partnership with IRA made it attractive to you to bring different perspectives and skillsets to the team? [00:05:33] Yeah.  [00:05:33] Tony Pereira: [00:05:33] Yeah. Different types of riders, but have a like-mind as far as there are eye for style and quality, we both worked with the Rafa clothing company and their very early years, we were friends with the guys that got it going here. And when they were based in. And our friend Daniel conceived of this project called the continental. [00:06:00] And it was a group of writers, originally six writers and IRA. And I were two of them who wrote around first in the Northwest here. And, we have a photographer along with us and they'd made some beautiful images and created that whole brand. That's now Rafa. And like a lot of that, the imagery that they still use is of that same stuff. [00:06:20] But like big mountain rides and we're actually doing a lot of gravel riding on 23 millimeter tires and our road bikes. But riding some really cool round, the epic kind of rides that everybody makes fun of Rafa for now.  [00:06:33]Craig Dalton: [00:06:33] I certainly remember that era when those finished visuals and videos came out and they were. [00:06:38] They were certainly evocative of where ultimately gravel slotted in this big mountain adventure, not your Saturday group, not your normal Saturday group ride type of riding.  [00:06:49] Tony Pereira: [00:06:49] Right yeah, that was super fun. And out of that Rafa asked us to build, they decided that they were going to get five bike companies. [00:06:58] We were the smallest one and market alignment. That was all through their website. They took the orders and then we would, we build the bikes and I can't remember. I can't remember exactly. It was like Cinelli I know Chanel Lee was one of them. It's they're slipping my mind now, but they're all like big bike brands. [00:07:17] And then it was me and IRA and we were the only ones that were on that continental team. So we called that bike, the continental. And it had my logo on the right side of the down tube in Iris on the left side of the down too. He built mostly with lugs. So it had a lugged head tube and a talk to C2 junction. [00:07:37] And then the bottom bracket was Phillip raised, which is my style,  [00:07:40] Craig Dalton: [00:07:40] interesting collaboration  [00:07:42] Tony Pereira: [00:07:42] together. We sold 22 of them. So not very many, but out of that, we've found that we really liked working together. And we were like, all right and honestly, we made some good money off of it. Like building that money. [00:07:55] That was how many bikes each of us would build in a year. Right back then I was building 25 likes a year or maybe even a  [00:08:01] Craig Dalton: [00:08:01] little less. Yeah. It's funny. In talking to other builders, you talk, you think about the pace in which these bikes get built. If you're building them all by yourself. Two three weeks to build a bike is, about what it takes and do the math. [00:08:14] You can't do much more than 20, 25 in a year, and  [00:08:18] Tony Pereira: [00:08:18] you nailed it. We were doing the math and we're like, all right, we can't scale what we're doing now anymore. Some people can, there's a few builders out there that can crank them out, but we couldn't. So we're like, let's figure out a way to keep building bikes, but make more of them. [00:08:34]And maybe make a little bit of a. And the breadwinner name was really something that we hung on that first Rafa project. It was just what we used to open a bank account. You've never had any plans to make it a brand. It was a, kind of an inside joke.  [00:08:51] Craig Dalton: [00:08:51] Yeah. I love that. Yeah. We can't make bread any other way. [00:08:54] This is the breadwinner project.  [00:08:55]Tony Pereira: [00:08:55] Yeah. Yeah. My S my son had just been born. IRA had just gotten married and we were. We got to figure something out here and we started calling breadwinner. It was again, a joke between us, but a year or two later actually a year after the Rafa thing we got approached by the folks that were starting up Shinola. [00:09:14] Yep. Just now mostly a watch  [00:09:16] Craig Dalton: [00:09:16] company. Sure. I remember those bikes. Were they, were you behind them? Bikes as  [00:09:20] Tony Pereira: [00:09:20] well. And we designed there. And bill built some prototypes for that. And we got paid well for that. And we took that money and started breadwinner.  [00:09:33] Craig Dalton: [00:09:33] Okay. Yeah. You know it, I imagine it's always a challenge as a frame builder. [00:09:38] Once you have the knowledge of all the different types of machinery that could make your process more efficient. Acquiring said, machinery is a big financial outlay. So having those rare opportunities like with Shinola. Rapha before that I'm sure, really accelerated your ability to be a builder that can kick out more than 20 a year. [00:09:58] Tony Pereira: [00:09:58] Yeah. And it helped them. It gave us a little bit of time to come up with some new ideas. Like we could sit back and go, okay, what do we want this, what do we want this thing called breadwinner to be? And we realized that a lot of our customers. If we're waiting a year, sometimes two years to get their bike at the end of that long wait, they were often not happy. [00:10:21]There are lots of opportunities for things to go wrong and or for them to just lose interest or, just, it just it's too long. So we said, all right, with breadwinner, we're going to deliver the bikes in eight to 12 weeks. And that we've tried to do that the whole time. We've done pretty well until this. [00:10:39]And now that's completely out the window. It's six months now.  [00:10:43] Craig Dalton: [00:10:43] Fortunately, everybody's waiting that long for a group of, at this moment. So you're all right.  [00:10:47] Tony Pereira: [00:10:47] Yeah. The frames, we can turn around, we can build the frames in the same amount of time. If we can get materials, there's, we're run out of tubes. [00:10:55] We run out of head tubes or bottom bracket shells or whatever it is. And we've had moments where we just have to stop. We can't build bikes in the last year. That's really been unusual, but then our painters backed up because, there's this bike boom. So he's extra busy and but anyway, yeah, so it's a little longer now, but yeah, excuse me. [00:11:17]IRA's always been more of a a road rider and a gravel rider. He won the first trans, Iowa gravel race. And I've been a mountain biker. I started mountain biking in 87 and started riding a road bike. When I wrote with those Rafa guys,  [00:11:31] Craig Dalton: [00:11:31] you said it sounded like at the inception of breadwinner, did you see the market opportunity being a little bit more adventurous road, bike style? [00:11:39]Tony Pereira: [00:11:39] Not particularly. We, that was just. So our first lineup, we didn't have a gravel bike. Sure.  [00:11:48] Craig Dalton: [00:11:48] Yeah. And was it a mountain frame? Go ahead.  [00:11:51] Tony Pereira: [00:11:51] Bye. The continental, which is a classic steel fork road bike, we still have that the low lows, our road bikes still are our mainstay road bike. [00:12:00]We have the JV racer, which is our cross country mountain bike. And then a city bike called the Arbor lodge, just the neighbor neighborhood we lived in. And we had a touring bike, which we don't actually don't offer anymore. So that was it. Six bikes that first year. And I believe it was the next year when we came out with the B road, which is now our most popular bike. [00:12:20] And that was our first ground.  [00:12:22]Craig Dalton: [00:12:22] Interesting. So how long did, what did that look like in terms of the proportion of which frames were selling and when did you start to see that? Hey, the be road is actually the bike that is most appealing.  [00:12:34]Tony Pereira: [00:12:34] At first we didn't have it. So it was, we were mostly selling Lolo's. [00:12:38] That was our logo was a Continentals, definitely on the road. And then we put the B road out there and the low the road bikes were still more popular for that first. So that would have been 20 14, 15. I think in 2016 it started to shift significantly. And then it was like 50% road or gravel bikes. [00:12:58] And then we came out, I think we came up the G road, the following year. And now. 60 or 70% gravel bikes, gravel slash bike packing bikes. Yep.  [00:13:09] Craig Dalton: [00:13:09] Yup. Yeah. That's in that, that tracks, what I imagined would happen, it seems on point I was imagining that based on your sales stats, you would have your finger on the pulse of where, and when that gravel product started to break and break free of the pack. [00:13:25] Yeah.  [00:13:25] Tony Pereira: [00:13:25] Yeah, no, it's been, yeah. It's. Four years or so where it's been clearly the front runner. And I feel like this year we did a few more road bikes and some of those were people that had bought gravel bikes from us. And they were like, all right, now I want to road bike. Yeah. People still have their quivers and the gravel bikes have been, real quiver, quiver busters. [00:13:45]A lot of people use those bikes for everything. When you come around and you're like, all right, I want a real fast bike too. And then you get that  [00:13:53] Craig Dalton: [00:13:53] road bike. I think, as we were talking about offline, the geometry changes in mountain bikes have made them a different beast than what we were riding in the late nineties and a hell of a lot more fun. [00:14:06] Yeah. And I imagine that's a, kind of a growing segment of interest because people are looking for something special to have underneath.  [00:14:14]Tony Pereira: [00:14:14] For in the mountain bike world. Yeah. I would love to sell more mountain bikes, but the reality of it is that we it's a niche thing for us. So we do a handful of mountain bikes a year. [00:14:24]I love them. I are good. Water's my all time favorite bike. But those it's designed around the plus tires. So I've been running two sixes or two eights on it lately. But man, that's just such a fun bike for all, all around riding and yeah, you're right. The geometry has changed. I think because forks have gotten longer, it's forced us to change the bikes, but the other thing that's changed a whole lot is the trails. [00:14:48]We went from old hiking trails that were Rocky and not necessarily flowing. Just go pick in your way through, through these trails to trails that are built for bikes, the bill for around bikes, with berms and jumps and rollers and all kinds of features. So the bikes have had, had to evolve with the trails. [00:15:07] Yeah. But yeah, I love riding the hard tails and the the they're super fun. That's, it's been a good, that has been a fun evolution to be, to feel like I've been.  [00:15:16]Craig Dalton: [00:15:16] Let's talk about the mountain bike. One of the bikes you're bringing out to Utah for the envy builder Roundup. I know some of the listeners have probably caught pictures of it already, but why don't you talk us through that model? [00:15:25]Tony Pereira: [00:15:25] Sure. I told you about my friends, Jeff and Alex that helped me get started mountain bike with breadwinner or with prayer cycles. Jeff, his name is Jeff Bates. He passed away. A number of years ago of skin cancer. And so the first mountain bike that we made was called the JB racers named after him. [00:15:43] We still, and we still have it. That's our classic 20 Niner hard tail, cross-country machine. And we've, we'll always have that in our lineup. It's very similar to the bikes I was making under the Pereira banner. Talking about this trail evolution a few years ago I started riding a bunch at a trail system here near Portland called Sandy Ridge. [00:16:03] And it's this new Invus style flow trails are built just for mountain bikes. And that cross country bike is not the right bike for that. So I'm like, all right. And I'd had this in my head for a few years. I'm like, I think I want to build something that's more slack. It's a bigger. It's still a hard tail. [00:16:21] It was there weren't a lot of them happening at the time. But finally I'm like, all right, I'm building this thing. And so pretty slacked out. I think at the time that was a 66 degree head to bangle with a 1 64. It was around 27, 5 wheels. The first-generation about Otis and we started. [00:16:39] So we came up with the design and when it came time for a name, I thought about my buddy, Alex, who was the other guy that helped me start get started. And he's a funny guy. He'd always come up with these funny sayings and give everybody nicknames and just have these funny phrases. And he, one of them was when. [00:16:58]You'd see a cool bike or something. You'd say, dude, that's bad Otis. There's out of nowhere, I don't know where it came from, but he just used to say it all the time. So I'm like that's a great name for a bike. I'm going to call the bike bad Otis. So called the bike bad Otis. You bring it to the two north American handmade bike show, which was in, I don't remember where it was that year Sacramento. [00:17:23] Environmental. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was. Brought the bad odors to Sacramento, big hit. We got some nice press on it. A couple of weeks later, I get a note from a guy on Facebook and his name, bad Otis. He's Hey, like I see bad odors pop up in my messenger. Hey man, why do you have this bike called bad Otis? [00:17:47] That's my name? I was like, I don't know who you are, but all tell me why that's your name? And it turns out he's a fairly well-known artist in the punk rock world. Interesting. In the LA punk rock, like old school, seventies, eighties, he was like the t-shirt artists that did like the circle jerks and black flag. [00:18:10] And like all those I might be wrong about some of those bands, but He, if you see his work, it's like it's of that era and he's still working artists. And we had a conversation. I was like, I'm like, man, I don't know anything about you. I wish I did. Cause I'd want some of your, I would've wanted some of your stuff back then, This is just the name that came out of nowhere from my friend. [00:18:32] And he was like, all right, that's cool. He was totally cool about it, but he thought he's been ripped off over the years. Yeah. Like people that work in that realm there's counterfeit, there's making rip offs of his old t-shirt designs from the eighties and he's had enough of it. So he saw his name pop off and he's oh, here's another one. [00:18:50] And it turns out there was, it wasn't that wasn't the case. But Long story that has nothing to do with the bike, but funny about the name. Anyway, last year, we've seen this long travel hard tail, so big fork, hard tail, a ball over the past few years. There's a lot of them out there. [00:19:10] And just like with the full suspension bikes to get really slack and the head tube angle tend to have a long. Front center so much longer talk to you, but with a steep C2 which gives you a lot more stability when you're in the air, you're diving into berms or going down really steep stuff. And, we said, Hey, we should try this. [00:19:29]I guess maybe a year ago we built a bike cry there was for a Chris king event and and he's been riding that for the past year. And so just again, slacker, I think we went to a 64 degree head to bangle or something like that. His really steep, like 76 degrees C to bangle. [00:19:47]So it climbs you get your weight far enough forward that the front end doesn't want to walk you're around. Okay. But then once you put your dropper down, you stand up, you've got that hard charging, like super slack.  [00:19:57] Craig Dalton: [00:19:57] Yeah, I find it really interesting. Just it helps looking at those bikes helps me think about gravel geometry in many ways. [00:20:03] Not that there's any parallels between the two, but I've often. Yeah, I had trouble like figuring out, what is the steepness of a C2 bangle do? What does the head tube angle do? And the more I play around with different bikes and different equipment, you start to see. And some of these things creep their way. [00:20:18] Some of these philosophies, not these extremes creep their way into gravel bikes in one shape or form IMS.  [00:20:24] Tony Pereira: [00:20:24] Yeah. Yeah. W you've got the, I forgot what it's called, the transition. They have that  [00:20:28] Craig Dalton: [00:20:28] crazy that isn't the slack evil Shammy, Hagar. Exactly. Tony let's talk about the gravel bikes in your lineup, and I'd be curious for you to describe to the listener, the different models and the different tubes that's that you use. [00:20:43] And, with carbon being like the material,  that a lot of these bikes get pumped out. Yeah. Why don't you talk to the listener about what a steel bike can do and how it feels and why it's so special? Sure,  [00:20:56] Tony Pereira: [00:20:56] sure. I think cars, there are many wonderful carbon bikes. There's nothing wrong. I'm not like a agnostic. [00:21:03]Gotta have steel. Steel is real guy I have been, but I've left all that behind, I think. Many great materials for bikes. The thing that, that keeps us making steel bikes is how great it is for custom bikes. Yep. And small production, small scale production. So there are, I don't know how many hundred hundreds of different tubes to choose from so we can really vary the. [00:21:34]The ride of the bike based on the two parameters. So your two parameters are the diameter, the wall thickness, and then the, but pro budding profile. So steel tubes are thicker on the ends. We call that the, but everyone's heard of budded tubing. Most people don't know what it means. But they're just, they're thicker on the ends where you do your welding is the welding affects the strength of the material. [00:21:57] So it has to be a little bit stronger where you. And then the middle of the two where you don't heat, it can be a lot thinner and a lot lighter. So you save some weight. And then each tube comes in a certain length and the butts are a certain length as well. You removed some of that to get your finished to blank. [00:22:12] So you, we can really tailor each individual to, for each bite and dial in, optimize the weight of the bike and optimize the ride quality, mostly through the diameter mall, thickness of the tube to the field. Optimize it for weight and strength.  [00:22:30] Craig Dalton: [00:22:30] Is there in that sort of get to know the customer process, you're learning their weight and riding style. [00:22:36] Exactly. And you can make adjustments to the way the bike feels based on what they're telling you. How  [00:22:43] Tony Pereira: [00:22:43] exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We have people come to us, oh yeah. I used to be a football player and I'm pretty big and I stomped on him. What I want to really like, bike, packing bike, and we're like, all right we're going to make it a little heavier and we're going to use a little bit bigger tubes and it's going to give you the best ride, and then on the other side, we have somebody that's a hundred pounds and they don't, they, and they don't want the bike to feel like a dead brick. We can either use a smaller van or two to where later to tailor to that, to their style and their size and their.  [00:23:16]Craig Dalton: [00:23:16] For most of the listeners, I'm imagining that they aren't custom bike owners as someone, when they're going through the purchasing process, obviously the sky's the limit to blends things like that, that you can help work with them on how do you help guide people to get to the right spot? [00:23:33] Tony Pereira: [00:23:33] Yeah. Yeah. The way that we work we've we try to make it approachable and easy. That was another goal of ours with breadwinner was. When I'd made my Pereira cycles, I was like, what kind of do you want, and I would make you a road bike or a cross bike, or they didn't have names. [00:23:49] There was no model names of any kind, but, and I realized that was, that made it hard for people to come through the door. So now we have like our gravel bikes, our first one was called the be road and be roads are like rural roads in the Midwest where I grew up. And And so you would say, okay, I want to be road. [00:24:06] And that has a carbon fork and a steel frame. And we work with people on there with their fit and everything and how they want the bike to ride the design side's all on us. The customers, our customers, sometimes they want to have more say in what goes, where, and, but we've got a pretty good idea for what works and the materials we should use. [00:24:25] So we have all that. And then, yeah, and then the component. Whenever you  [00:24:29] Craig Dalton: [00:24:29] want. So that be road model sounds like maybe it was the gravel bike extension of that continental. That was it more in their kind of road plus world than that to a cross bike.  [00:24:41]Tony Pereira: [00:24:41] Yeah, we based it on our cross bike. Mostly because at the time the carbon forks you could get, it would fit a wire tire we're cross forks. [00:24:49] Yeah. So it kinda just fit into that realm. And we were we're very limited in what tires there were that time. And there was the the panel racer Passilla was really popular Yon Hina from  [00:25:01] [00:25:01] Renee Harris, which was compass, which before that was something else I can remember what he called it, then they had, and there was another name before compass. [00:25:10]Those tires were around anyway. They weren't very wide. I think our first B road had 30 twos on it, which is like a big road tire now. Yeah. So yeah, we did the D road for awhile. I think two years. And then people started asking for, six 50 V with wider tire and said, all right how are we going to do that? [00:25:28] There wasn't a carbon for two years. So we've talked to our friend, Chris Iglehart who's across the street from us over here. And he's been making those segmented forks since he was at fat city  [00:25:40]Craig Dalton: [00:25:40] back in the eighties. That's so the moment you said that, and I've got a picture up of that fork right now, and you're absolutely right. [00:25:47] That was the fat fork.  [00:25:49] Tony Pereira: [00:25:49] Yeah. So Chris was the guy that made all those forks. Amazing. Yeah. And he's now across the street and he also welds all our bikes. So IRA and I have, we still touch every bike and I tack weld all the bikes, but Chris does our finish welding. Gotcha. We build three bikes a week, so we can't have a welder on staff. [00:26:10] We can't, you just can't have somebody. That's not a full-time job. Yeah. So ever since the very beginning of breadwinner, we built over, we built going on 900 bikes. Now Chris has welded every one of them. And so when we decided we were gonna, we were gonna do another bike Soon to be called the G road. [00:26:27]We went to Chris and Hey, how about we use an I go for it? And he was all for it. And man, those forks, he's got some magic dust in those forks. They are they're spectacular. And they look like the old fat forks, but they're not they're just the same style. He has a custom drawn fork leg made by Reynolds. [00:26:48] It's a one inch heat treated steel tube. The fork blades are made out of. And he has his own little gussets that he uses and is the way that he puts them all together. Just their magical fork. They've a really fantastic ride quality. And to go back to your earlier question about why steel it really, hasn't been a fantastic ride call it's springy and lively. [00:27:12] It's stiff when you need it to be, but compliant enough, it's really comfortable. I feel. It's everything that a carbon bike designer is trying to, and trying to work out. You're  [00:27:24] Craig Dalton: [00:27:24] probably right there.  [00:27:25] Tony Pereira: [00:27:25] Yeah. Yeah. If, oh, if we could only make this bike ride like a steel bike, it, and many of them do, some of those carbon bikes are beautiful. [00:27:31] They ride great. But anyway, but yeah the G road steel fork is fantastic. And that's still what differentiate differentiates the B road from the G road. It'd be roads, the carbon. Gravel bike erode the steel for both can be built with 700 C or six 50 B wheels. The B road. We now use that the envy the G series for the gravel for which works with six 50 B. [00:27:54] And it's got the mounts for cargo cages and internal wiring for life. Got all that stuff that we couldn't get before. And that's, that was what got us going with the idol for the idle fork, it's got a straight intranet, an eighth steer tube, so it has a different aesthetic to it. [00:28:11] It's a more slender bike. It looks like an old school mountain bike. We usually set them up with drop bars, but sometimes we do a flat bar too. And man, a flat bargy road feels a 1993. Bad city fat  [00:28:24] Craig Dalton: [00:28:24] chance. That would be an amazing bike to have in your clinic.  [00:28:28]Tony Pereira: [00:28:28] Probably a little lighter than that bike was just because the tubes are better now. [00:28:31] Yeah. But yeah I I love that. I love that style of bike. It's really fun to ride. Yeah. It brings me back to those early mountains.  [00:28:38] Craig Dalton: [00:28:38] And which one will you be riding in the  out in Utah.  [00:28:41] Tony Pereira: [00:28:41] I've got I've got, it's actually the bike that we brought to envy last year. It's the it's a be rode with. And last year was when they launched that adventure for, I guess that's what it's called. [00:28:52] It's called the adventure for, and so yeah, the road with the adventure fork and I've got six 50 B, you've got these G won the Schwalbe, the G one bite, the two, the 2.0. That's such a fun tire. And again, it's like a really lightweight old-school cross-country tire reminds me of a, like an old continental damn. [00:29:13] What was that? The vertical. You remember that time? I don't remember that one before,  [00:29:19]Craig Dalton: [00:29:19] but I do. I do. And appreciate that tread pattern. I'm a Panaracer  gravel king plus guy were asking me the STK for the most part, and I love the way it rides on the road, but it's super capable. Off-road so you'll see that on my bike out. [00:29:33] And you great. Yeah. Cool. Tony, I appreciate the. I'll have links to all the bikes and the pictures and everything the listener needs to get to know Breadwinner a little bit better.  [00:29:43] Tony Pereira: [00:29:43] Excellent. Thank you so much.  [00:29:44] Craig Dalton: [00:29:44] Cheers.  [00:29:45] [00:29:45]

Chris Garcia was in denial when his father was diagnosed with dementia. Until the day his dad didn't recognize him. So Chris did what any comedian would do – he joked about it. The result is his podcast, Scattered, from WNYC Studios. Often funny and always touching, Scattered follows Chris as he attempts to learn the story of his dad's life and honor his last request.

Hollyanne and Smiley took the night off.  So Chris brought in a couple of heavy hitters to fill in!

Martial arts month continues! So Chris picked a super random movie and it ended up being pretty amazing! FIND out what they thought of Boyka:Undisputed 4! Check it out! https://linktr.ee/Chrisandchadlikemovies Instagram @fanboyandthesnob #karate #martialarts #fighting Intro/outro song Big D And The Kids Table-Apology --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fanboyandthesnob/support

Chris Andrews was a kid from Grimsby in the UK who loved golf, and he wanted to make it his career. Like so many young people in the UK, Chris wanted to see the sights of Australia, pat a kangaroo, check out the surf at Bondi and cuddle a koala. So Chris got himself a working holiday visa, worked hard on a farm and secured a second visa to spend more time enjoying Australia. How did he become a Professional at a fabulous Sydney Golf Club? Chris shares his story. If you need some immigration advice, contact David on Instagram or Twitter @davidbongiorno.  

Elite 8, some news and what we're watching! Yes Snarf Madness is rolling and we are coming down to the wire!  We have our picks for the elite 8, and we do the final four!!  So after this episode we have the championship left and boy is it going to be a doozy for Chris and Jerry.  Even though they are wildly different, neither one knows what they are going to pick! We have a couple news pieces from the week, a Shang Chi and the legend of the ten rings trailer has come out.  To say Chris enjoyed it would be an understatement, Kung Fu movies are right in his wheel house!  The way this trailer looked seems like it will be a great kung fu movie, but with a marvel/Doctor strange vibe to it.  Jerry talked about a new show that came out on TBS recently, that is getting an enormous amount of hate from the audience and viewers, but critics have scored it really well.  A show called Chad, with a 40 year old woman that plays a 14 year old boy.  I don't know, Check out some clips and let us know what you think. What we're watching this week!  Jerry dropped the ball and didnt watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier, or Invincible!!  So Chris can't really talk about those, but Jerry did watch a movie called Nobody with Bob Odenkirk.  Really fun fighting and gun play movie with incredible action, he seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.  Chris has some more he watched as well so sit back and relax and let us tell you about our weeks!  Tee Shirts and Sweatshirts are available for purchase online and from our website.  Make sure to get in contact with us to get yours purchased today!! As always thanks for listening and go ahead and leave comments or reviews on any of our Social Media links below, and make sure to check out our multi-cam video podcast NOW ON YOUTUBE! Thank you for being a friend! SnarfComics.com Patreon.com/SnarfComics YouTube.com/SnarfComics @SnarfComics Instagram @SnarfComics Facebook @SnarfComics Twitter Please subscribe and leave us a review on the Apple Podcast App or iTunes, and send us your feedback, comments, and show ideas!

Hey there and welcome to the we move podcast.This week we are catching up with Carl Paoli, who was the first person we had lined up to see when we started weMove. For those of you who haven't heard of Carl, I heard of Carl as a result of his bestselling book Freestyle Connection, What I then found out was that he was coaching gymnastics movements to various action sports athletes and also at the time some of the fittest people on the planet in the CrossFit realm. So he came with a professional pedigree that interested me back in 2015/16 when I was exploring movement over sport.So Chris and I met with Carl in San Francisco that began the start of a connection as we were unknowingly on a similar trajectory for challenging what we had become for we can be.Carle was definitely experiencing, and explaining movement in that way. To move by feel, to understand the foundations, and when, when you understand the foundations, you can go and explore for yourself, and that makes the movement the practice whatever you're doing so much richer.Last year I noticed a turning down of the volume on social media, as many of us did. And I was curious to speak to him then but it didn't feel the right time so we just let him do his thing. And then this year he posted a few posts that caught my eye and he was talking about this idea of what's beyond the training, why are we training, why are we moving.And that's very much, where Chris and I are with our thoughts, films and directions of conversation so it felt like it could be an interesting conversation to hear his story and perspective of the last year, and moving away from the very things that lit him up in the first place. The movement itself, instead of the nice to have benefits of; success and acclaim.He is always very eloquent in what he's going through, very open and incredibly sincere. And I think that there are some points made that might be would be interesting for people who are questioning where they fit in the world at a moment and how to ignite the spark for movement and training.This is not how to guide, or a telling of anyone that they should do a certain thing. Rather, this is a personal account of Carls experience. Rediscovering His love of movement, and the power and stability of a dedicated daily practice.Carl has always been a very vocal about how the body is our way of experiencing the world around us. And as he says, our bodies are the instrument we use to interface with the external world. So when your instrument i.e. your body is clean and clear (your own definition) how you experience the world around you changes.That's what I take from this conversation anywayEnjoy the podcastAnd if you enjoy it, and you find some value in it, may I make a suggestion that you support the podcast by buying us a coffee, there is a link on our app on our website, and also the link in the bio of our instant, enjoy, and peace.

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Good morning, everybody Craig Peterson here. And I was just talking with Mr. Chris, Ryan about some of the impact that we are beginning to feel with the remote hackers, right? Was this China was this Russia. And I thought it was interesting because Chris was obviously going online and. Doc going some of these different topics that we were talking about and 19 administration officials that were saying things that I don't think were true, frankly. [00:00:36] So here we go with Mr. Chris Ryan. [00:00:39]Chris Ryan: [00:00:39] The program right now, Craig Peterson, host of tech talk here on news radio 610 and 96.7, which airs on Saturdays at 11:00 AM, actually 1130, Craig, how are you? [00:00:52] Craig Peterson: [00:00:52] I am doing fine. And yeah, there's only one right lane. [00:00:55] Chris Ryan: [00:00:55] Thank you. Thank you at score another one for Chris. [00:00:59] He's not just sucking up to me because I'm the host. He is legit in this circumstance. Craig, I got a lot of important things to talk about with you and I want to start with what the United States is doing in regards to cyber attacks reportedly against Russia and retaliation for what Vladimir Putin has done in regards to election interference. [00:01:17] And also. Some of the cyber attacks that they've perpetrated against this country. What's the latest on this. And what do you see as being the state of play? [00:01:25]Craig Peterson: [00:01:25] There have been outages of course, here in the us and a lot of them attributed to just us making mistakes. So a lot of people businesses that are running parts of the internet that. [00:01:37] Did the wrong thing. So remember, again, the internet is not run by one organization. It isn't run by the federal government. It is a whole bunch of networks that are connected together. Now that said, we have seen some major strikes against outs here in the U S from both. Russia. And from China, frankly, China has been much, much worse at this, but the Biden administration has decided to really try and single out Russia. [00:02:07] In fact, president Biden came out and criticize them and said, we are going to retaliate. We had a problem in Russia where the Russian main Russian government websites were shut down and they went off the air is that as he sent them down on purpose and we've seen similar things before. So Chris, I suspect we have been involved. [00:02:30] Chris Ryan: [00:02:30] Yeah, the Biden administration, according to Yahoo news is preparing a series of aggressive cyber attacks on Russia. I'm in a major shift in tactics designed as a warning shot to rival powers. They are saying that they're not going to target civilian structures or networks, but the hack will instead serve as a direct challenge to Vladimir Putin and his cyber army, according to the telegraph. [00:02:56] Craig Peterson: [00:02:56] Yeah, but the one to really worry about is China. I, there's this whole Russia thing has really gone overboard here. All of the. Real cyber experts are saying that China's the big one. We just had two major attacks that attacked and compromised tens of thousands of businesses here in the United States, as well as government agencies, as well as our schools, stealing our information, grabbing bank account information, personal information, personal health information. [00:03:26] And none of that is attributed to Russia. It is entirely including the federal government Homeland security and the FBI it's entirely attributed to China. But yeah, it looks like we've done a little saber rattling, according [00:03:41] to what the American government has said, the agencies believe that the attack was the solar winds attack was actually perpetrated and they have traced. [00:03:50] Back to the Kremlin and this is going to be retaliation for that. So you do not believe that's the case. You believe it is China. [00:04:00] Yeah. Most of what we're seeing with solar winds is actually originated with Microsoft and Microsoft office three 65 system, and more particularly with Microsoft exchange servers and apparently. Both countries, there's all, some others have been involved in this. No, I don't say that it was not Russia at all, because there is some evidence that they were involved in it, but the most dramatic stuff has been caused by China has been coming from China. [00:04:29] Now I've got to explain one other thing here. Sure. The reason there are questions about this isn't because people are trying to hide things or cover up or blame a country that had no involvement. The reason it's so hard to figure this out entirely is we don't know where it really originates. No, we can track down a little bit. [00:04:50] We know, okay. There's an IP address that came from, but that IP address was someone's home computer that had been compromised and as part of a bot net, and then that home computer, if we get our hands on it, we can see, Oh, that was compromised from this machine in India. Oh. And that compromise came from here or there, the way we tell. [00:05:10] Whether or not a machine has been compromised from a certain place is by looking at how it was done. And I've worked with the FBI on these cases before. And so I can tell you what we're looking at is a fingerprint. What tools did they use? How did they use them once they got into the network? [00:05:29] How did they spread? And it is easy enough. For the Russians or the Chinese or the North Vietnamese now to come in and do something just as though they are someone else. And it's much like these people that commit crimes and they, the police look at it and say, okay, this has the same ammo. [00:05:52] Motorcyle Rhonda, is this other crime? Therefore they're probably related. That's what we're doing here, Chris. So there's no hard and fast rules that this was, or was not Russia on. And you're talking about one specific part of one specific tack. We do know most. Countries were involved. And we do know that China has been doing most of this over the last really 15 years, [00:06:20] Chris Ryan: [00:06:20] U S national security advisor, Jake Solvan who's from New Hampshire was a part of the delegation that met with the Chinese in Alaska. [00:06:27] And that wrapped up over the weekend. It began with a very tense. Standoff between the two nations, which was supposed to be a photo op and instead they engaged in, as you referenced before, or some saber rattling between the two sides. And I'm interested in what your takeaways were from that. As Mr. [00:06:46] Sullivan has continually. Said that traditional sanctions are not going to be what the Biden ministration uses in these circumstances. And there's going to be different elements as the United States. Again, looking at the cyber side of things in regards to attacks and and following up from previous attacks, perhaps perpetrating new ones in a new type of response. [00:07:11] Craig Peterson: [00:07:11] Yeah, there are many options available. We do in every branch of the armed services, have people who are not just there to defend, but to attack. And we are continually looking into that. Of course, the NSA we've seen before for tools that were offensive. Cyber warfare tools we've seen them used. And we just saw China here last week, how Tesla, but it cannot be selling cars in China because it has seven cameras and it has all of this other computer equipment. [00:07:44] And they think that we might be using it to steal information. Of course, Elon Musk came out and said, no, that's not the case. But that's the sort of thing we really could be doing. If we wanted to do it, you can be sure we're probing their networks. You can be sure we're into them as much as we can be. So how we resigned, it's hard to say, but there are a lot of options available and we have been shooting around the corners in shutting down power plants in Russia, in shutting down some of the infrastructure in China an hour. [00:08:20] Fingerprints are all over those things, just like it was in Iran with those centrifuges that were being used reportedly to make nuclear fuel for bombs. We have a record of doing this sort of thing. Preston. So in saber rattling might well be backed up by something. That's a very, obviously from the UK. [00:08:41] Chris Ryan: [00:08:41] And I think it has to be, I think that talk particularly in the current world, climate only goes. So far and it has to be followed by reciprocal action where we'll be seen as just being talk. Craig, thank you so much. And I look forward to chatting again next week. Take care, Chris. That is Greg Peterson. [00:09:01] He hosts tech talk on news radio six, 10 and 96, seven Saturdays at 11:30 AM.

On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast, I welcome Dr. Chris Johnson to discuss empowering runners through rehab. He is a Seattle-based physical therapist, performance coach, speaker, and multiple-time Kona Qualifier.    In this episode, we discuss: Is resistance training needed for runners? Are training errors to blame for running injuries?  How can clinicians guide the decision-making process around pain and return to running? Chris's best advice to be a running injury expert.  How can the profession of Physical Therapy be thought of as your best friend in healthcare. The importance of being present and curious.     Resources: Chris's Instagram  Chris's Facebook Chris's Website How to Improve Profits AND Profit Margins in Your Practice Webinar from New Health Running Round Table Talk    More About Dr. Johnson:  Chris Johnson completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Delaware, where he earned a bachelor of science with distinction while completing a senior thesis in the physical therapy department under Dr. Lynn Snyder-Mackler. Chris was a member of the varsity men’s tennis team, scholar athlete, captain in 2000, and recipient of the Lee J Hyncik award for excellence in athletics and academics. He remained at the University of Delaware to earn a degree in physical therapy while completing an orthopedic/sports graduate fellowship under Dr. Michael J. Axe of First State Orthopedics. Following graduation, he relocated to New York City to work at the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma of Lenox Hill Hospital as a physical therapist and researcher. He remained there for the ensuing eight years until 2010 when he opened his own physical therapy and performance facility, Chris Johnson PT, in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. In May 2013, Chris and his wife relocated from New York City to Seattle to pursue a more active, outdoor lifestyle. In addition to being a physical therapist, Chris is a certified triathlon coach (ITCA), three-time All American triathlete, two time Kona Qualifier, and is currently ranked 16th (AG) in the country for long course racing. Chris is also extensively published in the medical literature and has a monthly column on Ironman and an elaborate youtube channel.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:                https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the full transcript here: Speaker 1 (00:00): Hey, Chris, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you on in our month. All about running and running injury and running rehab. So thank you for carving out the time. Speaker 2 (00:11): It's fun to be back it's it's always a pleasure to connect with you. And it just snaps me back to New York city and I still don't know how we never crossed paths when when we were both there, but here we are, and I'm glad we connected and also happy women's history month. You're someone who's sort of spearheading a lot of great stuff in this space. And I think a lot of people, especially women look up to you and that you're a role model. So things that you've accomplished and continue to work on. Speaker 1 (00:47): That's very kind. Thank you. And now today we're going to do a basic Q and a with Chris Johnson. So Chris gets tons of flooded with questions and comments and things like that from emails to social media. And so I thought, well, let's see if we can make life a little bit easier, reach a wide audience and get some of these questions and concepts under control for you and out to the public. So let's start with a common question that you get is all is kind of around resistance, training and running. Do you need it? Do you not need it? I know that's a really broad question. So I'll throw it over to you around the the, the concept of resistance training and Speaker 2 (01:40): Yeah, and it's a, it's such a great question. I think that everyone's default answer is, you know, basically resistance training is a Holy grail for runners. And I do think it, it has its place, but I think that there are a lot of gaps in the research. And is it something that I prioritize myself as well as in working with the athletes I coach? Absolutely. But I think that anytime you're working with the runner, the primary goal is to get them into a rhythm with their training and to establish consistency of training. And then you can consider to start layering things in this is assuming someone's training and they're healthy. They have no remarkable past medical history. I, I think that, you know, the answer to that question differs especially if we start to get into master level runners who typically have a remarkable past medical history because most of these injuries and conditions go under rehab. Speaker 2 (02:41): You and I both know that as clinicians. So I think that a lot of the resistance training may just be cleaning up sloppy rehab that perhaps they didn't get around to addressing things at the tail end of the rehab. So there's a quote that I love, which is, you know, resistance training is really coordination, training under load. So, so yeah, I do think it has its place but it should be there to support our running, into build our capacity to run, but I've seen a lot of people get it wrong and they end up whether it's, if they're racing, they go into races where they're a little bit sluggish or they're carrying some residual fatigue. I've seen people get injured in the weight room if they're not perhaps if they're, you know, younger and more green. So yeah, I, I do think it has its place, but like everything you have to approach that, that runner athlete on an individualized basis and just understand where they're coming from. Speaker 1 (03:40): And in your experience, working with runners, what are the biggest barriers to resistance training for runners? Because not everyone has, you know, access to the same equipment and time and everything else. So what, what have you found to be the biggest barriers to resistance training? Speaker 2 (04:00): I think a lot of runners are intimidated by it unless they come from perhaps a multi-sport background where they've spent time in a weight room. I think right now with the pandemic, obviously resources and equipment or gyms are not as accessible or gyms opened in New York city right now are on a limited basis. Speaker 1 (04:22): They're open on a limited basis. I think you have to make an appointment a certain times and things like that. Speaker 2 (04:29): Yeah. And then I think that when people do get to the gym, they may not know what to do, and they may resort to something that they see on social media, some of the time, which might be fine. But I think that with running running has predictable performance demands. So it shouldn't be a mystery in terms of what we're trying to do. We're trying to challenge the calves, quads, lateral hip. And we're also we're not layering this in a ton. We're layering it in maybe twice a week on average. So but yeah, I think a lot of runners lack direction, and that's something that, you know, I try to put out a ton of content online. So people start to see how I'm approaching it. And I'm trying to essentially synthesize the literature and translate it to to just the everyday runner. Speaker 2 (05:18): And I think that there's also this element of rhythm and timing with running and that doesn't always get addressed through resistance training. I think perhaps a little bit more since some of Ebony Rio's research, but again, that's really in the rehab sector space talking about tendons, but I think that a lot of the TNT work or the tendon neuroplastic training work just has such salience to resistance training programs as well. So anytime, you know, people work with me, they're, they're going to get accustomed to using a metronome. It's just one more factor variable that I think that we can control for when we're prescribing. I Speaker 1 (05:58): Love the metronome. I love it. Love Speaker 2 (06:01): It easy. After a while though, I Speaker 1 (06:03): Give to everyone, even with my, even with my younger athletes, they get it, you know, and actually with those younger athletes, I'm talking teens, it's using the metronome, although they're like, Oh my God, I have to listen to this again. But it is actually good to give them a little bit of discipline around the, around the movement, around the exercise. But I love, I love the metronome. I have my patients like download the metronome, get used to it when you're exercising. I know it can be a little monotonous, but I think like you, like you said that with the research of Ebony Rio and others, I think it gives people, I don't know, like a, a little bit more discipline around their training. Speaker 2 (06:49): Yeah. I use it a lot when, if I'm giving someone calf raises something like a rear foot elevated split squat. If we're basically doing like a three zero three where it's like down on three seconds, up on three seconds without pausing yeah. It helps to maintain this rhythm. And a lot of the times I'll stop the exercise when they break that rhythm. Because it's telling me that, you know, maybe we're starting to reach the upper end of their abilities for that given exercise. Speaker 1 (07:18): Right. And we all know that three seconds to one person is very different to another. Speaker 2 (07:22): Yeah. Well, and this is what, you know, when Scott Morrison talks about anchoring and I just did that Instagram post on, you know, stop being awake or start to anchor. I'm starting to realize I'm becoming a dissenter. But you know, that's where the metronome comes in. And I've played with this so much. I mean, my, my neighbors probably think I'm crazy because I'm like out front with a metronome going, and I'm doing all these weird exercises. Well, weird to them. Speaker 1 (07:49): What sort of things do you implement to get over the barriers? Well, you just answered that. Anything else that you may implement to get over barriers to resistance training for runners? Like, like you said, in that runner who is very intimidated, maybe never used resistance training before. Speaker 2 (08:06): Yeah. I mean, I, a lot of the times when patients show up to my house, I mean, I'm working out of my garage. We have a space on our property, you know, when they arrive a lot of times I'm deliberately training. So they see what I'm doing and they see that this is a normal part of my routine. And then they get a lens into my racing background, yada yada. And so I want them to realize that this is something that is normal. And I think in a lot of running circles, and I think this is starting to change that it's not prioritized to the extent that it is. And maybe I'm just getting older because, you know, as a master athlete, it's amazing having dealt with some patellar tendon issues, like my body craves resistance training, where if I don't do it, I start to sort of get reminded. My knee feels so much better after I load it and load it relatively heavy. Now you have to be cognizant for reasons I mentioned before, in terms of like, you're not going to want to do a bunch of heavy squats. If you have a race coming up you can keep your body under load, but you need to be a little bit more calculated with your exercise selection as well as your dosage. Speaker 1 (09:12): Yeah. And, and that's where I think working with a coach or therapist or someone who understands understands one resistance training and two race training and how you can kind of blend those together is really important. And now sticking with training, let's talk about training errors. Can we just blame everything on training errors? Is that, is that an okay thing to do now? Or am I, is that not good? And I say, I say that with a wink for those people who are listening. Speaker 2 (09:40): Yeah. I mean, I think it's a convenient thing to do, but I think that I'm going to get myself in trouble here. I think it's a little bit lazy too. In, in, I think that having lived in New York city that you realize the life load factor, right. You know, there's different stressors in New York, between loud noises, you know, smelly things, you know, financial stressors in crowded spaces, you know, maybe your sleep has fallen by the wayside. So you may have a training program that's very sensible. And, and then all of a sudden you have something come up. I think to one of my, I'm an athlete who I'm working with right now, and this guy's just been just so tough and durable. And recently things have started to take a turn in a bad way. You know, he, he lost his mom. Speaker 2 (10:38): He's been having to contend with that. He's had some other job-related issues and and then he he's come down with the patellar tendinopathy and his training didn't change that much. And we actually dialed it back a little bit and it just shows it sometimes all of these other factors, you know, play such an important role in the overall being or totality of that athlete. So, you know, I, I, I think that we'd be much better off calling them ecosystem EHRs where perhaps there's a disconnect, but I think that we have to be careful, always blaming it on training. And I, I get the point, I think that, you know, from a, from a research standpoint, maybe the reviewers are requiring the authors to, to present it in that manner. But I just think there's a lot more moving parts. And I find myself having worked with a ton of athletes over the course of my career, being an athlete that you have to really be in touch with your ecosystem. Speaker 2 (11:39): And I don't know who first came up with that word. I know Greg uses it quite a bit, but I think it's something that, that is great to consider. And anytime I start working with an athlete, I have a conversation and it doesn't end during that initial consultation or phone call, but I'm saying, tell me about your life. What was it like growing up? You know, what, what was your relationship with food? You know, what kind of sports did you play? You know, were you in public school? Did you go to private school? What was college like if you went to college, you know, what's your current situation? Are you single? Are you married? Do you have kids? Are you a single parent? You know, I need to capture all this information and that's just scratching the tip of the iceberg in that conversation's never ending. So I feel like the more I know where people are in life, the easier it becomes to start putting down sensible workouts on paper and make sure when you put them down on paper, they go and pencil nodding. Speaker 1 (12:34): Yeah. I love that. Getting deeper into those questions and, you know, we had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with the surrounding a female athlete on clubhouse and Tracy Blake, who is just fabulous. I don't know if you're familiar with Tracy. She's a physical therapist in Canada. She's worked with a lot of professional athletes there, including their Olympic volleyball team. And she was talking about questions to ask. And I think oftentimes this is sort of floated over kind of skimmed over by a lot of PTs because we asked, tell me about, tell me what happened, what happened with your injury? Tell me what happened here, not the questions you just said. Tell me about your life. Are you married? Like Tracy said, you know, a question she always asks is, do you have children? Do you have pets? What, cause that gives you an idea. What are your responsibilities throughout the day? Yeah, Speaker 2 (13:29): I always say, you know, look, give me a lens into your situation and let the conversation unfold from there. And I think, you know, whether you're a physical therapist or coach, I think all physical therapists or coaches, whether they realize it or not, you know, you're, you're trying to basically capture that ecosystem. And to, to just have, you know, talk to people about, you know, I just have a candid chat with folks and from there, then we can start pulling levers. Speaker 1 (13:59): Right? Cause then you're getting a, really, a more holistic view of this person. And then you can say, okay, they have two small children they're working from home. Their kids are being at school, school, they're at home. They don't have the time to spend two hours a day between training and running and everything else. And how can you make things work for them? Is that about right? Yeah. Speaker 2 (14:25): And I think that any, any time a patient or athlete consults us, they're looking at us as an agent of change and the true agent of change is themselves. And it's trying to help them plot out their own course. And maybe you, you know, you're shining a light on the path here and there, or making sure that they don't step into a pothole along the way. But that's something that, you know, I find myself more and more. I have any expectations to, I don't do things to people. I sit there and troubleshoot with them. And, and I think that that's what we, as physical therapists are phenomenal with. And not only do we have the skillset, but a lot of times it most of us have positioned us to have the time to do that. And you can't rush that process. So but yeah, we're, we're not in a system that incentivizes that, you know, you don't get paid to talk to people, you get paid to do things to people. And that's the fundamental problem with, for the reimbursement structure, for people who are in network. I mean, you and I are a little bit spoiled in the sense that when we're providing care, it's just ourselves and the patient, but that's, I think that needs to be the standard or approximate the standard. Yeah. Speaker 1 (15:41): And isn't it like amazing when that aha moment comes as you're sort of talking through things like you said, troubleshooting, and the patient goes, Oh, wait a second. I can do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or, Hey, maybe that I didn't even think about that. Maybe that is contributing to XYZ. Speaker 2 (15:57): Yeah. And I, that's a lot of motivational interviewing and sometimes, you know, I was talking with a couple of people yesterday. Sometimes people who've already arrived, you know, if we're, if we're discussing surgery, you know, I think our goal is to always try to help people avoid surgery, but sometimes people are just dead set and you say, look, you know, I get the sense that you've really just you've arrived at the fact that you're going to have this surgery. Am I correct in saying that, and you know, if that's what you've elected to move forward with, this is your decision. What questions do you have about the surgery? You know, and, and then you may start getting into a conversation and say, Hey, can I, can I share my experience? You know, this happened to me with my clavicle. I was in Hawaii, we'll be traveling to Argentina to speak. Speaker 2 (16:44): My wife was pregnant. We had a little one, I was going to have to do a lot of physical tasks. And I'm like, I just need the surgery. I didn't have it on my right shoulder when I, my clavicle fracture. And I was just dead set. I'm like, I'm in Hawaii, there's a competent doc. This is not a super involved procedure, like a soft tissue procedure of the shoulder hip. And I had this and I could have been kicked myself for doing it in hindsight, but no one would have talked me out of that at the time. So sometimes people have to learn through their mistakes and sometimes that can be a tough pill to swallow, but that, that patient ultimately controls that decision. So sort of bobbing and weaving, but, Speaker 1 (17:25): And, you know, you just led perfectly into the next topic I wanted to cover. And another question that you get asked often and that's, and that is surrounding pain and pain and decision-making, so we, you, I feel like you led perfectly right into that. So let's talk about how we as clinicians and practitioners, where our role is when it comes to pain and decision-making for that client or that athlete. Speaker 2 (17:53): Yeah. It's it's one of the first things, if not the first thing that I discussed with people I did a book chapter for this it's called clinical care of the runner. Dr. Harris. Who's a physician at university of Washington was the editor. And he asked if I would read a chapter on training principles. And I essentially said, the first thing that we needed to discuss is someone's relationship with pain and what their understanding of it is and how they approach decision-making in around pain. Because if you're running, you're going to be dealing with pain at some point, you know? And and I think people have an inaccurate understanding a lot of the times. So, and I think sometimes we, you know, I'll use an analogy that Mike Stewart or you used which I think is brilliant. You know, sometimes when we're out training and we're driving through a school zone, right? Speaker 2 (18:48): School's in session, the lights are blinking, slow down. All right. Sometimes you may be driving through that crosswalk. School's in session lights are blinking and you have a crossing guard. Who's standing in the middle of the stop sign. Maybe that's a case of someone's dealing with the bone stress injury. So you need to really hate that. Other times you may be driving through that school zone. It's a weekend, no blinking lights proceed as is usual. And I think that's a good way to think about training, but you know, you and I both know that if someone has a lower limb tendinopathy, you know, we want to monitor their pain and understand how it's responding as a function of a particular training session, whether that's a run, whether it's a plyometric training session or a heavy, slow resistance, but we don't want to shut that person down in it. Speaker 2 (19:37): As much as we in our profession may be, high-fiving each other thinking that we're doing a good job of this. Most of the people that consult me, even people perhaps worked with me in the past for short periods of time. They still, when they experience pain, they assume damage and inflammation. And what do they do? A lot of times they, they they'll resort to taking anti-inflammatories and here we go. I mean, this is a, this is where things go South. So I think it's just important to say, Hey, what sense do you make of this? You know, what do you, what are your reservations? Are you okay working through some pain? And I think from there then the stage is set to proceed. But with a lot of, I've worked with a lot of master athletes and they're, they've had a history of lower limb tendinopathy. Speaker 2 (20:23): I know that with my left knee, that, you know, I, I worked through almost a year of pain, but I never stopped training. And I was just sensible in how I was staggering, my workouts to afford appropriate recovery time. And and also just knowing how college and synthesis behaves. So yeah, I think that people have a, a skewed understanding and it's also something very personal, but yeah, if you're working with athletes, it's a critical conversation to have. And I do think that this is where I know Ellie was on talking about bone stress injuries, that if you are remotely concerned about a bone stress injury, and it involves a high risk site, like zero out of 10 pain is the goal. Most other instances, I'm a little bit more cavalier, but if I know, if I see some of the signs that I would associate with the bone stress injury, especially if we haven't had imaging, I'm going to be conservative as hell. Yeah. Speaker 1 (21:19): And I think it's important to, to note that understanding the runner and that's where understanding the ecosystem comes in and understanding, especially for bone stress injuries, where those high likelihood of those injuries occurring. So it also like you have to know your stuff as well is what I'm getting at when it comes to runners and, and having that conversation around pain can be uncomfortable for that runner or for that person. Cause you may have to dismantle a lot of long-held beliefs. So how do you go about that with your, your athletes? Speaker 2 (21:57): I just asked everyone who who connects with me. I say, can you give me w what, what's your understanding of your situation? You know, and I think runners, a lot of times may not come clean if they're dealing with pain, because if they go to see a healthcare professional, they're going to be concerned that they're going to get shut down work. Perhaps they interpret it as a sign of weakness. If they're out on a group run, they don't want, want to be the one complaining. So I just say, Hey, you know, what's your understanding of your situation? And no one's ever asked him that. And that's when the conversation unfolds. So, and I think the way people respond is going to be different pending the person, the situation. But I think it's remissive anyone who's working with a runner or an athlete if they don't ask that question. I feel like I started to answer your question, but I don't know if I do. Speaker 1 (22:48): No, you did. That's exactly what I wanted. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Cause I want the listeners to get as much of this like great little tidbits of information from you as they can. And you know, all of the questions, the questions to ask the patient that you've given so far, I think are great jumping off points for any therapist, regardless of whether you're working for, with a runner or an athlete. But that question of give me the, let me know, what is your understanding of what's going on? And that opens up a whole lot of doors for you. And then, you know, as the therapist, you have to be well versed in the science behind pain and, and how to talk to people. And, and of course it's a whole other conversation, but you know, I think what you're highlighting here is that you can't wing it. Speaker 2 (23:36): No. And I think sometimes, you know, I had a question from a third year DPT student who watched a presentation. I gave at some and they're like, Hey, I feel like I'm starting to ask the right question, but then I don't know how to respond and follow up. And and I think that, you know, you can't rush this process if you're in, if you're a young clinician that you're going to get better at this through reps, through life experience and just through sort of being in the trenches with people. But you know, the other thing I tell folks is I say, look, you're a smart person, you know? And I, you know, when I first acknowledge the fact, I think it's good that you're being proactive and addressing the situation, but left to your own devices. What do you feel like you, you need to do to get on the other side of this and they start to formulate a plan and I do, I don't need to do anything. Speaker 2 (24:27): I just need to pose these questions and say like, I think that's pretty sensible, you know? Are you okay if we nudge a little bit and you start to basically prepare them for the fact that this plan has got to be progressive, if we're talking about getting them back to running, because they have to get back to a low-level plyometric activity. And I just love these conversations. And, you know, people ask me, they're like, where you learn motivational interviewing. And I'm like, I lived in New York city for decade. I'm like, I just talk to people and I have no agenda. I'm just curious, you know, it drives my wife crazy. Cause if we're ever out in public this happened yesterday. I went to, I had to get a new watch because my watch crapped out and this guy was checking out some watches and we just got to talk to me. And my wife was looking over at me, like, where are we go? Speaker 1 (25:12): Your wife is looking at her watch, like, come on, Chris, get it together Speaker 2 (25:18): And things off the shelves. Speaker 1 (25:21): But it's true. I think that, you know, asking good questions, motivational interviewing a lot. Yes. There's a lot of books. You can pick any book on motivational interviewing and read it and it will definitely give you some insight, but it's the more you do. It's the more people you talk to and not just your patients, anybody, the more you talk to anybody, it will help you be a better motivational interviewer. And the more that you listen and like really listen and start to formulate it's practice. I guess you start to formulate your follow-up questions in your head as you're listening. And again, it's just practice, practice, practice. Speaker 2 (25:57): Yeah. And it's, it's fine. I think that it takes on a slightly different flavor as a function of, you know, what generation the person's coming from too, you know? So but yeah, it's just fun to help troubleshoot with people and to really get them to trust in themselves. Because most of the, the folks that consult me, I mean, they're endurance athletes, namely runners and triathletes these days, and they're going to manage their situation conservatively. Sometimes I feel like they need to be talked off the ledge. If they're going to opt for a more invasive procedure, if that's not really appropriate or perhaps an injectable of some sort. So, but yeah, getting people to trust in their body and and not drag them in for therapy all the time, you know, and I, I have to prepare people for that to say, you know, how do you anticipate this is going to go? Speaker 2 (26:49): And they're like, well, maybe I'll see you two to three times a week for six to eight weeks. I'm like, who's footing that bill. No, no, one's good. Yeah. So I say, you know, but this, this requires a lot of work on us on the back end because when I write an email, I mean, email, I wrote to this person yesterday, it was basically like, you know, two pages and cause it, kids dealing with the bone stress injury, the parents don't really understand the implications of it. He's going to be running competitively in college. And, and I think that he was under the notion that he was going to be back to running in four weeks. And I'm like let's talk about more like four months. And I lay this out and I'm like, you know, I know this is probably a little bit, you know, overwhelming, or you weren't expecting to hear this. What are your thoughts on this? You know, to engage him, to just know where he is after I've presented this information and he got the memo. But that's, that's a tricky thing about bone stress injuries is people fall under the, you know, the idea that they're just gonna take a couple of weeks off and plugged back in. Speaker 1 (27:49): Yeah. Yeah. And again, that's where you, as a, as a therapist and a coach comes in and helps the decision-making you're ultimately, you're not that runner, you're not that athlete. So you're not the ultimate decision maker, but your job is to give as much information and, and your professional opinion as to their situation as you can. Speaker 2 (28:14): Yeah. And I, I think that it traces back to that question is like, what are your expectations or questions around this surgery? I mean, this is a very involved procedure. They're putting you under anesthesia and they're cutting your body open. Never we'll frame it like that, you know, when I'm working with people. But you know, I, I rehabbed all of these people after these very involved, soft tissue procedures of the shoulder when I was in New York, coming from Dr. Nicholas in his staff. And yeah, I'm like, this is going to be six months to a year before you feel like your, your shoulder is like firing on all cylinders. Speaker 1 (28:47): Yeah. Yeah. I had, I had a complex soft tissue shoulder repair and it was a year anyway, we can go on and on when it comes to a patient mindset, fear, trepidation, everything else. I think that's for another podcast. But I think you definitely got across the decision-making process on behalf of us as a therapist or coach and how we can influence that process for the patient. Speaker 2 (29:12): Yeah. And I think that if patients aren't on board, I mean, if they are around muddy water where there's a sinister situation and they start sort of dilly-dallying, I think that we need to really put our foot down his therapist too and say, look, you know, you've consulted me and here are my recommendations or here's my professional advice. And if you're not going to take it, let's just, let's just part here. And sometimes we don't need to do that a lot, but I think sometimes we drag our feet as clinicians and we need to, we need to put our foot down if we have to protect that person from themselves, because we can't get tangled up in that mess. I can't think of the last time that's happened, but it has happened over the course of my career. Speaker 1 (29:57): So those, I mean, those are sticky conversations to have, but for the safety, I mean, our job is to protect that, protect our, our athlete, our patients. So if that is our job, then you have to have those sticky conversations. Yeah. And that's it. All right. So I think that was thank you for that conversation on decision-making and hopefully it sparks plant some seeds in our listeners here. And now we'll go on to two more questions that you usually, that you get the easy ones. You will we'll breeze through these too. These are easy. How do you become a runner running injury expert To how many times do you get that question? How can I do what you do? Speaker 2 (30:41): Yeah, I it's, I, I love getting it it's flattering. You know, and, and it's something that it was sort of, I looked back and all, I, there, there were a couple of defining moments in my life. And one was when I was told that I'd never be able to run again. You will never run again. Right. I heard that a couple of times from very world-renowned orthopedists. And I think that's what ultimately put me on a trajectory to do this. And I never ran competitively when I was younger. I probably should have been channeled into a little bit more of a, a running program, but I was always playing sport, different sports, you know, from skateboarding to soccer, to tennis, to baseball, to basketball, to lacrosse, to, you know, rollerblading snowboard, like you name it. I played it. And except football, just because my high school didn't have a football team. Speaker 2 (31:39): So I always relied on running to help me in sport. But I feel very fortunate in hindsight that I never started really formal distance running until I moved to New York city around like maybe 24, 25. But I, I think that when I started getting into triathlon is when I started working with a lot more runners. And I think when I started distance running, that was around the same time and it's just a fun bunch to work with. And I think that initially I was overconfident and it got to be frustrating when I'm like, geez, this is a healthy person. Like I would send them out. I'm like, Hey, I think you're doing good. And they would come hobbling home. Or they would call him and be like, Oh, I blew up on that run. And I'm like, why are these people blowing up on these runs? Speaker 2 (32:25): Like I thought they were doing a good job. And then it just really forced me to stare at myself in the face and say like, what do I need to be doing to really help these people? And, you know, I started reading a lot of the research. I started spending time around runners. I started speaking a lot with this fellow Bruce Wilke, who was sort of like a savant with running who unfortunately has since passed. But I started to really get a handle on running and not only on running, but just the mindset of runners, how they approach training how they've sort of just been dismissed by the medical community. Because you're like, Oh, here's a runner here comes another crazy runner. And then you start to realize that runner, when someone tells you they're a runner, you don't have other athletes. Speaker 2 (33:09): When you meet someone, you know, you could meet someone, you could meet a world-class athlete and they may not come claim that the fact that they play a competitive sport professionally, or they play a professional sport until you talk to them, runners like I'm here, I'm a runner, you know? And so they really stuff, they go through an identity crisis. So you have to look at this from so many different lenses. You have to understand the performance demands of the sport. You have to understand, you know, just running communities. You need to understand that these people's identity revolves around their running. So they become fragile when they're not running. So I just loved the challenge of, you know, addressing all these different factors and and it helps that I, that I'm still training and racing competitively because I sort of go through, I think a lot of the same struggles and challenges that they face so I can speak to them. Speaker 2 (34:01): But I think that if people want to go, go in on running as a young clinician, coach running is having a moment go all in, right. We saw an uptick and running with the, you know, with the pandemic. And I think that if you're going to work with runners, you don't want to say like, Oh, I do general outpatient orthopedic, orthopedic rehab. It's like, no, my whole practice revolves around running. You know, people are like, they come to me because they know that, you know unfortunately I've had a pretty rich experience in terms of my, my didactic training. And, you know, when I was getting reps under my belt in New York city. So I feel like now I can look at things through a very global lens when a runner presents and we can troubleshoot most of the time, I'm seeing people for one, maybe two sessions. But I think that that running rehab is challenging in a lot of different ways, but if people have a, an interest go all in, Speaker 1 (35:02): I think that's great advice. And I also really liked that. You just mentioned, Hey, I'm not seeing runners three times a week for six to eight weeks. You know, I'm not, this is not how I'm, I'm, I'm building my practice. And I think that's important to let people know, because I think a lot of newer graduates or students might be thinking, Oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to be working with people several times a week for six weeks. And then they're all better. Not so much the case when it comes to running injuries. Speaker 2 (35:31): Yeah. And their runners just seem to perpetually get these niggles and aches and pains. But, you know, I, I, I think it's doing a disservice because if you bring someone in, if you say, Hey, look, I need to see a couple of times a week for the next six to eight weeks. You know, someone told me that I'm like, man, I must have something serious going on. So I just say, Hey, look I'm not concerned. Anything sinister is present. I want you to be sensible. You're around muddy water, but carry on. All right. In calling me if you need me. And I think that they're like, wow, I've had people reach out and are, you know, this person told me they were running five to six days a week and their quads were a little bit sore. I'm like, Oh, you're good, man. Speaker 2 (36:10): You don't need to see me. You know, I said, and I asked him some, some more involved questions, but I'm like, you don't need to see me. That's a really empowering message, you know, because the person's like, Hey, I'm here ready to pay you. And you're telling me that you don't want to see me. I, one of a guy who's become a good friend of mine. He was dealing with some hip pain. He was in a bicycle accident and he had some films in between x-rays MRR because of a woman who who's pulling out of a parking lot, had collide with him for whatever reason. And you know, and I got a lens, you know, I saw his power profile on his bike. I saw the lifts that he was doing because we were training at the same facility. And he's like, I, I need to come and see you for physical therapy. Speaker 2 (36:52): I'm like, no, you don't. I'm like, I'm watching you lift, man. You don't need to come and see for, you know, let's, let's just chat. If we cross paths here and he's become a very good friend, he, he always jokes. He's like, you're the only PT you've told me not to come and see you. He's like all these other people are like trying to get me in and get me on these programs and tell me, I need hip surgery and PRP and yada, yada. So, but you need to know that nothing sinister is going on the flip side of the coin. Speaker 1 (37:19): Right. And that's where experience comes in and confidence as a clinician comes in as well. And that takes time. So you're not going to be, so what I'm getting is if you want to be a running injury expert, go all in, read the research, do the things, take the classes and take time. It takes time and leave your ego at the door. Speaker 2 (37:39): Yeah. And I think the patterns will become, they'll become pretty straight away in terms of where runners are getting into trouble. You know, where are these injuries are manifesting? And, you know, I, I think that most of it is being disconnected or out of touch with your ecosystem and not laying down programs that sort of reflect your ecosystem and realize that target is always moving. Right? Speaker 1 (38:03): Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. Final question of our interview here. And again, it's, it's an easy one. So, so we talked about this ahead of time. This is an easy one. So, well, how do I even phrase this in looking at the profession of physical therapy, what can we do better to define what we do and kind of stake our claim on what we do as a profession? Speaker 2 (38:37): Yeah. I still am organizing my thoughts around this. I went into physical therapy because I thought it put me in the best possible position to help troubleshoot with people through a conservative approach. And I think that the challenge we have is physical therapy is a very tricky thing to define. And I think that where we're ultimately, and this is a quote from Jen Shelton, who was you know, in born to run, she was a young gifted ultra runner at the time. I don't know what she's up to these days, but she's she's a trip in all great ways, but she said physical therapists are your best friends in healthcare. And I think that we're well positioned to be the first line of defense because we're trained across such a broad through such a broad range. So, you know, you may see us working in cardiopulmonary capacity. Speaker 2 (39:40): You may see us working in wound care. You may see us working in a neurologic geriatric with geriatric population. You may see us basically with working with pro sports teams you know, pelvic floor. I mean, it's tricky when you have all these moving parts, but I, I don't think that we've defined who we are as a profession, to the extent that we need to. And and I think that's why a lot of other people end up defining us sometimes in good ways sometimes in bad ways. But I think that it's sort of like, you know, I'm in Seattle, I'm going to use a microbrew example. You know, you have run of the mill rehab. And I think some people lump physical therapy ended up, but physical therapy to me is sort of like a microbrew, right. We need to tell people what to think about it. Speaker 2 (40:34): We can't let them conjure up their own ideas. We need to really define who we are as a profession. And and I, I don't think we've done that yet. I think that we're, we're getting there, but I don't, I don't think we've done a really good job defining physical therapy. Cause if you ask people, you know, people are like, yeah, I've tried physical therapy and we know the same, the response, it's a heat ultrasound TheraBand. And it's always funny when people connect with me, they're like, this is so different from like what I expect to physical therapy to be. And I'm like, well, what did you expect it to be? And it was generally the response is what I just mentioned. And they're like, you just helped me troubleshoot and in sort of the seamless way. And, and that's what I think we do. Speaker 2 (41:21): We triage and troubleshoot. But we look at things through the people who I really respect in life. They're able to look at challenging situations through multiple lenses. And I think that that's how we're trained as physical therapists. And I think that that's why we're in such an incredible position to troubleshoot with people. So I don't know why you've got my gears grinding even more. And I, I, I think about this morning, noon and night is, you know, how do we better define our profession? So we don't let people conjure up their own ideas of what it is, because I think a lot of times if they've had a bad experience, that it becomes very skewed in physical just saying physical therapy doesn't capture it. Speaker 1 (42:09): Yeah. I agree with that. And so what can we do as a profession to change that? I agree it needs to be changed. And I agree we need to be the ones out in front talking about what we do and how we do it and why we do it. So when, when you think about that, what sort of ways can we be out in front and take control of the narrative? Speaker 2 (42:33): I mean, I think it needs to be orchestrated. And I think that that's, that's a major challenge right now. Because I think that is a profession we're a little bit more fragmented than, than one might think. So I think that we have to have a lot of people come together from different sectors of the field and have have a long, hard staring in the mirror and talk with each other to try and arrive in a definition for what we do. And I think it's a really challenging thing, but I think it's something that is very important, but I think also individuals like yourself where you start to represent the profession. You know, I try to do the same thing. I think that holds a lot of weight too. So I, I think it, you sort of have to take a multi-pronged approach. Speaker 1 (43:23): Yeah, yeah. So you have to take that 30,000 foot approach by having a lot of people from different areas come together and give that wide umbrella. But then from a micro position, individuals can also be out there and trying to, to change, to make a change. Speaker 2 (43:40): Yeah. And and I, I'm confident that we're going to do that. I don't know. I feel like I'm in my early forties now and I'm starting to become more reflective in life. Right. And and really think about, you know, a lot of things, one of which is a profession and, you know, I just feel like a pig in poop having landed in this profession because I'm such a diehard PT, but I also, like, I feel like the perception of physical therapy needs to change too. Speaker 1 (44:09): And, you know, I will say that I do see it changing slowly. I mean, this is a big ship to turn and I'm talking from a societal standpoint. And I say that because I see more and more in mainstream media, whether it be on television, print, blogs, podcasts, et cetera, that journalists are now reaching out to physical therapists. Whereas they would have reached out to a trainer, a chiropractor, a yoga instructor, or something like that when it comes to their articles on everything from training to, I just did an interview yesterday about pillows, you know? So it seems like, well, what, why would they reach out to a PT about pillows? You know, but it's nice that they are reaching out to PTs about things like that. And things about training and things about COVID rehab and, and long haul COVID patients, you know, physical therapists are now being part of that conversation. I'm seeing that more and more from main street, main stream journalists. So I feel like that's a good sign. Speaker 2 (45:12): Yeah, for sure. Speaker 1 (45:14): A good sign, for sure. And, and also showing that journalists are open to hearing from different groups. So I always say to physical therapists like contact your local newspaper, if you live. And, you know, I'm from a small town in Pennsylvania contact that local newspaper asked to write an article, ask to, you know, be a contributor, get onto your local news stations find, cause that's, that's the way the general public finds out, you know, on social media, there are some people like yourself and others that have great social media followings and are putting out great content designed for the consumer. But a lot of physical therapists on social media, probably myself included do social media posts for other therapists. So it's a little different, right. Speaker 2 (46:01): Yeah. And I think that's okay. And I think it's Speaker 1 (46:03): Okay. Yeah. But I think we, it could be broader. Speaker 2 (46:07): Yeah. I just, I think that when I work with folks and I, I'm not alone here, but when people start getting a lens into my thoughts on a particular situation, if they're like, Hey, I have some calf pain, they call me on the phone. They're like, they may be an athlete. And they're like, Hey, I have some calf pain, but a great example. This guy reached out to me the other day. And he was dealing with what he was told was an Achilles tendinopathy. And he was under the care of a physician and other rehab professional outside of the profession and I'll leave it at that. And when he came to see me, his primary complaint was he was starting to lose coordination in his left, lower extremity on the run. And he started to feel more disjointed on the bike. This isn't an Achilles tendinopathy. Speaker 2 (46:54): He may have symptoms that, you know, that are consistent, but that's not what's driving. So, you know, you start to think of, okay, well what could this be? You know, is there something going on maybe like from a differential diagnosis, you're starting to run through like, Hey, is he's telling you this, like okay, is this unilateral? Is that bilateral? You know, is there any loss of sensation, strength, power you know, is this, like if we just start asking a different set of questions, you know, could this be a runner's dystonia? Could it be something like multiple sclerosis, it could be ALS. So you have to, when someone says, Hey, I have this complaint, we're asking in terms of what's running through our mind and the questions we ask, they're very different. So I'm going to start challenging him from different coordination tasks. Speaker 2 (47:44): I'm going to take them through lower quarter screen. I'm going to get a lens into his running. You know, I'm going to understand how an Achilles tendinopathy would present if he's not having issues doing calf raises. And he's able to sit there and jump in place. I'm like, you're killing is, is pretty, pretty good, man. You know? So for whatever reason, there's this timing issue in his Achilles is probably seeing a different or an unaccustomed rate of loading that, that he's not withstanding from a timing perspective. So, you know, he's someone that probably ultimately needs to consult a neurologist, right? So why is no one told him that for a year? And they're telling him that he needs to do a more aggressive form of scraping and he's a candidate for a PRP, excuse my language, but that. Right. So this is where our role is just so critical because we sit, we spend an hour with people or at least, you know, a lot, and we, we can sit there and troubleshoot with people and really get them into the right hand. Why is no one ever he's like your assessment makes so much sense to me. And so many examples. Yeah, Speaker 1 (48:51): Many, many examples. Well, Chris, this was great. What a good conversation. I think there's a little bit of got a little bit of everything in here, and hopefully we answered a lot of w V a lot of the questions that you get on, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. So thank you so much now, where can people find you? Speaker 2 (49:11): I can't tell you no, Speaker 1 (49:13): I'm going off social media now. Speaker 2 (49:17): Instagram is good. I'm just at Chris Johnson, the PT, and I'm in the process of revamping my website and that should hopefully be done at some point in the next couple of weeks. And and that's gonna really just, I think, make it easy to understand what some of my offerings are and how to sync up with me. And yeah, for folks, if, if you want to sign up for a crazy newsletter please join my newsletter. It's a little bit of reverence. So I'm preparing it now in, in good ways. So, Speaker 1 (49:49): And how can they sign up for your newsletter? That'll be on the website and Chris Johnson, pt.com or Zara and PT. Speaker 2 (49:56): Chris Johnson, pc.com. Yeah. Going back to my roots, Speaker 1 (50:01): Go keeping it simple. Right? Well, this was wonderful. Last question, knowing where you are now in your life and career, what advice would you give to your younger self now that you're, you're pondering, you're pondering life in your early forties. Speaker 2 (50:18): Oh, stop taking yourself so seriously be present with people, equally people, power, power, your phone off, and and be present with people. And for folks who are who are coming to see you understand that a lot of what brings about changes in what helps people are these non-specific effects, you know, during a clinical interactions. So don't feel like you need to have this gnarly didactic knowledge. That's going to come in time by continuing to read the research, spending time around other mentors or clinicians. You respect taking courses from them. But if you can just be present and engage with someone, take a genuine curiosity in their situation, that's going to do wonders and and yeah, take the pressure off yourself. Speaker 1 (51:07): Excellent advice. Excellent. And I thank you so much again, Chris, for taking the time out. And we will see you in a couple of days next in a week or so for a round table discussion, which I also think will be phenomenal. So thank you so much. Speaker 2 (51:22): Yeah. Thanks again for having me on Karen and keep up the great work. It's fun to, to just sort of follow your, your journey and calling me if I can do anything to support you. Speaker 1 (51:31): Thank you so much. And everyone, thanks so much for listening. Have a great week and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

March Movie Madness Part 1 (of 3)! March is National Women’s Month, so -ahead of the Snyder Cut- we’re talking about Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984. What did we like? What would we change? What would we throw out altogether?    Tune in next week for our thoughts on the Snyder Cut! Have questions/comments/concerns? Shoot us an email: tencenttakes@gmail.com ----more---- Transcript of Episode: [00:00:00] Jessika: Do you, you can be, you know what, honestly, you can bitch about Snyder again, Hello, hello and welcome to Ten Cent Takes the podcast where we rip into the comic books and characters you know and love, one issue at a time. My name is Jessica Frazier and I'm joined by my cohost, the Bitchin' Baker Mike Thompson. Mike: Hello.  Jessika: Well, if you're new here, the purpose of this podcast is to take a closer look at comic books and comic related media and how it's affected pop culture and our collective consciousness shaping how we view the world around us. Our topic for today is actually a deep dive into the recent [00:01:00] iterations of the Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 84 films. What do you think Mike?  Mike: I'm excited? Uh, I really, I really enjoyed the first Wonder Woman movie when I saw it in theaters. I haven't seen it since then. So it was really just a fun trip down memory lane to sit and watch it with my partner. And then. Kind of tear it apart a little bit, but yeah, we, you know, the, the Wonder Woman, the Wonder Woman, movies, I think are a bright spot and the DC extended universe. And so I'm genuinely jazzed to talk about it with someone else. Like this is kind of like, based on our, our plans for the next couple of episodes, I guess it's almost like March movie madness.  Jessika: Yeah. I was thinking that I was, I was getting myself very mentally prepared for a lot of. Sitting and watching movies with my dog. So I'm excited. So is he, Carl's stoked.  Mike: What's his favorite movie [00:02:00] snack?  Jessika: You know, he just watches me eat movies, snacks, because he doesn't eat people, food. Whoops. I'm not owner where I'm like stuff feeding my dog eat. This is the reason he does not bag. He's such a good boy. Mike: Yeah. Meanwhile, my dogs are all over me as soon as I'm eating lunch, Jessika:  Your dogs are like tiny spiders. I don't know how they climb up so high.  Mike: I don't know either, man. It's weird. All right. So, uh, you are leading this episode, so let's get started. Jessika:  The thing we like to do each week is talk about one cool thing that you have read or watched recently, like right. You take it away.  Mike: Yeah. So the memorable thing that I have been consuming media wise over the past week or so has been a TV show called Resident Alien, which is a new show on the scifi network. Sarah and I were watching it and it's it's it's okay. At [00:03:00] first it's about this alien who crashed lands on earth, kills a human, takes his form, and then has to assume the identity of a small town doctor. It's kind of a, a sci-fi comedy drama, but it stars Alan Tudyk, who if you've watched over the past 20 years he shows up in and he is, I think one of the most underrated actors, he really is just so wonderful at playing weird roles. And so he plays this character who is an alien, trying to blend in badly with humans in a small town in Colorado. And he is so funny and you watch it and you're. You can understand how people kind of write them off as just, "Oh, this is a guy who is somewhere on the spectrum," but it's based on a comic book from Dark Horse. Um, and so after watching a bunch of these episodes and falling in love with the show, I downloaded it on Hoopla and just started reading it. And it's really solid.  Wow. That's  Jessika: awesome. I actually didn't even realize that that was based [00:04:00] off of a comic.  Mike: I didn't until about three episodes in, and then it said based on the comic book. And so that was when I looked it up.  Jessika: That's so cool. Actually, one of my really good friends has been talking about watching that show. So I guess he's going to be irritated that once again, he wasn't the one to get me to watch the thing, but here we are.  Mike: So how about you? What have you been consuming? Jessika: Well, recently I've been trying to get through another. Watch through of the MCU films. Um, and I've been doing them in timeline, chronilogic-, chronological order, starting with Captain America. So that chronology it's been fun.  Mike: Yeah. So Captain America and then Captain Marvel and then Iron-Man?  Jessika: Yes. Yes.  Mike: Okay. Cool.  Jessika: Proceeding in that order, hadn't realized how many of those films I had missed. When I was first going through them, there are so many of them. So I [00:05:00] started watching just in order, making sure I wasn't missing any of them. Even if people said, Oh, you don't need to watch that one. Okay. No, let me just watch the thing and just make sure, and I was surprised there were a couple of them that I liked more than some of the conversations I had would have led me to believe I would have. So it's been fun. So let's roll into our conversation about our first film, which is Wonder Woman. And I hadn't watched this one. I watched it in theaters as well. I realized, and then hadn't watched it like you until recently until just last night, actually.  Mike: Yeah. So I watched it about two hours before we started to record this episode.  Jessika: You're fucking fresh. You're there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super fresh. The bad day. The wound is fresh.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Well, I'll give a quick synopsis before we do each of our films. So this one was released in [00:06:00] 2017. And the film follows the character development of Diana Prince, and we watch her training and growth through her early adolescence in the fabled land at Themiscyra, learning the art of battle from an entire Island of strong, fierce and driven women. All of this is brought to a screeching halt when a world war one fighter pilot breaks through the magical borders of their land, prompting Diana to leave the safety of her home land in order to fight against an ancient, evil, and save mankind from. Themselves. So, Mike, what was your favorite part of the film and what would you like to throw immediately directly into the trash? Mike: Oh, man. Okay.  It's hard to decide what my favorite part is. There's a lot of this movie that I really like, I, I guess I'd have to say it's really the setting, you know, World War One was a really bold narrative choice and I really liked how Patty Jenkins used to frame the [00:07:00] overall story. It's it's a really overlooked period of history, I think, because we just don't usually want to take that hard look at how awful we really were. It was a really excellent contrast to the parts of the movie that are set in them mascara. And by comparison, I kind of like to trash the entire third act. I don't know how you felt about it, but. I don't feel like that third act is nearly as strong as what comes before it. And Patty Jenkins has talked about how Warner brothers I made last minute changes and forced her to do this giant CGI boss battle after she planned for something that she describes as smaller. Um, you know, and, and on top of that, I feel like that third act doesn't offer any real payoff for Diana's party outside of Steve Trevor. So it feels like this very kind of... eh, "fine" conclusion [00:08:00] to a movie that felt really strong otherwise.  Jessika: Yeah. I would absolutely agree with that. Absolutely. And I th the ending was very, for me, very kind of, eh.  Mike: Yeah! I, yeah, and I mean, I was talking to Sarah about this and I said, it felt like when I sit there and I think back about the movie I was sitting there and going, Oh yeah: so they, they have that ball. And then they're at an airport. I can't remember what happens in between and it turns out not much, but it's a very sudden shift and again, it just, it doesn't quite work. So, yeah, that's, uh, that's kind my, my overall feeling about the movie, like what, what about you? Like, what did you really like and not like. Jessika: Well, I found the movie itself, and this is with both of the films. They're just beautiful. They're just, they're such a treat. It's like eating dessert. [00:09:00] And even the gritty parts are very artistically done. They're, they're framed in a way that's that makes all of the characters look very alive and real, but at the same time, almost a, almost a glorification of themselves is how it feels.  So that was very, a very interesting way to, to kind of frame that in my opinion now, for what I would throw directly away is I really wish that they had not focused so much on Diana's infatuation with Steve. Like he legitimately just met this guy, take a breath. I know he's literally the only man you've ever met, but look around and then look in the mirror. I on the other hand, it's just, yeah, I don't know. The women are so fierce too. So I will go back to that. The women are super fierce and I [00:10:00] love how they show such a range of emotions that movies don't usually allow for, for women. And they showed strength and rage and honor, and little girls are usually told that those things are done for them and not by them. Mike: Sarah had a really good. Point of view along the lines of, I don't understand why Diana doesn't go out and just get laid a whole lot. Like what's so special about Steve Trevor. Like, yeah, he's good looking, but, but at the same time, he's the first dude you meet and then suddenly you're surrounded by a plethora of dudes, you know, maybe, maybe treat it like a buffet. Jessika: And I, I feel like it would almost be more true to her upbringing if she did go out and not have a care about, you know, the way she expressed herself, I feel like that would be more authentic to, to how she learned about the pleasures of the flesh as she called them. When she called men obsolete. I just about, I lost my mind, my dog [00:11:00] barked because I was laughing so hard.  Mike: I will give some kudos to Steve. He didn't sit there and react like a douche. He was just, he kind of had this wounded. No, no, we're not obsolete. We're not useless then that was kind of, yeah, but yeah.  Jessika: What was your biggest lesson or takeaway?  Mike: I'm not sure I had a lesson from it. Like I said before, you know, my, my big takeaway was that this was the first time I found myself enjoying any of the DC EU movies that had come out to that point. So I guess my biggest takeaway was that I finally had some hope for the overall film franchise, but there was this tweet that I remember seeing a couple of days later where it was a picture of Carrie Fisher as General Leia and then Robin Wright as Antiope. And it said "I've lived long enough to watch my princesses grow [00:12:00] up to become generals." And I thought that was a really lovely sentiment just to have seen, to have seen the embodiment of all these, these characters became what I wanted them to. Jessika:  Absolutely. And actually that ties very well into what I kind of took away from this, which was. You very well, may be stronger than society would have you believe so. Yeah. Well, let's talk about our, our next fish on the butcher block here. Wonder Woman 84.  Mike: Ah, man, this was, this was a movie that I remember you and I both had feelings about. And I feel like we're going to spend a little bit more time talking about those.  Jessika: Probably. This other one was very like doo doo doo let's jump through the park. You know, there are daisies and strong women I'm there. Um, this, this other one felt [00:13:00] very much more problematic and wow, that's such an, an intro I'm leading us. Aren't I But here we go, ladies and gentlemen and theys. So having just been released in the last couple of months at the tail end of 2020 Wonder Woman 84 is set in current day with Diana Prince bossing it out, being the extremely knowledgeable antiquities expert. She is after the discovery of a wish granting object that falls into the wrong hands and inadvertently makes Diana normal, heavy quotations normal. Our heroine must make the ultimate selfless decision in order to save the world again. So, Mike, what, what are your thoughts on your least on your favorite IC? I just started with the least your favorite and least desirable portions of this film. You [00:14:00] go first. I have opinions. Mike: Man, I really gotta have a cigarette that I can take a drag from when, when I'm having these, these moments of kind of wistful regret. God, like I said, you know, I'm, I'm a lot more conflicted about, about this movie than I was with the first one. I think the best thing about this movie was Kristen Wiig. I, she was just an absolute standout and. That fight scene that they gave her in the White House, uh, where Diana and her are just beating each other's ass. And then Kristen Wiig ends up mopping the floor with her after a little bit. I thought that was just amazing first of all, and second, I thought it was a really good example of what this movie did best, which was the smaller scenes were generally. So, so good. Which contrasts with what my big problem was, [00:15:00] which is that the quote, big moments kind of left me rolling my eyes. Like, you know, it's, it's those moments that were meant to be epic or super emotional. And I can't remember one of them that really worked. Like there's that action sequence in Egypt slash Bialya. Yeah, it's the, it's that big action sequence with the motorcade where it's supposed to be this really cool thing where she's jumping from car to car and moving super fast and chasing things down. And it just, it looks so cheap and there were so many totally obvious green screen moments that just really took me out of it. Um Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: You know, and, and on top of that, there's the, the extra heightened urgency to it, where they have the kids playing soccer and then they get into the street. Right? When this, when this convoy is coming down the road and I just, I couldn't, man, I rolled my eyes so hard. It was so dumb. And then the same thing with Kristen Wiig's heel turn when she [00:16:00] beats up and almost murders, the guy who tried to rape her in the park. And I mean, Sarah and I were both on her side, you know, Sarah actually pointed out that a way more effective heel turn would have been if the homeless guy that she had brought the food to earlier in the movie and who shows up at the end of that scene, and she, she gets really aggro with. But if she had actually just been really dismissive of him, when he tried to say hi to her or something where she had just been like, I don't have time for you. And then there's finally that bit where Steve dies again.  Jessika: Good riddance. Goodbye, Steve.  Mike: Ahh, I, I really like Chris pine too. Jessika: I mean, I do too. Chris pine hit us up beyond this podcast. I'm sure he listens.  Mike: I'm sure, but like that whole sequence where they just, they turn it up to 11 where he sits there and right before she like renounces her wish you hear him go, I'll love you forever. And [00:17:00] there's a lack of subtlety throughout most of this movie that just kind of left me scratching my head and you know, and then there's also just the less, we talk about that final fight between Diana and Barbara, when she looks like a shitty thunder cat. Oh God, I don't know. I, I feel like there were just too many cooks in the kitchen man, because like, the story just feels like it's trying to go in too many directions in any one of them would have been fine, but the movie settles for this messy middle ground instead of filling, committing to any one direction and they just. And they try to make up for that by, by going really intense and it doesn't work. So, yeah, that's my thoughts. Jessika: In the sense of kind of trying to do too much, why do we have two villains? Could we not have, you know, had her kind of evolve at the very end of this film and have [00:18:00] her be in the next film or something, or, you know, have, have something happen or I guess that wouldn't have worked with the whole wish breakdown, but. Is there some way where we didn't have to have a quarter of a story for each of these characters and then Diana making shitty decisions. The rest of it.  Mike: I have thoughts about that, that we can talk about later on, but I mean, there's so many ways that they could have done the cheetah's origin, the, the recent, uh, the recent rebirth Wonder Woman comics that were done by Liam sharp and Greg Rucka. The whole focus is about how Wonder Woman and, and by extension Barbara Minerva's paths are so tangled and so warped by all these red cons and everything. And it's trying to resolve it in a way that that kind of honors all the previous stories, but also explains this new, this new development. And it worked really well. I really liked it a lot, but I mean, The whole thing with making with the [00:19:00] way that they did it, it was okay. But I, I agree. It was, it was too many villains at once. It was the same thing that they did in Spider-Man three with Toby Maguire, where it was like, there are three villains because there's a third movie and you're just kind of whatever  Jessika: Spider-Man learns to shoot webs out of his feet to compensate  Mike: Speedermin. Jessika: Yes. So get Spider-Ham involved.  Mike: Oh man. I would watch that movie.  Jessika: Let's get on that.  Mike: Okay. So like I've already vented my spleen, but like what, how about you? Tell me how you're feeling. Jessika:  Let's I'm going to start easy. I'm not going to jump into the negative right away, although it's bursting to come out. So my favorite part was definitely the very beginning. With a whole stadium full of strong women. I don't think that I can say enough about the fact that we don't get that very often. We don't get to see even a whole scene full [00:20:00] of women very often, let alone that many women let alone women who are competing and supporting each other and fighting and being fierce and being strong. Those aren't things that we get that often. And so I, I started crying the first time I saw this and I, I watched this movie two times when it first came out and I started crying when I first started watching the scene and I was like, well, that's stupid, but it's not, it's not stupid. It's, it's something that we don't get to relate to. And I'm a person who, um, I'm not going to say like, I'm a strong person, but I'm just like, I'm built a little more muscly. You know, I'm a runner. I can lift heavy things. And so to see someone represented that matches my not necessarily physique, but that matches like my motivation to go do those things. Maybe not to that effect like Diana, but in that same sense, it really hits me in a spot that a lot of these floofy princessy things [00:21:00] don't. I'm not a floofy princess. I would love to be a floofy princess. I dress like one sometimes, but ultimately in court they'd be like, you don't fit in that dress. So, and that's okay. We don't all fit in the stupid dress.  Mike: Yeah. So you and I both come from that hearty peasant stock we're meant for working in the fields.  Jessika: Oh yeah. I can, I can pick up a whole mess of oxen. Just pick them up all at once. So let's, let's move into the, Oh my God. I hated this. I hated this so much. So you and I, we talked about this I'm we're going to do it again. So the whole Steve possessing another dude's body it's super gross.  Mike: And the problem is that that really sucked the oxygen out of the room. When we were talking about, about problems with this movie and, and it's something that really felt pointless. There was really no driving reason for that to happen. [00:22:00] And, yeah. Oh please like go out on. Sorry. I cut you off.  No, that's  Jessika: okay. I mean, there could have been so many other ways that, that he came back, quote unquote, but there were consequences to him coming back or, you know, something like that, but it didn't have to be him taking over another person's like faculties, that's not okay. And it's interesting to me that everybody else finds this super gross too, but I think it's, it's interesting because it's, it's because it's a guy there's a ton of outrage about this because it's a man, but this pretty consistently happens to female characters in films and TV and women many times have very little to no agency regarding what happens to them on screen. But we clearly view this as normal. So it really speaks to how our society functions to see the absolute outrage at this male character being treated like any [00:23:00] given female character in our media. Also the bit at the end of the film where Diana kind of gives the unnamed hallmark looking bro, and knowing look like, yeah, with that, it's, it's just gross. He didn't have any say in the matter when the implied sexual acts happened, he was not in control of his body. Nor able to consent. And quite honestly, it reminds me there's a super assist and trigger warning. Everyone. It reminds me of how many, many women's stories of not knowing what exactly happened to them went down. You know, there are so many women who have no idea.  Mike: I mean, because there's that whole aspect where Steve, Trevor, you know, is basically just his, his spirit is just thrust into some random dudes body, but. There's also the bit where it's implied that he just has no memory of anything happening for days. So I think, I think that was just [00:24:00] massively problematic on a number of levels, aside from what you've just mentioned, but just narratively where it's like, what is this dude going through? Where, where he's sitting there with his friends and they're like, Hey, remember that crazy week where nuclear war almost broke out and all he can sit there and say is like, not really. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. I, I really hope that they were trying to make the point that I'm making or the point that I'm feeling about this. But I feel like it's so lost. I feel like we feel the outrage, but we don't, we don't feel the other side of what that outrageous portraying the fact that, that the other side of the world or the other half of the people live that reality. Mike: Well, yeah. You know, back to what I was saying about too many cooks in the kitchen, like this was a story that was written by three different people. There was Patty Jenkins, there was Geoff Johns, and then there is Dave Callaham. This is all armchair quarterbacking. I don't know. I am willing to [00:25:00] bet that that whole Steve getting thrust into someone else's body and then no real follow through on that narrative. I would be willing to bet that that was something that came from either Johns or Callaham. And it just, it was something that they didn't think about because it's not something that dudes think about a lot.  Jessika: Yeah. You don't have to.  Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I can think of at least half a dozen ways that you could have made that work without bringing in that, that whole rapey connotation. Jessika: I agree. Like what if he came back and he wasn't like corporal okay. How interesting would that be? Like, if you just came back like Patrick Swayze ghost style, and they're just like, are you thinking about what I said that they're just like sitting, they're like making pottery.  Mike: Well, and I remember sitting there and watching it when the trailers came out and originally I was thinking, Oh, no, maybe it's just, he's a ghost that's come back. Like, it's probably not going to be a real thing or, or it's a hallucination. [00:26:00] And then they show him, you know, beating ass while they're doing that whole convoy chase. So I had to sit there and go, well, no, I guess he's corporeal. I don't know how they're going to pull this off. And I just, I felt really dissatisfied with, with what they did. I didn't have a problem with him coming back, but I mean, honestly the whole fact that, you know, Wonder Woman reveals that that Diana is a god, why not just bring him back. But the thing is, is that manifesting a body out of nothing, it turns out it takes a lot of energy. And so he is directly draining her divine power. Jessika: That's so much better, honestly, that makes so much more sense. Cause there was actually causing correlations. Yeah. I, this whole Diana feeling bad because at some random dude, just, I mean, with a slick wink at the end is not convincing that that was a detriment to her, you know, she's she didn't have like the whole idea was that. [00:27:00] You were giving up your most precious whatever to get the most precious, whatever, you know, and it's like, that wasn't really what she was doing. She just was using some guy and she really didn't care. I mean, that's the long and the short of it. She did not care.  Mike: And that was whew. That adds a whole other problematic element. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely.  Mike: There are certain characters who. Yeah, we can get the alternate universe versions of them, or they can be mine controlled and turn evil temporarily. But the core character being is that they are these uncorruptable aspirational beings that we all want to use as the proverbial role models. And so there's the characters like, like Superman who is decent and kind Captain America, who always tries to do what's right. Wonder Woman who is supposed to be the embodiment of like kindness. And there's a wonderful speech about how in one of her comics where she's saying like, you know, I [00:28:00] don't, I don't kill if I can wound, I don't wound if I can, I think capture... I can't remember this exactly. And I don't capture if I can use a word instead. That's great. You know, one of her, one of her things is that she can speak the language of all living things. And it's like, there's this, there's this really nurturing quality to her because of all that. And then it's like, Oh, and you know, she, you know, It took away a dude's agency and is totally unapologetic about it. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I feel like it came across so much better that first movie, when she really wanted to go help the woman in the trench and, you know, and she was able to speak the language and understand the pain, not only of the language, but she really understood people's pain and what they were going through. She wanted to stop and help everyone, but it didn't feel like she was driven in the same way in the second movie. Even when she was supposed to have like learned her lesson, it didn't feel that way. Well, what was your big takeaway from this film? Did you have [00:29:00] one?  Mike: Ah, I guess, again, it's one of those things where I don't have a lesson that I'm taking away from it so much, but it was just that overcorrection is a definite thing in the DCEU. And they, they did it in Batman vs. Superman, where they were trying to acknowledge and, and sort of hold accountable that, that first Man of Steel movie for like the massive body count from all the destruction of the Kryptonians fighting each other. I feel like they did it again here because it was such a, a different movie. And I don't quite know what they're trying to correct, to be honest, but it just, it felt like they were trying to pivot and then they pivoted too hard.  Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: Yeah. What about you?  Jessika: I would say that I learned that society only gets upset at lack of bodily agency. If it involves controlling a man, that would be my take It's a rough one. Rough, like sandpaper up [00:30:00] like a little kitty cat's tongue.  Mike: Remember when we started this podcast and we thought it was going to be really fun and lighthearted and... Yeah.  Jessika: And we've got 13 pages of notes and just angst.  Mike: The salad days.  Jessika: Oh, you know, the planning phase is always super fun. Well, comparison time we watched two movies. They were... supposed to be in the same vein of movies, one was supposed to roughly follow the other from my understanding. So what was one thing that was similar or did not track it all when the two films were side-by-side or pick one thing that you, that you thought was interesting?  Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So a big thing in both of the movies is that the gods like to mettle with humanity, like. You know, the the first movie it's, it's very blatant about that. You know, Aries is responsible for World War [00:31:00] One, and Diana has to set out to kill him and the war to end all Wars in 1984, it feels like there was supposed to be a big twist or reveal when it's revealed that the dream stone was created by the God of Lies. We get, we get the name of, of the God who I can't remember for the life of me, because it was so one-off and then nothing comes from that. And I feel like there could have been something really cool tying the God of lies and deceit. And I think greed, I think, is what they said to the two things that the eighties was really known for, which was one was the Cold War, but the two was just the incredibly gross commercialization.  Jessika: I thought you were going to say that .Brings us to our first episode. Watch our look, go, go back and listen to our Sunday comics episode, which is episode one. Mike:  Yeah. I feel like that was a really wasted opportunity because nothing came about from that. [00:32:00] And I don't know. I, I also feel like that could have been, that could have been tied to providing Barbara with, you know, a... second opportunity to get back at Diana. I dunno, I did enjoy the whole bit where the, the actual ending to that movie was its own way, a smaller, more personal ending. I liked that, but I feel like, I feel like we needed something as a little bit more of a dramatic reveal as opposed to, oh, the dream stone was created by the gods. Cool. But we got to see her murder, the God of war with lightning.  Jessika: Exactly.  Mike: Yeah. What about you? Like, how do you feel that it compares side-by-side?  Jessika: I thought I would stick with something that I thought was interesting. That was fun between the two that was similar. Okay. Steve and Diana go through a very similar arc of discovering their new world that they've been introduced to. And I didn't really [00:33:00] remember that until I rewatched wonder woman for this iteration last night, I was like, Oh, how funny? Because. Diana comes to new world and she's like, Oh, look at all of these cool things. And she's like, Oh, that's beautiful . Oh, a baby. And she's like looking every single thing. She wants to look at everything. It's all new it's. This is literally the first time she's seen any of these things before. So it's super wholesome. My favorite part of this was when she gets the ice cream. This is so wholesome. She gets the ice cream and she enjoys it so much and she goes back and she says, "you should be very proud." And I just, it was like, you are so sweet. That is amazing. And just, I mean, it's like looking at the world, like through a child's eyes I can imagine. And then Steve, when he first comes in, I mean, obviously he was a, he was a pilot, but he hasn't seen [00:34:00] commercial airlines. He hasn't seen, you know, anything that holds more than probably two or three people. And the first thing he sees is like a huge commercial Boeing fly over him. And it was so cool and him going and finding out about space, travel and going and seeing a rocket. And it just. It was so cool. And seeing that through his eyes in that way was like, wow. Yeah, that is really neat. It's cool. And it makes you appreciate those things like, yeah, I guess ice cream is really cool.  Mike: I, I got to say Chris pine continues to be one of my favorite actors out there and not just because he's super adorable and apparently a very decent human being, but just.  Jessika: I mean, Chris pine hit us up.  Mike: Yeah. He also takes very weird, funny roles a lot of the times that you wouldn't expect. So, uh, if [00:35:00] you have not seen the movie Stretch, I highly recommended because it is one of the most bonkers roles that you will ever see him. If I remember right he, he first appears on camera, parachuting naked? I think? It's been a little while. It's been a little while since I've seen this, but it's directed by, uh, Joe Carnahan. The guy who did, uh, Smokin' Aces, The A-Team, The Grey, uh, he just did a new one called Boss Level that's on Hulu, which is a really fun, strange action movie, which is where he kind of is at his strongest. But Stretch is about this one day that's absolutely insane for this limo driver and it's, it's... I'm not going to call it a good movie, but it's highly enjoyable, at least from my end as I remember it. But yeah. So Chris pine tangent over, sorry, Chris pine is really good at [00:36:00] just being very believable and the wide-eyed wonder that he showed in 84, I thought was so it was just lovely.  Jessika: He's a really good facial actor. Yeah, he's very, very, but like, to your point, he's very believable and his facial acting is so good. Do you remember in Star Trek? When he was in Star Trek?  Mike: Oh, yes, of course. Love those movies.  Jessika: Um, just his face when he concentrates in that movie where he gets all red and it's like, Oh, it's like, Oh, wow. Do you really live in that? You know, it's like he would go on their journey with him because his face is just taking us there. Mike: He kind of reminds me of Chris Hemsworth, um, because he he's really good at being a solid leading man, but he is also really funny when he's allowed to be [00:37:00] like, do you remember in the third one -Star Trek Beyond- where at the very beginning where he's got all the aliens. And you can just see him getting more and more confused as they're asking him why he's delivering this artifact and then getting really fed up. It was, I don't know why, but I still laugh whenever I see that scene. Oh man.  I got to agree with you. I think, I think that whole montage of him rediscovering the world was, was really just delightful. Yeah, it was, it felt special. Yeah.  Jessika: Well, so I have a little bonus category for Oh, Oh, okay. So I, you know, again, I watched wonder woman last night for the umpteenth time and I jotted down just a few, very Diana quotes as I was okay. Mike: My body is ready for this number one.  Jessika: Who will I be if I stay? [00:38:00] That one hit me, I would hit me right in the heart.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Yeah. Second one. I'm the man who can.  Mike: Who was that a Steve line or was that something that  Jessika: She said that, Diana said that . Mike: Really? I totally don't even remember this that's great.  Jessika: It's when she was going into, uh, they were talking about no man's land and he said, there isn't a man who can go there or like there's no man can go there. And she said, I'm the man who can.  Mike: Okay. Yeah, I totally glossed over that, which is really appalling. I mean, arguably the best scene in the movie.  Jessika: I, I literally have chills. It's I'm rethinking about that, that scene. That was sexy. It was sexy as hell. And the third quote, what I do is not up to you.  Mike: That was really good. Jessika: Yes. [00:39:00] So that was, those were my three quotes. They stood out to me. So I wrote them down. Well, let's move on to our category, brain wrinkles. And we like to spend a little time each episode talking about something comic related that just won't budge from our consciousness. Mike, what's been stuck in your noggin, right? Mike: So. We're we're doing these, these episodes, this one, and then the next couple, because the infamous Snyder Cut is launching this week. And, and do you want, do you want me to wait for you to Irish up your tea there?  Jessika: Oh yeah. I'm almost done with my coffee. Oh, good. I have a second one sitting right here.  Mike: But yeah, the, you know, the big thing that people have been focusing on ever since the Snyder Cutcat got announced and it was revealed has been the presence of Darkseid, who is, is basically the DC version of Thanos. [00:40:00] And I'm trying really hard to go into this movie with an open mind, regardless. I keep thinking about Darkseid as the villain that everyone wanted to see on the big screen, but it's really weird to realize that we're probably not going to see the coolest story with him in it, which is called the Great Darkness Saga. And it's from the eighties and it's from the comic book Legion of Superheroes, which does not have the name brand appeal of the Justice League. The whole thing is that Darkseid wakes up after roughly a thousand years of sleep and winds up almost conquering the galaxy. And it's absolutely batshit. It's like he brings back like rever- I think they're called reverse clones or shadow clones of like Superman and if I remember right Wonder Woman, and it's a huge reveal when they actually reveal that halfway through the series or the story of five issues, that Darkseid is the villain who's doing all this. So it was, it was really [00:41:00] fun. And it's, it's that wonderful, weird, crazy space opera sci-fi that we're just not going to see in the current movie environment, because it's so risky to do something like that.  Jessika: But see, that just sounds cool as hell I need. If we, if we can have, if we can have Guardians of the Galaxy, like why can't we have that?  Mike: Yeah. And I think a lot of it is because again, I'm not trying to sound like a Marvel fan boy, but I think right now, the, I think Warner Brothers is very risk-averse for, for all of the financial stuff that's going on behind the scenes with, with AT&T acquiring them recently and the insane amount of debt that's surrounding that whole deal. I think that they are trying to just do surefire hits. You know, if you, if you haven't read The Great Darkness Saga, you can actually go out and pick up a copy, pretty cheap of the collected edition. It's a [00:42:00] lot of fun, but one of the coolest things about it is that the, the epilogue to the story reveals actually that Darkseid wins in a way that's very personal and mean. And I kinda love that that at the time the team was allowed to do something like that. So, yeah, that's, that's, what's been on my brain lately. How about you? Jessika:  I'll have to check that out though. You always give me such good suggestions.  Mike: Oh, well, thank you.  Jessika: So my brain wrinkle and hear me out. Okay. I really liked Iron Man 3.  Mike: I rather enjoyed it.  Jessika: Everyone gives it such crap. Okay. I literally like every time I talked about like, oh, I'm doing a watch through, they were like, Oh, you know how people always have an opinion about like, which movies you can like skip, you know what I mean? So like Iron Man 3 is always one of the ones that people say, Oh, you can [00:43:00] skip that one. But honestly, I rather liked it. And quite frankly, this is, I mean, The main, so the main complaint I've heard about this is that Tony is too traumatized and feely, but like, what do you expect? The guy clearly has, he's been through a ton of shit. He clearly has PTSD and he clearly needs therapy and he's making wearable weapons as an outlet, which by the way, not recommended. I also think this movie is so necessary so that Tony stark overall character arc, otherwise. His final sacrifice and his like, kind of tenderness towards the Spider-Man character. It doesn't make any sense within the story or the character if he just continued with his one note selfish, douchebag tendencies. Mike: Yeah. I really enjoyed that movie for a number of reasons. I personally think it could have used a little bit more editing, but I mean, there was no personal lesson -I [00:44:00] felt- an Iron Man 2. Like Iron Man 2 was a, it's a fun, it's a fun movie, but it was like, cool. Like the end of the day, like. He gets to make out with a girl and, and his best friend has a suit of armor now. And I don't know, was there any more of a lesson other than Mickey Rourke is fun to watch? No matter what kind of terrible Russian accent he's sporting.  Jessika: Other than that, I mean, the movie itself, to me, wasn't very memorable. Mike:  No, I mean, it was fun, but it was just kind of whatever, you know, it was cotton candy. Yeah. Yeah. It was fine in a, in a, in nothing but a complimentary way. The third one, I, I agree. I think, I think like the self-sacrificing nature does actually pay off better because of that. And also I thought Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin and then the twist with him as the Mandarin was one of the funniest fucking things I'd seen in a long time. Jessika: One of my friends was very irritated at that and [00:45:00] almost walked out of the theater because the Mandarin is one of his favorite characters. And so when he figured out that it was this whole spoof, he got, he took it very personally, apparently. So which I just personally, I mean, I, I think it's very funny. I can understand you wanting to see your favorite characters represented, but we have to understand that, like you're not the writer. We're not the writer. Like we can sit here and bitch about it, but ultimately, like we don't have writing privileges. And so we just have to go on the ride that they take us on. And to a certain extent, that's just what we have to do as the audience. And I understand that we are going to have feelings and that's that, you know what that means. That means that they've done well. That means that they've, they've been compelling and that they've made us, they've made a spot in our hearts. But it's not something we should be able to take personally, or that we need to, in my opinion, I mean, I don't do it. Do what you want.  Mike: You know, the other thing is like they, they did all those [00:46:00] Marvel shorts as well. Do you remember those, like where you would get them in the DVDs and there'd be like a little five minute film or whatever. So I can't remember which one it was, but it was revealed that the Mandarin was. Was then being broken out of jail so that he could be brought to face the real Mandarin. And then they've never done anything with that, but they're also doing, uh, the new Shang-Chi movie, which Shane, she is this Bruce Lee style figure. The movie title is called Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Which goes back to the terrorist organization, the Ten Rings. And then the whole thing with the Mandarin is that in the comic books, he has 10 rings of power, which originally they're supposed to be magic rings, and then they've been retconned. So they're an artificial intelligent rings that manipulate reality, or they're, they're kind of like lesser infinity stones if I remember. Right.  Jessika: But it's not the same kind of thing that, that Dr. Strange is [00:47:00] working with right? It's not that whole like mystic circle sitch.  Mike: Uh, I don't think so, but who knows with where they're going to take the Marvel with, you know, the MCU is spinning stuff on its head in certain ways. And yeah, and I, you know, we're just along for the ride, it's going to be really interesting to see what they do, but in the original iron man movie, the terrorist organization that winds up forcing Tony Stark to theoretically build weapons for them and what he uses to build the armor. Instead, they are called the Ten Rings. And the Mandarin is, is actually a long running iron man villain -kind of problematic because he's relatively racist in a lot of ways or a racist caricature- but it'll be really interesting to see what they do with that. And I'm kind of hoping that we get some cameo of Ben Kingsley just like chained up, like, you know, princess Leia style with Jaba the Hutt or something like that when the Mandarin theoretically appears in Shang-Chi. So who knows.  [00:48:00] Jessika: Yeah.  Mike: Yeah.  Jessika: Well, thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. This episode was hosted by Jessica Frazier and Mike Thompson written by Jessica Frazier and edited by Mike Thompson. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson-Johnson of Bay Area Sound. Our credits music is "Pursuit of Life" by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat. Mike: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us how we got something wrong. Please head over to tencenttakes dot com or shoot an email to tencenttakes at gmail dot com. You can also find us on Twitter. The official podcast account is tencenttakes -all one word. Jessika is Jessica with a K and the Jessica has a K in it as well. And then I am vansau: V-A-N-S-A-U [00:49:00] Jessika: Stay safe out there  Mike: And support your local comic shop.

Chris Doelle is a Marketer, Author, Public Speaker, Broadcaster, Game Designer, and Texas High School Football Historian. Chris was not diagnosed with ADHD until age 45. He simply thought he was just more intelligent and motivated than his cohorts. His doctor sent Chris for evaluation and the results showed the highest reading he had ever seen. When asked how Chris dealt with his ADHD, his lifelong need to make lists seemed to be the glue that has held it all together. He never goes anywhere without a half dozen notepads. Recently, Chris has created two tabletop board games that were both fully funded via Kickstarter. www.FridayNightLegends.com and www.SaturdayLegends.com When he is not working on one of his business ventures, Chris can be found on his property in South Texas clearing land, burning out stumps or working with the builder as they will break ground soon on the house he and his wife are having built. Today we’re talking about how he keeps it all together… Enjoy!   A little more about our guest today: Chris was a class clown growing up and was always being creative. From writing action-themed short stories involving all his classmates and reading them to ever-growing crowds of interested students to singing contemporary pop songs to the pretty girls several years his senior, he was always up to something unique. He started his first company in junior high school - he built and repaired bicycles. This was quickly followed by a stint selling sports cards and comics. As the computer revolution began, Chris was instantly interested. He was writing code on notebook paper for a year before the first personal computers came out. At the same time, Chris began selling computer software to his high school and training the teachers how to use the machines as a Senior in their class. Chris was neither the most popular nor the loner. He flowed into and out of every clique of students easily. He played football but didn't get involved in any other extracurricular activities other than student government. He is notorious for being the only student to ever resign as Parliamentarian - stating his reason as, "It's a stupid position." His grades were straight C's because he would ace the tests with no studying but never turn in any homework. That balance left report cards showing him to be completely average. Just after high school Chris was ranked #13 in the world in Hacky Sack. He then put himself through college working four jobs at the same time. Before his schooling ended, he has found two people to do two of his jobs as less than he was being paid and became an employer - albeit unofficial. He studied Exercise Physiology and Psychology. In college he began racing bicycles - a love that has continued for decades amassing over 35,000 miles on the bike. Most nights during his 7 years of college however were spent playing Dungeons & Dragons where he was the Dungeonmaster because "his adventures were the most interesting" of their gaming group. Again, Chris did little school work while scoring 100% or better on most exams. If he did study, it was after D&D ended around 2am the night before a test. After college, he had a short stint in "corporate America" building the computer systems for the Greater Houston Area YMCA Association. This position allowed him to regularly support 35 different branch locations training staff, while installing and troubleshooting anything related to technology. The position was at the perfect time for Chris as the entire association, with his lobbying and encouragement, was transforming from just two PCs across the entire organization, to a computer on every desk all connected together by the high speed internet of the time - ISDN. This constantly-changing position was the only reason he lasted so long in a mainstream job. As boredom set in, Chris went back to his first love - self-employment. Chris continued to start, grow and run a wide range of businesses - a tech support company, a video production company, a cabling company, a photography company, a web design company. Most were either sold, closed or rolled into his current company Fresh Media Works - a full service marketing company he has run since 1996. With the exception of the 6 years at the YMCA, Chris has been "gainfully unemployed" for the better part of nearly 40 years. When podcasting came around Chris was already doing live internet radio and became officially the 5th person to publish a podcast. Since that time he has done tens of thousands episodes and hundreds of shows - spoken to business groups and universities about podcasting and it remains one of his great passions. Through his ventures in podcasting, Chris became a major player in the world of Texas high school football. His site Lone Star Gridiron has become the statewide leader in news and information on high school football in Texas. Happily (albeit bumpily at times) Chris married his high school sweetheart after being apart for years. They have four kids and recently become empty-nesters.  ----------     ***CORONA VIRUS EDITION***   In this episode Peter & Chris Doelle discuss: :40  -  Intro and welcome Chris Doelle!  3:05  -  When you were diagnosed? Tell us your backstory and how what made you different growing up? 5:04  -  On trying a lot of different things, what worked and what didn’t 6:25  -  On lists, deadlines and their importance in his life 7:35  -  On situations where failure to organize w/ lists, etc came back to bite you in the butt.  7:55  -  On what tech tools to keeping things organized i.e. followupthen.com 9:00  -  On the difficulty of staying busy/finding balance with work and personal life 10:21  -  On being an extrovert with ADHD combined with physical introspective tendencies 11:15-  What drew you to games, and board games?  Ref: https://lonestargridiron.com www.FridayNightLegends.com and www.SaturdayLegends.com  13:16  -  Tips on working partnerships with someone with ADHD 14:14  -  On finding and maintaining balanced partnerships 15:02  -  On functioning successfully around neurotypicals/what kinds of things changed w/ marriage 16:36  -  Tell people how they can find you and get more info on you? @chrisdoelle on Twitter  LinkedIN  his books on Amazon and at https://boardgamegeek.com/  17:06  -  Describe yourself in 15 seconds?  18:04  -  Chris Doelle, thanks so much for taking the time being on Faster Than Normal, I appreciate it.  Guys, as always, Faster Than Normal, if you liked what you heard drop us a review.  We appreciate you guys being on the podcast , we appreciate people listening. We are, as far as I can tell, one of the top, if not the top ADHD podcasts out there, so I love that, and that was all because of you guys, and I am eternally grateful. If you have a guest that you think might work, or maybe it's you, someone you know, You can always reach me via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials. We would love to hear from you guys, uh, it thrills us to no end when we get notes. Also, one final thing, if you have the book, if you've read Faster Than Normal the book, go on to wherever you bought it https://www.amazon.com/ or https://www.audible.com - whatever, drop us a review, you'd be amazed at how those reviews really, really help. As always, thank you for listening. ADHD is a gift, not a curse. We are looking forward to seeing you next week, you guys take care. 18:49  -  Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits!   TRANSCRIPT:  Hey guys, Peter Shankman. Welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal, happy day, hope you're having a great day and hope your world is spinning the right direction. Hope things are chill. Hope you're enjoying life. By the time this airs, it should be,  I don't know, mid-February or so, and I'm hoping that everything by then has calmed down and we're all doing well.  It's the third week of January here, I guess, and we're moving forward here in New York, so I hope you guys are as well, love that you're here. Always very grateful that you've tuned in. I have another great guest, every week we have great guests, this, this week is no different. Chris Doelle is our guest today, and I will tell you all about him.  And if I seem pretty calm, and much more calm than I usually am. in these episodes, I had a ridiculously hard workout today and I'm not sure, but I think half my brain fell out, uh, I was on the Peloton and I had the best output I've had in about 16 months, so I'm frighteningly calm today to the point where I'm like, not really sure if it's, if this is the, I don't know what's going to happen.  Hopefully this returns, I return to normal, cause this is a little weird, but anyway… OK. Chris Doelle!  So Chris is a marketing expert. He makes marketing fun, he gets you more customers, but he's also an author, a board game developer, a podcast consultant, a producer.  Sounds like someone with ADHD who does a lot.  He was a class clown growing up. He was always being creative, he wrote action theme short stories involving all of his classmates and read them to ever-growing crowds of interesting students. He sang contemporary pop songs to the pretty girls, several years, several years, his senior. I'm dying to know how that worked out for you.  He was always up to something unique. He started his first company in junior high school. He got into selling sports cards and comics, and then he immediately hit onto the computer revolution. so I'm guessing he's about my age. He was writing code on notebook paper before the first personal computer came out at the same time, began selling computer software to his high school and then training the teachers, how to use the machines, which I love.  He was not the most popular nor the loner, he flowed in and out of every click of students easily, which is interesting…. children with ADHD, sometimes can't do that. One more fun fact about him, he was once ranked 13th in the world in hacky sack. Chris, great to have you on the show, man.  Peter, thank you so much for having me, and I have to tell you that I hope you return to normal too.    A little, little calm, little calm for too many people. So tell me about, tell me about your brain. When were you, were you diagnosed? How did this, how, what, what, what made you different growing up? Tell us, tell us your backstory.  Sure. Yeah, actually I wasn't diagnosed til almost 50 years old. Awesome.  And I just always thought this is how the world works in, in, uh, you know, everything's going all the time with my head, uh, and getting bored and running off and doing something else.  I love that I came across your book and your show to realize that now is the first time in my life, I'm realizing, wow, I'm not all that different, there are people like me out there. So, so yeah, um, I guess, yeah… at a, at a young age, um, I was always writing.  Writing was always my release. I would write, um, and, and you talk about imposter syndrome. I, I would write in elementary school, I'd write my name a hundred times on a piece of paper and come home and hand it to my Mom, and she'd go, what's that for? And I'm like, so you don't forget who I am. Oh, which was insane. But you know, it worked. And, uh, I think, I think the, the big benefit that I had, you said that, um, it doesn't always work well to flow in and out of those groups. I think it worked well because of my Mother. Early on, she was such a supporter, always telling me you can do whatever you want, you're amazing, you're wonderful. So I believed it. I didn't have those doubts that a lot of people with ADHD have. Um, so,, between her and my father who was extremely ADHD, but again, not to diagnose, um, I learned there's nothing you can't do if you try, so I tried everything.  Tell me what worked and what didn’t, because one of the things about trying everything is that you have some great successes, but you have a lot of failures. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think what worked there was literally realizing that it's only a failure if you don't learn something. So I... I reframed everything and my wife now will tell me I have rose colored glasses. I always try to find the good in everything, the positive outcome, and it's annoying as heck to her.  But, um, but that, that, that's it, yeah. I would fail at things, but, at the end of the day, I would go, okay, is there something to learn from this? Is this something I need to work harder at and go back to, or is it something okay, I've done that move on?  Um, and I became a huge fan of lists. I have sitting next to me, as we talk, a stack of legal pads, uh, there must be 20 of them here each with a different subject, and so every time I think of something, I grab the right list and add to it. Um, without those lists, I'd be lost.  And you discovered that when???  I discovered that probably junior high school, because I realized I can't keep all this stuff together, you know, it, it came and went in, and popped in and out, and I'd remember,  great memory, but there's too many, too much stuff there going on, as you know, to try to remember all of it.  So lists are, I mean lists are just super important and just as much, they fall into the  same category…. as like having  a calendar, right, and making sure everything you do at any given point, is in the calendar, um, is that sort of, you know, you’re, uh, so if your default is lists, you also have like, does everything have to be written down and everything you have to do has to be like put together and all that? Well, yes and no. I mean, if, if I want it, if it's something that, um, I absolutely have to do, it goes down the list and it goes on a calendar and gives me a deadline, because as many of your guests have mentioned, and I, I, um, I went through and listened to all the shows, you know, just burned through them, just trying to get it all in, uh, and, you know, the recurring theme I saw was yeah, if there's a deadline, it would happen. So, so that's what I always do. I write it down if you know, I didn't need it, if it was just something like, yeah, sometime I want to do this, then I wouldn't worry about writing it down... I'd do it spur of the moment, but again, if it's important, if it's for business, if it's for a client, if it's for family, it’s got to get written down.  Right. Have you... had a situation,, tell us about a situation where you, you forgot to write it down or you didn't, or you look at it and, and it came back to bite you in the butt.  Gosh, that's probably on a weekly basis and it usually involves my wife, sometimes she said just in a passing comment, that I would categorize  in my brain as, “Oh, that'd be cool to do”  Do you have any (indistinguishable) tools  that you use. Like I said, I swear by https://www.followupthen.com/  Do you have specific  tools that you…. tech tools that you use to keep the stuff flowing?  Well, I use Google for most everything. So I use Google calendar and I have multiple calendars. I have one for each of my businesses, one for, uh, my wife, one for, um, things...I just, you know, that I have to go to cause I cover Texas high school football. So I have my schedule of places I travel, so that's a separate calendar. I also use the Google to-do lists. Tasks List and it's got multiple lists. So yeah, I do a lot of tech now, but I still rely on these pads  And you’re doing this all by yourself, no assistant, nothing?? Not yet, although I called Megan and I said, Hey, can you help me? I need, I need what Peter has, wasn’t trying to steal her… although I would in a heartbeat if I could.   Alot of people have tried, she's very loyal, I’m very fortunate… very loyal, I should probably give another raise. Um, so tell me about, you know, one of the things I read about with you, is you are, you are  constantly on the move, constantly busy. How are you, and I'm sure... I'm sure that the busyness helps you and keeps your, you know, ADHD in check, like, like it does for me. How do you, um, find the balance between staying busy with all of the things you're doing, um, and making sure you have a personal life, I.e. with your wife and, and I mean, you, you, you recently became empty nesters.  You had four kids, you know, how did you find that balance? And, and, and what tips can you tell the audience for finding that balance? Cause that's not always easy.  And I don't know if this is the right answer for everybody, but the answer for me is, if it involves my wife, It takes priority over everything, so, but she gets it, she understands where I'm at and that I am constantly bouncing here, there and everywhere and crazy ideas and I'm going to run off and do it. Um, and, and she... she's a nurse, so she deals with people all day. I work from home, so I do my marketing. I don't see people, so she knows I need to go out and see people.  She, on the other end, doesn't want to go out and see people, so she's like “go, go, go.” And I think, I think travel helps us.  Would you say that you are… so you're an, you're an extrovert 100% ?? Yeah. In the Myers-Briggs I'm an ENT J yeah, very much an extrovert.  Interesting.  But, but again, I do get, I do get introspective when I'm physical, like, uh, we're working on building a house out in the country. I'm clearing land, burning brush, and I do that by myself and it is like a Zen thing. So yeah, I get very, this is my time. Understandable. I mean, I think that we all have those moments where we have to do our own thing and only our own thing, you know? Um, I've had to explain that to people in my life in the past, like, Hey, you know, I'd love to see you this weekend, but I've been on for 14 straight days. I need a day.  I need to sit on my couch, for 24 hours, watch King of the Hill and just do nothing. You know, it definitely, it definitely gets to that. Um, tell me about, tell me about….um so we talked about the lists, um, you created board games, right?  Yeah.  Is that something that you, you found, you found? what drew you to that? And did you find yourself doing that in part because of ADHD?  I'm sure I did because growing up when I was in grade school, I used to make up sports related games that I would do with dice and I would play entire seasons of these things. I would go to my Mom and show her the results, and I know it was boring to her, but again, she was so supportive, she'd sit there and listen, yes dear, that's so amazing, that's very cool. And so I've always liked games. Growing up... or not growing up, over the last 17 years, I've run a website called Lonestar Gridiron, which covers Texas high school football, and, uh, in that time have become one of the, one of the big players in Texas high school football media, uh, and so my partner who I've known since junior high school in that, uh, I've been trying to sell him on, let's do a game, let's do a game, you know, because let's take advantage of this high school football stuff.  And he was against it... against it. ‘cause we both have computer backgrounds, it's a lot of work.  And then I said, hey, what about a board game? Would you be up for that? And he said, sure. And it was on. And so our first game was Friday Night Legends, which is, it's a football board game that allows you to play the greatest high school football teams of all time against each other, based on their real stats, so it let's you coach them? Uh, and we sent ..since had….that was the Kickstarter, we, um, then came out with another two years later called Saturday Legends, which does the exact same things for college football.  I love it, that's brilliant. Tell me how… so you said your partner, when you work with, how do you, what tips would you give someone for working with someone with ADHD?  What have you learned about yourself that you tell people you tell your partner or whatever. Know your strengths and be clear about your strengths with each other.  Uh, Mike, the, the partner, he is a, he's a numbers guy. He can sit at a desk and crunch numbers all day long and he loves doing it, that would drive me batty.  So, you know, we, we, on our site, we have the most comprehensive list of statistics over a hundred years of Texas high school football. We have all their records, all their coaching records, all the team records, everything you can think of. I couldn't put that together, but I'm the guy that gets out there and goes, hey, this is amazing, come check it out. Yeah. I'm the Steve Jobs, he’s the Wozniak.  Love it, love it, having met Wozniak I totally, I totally get that, we all need a Wozniak. I think it's fascinating because I think that a lot of people who are listening to podcasts have these great ideas and they do get stuck on that side of things where they're like, I don't know what, I don't have the ability to do the math.I don't have the ability to do the scheduling, whatever. And so yeah, you finding someone is, is probably the best thing you could possibly do.  Yeah, and that's why I need the Woz for my regular business still. I have it for the high school football,  that's it.  No question about it. Um, how long have you been married? Uh, been married, interestingly enough, we've been married for 12 years, but we were high school sweethearts too, so we all, we each went off, had our own little lives, you know, I was the bachelor traveling all over the place and she was the steady one building her nursing career and we got back together. How, before you were diagnosed, what was it like, you know, did you understand why you were the way you were when it came to, you know, your wife and how did you, how did you function? Uh, when, when we, when we're ADHD, we don't necessarily function the best possible way when we're with other people.  Um, what did you have to learn and how did you have to change?  Well, yeah, I didn't realize anything was wrong, you know, and I say wrong, it's not wrong because I've always viewed it, thanks again to my Mom's influence… as a superpower.  You didn’t realize anything was different?  Different, correct.  Thank you, Yeah, and so I just thought this is the way I'm wired.  I thought maybe I'm smarter than most of the people I meet, but I didn't think anything was all that different, so I thought this is how I deal with things. And again, I created compensations.   My, uh, my office prior to getting married, three walls, were floor to ceiling dry erase board so I would just throw things up, being very visual.  When I’d think of something, I’d jot it down, it was, it looked like mad scientist scrawlings. Um, after getting married, realized I can't have that.  The wife wants the house to look nice, so I have a much smaller, dry erase board and it's more organized.  It's about the little compromises, right?  Yeah exactly, and it was worth it. It was tough at first because I'm used to being able to just reach to a wall and start jotting, but of course I can walk over there and jot.  Tell me how, tell people how they can find you, uh, how they can reach out and get more info on you.  Well, again, my name since it's spelled uniquely it's Chris, last name Doelle.  You search for that, you can find me anywhere. I'm... I'm on all the socials I'm on LinkedIn. I'm, you know, you name it, uh, really easy to find. You can find me on Amazon because I've got, you know, five books out. You can find me on Board Game Geeks because of the games, anywhere, you just search for me.  One final question, um,  the Jack-of-all-trades thing, cause I get that right? I do this, I'm marketing ability, you know, how do you describe yourself to other people, right? If you, if you, if you, if your entire life is cats, for instance, and you have a cat blog and you do stuff with cats, I’m a cat person, I write about cats, you know, you do so many things that are not related.  How do you describe yourself in 15 seconds in the elevator?  I literally just say I'm a marketer because everything I do involves marketing, uh, you know, because none of them would succeed without it. And, uh, other than that, I silo, I talk to people and say, if you know me as a board game guy, we talk about board games and we don't go off on Texas high school football.  We can go off on books. We don't, you know, I silo  Very smart!  Chris Doelle, thanks so much for taking the time being on Faster Than Normal, I appreciate it.  Oh you bet, cool.  Guys, as always, Faster Than Normal, if you liked what you heard drop us a review.  We appreciate you guys being on the podcast , we appreciate people listening. We are, as far as I can tell, one of the top, if not the top ADHD podcasts out there, so I love that, and that was all because of you guys, and I am eternally grateful. If you have a guest that you think might work, or maybe it's you, someone you know, shoot me a note @Petershankman.com.  Follow us on Twitter at Faster Than Normal, @Petershankman, uh, or on Instagram. We're pretty much everywhere. We would love to hear from you guys, uh, it thrills us to no end when we get notes. Also, one final thing, if you have the book, if you've read Faster Than Normal the book, go on to wherever you bought it https://www.amazon.com/ -  https://www.audible.com - whatever, drop us a review, you'd be amazed at how those reviews really, really help. As always, thank you for listening. ADHD is a gift, not a curse. We are looking forward to seeing you next week, you guys take care. Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were performed by Steven Byrom and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. 

On this week’s podcast, we kick off a series of conversations about the meanings and motivations that underlie why we ride. Our first guest is two-time Olympian (wind surfing), former Pro cyclist, Pro team founder, Sport Psychologist, friend, and Ridership member Ted Huang. Together Ted and I explored collaborative vs. coercive team dynamics, the power of vulnerability in leadership, intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, perfectionism and the inner critic, flow states, mindfulness, inclusion and belonging, and other aspects of the riding experience that extend and indeed originate well beyond the bike. The goal of these episodes is to spark conversation that is of value to the community and its members, and we hope you’ll join us over at the The Ridership forum (sign up at www.theridership.com) with your ideas, questions, and feedback. Ted Huang Website  Ted Huang Instagram Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Ted Huang - Episode Transcription  [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm Randall Jacobs, and this is the first in a series of episodes that Craig has graciously invited me to host in which i'll be bringing on guests to unpack the meaning and motivations that underlie why we ride. [00:00:12]Like Craig's episodes and our joint In The Dirt series, these episodes will simply appear in your feed as they're produced. [00:00:18] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:00:18] Before we get started. I'd just like to encourage anyone who enjoys the podcast to support Craig in his work by going to buymeacoffee.com/thegravelride and making a donation. [00:00:28]My first guest is Ted Huang.  Ted is a two time Olympian in the sport of wind surfing, a former cat one road racer who competed in professional races here in the U S,  a co- founder of two professional teams, one men's and one women's, and finally he is a sports psychologist who helps elite and amateur athletes alike achieve both their performance goals and a more balanced life through cycling. And with that, let's get started. [00:00:53] Ted Huang, welcome to the podcast. So glad to have you on.  [00:00:57] Ted Huang: [00:00:57] Thank you.  [00:00:58]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:00:58] So this is the first [00:01:00] in a series of conversations here on the pod, talking about this concept of ridership. This concept is pretty broad in the sense, you and I have discussed before around, fellowship and friendship and the bicycle is a vehicle for connection and what does this experience mean in a deeper sense? So I'm really excited to explore this with you. If you could give the audience a quick sense of your background, where you come from and what you do now?  [00:01:23]Ted Huang: [00:01:23] I was born in the Bay area, Sunnyvale native, and I wasn't really into team sports so much when I was younger, I had a couple of bad experiences and ended up falling into the sport called windsurfing some of you may have heard of, it's basically a surfboard with the sales stuck on top that you hang on to and then go cruise to different places. So it's really the ultimate exploration machine on the water. [00:01:49] And I did that starting the age of 11. Very supportive parents started competing, ended up going to two Olympics in wind surfing and then [00:02:00] also loved the sport of cycling and actually went into road racing.  I wanted to see how far I could take that sport just for fun cause I wanted to try something more aerobicly challenging and little did I know road cycling actually was much more of a team sport and help me develop my sense of belonging to something. So I was part of a team really took to the teammates, actually co-founded two professional cycling teams of men's and women's teams, and did that for a number of years. [00:02:33] And it just made me realize this whole power of many trumps the power of one in terms of satisfaction and reward. So that really helped me find my way to what I'm doing today, which is a mental performance coach. Went back, got my degree in sports psychology, and now trying to help people become the best versions of themselves, or be more comfortable in their own skins. [00:02:58]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:02:58] That resonates [00:03:00] granted I didn't go quite as far in my professional athletics career. I was a pack fodder pro cross country racer. [00:03:06]Ted Huang: [00:03:06] That's not what I hear, but yeah. [00:03:07]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:03:07] I was a decent local competitor at one point. [00:03:10]And at this point my relationship to the bike has shifted a lot and I really want to explore what is the deeper meaning of this experience? So you talked about connection, for example, and in fact, I recall very fondly being on a group ride and meeting you and we had a brief conversation and it was less the conversation itself than the feeling of here's somebody who's really kind who wants to include everyone in the ride experience .  So when we started this off, it was very natural to reach out. [00:03:35] Ted Huang: [00:03:35] Likewise, when I first met you, it was like this very positive and curious person who was so impassioned by not just cycling. Now it all seems aligned, that you wanted to share the same sense of community with your cycling experience to others, and maybe that's part of your thesis bikes vision is, creating that sense of community with other people.  [00:03:59] [00:04:00]To me it doesn't matter why we ride, how fast we ride, how slow we ride. It's just that we get out there. And that's the most important thing, because I don't know how many times people like, Oh, I don't want to ride with you. You're gonna be too fast or whatever. I'll be too slow . It doesn't really matter. Don't apologize for anything about your speed or your technique, because I'll be the first one to say, I suck at mountain biking, my technical skills are horrible. But I still enjoy it for the same reasons and you're right. It takes time and self-belief and confidence to get past that. I still have trouble, that lack of confidence and things you don't know how to do, but that's the whole neat thing about cycling is there's no shortage of people out there to help you who want to help you. And going back to community, that would probably be the common theme here is that helps build that sense because we all want each other to have fun. At least the riders I want to ride with are like that.  [00:04:52]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:04:52] Yeah, I definitely recall when I was racing particularly within the roadie scene to a lesser extent, the mountain bike scene have a [00:05:00] really strong competitive element. And there was almost on the one hand a masochistic need to suffer and a glorification of suffering. And I can suffer more than you and somehow that's a source of worth. [00:05:11] And then also I'm going to punish the other riders. I'm going to rip your legs off. I'm going to make your lungs burn and I think it feeds a baser instinct than the reasons I ride and the types of riders I'm attracted to now why they ride and the opportunity for riding and the bicycle itself to be a vehicle for connection . So I'm curious tell me about the transition for you from a wind surfing to riding on a team. What age? Was there a lot of overlap? Was the bike tool for training. [00:05:41]Ted Huang: [00:05:41] So my high school graduation present was a 1988 Bianchi Superleggera Columbus SLSB tubing, beautiful bike. I bought it from a ski shop and I loved riding it, but it was just a cross-training tool and I just [00:06:00] liked the aerobic nature kind of allowed me to get into that quote unquote zone more quickly than having to drive 45 minutes, unpack your wind surfer, build it up. So basically, it's just a much more efficient way to get that. So I really took to it, but transitioning from the wind surfing, it was just so gear oriented I would be going around the world, carrying the 12 and a half foot long Wind Surfer for, with the 16 and a half foot mast show up to every airline counter, and you think bicycles are hard to transport. I'm showing up there and I'm like, "Hey, my name's Ted. I'm part of this team would you mind the excess baggage fees?". It was like basically a panic attack before every trip, because Airline desk people would be shaking their heads as I'm walking to the desk with all this stuff, in luggage carts and it was just stressful. [00:06:48] So once I was done with my wind surfing career after the 2000 Olympics I was at the time cross training with cycling and taking a step back. I will say that in 2000 I [00:07:00] telecommuted, full-time from Sydney, Australia training for the Sydney Olympics and the only new friends I made were from the cycling and triathlon community that year. [00:07:11] Cause I was cross training in their local equivalent of central park, New York, but Centennial park in Sydney, and I did some of the group training rides and people were so nice. So that helped build my good vibe feeling towards cycling. So when I was done with the Sydney Olympics, I literally  stopped windsurfing, cold Turkey and  decided I would immerse myself in cycling. And there happened to be this bike race in San Francisco that went up the streets of San Francisco, the really hilly ones, and Lance Armstrong came and they had all the European teams came. So it was quite a big event. So that was my goal was to get in there, but. [00:07:48]But really the only way to get in there with it to somehow turn your team professional. So I think I joked with the earlier, my dream was to get the free bike. I had to start my own pro team to get the free bike, so the hard way [00:08:00] getting to that point. But in the process, I just became so fascinated with human behavior, so that was also my degree at Stanford in college, but just the human behavioral component and having all these just. So talented in the lab teammates who couldn't quite put it together on the race course, whereas you'd have other less talented, physiologically speaking, cyclists who were just spot on, they could just do what you told them to do very consistent. [00:08:32] And it was all in the attitude all in the mind. But with the team , you could leverage each other's strengths and weaknesses and actually build a better team. It almost didn't matter. It's almost like a puzzle. You could just put together the different pieces and if you lead them correctly, then you have a pretty successful team. [00:08:51]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:08:51] So what do you see as the critical elements of healthy team dynamics?  [00:08:55]Ted Huang: [00:08:55] I think leadership by example is extremely important. [00:09:00] I also think that the team leader needs to be very open and transparent with other teammates on his own strengths and weaknesses. [00:09:11]I really gained the most from the one year we had Chris Horner on our team and why he was such an effective leader is he would figure out all of our strengths and weaknesses and then he would maximize our strengths. So he'd be like, " Ted, you're not really a climber, so get me to the bottom of the Hill and you're done". So he would set these little milestones for me that were very incremental or for teammates. So what was incredibly special is, he harnessed our strengths and made us feel good about them and let us essentially celebrate them without tearing us down, he wouldn't tell us, "just keep pulling at the front". He would give us very specific instructions. We want to keep the break at 30 seconds. Don't pull too hard. He was very specific. And because he gave these incremental milestones to each of us, it empowered us to really step up in that [00:10:00] to me was important. And also our team director for the women, Karen Brehms, she treated everyone with respect and everyone fairly and the same.  [00:10:08]Granted, I was the quote unquote team owner dating one of the women on the team. So I got extra " don't mess with my team dynamic" direction from Karen. It was very clear she wanted to preserve a team that felt equitable amongst its ranks. So there was really almost no room for backroom talk or talking behind people's backs. [00:10:30] Everything was open. And I don't know how many of the women came back and told Karen that was the best team experience they've ever had because of the team dynamic she helped create. So those are parts of what I think are important to creating a successful team environment, but also doing what you say you're going to do for the management level to we paid our riders on time. [00:10:50] We had the pro-team, we were. Oh, it's try to be very organized. And what was really interesting was when the year we had Chris Horner, we had a first time director, [00:11:00] super smart guy, but never directed a team before. So he just let Chris essentially handle the rains and you just help facilitate. [00:11:07] So knowing your strengths and your weaknesses and being willing to learn is also another important component of a team dynamic that will create a successful path. And also specific goals. Of course we can't underestimate the power of goal setting and the aspirational goal. [00:11:25] Our goal as the men's team was " we want to see if we can win the San Francisco grand Prix, our budget was missing two zeros compared to every other team and they're race so it was like, How is this going to work, but we just plugged away at it and we acted as professionally as we could. [00:11:42]We had team selections for the race . And Chris Horner on the day asked Charles Dion, how are you feeling? I was pretty sure Chris could have won the race, but Charles who'd won the first edition of the race in 2001 said, "I'm feeling really good". So Chris is okay, I'm writing for you. [00:11:58] So literally [00:12:00] this being so clear in factual and then Charles, knowing he has someone like Chris riding for him stepped up as well as us as the working stiff team stepped up too. And we're able to fill in the gaps.  [00:12:14]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:12:14] I'm hearing themes that I find common in any sort of healthy community or even friendship, dynamic ones of  an ability to acknowledge one's limitations, but also one's strengths and the strengths and limitations of those around you and discuss it in a very open and vulnerable way. [00:12:29]I'm going to follow up on the things that I said I'll do and this reframing of leadership, I think that in our culture, a common sense of leadership is the person being in charge. [00:12:40] And that is a coercive form of leadership. That's something taken versus a leadership that is given due to the merits. We all lead in different ways in a healthy team. How talk to me more about like your experience within the team dynamic and how that evolved over time, what you learned. [00:12:57]Ted Huang: [00:12:57] So what's interesting to me. I want to go back actually [00:13:00] really quickly, the first comment about the roadie- type competitive attitude. So I came into cycling is just like a new hobby. I had no intention of really being that serious. My goal is to become a Cat 1 and I did that. So I didn't really have another goal after that , I never had a five-year plan, so that's maybe a problem, but also helped shape who I am today. So I just fell into things [00:13:25] an accidental pro?  [00:13:27] Yeah, totally. Because I never was paid to ride a bike, so I'm not really professional. I feel if you make your livelihood, riding a bike, then you're professional, but I never did that. I ran a team it was back in the day when you had to be a cat 1 to get the pro license. [00:13:43] So at least it was legitimate in terms of that was the path. But after that you could be cat five and just buy the pro-license, but I digress. So I had more perspective coming from a different sport and I was just amazed at how competitive people would [00:14:00] get, and it almost took the fun out of it. [00:14:03]They were so aggro and so intense. That's the problem we have is our identities, whether it's in a recreational cyclist or competitive cyclist, that can be wrapped up in how you do on the bike, whether it's in a competition or not. So I was just amazed at that intensity. [00:14:20]And I reframe the situation and tried to just be more light-hearted about it. But. What helps diffuse that is when you have a leader come in, who's , like you said, vulnerable and open and able to take criticism and doesn't necessarily say he has all the answers. He has his opinions or her opinions, but they're just speaking from the heart. [00:14:46] And that to me really resonated in a way to help wade through all the personality, differences and ego differences and helps diffuse those issues. But I want go back to that whole [00:15:00] concept of effective leadership in a very uncertain environment. [00:15:06]When you have lots of uncertainty in the race dynamics, you have to figure out the controllables.  So a effective team leader focuses on those controllables to help empower his or her teammates to feel like they have control of those things, opposed to feeling overwhelmed. [00:15:25] So my wife's leadership skills , she was a team leader of the Webcore women's professional team, you have to be empowering of your teammates. You had to be an example, essentially a role model. And then you had to show that you really cared about your teammates too. In an authentic way. Not just use them and abuse them and spin off the back , because they're going to be there for you day after day. As a leader, you want to make your teammates want to ride for you in a way that's not putting too much pressure on the teammates. It's almost like you give no room [00:16:00] for pressure to build up. [00:16:01] This is the job we have in front of us. And if you  set these incremental goals that I'll help you set for yourself Ted pulled to this juncture in the race, or, okay. Is a climber. We're saving you for the climb to help me on the climb or you need to get me within 30 seconds of the break up the road and I'll do the rest. [00:16:18] Just very clear steps then suddenly it opens up what's possible versus all the things conspiring against you.  [00:16:25]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:16:25] You bring up a bunch of themes that I think are great to explore as a way of contrasting different modalities in which some definition of success can be achieved. Cause you hear about teams that have a power or fear based structure and they may be quite successful in some sense. Though, you don't have to question "what are we ultimately hoping to achieve and why is that our motivation?"  The contrast between a power- based team dynamic and an empowerment based team dynamic is something that I'm hearing as you're expressing how you went [00:17:00] about things. Why do you think more power and coercion based dynamics also have some success and how do you contrast the two modalities? [00:17:10]Ted Huang: [00:17:10] I think that's a very interesting question. The minute you said power-based Philosophy for leading a team I thought, at the time when we had our team, the health net team, at least my impression of them, was a very, ego driven, we're doing it this way, and it's all business, and it was unclear to me how much fun they were having, was like, "we have a job to do". But  it works when you have extremely dominant personalities that essentially are leading by example and give riders no room to think otherwise. And in my opinion, it's not as sustainable model. [00:17:51] It works for specific goals. But you also have to have a pretty hardened personality. I don't want to say [00:18:00] that we were all soft, but we definitely were more sensitive than your quote unquote real professional riders that were actually on the circuit full-time and that was their livelihood. When you have less alternatives, you can take that type of Leadership style. I don't think you necessarily have to like it, but there's different ways that work.  [00:18:21] And also, let's say the domestics or the other riders see that they care actually about you or care about the success of the team, that can feed on itself.  I work with kids and their high school coaches, right now it's all about positive psychology and positive reinforcement, which I totally agree with. I think that's the best way to coach kids. But there are still what I call it old-school coaches out there that they're just the hard drivers. They yell at their kids , but they yell at them equally, meaning, they'll tell them to harden the F up and all this stuff. And a lot of the parents seem completely on board with that because [00:19:00] they recognize that these coaches are putting their heart and soul into it. So they are so invested in it that they think they have the best interest of the kids at heart. That makes sense.  [00:19:10] So it helps them not justify the behavior, but if it were coached that seemed like they were just malicious, then that would be a difference. So I think that makes a difference. It is building community, even that type of environment can build a community, Different types of community, I would say less healthy, less sustainable. [00:19:32] If these leaders are showing that they care about the program, care about the writers so that, they're really  trying to achieve the goals are their core values .   [00:19:41]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:19:41] Craig and I talked in our last podcast together about our own motivations for getting into the sport and I can  identify. [00:19:49]Some unhealthy egoic motivations for me wanting to check the box of having had a pro license. I was never making a living at it, and so by your definition, which I fully [00:20:00] agree with, I was not a professional. I was just good enough to ride with the pros and to see how much stronger they were. [00:20:06]And to be able to sit with that. But I feel if even if the goal of winning the race is achieved what is the ultimate motivation behind that. So getting back to identity, at the time, I had several things that were propping up in identity. I had just gotten my pro license. I had won a couple races. I was going to a fancy grad school. And, I had other aspects that were like, "this is why I am valuable".  I think that speaks to a much deeper conversation about how we're raised, how our culture treats us to get our worth externally. [00:20:40]And with the lens that I have now, when I think about team dynamics that are more power-based and more egoic, there would seem to be some underlying wound you're trying to heal by doing the things that get you the external validation that you're not able to generate internally because you maybe didn't get it in childhood from your primary [00:21:00] caregiver. No fault of bears because they're the children of parents as well. So I'm curious to tug at the loose thread of this sweater and see what we dig up.  [00:21:09]Ted Huang: [00:21:09] So in sports psychology, or just psychology in general, you have the extrinsically motivated athlete or the intrinsically motivated athlete, and studies have shown that if your motivation comes from within, like self-improvement, "how far can I take this sport?", "how much can I improve?", That's healthier in the long run, whereas external motivators, like "I want to win this race" there's a lot of variables that you can't control, a lot of uncontrollables, or "I want to beat this person", which is an external motivator, that's also helpful for those little carrots that need along the way,  you need both, and most top athletes have both, but in the end it's better to be leaning toward the more internally motivated or intrinsically motivated person. [00:21:53] So I have what I call that chip on the shoulder motivation, which is external experiences, motivations that a lot of [00:22:00] athletes who maybe feel either disadvantaged or didn't have everything line up for them may have a chip on their shoulder. Maybe it's the press harshing on them for some reason. [00:22:11] And then any chip on the shoulder can really help drive an athlete big time. If you're spending a lot of your time or the majority of your time doing something it's logical, that your identity would be wrapped up in that.  And you're getting rewarded with little endorphin and dopamine hits whenever you do well. That just makes you feel better. So it just feels itself and it's a vicious cycle. And then of course, when it's time to retire, it's like the rug got yanked out from under you then what do you do?  [00:22:43]Quick aside.  My wife had her medical career. She was working full time when she was training for the Olympics. [00:22:48] So she always had her medical career, so she had no problem transitioning after she did her Olympic thing. It was like, boom. That's not what defines me, it's a medical thing. And that was, I think, [00:23:00] instrumental in her just being able to pivot just like that. I had problems switching, even though I was not quite as full time as some athletes, but my identity was wrapped up in the sport even became wrapped up in the cycling. And to some degree, it still is in terms of, this vicious cycle. "I want to stay fit to prove myself", but for what? Like we talked about, you have a goal, you accomplish the goal, and then what?  [00:23:25] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:23:25] The dog that caught the car. [00:23:27] Ted Huang: [00:23:27] And then what? So I had a German training partner in windsurfing in '96, and he was  significantly better than I was. He was European champion. He wanted to win the Olympics 96. He didn't. He was so driven, and we were training partners, and we were one place apart at the Olympics, and he was just crushed. [00:23:47] But then he talked to me afterwards and told me, Ted, I can't believe it. You are so right. I didn't enjoy the process enough. I was so fixated on this goal. That I could have [00:24:00] enjoyed the path so much more. Instead, I was just fixated on the result. And now that period of life is behind me. And now I got to go to work and I'm leading a mundane life now, and my glory days were behind me, opposed to  soaking up every bit of each day along the way. And that really resonated with me in that. Wow. He finally gained perspective that it's not all about the Holy grail of the wet metal, that the media only focuses on the podium finishers at the Olympics. [00:24:28] And it really is about the experience. And then interestingly my wife at the Olympics, you get postcards from the local kids at the different Olympics. Like they write a little postcard and she had a patient come in and read one of the postcards. And it was France, it was a French kid who wrote it and the translation said "the best among us", the English translation of this French phrases. And she said that's odd. That's not the real translation. The translation is "the [00:25:00] best within us".  So that's like huge difference. So the English translation of one of the Olympic mottoes is twisted. [00:25:10]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:25:10] It's very American.  [00:25:12]Ted Huang: [00:25:12] Exactly. Opposed to the best within us. And so that really struck a chord because it's exactly how we're brought up thinking of Olympians, is it's all about beating them. [00:25:22]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:25:22] There's a better than worse than . [00:25:24] Ted Huang: [00:25:24] Yeah. opposed to striving to be the best that you can be. [00:25:27] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:25:27] That really captures the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy relationship to the sport. Are you doing it to be the best amongst us? Are you doing it to be the best version of yourself as part of a broader program of being a complete person? [00:25:42] [00:25:42] Ted Huang: [00:25:42] Yeah. And tying this back to the leadership component, that's what good leaders do. They don't make you feel bad because you didn't perform up to the par of your teammate who might be more physiologically, talented on that day . It was like, you got the best out of yourself. [00:25:58] So these leaders, [00:26:00] whether it would be Christine or Chris, would compliment you on how well you did among your own strength. Like you did the best you could that's good enough, as opposed to comparing you to a teammate or to another team. And then another small thing I want to share as an interesting tip is we talk about perfectionism, right? [00:26:18] And perfectionistic tendencies are unhealthy. Would you agree with that?  [00:26:23]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:26:23] I think they tie into broader issues of low self-esteem. So you have to a project some perfect version of yourself, and it keeps us from getting started. [00:26:33] Ted Huang: [00:26:33] At it does, it's fear of failure. You don't want to. Fail at something perhaps too.  [00:26:37]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:26:37] I can say that this is the first episode of this series for the podcast that I'm doing. And I've sat on this idea for quite some time. And it was my perfectionist tendencies and lack of a feeling of security, a feeling that I could pull it off, that put off this thing that I needed to do for so long. So I can see that reflected in any number of different situations in my life. And as I observe other people with this lens, so [00:27:00] let's absolutely continue exploring this. [00:27:03] Ted Huang: [00:27:03] Yeah. I love that you share that quote unquote vulnerability, because that's like to me. So cool that you recognize that and you just chose to go forward and do it. And I'm actually honored that you picked me as your first interviewee or your conversational partner in this. [00:27:22]I'm hoping our conversation will inspire and allow people to introspective and more reflect on why we ride our bikes and what it can do for us versus having too many extrinsic perfectionistic parts that we tend towards. [00:27:36]So we're going to pull on that thread a little bit more on the perfectionism piece. I recognize I'm in that boat with you where I'm always looking for external reinforcement.  [00:27:45] Affirmation essentially. [00:27:47]Affirmation. I get down on myself when I don't perform. Like I think I should. And so sometimes I have trouble moving past mistakes. And I remember asking my wife, Christine, " are you a perfectionist?" And [00:28:00] she said quite emphatically, "no, I'm not a perfectionist" because what I recognize is I'll make mistakes, but then I know they're just mistakes. [00:28:09] I'll just learn from them and just move on. How do you do that?  [00:28:11]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:28:11] Again, from this lens I've gained from doing a lot of difficult introspection, especially in recent months, I see that in our culture, vulnerability is not a norm. And part of vulnerability is an acceptance of one's own limitations and a feeling of being worthy of acceptance from other as one actually is as opposed to some idealized self that you project out. [00:28:35]Social media is in a way like a crescendo of this narcissistic tendency to want to project some idealized self, and then our relationships are built on this projection versus who we really are. And I find that vulnerability is not weakness. It is a superpower because now you have resilient friendships and relationships, and you talked about team dynamics, same sort of thing. [00:29:01] [00:29:00] Ted Huang: [00:29:01] Yeah, that term projection. When working with kids, that's a huge issue even if it's only implicitly part of the culture in kid's sports, or kids academics , you're always supposed to be striving for more and we don't emphasize celebrating the small victories along the way. So I think in some sense, I don't want to say there's a cure for perfectionism, but if you allow yourself to celebrate the smaller wins along the way, you're not settling for less. [00:29:35] Which a lot of the kids I talk to I can sense. What they're feeling is that they, celebrate too much. Maybe their parents will say, Oh, you still haven't hit your goal yet, but that's going to help them have a healthier attitude towards what they've accomplished. Because I think at least in the Bay area, I can only speak for the Bay area having grown up here, there is this underlying permeating [00:30:00] pressure cooker environment amongst kids and adults to strive, because, you're seeing thousands of Teslas driving around you and you start judging other people attitudes, their, life livelihood, et cetera. [00:30:15] And that I think is also unhealthy. And I think that's also feeding on this very oppressive atmosphere that I think is the unhealthy part of Silicon Valley . And if we can keep ourselves more curious and open-minded whether it's through mindfulness or meditation or healthy community I think we can tame those perfectionistic tendencies, but we have so many things conspiring against that healthy outlook. I think you and I both know that's one of the things we're trying to grapple with is can cycling, how does that help, steer us into more healthy life balance or [00:31:00] mental balance.  [00:31:01] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:31:01] It very much ties into the motivation for starting this series. What is a life well lived? What is the deeper or meaning and purpose? What is it that this particular activity serves?  [00:31:11]For me, the bike was my on ramp to mindfulness and meditation. I didn't know it at the time. At the time  I started riding, it was  "here's something that I'm good at". I had certain advantages in terms of my physiology. And I get rewarded  cause I'm good at it. [00:31:27] So it was chasing that. And I was on a cycling team at Northeastern. And it was, the seeking of belonging.  If I look back and think about my motivation, it wasn't to win races or even the right experience itself. It was that feeling of belonging. That was the motivation. And now, recognizing that I don't really have any desire to compete. [00:31:48] In fact, my desire for fitness is  dictated by  wanting to be able to have the experiences I want to have with the people I want to have them with. And that is my motivation.  [00:31:57] Ted Huang: [00:31:57] I feel the same way. my only [00:32:00] goal was to become a cat one way back in the early nineties and happened a long time ago , and then it just became that sense of belonging and being, what the team goal, right? [00:32:10]The personal goals are mixed in there as well, but it was that sense of belonging. And that's why I so gravitated and towards cycling and cut the windsurfing cold Turkey. Cause, to me that was a bit of a more individual loner sport because you can't really socialize when you're going like 30 miles an hour on the water. [00:32:26]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:32:26] Have you gone back to it at all? Do you still wind surf?  [00:32:29]Ted Huang: [00:32:29] Very occasionally I'll just see a board or there's like a little race somewhere in Tahoe and I'll jump in and be sore for the next week. Cause I, have muscle memory, but then I have no muscles, so I can fake it for a little bit, but No.  [00:32:43] I also like doing things with my wife, so I  want to mention briefly we haven't written our tandem in months until yesterday. And it was an incredibly spectacular day. And there was this whole just when you're in sync, can we talk, I can talk about the zone with you and just [00:33:00] where it's, we weren't like this the whole time but it helped me become more intentional in how I pedaled the bike even cause you're, so you're connected right. [00:33:08] With the with your front and Stoker and the captain, you're connected through the belt. And when everything's in sync, there's nothing like that. We talked about belonging, it just felt more connected with the other individual in more ways than one, when you're in sync and the peddling styles, Similar. It just, it was just in the beautiful scenery that, to me, it was like not in the Piff money, but it was just one of those moments where it's wow, this is what cycling is all about, where you're just cruising. And we both like speed. And so it's, in tandem you got 300 pounds, it was just amazing to feel that and it was like our own little community. [00:33:46] And so we didn't really need anyone else around us, but just the two of us.   [00:33:51] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:33:51] It sounds very intimate, like a feeling of completeness in the moment fully present flow state  [00:33:56]Ted Huang: [00:33:56] Yeah, it was, and I think that's [00:34:00] also the feeling I get with some of these group rides where we're all on the same wavelength clicking. [00:34:05]And that's what I feel is the neat part about riding is you can be on that same wavelength for different reasons, but there is a certain fundamental appreciation of not just the sport, but of each other, all enjoying it together. [00:34:19]I dunno if you've heard of Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory. So self-determination is a theory of human motivation that looks at our fundamental tendency toward growth, and that we have three core needs and those needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. [00:34:41] So when you describe elements of cycling, and when I think of elements of the why we ride, autonomy. We got that autonomy of riding the bike , we have control over where we go and who we ride with and you have that competence. You have to have some level of skill. [00:34:58] So we want to be fit [00:35:00] enough to do the rides we want to do, with the people we want to ride with and feel competent. And then of course there's a really important piece of being connected and  being in it together, the relatedness or human connection. [00:35:11] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:35:11] When I think about how racing and big events have shifted in recent years, there's been a tendency away from, crits and road races towards gravel events, and you can go and get the experience that you want, and if you want to race you race, and if you want to just ride and, end up with different groups along the ride, you tend to pack up and then end up as an individual on some of the single track you can have that experience too. And maybe even you don't even know what experience you're ready for in a given day.  [00:35:38] So the last thing I did Lost and found in the Sierras. I get anxious before any sort of events. I was like, I don't want to raise this today. I don't feel great, and ended up riding and as the day progressed feeling pretty strong and I ended up racing. And both outcomes would have been fine. And I met a lot of lovely people along the way. Some of whom I'm still in touch with. And this idea of the best of [00:36:00] the compete to complete M.S. Ride sort of events and then a full-on competitive race where everyone is able to get the thing that they want and the thing that they need. And at the end, not have this sense of Oh, I was up at the front, I'm better than you, but Hey, how was your ride? Oh, it didn't you like that section. This shared experience. [00:36:19] Ted Huang: [00:36:19] And so I have a question for you. Did you, at any point in that experience, feel like had any FOMO fear of missing out because you weren't at the pointy end?  [00:36:28]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:36:28] In that case my, my identity is very much not tied into my fitness at this point, which is a good thing is I'm not very fit these days. [00:36:36]But for that event, I had  registered for  the intermediate distance and, the second half I really I was feeling good and I was feeling like I wanted to go deep and I just buried myself. For the second half of the event and in a way that I hadn't in quite some time, it actually was very invigorating to realize, Oh, my body can still do this. And it feels really good. I ended up winning my [00:37:00] category at that particular event. But it, even that was a nice thing to have happened, so the best of the rest in my particular age bracket. But as far as missing out on being at the front. No, not at all. I got exactly the race I wanted. I went hard. I chased wheels. I pulled away when I wanted to. I dealt with the voices inside my head saying  "just stop, just pull over for a while, just rest, just let off. [00:37:23]And, I sat with that and pushed through. So yeah, not at all.  It was a great weekend.  [00:37:30]Ted Huang: [00:37:30] I love that because I feel like you were able to not have that former bike racer identity cloud, the purity of that experience. I have that problem is what I'm saying is sometimes, Oh, my former self could have done this, making those comparisons, which I think are sometimes unhealthy, but you were able to pivot to this new experience of actually smelling the roses along the way,  enjoying the experience, opposed to it's all about that [00:38:00] outcome. [00:38:00]And just striving, to be the fastest when you're actually enjoying the experience during the race.  [00:38:08] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:38:08] Now I'm curious, you mentioned that you did an undergraduate at Stanford.  [00:38:12] Ted Huang: [00:38:12] Yeah, it was in organizational behavior.  [00:38:14] It's under sociology, but you take a lot of courses in the biz school. And it's about organizational dynamics, how organizations make decisions, and what's interesting to me is that my favorite theory of course, was one of the simpler ones called the garbage can theory by James Marciano also happened to be my advisor. [00:38:32] And there's all these organizational theories, highfalutin theories that consultants and companies use to justify their decisions. But honestly, at the top, It's a garbage can theory, words, all these inputs that come in and literally outcomes a decision. And it's usually based on the CEO's instinct or in other words, they take everything in and they don't use some theory to devise their decisions. [00:38:56] It's actually based on all their experiences that they've [00:39:00] taken in. And then outcomes. The decision  [00:39:04]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:39:04] you mean it's not a purely linear, logical, scientific sort of the process?  [00:39:10] Ted Huang: [00:39:10] Yeah  I Appreciated that because okay, so it's like they have to own that type of means to justify their decision making. [00:39:17] So if it falls in some model, that's great, but it's not always like that. That's not to say that all decisions are like that, but oftentimes it's just gut instinct and I, and I witnessed this firsthand, when I was working for the company, that was the title sponsor of the web core team. The Webcore CEO at the time , he used a lot of his business instincts to make decisions such as, Oh, I'm sponsoring the King of the mountain to Fillmore street. [00:39:41] So I'm paying X number of dollars. I want my club team in the race and, the organized was being desperate to get money. Said. Okay. And then after the fact like, Oh shit, we're only supposed to let pro teams in this race, what are we going to do? So we became us national team members for a single day. [00:39:58] We actually wore stars and [00:40:00] stripes jerseys. And we were literally the laughingstock of the Peloton could, they're calling us the masters national team because  [00:40:07] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:40:07] that's great.  [00:40:08] Ted Huang: [00:40:08] We're not national contracts. That was pretty. That was pretty funny, actually.  [00:40:12] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:40:12] And then that was the one that you won that your team won? [00:40:14]Ted Huang: [00:40:14] No. That was one of the back East, but this was one of the editions to the San Francisco grand Prix, the one that goes up Fillmore street and so forth.  [00:40:22]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:40:22] The word rationalization popped up in my head, as you were talking about how sometimes we will we'll think about making a decision based on logic and evidence and so on. [00:40:31] But at the end of the day, there's some underlying feeling and we find a narrative that aligns with that feeling. I used to disparage this sort of decision-making, but now I can see how there is something deeper than pure logic. There's a feeling that taps into something that for me was off limits for a very long time. [00:40:51] I was a very logical person. I was a very scientific person, physics nerd, math nerd. And not in touch with my feelings, nevermind other people's [00:41:00] and it's very limiting in terms of how it drives decisions that in turn reinforce how the decisions were come to.  [00:41:07]Ted Huang: [00:41:07] I actually want to hear a little bit more about that because it sounds you felt like everything had to be logic based.  [00:41:14] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:41:14] Yeah so to be very personal for a moment. I grew up in a Catholic household and there was a certain version of, spirituality that was presented in Catholicism, this celestial dictator which I did not resonate with at all. And so it didn't feel right, and it was not okay for that to not feel right. And so I had to reject it quite strongly and I threw out the baby of spirituality and being in touch with my feelings, with the bath water of all the negative emotions associated with what felt like a very coercive and unaccepting set of dogmas in this community. [00:41:50]It's only in recent years where I've gone back and revisited because that purely scientific mindset didn't really work. I have been on an entrepreneurial [00:42:00] path for some time, and I thought that was going to satisfy this need and it didn't. I thought that's being a bike racer and achieving certain things would satisfy this need that I was chasing. And it didn't. I thought that going to a fancy grad school would satisfy but it didn't. And at the end of the day, I had to go back and say, okay, there are certain things that are true  that I can't get to through using the tools of science and looking externally. They're actually things I have to go inside and tap into my feelings in order to access those truths.  What works for me, what decisions should be made in my personal life with something of consequence, what do I spend my time doing? [00:42:39]Ted Huang: [00:42:39] The thing is, we're made up of the sum of all of our experiences. I would argue that it's extra challenging to introspect without external data points or external experiences, but at the same time, those external experiences, you get knocked off whatever internal path of self-reflection sometimes if you [00:43:00] have a negative experience externally here, cause it causes judgment. Cause  all of our  learnings about meditation, it's all about non-judgment. [00:43:09]And so your experiences naturally, cause that. so, I think that how you self reflect it's extremely important. And so the work that you're doing and actually having conversations with people like me and others is extremely important in helping you gain more and more perspectives so that you yourself can sort through all these different stimuli that you're getting and then find your own path. [00:43:39] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:43:39] Ties into the power of community and the super power of vulnerability. So if you can create a dynamic, whether it be in a team or a community or a family system , where you can show up as your authentic self and express the feelings that you're having and have the vocabulary around it and have the safe container for it. [00:43:56]And for me, I had to learn that later on. Podcasts where I've [00:44:00] seen this behavior modeled. Or a certain friends that had a particular toolkit. You mentioned judgments and I love there's this tool that I have found really powerful, which is. Every time I judge, I say, okay, how is that a projection? And how is that projection a useful mirror on myself as to what within me hasn't been accepted. Because you can't recognize something in others that you don't have in yourself.  [00:44:25] Ted Huang: [00:44:25] So you what's funny, before you even said that I was thinking about myself and how I feel like I'm really getting better at not judging others, but I'm constantly judging myself harshly. And I'm still having significant issues with stopping that behavior sometimes.  [00:44:43]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:44:43] And it's one of the beauties of being in community where it is safe to be vulnerable. I also have that, the internal critic, and I bet there's a lot of people in the audience who can relate to that because we're told to have this internal critic. [00:44:56]Ted Huang: [00:44:56] Yeah. I have tools, they tell others to [00:45:00] think about when they're the internal critic is going off, if you were talking to your best friend about something they're going through, would you be saying to them what you're saying to yourself? Probably not.  [00:45:11]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:45:11] And I love to think about where, the original wound happened in childhood. Cause a lot of this comes from childhood, and being able to say imagine seven year old Randall, or seven year old Ted. Or even four year old, Ted would you speak to him that way? What would you say to that version of yourself? And this gets into ideas of re-parenting, of going back and doing the parenting work to help one's inner child get through that developmental stage and learn the ability to self-esteem as opposed to other esteem. I feel like the conversation to be had is , "how do we support each other on this journey?" [00:45:46]The bicycle is just an on-ramp for me to this practice .  [00:45:50] Ted Huang: [00:45:50] And honestly, I need to mention this pretty special bike ride, which I don't know if you've come down for. But the Dave stall ride.  [00:45:57] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:45:57] No. [00:45:58] Ted Huang: [00:45:58] So right now there's a big love Fest [00:46:00] going on the day stall group. [00:46:01] But Dave stall is a piano tuner is a friend of mine and I, an early days, early nineties, he would just have this conditioning ride on Wednesday. So that was the, he had off and it attracted all sorts of competent riders from aspiring Olympians, Derek Bouchard hall, Linda Jackson, all these, early riders Karen Brams and then, later on he retired from leading it. [00:46:25] And so Catherine Curie, a good friend of mine started leading this ride and just develop this community. Cause anyone could show up, you leave your attitude at the door was not stipulated. It was just everyone lead by example. So all the PR for current or former pros who did the ride, it was just, we're here to enjoy the bike, here to enjoy the community. [00:46:47]And just the comradery of being able to be out in the outdoors. And it really epitomizes what you're talking about and all the virtuous parts of riding a bike was what happens on this, ride of course    there's [00:47:00] some egos, but most of the time it's just checked at the door because the current pros are very careful to be inclusive. [00:47:06]Maybe you go harder on the climb, but it means nothing. You just regroup at the top, and it just super-duper nice, no drop ride. And, what is neat about the ride, although it's on hold right now. since the pandemic. Is that people of all fitness levels could enjoy the ride. Some people never raced versus, Olympians. It was cool. And Kate Courtney would show up sometimes and it would be one of her anything goes day. [00:47:30] So she knows this expectation that she not going to do a certain workout, so it can be a ride that you get out of it, what you want out of it. But the whole idea is camaraderie and spirit. Now I've never encountered another ride like this with such lack of ego and anything remotely resembling attitude. [00:47:48]We have all different backgrounds. We have Eric Wolberg three or four time Olympian from Canada. We would just have fun exploring new roads. And honestly, something [00:48:00] I think is special and it really brings out the best in why we do the bike riding thing. [00:48:05]That's part of what makes riding a bike special is because it levels the playing field. Even though there's different fitness levels, it really does level the playing field. [00:48:15]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:48:15] Granted you have to have a certain amount of means in order to both acquire a bicycle and have the time to ride it. That's something that we should all be very mindful of. And that accessibility element isn't available to a significant majority of people really there's a lot of privilege that comes with riding a bike. Which is reflected in its demographics.  [00:48:35] Ted Huang: [00:48:35] Exactly. I'm thinking the same thing, right? I don't want to go into the doping thing, but yeah. There's like in Europe, if you were professional bike racer, that's your way out of, let's see a life of farming, for example. [00:48:46] I think it's different in the U S versus different parts of the world, but all in all, it is a privilege and it's not to be taken for granted, right? Because a lot of people around the world don't have access to something is simple as [00:49:00] a bicycle.  [00:49:01] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:49:01] This might be a fun thing  to dive into a bit is topics of inclusiveness. [00:49:05] So we've talked about some of the dynamics that would go into a ride that feels inclusive amongst those who join it. And that's an important thing, but if you look at the bicycle industry, if you look with bicycle owners it's predominantly white, predominantly male, the average income amongst cyclists tends to be higher. You're an Asian American man. Was there anything particular about that experience that was unique or not?  [00:49:27]Ted Huang: [00:49:27] Yeah, so in cycling, I just recall quite vividly there hardly any other Asian American writers, obviously there was even fewer black writers. [00:49:38]Like maybe one or two during my bike racing career. But very few Asians. And I didn't feel like I was treated any differently, but in some sense, I felt like I was imposing my own stereotypes on how Asian riders were. [00:49:56] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:49:56] Oh, interesting. I'm curious what those stereotypes were. [00:50:00] [00:49:59] Ted Huang: [00:49:59] The stereotype I had was , we were more fast Twitch. We couldn't climb very well. Couldn't do longer climbs very well. And I never really saw a really good Asian except for Campo Wong from Hong Kong. He was at another level or more at the world tore level, but domestically, I just didn't see Asians being successful in bike racing.  [00:50:20]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:50:20] I would imagine the community, as much as it is still majority white and male, at that time there was, even fewer non white males riding bicycles. [00:50:29] Ted Huang: [00:50:29] Yeah.  So for me, actually, my main experience in terms of inclusion in running a pro cycling team at the disparity in wages between women and men. [00:50:38] And that still remains a huge sore point for me, that women make so much less than equivalent male counterparts. Even they work equally as hard and that's all media based. We could go for hours on this, and that's why we had such a highly educated women's team because they were all coming at this [00:51:00] post grad school , most of them.  [00:51:01]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:51:01] I think it was Rebecca Rush, I was at a dinner party when she was at and. She was sharing, that she worked a lot in the off season. She was one of the top female athletes in the sport, and yet she was still, working a side hustle, and had to work really hard for her sponsorships.  That speaks to something, not just in cycling, broader systemic issues. [00:51:21] Ted Huang: [00:51:22] Yeah, in windsurfing, I was the only Asian American at one point on the U S team. And I was treated differently, but I thought it was mostly because I was youngest one on the team, but  I didn't feel like a sense of belonging if we talk about belonging, being different looking than everyone else, even though they treated me mostly the same at the higher levels, the institutional level, I'm not so sure. I was treated equitably, but there was definitely some potential structural bias happening. At my age, I didn't really recognize it. It seemed like there's a little bit of, shall we say, different treatment. [00:51:57] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:51:57] Institutional bias, even [00:52:00] subconscious bias amongst individuals, which doesn't really get surfaced unless there's a safe place to actually talk about it, including for the people who have the biases. I can definitely identify biases within myself that I held. And I certainly will unpack more that are just subconscious things that are absorbed through culture. [00:52:18]Ted Huang: [00:52:18] I have them too, and recognized them.   The last few years, I'm pointing out to myself. Wow,  I have my own biases and it's so hard to shake and they're so subconscious that you don't even know they're happening , it's so unconscious, but still affects outcomes of conversations. [00:52:35] So going back to your theme again of belonging, I heard this the other day in this medical forum because of Christine that, it should be diversity inclusion and belonging. The belonging piece, I think, is crucial to helping be a solution to inclusion. [00:52:51]Because if you don't feel like you belong, you can include somebody, check the box, but is that really being inclusive if they don't feel like they belong?  [00:52:59]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:52:59] A bit of [00:53:00] counterintuitive wisdom that I've picked up in recent months is that feeling of belonging is something that you have to give to get. Which is to say, show up in the world in a way that is authentic and vulnerable and accepting of other people , and there will be a gratitude for having created that space and a sense of connection.  [00:53:19]Looking to the world to provide your sense of belonging is actually part of the problem. We co-create this feeling of belonging, you don't have one way feelings of belonging amongst people or amongst groups. It has to be something that is emergent. At some point, somebody has to be aware in order to help to create the conditions. And I view my own responsibility is becoming ever more aware and mindful and then showing up in the world in a way that models what I've learned and had imparted on me by people who've become aware and creating those conditions together. [00:53:51] Ted Huang: [00:53:51] Yeah, you completely hit it on the head. I think, really the distill it down, I feel like you need to bring vulnerability into the conversation, but if you can recognize everything is a [00:54:00] two-way street. Maybe that could be the mantra.  You find yourself slipping into the one-way street. [00:54:05] You go, this is a two-way street. So shut up and listen. So how many times are we so focused on getting our point out there that we don't actually listen to the other person? Cause that's, that creates a sense of belonging. Like literally that could be the first step. And I'm actually feeling like that's probably one of the more important Skills to learn is what we call active listening.  Part of my philosophy is create space for you to respond more intentionally opposed to just reacting.  [00:54:34]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:54:34] There's an element of, if you want to be heard, sit and listen and find resonance in the experience of others and create that container where they can step in, and then they're curious. My own practice early on the first bit of awareness I had was of caching. It's like, Oh, we're having this conversation. You're talking. It triggered this idea in my head and I'm going cache that. Now I'm focusing on cashing cause I don't want to forget this really important point, and then I'm [00:55:00] not listening.  [00:55:01]So an intermediate point toward active listening is letting go of your point. If it's important, it'll emerge later in the conversation.  [00:55:10] Ted Huang: [00:55:10] I love that. So essentially trusting that it'll come back. That's why we react a lot of the time. Cause we don't want to lose the thought. You don't want to, have to come back to it. If we have eye contact and aren't writing it down. Because you might forget, but it's almost trusting yourself.  [00:55:26] Randall R. Jacobs: [00:55:26] And it gets into the deeper meaning of the conversation or the ride experience. It's this connection element, what facilitates connection. Is it that point that you had to make, or is it  that hill that you had to beat everybody up or is it the shared experience in this feeling of being part of something belonging and so on? [00:55:44] Is there anything  we didn't cover today that you'd like to dive into as we start to wrap up the conversation?  [00:55:50] Ted Huang: [00:55:50] I just think, in this day and age of the pandemic, mental resiliency is key to being happier. [00:55:59]And so [00:56:00] I think we talked about briefly in a past conversation about our ability to reframe situations or ways to look at situations that made to seem like there's no positive side to it . If you can take a moment, take a couple of deep breaths, and then see if you can see what positives are coming from what seemed to be a completely negative situation that you're encountering. Because usually it takes days to come back to recognizing the benefits of something terrible happened to you. But if you can use the power of your breath or paying attention to how your breath is traveling in and out of your body for a few moments to quickly reframe, I think you'll more quickly become on the path to perspective and moving on. I think that's an important point I want to impart to listeners is that, even riding your bike, you may be hearing stuff you don't agree with from your ride [00:57:00] partners take a couple of deep breaths, reframe. Could be when you're in excruciating pain, trying to keep up, focus on your breath. And  all you're doing is you're distracting yourself from these woulda, coulda, shoulda. What if thoughts, and judgmental thoughts, and then you're getting back to being in the moment. [00:57:16]My whole goal with helping people is to achieve that moment to moment presence. I'd like to keep that theme alive with listeners. I think that's part of the reason we ride our bikes is to have that moment to moment presence that riding a bike helps us to get to. [00:57:32]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:57:32] This idea of who's to know what is good and what is bad. Oftentimes we will want to avoid difficult feelings and difficult experiences because they hurt, because they're painful, but there's this idea of post-traumatic growth, using one's triggers as teachers, sitting with it and saying, what is this trying to show me about my opportunity for growth, for wholeness.  [00:57:52]Even the pandemic, you might view as a cause of a lot of suffering, but there's actually another framing. This idea of "change [00:58:00] happens when the fear of change is less than the pain of staying the same". The pandemic for me and I think for a lot of people has ratcheted up the pain in the sense of, all of a sudden we're forced to sit with ourselves. And that can be really uncomfortable.  [00:58:13]But the other side of that equation as the pain is ratcheting up is the fear of change.  One of the things that I use in order to feel balanced is "how do I reduce that fear of change". So I appreciate you coming on to participate in this experiment in conversation about the deeper meaning of the bike as an on-road to exploring the psyche and community. [00:58:35] Ted Huang: [00:58:35] Thank you for having me Randall. It's been an honor and a privilege. I hope the listeners enjoy it and, take from it what they will. I think you're on a wonderful path to not only self enlightenment but exposing others to so many different facets of what riding does for us and beyond. It's just so much depth to our experiences you're helping to flesh out.  [00:58:56]Randall R. Jacobs: [00:58:56] A note to listeners to this before we go. If you'd like to engage with Ted, you [00:59:00] can do so at the ridership where we'll have a conversation going in The Gravel Ride Podcast channel that Ted the attending to answer your questions and connect. You can visit his website, Ted performance.com. Or you can find him on instagram @tedperformance. [00:59:13]And finally, I would like to thank you the listener for joining this experiment in conversation. And I'd like to encourage you to join us on the ridership forum to share your thoughts on this new concept, as well as some guests that we might bring on in the future.  [00:59:26]Craig will be back next week. So to honor him in the meantime, I'll simply close here by saying, "here's to finding some dirt under your wheels."  

On Our Minds (0:42)If you only had one kettlebell or dumbbell, could you figure out a way to have a great workout? We share what we'd do and talk about Coach Dan John's epic article from 2004, The One Dumbbell Workout. Also... check out the model in those old photos. (It's Chris!)Quiz (11:48)This week's quiz is a hodgepodge of health and relationship science. If you'd like to take a closer look at the topics we discussed, here they are:• Spouses and TV Time • Spoiled Pets • Brain Health • Refractory Between Erections • Steroids in Your 20s Newsflash (22:13)Is it time to swap out the probiotics for avocados? A new study shows that this awesome vegetable (a fruit, really) promotes healthy gut bacteria... AND the extra calories you get from it appear to get pooped right out. Here's the study.Shugart Cart (27:04)Let's go on a diet: A social media diet. You don't have to stay off completely, just trim the excess and see what happens to your productivity, creativity, time management, and life enjoyment. But be ware, when Facebook finds out you're decreasing your time on the app, they'll start pestering you in dubious ways.And boners are fun. So Chris has a recommendation for a supplement that doesn't just ramp up the potential for stronger erections, it also helps with prostate health and prevention of urinary tract infections. Check out his recommendation for P-Well. Bloopers and Other Silliness (38:44)Got questions, comments, ideas, or feedback? Find us on social! Chris is most active on Twitter, Dani's most active on Instagram. Or head over to fitpantspodcast.com to leave a comment and see the full show notes!

Donald Trump is known for a lot of things. Being loyal to people who support him, people who willingly do his bidding, is not one of those things.In fact, he has a history of screwing over people who have done everything on his behalf, people who have sacrificed their careers, their reputations, and have even gone to jail in his name.Now, a number of those lunatics who attacked the Capitol and Congress January 6 feel like they're on that list of people Trump screwed. In fact, they're so angry with Trump that some have even said he should be executed, or that he should just rot in jail.Wow! And those are his supporters! Those people, many of whom have or will be arrested and charged with criminal actions, who have lived the Trump dream, were sucked in with his lies and false promises, and who did exactly what he told them to do – go to the Capitol and “fight like hell.”So that's Part 1 of our podcast tonight.Part 2 is from Chris Waldron of Not Fake News.biz, who wrote a blog today about the oath of office. For president, the oath promises to uphold the constitution, but says nothing about protecting the nation against “all enemies, foreign or domestic,” like the oath does for Senators.Guess there is a reason the founding fathers included that in the Congressional oath. So Chris talks about that in his piece.So take a listen, first to “A Trump Double-cross?” and then, “Enemies, Foreign and Domestic” From Not Fake News.biz.

Krista Xiomara is a writer, blogger, podcast host, poet, and author. Krista lives and thrives in Austin, Texas with her dog Penny Moon and maintains her spiritual practices through the lens of Buddhism. She is committed to raising the greater collective consciousness of the world through her podcast, writings, and speaking engagements. Her first non-fiction book, “The Alchemy of Kindness” focuses on helping individuals move from self-rejection to self-love through transforming their internal dialogue with radical kindness and self-compassion to create and sustain long-term unconditional positive regard for oneself. Podcast: http://imawakenowwhatpodcast.libsyn.com/ Website: www.iamkristaxiomara.com Instagram: @iamkristaxiomara @ianwpodcast Brandon Handley 0:00 321 Hey, there's spiritual dope. Today I am on with my guest, Krista zetta mata on Ted's butchered it, but I did my best. She is a writer, a blogger, a podcast host poet and author, Krystal lives and thrives in Austin, Texas with her dog, Penny moon, and maintains her spiritual practices through the lens of Buddhism. She is committed to raising the greater collective consciousness of the world through her podcast, writings and speaking engagements. Her first nonfiction book, the alchemy of kindness focuses on helping individuals move from self rejection, to self love through transforming their internal dialogue with radical kindness and self compassion to create and sustain long term unconditional, positive regard of oneself. Woof, we got through it. So welcome to the podcast. And thanks for being here today. Krista Xiomara 0:56 Thank you for having me, Brandon. Brandon Handley 0:59 Absolutely, absolutely. So I always start us off with the idea that spirit the universe speaks through us, right? There's this inherent message that's coming through us today, specifically through you, that is for somebody who's listening. What is that message? Krista Xiomara 1:23 I think for me, the message is always about homecoming to ourselves. Because we are living in a world that is constantly taking us away from ourselves and asking us to be something other than ourselves. And so I think in the vein of my book, my podcast, my own journey, it all comes back to I really, truly believe that the path to enlightenment is the path of self love and self return to oneself. I think there's no higher purpose we all have in this life, except for returning to ourselves so that we might love and greet the world from a very different place than it usually asks us to. Brandon Handley 2:16 That's a fantastic message. It really is what it is. And you know, of course, the first thing that jumps out to someone that's not in this is I mean, look, even for myself, I'd run around and and she told me years ago, that you had to go on a journey to find yourself and be like, Well, you're right there. Where do you need to go? Right. So what do you mean by you know, there's that I love it. What says but what is what do you mean by this journey to ourselves, return to oneself within that? Krista Xiomara 2:45 Yeah, so I, I referenced in my book, and in the podcast, oftentimes this extended metaphor that I like to call the puzzle. And it's this idea that we come into this world as a fully formed puzzle. And we get thrown into our families and society and to relationship with other people. And immediately when we land in our family, our family starts to take some of the puzzle pieces out to match with their puzzle pieces. Sometimes they don't like the way your puzzle pieces look. So they they chuck them. And when you grow into adulthood, you will look into the mirror. And you will see that not only are you missing puzzle pieces, but your own pieces are disorganized and out of place. And my podcasts that centers around the idea of personal development and spirituality, which inevitably, continually cross over one another. If you go on either of those paths, they both cross each other over and in our human experience in coming home to ourselves. Part of that homecoming is about going and finding our puzzle pieces that were chucked out the window, finding puzzle pieces that that actually make a better mosaic of what we actually landed in in this life, and then putting ourselves back together as our authentic, beautiful whole selves. Because we arrived here hole, and the world tells us we're not that tells us we're broken. It tells us we're damaged. It tells us we're not good enough. It tells us we're not thin enough. But we land literally in this human form as these beautiful whole human creatures. And to me, enlightenment in this age is about ascending beyond our current culture, and living so at peace with ourselves that we create piece around us. Brandon Handley 4:54 That's great. So when you talk about these puzzle pieces, and you're telling the story, I always think about Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the King's Men, right? And so it's kind of similar, right? Like you're the only one that can put all your pieces back together. Right? You're the only one that recognizes even your own pieces. Right? And you also are the only one that has capability to recognize that this this, this picture is complete. Krista Xiomara 5:19 Exactly. Right. Right. Brandon Handley 5:22 Yeah. So. So let's talk for a second on on your podcast. I'm so jealous of the name of the podcast. I really am. It's so simple. But it's an it's so but it's so perfect. What's the name of your podcast? Krista Xiomara 5:36 The podcast is called I'm awake. Now what? Brandon Handley 5:39 Man is genius, right? So how did you know first of all, how did you discover that you were a personally awake? How do you define awake? And then what made you decide to be a voice for that? Krista Xiomara 5:52 Yeah. So as many people who've listened to the podcast know that my journey started out, in a very weird offshoot of Catholicism growing up that was based a lot in conformity, fear and submission and denial of my own humanity and my gender, essentially. And towards the end of my 20s, I started to question start questioning a lot of things. And I started to look at the way the church taught, and the way I grew up, and the people that taught me my Christian values, and they weren't in alignment with each other. There was a lot of contradictions, there was like a lot of loopholes, and I'm very much a type a person, and I very much love rules. And so I one day just realized there are all these rules in the Catholic Church that people are supposed to follow. And maybe people are following them to like 45 to 50%. Like maybe that's, that's really giving a lot of credit to a lot of people. And like, what is the point of all of this then? And that was like the first breaking I was like the first cracking open of my conditioning, my cultural and religious conditioning, where I started to question like, Well, what does this all mean? What What do I believe, and I basically pulled myself out of my religious experience, and found myself in a yoga Ashram. And that's when I realized that in my conditioning, I was asleep. And I would refer to myself as a sleep walker or a sheeple. And then when I came onto the yogic path, I realized that there was this other more inviting, more self led way to be in relationship with yourself, the world and God. And I realized that was an awakened state and awakened a way of being with yourself. In addition to that those people that I met in that yoga ashram, were so at peace, and within so much harmony with themselves, that I knew that's what I wanted, I could point to it, I could see, that's exactly how I want to live in myself and live in the world. How do I get that? And so this awakening started to happen. And it was like a decade's long journey from like about 28. to, to 37 was a huge opening and cracking open of everything. And I, like you immersed myself in a great deal of texts and experiences and ideas and curiosities and curiosity. I think, if anything I've learned is a spiritual practice, the practice of curiosity is a spiritual practice, they're one in the same and you cannot go on this journey, and not be a curious person, because you'll, you'll bump you'll get stuck. So if you don't have curiosity as your lens for a lot of this, you'll get stuck. And so I knew that when I got to the other end, I love podcasts, I love radio, I love all of that. I knew when I got to the opposite end of it, and I had matured into a place of my own homecoming spiritually, that I wanted to create a system and a community where people could go and listen to like your story and other people's story of like, how are they navigating this awakening, which is very disorienting, very cumbersome, very scary, because you've got a dress like the light and the dark parts. And so my podcast was birthed in this idea of like, you wake up, and now what do you do? Brandon Handley 9:42 And it's so so true. It's so disorienting, even even right from the onset. I think what you said there was, we do recognize that in you know, your your, your place of faith and religion, that just about 40% of the people They're not following the rules. So why am I trying so hard at it right is my guess because you said your type a right? You're like, why am I trying so hard? Why am I putting all my effort into this? And these guys are getting away with 40% something's something's not lining up. So and then and then, you know, that begins to kind of crack the veil, right? That begins to up against to say, Well, if that wasn't right, man, because you probably based sounds like you base quite a bit off of that, right? Or at least from that space. And now there's now everything's just kind of flying off. Right? That's the whole the whole, you know, well, Jesus, the Wizard of Oz, right, the man behind the man behind the curtain curtain. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, what you're saying to me, too, is really, really reminds me of the Alan Watts. Knew, and I know, fans of Alan Watts, right? So it reminds me of like, when he's talking about the monks in Zen Buddhism, when they would go up to the samurai eyes, right? And the samurai is bialik I don't know what Samurai is do but they, you know, they do their Samurai thing. And then the monk shows like no fear because he's a total peace with himself. Right? He's like, go ahead, I'm good. Do what you got to do. But and, and and then the samurai sees, you know, kind of what you saw these people are so at peace. So it like they have something and it's, it's nearly palatable, right? You can almost touch it. Krista Xiomara 11:25 Yes. Brandon Handley 11:25 And you're like, you're like, I want some of that. Unknown Speaker 11:29 Mm hmm. Brandon Handley 11:29 Right. And so that's that's kind of what I'm hearing you say right. But uh, if you know, so how did you decide to head in you What made you go to like yoga and an ashram? Right, because that's a, that's a pretty big leap from from from Catholicism. Krista Xiomara 11:47 It's a huge, it's a huge leap. I read and this is going to be this is the cheesiest part of my whole story, but it's so it I can't deny it. It's everywhere. I've said it multiple times. But I had read Liz Gilbert's Eat, Pray Love. I know. You just posted an Elizabeth Gilbert quote today. I love her. She's everything to me. To me. She's like my, my female Jesus on this earth. She's so honest and transparent. And after I read her book, I was like, if she can figure out her life, and then yogic ashram, I think I can too. And she was right, because it's the source. It's so old. It's so ancient. It's so tied to the truth of what we are, beyond our current civilization. They have all of the wisdom there and their texts. So I landed in that I luckily had that yogic ashram in this tiny town of Spokane, of all places, Spokane, Washington. Brandon Handley 12:49 Yeah, that's, you know, it's funny, because that's my, my, I spent a summer up there. Growing up, it is it is tiny. Like you said, Krista Xiomara 12:59 there's like 200,000 people there something at the time, but yeah, and so then that led me again, like, curiosity became my guiding light. So the SWAMI who created that ashram there, Swami shivananda, Radha, this beautiful German Swami who is now passed on, but she had a prolific writing career. So I read all her books. And then I'm very much a root cause kind of person. I work in quality management systems in my regular life. And so when I want to understand something, I have to get to the base of it. And so once I dipped into the yogic ashram, which was based in Hinduism, that kind of led me down the path of Buddhism and Zen and Sufi ism, and Islam and Judaism. And then I realized I need to really understand these other religions and philosophies. And I really got into stoicism with Marcus Aurelius. And of course, then you go into the spiritual side, which is like all of the beautiful teachers we've had, like Alan Watts, and Wayne Dyer, and Michael Dooley, all these people have done such massive work and you just realize they're all saying the same thing, which is, you are God God is you live a life that is honest and pure and of service of others. And that's all you have to do and show up in this world as Brandon Handley 14:32 so how are you accepting yourself as you know, God, right, I think that that's definitely been one of the bigger stumbling blocks, right? Because we also, we, you know, Westerners, we've got like this, you know, one concept of God, right? And then Hinduism and Eastern and other spiritualities have this other concept of Gods so when you say that, we're all God, what is your concept of that and how do you sleep at night with that? Right, like, I mean, cuz that's, that's definitely a challenge because, um, you know, I can tell you just from my own practice I can I can do like great meditations and I'll be like, I can get myself to like love. But I can't, you know, sometimes I had that struggle with, you know, seeing myself as God, right? Like I can be I am love. Right? But then I'm like I am God. I'm like, Hey, wait a second, buddy, what do you think in there? Right? So just walk me through that? Because I'd be curious to hear what that sounds like it looks like for you? Krista Xiomara 15:29 Well, yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up, I would say the thing, where I've shaken out in my relationship with God, which is too small of a word for what created us, I think. And I don't think it's one person. But one of the things that I, I came to terms with on my journey to is like, in Catholicism, and a lot of the Abrahamic religions, and even some of the Eastern ones, there's this idea that God exists wholly in perfection, and that divinity equates perfection. But if you look around the world, if if a god or gods created us, there are so many imperfections in this world that make it absolutely beautiful. You can walk into a forest, like right now I can see outside of my house is the greenbelt here in Austin, which is like our, our forest, and it's untamed, and it's wild. And it's, you know, it's not perfect, and we're not perfect. And that means that the thing that created me is also imperfect, and I'm comfortable knowing that it's probably still evolving to, and we're evolving together. And that wisdom that exists in me to understand that helps me connect to my own divinity and remove that disconnection that I grew up with that said, like, God is in this place, and God can only be accessed through these people. And God is only available to X, Y, and Z. But I think we are born with a god shaped portion of our of God in our body and in our soul, and in our energy that circulates us as human beings. And it's a matter of recognizing that in ourselves. It's, it's not that you're better than anyone if you know that you have God within you or that God is something you know, unattainable. We all have it. And I think the manifestation of understanding that God is within you, is when you act in kindness and compassion and humility to other people. Because that's, that's literally God working through you, that's your own divinity, that the part of you that is God is coming forward. And it's manifesting as those actions as this podcast. As of the way you help people as a coach Brandon, like, that's, that's you and God, that's like you guys co creating, it's this beautiful co creation that we all get to be a part of that has been denied, especially in the Western world, because it's built on these Abrahamic religions and say, no Gods this other thing, but it's not. Brandon Handley 18:15 Fair enough. Fair enough. You know, I 100% agree with all all what you're saying. And the one thing I would say, though, is I was recently introduced to a new definition of the word perfect. Meaning that you don't need anything else. That's all it means. Right? So actually, if you go to sleep tonight, Crystal, Do you need anything else? done today? You're perfect. Today, the world you live in is perfect. Mm hmm. Right. I mean, that forest over there, it doesn't need anything else today to be that forest, does it? Now it's a perfect forest. Right, you know, so somebody had introduced it and just said that that was like the old, you know, way back when that's what that word meant, like, you don't need anything else. And if that's if that's the definition of perfect, then there's a lot of us that are perfect, that don't think that we are right, therefore we keep ourselves from saying, Man, I can't access God, because last time, you should see me last week, that wasn't cool. Right? Or like, you know, they've got all these things that that make them think that they're being kept away from God. Right? The only thing that's keeping them away from that is themselves, right? Krista Xiomara 19:26 That's exactly right. Right. Brandon Handley 19:28 Yeah. And to your point today, it doesn't make somebody better or worse to say, I'm connected to God. Right. I'm divine. You know, that's, that's basically it boils down to a choice. Is that fair to say? Krista Xiomara 19:43 Well, yeah, and I would say the when if if somebody is saying that, that should raise a lot of alarm bells in your mind, if they're creating that disconnection to you from them because they have a closer connection to God than you should run for the hills. Brandon Handley 20:02 No good can come to that. That's what that's like the Crusades. Right. So, you know, so what made you decide to be the voice though, you know by by taking it and you know, by literally opening up you know their voice and bringing this to bringing us to the greater masses a and then be like, talk about stuffing into that like What gave you the confidence to be that person. Krista Xiomara 20:24 Um, I mean, I'm not know if it was a matter of like confidence more than the desire to help. So like a lot of my motivations as an individual comes from the desire to alleviate other people's suffering, whether that's through community through the podcast through holding space for them to process things, whether it's just been friendship with somebody, so they don't feel alone. The my motivation was that I know there's people that need to hear these things. And I would say the best example of that was the summer when I finally put into one conglomerated space, the journey of me leaving my religion of origin, making sense of all of that trauma, releasing it and coming home to myself. And I can't tell you how much I've heard from people all over the world about how liberating it was to have somebody regurgitate that life experience that they had gone through, and that they were either at the beginning, the two middle parts or the end, and feeling like me, too. And I think when we do this work, like and you do your spiritual dope, podcast on your coaching and stuff, I don't think there's any deeper modality of love that we can do for each other than to see and hear each other. And I think what's funny about the world we live in now is social media is exactly that. It's this deep seated desire to be seen and to be heard, and to feel like you matter in this world. And I think us on the spiritual path. Our goal and creating this content is to also be a mirror to the people who are in the process of it all. Because we need each other and we need each other's experiences and wisdom and honesty and integrity. To help us through this this journey. We can't do it alone. Brandon Handley 22:40 Yes, so how many? You know, when you open it up? Was there any fear? Was there any family or friends? were surprised or shocked by about kind of what you were doing in that space? How about your co workers, right? Like, I mean, is this something that your your, you know, your day job, right, you've got the day jobs, that's something that you know, you share with openly there? Or is this kind of like, you go to work today is Christa. You know, I'm here working today, and then you come come home at night, and you're like, let's finish delivery at some people. Right? Krista Xiomara 23:18 Yeah. Well, it's funny, just to that point, and then I'll answer your question is one of the things that was, was very much a bone of contention in my own life when I was in my religious upbringing and still in the church of origin was, I did feel like they're like I had a dichotomy. There was like work Krista and then there was like, religious Krista and sometimes religious Krista could come out and sometimes only work Krista could come out or Krista in her marriage or Krista with her friends, or what not. And the thing that has been the most liberating on this path is that I the just the the ability to show up as yourself everywhere all the time is more peace than I could have ever asked for in my life. And so if people ask me about my podcast, or I'll tell people about it and my work life, but more than anything, what has changed about diet, you know, the duality of Christa, old Krista and new Krista is that my spiritual practices come into my work life and so I'm just as compassionate and kind and, you know, harmonious with my co workers who don't know anything about me. There's a lot of them who don't have never met me. I work remotely no matter what, because of COVID but, but I show up like that to them the way I show up to my podcast guests, the way I show up to my family, that I'm in relationship with my friends, and that's the thing that has changed more than anything. So I do tell people about it. Mostly my family doesn't really care, they don't really even understand what it is like they're so in their own world and in their own religious experience, still that they don't really get it, they don't understand that it's a thing that it's grown, that it has a lot of reach that people are super interested in it. So like, there's a small subset of people I get to really celebrate my podcast with like, you are one of them. And you know, the other people in my life, like, everyone else could care less and Brandon Handley 25:34 less interesting, though, you know, it's all it's always interesting to hear, you know, how you kind of charge for arthritis. What I'm hearing, you say, though, too, is, at some point, there was a merger of the two of us, or maybe there was a, or maybe the you left behind all of all of this, and you're like, this is all I'm going to be, you know, this is who I am. Now, this, this is what this looks like, to me about like that decision? Because I think that's pretty interesting. Krista Xiomara 26:01 Yeah, I mean, I think that our society asks that of us, our society asks us, all of us, men, women, children, mothers, fathers, to show up in these really specific ways. And even the people that we have relationships with, sometimes don't even want to see all of us. And so in my book of the book, that I'm writing, the alchemy of kindness, I say in there multiple times that it's like an it's like an act of bravery, to never turn against yourself to love yourself, no matter what you do, because we all make mistakes where, you know, I don't always show up compassionately. Although like, I wish I could I wish I that would be like every day of my existence. But I still fail in that in interactions and certain things like that. So for me, thinking about that, that whole idea of coming home to yourself and having that, that, basically, it's like if you think about it visually, like maybe you're projecting out these different kind of what are they called, like emojis or I'm not, I can't think of the word right now. But you've got these projections of yourself in the world. And in this journey, what we do is we like suck it all in and we become one, in and of ourselves. Because when I was living in that other place, I was very much at war with myself, I was at war with my ideals. I was at war with my words and my mind and everything. And being able to bring in all those parts of ourselves those avatars, that's what I was trying to say, you know, we have these avatars of like, podcast, Brandon, and podcasts, or Brandon father, and all these things, these avatars, but we're really the central core, we're the bean and bringing it like bringing those avatars in as part of the work on this path. Because to live authentically and truly, in yourself is, is I think, again, the work that we have to do here because our society has become something very wild and different. And authenticity, authenticity and wholeness is not always wanted. Brandon Handley 28:23 So, the one thing that I see out there a lot, and you know, again, I agree, I agree with everything you're saying. The one thing I see out there a lot is is this idea of being the be your authentic self. Krista Xiomara 28:36 Yeah. The bumper sticker. Brandon Handley 28:38 Yeah, I haven't seen it. But I haven't seen a bumper sticker since March. Um, the the idea is, though, whoo, and what is your authentic self, and what you're describing is like, stop, stop, stop, like projecting all of what you think everybody, you think what everybody wants to see. And pull that all back in. And really sit with yourself. Right. And, and, and, and that's it. That's just the one, the one self that that needs to happen. And that is your authentic self. And you'll be able to know and feel your authentic self when every day doesn't suck anymore. Krista Xiomara 29:18 And when you're not questioning everything, right, you know, you're not in alignment with yourself. If you don't know what you want, if you let people make decisions for you, if you feel uncomfortable, even facing yourself. Those are like the big red flags, that you're not living in authenticity with yourself and that you are not in alignment with your core being. And I think a lot of people go on this spiritual journey. And that's the outcome. The outcome is them coming home to themselves. A lot of the spiritual other work is healing and releasing stuff that no longer serves you and, and and finding your true self. Honestly, I'm sorry, I'm beating this To a dead horse, but it's how I feel this journey is is. That is the purpose that, like all of us doing this work is like if we love ourselves, and this is a universal truth that I hated hearing, and I didn't know it was true, I had to hear like 5000 times. But if we love ourselves, and we're at harmony with ourselves, and we're at peace with ourselves, and we are authentically in alignment with ourselves, the world aligns itself as well, because when we show up authentically, then we allow other people to show up authentically, when we are compassionate with ourselves and other people can give some self compassion to themselves and give themselves a break. Like that's what it's all about. Brandon Handley 30:45 Where do you think you first saw that evidence, right evidence of that concept. And when did it finally click? Krista Xiomara 30:53 I did say 10 years. At the yogic ashram, honestly, that was the first time where, like, the thing that with the authenticity, to just go back to the story about like, living in these dual places in my religion of origin, there was in the religion of origin, there was very much this idea of Do as I say, not as I do. And then going into the yogic ashram and watching people match up their actions with their words. And I was like, Oh, these people are living it. They're living their true, honest, transparent, authentic selves. And I knew that that's what I wanted, I didn't know that the outcome would be this huge homecoming at all, I had no idea that that would happen. I just knew I didn't want to be in conflict with myself anymore. And I felt very conflicted in my religious experience. Not because necessarily, even I wasn't living up to the rules. But the goalposts was always moving. If we want to talk back again about the God thing. It was like, you know, I, I, Unknown Speaker 32:05 I, Krista Xiomara 32:06 you know, I was abstinent I didn't do drugs, I didn't, you know, drink, I didn't curse, and I still wasn't good enough for God, I still wasn't good enough for my church, not you know, the goalpost just kept moving. And then you I went to the yoga ashram, and I'm like, No, these people, they know what they're doing. Brandon Handley 32:27 That's hilarious. You know, I was never none of those things. I probably would have been incinerated going in. And that's always what I kind of thought. Like, they're not they don't want any of this. Um, you know, I love what you're saying there, you see that these people are actually living their truth. And you know, you're living your truth now. And then, you know, I like to hear how we'll just call it like the universe has opened up for you, because your podcast looks like you've had, you know, just a great run, right? You've had a great run, you're having great conversations. You're putting out a book. My guess is you've got more behind that. But also sounds to me, like you've found a way to and I'm just guessing here, you found a way to like, kind of surrender to it and let it like, be organic. Unknown Speaker 33:19 Mm hmm. Unknown Speaker 33:21 That's about that. Krista Xiomara 33:22 Yeah. I mean, if we want to talk technically about the podcast, like, like anybody else, I started, I don't know what the hell I was doing. And I had to learn how to edit. And all of that stuff. I just had an idea that I wanted to put this information out, and I just needed to find a way to do it. And I had to figure out all of those things. And what I, I recently did an interview with a gal about how to start a podcast and one of my advice for somebody was just go in knowing that it's gonna evolve. And that's part of the process instead of being stuck in this like, box. So my first two seasons, I didn't know what I was doing. I changed the format a couple times, I changed the way it was, you know, presented, I changed my branding, and I did a bunch of things. Like, I didn't know what I was doing. And that was okay. And finally, after with a lot of trial and error, like I think our life is supposed to be it's supposed to be this loving, existence of trial and error, and we don't get punished when we error. It's just a learning lesson and we pivot, right? So I pivoted, and I found the right sequence. And I found an audience that resonated with what I was saying, which allowed me to bring bigger guests on because like, the bigger your podcast gets, the more people want to come. And I was just telling a Mona, who, you know, it's funny to think when I started my podcast, like, every week, like seven people would listen to it and now it's like, Up to 21,000 people a week. That's a lot of people listening Brandon Handley 35:03 does a lot of people. Yeah, not congratulations. That's fantastic. Krista Xiomara 35:06 But it was yours. You know, it's not like that happened overnight. This it has been me just diligently sitting down and saying, I don't care about the numbers. I don't care about the monetary compensation, what I care about is being of service to people on the path who need help. And I'm going to show up, and this is what I'm going to do, as that's as simple as I can explain it. Brandon Handley 35:30 No, I mean, that's perfect, right. But again, so thank you for that. What I'm looking for is just the path opening up, right? And it sounds to me again, like you've like, again, you've kind of surrendered, right? You're not forcing something. You're not saying hey, you didn't come up and be like, Alright, well, 1231 2018, I'm looking for, like 75,000 downloads and that should that be a great year, right? Instead, you said, Hey, this neat, I need to do this, this is something I'm doing. This is something that I'm doing as much for me as for anybody else, I'm looking to be of service. I'm not looking for anything other than that, like you're you're doing it in an altruistic nature, right? Krista Xiomara 36:16 Mm hmm. Brandon Handley 36:17 But the idea is that once you kind of move with your intention with your purpose, and you know, you're in full alignment, the idea is that the universe opens up for you. Have you found that to be true for yourself? Krista Xiomara 36:30 Yeah. And that's one of the universal truths. I know, you and I have talked about this already that it is true. I just think that when you go in, honestly, and you ask to co create with the universe, like, honestly, things just fall into place. And there's no easier way to say it is that like, when I wanted to do the podcast, I was actually telling my therapist about it. And she told me about this guy who happened to produce his own podcast, and he could help me and he helped me and tell me get it off the ground. And it was like, in the alchemist, where Paulo Coelho quotecolo, says, you know, like, the universe will conspire to bring everything to your plate. And it, it really is true, I think, the thing that I would leave the audience with is that you just have to continue to make actionable steps and show up and sometimes your steps are in the wrong direction. But the universe will course correct for you, it'll let you know you're on the wrong path. And you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And this idea of the surrender, is that I have this idea, but I'm not tied to it. And that's where the surrender comes in. So I had this podcast idea, and I thought I wanted it to be this thing. And I let it evolve and become something that it is today and have had opportunities because of it. In that way, is a large surrender, because I let it do what it needs to do. And I'm just kind of the conduit at the end of the day. Does that answer it? Brandon Handley 38:11 It does? Yep. I mean, that. Nailed it. So that I mean, that's the space though. And then I think that how would you tell someone that you recognize that you're a conduit? Krista Xiomara 38:25 Hmm. That's a really hard one. I would say first go read the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle Lee, and help you, you have to do I think anybody This is just a generalization, I think if you want to become a conduit, and a true co creator with divinity, you have to face the, I guess, the idea that you have an ego. And you have to kind of fight with your ego until your ego takes a step back. Because a lot of work can be done from the ego. And a lot can come from the ego. But where that becomes a problem is I think, if you're working egoic Lee, it takes you out of that alignment, and that co creation, and then you start to have, you know, obstacles or things don't kind of flow as easily. I've seen that too. And I've, I've had to fight with my own ego all the time, you know, throughout this whole process and to continue to recognize when it's trying to push itself forward when really the universe is asking me to show up in a very different way. So I would say start there. And then just know and trust like I do say this in my book, too. It's the it's in the introduction and it's the I say that When I went on the spiritual journey, there were two things that I learned. And the first one is that when you go on a journey, whether it's like physical or spiritual, there are proverbial, you know, twists and turns and things you cannot anticipate you have to be ready for that. But the second thing that you learn on this journey, if you stay open, is that the universe is literally there to bring you the tools, the people, the experiences, anything, you need to be able to become the conduit to your own life journey, and show up in a way that resonates with people. So that we can all help each other. Brandon Handley 40:40 Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I mean, what I'm what I think I hear you say that, too, is uh, you know, egos, the guy that says, you know, ego egos the voice inside you saying, I'm doing this, this is me, watch what I can do. Right. And whereas the conduit says, I have the resources of the universe, and it's just flowing through me, I literally wrote down this morning, I wrote down this morning, the idea that I'm, from a humanity standpoint, if I view myself as strictly human, then all I'm left with his, you know, my human capabilities, and the things of this world, right now, if I open myself up to being divine, or of this universe changes, right? I mean, and so there's nothing you can't do. Right? And I don't have to be and I'm not the one doing it. Right. And you know, so I think that's what I'm hearing you say, right, and kind of break in and having that breakthrough. And then looking for evidence of that, right? I think that that's really important. Right? So to set your intention to say that I want to become a conduit, here's, you know, you're talking about breaking through the egoic structure, and then saying, you know, now, where am I seeing it? Right? How am I seeing it? And I think that that comes from setting an intention and not acting on it right forcefully in such a way that to your point, like you do need to take action, right, there needs to be some type of whatever move to go get it. This is, you know, the call of, Hey, this is the hero's call type thing, you know, you're called to go do this thing. I'm not gonna do it. And so nothing's gonna happen then, right? There is no transformation, there is no transition. If you're called hero's calling, like, Alright, I'm gonna go do it. And then you're met with obstacles, but like, right behind that obstacles, like the thing like shut up? Right? All I had to do was pick up that rock. That's crazy. Krista Xiomara 42:34 Yeah. And I would say that a prayer that has become like, a mantra to me is, I will literally say to the universe, like, I want to do this thing. And I don't know if it's right. But I'm gonna take these steps. And I'll just wait for you to answer. And that's literally what I do when I want to do something new. Or I want to venture out into something else, or write a book. I just say, I don't know if this is right, this is what's in my heart. And I need you to tell me if I'm on the wrong track, and I've never been misled. It's never it's, it's it's either shut doors, or open doors. And that's how I know. And it's like, you know, we have all of these other senses that we can tap into from our own divinity that allows us the wisdom to know what's the next right step every time. Brandon Handley 43:28 That's awesome. That's a great one. That's a great one. So your book is coming out when when can we expect your book, Krista Xiomara 43:35 ah, this has been like the biggest labor of love that I've ever had in my life. It's taken me two years to finish this book. And I'm still not even done yet. I'm I'm My goal is to get it done by December and have it out. And in mid March is the goal to after it goes to the drafts and the covers and all of that. But my, I think also to let me just back it up for a second what I've learned on this, this journey, as well, and having the podcast is that a lot of people have different entry points into spirituality, how we find it some for some people, it's addiction for some people, it's trauma for some people, it's the religious experience for some people, it's, you know, no religious experience, but we all have these entry points, but we all come together at some point our experiences kind of merge at some point. But the the, the conflict that I was talking about earlier that can that was contained in my mind was also this deep seated self hatred. And that was my entry point. And because I only needed peace, and I didn't need peace with the world, I needed peace with myself cuz I hated myself. I hated everything about me. I hated myself to the core. And it's like one of those things that people never want to talk about. But it was a it was a very big struggle of mine. And it was my entry point. into leaving my religion that I had an inclination that it was a contributing factor to my self hatred. But I didn't quite know if it was. And so the journey of the alchemy of kindness, the book is about, like, traversing my past to understand where did the separation happen, that I started to hate myself, because I certainly wasn't born hating myself. I be and then I did. And then unraveling the tools that I picked up, that helped me reverse that self hatred, and then the practices and the daily living, that allows me to stay in congruence with myself and in love with myself in an authentic way, not just like, Oh, I love myself. Not like that, like truly like, yeah, like, I don't say, a harmful word about myself, don't criticize myself, all those things. And so this book, I knew, like I did with the podcast, I knew that once I got through that whole thing, I really wanted to create a roadmap for people to unravel their self hatred, because it is a true epidemic in our society. And the, you know, the most hardest part of self hatred is is annihilation. And so, you know, I had a couple of times where I had suicidal attempts with my life. And because I was just like, I cannot stand myself, like, I have ruined everything. I'm like, an embarrassment to my family, and all of these things. And my self hatred took me all the way up to annihilation, like it does with a lot of people. But there's another way, you know, there's another way and the other way is that you're fine. And you're great. Just The Way You Are you just have been told you aren't. Brandon Handley 46:56 No, that's powerful. That's powerful. Would you look at that, as you know, hatred is a gateway or addressing your pain as a gateway? How would you? How would you kind of determine to find that? Krista Xiomara 47:08 Well, so for me for my experience, and I think it can be both and I'm guessing, for me, it was that I was in so much pain with my own internal conflict, like not being able to look at myself in the mirror for very long, or not being able to be in relationship with people and feel like they didn't like me, because I didn't like me. Like, I just assumed everybody hated me, because I hated myself to know. And the the pain of that was like, okay, there's something really traumatic living here, that I have to address now. And what is that, and I didn't do it on my own, which I say in the book, you know, I definitely had to go to therapy, I had to have a lot of spiritual experiences that helped me, come home to myself. And then the, the longevity of my self love really came into focus when I found Buddhism, because Buddhism is truly a homecoming. It's like, go and be by yourself, and sit with yourself, and be okay with everything that is, but be okay with yourself. That was like the most eye opening teaching I could have received is what the Buddha did in his life. And I was like, Oh, this is how I'm supposed to exist within myself, then I can attain that, and I'm gonna live it and practice it until it's in, like every molecule of my body. Right? So yeah, Brandon Handley 48:46 just just be that. I love that. So you said, you mentioned your spiritual experiences a couple of times do you have like one or two that you could, you know, specifically point to as a specific spiritual experience? Krista Xiomara 49:01 Like, do you mean through the self that allowed me to create some some self healing in this vein of the book or some are just like spiritual experiences Brandon Handley 49:11 that yeah, I mean, you pointed to, you know, you pointed to like, along the way, having some spiritual experiences and you know, what does that mean? And what is one that might be specific? Unknown Speaker 49:20 Mmm hmm. Krista Xiomara 49:26 Let me think, um, I think one of the, one of the most significant spiritual experiences I had was, when I was in this really, I've had like, a couple dark nights of the soul. I would say, I think we all do in our life because it's hard to navigate humanity being human. But in one particular one, it was up towards the beginning of my spiritual journey. And I don't know why I looked it up. But I looked up like spiritual cleansing or healing or something. And I found out about Reiki for the first time. I'm, it's an energy healing modality. And I went on and I looked at all of these people online, and I started to look at their faces. And I was like, Hmm, I could send something about each person's, you know, you look at pictures, and you can really kind of get a sense of the person's own energy. And I landed on this girl named Chelsea. And she is like this petite, tiny, little white, white light Angel, very creature that I don't even think she's human is what I've just decided. And she, I went to her. And I just was like, I feel like I have a great deal of dark energy within me. I've done therapy, I've gone on spiritual retreats, and there's just this thing that's stuck. And I don't know how to get it out. And my curiosity led me here, can we work together, and she gave me my first Reiki healing that I had ever had. And I literally feel like she physically pulled out this darkness from my body, and liberated whatever that part was of me. And I saw her for a handful of more, have more sessions. But I think she truly was the person that I just think she did her work, so I could do my work. And I needed to go see her. And that was, that changed me I was forever changed by this very healing process that I didn't even understand that at the time, I didn't know anything about Reiki, I didn't know how it worked. I didn't understand it. And it was really bizarre going through it the first time. And but also, just like, this beautiful experience that truly, I think, went beyond the natural world of something I could never understand, I still I still struggle to understand how it all works, and how it's all connected. But that was a really big experience that helped me, it was a spiritual tool I took on the way to back to myself. Brandon Handley 52:24 That's powerful. I mean, if you've got all that darkness, you know, caught up in Saudi and somebody quite literally able to rip it out of you without I mean, they don't, they don't touch you, right, like, I mean, now. This is a this is a you know, and if you can go through that and have that kind of sensation as you leave that place. And, you know, there's no drugs involved. There's no like weird things happening outside of that thing. That's powerful. And that's, that's something that resonates. Krista Xiomara 52:52 And she was powerful. Like, I clearly didn't even know what was happening or what was going on. And she was so powerful that she was able to do this thing that was set me back on my course and really liberated me. And it was like all those things. It was like the therapy and it was like my spiritual journey and reading books and letting go of my ego and dispelling all the stories I had told about myself. And then I needed this other thing that could help me literally lighten up so I could enlightened because I was stuck. I was truly, truly stuck. Brandon Handley 53:36 So the real recommendation here is go read Eat, Pray Love. Yes. And this will get you started. Right? Right. And along the way, pick up Chris's book, which will be out in March of 2021. Right? I mean, you can just set the date, let's just do it, right. It's common, it'll be there. And then, you know, go over and you wish wish was some people go Krista Xiomara 54:00 check it out. You can just find me on Instagram at IN w podcast, I'm in the process of redoing my website and stuff. And I do have some other projects that are not ready to be spoken about. But there'll be very exciting in the near future. But Instagrams the best place to catch me for now while I revamp everything. Brandon Handley 54:20 Okay, so if you're listening today, then make sure you head on over to spiritual dope or the podcast outline and the link for Chris's Instagram to the podcasts will be available for you. So Chris, thank you so much for coming on today. And you know, sharing pieces of your journey and how you got there and just spend some time with us today. I think that I think what you shared it out today was super valuable for anybody who's tuning in. Yeah, Krista Xiomara 54:45 thank you for having me, Brandon. I really enjoyed our time together. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

MF DOOM RIP!!!!! Ted, I think were in a movie… So Chris finds out who Jefree Star is and what Kanye West had to do with it. Start of with a little gossip that got out of hand and spin right off to something else that got out of hand on Capital Hill. We go out on giving you our two cents while we ask for two cents with a little Metal Fingers ending! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stschrisandgeorge/support

Chris Cederstrand grew up in Saskatchewan and played major junior on the Red Deer Rebels and Swift Current Broncos. Concussion problems prematurely ended his junior career and any hopes of ever playing pro. So Chris ventured into firefighting, but at 25 while working construction he suffered a terrible accident which lead to his right leg being amputated. Chris didn't let that keep him down, he rehabed all the way to playing on the Canadian National sledge hockey team at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, went back to firefighting and now runs the Cederstrand foundation supporting individuals with physical limitations to reintegrate sport and physical activity. Chris Cederstrand is an inspiration

In this episode, our guest Chris Willard tells us about his total returns strategy and how he uses it to fuel the rapid growth stage of his investment career.  --- Transcript   Michael: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and I am joined today by my co host, Tom Schneider. And we have a very special guest with us, Chris Willard. And he's going to be talking to us today about total returns and using that to scale his portfolio. So I won't take up any more time. Let's jump into it.   Before we get into it, we want to talk really briefly about a special offer that we have going on for the Roofstock Academy. And for those of you who might not be familiar, Roofstock Academy is your one stop shop education arm of Rootstock. It's comprised of one on one coaching, over 50 hours of on demand lectures, cashback incentives for closing on properties through Roofstock $2500 cash back to be specific, as well as private access into our online forums. So as you go to roofstockacademy.com into the checkout section, use coupon code SANTA2020 for $151 off a registration. Again, that's roofstockacademy.com. And coupon code is SANTA2020.   Tom: And to make this even more of a no brainer, it is a lifetime satisfaction guarantee. Take the coaching, watch the lectures, if you're not happy, get a full refund. No expiration, you're not gonna find that anywhere else. And on the cashback aspect, if you do the math, right, the discount, taking a 151 off, that's gonna make it $1,098. And you're going to be getting $2500 in return. So you're actually making money with the program. So join risk free today. SANTA2020   Michael: Awesome. Well, Chris, welcome to the show, man. super happy to have you here. Thanks for taking the time.   Chris: Thanks, guys. Always fun talking to you both right on.   Michael: So maybe you could give our listeners for those who are not familiar with your background, your story, a little bit of background on yourself. And then we'll jump into this thing about total return.   Chris: Yeah, so I've been in real estate for going on about 10 or 12 years, several different capacities, but more recently on the single family rental side of it with Roofstock. I currently, you know, work as the head of sourcing, oversee a lot of our larger portfolio transactions through our platform, but through my life here at Roofstock. And prior at Waypoint with Tom been able to do a lot of investing on my own, which is pretty exciting.   Michael: Awesome. Awesome. And I know that you kind of invest all over the country, is that right?   Chris: Yeah, I don't have any specific markets that are interesting to me, deals are interesting to me. So I'm always pretty opportunistic, and happy to go into new markets when I find the right deal.   Michael: Awesome.   Tom: Chris, I'm gonna interrupt a little bit. So Chris and I are in a special Roofstock Club. So our CEO at Roofstock. Gary has been on the episode a couple of times, he was formerly the CEO of one of the very first publicly traded single family routes. And both Chris and myself used to work with Gary at this company. And when Gary and Gregor and those guys came up with the idea of Roofstock as a company, we shortly thereafter joined Gary on this adventure. So Chris, why don't you just talk real quickly about all the different stuff you did at that single family read as well. I think it'll give good context experience.   Chris: Yeah, so at way point, and even prior to waypoint I was underwriting hundreds of homes a day, we were buying off the courthouse steps back in, oh, nine 2010, you know, when right at the downturn of the market, when everything was when the world was falling off, I had the opportunity to join the waypoint team. And as 2011 or so down in Southern California, we started growing the region, buying hundreds of homes quickly grew that over a couple years to several 1000 homes and really manage kind of all facets of acquisitions, they're all the way through from acquisitions to lease up, we obviously manage the properties there. And then kind of towards the tail end of my tenure there really oversaw a lot of the disposition efforts, so got involved with selling homes. And you know, Tom, to kind of your point, it's really funny, because, you know, when we started selling homes at waypoint, we did it like everyone else, you know, we vacated you know, move the tenant out, put the home on the MLS, we incurred all the fix up costs, the vacancy, the leakage, you know, and then we realized that about 30% of the time, or more than that investors were buying the homes and putting tenants back into them.   And so, you know, then we had the bright idea, well, why don't we just list the home with a tenant in place on the MLS? And, you know, there's just a lot of challenges that agents have to deal with in terms of, you know, not being able to show the homes, you know, the condition of the homes and obviously, there was no platform like Roofstock at that time, you know, I think is when you know, Gary Gregor and, and the others got the light bulb, and obviously, overnight, you know, rootstock was formed. So, you know, pretty exciting, you know, to come up through the industry like that and see all the different facets to where we are today. I think we were bootstrapping things pretty frequently back then. Now we leverage a lot of technology to scale up and grow our business,   Tom: Both sides of the business I love that how just you know in running that route and trying to sell this realizing the inefficiencies of selling occupied. Alright, I digress. I'll let Michael go ahead and bring us back in.   Michael: No, it's I mean, it's super interesting background. It's it's super cool to see and hear about it is kind of like this seemingly obvious only in hindsight of like, Well, yeah, duh, it's investments, we're buying it anyhow, why are we taking on all this extra expense and headache to move these people out to have different people just move back in. So…   Tom: Totally! Leakage. That's a word we use.   Michael: Got it.   Tom: Preventing leakage.   Michael: That's a great word.   Tom: It's a great word. It's alright. It's an okay word.   Michael: Getting back on the rails here. So, Chris, I really want to chat and focus today about total return. And I think this is kind of this word, this concept that might be thrown around a lot that some people might not have a good grasp of, or a hard time defining and pinning down. So can you give us what your definition of a total return actually means?   Chris: Yeah, I mean, the way I look at it, which might be a little bit different, but you know, it takes that idea of, you've got your cashflow investments, and you've got your appreciation investments, and it's a blend of both Now, now, total return doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to have steady cash flow. And it doesn't mean that you not might not be able to catch, you know, market and an upswing and take on some appreciation. But you know, you get a little bit of both worlds there. When I try to target you know, investments, when I'm kind of putting my acquisition hat on and looking at acquiring homes, I always look at homes that have maybe have some upside on the rental side of things, maybe also have some upside in the market value of the home. So that's how I kind of look at it and categorize total return is takes a little bit from both the cash flow model as well as the appreciation model.   Michael: Awesome. And do you factor when looking at acquisitions? Do you factor in like the tax benefits are the loan paid down into like, calculating a total return?   Chris: My model? I don't necessarily look at the tax advantages of that too much. You know, for me, I'm really focused on what is my cash on cash return, that's where I focus a lot of my energy, I do have a great CPA, and he tells me and kind of writes the ship when, you know, may go down the wrong road from from a tax perspective. But for me, it's really looking at what is my cash flow, because that's going to be kind of my day to day, right? You know, my cash in and my cash out is going to get me from point A to point B, but then where I can capitalize on some of that upside, you know, that's really kind of the unknown, that's where the risk comes in. But that's also where the reward, you know, can be found.   Michael: Absolutely. And so for those of our listeners who might not be familiar with some of the metrics we're tossing around here, can you define for people? What is cash on cash return? And what is cash flow?   Chris: Yeah, so cash on cash return is really just comparing or analyzing the cash you put into the investment, whether it's, you know, your down payment, any capital expenditures, repairs, and maintenance, all cash going into the investment verse, you know, the cash that's coming out, really your profit at the end of the day from that investment, oftentimes, that does come from your monthly cash flows, the distributions you get from your your property manager, but also could be, you know, realized, as, you know, potential profit from an upswing in a market and, you know, equity and appreciation.   Michael: Awesome. Yeah, I always like to make the analogy that your cash on cash return is just a measure of how hard your dollars are working for you.   Chris: I like that. There you go.   Michael: Dollars out over dollars in.   Tom: So thinking about total return, Chris, I'd love having been in the space for you know, both professionally and personally, as your philosophy around what type of returns you're looking for changed much over time from x from beginning of time till now, and I'd love to hear about that evolution of your philosophy on that.   Chris: Yeah, the short answer is yes. You know, I think when I first started getting into you know, investing, I was fairly focused on what that cap rate what that cash flow look like, made sure I had, you know, high cash flow properties. And what I realized, you know, the, the, the time that we had at Waypoint was very helpful, being able to spend private equity capital rather than my own to, to learn a lot of this and make some mistakes there. But, you know, really, what I learned is that sometimes there's some negative factors with those higher cash flow properties, they're typically going to be older investments, they typically will need you know, more work just given the age, sometimes they can be associated with a lower rent price point in a certain market, which could increase your turnover. Therefore increasing your vacancy costs, increasing your turn times and thus decreasing your cash flow.   So I would say that I probably started on the side of the fence when I started personally investing as a I'm going to be a little bit more cashflow driven to now really, I take a balanced approach. And I think as you probably build your own portfolio, you start to take more of a balanced approach naturally, I do like to invest in heavy cash flow properties, but I make sure that when I do so I'm looking at the major components of that home, what is the age of the roof, the age HVAC, the the water heater, electrical, plumbing systems, those are going to be my big ticket items outside of anything cosmetic, and if I can make sure that from that perspective, the home is bulletproof than I think I've pretty safe from you know, looking and taking the risk on some of those high cash flow properties.   But where I'm starting to and I look over the last, you know, five or six years in my investment strategy I start to see that, okay, the vintages of homes I'm buying today versus I was buying, you know, five, six years ago, are starting to become newer home values are also becoming more expensive. They're safer investments and, and while maybe on the surface, the cash flows or the returns are not as great as those high cash flow properties, high return properties over the long term, if you look at over the span of multiple years, and you consider all those external factors of reducing your vacancy, reducing your turn cost, as we talked about cash in cash out, you know, the more money I can keep to myself, rather than, you know, giving out then honestly, the newer, more expensive homes, the way my investment philosophy is transitioning is panning out to even higher returns.   Tom: You can say something in a minute, Michael, I was just having a coaching session with a member of our sec Academy. And they were talking about having a hard time finding newer homes that cash flow well, right. Because if you're buying a house for $200,000, it's got to have a pretty reasonably high rent, if you're using debt on the property, and you're servicing that debt to still get a healthy cash flow. Two questions in this I mean, for what you're targeting right now in your portfolio? Like what, what is the relationship between the price and the rent, that you're able to find these newer homes? And if you could talk a little about markets that you're looking at? I think that would be interesting to hear.   Chris: Yeah, I mean, you obviously hear the 1% rule, you know, quite a bit. And I think it's something in the back of my head I certainly look at but you know, as I've seen the transition across my philosophy of my own personal portfolio, you know, I'm starting to dip well below that, that 1%. You know, I even just recently purchased a home, you know, in South Carolina, where the cash flows weren't great. But I was stepping into quite a bit of equity upside, which was was the play, but the way I was able to mitigate and improve some of that lower cash flow or negative cash flow was I made the conscious decision of, you know, I'm going to manage this myself. So now I'm going to save 10% a month, and that's going to inject cash back into the rental. You know, I think there's other things that you can do by running maybe a competitive process around insurance rates, making sure that you are getting the most competitive rate out there. I often talk with a handful of insurance providers on every home, I purchase and make sure and this is not something I do just on the front end. But this is something I do consistently every every year, every couple years, I'll start looking at different insurance providers and see who has the best straight out there.   Michael: You said something, Chris, that I just want to circle back and touch on is with the high cash flow properties. If you are in a lower rental tier, you might see the higher turnover cost, which means you have a higher vacancy, and then you might have higher repair and maintenance. So it can often be this kind of Domino ladder effect where one expense has a significant impact on all the others. And I think it's so important to highlight that for folks. I can't tell you how many turnkey provider proformas I've seen. They're like, Oh, we just rehab the property, zero maintenance and zero capex needed. And it's like, yeah, maybe for the first year. But if you're going to own this thing for 2,3,4,5,10 years, like we have to be factoring this stuff in so coming to the table with your eyes wide open, when you're buying some of those properties, I think is hyper hyper important.   Chris: To that point like really is you're stepping into an investment, you need to understand how long am I expecting to hold this am I is this kind of a buy kind of set it and forget it type mentality where I'm going to have it for 15, 20 years, and it's just going to work itself out or what I've been able to do over the last couple years is I have a mentality of I'm always buying a home that I'm typically going to sell in the next one to two years. And I'm going to buy it in a market that is seeing higher appreciations. And they they have historically, that tells me that there might be a little bit of an upswing, and that way, I've been able to grow my portfolio and roll it I sell one I buy three. So one, I buy four. So one, I buy two, and then before you know it, it's a little bit of a domino effect. But kind of going back to Tom's point, you know, markets. Tom, I think you've centralized around a few markets, right. And I think you've got a few properties in Florida and a few properties in Atlanta, if I'm not mistaken.   Whereas I I've got two properties in Atlanta, I've got to spread out in Florida, but I've got a property in Kansas, you know, I just sold a property in Texas. Now I've got a property in South Carolina, I've owned in California, I've owned in Arizona, I own a couple in Detroit, I'm really all over and it kind of just for me. It's you know, where's the opportunity, you know, I'm less focused on building scale within a certain market. I do like Atlanta. I do like Florida. And when I see deals, I'm always happy to jump on them. But I think there's certain opportunities in other markets as well, that for me, at least my investment philosophy is, you know, I want to be less restricted around markets. I'm happy to work with third party property managers, if and where it makes sense. And most of my properties are, are being managed by a third party property manager, but it really just comes down to the opportunity and your investment style.   Tom: I'm interested in how is the self management process going are you pretty far into that?   Chris: So truth be told, see, it was about four years ago when I owned my first home. I was self managing it. And you know, for the first six months or so, or maybe as a couple years, it was fine, you know, the tenant was clean, rarely got a phone call from them. Then I joined Roofstock. And six months later, I bought my second property. And similar philosophy, I bought it as a new home, I think it was only two or three years old. And it had a tenant that was two months into a 36 month lease. And I said, Great, well, I'm pretty bulletproof on having to release this home, and there's not going to be a whole lot of repairs and maintenance are going to be needed. The home was just built. And I remember being at work. And I received two phone calls within 30 minutes of each other couldn't answer both because I was working and the HVAC went out on one home and the water heater went out on the was leaking on the other. And I made the decision right then and there that I am no longer self managing multiple properties. And, you know, now fast forward five years, I'm breaking that rule.   But again, like I'm breaking the rule, because, you know, with this property, the tenant has been in the home since 2015. It's 2020, they've got a strong track record, they always pay their rent on time, the home was built in 2007. So as I speak to those major components of the of the property, everything is still relatively new. And you know, the age of its useful life, there's still a lot of a lot of runway left. And so so far, I mean, it's been a month into a month and a half into it, it's going well, the tenant was very flexible.   Michael: That's awesome. What are you doing all the leasing? I guess you didn't tend to do the lease up on that property.   Chris: Yeah, what I liked about this lease is that it just automatically rolls to month a month. And so you know, my strategy with this home, which is why I was okay with it is she has a lease through February of 2022. And this was one of those homes that I was planning on selling at the end of that lease and holding for less than 24 months, Columbia, South Carolina has seen I think about five or 6% appreciation compared to the 2% historical average, you know, over the last 20 years. And so there's a bit of an upswing in the market, there's a lot of institutional demand for that area. Right now, I did speak with other realtors and property managers going, you know, when I was doing my own diligence, and they're seeing a lot of my folks moving into the market from out of state. So there's a lot of positive drivers in the market right now that are pointing to that appreciation. So but when you think about you know, releasing the home, that's not something that I plan on doing.   Now, I plan on selling it. I also didn't plan on releasing the home in Jacksonville, I bought four years ago, with a tenant that had a 36 month lease in it, the tenant ended up moving out my goal there was to try and sell it to the tenant, they had just got, you know, engaged or married. And I figured, well, you know, who not better to be a buyer than your tenant, but they ended up moving out. And that's when I did engage with the local property manager to do the turn and, and the releasing efforts. Unfortunately, I don't have time, you know, for that or want to do that from you know, 3000 miles away.   Michael: Right. Right. Chris, I'm curious to get your thoughts on home warranties.   Chris: Yes. So I actually had a conversation with an investor, you know, last year around this, who does home warranties on every single one of their investment properties that they own. Up until recently, it was not a strategy that I utilized, you know, but, you know, obviously, when I bought my primary residence in the bay, I did get a home warranty. And within the first, you know, six months, I did have, you know, some work that needed to be done on a couple of the major appliances. And that was a very, extremely easy process. And so, with these last two homes, you know, I did ask for home warranties, and it's something that I'm going to, you know, incorporate into my offers going forward. You know, the way I look at it is if an owner is selling to another owner occupant, it's pretty standard to have a home warranty into that contract. So we're it's not like we're asking for something that is out of the ordinary or is not standard in these agreements. So again, it doesn't hurt to ask and it that extra layer of protection with it can also keep down you know, as we talked about cash in and cash out, and also keep cash in your pocket.   Michael: Totally my very first property that I ever purchased. I did the exact same thing as for a home warranty provided by the seller, they agreed to it. So the year comes up on my home warranty and my manager called me she says hey, do you want to renew it? I said How much is it? She's like 500 bucks. I'm like, ah, we've never used it. I don't know Like, I don't know, and she goes, it's up to you. And I said, You know what, screw it. Let's just do it. Let's spend the 500 to bite the bullet. The next day, the AC went out and I got a brand new AC and I was like, oh, such a good call. You know!   Chris: I the exact same thing happened with my primary, which I forgot about until now that I it wasn't even the home warranty. I had a mailer come through the mail from the water company, saying Do you want extra insurance on your external water pipe? You know, the pipe going from the the main line from the house to the sewer? I was like, Okay, well, you know, this is what 100 bucks for the year, I own a 70 year old house, I don't think it's ever been replaced. You know, why not? Let's do it. And six months, you know, a year ago by I think it was about eight months, nine months go by and I completely forgot, I didn't even realize I did it. And then all of a sudden, our pipes start backing up, and we have a company come out and end up you know, having to spend $12,000 to replace that pipe. Well, three months later, and I got the renewal for this insurance that I paid for. And lo and behold, they accepted my reimbursement. So I got all of that covered through paying this, you know, extra $100 a month for $100 a year for insurance, something that you expect never to use, but if you have it…   Michael: Use it!   Chris: Exactly.   Michael: I've never heard of that sewer lateral insurance.   Tom: Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, one thing that concerns me and hopefully other investors with these warranties, and you know, more obscure insurances that when it comes time to collect, you know, okay, it's a battle like the the mattresses of being able to collect on that and, and hearing these winning, you know, stories from both you guys. I've never been a big Home Warranty guy, but I guess they're inspiring me.   Michael: The devils in the details, man, like big company has to be reputable, because I've had horrible experiences with other home warranty companies where it's fight tooth and nail to get everything covered, when it's clear as day that it is covered. So do your research on the issuer in the company. But it's funny to talk because you know a little bit about my due fires. It's not it doesn't even have to be obscure, obscure, and obscure insurance have to fight tooth and nail to get it handled.   Tom: So Chris, yeah, I love talking about your strategy is kind of a short term rental planning to hold it for the one to two year really kind of maximizing the return you can get on that immediate appreciation as well as the cash flow. I mean, did you always land on this kind of shorter term? And as you're doing this diaspora of converting one house into three, those three into another three? Are you concerned about the amount of overhead that it's going to take? And do you have like, Okay, this is what done looks like and getting to a certain number, just because I would imagine a point he gets untenable as you're multiplying this, this portfolio?   Chris: Yeah, no, it's something we have been thinking about. And, you know, I've been leveraging the the 1031 exchange, you know, pretty well, you know, really, in the last four years, since joining Roofstock, I've gone from one home now to 10 homes, all through, you know, three different 1031 exchanges. Now, the challenges with that, you know, I've been able to really exhaust the conventional, you know, financing, you know, through an individual have 10 loans in my name, what I do need to do pretty quickly here is start having my wife make her first investment, and then doing the same thing, but to your question. And to the point is, the strategy for me was to grow my portfolio, while leveraging the least amount of capital from the onset. I made the investment into my very first home, and then I took that home sold, took the proceeds from that sale, bought four, and then one of those homes that I bought from that for I sold 18 months later. And so whenever I'm doing this 1031 exchange, I'm always looking, okay, where's the next sale, and then which is the next property, I can just put into the portfolio and kind of forget about it.   Now, those other properties that stay in your portfolio that you're not selling every couple years and maximizing the return there, you know, those are also good candidates, depending on where you are in a market cycle to potentially pull out some of that equity, do a refinance, and then use that capital to reinvest in and purchase other homes. So I think that the next strategy here is probably for one of two things to happen. And, you know, I've got some homes that have quite a bit of equity in them and could certainly look at refinancing those interest rates are extremely low right now. Pull out that capital, put it off to the side for a period of three to six months, and then allow my wife to start investing using that capital, and then she can start doing the same strategy, you know, where we start, you continue to roll these homes, where I'd like to get, you know, is that each of us have, you know, 10 in in our names 20 amongst the two of us to really maximize that that conventional loan, you know, 10 or 20 to a husband and wife requirement, but, you know, yeah, I mean, we've got a long term goal.   You know, ultimately we want to be able to retire and have a nest egg that we can pass on, you know, to our children and you know, College is a lot more expensive today then it was when we all went through it, and but we've got a goal of, you know, 50, 60, 70, 100 homes that we want to get to. And, you know, this is, you know, at least in the short term, this was a way that I identified that I could kickstart that and do it pretty rapidly without investing a ton of outside personal capital. You know, today, I've really only invested about $100,000 in been able to grow the portfolio from strictly cash flow, and proceeds from sales. So being able to take a small pool of capital like that, and just continue to let it roll. For me, that's been pretty neat to do.   Michael: Good for you man, that's awesome for your properties that have a lot of equity. And, Chris, that you're talking about taking some cash out. Are you okay, if a property goes negative cash flow?   Chris: Rnder the right circumstance? Yes. For instance, this one in South Carolina, I think right now it's modeled and if it performs perfectly, it's modeled out to have, you know, maybe a $200 return on the entire year. So it's very likely that that will be a negative cash flow property, because it's real estate and nothing goes away it's planned to.   Michael: You mean the models aren't perfect?     Chris: They call them proforma for a reason, right?   Michael: Yeah.   Chris: So yeah, I mean, under the right circumstance, yes. I'm okay with taking a negative cash flow on a property if I know that there's other drivers such as I'm stepping into $40,000 in equity day one. Yeah, sure. I'll take a slight loss on the first year in those situations, I'm fine with it.   Michael: Sure. And then what about tapping into equity that's in a property, cashflow, positive, saddling that property with debt so that you're by design, making it cash flow negative to that and go do something with that cash? Is that something you'd be open to? Or a strategy believe in?   Michael: Yeah, and that's where I think you've got to be able to forecast or have insights into what is the future look like with that? You know, with that market? What is the future look like with that property? Is that a property that I'm expecting to hold for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, then? Yeah, I mean, negative cash flow really doesn't mean a whole lot to me then right? You know, because that's a long term investment, not a short term play. So each investment is its own use case. But again, I'm opportunistic. So if I can pull equity out and use that to invest in other properties, and, you know, while this property may be negative cash flow, in aggregate with the property that I'm going to acquire, now, I'm in a positive situation. And now I've got two properties that are now growing equally on the equity side as well.   Tom: Portfolio total return!   Chris: Yeah.   Tom: So I know, we love debt, debt is great. But I think it's kind of like the ocean and that you need to respect it. And at there is some point, you know, some kind of downturn, making sure you're not over your tips. Do you think about what the loan to value is of your portfolio? And just to redefine that real quick? That's the amount of total debt you have, of all your mortgages divided by the total value of all the homes together? Do you think about your portfolio LTV or loan to value? And is there any rules you have in keeping above a certain level?   Chris: The way I think about it, Tom, it's Yes, I mean, in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking about my LTV. I'm always calculating, you know, what is my loan balance? What is today's BPO? And how much equity Do I have there? But the way that I look at and right, wrong or indifferent, you know, hedging against, you know, a potential, you know, recession is really understanding, okay, where is my rent today? First, where is my mortgage payment? You know, for me, if you look at the history of, you know, the single family rental, you know, industry, and if you look at rents, even going back through the last couple recessions, rents have never really dipped terribly low, rents have stayed pretty flat and consistent. And then as we come out of the recession, they continue to rise. So what I really plan for is that if I'm in a situation where I can drop my rent 20% and still be in a breakeven situation, to me, that's a very positive investment, you know, thinking about the worst case possible scenario from cash flows, and I just don't see a scenario looking at the historical data where, you know, we'll likely have to drop 20%.   You get through the holidays, and sure, you might have to cut rents five or 10%, just because it's a slow time of the season, but you come out of that strong and rents are continuing to grow. Some markets right now are seeing 15% rent growth, whereas other markets are continuing to see kind of single digit, you know, rent growth, what I've been able to do on my homes on renewals is what I look at is what is the market rent today for that home? What is the alternative for that tenant to move out of that home? What are their other options, and then let's factor in moving costs. And so maybe if the market rent on another home is going to be $1400, it's not advantageous for me to mark my home all the way up to $1400. Maybe I give the 10 a little bit of a discount, but I price it in an aggressive way that I factor in, what are their moving expenses, and then factor in what are their moving expenses plus their security deposit plus first month's rent and that's the amount of money that they're going to have to come out of pocket. So I take a very calculated approach there. But with that approach, I've been able to achieve six to 7% across the portfolio pretty consistently, while keeping tenants in place for three, four, or five plus years.   Michael: That's awesome. That's so good to think about to like, and make it so blatantly obvious for the tenant. Because I think when tenants get that renewal of like, oh, the rents increased, their first thought is like, Oh, well screw the landlord, like I'm moving. And then they go look around, it's like, I can't really go anywhere, for anything better. So why bother? It makes a lot of sense.   Chris: And if you think about it. And unless you have a huge family, or some great friends, they'll help you move, every time you do, you're likely spending upwards of $1,000. If you don't have a vehicle, and you're trying to do it yourself, you got to go rent the vehicle. If you're trying to hire a moving company, it even gets more expensive. So oftentimes, you know, investors may not be as clear to an investor that those are considerations and factors that should go into the equation. And that's just how I look at it.   Michael: Yeah, makes sense. So Chris, it's funny, I had a pretty similar approach being opportunistic as far as markets are concerned, in my past life, I was working all over the country as a fire protection engineer was constantly looking at the different markets wherever I found myself for work. And it just got to a point for me where it's too overwhelming mentally and physically trying to keep track of this property manager managing this project. And this business filing due in this state, I utilize LLCs, for a lot of stuff, do you envision getting to a point at which the market just you're too spread too thin? And you're gonna look to consolidate or focus on a couple different markets? Or do you see this growth country wide? Kind of continuing for yourself?   Chris: Yeah, it's a great question. I don't think I have a definitive answer yet. Yes, I think…   Michael: You'll know, you'll get there.   Chris: Exactly. It'll get to a point, you know, someday in the future, that, you know, I'll probably start to consolidate and it'll make more sense. My wife, and I always talk about, you know, her, you know, eventually managing all the properties when we're done having kids and she's done working. And, you know, that's what she does to kind of help support the family. But that's also when we have you know, 50 6070, potentially 100 properties. And you know, if even for her to do something like that, obviously becomes very taxing to have them all over the US, right. And so there will be a consolidation at one point in the future. But you know, where I am in my investment cycle, now, I'm in a growth mode, and I'm in a rapid growth mode and software, I can take advantage of growing my portfolio, increasing my equity that's ultimately going to get me closer to my long term goal.   Michael: That's why I love real estate. I mean, you, myself and Tom all have vastly different strategies. And it's all right for all of us. Right? There's no right or wrong. There's no right or wrong for the individual. So this is killer man to wrap things up, gents.   Tom: Yeah. This is great, Chris. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on. I think the first is gonna be a regular segment checking on especially because you, you always have so many irons in the fire. It's awesome to hear it, man.   Chris: I told myself last year that I wasn't gonna make any moves this year. And then I did. Part of that was due to COVID. Now, I've told myself already, I'm not going to make any moves next year, but we'll see what 2021 has in store.   Tom: Financing rates are just too great. You gotta you got to take advantage of it.   Chris: I was just told the other day from a neighbor that he reified. He's got some investment properties here in the Bay Area, but he refinanced all of his investments up here at less than 2% on on a 30 year fix. So now it now it's now it's got me thinking,   Michael: Who's his lender?   Chris: It's actually a group that you showed sent to me a while back, I think Loan Depot.   Tom: Yeah.   Chris: Is who he's been working through. But yeah, he was quoted, or he's got these locked in at 1.99. Now, I don't know how many points he's paying. I'm sure he's paying a few points there. But he's thinking of it long term. So if I got to pay a couple $1,000 in points now, to lock these in for the next 30 years, then you know that that's something that works for him.   Tom: The Loan Depot came up in we talked about Roofstock Academy a couple of times proud sponsor of the podcast. within it, we have a Slack channel, which is like a forum and there's this one called vendors or I think it might be lending. And somebody talked about, Hey, have you guys ever looked at loan depot? And I think like five members of all like refinance, but loan depot loans   Michael: Yeah. Them and Network Capital, A bunch of them utilized them to.   Tom: Amazing   Chris: Yeah, we got to get him on here to be a sponsor.   Tom: Right.   Michael: That's a great idea, we send them so much business. We should be getting commissions or something.   Tom: Yeah, wet the beak a little.   Michael: Awesome. Well, Chris, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Really appreciate it, man. And we will definitely have to do this again soon.   Chris: Thanks, guys. We'll catch you next time.   Tom: Thanks, Chris.   Michael: Alrighty, everybody, that was our episode a big big, big thank you to Chris. Thanks again for coming on the show, man. A lot. A lot of fun. We'll definitely have to have you back on again soon. If you liked this episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you listen, your podcast that was really helped us out. And as always, if there's anything in particular that you want to hear an episode about, leave us a note in the comment section. Thanks so much for listening. We look forward to see you on the next one. And happy investing.   Tom: Happy investing.

So Chris wants a new pair of sneakers, Joe has a new crush and there’s a lot of talk about chowder. Oh yeah, we also discuss The Mandalorian Chapter 11: The Heiress and the major implications revealed with the live-action debut of Bo Katan!

So Chris wants a new pair of sneakers, Joe has a new crush and there’s a lot of talk about chowder. Oh yeah, we also discuss The Mandalorian Chapter 11: The Heiress and the major implications revealed with the live-action debut of Bo Katan! We also get a lot of stuff wrong about future predictions for season two, which is always fun. The Star Wars part starts now! It’s time for Brews and Blasters.

A lot of people think that their current situation will be a lifelong one -- may it be about their struggles, financial status, and even in their career. Sometimes people think that they are imprisoned by what/where they are right now. They tend to think that there is no possible way to shift from doing what they used to do for a living, to doing what they really are passionate about.   Today's guest will make us realize that change is okay, and how doing what we really love can change our lives for the better. We just have to embrace changes. My guest is Chris Gronkowski -- the owner and inventor of the Ice Shaker. He first made a career for himself as a professional football player and joined the NFL in 2010 after being signed by the Dallas Cowboys as a fullback. During his years in the NFL, Gronkowski also played for the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos. In 2016, he decided to put his entrepreneurial skills to the test when he set out to create a protein shaker bottle that would alleviate many of the issues he and other avid athletes experience with standard protein shakers.   Chris Gronkowski Backstory   Chris has 4 brothers and they all play pro-sports. His eldest brother plays baseball. They did not come from a football family. They were just athletes because their parents can't handle them being inside the house all day, because it will be like they will take five boys, they leave them inside a house, and all they will do is fight. It will be just all brawls non-stop. So Chris and his brothers put all their energy into sports. And that's how that all came about.   His goal really wasn't to make it to the NFL, and he actually thought he had zero chance. All he gets told every single year by his teachers and by everyone is, “Hey, this is a dream. Very few people make it. It's one in a million. Get your grades because it's probably not happening for you.”   Being told that everyday, Chris' goal was just to get to college, and get the best education possible. But he was lucky enough to get a last minute scholarship offer to the University of Maryland and he got to college for free at division one. Then along the way, he obviously put his all into athletics. And since he has his brother on his team, it became a competition between brothers. And that just led them to pushing each other harder and harder. It led to an opportunity where scouts might have been coming in to see his brother, Rob, but they were also seeing him at the same time. What is it like to play in the NFL?   According to Chris, playing in the NFL is not just a game. It's a job. A hard and super stressful job.   In college, you could pretty much hold up a sign. If you see the signs on the sideline like, “What the hell does that mean?” And it actually tells you exactly what you're doing.    In the NFL, it's definitely not like college. You walk up to the line, you have a quarterback, like a Brady - Peyton Manning, he's calling out one word on the line, and in a split second, you have to know exactly what you're doing. So you have to be a pretty smart and intelligent person. And then also with that, you'll play changes as “defend changes.”   Chris' transition from being in the NFL to becoming an entrepreneur   It was almost a blessing in disguise when Chris got hurt in his fourth year. He took an injury settlement, because once you get hurt in a camp, and you're not a superstar player, you're pretty much “damaged goods” at that time. They'll release you and they'll pay you out as long as they think you're going to be hurt. And so they paid Chris for three games.   So it was an easy, easy transition for Chris because his wife also started a business in his third year. She started hand painting wine glasses, and he saw it as if this little hobby that's going nowhere. But pretty soon they started to sell. They started selling. She had to find a way to scale up and she started scaling up and at that time, while Chris ended his first contract with the Broncos.   Chris had this little break and he started looking into the business and realized that it was a huge opportunity. It was personalized gifts and it was super expensive. It was a long turnaround time. And they had a way to do it fast most of the time, same day and do it for a lot cheaper just through our mind and through the etsy platform and their own website. So he started pouring money into it, putting the NFL money into commercial grade laser engravers and, and other machines to personalize gifts and soon enough you know it took off. He was there for a couple months, he got hurt and he had this to fall back on so it wasn't too hard and he just poured everything into it. So Chris went from everything in football, to the blog days just right over to business and putting the long hours in which was his wife's business and did that for about five years until he thought of the idea for ice shaker which he eventually got on to to shark tank and going into four years.   What are some things that Chris did to develop an unbeatable worth work ethic?   The work ethic really was just instilled with them from their parents. His dad was an entrepreneur himself, he's worked two jobs for six years to get his business off the ground. Now, he is the second largest distributor of fitness equipment in the US. So Chris and his brothers watched their dad and their mom, who probably had more than a full time job raising the five of them. Every day, their mom had a ridiculous calendar with 10 to 12 different events that she had to drive them to get them ready for.    Everything had to be earned. And that's what their parents instilled in them.   “If you want something awesome, find a way to get it.” - Chris Gronkowski   The Ice Shaker   It's the classic shaker bottle right that people love with easy open pop top and an easy to hold handle. They put measurement markings inside of it. It's made of a kitchen grade insulated stainless steel, so it's not going to absorb the odor like the plastic bottle does, it's actually made of the same material that a kitchen fork would be made of. It is insulated so it will keep the drink hot or cold for an extended period of time. Whereas if you filled it with just ice, it would last over 30 hours before it all melted.Learn more about the Ice Shaker and what separates it from the traditional blender bottle! They have put something in it that's really interesting!You will also hear the story behind how Chris got into the Shark Tank. It was epic and it's another proof that everything happens for a reason, and it happens in its own time!   Chris Gronkowski as an entrepreneur   Just like the other entrepreneurs, Chris faced challenges too when he was just starting his business. He was able to get through those difficult times and in this episode, he will share with us how he handled everything.    So listen to this episode and learn some lessons from Chris that are all based on his own experiences!CONNECT WITH CHRIS   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisgronkowski/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisgronkowski   Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/ChrisGronkowskiPage   Ice Shaker: https://www.iceshaker.com/   Connect with Doug   Instagram: @dougbopst   Facebook: Doug Bopst   Private Facebook Group:   https://www.facebook.com/groups/690686891674188   Website: www.dougbopst.com/gift   More on Earth Echo Foods/Golden Superfood Bliss:   www.earthechofoods.com/dougbopst   Use Promo code "Doug" at checkout to receive 15% off your order

Chris has a very good friend who bet a LOT of cash on the Saints game tonight. So Chris checked in with him at halftime (uh-oh) and then after the game (omfg) to see how his friend is doing. This is an experiment in sports gambling podcasts - enjoy!

So Chris learned never!  Never ask your co hosts what is the weirdest thing they have ever eaten.

So Chris rambles about baseball, Ducey, and goes on youtube. youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISwe3T0lOGQ instagram: @chrisholbrook92 @ericmichaelbeam Twitter: @chrisholbrook23 Patreon: https://patreon.com/CheebaShack Email: cheebashack@gmail.com Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ibmovin

How did two cybersecurity experts build a top 50 podcast? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Hacker Valley Studio podcast co-host Chris Cochran shares how he and his co-host Ron Eddings have used authenticity to build a loyal fanbase and grow Hacker Valley Studio into what is now a top 50 podcast From his early career in the Marine Corps to working in threat intelligence at Netflix, Chris was never trained as a marketer but says the key to his success has been sharing his authentic self and being a keen observer of people. Check out the full episode to hear Chris's story. Resources from this episode: Check out Hacker Valley Studio Connect with Chris on LinkedIn   Chris and Kathleen recording this episode Transcript Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Chris Cochran. Who Chris, I have to introduce, you normally introduce people by their titles, but I have to introduce you by your LinkedIn headline because it describes so perfectly why you're here. Security engineering by day producer and host of the top 50 podcast, Hacker Valley Studio by night. Chris is officially the director of security engineering at Marqeta, as well as of course, the podcast host and producer at Hacker Valley Studio and a program advisor at Heavybit Industries. Chris, you have such an awesome resume. Welcome to the podcast. Chris (01:07): I'm excited to be here. Kathleen (01:13): I'm excited to have you, especially because you know, I'm about 150 episodes into this podcast. And I'm at that point where I've really begun to see some kind of trends emerging about what makes for a top performing marketer. And interestingly, one of the trends is that a lot of the top performing marketers, I interview are not actually marketers either by trade or by training. Right. And you are one of those people. And, you know, I, I started working in the cyber security industry within the last year. And and so I've gotten this really interesting exposure to all kinds of new non marketers who are doing really great work at marketing. So with that as an intro, could you please tell my audience a little bit about yourself and what you do and about the podcast and what it is? Chris (01:58): Yeah, so I started my career in the Marine Corps. I was in the Marine Corps for five years doing Marine intelligence. And that's what really kind of pushed me down the path of cybersecurity. I got out and I was at cyber command as a contractor for about five years or so. And that's when we were doing like really threat intelligence focused things. I had my own company for a little bit, you know, standing up threat intelligence capabilities and ultimately did the consulting route. I was at Booz for a little bit. I was at Mandiant but ultimately I ended up at Netflix on the West coast and that's when everything kind of started for me. I had largely been silent when it comes to content marketing and things like that. But when I got over to Netflix, I had a post that went viral on LinkedIn. Chris (02:49): It was so what ha this is interesting story to tell. So, you know, on LinkedIn you can, you know, when you change jobs, usually it tells everybody, Oh, Chris just changed jobs to this and you wait for the applause. And everyone says, Oh, congratulations, you're doing so good. That didn't happen. So I changed jobs and I waited the whole day. And then I came back and I had like zero messages. And I was like, what? A tree that fell in the forest though? Is it here? And I was like, what is going on? And I was like, Oh, I had the thing that says, do not share when I changed jobs selected. And so I was like, you know what, I'm just going to put up a little post, you know? I'm missing my fanfare, but I'm just going to throw something up. Chris (03:32): So there was a picture of me pointing at the Netflix sign. And I just said something to the effect of Hey, just started in my role at Netflix. If this, you know, you know, Jarhead Marine can do it, anyone can. And a couple hours later it had like 40,000 views. And I was like, Whoa, what, is this thing broken? The next day, it had like maybe a hundred thousand. And then ultimately it got up to almost a million views, like 10,000 impressions and things like that. And that really started the whole process. I was like, wow, there's something here, right? Because you can't go viral on purpose. I think that's really a hard thing to do unless you're like this marketing whiz. But that really got everything rolling. I was like, you know, I'm going to use this platform to start producing. Chris (04:21): And so that's when the podcast came and my cohost, Ron Eddings, and I, we just jumped on mics and started having conversations. And what I did was, I carried that, that authenticity, that from that post, because I mean, I wasn't like braggadocious, like ha ha ha. I'm on Netflix and you're not. It was more of like, Hey, you know, I'm just, I'm just a regular guy, Marine. If I can do it, a lot of people can do it. And I just carried that with me through the podcast. We're just Hacker Valley Studio. And we focus on the human element of cybersecurity which I think is, is a, is a great thing to focus on. Kathleen (04:55): So tell me a little bit more about the podcast and the traction it's gotten and the growth it's had. Chris (05:09): Yes, it's been tremendous. So we started June of last year. I think it was June of last year, maybe it was April. And of course when you're first starting a podcast, there's no traction, but slowly but surely we started getting more impressions and more shares than a lot of the other podcasts, big podcasts out there with a much bigger following. And I think it's because of how Ron and I engaged with our audience. We, I would say it really picked up at the beginning of this year, around the January timeframe. But honestly, we're, we saw the most traction actually against conventional wisdom is we actually doubled production during COVID. One of the things we were focused on is, you know, what, what is a way that we can support people that are out there, they're sitting at home, they're not able to do much. We could double our production and that's counterintuitive because there are less people driving in cars. Chris (06:08): So there are less people listening to the podcast, but we thought that this was a time to invest sweat equity into the podcast and also produce for the people that are our loyal fans. Right. And so we give them two episodes a week to listen to. And it's so funny because if you look at our stats, our, our trajectory is like this, then COVID happened and there was a little dip and then it just shot through the roof as soon as things started to open back up. But it's just been a phenomenal ride and I couldn't be happier with the traction it's been getting. Kathleen (06:39): That's amazing. I just love that story because it speaks to something again that I think I've seen with some of the best marketers that have come on this podcast. And another example of that is somebody named Marcus Sheridan, who is a, who has in the past been a mentor of mine. I've worked with him. He started out as a guy that owned an in ground swimming pool company. And he's now like a huge marketing influencer. He's written books on marketing. He is on the speaking circuit. And I've always thought about him, kind of the same thing that I'm hearing from you, which is that he is a successful marketer because he innately understands human beings and how they communicate and how they make decisions. And, and it's the same thing I think with that initial post you did on Netflix, as well as the approach you're taking your podcast. Kathleen (07:28): Like you're just a guy who understands other human beings and, and that comes naturally to you, which makes you an amazing marketer, even if you haven't like gone and gotten the marketing degree. So when you and I first spoke, one of the things that you talked about and you're really passionate about is this notion of authenticity and that really being the driving factor behind the podcast's success. So I think it's, a lot of people use that word gratuitously. Right. And it's kind of like a, a fun buzz word that marketers, like, we all have to be authentic. What does that really mean? So, so I'd like to dive deeper into that with you. For you, how does that manifest? What does it really mean for you to be authentic? Chris (08:18): For me being authentic is showing as much of yourself as, as possible. Whether it's in audio, video, whether it's in prose, writing, anything like that. It's showing us as much of yourself, your thoughts, your feelings as possible that you can relate to other people. Because I think humans are unbelievably amazing at detecting when someone is inauthentic. So if someone's like a used car salesman or they're trying to like sell you a bill of goods that you don't need, people are going to pick up on that, unless you're like this, like unbelievably suave used car salesman. Right. But I think that for the most part, I'd say 90% of the time people can tell when someone is putting on a show or putting on a face. And I think that the more authentic you can be, the higher likelihood you're going to develop a connection with that person. Chris (09:17): Because if you come on and like, so take, for instance, our podcast. I can't tell you how many times people have been like, you guys are so laid back on the podcast, you know, this, that, and the other. And at first I kind of thought, I almost took it as like an insult. It was like, no, you guys just don't care. But no, it's actually, yeah, but what people really appreciate is that we don't over polish it. Like I don't try to speak in a, you know, radio voice. And there, there's a place for that. But for our podcast, because we want to be conversational, when we bring somebody on to the podcast, we want to have a genuinely deep conversation. Because a lot of times people come on and talk about cybersecurity, but then we end up talking about like their, their childhood. We end up talking about, you know, their relationship with their father. We end up talking about how much they love their kids, or we talk about their insecurities. You know, we talk about all these different things and you don't get to those topics unless you're authentic, friendly, and warm and willing to, to bring someone else's guard down. Kathleen (10:22): Now you talked about sharing as much of yourself as you can. And there's, I think that can show up in different ways. So you mentioned being like informal for lack of a better word. But then there's the other side of sharing as much of yourself as you can, which is opening, opening up and sharing things that you might not normally say in a professional setting or, or talking about topics that might be uncomfortable or controversial. Like what's your approach to that? Chris (10:52): Yeah. So I share that stuff whenever there's a greater good to be had. So if, if I'm sharing a failure of mine, its because I think that other people can learn from that failure. And that, and the message is stronger than my vulnerability, if that makes any sense. So if I'm sharing something, like for instance, I did a talk for SANS and the first five minutes or so is talking about how I, I quote unquote, failed at Netflix, because it's such a unique company when I got there. And I had to rethink how I did my entire tradecraft for the work that I do. And so by telling people that I know that there are other people that have gone into their organization or tried to build something and it just didn't work, and it had to go back to ground zero and that's, and I was letting people know that that's okay. But if I, if I share something that that might be vulnerable, but it doesn't impact anybody, and it's just me venting, I think that that could have diminishing returns. So like, whenever you, whenever I share, I try to make it so that I either help somebody and help somebody know that they're not alone in whatever situation they're in or give them some nugget of wisdom that they can take with them. Kathleen (12:07): What about talking about difficult subjects? I feel like, especially in the world we live in right now, there are a lot of those, and there's a lot of people, this is a big conversation happening in marketing. There's a lot, there's people on different sides of this issue. Like, do we go there or do we not go there? When is it appropriate to go there, what's the best way to do it? Like, how do you, how do you approach that? Chris (12:30): Yeah. So, and I think we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I think that when companies want to say something and they want to show where they are on a certain situation, I think as long as you are authentic, I think you're always going to be on the right side. I feel like if a company tries to capitalize on a movement or tries to just show face, just so they don't lose customers, I think it's going to show through. It's going to show through and their marketing is going to show through on their, their, their copy on their website. I think people will be able to see it. But I do think that, like I said, whenever you're, you're vulnerable for a reason, you think that you're going to enact change in either someone or in a situation and you're vulnerable in that state, then I think that's, that's a good thing to do. Kathleen (13:24): That's good advice. Now, being as authentic as you guys have been, do you get any haters? Chris (13:33): Not, not so much anymore. I, we, we got haters in the very beginning. I think our first two reviews on Apple podcasts was like a negative. Chris (13:45): I think it was because we talk about the fringes of cybersecurity. So we talk about things like fitness and mindfulness. And we talk about leadership. Like we don't just talk about tech subjects. And so in the beginning, I think that kind of put people on a spin, like, well, why, why are these guys talking about this stuff? But now I think people get it. I think people are starting to get like, Oh, okay. This. So they're focused on the whole cybersecurity professional. Like what are all the things that can make them better? And, and so now we just get nothing, nothing but praise, at least, at least to our face. I mean, I don't know about closed doors, but yeah, it's been, it's been a phenomenal response so far. Kathleen (14:27): You know, you just made me think of something really interesting, which is that working in cyber, it's definitely a, it's an industry that, that by nature is not known for opening up and sharing, you know? You're trained not to share information. And it also tends to be an industry that is a bit more you know, I would say at the corporate level, at least kind of formal and, and, you know, stiff, if you will. I come out of marketing, the world of marketing to marketers, and that's a much more informal, fun kind of kind of industry. And I think there's a lot of industries out there like cybersecurity, you know, you could think about like banking and finance or you know, tech in general, insurance, a lot of those industries, you hear people say, well, I can't, I can't open up. I can't be informal. I can't talk about these things because it doesn't fit with my industry. How would you respond to that? Chris (15:32): That's actually a really, really tough one. Because I, I was listening to Gary V and they were talking about, there was, I think there was like a mortician in the audience and they were talking about like, I have, I talk, my business is a really serious business. Like how do I, you know, show color and things like that. In some cases you can't, I mean, really, depending on what your industry is there, there's just some things that aren't going to fit, but there are you know, 10 other ways that you can be authentic in whatever that business is. So like, if you're, if you are doing like, say cybersecurity and you're protecting against like really, really like serious threats, like maybe advanced persistent threat level things, I mean, you can, you can, you can have a little bit of comedy but if, if like you're doing something like, like you're a mortician or you are supporting, you know disenfranchised children or you know, people across the world that just are underrepresented, there might be some tact that you might have to have when you are sharing authentically. Maybe you go to a different emotion. Maybe you, you, you share the emotion of, of how passionate you are about this, a particular arena, because there are ways to be authentic without being weird Kathleen (16:55): Or callous. Yeah. Yeah. Authenticity doesn't always have to be humor. It's just right. It's, it's sharing emotion and making an emotional connection, really. So, so what are some examples of conversations you've had in the podcast or topics you've covered that have really, I think, showcased this, if you will. Chris (17:16): Yeah. So like I was kind of alluding to before we had a guy on, Daniel Mead, and he came on just kind of talk a little bit about his company and the things that they were doing. And, you know, it just in the middle of the conversation, he started talking about his dad because I, I think what kind of put us down that path is where does his authenticity come from? Because one thing that I've really appreciated about him is he's a sales guy, right. And he's, he's a sales guy. And every interaction I had with him was like a funny interaction. It really was generally funny. And I said, you know, where did that come from? Because that's, that's a rare thing to number one, have the confidence to try to be funny in every interaction, but then all the, also to actually nail it right. Chris (18:03): There has to, there's something that happened in his childhood. And so I kind of poked him on it. I was like, where, where does that come from? And he started talking about his dad and it just completely changed the trajectory of the conversation. But those are, are my favorite favorite conversations. We also had a conversation with a guy named Wilson who was also in the Marine Corps. A leader. He was a pianist for the Marine Corps, which is really hard to do. Ended up in cybersecurity, started his own company, wrote a book that did all these amazing things. And so we started kind of going down the rabbit hole with him and he told us about a time that he was with a leader that was really, really hard on him, like in a, in a completely terrible way. But, and we just went so deep into that reaction and how he felt during that time and, and the positive outcome that came from it and almost got it, got too deep from the standpoint of like, we, you know, we try to be as positive and uplifting as we can on the podcast, but it went deep and we didn't want to end it there. Chris (19:13): And so my buddy Ron is like, Hey, should we, should we just keep going? Just that. I was like, no, this is completely fine because he brought it all the way back around to how he used that, that negative situation into a positive. So yeah. I love those conversations Kathleen (19:30): Going back to kind of the story of the podcast. You started out and it was you and Ron having conversations and they were different kinds of conversations than people were used to hearing in cybersecurity. How did you guys build the audience for your podcast? Chris (19:44): Yeah, so I I'd say the other thing that really makes us stand out is that I know that, so some people use you know, other like platforms to kind of like, you know, push their, their stuff out there. You know, they, they use the automation, they use, they pay for, you know, advertising and things like that. And, and that's good, you know, especially if you have like a product that needs to get put in front of a lot of people, but fortunately for us, we, we didn't have to do that because I think as we've grown, like, I'd say we've grown fast comparatively to like a lot of podcasts, but in some podcasts, like we've grown really slowly. But the people that do come on to like the family of, of Hacker Valley Studio, that the fans of Hacker Valley Studio, they come and they stay. There is a, Jack Rhysider, he put out an article about how can you tell that the interaction between you and, and your, your, your basically your listeners. Chris (20:45): And one thing is he, I can't remember what the app was, but if you took the app again, I think it was representative of 2% of like all podcast listeners, but the math still checks out. It's the ratio. So if you look at how many listens you have on that platform, compared to how many subscribers you have on that platform, you can tell how many episodes those people are actually going through. And he was saying like a good number is like eight. So that means like if someone listens to your podcast, they listen to a minimum of eight or an average of eight. On our podcast, it was over 11. So if you come to our podcast, people listen to like around 11 episodes. I think, you know, some of the greats, like Joe Rogan, I think it's about 20. And so like that tells us that we are on the right path and we're putting out good content that people enjoy. And that's why we get so much interaction on, on things like LinkedIn, because everything, everything we put out, it seems like it speaks to people on, on one level or another. Kathleen (21:52): And what, how do you, podcast metrics are notoriously difficult to track. So how do you get that data? What platform are you using to get that? Chris (22:00): So I, on that one, that was a specific podcast platform. I can't remember if it was Podcast Addict or one of the other ones, but the ones that we use is Chartable. Chartable is a pretty good one, they have pretty good data. And then also our, our main hosting site which is Pod Bean. Kathleen (22:19): Got it. And, and is there anything, well, let me back up to, what do you attribute your growth in listenership? In other words, is it mostly organic? Is it somebody telling somebody else about it? Is it a certain promotion strategy you're using? Chris (22:33): Yeah, it's mostly organic. We just put out as much free content as we can. We used to do the micro content with the videos, but that, that just got crazy because we started doing two episodes a week. But now that we've scaled back down to one episode a week, I think we're going to bring the micro content back. We're also going to be doing some like live shows and things like that on LinkedIn, but it's all been word of mouth and organic. We haven't done any promotions. I think we're going to do our first promotion on the other side of this move. Cause I actually just moved to Texas. There's like boxes all over. Kathleen (23:08): Which probably makes for great acoustics, all that insulation and cardboard. Chris (23:12): Yeah. So there, there were no boxes in here and saw I checked the mic. I was like, Oh no, this is terrible. So then I brought all these empty boxes in to help with the acoustics a little bit, still an echo, but not, not as bad, but yeah, I think we're going to do our first promotion here next in the next month or so. And I'll let you know how that goes, but everything else has been organic and word of mouth. Kathleen (23:34): I love it. So in terms of the future of the podcast are you planning on just continuing with the same format or anything else you're thinking of changing other than the, you know, doing the promotion or where do you see it going? Chris (23:46): Yeah, so, you know, it's funny you bring that up because I'd say about a month ago Ron and I, we, we had like a, an existential crisis. We were like, do we change the format of the show, like completely and almost do like a NPR, this American lifestyle? Like, you know, because then you can have additional control over the story. You can have additional control over the show. And maybe, maybe if someone, if you interview someone and they're closed off defensive and they don't share a lot, then you don't get to the story is as easily as you can. I do take responsibility for every show. Like it's on the host to make the show good. Right. But sometimes you do get those people that maybe are, they're a little shy and they don't want to share. And we wanted to look at ways to be able to, to share those stories and still make it enjoyable and entertaining and, and, you know, educational for everybody. And we were thinking about going that way and we said, you know what? Let's just stick to what we know, stick to what we're good at because I think what Ron and I really have is chemistry with each other. And we're able to actually bring those conversations to life with our guests. And I think if we did the NPR style, we would lose a little bit of that magic. So I think we're going to keep, keep with the secret sauce and just keep getting better. Kathleen (25:04): Nice. When we first started talking, you mentioned that the, the post that kicked all of this off was you saying, if I can do it, anyone can. Paraphrasing. And along those lines, you are not a marketer, but you have become a pretty successful podcaster. So if somebody is listening and they are not a marketer and they're like, man, I've always thought about doing a podcast, but I've been too intimidated. Can you just share, like, as, as a non marketer, how did you teach yourself to podcast? Are there certain resources or certain things that you would recommend that person do? Chris (25:40): Yeah, so I would say, just keep trying. Like, be yourself and just keep trying. And I think if you do those two things, you're going to get to as good as you're going to be. Maybe, you know, do some education, read some books. I didn't read any marketing books or anything like that, but I'm sure there were some really good ones out there. Obviously, listening to your podcast would be a good resource for people to listen to. But I think just trying, just trying things. So I'll give you a quick story. There was a time, I think this was like two years ago where I was, I was really heavy. I was at my, at my heaviest, I think I was like almost 300 pounds or so. I was like, Oh, I gotta make a change. And I was like, what, what do I need to do to get my butt into gear? And so I hired a film crew to do like one video a week, and this is all on my Instagram. One video a week. And what they did is, they followed me through this like entire fitness journey. And of course its really vulnerable, like being that heavy, working out, showing yourself running. Terrible angles. Kathleen (26:44): I was just going to say, Oh my God, it's like my nightmare come true to have anybody film me doing any kind of exercise. Chris (26:53): It was, it was rough. But I was like, I'm just going to keep doing it. I'm going to keep putting out content. And you would think this would be like this amazing you know, triumph story. I lost the weight, but the traction was not there. There, there were people that were, you know, watching that my friends and family are all, wow, that's so amazing, great videos, but I didn't, I didn't, you know, blow up on, on Instagram or anything like that. But what happened was, I, I did learn every time I did a post, every time I did a post, I looked at what I was putting out like, you know, what resonates with people and, and, and is it authentic to who I am as a person? And so all of those learnings from trying that thing on, on Instagram translated to everything that I'm doing on Twitter, on LinkedIn. And so it's not going to come overnight, it's it? It could take a long time, but you just put in the work and I think you'll get there, Kathleen (27:49): Man. Talk about walking the walk and being authentic. Having somebody come and film you while you do that, that is brave. So kudos to you. Well shifting gears for a minute there's two questions. I always ask all of my guests on the podcast and I'm really curious what you have to say, especially cause you're kind of outside of the marketing industry. You know, the podcast is all about inbound marketing. And so I always like to ask people, is there a particular company or individual that you've come across that you think is really killing it with inbound marketing right now? Chris (28:22): That's a good question. I'm gonna, this might be a newbie answer, but as an individual, I think, and I guess as a company as well, Gary V is doing amazing. And the content that he produces, the way he puts out his content and the bite size pieces, that was really, you know, the blueprint we copied in the beginning with Hacker Valley Studio. I, I think he, he pulls just so many people and people just like to, to hear him talk about any, anything. He has so much life advice and career advice. And I think just by knowing who Gary V is like, you're more likely to do business with him because he puts out so much stuff for free. A company, and in full disclosure, this company is a sponsor of our podcast, but I like what they do in the sense that they're called Thinx. Chris (29:12): And what they do is they do canaries, which are these little canaries in a coal mine for if your network gets attacked and this thing gets taken, then it notifies you. Right. What I like about what they do is they also don't do like the big marketing thing. What they do is they actually put out free tech for people to use on a, on, you know, just for free. And they can actually use that tech to secure their, their network, that can help secure their home, everything. And they put a lot of work into that. And I was just like, what, why wouldn't you charge for this? Because this is such a, an amazing thing that you're doing. And they just said, they, they just want, they, they want to put out free stuff of value to people. And that's what it is about. And you know, the stuff that we're doing with a podcast and stuff, the Gary V does, the stuff that thinks does is they're putting out valuable things for free, but they also have products that are on the books. Okay. And so when you meet with that, that free, that valuable thing, you're like, Oh, wow. If they're doing this for free, can I get from them if I actually give them my money and build a relationship with them? Kathleen (30:23): Yeah. It's a real pay it forward mentality. And you definitely captured, that's really at the heart of what inbound marketing is. I liked that you mentioned Gary V because he is also not trained as a marketer. Right. so we have an awesome theme going here. Also somebody who just innately understands human beings and has tapped into that. So there's something there. Now I should say, because I have a lot of marketers in my audience, this is not to say that you shouldn't go get a marketing degree or it's not going to have one, or you're not a good marketer. If you're trained as a marketer, it's just that the best marketers, even those who were educated as marketers, still need to be people who are, who very much want to and are dedicated to understanding people and what drives people. So just wanted to make that clear. So Chris, the second question is, most of the marketers I know, the biggest challenge they face is that digital marketing changes so quickly and there's so much to keep up with. And you know, you're a podcaster and stuff is changing in the world of podcasting pretty quickly. Like how do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself educated on things? Chris (31:30): To be honest, I watch people. I watch people. I see what people are doing well, I'm really good at seeing the tradecraft in a post or seeing the tradecraft in a, in the video. I'm really good at picking out like, Oh, I see what they did there. And that's really intelligent. So really just keeping my eyes out in a broad perspective on, on Twitter, LinkedIn would have you YouTube. So really just keeping an eye on what people are doing really well. And then if you're smart, you steal it, right? Kathleen (32:04): Yeah. Shamelessly copying. Yeah. Well, I think that's the perfect answer. Given the conversation we just had. So if somebody is listening and they want to check out the podcast or they want to learn more about you or connect with you online, what is the best way for them to do that? Chris (32:20): Yeah. My favorite place to be is on LinkedIn. So you can find me there pretty easily. And then the podcast is Hacker Valley Studio. That's the website. Just go to it, check us out, and let us know what you think. Kathleen (32:33): Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me this week, Chris, this was really fun. If you're listening and you liked what you heard today, or you learned something new, of course I would love it if you would head to Apple podcasts and leave the podcast a five star reviews so that other people could find out about awesome episodes like this one with Chris. And if you know somebody else who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next interview. Thanks again, Chris. Chris (33:02): Thank you so much.

Madi Stump, a BGSU student and winner of the ICS Student Research Award, and Chris Gajewicz, Natural Resources Coordinator for the City of Bowling Green, discuss environmental stewardship, human's relationship to nature, and restoration in local parks.   Transcript: Intro: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas. Intro Music: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the school of media and communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today, I'm joined by two guests, Madi Stump and Chris Gajewicz. Madi's an undergraduate environmental policy and analysis major who's currently working on a research project entitle, "Listening and Learning: Lessons from the Land." She's the first winner of the ICS Student Research Award. Chris is the natural resources coordinator for the city of Bowling Green and instructor at Bowling Green State University and a BGSU alum. Welcome, Madi and Chris. Chris Gajewicz: Hi. Jolie Sheffer: Thanks for being with me. How did each of you get interested in thinking about different ideas of environmental stewardship? Madi Stump: I've always cared really deeply about the environment. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in my backyard or in my front yard or my neighbor's front yard pretending to make pizzas out of dirt and grass and just really spending more time outside than I did inside. I remember being called in for dinner and being called in to do homework rather than being told to get out and enjoy being outside. That deep love and that deep connection to being outside that I experienced throughout my childhood made me really invested in protecting the environment, but when I first came to BGSU, I was actually a music performance student. So I didn't study the environment initially in college, but after my first year, decided that music was not the path for me and really rekindled that relationship with nature and that deep sense of connection and belonging that I felt in nature and have this strong desire to protect places that other people could have that similar experience of belonging and inclusion in the natural world. That's how I found environmental policy and I'm looking to continue this work in my future. Jolie Sheffer: What about for you, Chris. Chris Gajewicz: It started a long time ago when I was a little, little kid and I spent a lot of time outside, very similar to Madi. I was outside a lot and the only rule was is that when my mom rang the bell, it was time to come in and it was a big farm bell and she would ring the bell and no matter where you were, you needed to stop what you were doing. It was really hard for me because I loved going out into the woods and building forts and digging trenches and making caves and lighting things on fire and just being like a typical kid and spending my time just being out around nature. I just enjoyed it so much and I didn't even know why. It wasn't a conscious kind of a thing. It was there. We had a huge woods behind our house that was about a mile square and that was my playground as I was a kid growing up. So I was able to kind of run around out there. Chris Gajewicz: My parents never worried about where I was, what I was doing when I was coming home. I just knew that when the bell rang, I needed to stop what I was doing and make my way back. But there was never a concern about my wellbeing or any of that when I was growing up being outside. So that sort of turned itself into going from, I guess a vocation or an advocation to a vocation and turning it into something more. By the time I was headed off to college, I realized that I wanted to be a teacher in the environment and I felt that that was a really important way to share knowledge. There was a professor I had when I was at Hocking College and she was very good at kind of laying it down. She taught us how to be an educator in the environment. Chris Gajewicz: But she said, "It doesn't really matter how much you know and how much you have inside your head. If it never comes back out of your head to other people, then it's basically dead knowledge. Once it's dead knowledge, other people have to start from scratch." I learned at that moment, that being a teacher, taking that information and being able to tell the story about that information was a really good way to hook somebody in the environment. Hopefully, over the past 30 or so years of being involved in the environment from when I was a teenager myself and now, I've had the opportunity to really help other people kind of grab onto a reason to be in the outdoors. Jolie Sheffer: What does it mean to you to have a relationship with land and with nature? Why is that important to you, Madi? Madi Stump: I think in general, having a relationship with land, with nature, with the more than human or non-human world means caring about it. I think that's the fundamental level is having a deep sense of care and love for what is not human. That relationship can look very different to a lot of people, but the commonality is that there's some sense of care or spiritual or religious affiliation connection or even a recreation connection with the land. But that care of there is something that I get and then your relationship is a two way street, so humans get something from nature, but then we also give. Part of that relationship as reciprocity to me and that is what's really important about having a relationship with the land is when you have reciprocity with nature, you can give as it's giving you. That makes it so easy to protect and conserve and be mindful of how we're using what is around us. Jolie Sheffer: What about for you, Chris? Chris Gajewicz: For me, it's a sensory experience and I want that sensory experience to be gained by others as well. When I'm out in the forest environment or I'm out in a natural environment, I can't help but be in awe of where I am. But it's not just the sight of it, it's the feeling of it, the smell of it, how it envelops me when I get into the environment, get into the woods, get into the forest. I told someone recently that I spent a lot of my childhood immersing myself literally in the environment, and I would come home head to toe in mud and my mother would stop me at the door and that was it. She was like, "All right, take your clothes off and get in the house." And I'm like, "Well, but..." "No, just do it because you're a mess." But that's how I interacted with the environment is that I became part of the environment. Chris Gajewicz: So it was more for me, Madi used the word spiritual, and I think that's a really great way to describe it. For me, it's maybe a combination of that, a combination of me being a part of the environment and not separating myself from it. That's where all the sensory awareness comes into it for me. So I think it's kind of interesting. I'll be out with a group of people and I'll say, "Now, over on your left, you can see..." and I'm not even looking that direction, but I had been a moment ago, "... and there's a cooper's hawk and it's sitting in the tree," and they're like, "How did you see that?" I'm like, "Well, I don't know. I just did," and now, been able to make a job of it. So it's being aware of all of the things that are around you, smell that, touch this, see what this is. How does this make you feel? Are these leaves, do they smell good? Do they smell bad to you? Chris Gajewicz: I think that for a lot of people, nature is somewhat foreboding and they're frightened of it, especially if they've not experienced it, like maybe Madi and I have. They find themselves separating themselves to the more comforts of being inside a home as opposed to being in nature. There's nothing about nature that frightens me. I enjoy it very, very much. There are things in nature that can be a little bit scary, but for the most part, there's really nothing to be afraid of. Luckily, living in Northwest Ohio, we're in a great place to be because we don't have poisonous snakes, we don't have bears, we don't have things to really worry a whole lot about. So you can kind of put that on the back burner and really immerse yourself in the environment and not worry about being eaten by something. Jolie Sheffer: Madi, you've chosen to use oral history as a major feature of your research project. Can you explain how oral history is different from other forms of history or research and you felt it was important for this project? Madi Stump: Oral history is, in the most simplest terms, someone's story that is recorded. So it is recorded history told from the perspective of someone who has been in the situation or has had a really unique experience that's valuable to the historical record. It is a fairly recent field of history different than the traditional forms of historical scholarship that deal with written documentation and having a written record and that is what we use to study what's happened in the past. Oral history takes that a step further and gets the experience right from the source. So that is really important, in my eyes, for environmental history because there's two facets of environmental history that a piece of history environmental, and that is the human dimension, which a lot of people are surprised. Why is the human in environmental history? But the human dimension and the natural dimension, you can't separate them. We are integrally connected in every aspects of human life. There is nature. Madi Stump: So environmental history brings these two seemingly different perspectives or experiences together. In telling environmental history, there's certain forms of historical records that we can use. We can use pollen counts, we can use tree rings, we can use journals, but you can also use the experiences of people who have really intimate connections with the land. That's what this project aims to do through oral history, obtaining the stories of people who have deep ties with nature in their personal, professional lives and hearing not only how they have created those relationships, but what have they learned, what benefits have they received from having relationships to land that we can't really see in the historical record because a historical record doesn't show how the land speaks to us in our personal lives, in our professional lives and our experiences. Oral history is the way to obtain how nature is speaking to the humans and the humans are conveying that story in the oral history interviews. Jolie Sheffer: Madi's research is about listening and learning from the land. So Chris, what does that idea mean to you in your role as natural resources coordinator for the city of Bowling Green? Chris Gajewicz: I think it's absolutely impossible for humans to separate themselves from the environment. I think that over the many, many years of a particularly, I can only draw on my European American history background, but if you go to Europe, Europeans had an idea that the environment was something to be tamed, something to be managed. Managed probably isn't even the right word. Subjugated, I mean it had to be completely squashed. So that mindset came with our European ancestors to the American continents. When they came here, they saw a lot of frightening foreboding things that needed to be controlled and whether that may have been the indigenous people that lived here, or whether it was the indigenous animal life that was here, all of it needed to be controlled. Oftentimes people say, "Well, how can you look at the environment?" And I personally just can't take people away from it. Chris Gajewicz: It's impossible because humans have interacted with environment as long as we've had opposable thumbs, and we have done things to the environment, and not to be judgmental in any way, our human ancestors have done things to the environment because that's what you did at the time they did it. That's just how you interacted with it. So it's hard for us to kind of look back. Oftentimes, I'll do talks on the Great Black Swamp where we live and what happened? And I'll start out with saying, "At one point or another, this was all swamp. It was giant oak trees that had never been cut down and they could be a thousand years old. Who knows how old they were and now, they're all gone." Inevitably, someone in the audience will go, "AW," and I'll say, "Now, stop it right now." It is not our job to judge what our ancestors did to the environment. What our job is is to understand why they did what they did to the environment and then learn from that process." Chris Gajewicz: We know that some of the things, many of the things that were done to the environment were not a good thing, but surprisingly, some of the things that were done to the environment should be done now and are not prescribed burns and we're just getting back into prescribed burning right now in the past maybe 20, 30 years. It's still a fairly, which is funny, a fairly new science that native Americans and native Australians and native cultures throughout the world used fire. Because fire was suppressed, now we start seeing things like massive fires, particularly those in Australia, which were just horrific, but the native culture was not allowed to continue to burn as they had for thousands and thousands of years. Those plants, they evolved to accept fire as part of the way they live. Chris Gajewicz: I just saw a picture, I believe it was yesterday, of the greening up of the areas in Australia. And I'm like, "Ah hah. Well there you go folks. Those plants have adapted to fire. Things are going to green up in a short period of time." We look at things sometimes like, "I can't believe that the native Americans burned down most of the United States." Well, they burned it constantly and we have the historical record, that Madi mentioned, in journals. We use journals to see what's going on, and there's a really famous passage for Northwestern Ohioans where there were a group of native Americans that... like four guys on horses walking by. So we know horses, it was fairly recent in the grand scheme of things. They walked by a group of pioneers and then later on, they noticed smoke on the horizon and the prairie where these guys were all camping was now under, completely engulfed in flames. This was all prairie just up the road in Perrysburg, Ohio not that long ago and not that far away. Jolie Sheffer: Madi, Northwest Ohio is home to a diverse array of people past and present. How are you trying to incorporate diverse voices in your project? Madi Stump: One of the things that I have found in my preliminary research is that oral history emerged as a field to highlight voices that were marginalized in the historical records. Most of history is written by and about the predominant society, which is usually white and it's usually male. So in the people that I've selected or the people that I'm reaching out to for the oral history interviews for this project, I'm seeking out women in particular because women are a marginalized group in historical records. I'm seeking out native and indigenous voices because we know that there were a lot of indigenous tribal nations that used the resources in the Great Black Swamp. They maybe didn't live within the swamp where BG's currently settled, but they lived on the outside and they came into the Great Black Swamp to obtain resources and food and medicinal plants. Madi Stump: I'm intending to interview someone of tribal nation that has its roots in Northwest Ohio, so maybe the Wyandotte nation or the Miami nation. I really hope to highlight someone who is of a black, African American or another non white racial or ethnic group because our current population in Bowling Green is so diverse. I'm really grateful that I have those diverse perspectives here that I can use and I can look at then the way that people of different identities also, are interacting with the land in different or maybe similar ways and hopefully come to some kind of conclusion of different or similar ways that people are interacting with land in our home right now. Jolie Sheffer: Chris, could you tell us about your work in the restoration of Bowling Greens parks, such as Wintergarden and some of that custodianship of making a new generation of changes to the land? Chris Gajewicz: Wintergarden park has a long and storied history in and it has been a number of different things prior to it becoming a park. Most of the prairie that's there now was at one time for about 150 years, was row crops and at the time, it would have been either corn or wheat. St. John's woods many years ago was completely fenced off with metal fencing. Some of it's still exists if you look really hard. We've tried to remove some of it, but we have left some for historical perspective as well. If you look at it from the aerial, see it's a very different area. The reason it's different is that was fenced off, it's always been a woodlot and it was fenced off for the production of hogs. This is all information by the way, that I've gleaned from oral histories from people in our community who have come to me and they might be a gentleman may be a well up into his eighties saying, "I remember as a kid coming out here and there were hogs in here and you didn't want to mess with these hogs." Chris Gajewicz: I'm like, "Really? There's hogs." Well, that makes a lot of sense because as we look through that park, we see trillium. Trillium is a very common plant in Eastern Woodlands, except in Wintergarden park. It's also delicious because it doesn't have oxalic acid in it like the May apples do and the jack-in-the-pulpits do. Well, we have tons of jack-in-the-pulpits and ton of May apples and all of those are still there as a remnant because maybe a hog would have tried it once, but they wouldn't have tried it after that because it burns your mouth. It would burn any mammals mouth by eating it. There were oil wells there. You know that there was oil spillage there, I'm sure. So there's probably a layer of oil in those particular areas. It was water wells for the city of Bowling Green at one point. It was a summer camp for kids at one point. So there's lots and lots of different things it was. Chris Gajewicz: By the time I came on the scene in 2000 when I got the job as natural resources coordinator, one of my goals and one of the things we talked about when I was getting the job was how do we manage this area and remove, or at least prescribed something for it? That was just in the early days of discussions about prescribed burns, prescribed management. When I took the staff of the department of natural resources, division of natural areas and preserves around on a tour, they were just dumbfounded at the number of non-native invasive species that were in that park. They were like, "You guys are the poster child for what can go wrong." It's everywhere. So we needed to decide, and we meaning the staff that I eventually hired, we sat down and talked about what is it that needs to go first. It's like they say, eating an elephant one bite at a time. Chris Gajewicz: Well, this was a huge elephant and we couldn't just go in and do a little dabbling here and a little dabbling there. We started with the most critical parts of the park, which we deemed St. John's woods and we started working there and we began our efforts at removing as many or as much or all in some cases, of the non native invasives that were in that portion of the park. When we did that and we went in, sometimes bare handed, sometimes with a vengeance, a removing totarian bush honeysuckle and privet and burning bush. All of these were escapees from people's yards. Japanese Barberry, Japanese honeysuckle, Asiatic bittersweet, and it just went on and on. Then of course, garlic mustard, which was four feet tall and so thick you couldn't even walk through this stuff. It was ridiculous. Jolie Sheffer: So what's your vision when... At what point will you feel like- Chris Gajewicz: When we know we're done? Jolie Sheffer: Yeah- Chris Gajewicz: We're never going to be done. Jolie Sheffer: ... or what are you working towards? Chris Gajewicz: Actually, we had to set up a goal and our staff set up the goal. We were looking at pre contact with European cultures. So that would have been roughly in this area, would have been about 400 years ago with the French. They would have been through here. The Spanish had laid claim to this area, but I doubt highly that they ever came through this area, but the French certainly did. And then after that, the British and after that, the American cultures that were moving from the East to the Western part. What would we have seen 400 years ago? What would have been here with the possible exceptions of elk and bison, which I'd be happy to reintroduce those, but I'm pretty sure the neighbors wouldn't like it. But there were, megafauna aside, we would probably do our best to make it look as much like it looked when our pioneer ancestors would have been coming through the area. Chris Gajewicz: It's going to be difficult. In some cases, we have this kind of romanticized view of what the woods looks like or what it should look like. We read a lot of firsthand accounts and like, "It was beautiful and it was pristine and it was never touched by human hands." That's hogwash. Native Americans, as long as they've been in the United States or what we call the United States now, have been manipulating the land and that is that. When the pilgrims for instance, came and said, "God hath bestowed upon us these beautiful fields," well, those fields had been managed for hundreds of years as fields. So it's not like there was nothing going on prior to the arrival of these folks. Chris Gajewicz: We had to kind of pick a date and I had a board member once that said, "Why are you doing this?" I said, "Well, you know how when you go to the car show downtown and somebody has got a 1967 Mustang and it's really kind of cool, but it's really kind of outdated? Well, well that's kind of what we're doing. We're trying to restore something to a point where we can say this is what it looked like back then and use it as a historical reference point, museum like, but at the same time a living museum." Jolie Sheffer: We're going to take a quick break. Thanks for listening to the Big Ideas podcast. Intro: If you are passionate about Big Ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here, please contact us at ICS@bgsu.edu. Jolie Sheffer: Madi, your project is about connecting research to the community. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you're hoping that the research that you're doing can actually be of use within our local parks? Madi Stump: I have two end products for this research, or rather to end community based outcomes. The first one is to deposit this collection of oral history, both the recorded interview and the transcript, as well as a short environmental history, a written environmental history using resources that I have found, all of that to be deposited in the Jerome Library Center for Archival Collections. So I've been working with the folks over there to make sure I have the proper documentation and the proper technology stuff to make sure that those records can be housed there, so that the community and guests and students can go and use those resources for the future and do their own scholarly research or just do some rabbit hole jumping or digging on the history of this community. Madi Stump: The second community based final product of this research is a physical sign that's going to be placed at Wintergarden park. It's going to feature a little bit of the oral history that I conducted of the park naturalist and of the park itself. It will accompany another community based project that I did last semester with some peers, an interpretive trail of sorts of focusing on St. John's woods, but really the park as a whole, this really rich history of Wintergarden and St. John's preserve. That sign itself will feature quotes and really detailed specific lessons that other people have learned from the park. That sign will have a QR code that will link to the BGSU history department blogs page. So there'll be an accompanying blog where there'll be more information about the transcripts and some recordings of the interviews themselves, some short clips, and then a link to the center for archival collections where this oral history collection will be housed. Madi Stump: So I'm really hoping that this project gives members of our community an opportunity to learn the stories of others and to learn how others are connecting to land so that they can similarly make connections to the natural parks and natural areas within Bowling Green to develop a sense of pride and ownership of the rich parks and the rich history of this place that we all live. Jolie Sheffer: Chris, how did your time at BGSU impact your career? Chris Gajewicz: I'm one of those people who came to Bowling Green twice and then decided not to leave. So I think that it impacted me in ways I don't even know. Sometimes, you go to a place and it sort of feels right. When I came as an undergrad here to finish up my degree that I had started at Hocking, so I had two years there, I came here for three years and I initially came here as a psychology major. I didn't even take one psychology course before I realized, knew that's not where I wanted to go. So I ended up in biology, which was okay, but I felt like there was something more. Then I switched to education and that's where I ended up even going further, getting my degree in recreation. I didn't even know you could do that, but when I was here I thought, "Well, I'm going to be stuck in a classroom for the rest of my life and I don't want to have to wear a tie every day," and kind of really dumb reasons to not go into a career in teaching. Chris Gajewicz: But still I thought, "I want to teach, but I want to teach in a non-traditional setting." So that's how I ended up in Bowling Green. I went out into the world for five years after my undergraduate degree, became either enlightened or frightened and came back to Bowling Green for my master's degree. Then I got a job working with Wood County parks as an intern and that's really where it started, is that I became very comfortable having grown up in Northwest Ohio, I always knew Bowling Green existed. I'm originally from Sylvania, just West of Toledo. So my high school played Bowling Green High School and football, not that I was there other than watching from the stands, but it was like, "Okay, Bowling Green's just far enough away from mom and dad, but still far enough away from me to be independent," and that was how I kind of looked at it. Chris Gajewicz: After graduate school, everything went very well and I really seem to enjoy what I was doing, doing the educational thing. Then I became a board member for Bowling Green Parks and Recreation. I wasn't even on the board for a year and they came up with this position called natural resources coordinator and I was like, "This is a great sounding job. I think I want it." So I had to step off the board, apply for the position and I got it, which was really great. I was the first person in the history of the city of Bowling Green to be the natural resources coordinator and manage natural resources within the city. I was the first person on the board who had a background in natural sciences as well. Everybody up until then, was either aquatics or sports, or active sport, active play, active recreation, and then here's this nature guy coming along and he sees things completely differently than everyone else does, a different type of recreation. Chris Gajewicz: So I was able to couple recreation with education and so that's how I kind of ended up here. I don't know if I answered the question exactly like you [crosstalk 00:28:05]. Jolie Sheffer: I think you did. Madi, what advice do you have for other students who might be interested in doing interdisciplinary and applied research search? Madi Stump: Do it. It can be really daunting as an undergraduate student to be doing big research projects, but there are so many resources here at BGSU that support students in their endeavors and their passions and their pursuits of life changing and community changing experiences. To any student anywhere in the world, there are those resources. So seek out those resources and take advantage of them because this kind of institutional support for both financially and mentorships and advisors, that doesn't happen everywhere. I think that that's one thing that makes BGSU a really special place is that there are so many different areas around campus, academic and nonacademic, that want students to succeed and put all of their... a full faith effort to do whatever they have to so students can succeed at these big interdisciplinary projects. Even a single faculty member, if there's one person that you feel a particular connection to because you had a really great class with them or because they're your academic advisor, they know other people who can connect you. Madi Stump: While my primary advisor for this project is Dr. Amilcar Challlu in the history department, I've also worked with other history department professors and I've worked with some of my environmental studies professors because Dr. Challu has been able to connect me and because of other resources on campus that have been able to connect me. This project wouldn't be interdisciplinary without them because my program's interdisciplinary, but it doesn't include every discipline. So to include a little bit of ethnic studies and identity based research, to include the history, to have that solid background of the environment and then to also include community based research and advocacy and support, these are all things that I couldn't have done without those additional connections on campus. So seek out those connections, use the resources that we have here because the world is endless. There are so many possibilities if you utilize the opportunities you have. Jolie Sheffer: I think it's really interesting, Chris, you telling your story of kind of your winding path and you, Madi, in your research process that you're both really talking about taking risks and trying things out and you sort of don't know what opportunity may present itself. Do you have any additional advice you'd give to young people who are interested in working on environmental issues or in trying to imagine a future that doesn't feel like wearing a tie if that's not what they want to do every day? Chris Gajewicz: First of all, I think that you need to, if you're looking at going into the environment in any aspect of it, that you need to go into it with first of all, an open mind. And second of all, in my personal opinion, I think sometimes the media throws gas on a fire and sometimes it's best to just do your own research and not be an alarmist. I mean, yes, it's very important that we learn what we can about what's going on in the environment. But there's such a big story, and with Madi's research and the interviews that she's doing, this is important because people did what they did for a reason. They didn't just willy nilly go out and say, "We're going to destroy the forest today." They were cutting the forest down because they were farmers. That was what they did then. So it's important to go at it again with without judgment, but with an understanding that the reason humans do what they do to the environment is because they had good reason that may be historically based. Chris Gajewicz: So we have to go back in the history, see what was going on at the time, understand, be nonjudgmental, and then look toward a future of like, "Okay, let's learn from our past, but now let's move toward the future." We're continually learning right now and I always say that science is never settled. I heard a politician say that once, "Science is settled." I'm like, "How could science be settled? The very nature of science is that it's unsettled and we wouldn't have a need for scientists if it were all figured out." We need to continue to figure it out and there's people... It's heartening to hear somebody like Madi with the enthusiasm she has to be able to... I'm passing the torch here in a few years to the next generation of people that are going to hopefully pick up where I left off, but I'm not expecting them to do exactly what I did. There's new research and new thoughts and new processes and new educational techniques. All of this is coming our way. It's not going to be the same as it was. Chris Gajewicz: I will be kind of keeping a close eye on what the next person is doing at Wintergarden, but for the most part I have to step back and let them do what they do. I just hope that they would also consider using people like myself as a resource. Don't forget that we do have a wealth of institutional and hands on knowledge that we want to share. And again, that's where people like Madi come in, do that research and interview those people because they do know. They saw it happening or they have, at the very least, they'll have an opinion about what to do next. So the best advice is go into it with an open mind, go into it with the expectation that you're going to do research for the rest of your career, that it's never settled, there's always more to learn. Every day, every single day I go to work, I learn something new and if I stop learning something new, I'm pretty sure it's time to move on, or maybe the cosmos had other plans for me and they moved me on unwillingly. Jolie Sheffer: Madi and Chris, thank you so much for joining me today on the Big Ideas podcast. Madi's research was supported by the new ICS Student Research Award, which was funded by generous donors to the BGSU One Day Fundraising Campaign. For more information on applying for a student research award or supporting the award, please visit bgsu.edu/ics. You can find the Big Ideas podcast on Apple podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Our producers are Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza with sound engineering today by Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Courtney Keeney with editing by Stevie Sheurich. This conversation was recorded in the Stan audio recording studio in the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Center at Bowling Green State University.  

This is episode 84 of the Pam Sowder Podcast, with your host, Pam Sowder! Pam has over 2 decades of field and corporate experience and was voted one of the most influential women in direct selling. She helps match the daily needs of distributors to everyday life challenges.   This week on the podcast, Pam Sowder is welcoming Chris Spurvey on to the podcast! Chris is the creator of the Entrepreneur Personalized Sales Plan that is used by thousands of business owners and sales professionals around the world. He’s also the author of the best-selling business book, It’s Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mind-Set.   Chris grew up on a picturesque island in Newfoundland on the East Coast of Canada. After consciously choosing entrepreneurship as a means to create a better life for his family, Chris realized that negative beliefs about sales were holding him back from taking his ventures to the next level! He saw this as a major hurdle to not only his own businesses but to the businesses of virtually every other entrepreneur. So Chris went right to work and found a new way to sell that felt just right!   What you’re going to love about Chris is that he first got started in sales through network marketing! So he has a lot of knowledge about all things selling and building your business from the ground-up! In this episode, you’re going to learn more about the ways you can take your business to the next level, how to cultivate a sales mindset, how to attract quality customers and representatives to your business, and how to overcome the self-doubt and limiting beliefs that are holding you back from attracting your goals!   Key Takeaways [:32] About today’s episode and special guest, Chris Spurvey! [1:33] Pam welcomes Chris on to the podcast! [1:52] Chris speaks about his first experience with sales in network marketing. [3:22] Chris speaks about the energy of selling we should all be embodying. [5:50] What does Chris say to those that think they have already reached out to everyone they know? What does it really mean when someone says that? [8:00] How do we cast a vision and then actually achieve it? [11:40] Chris highlights an important aspect of network marketing you should always keep in mind. [13:19] How to stay motivated and attract quality people to your business. [14:53] Chris shares his advice for overcoming fear, dealing with self-doubt, and attracting your goal. [21:23] Chris speaks about the importance of momentum and explains how confidence is earned. [23:09] How falling in love with the process shifts everything in your business. [26:55] How important is ‘letting it go’? [29:53] Action steps to bring in the customers and representatives you want to attract. [33:55] Chris gives his final words of advice to listeners! [35:15] Pam thanks Chris for joining the podcast!   Mentioned in this Episode It Works Chris Spurvey The Secret (Documentary Film, 2006) Zig Ziglar Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, by James Clear   Continue on your Adventure Find more episodes on PamSowder.com/Listen Reach out to her at PamSowder.com/Connect   Reach out on Social Media! Follow Pam @ItWorksPam on Twitter — Tweet her and use #askpam #pamsowder!

LIVE on the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast Facebook page, I welcome Chris Napier on the show to discuss the science of running.  Chris Napier is a Sport Physiotherapist with a PhD in running biomechanics and injury prevention. He has an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of British Columbia. In this episode, we discuss: -How to bring a wearable to market for running retraining and injury risk reduction -What to look for when investing in wearable technology -The importance of translating the research to both the clinician and athlete -Science of Running: Analyze your Technique, Prevent Injury, Revolutionize your Training -And so much more! Resources: Science of Running: Analyze your Technique, Prevent Injury, Revolutionize your Training Chris Napier Twitter Email: chris.napier@ubc.ca Chris Napier Research Gate   A big thank you to Net Health for sponsoring this episode!  Check out Optima’s Top Trends For Outpatient Therapy In 2020!   For more information on Chris: Chris Napier is a Sport Physiotherapist with a PhD in running biomechanics and injury prevention. He has an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of British Columbia. In addition to working on research projects, Chris continues to be a practicing physiotherapist with Restore Physiotherapy and Athletics Canada. He has competed at the national level as a successful middle-distance runner, earning medals at the Canadian Track & Field Championships in 1996 and 1997. He is also an accomplished marathon runner with a personal best time of 2 hours, 33 mins.     Read the full transcript below: Karen Litzy:                   00:01                So welcome everyone. So for those of you who are watching live, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day and coming on to watch and learn. Oh good. I'm just making sure that it works. So I just had to check on my iPad to make sure we're live and we are. So thanks so much for taking the time out. As we go along. I may ask you just to kind of write in the comment section where you're listening from. If you have any questions, by all means, definitely, definitely ask. Now is your chance, I'm sitting here with Dr Chris Napier. He is an expert. He is a new author. We'll be talking about his book, the science of running in just a little bit, but Chris, just to kind of allow people to get to know you a little bit more. Why don't you kind of give the listeners and the viewers here a little bit more about you. Chris Napier:                 01:05                Sure. well thanks again for having me on Karen. I feel like I've really made it big time. Now. I'm on the Karen Litzy podcast. It's huge. So thanks again for having me on. So I'm a sport physiotherapist. I've been practicing for almost 20 years now. And, I've worked with a range of sports. But I sort of ended up coming back to the sport I'm most passionate about. The one I love which is running. About 10 years ago I started really focusing more on running and it was basically because I'm a runner myself. Out in the community running with the various sort of recreational races training with different clubs and so then and talking to people who are running all the time. So it really sort of just made sense for me to kind of work a bit more clinically in that field. Chris Napier:                 02:00                And at the same time I was getting interested in pursuing more research. And so I started my PhD in about 2012, 2013. And I focused on running and I was really interested in being able to quantify aspects of running in terms of running form and biomechanics. So my PhD was on running biomechanics and sort of clinical interventions using gait retraining to prevent injury. And so I finished that in 2018 and I've moved now more out of the lab so to speak out of the biomechanics lab but still interested very much in the mechanics of how we run. And I'm now working with a group of engineers at Simon Fraser university doing my postdoctoral fellowship there where they actually develop a wearable. And so we're doing some really cool stuff there in terms of actually developing potentially products that will be available to clinicians and to runners to measure their gait. Karen Litzy:                   03:13                Very cool. And I will also add that you are sort of at the helm of the third annual world conference of sport physiotherapy in Vancouver this year. It was an amazing event. You and the team you guys did such an amazing job and I'm sure that's the feedback that you've have probably got from the conference, from the people who attended. So I just wanted to give you guys some more accolades and a nice shout out cause it was a really, really well run conference with some great info. Chris Napier:                 03:48                Yeah, that is the feedback we've had, which was fantastic to hear from across the board. And, I'm really looking forward to our continued support for your therapy candidate conferences, which will be a biannual event and as well the next world Congress, which will be excellent, I'm sure as it's being hosted in Denmark. Karen Litzy:                   04:08                Yeah. Yeah. That'll be fun. And that's in 2021. So that'll be a good time. And again, if you're watching live, I know I saw a couple of viewers watching live at the end of this, hopefully we're going to give away Chris's book. It doesn't come out until February 4th, but if you write your name or a comment or where you're watching from in the comment section, you're automatically in the running for a free copy of the science of running by Chris Napier, which is very exciting. So Chris, let's talk about wearables. So when I think of wearables, to me it makes me think of like a Fitbit or maybe an Apple watch or something like that. So in your introduction, you'd said that you're working with a lab as a postdoc. So when you say wearables, is that what you mean or are you talking about something else? Chris Napier:                 05:11                Yeah, so I mean a wearable is really a broad category. And you know, for anyone who follows the consumer electronics show, which was just recently in Las Vegas you know, I think that area is huge right now across the board. And, we think of it very much in the health lens. But really a wearable, wearables, anything you can wear on your body that tracks something whether it's, you know, your heart rate or your breathing rate or your pulse or your blood pressure or skin temperature or joint angles, impact forces. I mean, it goes on and on. Really anything we can measure through something we can wear. So, you know, by nature it's something that's portable often, you know, connect with some sort of app either on a Bluetooth device or we'll sort of record onto the actual hardware itself or download later. Chris Napier:                 06:15                But you know, that's the other side of it is, you know, beyond the wearable, the actual interpretation of the data and the visualization of that and that sort of thing. That's a whole other field as well. But the lab I'm in is looking at wearables that can measure health-related metrics. And so some of the projects we have going on there are looking at recovery from stroke or looking at you know, more fine motor function, that sort of thing. And my area specifically is looking at an application to running. Karen Litzy:                   06:53                And so when, you know, I think about application to running and you think about, you know, perhaps using a wearable to enhance someone's running, whether it be their running gait, their endurance, their times. And what I think of right off the bat is a running analysis where you've got someone on a treadmill and you've got multiple cameras and they've got dots all over them and all their joints, which is not something that every clinic has the ability to do because those setups can be quite expensive. So what are you doing within your research that might be a little different and offer clinicians something that might be more practical? Chris Napier:                 07:40                Yeah, so what you described there that sort of motion capture 3d motion capture analysis which is sometimes done on an instrument, a treadmill, which will give you force information as well as the joint position movements. But that was my PhD. So that's what I did. I looked at basically a snapshot of people running and then assume that that's how they ran when they left the lab. Which is a big assumption, right? And so what we're doing is we're trying to get those same measurements but in something that can be worn outside of the lab and in the natural environment which gives us it opens a whole other world to what we can measure. We can measure things where, you know, rather than on a treadmill, which might be unnatural for a lot of people, we can measure them running on the road or through trails or uphill or downhill. Chris Napier:                 08:40                We can measure how their mechanics changed throughout the course of a run. You know, so we can see what happened when they start to get fatigued. We can measure in a race situation you know, when people perhaps run differently cause they're pushing themselves to their limits. And we can also measure over time, over a weeks or training blocks so we can see what happens to people's mechanics. As a more chronic sort of fatigue sets in. So there's a lot of stuff that we can study. And, in our lab we have sort of the ability to embed some of these wearables into garments. And so essentially we're developing smart garments. And we published a recent paper looking at using a set of running plates to measure hip, knee and ankle kinematics during running. And, we developed this and I think it compared to the gold standard, which is still the three D motion capture and these tights do very well at measuring that movement. Which is exciting cause then, you know, we can start to produce these and runners can start collecting data wherever they run. Karen Litzy:                   10:01                Yeah. Which obviously seems a little bit more practical than, like you said, just being on a treadmill. We know running on a treadmill is definitely different than running on the road or the track or real life situations. And is that something that a, let's say your average physical therapist practicing PT like myself, if someone comes to me with a running related injury and I mean, I don't have access to a three D running analysis, is this something that I would be able to say to this potential patient he lives in? I have some wearable technology that you can use that might give us a better picture as to what's happening when you're running. Chris Napier:                 10:49                Yeah, I mean, we're not there yet, but that's certainly where we're going. So, you know, I guess potentially we could, we could put this pair of tights on a runner and we could track their hip, knee and ankle kinematics while they run either on the treadmill in the clinic or we could send them outside and have them go for a run and come back. And or you know, these could be something that the clinic can loan out or rent out and maybe patients keep them for a week so we can track their running mechanics over the course of a week. And then that could potentially be uploaded to a cloud or brought back to the clinic and downloaded so that you can look at their data over time. And what we're using our strain sensors to be able to measure kinematics. Karen Litzy:                   11:38                And what does that mean? What's a strain sensor? Chris Napier:                 11:40                Well, essentially these are thread like sensors that the amount of strain produced can give us an idea of how much movement is occurring. Karen Litzy:                   11:52                That's sort sewn into the fabric. Chris Napier:                 11:54                Exactly. And we've done, you know, a lot of the research we do is looking at where we need to place these and how many sensors we need and that sort of thing. And so that was the big work sorta involved in developing these tights is to figure out how many, you know, can we get away with just having three or four sensors which reduces the you know, the cost of energy and also the amount of processing involved and where can we put those to optimize you know, the metrics we're looking at. But you can also then add inertial measurement units or I am use which have accelerometers and gyroscopes in them, which can then add a whole other layer so we can look at you know, impact. We can look at angular philosophy and things like that. So, you know, we're looking at integrating those things right now as well. Karen Litzy:                   12:53                And all of that can be so knit fabric of a pair of tights. Chris Napier:                 12:57                Yeah, yeah. We're talking about pretty small. Karen Litzy:                   13:01                That's wild. And so, you know, you did a study kind of taking these tights and looking at, well, how many sensors do we need and where do they need to be placed? And was this sort of a preliminary study, cause I can understand the need for knowing how many sensors you need and where to place them and then kind of recruiting a larger amount of runners to kind of study to see does this do what it says it's going to do it in a nutshell. So right now, just so that the viewer isn't, so that I myself get a better idea. So right now you're sort of in that developmental stage where you're looking at where to place them and how many, and do they work? Chris Napier:                 13:48                Yeah, we've done that. So basically this study was that, so we were happy with where they are and the number for what we want to measure. And so now what we're doing is can we use these to give us information about you know, the fatigue state that runners are in. So, you know, when we're getting into machine learning and that sort of thing as well with this. So you know, can we classify a runner as being fatigued or not? For instance, based on the information we're getting from these tights or, you know, and then as I said before, like, can we get these out now and actually get people using them so we can start collecting large data sets. You know, that's where it gets interesting. Can we get these out to hundreds and thousands of people to be able to start collecting data on those numbers and really start to refine the technology and perhaps see some interesting patterns. Chris Napier:                 14:49                And you know, there's some of the studies coming out of refurbish lab in Calgary have been doing that. They use the now defunct Lumo device, which I am used situated on the waste. And they've done some really interesting work with Christine Claremont leading that and Learn Benson looking at sort of classifying situations or types of runners based on the data they've gotten from those devices. So we'd be looking at maybe doing some similar work with ours. Karen Litzy:                   15:30                Yeah, I mean, very cool. And, I guess the next question is why should we care? So as physical therapists or even as runners, like, yes, this technology is cool, it has the potential to give us a lot of data and a lot of information, but why do we care about that? Chris Napier:                 15:54                Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I think first of all, we have to figure out, is this going to give us information? That is I think we can be happy that it would be reliable, but really we're looking at the validity. Are we getting information where we're going to see patterns that lead to injury. And that's again, that's kind of where we're going with this. But at this point we can't say that that's where we need those large numbers. And hopefully I think that's what we will find is that we can kind of see trends. I mean, there may be a time where, you know, these are sold in running stores and people just wear them and then, you know, they get injured and they come in and say, Hey, yeah, here's my data. Chris Napier:                 16:41                Check it out and, you know, see if you can figure out why I got injured. You know, maybe we'll get to that point. But I think for now it offers the clinician a chance to be able to analyze someone's running gait. So you get that kind of objective information. And then maybe they can use that over sort of repeated visits if they're looking at trying to retrain someone's gait or if they're looking for you know, some changes due to the intervention that they're applying, whether it's strengthening or gait retraining or something else. So I think that it gives us another tool really to measure something dynamically that, you know, until now we could only really do in a specialized biomechanics lab, which as he said, is very expensive and time consuming and really maybe only giving us a snapshot. Karen Litzy:                   17:40                Right. Right. Versus being able to see the bigger picture of a runner. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Chris Napier:                 17:49                And also, you know, maybe some of the work I'm doing is looking at monitoring, training load and you know, if you're kind of familiar with the training load research there's this sort of concept of internal and external load. And you know, the external load might be the number of kilometers or miles that you run in a week or the number of minutes that you run in a week. And the internal load would be some sort of intensity measure or rate of perceived exertion. And so, you know, my interest is, can we get a bit more specific perhaps about that external load. So we're not just looking at minutes or miles, but we're looking at you know, cumulative impact and that actually got a paper in review right now where we looked at that using the run scribe sensors, which are little pods you put on your laces on your shoes and they can measure shock, which is sort of a result of impact force results in acceleration when you hit the ground. Chris Napier:                 18:56                And we looked at whether there's a difference between looking at just a cumulative minutes, you know, run versus number of steps versus cumulative shock. And we found differences and with the cumulative shock we're going to know a deeper analysis. I'm not sure where we're looking for, are there changes depending on the type of run that the person did. So is it more specific measure? When someone is changing the terrain they're running on or changing their intensity on a regular basis? If someone goes and runs the same route every day at the same pace, then we're probably not going to get more information by a cumulative shock. But if they're running in trails one day and roads the next day and then they're doing interval workout or then they're doing a long run we might get more information out of cumulative shock or some similar measure as opposed to just the minutes or miles that they run. Karen Litzy:                   19:56                Right. Yeah. So just adding another element to, again, the overall picture of that runner. So like for example, like you said, you could have someone who says, Oh, I ran, I run 10 miles, I'm just making this up 10 miles every week and I haven't changed how many miles I run. But yet they're coming to see you for patellofemoral pain. Or maybe they're coming to see you with anterior shin pain. But what you're not getting is, well, I run the same amount, but this time I did on a trail and this time I did it on concrete and this was on a rubberized track or something like that. So I would assume that with that shock, you would be able to kind of see the difference and then as a therapist say, Hey, I don't want you to stop running, but maybe let's stop doing X, Y, Z. Chris Napier:                 20:52                Yeah. It allows us not only to look at what has happened, but also to prescribe in the future. Right. So potentially we can then say, okay, we need to keep that cumulative shock below a certain level or, you know, increase it gradually. And so if that's something that they can monitor on their own outside the clinic. Great. and I've done that a little bit with some people just more experimentally at the moment. But I've had people who are really interested in sort of tracking that. They've done that and it's actually been quite successful so far. Karen Litzy:                   21:24                Yeah, no, it sounds very reasonable to me as a therapist and certainly as I would think for the runner because, you know, oftentimes when runners get injured and first of all, they're told to not run. That doesn't go over very well. Chris Napier:                 21:42                No, no. Karen Litzy:                   21:46                And it's also not just the running, but it's part of stress-relief. It's part of what makes them happy. And so to be able to say, Hey, listen, we're collecting all this data on you and this is what we found. This is what you can do. I feel like it gives control back to the patient or to the runner so that we're not spinning. Right. Chris Napier:                 22:07                Yeah. There was a great paper just published last month that essentially looked at what their runners do when they can't run. Right. So if they're injured and they can't run, what do they do? And the answer was, Oh no, they didn't do other activities. They just say they just want to run. And that sort of, I think validated your feelings. You know, when you talk about cross training and, you know, go get on the bike or go on a full run or a swim. But I mean, the greatest thing about running is you can put on some running shoes and head out the door and you can fit it in anywhere, anytime. So it becomes much harder to fit in that exercise when you have to go to a pool or go to a gym, get it done. Karen Litzy:                   22:51                Yeah. And then I would think it must be even harder for some, not all, but some runners to get back to running after an injury. You know, there's fear involved there. They don't want to get injured again. They may sort of taper back to the point where maybe now they're not even happy with their running. Chris Napier:                 23:16                Yup. Yeah. And often, you know, we prescribed like a walk run program to get someone back in because it's sort of graded impacts. Right. So again, looking at that key middle of shock is what we're trying to do there is gradually someone back in to doing that. Even if they've kept the fitness even if they have been on the bike or something like that when you get back after prolonged period off of running, it's still, it can hurt, right. Of the impacts you don't get in other activities. And so again, that's where, if we can measure that and monitor it, I think that's a big advantage. Karen Litzy:                   23:53                Absolutely. Now before we get to the book, which I want to get to in a second, are there any other cool tech things when it comes to runners that may be you've worked with or that you've seen? Maybe not, you know, in the lab that you are in, but that might be coming down the pipeline that we can as runners or as healthcare providers we can kind of get excited about. And the answer might be a lot, but you can just pick. Chris Napier:                 24:26                Let's say a lot of the kind of more research grade or maybe not a lot, but some of the more research grade companies are starting to shift I think a bit more to a clinician or consumer level products. And one reason for that is the hardware is just getting cheaper. So, it's possible. And then also I think you know, the ability to fit these into or integrate these into apps where you have the visualization side and you can actually easy interpretation of the data. I think that's you know, we're going to start to see more and more of these devices available in clinical settings and consumer settings. And I think one that comes to mind is I measure you, is basically an IMU inertial measurement unit that now owned by VI con, but you know, they're starting to I think offer products that are a bit more clinician friendly where you can get real time feedback. Chris Napier:                 25:40                You can stop these on someone's tibia and have them run in the clinic and get some real time feedback and visualize it and give feedback if they're reaching certain thresholds. So if you're trying to keep them and you're trying to get them to run softly, for instance, you can get them to run. And this'll give you feedback when they're going over a certain threshold. Another, a Vancouver based company that I'm doing some research with. It's called plant Tika. This is actually their product here. It's just an insole. So you can just pop this into your shoe lacing. So on your shoe and in the bottom of it, I don't know if you can see here, but there's an IMU here. So it's very thin. Obviously it fits right into the insole and you don't really feel it when you're in there. Chris Napier:                 26:30                But it's a very strong piece of hardware and you can pop that into your shoe. And I say, well, that it's actually measuring that it measuring accelerations so it's got an accelerometer, but it's measuring that impact at that point where it's hitting your body so it's right underneath your heel. You know, and so we're doing some interesting work where we're looking at different footwear and how that changes the impact at that point, because today a lot of the research is using ground reaction forces, which are measured underneath the shoe, right? That's the shoe round interaction. Or they're using to bill accelerometers, which are, you know, measuring that force once it's gone through the foot and the ankle complex and is reaching the tibia. Karen Litzy:                   27:21                Some of those courses have already been disordered right through the ankle or through the shoe. Chris Napier:                 27:30                Yeah. So this is a cool tool and I think they're really keen to start using this. They're targeting clinicians because I think this is an easy one that you know what, I'm using it in the clinic right now where people come in. And when we did the gait analysis, I just slipped these into their shoes and just cause it's that much more information. It visualizes asymmetries really nicely as well. And, and they're also looking at beyond running. They're looking at you know, ACL rehab and that sort of thing as well. Karen Litzy:                   28:02                And are there any things you can think of that let's say your average physical therapist needs to watch out for? Right. So you have a lot of, cause I know you had mentioned more research based consumer products. I'm assuming that there are products out there that might not be the best things that we as consumers, you know, without naming names obviously, but things that we look at when we're looking at a company that's selling one of these like wearables and what their claims are. Chris Napier:                 28:35                Yeah. So I think first of all, the hardware has to be good. And when I say that, I mean you need to have a high enough sampling rate to be able to measure what you want to measure. So, you know if you have an accelerometer, that's a sampling it 60 Hertz for instance. If you're trying to, we capture that and you're gonna miss peaks of data and steps. And so it's just not going to be something that's reliable. You know, if you're measuring it at up at the waist crowds, then it's okay because we don't need high as high frequencies at the waist. So no for that we need to how you need to have a product that can sample at a high enough rate and there's papers out there that have looked at that, you know for kinetic and kinematic information, that sort of minimum requirement you would need. Karen Litzy:                   29:36                And what would that be? Do you know, off the top? Chris Napier:                 29:38                Perfectly genetic information and it's about a, you need like 500 Hertz for it could be more like 200 Hertz, you know, for the kinetics is going to depend on the placement for sure. But typically you want to aim for something that's about 500 Hertz, you know, a lot of consumer level products wouldn't have. Chris Napier:                 30:00                And then also something like the dynamic range would be important. And that's just essentially how many Gs they can measure. And so if your using a something that only measures up to 10 G then when you put that on your shoe and you're trying to, and, and there's impacts that are up around 20 G, then you're really not going to be capturing sleep. Right. It's missing that information again. So that, I mean, that's something to be wary of thought of it outside of the hardware would be looking at the output you get. And so some of these outputs you get are very general. You know, typically you'll have like a, you know, I put on my Garmin watch and go for a run and at the end of it it tells me I need to rest for, you know, 36 hours before my next effort or something like that. Chris Napier:                 31:00                And you know, I never really sort of regard that it doesn't really doesn't make sense. I can interpret that much better myself than relying on my watch. It also spits out a bunch of other metrics. You know, some of them might be useful. Others I would just sort of disregard and I think that's where, you know, probably clinical decision making comes into it. And having a knowledge of the activity and the person in front of you don't overly reliant on just sort of what the metric is outputting. Karen Litzy:                   31:40                So if you have, let's say a certain wearable on and it gives you again, making something up like 10 different kinds of outputs. I don't even know if that's possible, but you want to kind of take, is it sort of like you're taking what you need as it relates to what the patient's going through? Or are you buying something that says, Oh, it can give me all this information, so I'm just going to use all of it. Chris Napier:                 32:11                So, I mean, someone like me, I like raw data because I can play around with it and I can plug it into things. I can graph it and I can do whatever I want. And it's that raw data is, you know, the highest frequency and so the best data I can get, so that's what I want. But most clinicians don't want that because they won't know what to do with that data. Right. So it's gotta be processed somehow. And so that processing you can lose data and you can lose focus and you can have misinterpretations along the way. And so it can be something is it can be processed down to the point of where something might give you an efficiency score, right. Which is, you know, unit and listen in essentially meaningless where it says, you know, your efficiency on that run was good, average or bad. Chris Napier:                 33:08                Yeah. I mean that's something completely processed down to the end where it gives you this kind of, you know three categories. I mean, what does that really tell you? Probably not, or it could be somewhere in between. And so I think that's the hardest part here. And you know, what would be appropriate for a clinician isn't necessarily going to be appropriate for a consumer. So I think again, we're going to start to see products that are aimed more at clinicians and at more consumers as the hardware gets cheaper and more widely available and people are going to kind of sort through and find things that work for them. Karen Litzy:                   33:52                Right? Yeah. So I guess it's when it comes to the output, it's kind of like food. You don't want things to be overly processed it’s not good for you. Okay. Cool. Well now let's get to the book. So I'm just going to read. So the book again for people watching the book is called the science of running and it will be available on February 4th, but you can go to anywhere books are sold, Amazon or what have you and you can preorder. But I'm just going to read a quick description. I won't read the whole thing, but I'll read a quick description. Science of running goes further than any other running book to intergrate the anatomy. And physiology of the runner showing how running in walls and affects every system of the body, including the effect of oxygen on the muscles. The book breaks down the runner's stride, scientifically showing what's going on under the skin at every stage of the running cycle. Highlighting common injury risk based on a readers natural gait and showing how to correct them, takes a head to toe approach to 30 key exercises for runners, annotating the muscles, ligaments and joints involved, and showing how to perfect precision in those exercises to optimize their benefits. Sounds great. Chris Napier:                 35:12                I could have used more time. Karen Litzy:                   35:15                He probably did that in a weekend, but I mean, this is a very involved book. It's not like just a pamphlet. Chris Napier:                 35:24                No, no, it, it was a lot of work. I won't deny that. And it was a really interesting process for me. Essentially it's like what we just talked about sort of bullying down that kind of raw data or the raw science and being able to filter down to a level that's interpretable by kind of the general public or the, you know, the average runner. Cause that's essentially what this is. It's a handbook for runners about their bodies, right? Karen Litzy:                   35:55                So this is for the average person runner and for the clinician, right? So not like overly overly technical, but technically simplified. Chris Napier:                 36:08                Exactly. I mean it's not simple. There's a lot of information in there, right. And we've done our best you know, with the artwork and that sort of thing to be able to explain the science behind all of this. But there's a lot of information in there. I mean, it's not a textbook. And it's not an academic book, but it's very much for runners and clinicians, I think to have on hand. You know, whether it's in a clinical context, if you want to be able to explain, you know, an injury to a runner or you know, explain what you mean by you know, what's happening during running stride. There's a lot of you know, artwork and chunks of text in there that can kind of help to explain that. And for the average runner, I think it's sort of something that they can keep on hand and use you know, if they're training for a race or just in general or something to kind of, you know, refer back to over, over and over again. And there's also a whole chapter full of training plans. It was co-written by my coach Jerry Zack and again, that's a very comprehensive chapter there. Karen Litzy:                   37:31                Fabulous. And so I'm going to say it again, so for the people that are watching if you leave a comment or a reaction, you're automatically in the running to win a copy of this book. So please, you know, give a thumbs up or a heart or throw in and whatever like where are your lists, where you're watching from or listening in from. Because we'll pick a winner and I'll contact you when we're done with the interview and everything. But so when you talk about a book like this is there ever sort of misinterpretation of by someone to say, Oh, it's a book on how not to get injured when you run? This is a book on preventing injuries? Chris Napier:                 38:22                Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean for anyone familiar with the research on running injuries, that's a pretty murky field at best anyway. I think what I tried to do in this book was present what the research does tell us and kind of show, you know, let's take foot strike for instance. Cause everyone knows about, you know, foot strike pattern and you know, we talked about, okay, what happens when you were first strike? What happens when you forefoot strike? And rather than taking the approach that one is inherently bad and we'll give you an injury we talk about, you know, how they affect your stride and where those forces go and that sort of thing. To be able to educate the runner on that rather than talk about, you know, this particular way of running will prevent injury. There's also a large section we've got about 30 different strengthening exercises in the book where you can you know, go through and again, it's a little visualize with artwork showing different stages of the exercises on specific running, strengthening exercises that you can do in the gym or at home. Karen Litzy:                   39:42                Awesome. Well, it sounds like it's a great resource for clinicians and the runner alike and are you going to, after doing this, and this was, I'm sure an arduous task that took quite a while. Are you going to write a followup in the works or are you like, Oh my God, let's publish this book. Chris Napier:                 40:02                I haven't really even opened this book yet. I got it. About three weeks ago, and I don't think I might've just opened at once to kind of flip through very briefly. So at this point I'm ready just to kind of keep it on the shelf and see what happens. But no, nothing in the works right now. I'm focusing on some other things right now and if that opportunity comes up, you know, down the line then perhaps a look at that then, but this was a very interesting process to go through. I have no regrets. I think it's pretty cool to see, you know. But I think I'll take a little break for awhile now. Karen Litzy:                   40:47                I get it. For you, as now an author, what was the best part of writing this book for you? Might've been like, as a person, as a clinician, as a researcher, what was like the big positive for you? Chris Napier:                 41:03                You know, in research we're always talking about knowledge translation, right? You have to kind of get that research to the end user. And how you do that. It's often very difficult for research. This gave me a lot of tools I think in my own field of how to get that research to the end user, whether it's a clinician or a runner themselves. So that's been really useful. Also I think working in the clinic it made me really think about what are the exercises I think are most valuable or what is the most useful thing that a clinician would get out of this book? You know, I'm often sort of pulling out a textbook to try and explain something to a patient who is in the clinic because they've got an injury and I'm talking about too much too soon or some of that. And I want to graphic where I can say, look, this is why too much, too soon is bad, or this is why, you know, running the way you're running might've led to this injury. And I'm often sort of ending up doing Stickman drawings or something to try and illustrate. Karen Litzy:                   42:14                Well we all do that. Chris Napier:                 42:16                Which is fine. But you know, this gives me a resource and hopefully others a resource in the clinic to be able to sort of say here like this is what I'm talking about and here's a nice sort of visualization and in some kind of bullet points as to what I'm talking about. Karen Litzy:                   42:34                Yeah. That's great. So I feel like it, to me it sounds like it's made you maybe a little more present, a little more thoughtful about what you're doing with runners and why you're doing it. Great. And I'm assuming that's also the goal of the book is have people be a little bit more present, understand the way their body works. This is for the runner, the way their body works and why they're doing what they're doing. And for the clinician may be taking a larger analytical view in as to the person in front of them, the runner in front of them, and maybe why they're getting the injuries that they're getting. And some options on how to rectify that situation. Chris Napier:                 43:16                Yeah, I mean, I think runners, runners are typically type a people, right? And they, you know, they get really into running and they want to know more and they want to learn like, okay, what's you should I have and what's, you know, what's the best way to run and what's the best way to train? And you know, so they're on Google and they're trying to get all this information. There's tons of conflicting information out there. Even from, you know, some of the top sources, right. Sort of the top sources for that. So again, hopefully this is something that kind of boils it down. It's very evidence-based and something that runners can rely on as a resource for all things running. Karen Litzy:                   44:01                Sounds great. Now listen, before we wrap things up, I have one last question. It's one that I ask everyone and that's knowing where you are now in your life and in your career. What advice would you give to yourself as a new grad right out of physio school? Chris Napier:                 44:18                So I would right out of physio school, I think just get your hands dirty and see patients, try and get lots of different experiences. If you're interested in sports, volunteer with teams. You know, don't expect payment right away for those things. Get out and work with people and put in the time and you'll learn a lot and those will turn into opportunities in the future. I think getting out and I'm not saying no to things is a big, big thing. And I think that's how I kinda got involved in working with professionals and sort of national team athletics. It's because basically one opportunity led to another. And I didn't say no along the way and so it just, you know one thing snowballed into the next thing. So I think you know, that's probably my advice. Just get out, start getting your hands dirty and get the practical experience and don't say no. Karen Litzy:                   45:26                Awesome, great advice. Now, where can people find you if they have questions and they want to find more info about you and about the book, where can they find you? Chris Napier:                 45:35                Well, the best place is on Twitter. I'm fairly active on Twitter and they can find me @runnerphysio on Twitter and they can contact me through that. Also if people have, you know, wanting to access any of my papers, that sort of thing. They can reach me through my email address which is Chris.Napier@UBC.ca. I'm happy to send along papers or if you have any sort of specific questions, I'm happy to answer them if I can. Karen Litzy:                   46:07                Awesome. And what we'll do is when this broadcast ends, I'll go back in and I'll put a link to your Twitter and to some of the papers that we spoke about today and a link to the book. So people want to preorder the book, go for it. For all the people who are on and who had some reactions or comments. I will pick a winner for someone to win Chris's book and you'll be hearing from me. I'll get in touch with you via Facebook. So, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time out and coming on to do a live and then it'll be on the podcast as well but to do a Facebook live. So thank you. Chris Napier:                 46:45                Well, thank you. I've enjoyed it. It's been a good chat and thank you also for all your work in the lead up to the world Congress with all your Facebook live interviews with a lot of our speakers. Cause that was really great to be part of that. Karen Litzy:                   47:02                Yeah, that was my pleasure. It was great. So everyone who's on and watching. Thank you so much and have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.   Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!

We're back to a three-man booth, just in time for Geoffrey's power to be out for most of the episode! So Chris & Lawrence take the lead on this episode that was from all accounts MUCH BETTER than last week's! Who will be Le Champion's final opponent in 2019? Who is maybe the best woman on the roster today? Is Cultamania runnin' wild? Why do they keep insisting on this dumbass Lucha Brothers heel turn? The answer to these questions AND MORE are here for your listening pleasure!

Abby Cheesman from Skill Scout discusses tips and tactics for creating video that attracts the talent you seek. Transcript Chris Russell: Leveraging video to attract talent. That's next, on the RecTech Podcast. Speaker 2: Welcome to RecTech, the podcast where recruiting and technology intersect. Each month you'll hear from vendors shaping the recruiting world along with recruiters who will tell you how they use technology to hire talent. Now here's your host, the mad scientist of online recruiting, Chris Russell. Chris Russell: Hey everyone. Welcome to the only podcast at the intersection of recruiting and technology. I'm your host, Chris Russell. Our show of course is sponsored by our friends at emissary.ai, the text recruiting platform. Head over to emissary.ai. Click on the Book a Demo and self schedule yourself a quick 30 minute demo with the team. Matt, Brendan, and Euan. And learn more about how text recruiting can really speed up and make your recruiting process much more efficient overall. So it's really great technology, overlays onto your ATS, and lets you do one-on-one campaigns. Lets you do group campaigns out there. Short codes for events. A lot of great stuff there around text recruiting. And if you're not texting and recruiting today, then you're not basically becoming a modern recruiter overall. Chris Russell: And of course we're sponsored also by workhere.com, the hyper-local [inaudible 00:01:20] delivery tool. WorkHere's geofencing ad platform will help you pinpoint your best to match talent. They attract passive [inaudible 00:01:29] with enticing targeted mobile ads where they live, work, and shop. So head over to workhere.com. Be sure to tell them you heard it on the podcast, and get a demo from them as well. Really good job advertising technology that you really probably haven't tried yet. So we'll give them a shot. People like FedEx use them, Uber, Great Clips. Carvana uses them. So check them out at workhere.com. Chris Russell: All right, quick shout out to one of my listeners, [Norm Fleming 00:01:59] messaged me on LinkedIn this week. He's an IT recruiter out there in Waukee, Iowa. So hello Norm, thanks for listening. And glad you're on board. Tell your friends to check out the show as well. Chris Russell: All right, so today you're going to hear Abby Cheesman from my friends over at Skill Scout, the video job company. They'll come to your place of work. They'll interview your employees and create great two minute videos out there for your employer rank purposes. Anyway, she's going to talk today about how to leverage video properly. And this was audio from I took out of the recent webinar they did or rectechlive.com if you want to go see that. I extracted the audio, cleaned it up a bit, and put it into the podcast here. So she's got a lot of great tips and tactics around how to make your video stand out overall. So really good stuff here, lot of good takeaways. So hope you enjoy the audio, and I'll see you next time. Chris Russell: All right, good afternoon everyone. How's everyone doing today? You got a last show of the year for RecTech Live, and I got my pal Abby Cheesman here from Skill Scout in Chicago. Say hello Abby. Abby Cheesman: Hey guys. Chris Russell: All right, we're going to talk about using video to attract talent today, and she's got some great slides to show us. I've seen this presentation earlier this year and thought it was great. So I wanted to have her on and talk about video. We haven't really done that yet much on the show overall. So you are the co-founder or CFO of Skill Scout, a company based in Chicago, which does employer videos. Give us a quick history of the company and a little bit more about what you guys do. Abby Cheesman: Yeah. So maybe about six years ago, Elena, my co-founder and I, we were working at a consulting firm. And we got put on a project of how do we more meaningfully connect people to employment. So we talked to a bunch of job seekers, bunch of companies, and we heard something over and over. It's really hard to know what a job is all about until you've done it before. Abby Cheesman: So long story short, we started filming behind the scenes. What is it like to be a welder? What is it like to be a nurse? And from there, we really just got started with Skill Scout. Abby Cheesman: So we take a research approach to filming. So typically if you're going to film something, you come as a script. And this is what we're going to talk about. With Skill Scout, we treat it like discoveries. So I want to learn as I'm filming with you. I want to hear from the people in the position to know what it's all about filming. So we come in, we have a discussion guide. Film days are usually super fun. So we go in, we learn about a workplace from the people that are in the jobs. So we know what we might capture, but typically we open it up for discovery. Chris Russell: Let's get to the slides and tell everyone about what we're going to learn about today. Abby Cheesman: So today I'm going to walk you through some tips and tricks, with the idea being that you could go back to your workplace on Monday and/or tomorrow if you're a real go getter. And start filming your jobs. You don't need a huge budget. You don't need a film crew. You can start filming with your phone. So I'm going to share some examples. I'm going to share some real tactical ways that you can get started. Chris Russell: Fire up your slides and we'll get rolling here. If the [inaudible 00:05:31] has questions, just throw them in the chat there and I'll stop Abby and ask her. And Abby over to you. Abby Cheesman: Sassy title, your job post is as boring as this webinar. I'm only kidding. This webinar's not going to be boring. So Chris gave me a great introduction. My name is Abby. I'm a job nerd. I get to film jobs for a living, so I get to see what it's like to be a flight attendant, to work on planes, to be a nurse, to work at the department of corrections. Abby Cheesman: I have an awesome team based in Chicago. We have a real intentional strategy to provide opportunities for women in the filmmaking industry. Particularly women of color. And one of the things that Elena, my co-founder, she's the one on the end there. We've been really intentional about women of color because our industry is typically super male and super white. And we believe that if you change the story by changing the storyteller. So you're able to share a little bit more diversity in the stories that you tell if you have a diverse team that's working with it. Chris Russell: I love the job nerd title, by the way. Abby Cheesman: I wish I could put that in business cards. I love it. So we've been able to tell stories for some of the biggest brands. I never thought I'd be filming with Unilever, and Nike, and McDonald's. And one of the things that our clients have in common is that it's really hard to tell people what your jobs are all about, and give an authentic preview. Abby Cheesman: So I want to pause and give a moment of reflection for all of you guys who are watching. When was the moment that you knew you were in the right place for your job? Chris, you and I talked about this very briefly before we began about being an entrepreneur, working for yourself. But reflect on this question and we're going to come back to this. When was the moment that you knew you were in the right place? Chris Russell: Probably I got some kind of thank you from a client or a listener of my podcast maybe. And that feedback really meant a lot to me. Abby Cheesman: Yeah. Mine was when I was standing in that jet engine at American Airlines filming what it's like to maintain and keep those aircraft safe. Just the surreality of being able to show jobs that nobody else has access to. That was my moment. Abby Cheesman: But let's talk a little bit about the hiring process. So the hiring process is a little bit like packing one more bullet point on that job post. Fitting into skinny jeans, this candidate's a great fit. Or your Facebook profile. Job looks great. Here's what it is. But this is what it looks like for most people. Right? This is an astounding data point. This is 2019. Only 1% of job posts have visuals. This is still a true statistic. Chris Russell: Yeah. I've been after employers to at least add a picture in there of something, of a person doing the job or some kind of visual image. Because it's a visual web, and people want to see rather than read. Abby Cheesman: Yeah. And that's including pictures, which is the crazy part. Because pictures cost nearly nothing to produce. And along all of this, we have about the attention span of a goldfish. This is true for any adult with a fully developed cognitive brain. You have about eight seconds to capture our attention, the same as a goldfish. Abby Cheesman: So if we think about trying to attract talent to our brand, these are the people, the go getters, the activists that we want. Eight seconds is not very long. Abby Cheesman: I want to talk a little bit about the laws of attraction. So I have a psychology background. Brain science is fascinating to me. So this is a couple of studies that Elena and I have looked into. So just get an understanding of what the next generation of talent, Gen Z that's coming into the workforce now looks like. And I think if we design solutions that appeal to the modern job seeker, even if we're focusing on Gen Z, these are going to be human centered principles that any job seeker can appreciate. Abby Cheesman: So a couple of things that we know. 98% own smart phones. 85% report that they learn about new products and services on social media. This one is crazy, and I can attest to it just on an anecdotal level. 71% are watching more than three hours of video every day. So I have a seven year old and a four year old, and YouTube is life man. Just anything that you could explore is on YouTube. Abby Cheesman: But three hours a day, that's taking out of TV time. 50% are part of a minority ethnicity by 2020. So diversity stories and representation matter to the youngest job seekers. But everybody in the workforce. So just keep these laws of attraction in mind as we start talking about video. Abby Cheesman: Social platforms, we're spending a lot of time on our phone. We talked about three hours of video a day. 70% of that is happening on YouTube. So people report YouTube as the app of the generation. We're receiving about 3,000 text messages a month. Most people prefer prefer Instagram and Snapchat over Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. So this stat is always super interesting as we think about marketing spends. I would say as a business owner, Facebook is one of the first places that I think about advertising. And when it comes to talent, LinkedIn is another that comes to mind. But when we talk to younger job seekers, Instagram and Snapchat is where it's at. Tick tock, keep your eye on that one. That one's up and coming. And I think while it might not have ties to recruiting right now, I think that's going to be a medium that's more and more popular where job seekers are. Abby Cheesman: So there are some rules to being a good participant on social media. Keep your content short and sweet. Spice it up with visuals. Video is even better than photos, but any kind of visual. Highlight global locales and background. So representation of the different people that make up your workforce. Showcase how you impact the world. So what are you doing as a company and what is your spot in the world, and who do you impact? That's a really important story. Abby Cheesman: And then leverage the right social media and communication platform for your business. So we work with companies that are hiring welders. That might not be on LinkedIn, but they certainly are on Snapchat, and Instagram, and Facebook. So knowing enough about your industry, you guys probably know the channels to reach your people. Abby Cheesman: So remember when I asked this question? We talked a little bit about remembering the moment. You guys have stories, each one of the stories that you would tell yourself in your head, that has heart. Those are the kinds of things that job seekers are interested in hearing. And, those stories translate very beautifully to recruiting on video. Abby Cheesman: So a little data about job videos. A job posting with a video is viewed three times longer than a posting without. We use about 85% of our brain power to process visuals. So that's not text on page. That is a visual that is lighting up different parts of your brain than when you're reading. And, you get about 46% more views with a posting that has a video. And as I mentioned, psychology background. So this data point always sticks with me. We recall about 65% of what we see in here and only 15% of what we read. So if the only way that a job is interacting with your post is by reading bullet points, no matter how well written, they're still only going to remember about 15%. Abby Cheesman: So video over streaming webinars is notoriously sketchy. So, I shared a couple of links in the chat. But I want to tell you a little story about SAC Wireless. So this is a company that came to us in partnership with Shaker Recruitment Marketing. They were working on a challenge. They're hiring tower climbers. So these are the people that are building the infrastructure of 5G in our country. And they can't build towers fast enough to launch 5G. So this is an in demand kind of position. SAC was spending millions of dollars on agency recruiters, and they weren't getting the talent that would stay. And they discovered as part of their exit interviews, is that people didn't understand until they got to a tower how high up it is. So a very simple and very low hanging fruit piece of content for them was a video that shows people climbing the towers. Abby Cheesman: So we produced this video, and you guys can go check it out after the webinar. But it's a one and a half minute piece of people who work on a tower climbing team, talking about what it was like looking up at that tower. The safety and training that's required. What it feels like to work with a crew and travel with them, and ride in the same truck. Abby Cheesman: So they launched this video on Facebook. So this was a native post, which is what I recommend doing with posts on Facebook. So instead of linking to Vimeo or YouTube, upload it directly to Facebook, which is what they did. And they got this incredible response that they never expected. People started sharing the crap out of this video. So they had over 100,000 views in the first couple of weeks, and what they noticed was that their team was sharing it out. Wives were sharing, "Hey, check out what my husband does." And it became this organic piece of content that people were excited to show others. And it was one of their best performing pieces of content to get people into the funnel, applying for the job, and hired. Abby Cheesman: So this one video translated to the savings of millions of dollars for SAC Wireless, and it was part of a larger campaign. But this piece of content really jump-started employee referrals, advertising. And, it solved the problem of people not knowing that towers were 1,200 feet tall until they got to the job. Chris Russell: 1,200 feet? Abby Cheesman: Yes. When I watched that video, I still get heart palpitations. I was there when we filmed it. I would make a terrible tower climber. But for the right person, they see that and they're like, "Yep, I can build that." Chris Russell: Yep. Was this [inaudible 00:16:32] the candidates coming in from the video? Talk a little about how they might've- Abby Cheesman: Yes, they had some infrastructure behind that Facebook post. So they did do some lightweight tracking, and the Facebook post was their best channel that led to actual hires. And I think there were a few reasons for this. One, the video is just great. It's shared by people in the industry. And tower climbers tend to all work in pods, and so a lot of them know each other. It's kind of a small world. So that was a place that got eyeballs on content, maybe better than on LinkedIn or other channels. So that was part of it. Abby Cheesman: And then they linked directly to the application. So there wasn't like a link to a careers page and then I have to go find the job, and this and that. You could go directly from seeing this video to going into the application. So I think that was a win. But there's certainly more data. And Crystal Stanfield, she's since moved on from SAC, but she speaks at a lot of events. I would encourage you to go see her. She breaks down exactly how much money they saved, and how they did it and the rest of the ecosystem. Which included things like micro sites and using content and other channels. Chris Russell: I looked, and the video's about two minutes, 20 seconds. Correct? Abby Cheesman: Two minutes, 20 seconds. Yeah. And that's a little long, and I think the content is interesting and so it lends itself to be a couple seconds longer than I'd recommend. But typically we're looking to one to two minutes. Chris Russell: Yep. Abby Cheesman: So how'd they do it? This is what it could like to film a job video, right? You got 12 people on set, you got a grip. It could also look like this. For SAC, we did film a cameras and flew a drone just to get to the height and safely capture the position. But this is also what it can look like to film a job video. A cell phone, a tripod, a microphone, and two people talking. Abby Cheesman: So every single one of us has a cell phone. Every single one of our cell phones, if purchased in the last five to seven years, has a powerful camera on it. There are a few things that you need to make your camera even more powerful. So we package this up, but I can also share a link after this session to exactly what you need. Abby Cheesman: One is a tripod to keep your phone stable while you're filming. The second is a microphone. So phones are set up to capture audio as you're holding it up to your head. So capturing across the room can be tricky. And with a microphone, you can capture beautiful audio. And it's less than $25. And then a handheld tripod so that you can take nice, smooth pans. And with these three core things, you can really take your footage from being amateur quality to pretty high quality. Abby Cheesman: But let's start at the beginning. So one of the things that we found as we've talked to companies is that you have to be in the right moment to be sharing video. You can't put lipstick on a pig. What you are is what is going to appear on video. So I think most companies probably are ready for video, but we put together a little quiz so that you could do a little self reflection of is this a place that you really feel passionate about recruiting people for? And what are some of the stories that compel people to want to work with you? So it's just a self-reflection to see if video is a tool that you're ready for in your toolkit. Abby Cheesman: So if you take that quiz, you feel good, you would recommend it as a place to work. Here's some of the ingredients for a great job video. Be specific. So for the tower climber, we picked a specific role. SAC was hiring many roles, but that role was specific enough that we needed to go film it separately. Keep it real. We talked about the fear of heights. We talked about how hard the position is, that you're working in weather conditions. Two minutes tops. As Chris pointed out, we broke that rule. But two minutes is typically the sweet spot of how long candidates are going to give you. And show, don't tell. So while we might conduct the interviews in a quiet spot with good audio and good lighting, we want to see more than we want to see a talking head. So we want to go and see the work environment. Abby Cheesman: A little bit more about being specific. One video that I recommend to people is creating a realistic job preview. There's all kinds of content that you can create about your company. If you've not done video before, realistic job preview's a great place to start. So you can start thinking about one job that might be high volume or high turnover, an area of concentration for you. Talk to one to two people who are in the job, who are actually working in that role. Abby Cheesman: And then keep it real. So as I mentioned at the beginning, we take an ethnographic research mindset. So come in as a researcher. You might think you know what the job is on paper, but be prepared to discover and be open to what you see. You want to capture productivity. Don't stop it. Don't use a script. Use an interview guide. And remember that employees are the expert of their experience. So again, there's always the job description and then there's the, "Okay hey, this is how it really works." Those are the things that you're looking for. Abby Cheesman: Most importantly, show the stuff that makes people quit. This view here is why I would quit on my first day as a tower climber. You want to show people that. If there are things about your work environment. We have one client that it's an armored car service that all of the employees are armed. And for some people, that would be a deal breaker. And you don't want them to discover that deal breaker in their training or their first 90 days. That should come this early in the process as possible so people can self select in or self select out. Abby Cheesman: Two minutes tops. I checked our data today. We have a whole bunch of job videos that are live through our accounts. And I think the stat today was one minute and 49 seconds on average that people will watch. But it's less than two minutes. So giving people the top two to three things that are most important to share about the job, and spending about 30 seconds on each one of those is a good framework. Chris Russell: Excellent. Abby Cheesman: Show, don't tell. So you want to minimize talking heads, you want to show the work environment. One question I get a lot is, "What if we're in a boring office?" That's a great question. You're in a boring office, show the boring office, but also show the impact of your work. So if you're working in banking, you should certainly show inside of the branch of what are your banks. But maybe also go out to the community and showcase some of the things that you're doing in the community. Whether that's financial literacy training or other impact that you have. Abby Cheesman: Another example of this is in manufacturing. So while we might capture footage inside of the plant, we also want to go see what those products do in people's lives because that's important to candidates. So if you're building a medical device that helps give people allergy medicine faster and saves lives, that's an important part of the story to tell visually. So there are ways that you can depict the boring office. You should be realistic about that. If they're going to work in a boring office, show it. But also show the impact and how people stay committed to the work. Chris Russell: I'll also say too, you can show your employees in action outside the office too. Maybe if you're having a dinner or happy hour or something like that. Abby Cheesman: Oh absolutely. Events, anything that the team members are getting together after work. Anything that you can show to give people a flavor of what the experience is like working with you. That's the stuff you want to film. Chris Russell: Yup. Abby Cheesman: Teamwork makes the dream work. So, I've got a couple of clips and they're of course not going to play nicely over the stream. But, using employee generated clips is one of the easiest ways that you can capture content. Giving people a quick direction of, "Hey, can you take some footage across your work environment this morning?" And give them some ideas of what they could shoot. You will quickly get tons of different perspectives of your workplace from the eyes of the people who work in the jobs. Abby Cheesman: So employee generated content. Opening filming up to anybody who is willing to contribute is a really easy, fast way to get video. So this is one that we did in that armored car company. Here's another one. This job is a raw video clip of transportation assistance. No, what it really is, is driving really expensive custom order cars off of the boat at the Port of Baltimore. And this is a really different kind of job than what you would think on paper. So just getting a couple of employee generated clips showing the car, hearing the sound of the engine rev. Gives people a much more tangible feel for the job. Abby Cheesman: So we didn't watch the videos, but I do like to pose the questions, what did you notice about any of the visuals that we showed about that work environment? It was real. Yeah. And you can see that working with that armored car service is very different than the transportation assistant, is very different than the tower climber. Just the quick visual. You will remember that better, 65% more. And you'll be able to relate back to it, to that visual experience of watching that video. When you go to get the recruiter phone call or apply for the position. Chris Russell: Abby, question. When you go to your clients and you first talk to them, do you kind of look and see if their employees are already sharing stuff on social media they might not know about? Abby Cheesman: That is a great question. Yes. A lot of our clients actually have hashtags or employee generated groups. So Nike for example, has swoosh life. And that's customers and employees sharing experience alike. So sourcing stuff that people are already sharing about your brand is a great way to just kind of do an analysis of what's out there about us. And oftentimes, it's a great way to identify people who are already filming stuff and would be more than happy to be an ambassador or contribute their footage to your project. But that's a wonderful question. Abby Cheesman: And if you don't have that yet, you will also notice the people who are super active on social media. Those are the people that are top of my list for the people that I want to enlist in filming. If somebody is super comfortable sharing cat videos or kid videos, those are the people that are going to be excited about filming their workplace. Abby Cheesman: So we talked a little bit about what you need. Tripod, microphone, handheld tripod, and a lens cleaner. Phones are filthy. Cleaning them off makes the video much crispier. Abby Cheesman: Capturing quality video, audio is unforgivable. So earlier when we first started the echo, I was speaking super slowly because I was listening to myself. Audio can be super distracting, right? So you can forgive bad video to some extent. You cannot forgive bad audio. It's extremely distracting to the brain if there's something crackly or something that you can't quite hear the person speaking. So audio first, always use a microphone. Abby Cheesman: Second is lighting. The sun is your friend. Camera phones are super sensitive to light, and they're trying and trying to get better. But the more that you can utilize natural outdoor lighting, so sitting by a window. Or generate your own lighting. Get a halo light that cost 40 bucks on Amazon. Lighting is going to take your quality from super amateur to much more professional lifting. And it'll actually capture the 1080 or 4K level of quality. Without good lighting, your phone can't capture that resolution. Abby Cheesman: Film horizontally. This is always controversial and I'm constantly reevaluating this. But for now, phones capture higher resolution if you hold them horizontally. We see more mediums come up like Instagram, Snapchat, where vertical is how people are capturing and sharing. So I think we need to keep an eye on this. But the most important thing is keeping it consistent. So if you're going to edit clips together, you want them either to all be horizontal or all be vertical. Abby Cheesman: And lastly, heart. So letting people show who they really are. Not being too corporatey or too prescriptive. And show the nerdiness. Like I'm a job nerd. I'm happy saying that. You have nerds at your company too, and you want to show that flare. So if you've got engineers that geek out about something, capture the heart and the spirit of why they're excited to work with you and that will be super attractive to other people who nerd out in that way. Abby Cheesman: We've got a ton of tutorials on our site that just show you how to set up your audio. Some of the technical mistakes we made early in the first couple of years filming on phones. We've made a tutorial for everything so that you can capture the best quality possible in your phone. Lighting. How to film B-roll. So let's talk a little B-roll. Chris Russell: Yeah, explain B-roll to the audience. Abby Cheesman: Yeah. So when we think about the ingredients of a job video, the first is an interview. You want to talk to somebody on camera about their experience working. The second piece is all the visual footage. So we said minimize talking heads. The interview is a talking head. You want to go out and capture a visual B-roll of everything that they talked about. So if a nurse is talking about checking vitals. In your mind, you should be making a note of take some B-roll of checking vitals, take some B-roll of filling out patient paperwork. The B-roll is all of the beautiful video footage that goes on top of the interview so that we can see what the person is talking about. Abby Cheesman: I also shared in the chat an example of a recruiting video we did recently for Wendy's. And you can see how we used their values on top of what people were saying to really tie their story together. Abby Cheesman: So here's how we captured that video. We used this exact list of questions. "Tell me who you are, where we're at today. What do you do here? Walk me through a typical day." And when people walk you through a typical day, they gloss over and they move quickly because they assume you know what they're talking about. So sometimes I say, "Be detailed. Pretend I'm your 12 year old niece and I have no idea what you do." And usually when people speak with that filter, that brings them to a level that's tangible and shareable outside of your organization. But all of us do this when we're talking about our work. We might get super technical, jargony. So just encourage them to talk to you as if this is the first time you're hearing about this. Abby Cheesman: What surprised you when you started this job? What's challenging? Being real about that? What's the best part about working here? What's your favorite memory from working here? And what advice would you have for somebody that is just joining your team? Abby Cheesman: I would add that question from the beginning when we talked about< "When was the moment you knew you were in the right place?" The reason I like this question, Chris, you told a story. I told a story. I didn't just say the people are great. The culture is great. What you don't want is general speak. You want to hear people's stories. "Well, tell me a time where you really felt like your team was great." And then those stories are what tell beautiful recruiting stories. Abby Cheesman: This is some ideas for B-roll. So hands working, work in action, the work environment, conference rooms, common areas. Two to three main tasks of the position. Team interaction. And for those boring officey jobs, impact. What's happening outside of the office as a result of the work that you're doing inside of the office? All right, a moment to reflect. Anybody has any questions so far? Chris Russell: Nothing yet in the chat. But if you do, feel free to throw them in there. And I'll ask Abby. Abby, question for you is, what's been the in terms of your client base, what's been the most interesting piece of feedback you've gotten from after doing a video like this? What stands out to you? Abby Cheesman: That's a great question. So often we get this feedback, and I always love hearing it. Is that recruiters who've been recruiting for this role for years learn something new about the experience of working in that job. So you can recruit for a warehouse position in a refrigerated facility. But until you've put your coat on and gone 40 degrees below zero, it's really hard to have empathy in a tangible way for what that is like. And a lot of recruiters go back to their work with that experience. So filming is this discovery for them, and this opportunity to engage with the job in a way that they don't normally get. Abby Cheesman: So people often really enjoy filming. It might seem stressful for the first time that you do it. But the feedback overwhelmingly that I love getting that we get a lot. "I didn't know how much fun it was going to be. I didn't realize how much I was going to learn about this job. I've been recruiting for it for 20 years." Right? We went through burning questions. I'm going to share some questions I get a lot. Abby Cheesman: Oh no, our trade secrets. Right? We work in a proprietary industry, right? I work in space and engineering a product that's top secret. That's okay. It's not just about what you make. It's about why it matters. It's your passion, projects, celebrations and your team coming together, training. So you don't focus on proprietary processes. Obviously you don't want to sell out your secrets and tank the business. But you do want to show what the employee experience is based on that position. Abby Cheesman: So avoid things as you're filming, like specs on a drawing. Any kind of measurements. In manufacturing, any kind of specific code or processes. You don't want to capture that stuff. Abby Cheesman: Privacy. This might look familiar to you, Chris. What about privacy? So we filmed in one of the more challenging work environments that we've filmed in a couple of weeks ago. We were in Connecticut. We were filming with the department of corrections who they're working on recruiting physicians to work in facilities. So there's two challenges to work through. One is HIPAA, right? We can't share patients on camera. And the second is we can't show inmates on camera. So a really easy workaround that have worked with our corrections positions in other states and areas, and our healthcare. Has been using stand-ins. So if you have someone else on the team that will play the role of patient or play the role of customer. Or any other sensitive role in your video, that will allow you to capture it. You'll get them to sign a media release and you'll have permission to share their footage. But you're not releasing anything about your customers, or your patients, or people that are of a sensitive. Abby Cheesman: And stand-ins allow you to still show bits of the job that are important. So showing the exam, taking vitals. That's a huge part of this role. So to remove it from the video altogether wouldn't have done it justice. So stand-ins on a volunteer basis is something that we've had a ton of success with. Chris Russell: Okay, great. Abby Cheesman: Another question, compliance is life. We work in the aviation industry, so we have filmed a ton of compliant driven and union driven work environments. And my advice for that is to have somebody who is a union steward. If you're a union shop or a union environment. And, a safety and compliance person film with you. So you have them right alongside for the journey. They can tell you what is and is not shareable on camera. Abby Cheesman: So while you probably all have compliant workplaces, there are times when things are done that are maybe questionable and not exactly up to policy, but a workaround. And just having those people in field with you as you're capturing content gets them on your side. They're part of the process, they're an engaged stakeholder. And, it prevents you from capturing anything that's not showing you in your best light. So getting them involved early and planning, and come along for filming. That's been successful also. Abby Cheesman: I'm broke baby. I ain't got no money. This is another question I get. You don't need $100,000 or even $1,000 to make your first video. You can do this for free. Abby Cheesman: So to do this for free, let's talk a little bit about editing. This is one of the biggest questions people have. There are a few options. You can do it in one take. I filmed a video earlier this morning for an internal team thing. I did it in one take, no editing required. Abby Cheesman: iMovie, Windows Movie Maker. Those are both low cost or free depending on your computer. And easy editing programs that you can pull in the interview, the B-roll, and some music to go along with that. Abby Cheesman: FiLMiC pro is an app on, it's available for iPhone and I believe Android. It's about 20 bucks. And you can actually edit video on your phone. I'll mention that iMovie is also available on iPhone and- Chris Russell: I use that one. Abby Cheesman: You use that one? Yeah. What's your experience been? Chris Russell: It's okay. You can just trim the clip, you can add some overlays of text on there and stuff like that. Abby Cheesman: Yeah, I find my phone to be a little small to edit on. So I'm a huge fan of popping everything over to my laptop and throw it in iMovie. But my daughter will edit in iMovie on her iPad. So depending on how big your fingers are, I guess. Mine are too fat for the phone, but FiLMiC pro is an awesome app. Abby Cheesman: And then are editing services. So this is something full disclosure that Skill Scout does. But there are other options or interns you can come and get to come in and help film, and edit your video. We see a lot of our companies engaging interns in this process. Not just because of digital natives and awesome at it, but also they have a fresh perspective of your company. So having them film, you often get things that you might not, or things that you didn't think about filming that's been interesting. Abby Cheesman: This is how you put it together. It's like a cake. Layer one is the interview. Layer two is the music. Layer three is the B-roll. So I just took a screenshot of what it looks like in iMovie. So you can see the green thing at the bottom. That's my music track. There are lots of libraries. You have to be careful when you're adding a music track that you own license. So if it's creative commons, that's something that can be shared anywhere as long as you credit that person. There are other libraries where you can purchase a song. Don't use a song off the radio or off of a pop singer. Don't use a recognizable track, because that will quickly get flagged on social media. And you don't have permission to use it, unless you pay us thousands of dollars to whoever made it. Abby Cheesman: So find a royalty free or creative commons music track. And then this middle piece is my main content. So this would be my interview. And then the little piece on top is B-roll. So you can add clips at different moments in your interview to depict what the person is saying. Abby Cheesman: So once you've edited, how do you use this? One very easy place is on the job posting itself. So on our job post, we have a video about what it's like to be an editor at Skill Scout. And then we ask them what stands out in the video. So not only do we know that they've watched the video, but they can talk about things that are the same or different from their other work experience. And we get really rich data about the candidates in that question. On the job post is a really great way to use it. Chris Russell: That should be the top of the job post too, right? Abby Cheesman: It should be at the very top. Yeah. Or depending on how your micro site is laid out, if you have a specific page for a job, it could be one of a couple of pieces of content. But yes, prominently featured. So if they're going to watch one thing, it's that. Chris Russell: Right. Abby Cheesman: Employee referrals. This is way better than sending out an email saying, "Hey, we're hiring." Giving people a piece of content that they can send to their friends to get a much richer information about the job. That's a great way to use video. You saw this with SAC Wireless, putting it on Facebook. Abby Cheesman: We see a lot of companies using video to onboard people into their hiring process. So as you can imagine, getting hired as a flight attendant, it's a process. So we just did a series with American Airlines giving people an idea of what this process looks like. And it gives candidates more human centered experience as they're going through what can be a difficult to understand and kind of long process. So using videos at different moments in your hiring process to be more human, to connect with them on a more human level. We see a lot of companies doing this. Abby Cheesman: In your recruiting outreach. So maybe somebody's applied, and you want to send them a little video with a little bit more information. Or you want to send them a video of the person that's going to be interviewing them to prepare them for the interview. There are lots of ways that you can use video in your email communications. Abby Cheesman: One tool that I find super helpful is called Loom. Use loom.com. And it basically allows you to film, you have to use a Chrome browser. But it allows you to film and then embed that video into an email. And the video comes across as a gif. So as somebody opens the email, this picture starts moving and they can see immediately that it's a video. They click on it, and they can watch it right in the email. It doesn't pop them out to another site. It just is right inside the email. And that's a free tool that's super helpful. Chris Russell: It's free? Abby Cheesman: It's free. There might be a cap on how many you can send. But I send a whole lot of them and I haven't paid for yet. Don't tell them. They might start charging me now. It's called useloom.com. L-O-O-M. Chris Russell: Throw it in the chat there. Thanks Abby. Abby Cheesman: Yeah, thanks. A word about audio. Silent is the new black. Data coming back day to day. It's getting more and more dire that people are not listening to the videos. 70% of mobile traffic is video, and 85% of that is viewed with no sound. I am guilty, right? We watch video in places that we're on the train. We're commuting, we're at home, we're cooking dinner. And we don't necessarily want to listen to it, but we do want to watch. Abby Cheesman: So how can we design around a good user experience? The easiest way is captions. Captions aren't just great because it makes it better for the person watching, but also it generates text-based information about that video that's used in SEO. So if you have a caption file in with your video, that content will help you appear higher in the algorithm. So captions are great. You can auto-generate them in YouTube to mixed success. I've also used this service that I absolutely love called Rev. Rev is a paid service that you can share video, either upload or through YouTube or Vimeo. And it will generate captions. It's a real person typing it. So it's way more accurate than the YouTube captions. Abby Cheesman: You can also translate. So we do this with a lot of our clients that have international offices. Where we might film in English, but it's helpful to be able to share it in Chinese or in Spanish, or another language. Rev has translations available, which has been really helpful. Chris Russell: I have an app Abby called, it's called Clipomatic. You do your video, it records the audio, it transcribes the audio within the app. And then you can go back and you actually, it'll show you the transcript of it. You can go back, correct certain words that didn't quite pick up on. You can publish it as a single file out there with the subtitles. Abby Cheesman: That's awesome. And subtitles are not just important for posting on video sites, but also social media. So being able to generate that SRT. I have a whole blog post about much to do about captions, because it's gotten complicated. And it's much better from a user standpoint, but the infrastructure of how do you that has gotten a little bit trickier. But that's awesome. I'm going to have to check that out. Abby Cheesman: Texts call outs. I'm sure you guys have seen these videos before. Recipes where they label each piece. I actually didn't know until I started doing research that there was sound to these videos. There's actually a dude talking as this is going on. But you don't need it because they've labeled with text. This can be done in iMovie. It can be done in other editing programs that you just put labels on things. I could see you doing this with uniforms where there's pieces of a uniform for the flight attendants if they're getting new uniforms or something's happening with uniform, that's important to communicate. You can use a call out of just somebody standing there in uniform and talk about PPE, protective clothing, steel toe boots, different parts of the uniform that are important. Call outs are cool. We're going to see more of them. Abby Cheesman: And lastly, text narration. This is a beautiful video put out by the National Park Service. It's simple B-roll of a national park, and then they share messages just through text. And you can see a little green bar at the bottom of the screen. It also tells you how long the video is, which I thought was just a beautiful user experience. I'm super impatient, so knowing that I only have a little bit of that bar left, I watched the whole thing. So text on top of B-roll. That's a really easy thing to do in iMovie or other simple editing programs. And the footage that you have to capture for it is just B-roll. There's no audio, there's no people talking on camera. It's just footage of your workplace. All right, that wraps this up to final questions. Chris Russell: Yeah, we do have one more [inaudible 00:47:00] to get chance before. But Jasmine's asking, "How often should we update videos for the same position?" Abby Cheesman: That's a great question. So we see our companies updating them about every year, depending on the position. So it's going to be really dependent on how evergreen the tasks of the role are. So for example, nursing. That job is going to be relatively the same across a two to three years span. So that's a little bit more evergreen. Tech positions, their shelf life is just shorter if you go into the details of the actual tech stack that people are working with and that kind of thing. So if you want a video like that to last longer, talk a little bit less about the technology of today's moment. And talk a little bit more about the greater context of that job. Abby Cheesman: But I would say we encourage companies to put as much video out as possible. Even if that means Instagram stories, stuff that goes away really quickly. Just getting in the habit of sharing on video will make each video faster and easier to produce. So if your first video you keep for a year and then you update it and you get more and more comfortable with the filming process, we have some companies that weekly are putting out videos. Not all job videos, but certainly content that engages their job seeker audience. Abby Cheesman: And then of course if you're going through any kind of change in that role, video is a great opportunity to communicate that internally and externally. So we have a company that's going through a massive uniform change, and it impacts their employees. So they're making video pieces about the change, why the change is coming. Some of those are internal facing, and some of those are external facing. Chris Russell: You have a super fan in the chat there. Mary says after listening to your presentation at our HR meetings in Iowa, we bought the equipment and use it all the time. Appreciate the- Abby Cheesman: Yay. I remember you. That's awesome. That makes my day. Video does not have to be expensive. It does not have to be out of reach. I actually taught my college roommate how to make a video. She and her sister own a daycare, and I taught her how to film, how to do interviews, and she produced her own video too. So I think small and midsize businesses, this is perfect to get started. And as you grow and see more opportunity, you see a lot of companies getting the bug for video and then start to do onboarding, or training, or other ways to communicate through video. Yay Mary, good job. Chris Russell: Awesome. Well Abby, thank you very much for this very informative, and a lot of good stuff in this video. I'll have to go watch it again. Abby Cheesman: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Chris Russell: Tell them where to connect with you and then Skill Scout. Abby Cheesman: Yeah. So as a participant in this webinar, I nerd out on this stuff. I'd be happy to do a free 20 minute video story boarding session. If you have any kind of questions about how video could work for you, I'm happy to chat with you. My email is abby@skillscout.me. You can get me on Twitter. I'm pretty easy to find. So get in contact. I love doing brainstorming sessions because there's probably not a challenge that we have not seen with one of our clients. So happy to chat through any questions you have. Speaker 2: Another episode of RecTech is in the books. Follow Chris on twitter @ChrisRussell, or visit rectechmedia.com. Where you can find the audio and links for this show on our blog. RecTech media helps keep employers and recruiters up to date through our podcasts, webinars, and articles. So be sure to check out our other sites, Recruiting Headlines and HR Podcasters to stay on top of recruiting industry trends. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon on the next episode of RecTech, the recruiting technology podcast.

Red Gerard - Episode 126 Red Gerard leapt onto the world stage - by winning the Slopestyle Gold Medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. After he became a sensation in the media, quickly becoming known for his easy going attitude on shows like Jimmy Kimmel. But there is life after gold for the nineteen year old professional snowboarder. He has gone on to film the shred flick Joy with fellow Olympian Ben Fergusson and Olympic Gold Medalist Sage Kotsenberg - discovering the backcountry and sledding, as well as the resolve to be safe when accessing the avalanche prone conditions out of ski area boundaries.  We also go deep on his family - and the support they provide him in achieving his dreams.    It is fairly safe to say, this is Red's most in depth interview to date. Enjoy.    Shout out to the sponsors of this episode Cardiff Snowcraft and Yes Snowboards. We ask that you support the brands that support disruptive snowboard media. Find out more about these guys at their websites.   http://cardiffsnow.com   http://yesnowboard.com   Please consider supporting us at http://www.patreon.com/thesnowboardproject   You can follow us on Instagram @thesnowboardproject   THE SNOWBOARD PROJECT Red Gerard Episode 126 Hosted by Mark Sullivan Produced by Mark Sullivan Associate producer Dustin James Art by Aaron Draplin and Sarat   Interview Transcription: [00:00:00] Man like Mark Sullivan, the warrior. So stay tuned for the cheating episode.   [00:00:04] Well, quite a lot of uncooperative.   [00:00:17] Just flip this off. You to get lost. Mind your own business. So dangerous.   [00:00:21] Most of them have no brakes on them when you get skiers and snowboarders together on a rainy day looking for trouble. We just like to say that we don't want them at all.   [00:00:32] This is The Snowboard Project season to the story. I'm Stowe Stowe. So.   [00:00:46] Today's episode is brought to you by Cardiff Snowcraft. So today I want to tell you a little bit about one board in particular, because while it's caught my eye. So, you know, all the Cardiff boards are beautiful. But in particular, I want to tell you about the goat. It's like the freeriding board.   [00:01:03] It's available in sizes from 150 to 166 to different builds in the Enduro build or the pro Carbin build and solid and split board models. But really, the board that I personally want to ride is the 162 solid Enduro Cardiff goat. It looks like it's a beautiful board. First of all, that's the first thing that I noticed. But then I started talking to Bjorn Linus. He's like, Man, the goat is the best board that I have ever ridden.   [00:01:31] That's right. The Cardiff go and I'm psyched. Why? Why is this board so good? Well, here's why. So this board went through 10 different iterations, 10 different prototypes over a five year period. This thing has been tested in every different kind of condition. And no wonder it has the reputation of being one of the best boards on the mountain. So go to Cardiff snow dot com. Check out the goat. It's an amazing looking board, but really what will amaze you is the way it rides.   [00:02:02] So go to Cardiff snow dot com to learn more.   [00:02:08] Welcome back to the Snowboard Project. I'm Mark Sullivan. And so we're going to start out the show today a little bit. Definitely going to start out with a moment of silence for Jake Burton Carpenter. And I know that well, anyone is listening to this is probably a snowboarder. And so they have been affected directly by Jake Burton Carpenter's influence in the sport.   Mark Sullivan: [00:02:42] Ok, so on today's show, we have an Olympic gold medalist, a guy who is still a teenager, getting into the back country making snowboarding movies. You know, the world is his oyster as far as snowboarding is concerned. I'm talking about Red Jerod and Red Jerod. We get pretty deep in this interview. We talk about making joy. We talk about kind of the the interview crush post-Olympics. We talk about his family and about riding and about all sorts of things. So this is a pretty in-depth interview with Fred Gerada. Hope you guys enjoy it. Thank you.   [00:03:41] Today's episode is brought to you by. Yes, Snowboards.   [00:03:47] Introducing the all new 20-20. Truth be told, we've been itching to redesign the 2020. Soon after the dust settled from its release three years ago and this newest generation checks off an impressive list of high performance boxes, updates to the bottom contours that maintain the magical float that set this board apart from everything else in the snow while improving the pop and landings of natural and man made features. The eye catching Corless tech has made these more complex shapes possible by removing critical swing weight from the board. And finally, MIT has found its most effective home on twins. So applying an aggressive version of this has brought out the kind of park and resort performance we always knew the 20/20 was capable of.   [00:04:27] So go to yes now boarding dot com to find the perfect yes snowboard for you.   Mark Sullivan: [00:04:36] Ok. So you just had your your movie premiere, Red. Joy, tell me a little bit about the premiere. How did you decide on Hollywood versus like doing it in Tahoe or Salt Lake or in a ski town, let's say? Yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:04:50] I don't really know. I think so.   Red Gerard: [00:04:53] Aaron Black and Ryan Honkey are the producers of Joy. And I think we we just kind of left it up to them and they wanted to do it in like a pretty main city.   Red Gerard: [00:05:02] Yeah. For like the first one. But on November 2nd, it's going to be in Salt Lake. And actually I think I'd like the thirty first of this month. It's in Bend, Oregon. And then I'm going to do one in Cleveland, Ohio on November 16th or the 18th or something. Right. So our idea was just to do the opening one in in a bigger city.   Mark Sullivan: [00:05:28] Were there like a lot of snowboarders who showed up, who flew in for it or traveled specifically to Hollywood for the premiere?   Red Gerard: [00:05:35] I don't know. I didn't. I mean, there's definitely some people there. Apparently, they sold out on tickets. I've heard it. But a. I think a lot of it was just people that lived in L.A. like Ex-wrestler Zion, Ray and Alex Smith.   Red Gerard: [00:05:47] They're like pro skaters. That area, which we're pretty is pretty sick to see us.   Mark Sullivan: [00:05:52] Yeah. Now, this is like your your first movie that you were like more involved than just like being an athlete filming in the movie. re-look more involved with that. Were you pretty much still a guy who was just going out and filming to try to get a good part?   Red Gerard: [00:06:07] Not I think I definitely, like all three of us, felt pretty way more involved, you know, I did the two transferal movies, but that had like eight to 10 writers and actors or something. Yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:06:20] But yeah, no, I think we I was is pretty cool because I was filming with my brother like all season, which was really nice. So I got to see little leaks of the movie and all that where it was a trans world. And with trans well, you know, I just saw my part and then saw the movie when it premiered.   Mark Sullivan: [00:06:39] Yeah. So what was like the concept behind Joy? Like what was like the idea that you guys kind of sat down and put together that would make this different than just like a trick part movie?   Red Gerard: [00:06:51] I know I would say, oh, like when we originally sat down, we our idea was to not just like look at just storms and where where all the storms are heading, but let's spend, you know, a month at a time in one location, like when we go to Jackson Hole and say, just go in there for a week. Let's go through let's go there for a month and sit out through the bad weather days.   Red Gerard: [00:07:15] And, you know, when it heats up, because eventually I feel like every location at times can get good and sucks. When you go to go somewhere, you're like, oh, man, shitty. He's like, let's go somewhere else. Then you go somewhere else. And all the sudden Jackson Hole is firing again.   Red Gerard: [00:07:31] You missed out on that. So I think that was our original idea. And other than that, I mean, just having it based on like the main three like me, Ben and Sage, and then having some other people come along and bring in different people on each trip was kind of our idea.   Mark Sullivan: [00:07:50] Would you and Sage wear your gold medals everywhere you went with Ben just to kind of rub salt in the wound?   Red Gerard: [00:07:56] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that was that was definitely a nice piece of jewelry. Yeah. That's the only accessory that he couldn't get. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No but he he had the Olympic ring too.   Red Gerard: [00:08:09] So we were just throwing around a little picked out.   Mark Sullivan: [00:08:19] It seems like a pretty cool crew and you guys are like known for competition, right, for a stage and you both at the Olympics were Ben the Olympics and other events.   Mark Sullivan: [00:08:28] But they're really from my understanding, anyway, I haven't seen the movie yet, but there isn't really a focus on competition in there. In fact, it's mostly powder.   Red Gerard: [00:08:37] Yeah, definitely. That was the main focus for they would definitely go.   Mark Sullivan: [00:08:41] Is that related to the named Joy? Like you find Joy outside a competition?   Red Gerard: [00:08:46] I don't know. I don't even know. I think Ben's age came up with the name Tyler Orton and there in summer movie. I don't know where they came up with joy, but I was in for it.   Mark Sullivan: [00:08:58] And where did you guys film like it was? Where were the trips that you guys went on together?   Red Gerard: [00:09:04] Yeah. So we start off the year in Jackson Hole and that was me then, Sage.   Red Gerard: [00:09:13] Nick Payton was there for a little bit. And then Brock Crouch as well. Mm hmm. And we were there for a while. And then from there we went to X Games and we did a little piece on that.   Red Gerard: [00:09:25] But then from there, me and Brock went to Japan and then we went back to the U.S. Open and then to Tahoe for a while and to Canada to hand it off.   Red Gerard: [00:09:40] But Ben and Sage kind of we we split up after X Games and Ben and Sage went back to Jackson Hole for a sec.   Red Gerard: [00:09:47] And then I think they went on up into Canada and then to Montana for a sec and then Madison Tallyho. And then they went back to Canada with us.   Mark Sullivan: [00:09:58] Ok. It sounds like you did a variety of different trips, went to a variety of different locations. What was your favorite trip?   Red Gerard: [00:10:06] My favorite trip was going to. I never I mean, I've always I kind of grew up there a tiny bit just because my brother Brendan always lived there and I always went out there, visit him, but go on there to film.   Red Gerard: [00:10:19] I never knew, like, how much a place actually had to offer when it came to backcountry snowboarding. It was just like pretty eye-opening to me, amany like how many good days we had there and the different varieties snowboarding. You know, you could read lines or you could build a jump or, you know, there's just some good like actually some little pillow lines and stuff. And I never thought Tato would have that.   Red Gerard: [00:10:43] And me and Brock almost spent like a month there, just really pretty hyped on the whole situation.   Red Gerard: [00:10:49] Yeah, that was a pretty crazy season as far as snowfall went last year. And Tom. Yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:10:54] Yeah, it was nuts. And you know, you always hear people saying about how they get that cycle where it's like snows for four days, they get sunny for three days and snows birds for days. And like I never knew that was actually a real thing in this year that it definitely and we definitely get to experience it.   Mark Sullivan: [00:11:12] Right.   Mark Sullivan: [00:11:13] Right. So was there like like one shot in particular, one jump that you built or one line that you did something they like sticks out the that made it into the movie that people can like look at and be like that was the the most fun thing that you did last year.   Mark Sullivan: [00:11:28] The the thing that you really kind of hang your hat on as far as like that was like my best run or trick or whatever of the season.   Red Gerard: [00:11:36] Yeah. Hundred percent the one this one jump that we hit in tow. Here's me and Brock and we both like it was like kind of like our first show that we built without Ben's age there. And it was me, Brad Crouch, my brother Malachi, that built it, just us three. And I don't know, I I've always had a hard time building, just like seeing the exact picture of how I wanted to turn out. And I always end up building them just with a ton of lip by that. But we built this shop and we kind of did build it with a ton of live, but ended up working out really good. And both me and Brock like landed. I think I had three tricks on it in the movie and Brock, too, in the movie. In that jump, really, it's like the best day of our year. I think it was just such a fun session and it was Amy 'tween that cycle where it snowed for days and it was like sunny for three. So it was like third day. I was actually really warm outdoors, like snow is heating up, but it was really, really sick. It was like fun. There's a lot of people there like watching the session and says is kind of cool. Right on, right on.   Mark Sullivan: [00:12:45] So when do you go out and you break off from Sage and Ben? Guys, we're a little bit older than you, maybe a little bit more experienced in the back country. Who's like the stand and trail boss, the guy who's like kind of leading the charge and like deciding like this is the jump spot.   Mark Sullivan: [00:12:59] This is where we're going to stop and we're going to start yelling, who does?   Red Gerard: [00:13:03] Yeah, I don't know. So is it between me and Brock for Sheriff Brooks sometimes as a little bit a different idea than I have? Ηe likes you tend to like the lines, I think. I think he's like a he's an AK guy.   Red Gerard: [00:13:17] I actually closet AK a guy. A closet. A exactly closet. AK guy.   Red Gerard: [00:13:22] But I don't know. I think we try to come together as both, but we also had some other people looking over us. Aaron Black, which has done a lot of all that, definitely helped us out a little bit there. And he was with us every day, so. Yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:13:39] Ok. Now, do you already have like. You obviously have a schedule for a tour to do all these premieres around the country, including back in Ohio. Do you have you already made plans for this season or are you going to film this season? Like, do you have a project already lined out?   Red Gerard: [00:13:54] Yeah, actually, I do. I don't really. I actually don't really know if I can totally say yet. But yeah, I do.   Mark Sullivan: [00:14:02] Martin OK. So I wish I knew more.   Red Gerard: [00:14:04] I wish I knew because I think I can, but not where are you going to be working with, like a similar crew of writers or a different a new crew of writers? I mean, can we can we dig a little bit here?   Red Gerard: [00:14:14] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Kind of similar crew a definitely a few more. I think this movie will have more of like the movie base where all these section writers and not so much more like Joy was location based.   Red Gerard: [00:14:29] Like it started off the movie and Jackson then moved on to Todd and all that. Right. So that's how Joy was. I think this one will be more rider influence just part by far. By far. Okay. And they'll have some pretty heavy hitter writers.   Red Gerard: [00:14:45] So there are. Are there any goals that you have as far as like filming for this new upcoming project that that like things that you kind of had on your list to accomplish for last season? And now you're like, OK, I didn't get that done last year. I need to do it this year.   Red Gerard: [00:14:59] Yeah, I mean, I think so. I think maybe just trying to spend some more time on the snowboard.   Red Gerard: [00:15:06] I get so distracted with all the toys in the back country like snowmobiling and all that, that I'll get all this me and I really want to fill that job for you. A sled around. So I think my my goal for next year with all of that is to make sure to snowboard as much as I can.   Mark Sullivan: [00:15:23] Yeah. Because you end up just riding powder on the sled.   Red Gerard: [00:15:27] Yeah, exactly. It's like so easy to look at as Bob and be like occupy you like find one thing wrong with your head and just like sticks in your head. So yeah, it's easy to get distracted and just keep snowmobiling around looking for spots all the time.   Mark Sullivan: [00:15:44] Right. So are you becoming like a sled neck?   Red Gerard: [00:15:48] I don't know. That's that's maybe more of a question for Sage. And then they can they can decide you better coming on. Yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:15:56] Yeah, OK. Whereas sitting learned like, how competent are you? Are you on a sled? Like, could you do like one of these like downhill to uphill turns where you're headed downhill and then you drop a foot to a foot plant and come back around and go back uphill?   Red Gerard: [00:16:10] I don't know. That's. I'd love to try, but I feel pretty confident on one for sure. I kind of grew up back in Ohio, not really riding dirt bikes, but always around motorbikes and like knowing how to work a machine like that wasn't too hard for me to learn.   Red Gerard: [00:16:31] And once I figured out the counter steering, I was like, kind of in love with it just felt really sick to do it turns and stuff and lakebeds.   Red Gerard: [00:16:39] And I mean, obviously the worst parts get stuck. But yeah, I'm an expert at that. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the that's the easy part.   Mark Sullivan: [00:16:51] Yeah I know. Right. It's crazy because it's like it's serious. You really get the hang of riding a sled. It's like you're riding powder now downhill and uphill.   Red Gerard: [00:17:00] Yeah, exactly. It's like you almost get the same feeling on your snowmobile as you can snowboard at times. It's deep enough and whatnot. Yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:17:09] Yeah, totally. Okay. So are you gonna be doing a lot more sled missions this year? Zach, kind of like you're focused like going to contests and then sledding in the back country. You kind of mix it up among everything or. Or like, what's your focus for the season?   Red Gerard: [00:17:23] Like when you say sledding, do you mean like snowboarding with it? Obviously do.   Mark Sullivan: [00:17:27] Well, at least having the snowboard with you. I mean, some of us have harder times and other people like stopping and holding jumps and actually us snowboarding off the sled. But. Yeah, yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:17:37] No, definitely. So yeah, my goal is definitely to snowboard a lot more with that. But I'd say I'm definitely doing a few contests this year. I I actually really enjoy doing the contests. I I don't mind them at all. So I don't want to lose sight of those. But I'm doing a lot more a lot more film chips that are a lot more filming, I would say. And yeah, hopefully build and build some more jumps and stuff. A lot more. Right on.   Mark Sullivan: [00:18:06] Have you ever done like a film shoot, like a straight street, like gone to Quebec and like filmed in the streets of Montreal or Quebec City?   Red Gerard: [00:18:15] That's actually yeah. It's pretty funny. I have. We were watching Jordan Smalls part yesterday that just came out and I was telling my friends as I went on a street trip with that guy, actually. But I only when I say Chip, but Jordan Smalls, Theodore muz and Jesse Paul and I went like one day and I kind of hit my head like midway through. And I was like, all right, I'm actually Blackhomb is like right before the U.S. Open. So I shan't heal up and make sure as I'll get there. So I went on a small one. I haven't done too many. No.   Mark Sullivan: [00:18:49] Is that something that you want to do more of in the future, or is it something where you're like, man, I can't afford to hit my head and get taken out for the X Games? No, for sure.   Red Gerard: [00:18:59] I think so. Like, I don't I enjoy hitting the rails and stuff, too. And I think next year, that's also some dimension. I think I might try to do like one or two street trips because I do enjoy that. And I think there's like they know unless you guys have a lot of creativity that I think is really cool. So totally at least try to do one ship and see, you know, if I can come up with something cool or if it's something I like. Yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:19:25] And try to do one right on it. So how do you like Sage? Like I mean you you're obviously exposed to every aspect of snowboarding.   Mark Sullivan: [00:19:35] Like how do you like kind of rank in terms of how gnarly it is like or like how sick or whatever, how how bad acid is like the the street versus the the backcountry all riding versus the line type riding like the AK right versus like the park riding and resort riding.   Red Gerard: [00:19:54] Yeah. I don't know. It is hard because if each one has its own you know, its own like scary parts did not like street guys slam you know like all the time that they have that the risk of getting hurt. I feel like a lot you know, each railhead is like I feel like they can get hurt pretty easily, which is crazy. But then that country writing like maybe I mean, you stole the chance to get hurt, obviously. But the good news, you if like fluffy snow below you. But then, yeah, I deal with the chance of like being in an avalanche and all that, which is life or death. Yeah. So that can get really scary and then park riding. The good news is, I mean I don't know Cartright. I mean you can get smoked doing but I say don't know where I am, where my stand is there with like all three.   Red Gerard: [00:20:45] Which ones natoli. As I said, they're both pretty pretty gnarly and kind of scary to do. But I don't know.   Mark Sullivan: [00:20:52] Have you ever caught like a serious injury, like one that took you out for like off or more?   Red Gerard: [00:20:58] I've been really lucky. Actually, I have. I've never broken a bone, which is so awesome. Knock on wood you have, right?   Red Gerard: [00:21:05] Yeah. No, I had asthma. I'm pretty psyched on that.   Mark Sullivan: [00:21:08] Do you think that's like part of your success is like the fact that you have.   Red Gerard: [00:21:12] Been like kind of laid up on a couch for a month every season up to this point in your career. You know, because I think a lot of people like it. Like small injuries or medium sized injuries, and they kind of lose part of their season. Right. And if you haven't had any serious injuries, it seems like you've probably been able to ride almost year round now for a while.   Red Gerard: [00:21:33] Yeah, for sure. I've been so lucky with all that.   Red Gerard: [00:21:35] Now I think back. I think it's awesome. But maybe a little bit. Yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:21:41] I don't know how. I mean, definitely I'm almost nowhere near, you know, counting injuries during the season. I've been lucky enough where I haven't had many. So I mean, maybe that's part of my leg. Minor success.   Mark Sullivan: [00:21:54] Okay. So like, how do you like prevent yourself from getting injuries? Are you doing stretching? Do you have like a strict diet? Do you, you know, surf every day in the summertime to be in good shape?   Mark Sullivan: [00:22:05] I mean, what are you doing to like prevent injury, like ahead of time?   Red Gerard: [00:22:09] I mean, to be honest, I really don't do much. I've been shine in the last two years. I've been definitely trying to work out quite a bit during the summer and just stay really active is my thing. And not like sitting around all day like I when I'm here in So Cal right now, like the days this I like I actually like it Donner so much. You never find yourself or like, you know, I was on a really cool program this summer especially I wake up in the morning to workout with Chaske all the bond at like 6:30 in the morning and after the agard shaped like a surf sesh and then go skate for a little and then end it at nighttime with like a succession too. And I think it's really cool here, like how active you can be.   Red Gerard: [00:22:53] So I don't know if that plays into it all, but I just try to stay super active. Sure.   Mark Sullivan: [00:22:58] Right. Is it enough just to skate and surf or do you also have to do I mean, I see all these clips like Scotty James doing all these crazy like, you know, like the rope on the ground and jumping through all the steps of it and then, you know, jumping over things and balance exercise and stuff like, yeah, that stuff, too. Or you pretty much just like skating, surfing, what whatever. Fun things that'll keep you busy.   Red Gerard: [00:23:22] Yeah. I feel like I mean, I don't know how much Scotty. I know he serves actually. I think he's pretty good surfing. I don't know how much he does it, though, but I feel like, you know, Scotty does all those like workouts where the crazy balance ones know where like if you just skateboard and surf, maybe you don't have to do those crazy exercises. At least that's that's what what's going on in my head. I'm like, maybe I don't have to do all that. I can just go skate, surf and have fun. But I definitely I try to do a lot of like when I go to the gym, just a lot of, you know, body weight stuff and try to do some stretching and just shut it like namely tight like it the surround the muscles around your joints and all that and get a nice and, you know, ready for the season. Right.   Mark Sullivan: [00:24:11] Right. Now, how long have you been surfing? Because I know you're living pretty close to the beach right now, but I know you're not from the beach.   Mark Sullivan: [00:24:18] You're from Ohio via call California via Colorado. But like, how long have you been surfing?   Red Gerard: [00:24:24] I've been surfing place. That is like. I don't know. I mean, I definitely just started doing it in the last two or three years. Like every day. When I have off time. But I mean, I started like first time I went maybe five years or something. And I am still so shitty on this airport. Like even like yesterday when I was paddling out, you look around, there's like people ripping all around here, like, how do I even get to that level? I don't know how to do it.   Red Gerard: [00:24:50] So are you longboarding or short boarding?   Red Gerard: [00:24:54] I like the shortboard for sure. Have you ever been barreled? No, not really. Actually, once. I will say on a wave store one time I like I felt foam go over my heads. I'm counting out. Yeah, that's me. That's my Batchelor at their peak.   Mark Sullivan: [00:25:10] Ok. OK. So. So have you ever been on like a surf trip, like out to the mental wise or to Indonesia or someplace like that? Have you ever done those trips?   Red Gerard: [00:25:20] I want to do one really bad. I when I was younger, when I wasn't really surfing, I went on to surf trip for more, just like a vacation with Brock Crouch to Nicaragua. OK. And that was fun. It was like a couple of our friends. And then me and Gabe Ferguson were on it, too. And we really surf.   Red Gerard: [00:25:38] So we just like rented these dirt bikes and rode around the whole time while those guys were like literally getting their old and stuff.   Red Gerard: [00:25:44] Really? But then, yeah, last summer this summer, my family did a family vacation in Costa Rica. And like me, my brother brought our surfboards and definitely surf quite a bit. So that was pretty fun, but not like a Stowe.   Mark Sullivan: [00:25:57] Where would you go? Like, what's your dream destination for surfing? Is it like Mexico? Is it like Southeast Asia? Where would you go?   Red Gerard: [00:26:05] I don't know. Somewhere where I don't know enough about it.   Red Gerard: [00:26:08] I'd have to ask Brock or someone, somewhere where it is like three to like five feet or something, which is like a mellow wave recognition, sir.   Mark Sullivan: [00:26:18] Right. It's more about actually catching the waves than like just getting shanked or something.   Red Gerard: [00:26:24] It's totally about like how long my ride can be, not just like if I can get there or they're not. I just want to, like, ride the wave, I guess, you know, until the end and show you some cool cars or something.   Mark Sullivan: [00:26:36] Ok. So how do you compare like, you know, like the difficulty of surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding? Because obviously you've won a gold medal in snowboarding. So maybe that's easier to you just based on your experience. But how do you compare all three of those?   Red Gerard: [00:26:52] I don't know. I mean, I think each. Like I look at what scape are doing now and like it's like saying like, I can never pinch myself to the stuff that they're doing. And I look at that was surfing, too, like I compare. I looked at we went some big wave surfing videos the other day and the like. I compare the big wave surfing to like snowboarding AK like, you know, if there was going to be a comparison, I think that that would be nice.   Red Gerard: [00:27:18] But I don't know.   Red Gerard: [00:27:19] I have no clue like necessarily why. I guess I've just been snowboarding for so long and that's been the one that I've been doing for ages. And since I was young, I would say.   Red Gerard: [00:27:32] That that's the easiest, I guess.   Mark Sullivan: [00:27:35] Right. So do you have ambition to become a big wave surfer or an AK snowboarder?   Red Gerard: [00:27:41] Probably more of a case snowboarder because I just can't see myself on a big wave surfing, honestly. Yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:27:51] So when do you think that you would be ready for that, do you think you need a few more years of doing backcountry boosters? You think you're ready right now? I mean, you've probably written a ton of power ready for sure.   Red Gerard: [00:28:02] Like last year, we we did had one day in Canada, which was a pretty good little warm up. Not as big as Alaska and all that. But I don't know if I'm necessarily completely ready for that.   Red Gerard: [00:28:16] I had a lot of fun stuff that in Canada, but I honestly I really like to go out and build jumps in, like look for little poppers and pillows and stuff. That's like I feel like it's my type of snowboarding a lot. Yeah, I really like to like I mean it was really fun doing all the healthy stuff and is cool being in a healthy.   Mark Sullivan: [00:28:37] Was that your first time in a heli?   Red Gerard: [00:28:39] It was my second time. I did like one just free lap heli haliday in New Zealand. It's really sick.   Mark Sullivan: [00:28:46] Ok, so how would you describe like heli boarding to people who have never done it before?   Red Gerard: [00:28:51] It's I mean, it's pretty sexy, just like you're in a helicopter, which is insane. I like love that.   Red Gerard: [00:28:57] But basically they just like for us, we were hellion around in our L.A. pilot had like a couple ideas of where we wanted to go. So he would take us to that range and we'd just like a couple spots.   Red Gerard: [00:29:10] We landed at the bottom, looked around. Everyone pointed out their lines. And then we would take the heli up and go over the lines, which is really cool. You get to see it like almost like in a riding perspective in the helicopter when they go over it, because that's like something crazy.   Red Gerard: [00:29:24] And back in chains, like everything's so different when you're actually riding it.   Mark Sullivan: [00:29:28] Right. You can look up at it and it's like it looks one way looking up at it and it looks nothing like it. Looking down from the top.   Red Gerard: [00:29:35] Yeah. One hundred percent. Exactly. So you kind of got that was like a big plus. You got to like look at it as you like if you were writing, you know.   Red Gerard: [00:29:45] By.   Red Gerard: [00:29:48] I mean, that's kind of it. You just like buzz around an AK or whatever looks fun you whenever you think it shoots edge. That's what you're you're right.   Red Gerard: [00:29:57] You know, like, I guess I like to plan out some escape crowds. If an avalanche were to happen, which is really scary to think about.   Red Gerard: [00:30:05] I'm terrified of avalanches, but the right car with the right ways to go about it. I think they be safe.   Mark Sullivan: [00:30:13] So are you looking forward to doing more heliing this season? Are you? Is that something that you're like, OK? I want to keep doing this and learn more about this side? Or you kind of like that comes my way. I'll do it. Or is it something we're like my thing. I want to get healthy again.   Red Gerard: [00:30:27] I think I'm right in between there because I'm like, I'm down to go do it again. But it's not one of my priorities. OK.   Mark Sullivan: [00:30:34] What are your priorities in snowboarding? Are you more interested in, like filming, like just the sickest video part or like winning another X Games medal or like going to the next Olympics and defending your Gold Medal? Like what? What do you like seeing as like your goals inside of the sport?   Red Gerard: [00:30:50] Right now, I would say kind of both of them, honestly. I'm going to try to split my time pretty evenly and hopefully I can do it, manage it pretty good now. But I'd say they're both pretty equal. I mean, I would love to win an X Games medal.   Red Gerard: [00:31:06] I haven't done that yet and I would honestly love to go to the next Olympics, too. That was a really cool experience. I'd love to do it again, but I definitely want to sell my shit too because I have a lot of fun doing that and I really like the idea of how you can make your party your own. A lot of times in contests that's like the bomber. You can't make your contest. You're on your own because you know, the the course only gives you so much. And with that country you have a whole whole mountain ranges of your own creativity to go to do and your how to meet how you want you look.   Mark Sullivan: [00:31:41] Right. So so where do you get like this creativity from? Like, what are you looking at to like? Are you watching skate videos and being ICOM? Maybe I can take a little piece of that trick or I mean, what were you kind of getting influence from? Because you're already at like this cutting edge of the sport where basically it's like there's no one who's already done the tricks in front of you. Now used to be five years ago, you could watch video and be like, I want to go learn that trick. And now you're like, you don't know all their tricks. And so now you have to create new ones. So where do you get that inspiration from to create new tricks?   Red Gerard: [00:32:13] I mean, let's see for a contest run. My idea is just it's like it's a hit, such a high peak. I'm not really at the point where, like, I don't really want to, like, invent new tricks or anything. Like, I don't really want to do that. I'm more to the point where, like, I want to start having the part features built differently and get the average three jumps out of the contest scene and just to try to take different lines throughout the course of it that way. But with. With that, can you found that I'm just kind certainly get into it. I don't really know. I'm just trying to fill a really good part. Owners then. I don't really know where my creativity is at there.   Mark Sullivan: [00:32:55] Ok. So like, let's say that you had your own contest and you could design your own slopestyle course. What would read Jarod's slopestyle course look like in comparison to like what you would see in current slopestyle courses?   Red Gerard: [00:33:13] I think my slips, of course, would be something that both typewriters and slopes our writers would write in, and it would kind of be what do Toure is doing right now, let them modify the super pipe. But I think maybe have it a little bit more slips out like, you know, in that way. But no, I think it would have a couple of half its and then a couple of slopestyle features and maybe it ended off with like one big quarter pipe or one big wall read.   Red Gerard: [00:33:42] I've written down like a few ideas more in depth of that. But I think you know, and the gist of it all, a contest where it hits Bode half-white and slopes down and rails as well.   Mark Sullivan: [00:33:54] Now with the rails, do you see the current rails as kind of like skate style rails or as wakeboard style rails like on the classics?   Red Gerard: [00:34:04] Yeah, I never really thought of as wakeboarding, said Stowe rescues like waypoints. It rails are massive, right. They're really kind of big. Yeah. In stuff, but I kind of signed on type of rails.   Mark Sullivan: [00:34:14] Right. It's like you're kind of dislike you. Yeah. Right on it. Right there isn't like a lot of. Yes. Is not to make it on.   Red Gerard: [00:34:20] Yeah. I kind of see it as that honestly. Like when you go to axioms and shit like those rails are massive, they're like huge and. Right. Definitely not. Escape was dile I would say. But like sometimes they can be created.   Mark Sullivan: [00:34:35] Would you change the real setups in these slopestyle courses to be more skate style than just like just these massive kind of spectacle style things that look good on TV?   Red Gerard: [00:34:45] Yeah, I think so.   Red Gerard: [00:34:45] I think I would include a lot more training with the rails, you know, maybe having one on like a half pipe wall or something like that. Not just yet. You know, the average down bar, I think would maybe be a thing or something.   Mark Sullivan: [00:35:01] So maybe a little more technical as far as like how you get on the rail and how you get off the rail.   Red Gerard: [00:35:06] Totally. Yeah. I don't think I'd be anything massive not wait for rail or anything. I think it would just be, you know, a more creative approach or something more creative. Wherever creativity and where the rail is placed. Right.   Mark Sullivan: [00:35:22] Ok, that makes sense. But I'm not sure.   Red Gerard: [00:35:24] I'm totally just free with that. No clue. These are only thoughts that I had.   Mark Sullivan: [00:35:29] Ok. I mean, to be cool, though, to see you like draw out your designs and like, really, like, have you know, your influence because obviously you're qualified. You've won the Olympics. So I think your opinion matters. And it would be cool, though, to see kind of your take on like what an ideal slopestyle would be and see like how these park builders would react to actually changing the terrain and making it like make the terrain progressed. Because I don't think we're going to go much further than like 16 backside, 16 triple by my.   Red Gerard: [00:36:01] You know, I mean.   Mark Sullivan: [00:36:03] What's your favorite trick to do? My 14s. Or is it honest that I love the backside 360.   Red Gerard: [00:36:12] I think it's a really fun check. But I actually think I think the park builders would love to do it. I mean, I have to imagine I've talked to a lot of them. I've talked to Chris. Chris Gunnerson and all that. But I think that they would actually love to do it.   Red Gerard: [00:36:29] It's your standards with F-5s and all that that you like to qualify for the Olympics. There's actually a appreciators a certain way that, of course, has to be right.   Red Gerard: [00:36:38] And that's why I like I love showing up to like to do tours and stuff when it's not Olympic year because they're always they're not under any qualifications, then it's just a building.   Mark Sullivan: [00:36:48] Right.   Red Gerard: [00:36:49] I mean, me as a park builder, I would think that I would want an open canvas just to go make some stuff.   Mark Sullivan: [00:36:55] Ok, so what's your favorite kind of event? You have these kind of standardized fice events where they have three real three jumps. You have like a X-Games where it's just these massive gym, massive features and like gym session style qualifiers, finals. And then you have like the Dew tour, which is kind of a hybrid, but with like really creativity in the courses, which is your favorite, what do you gravitate to?   Red Gerard: [00:37:20] My favorite, my two favorites are due taun U.S. Open.   Red Gerard: [00:37:23] I think do tours try some really cool creative stuff and it's pretty cool.   Red Gerard: [00:37:30] And then I think the U.S. Open like every year, they just they do more stuff that I think more contests look at and they start to try and do. And like I think even like this year will be a crazy year for I think there'll be some really new stuff. And I actually made a solid peach. But I think it'll be a really cool year for all that. And they're always at the front line for creativity courses and they they kill it.   Mark Sullivan: [00:38:03] Thanks for to noon to another episode of The Snowboard Project. I'd like to ask you guys to rate review and subscribe to the snowboard project. You know, all those reviews, all those ratings make a difference to people's ability to search and find our podcast just out of the blue. So we really do appreciate you guys taking the time to rate review, subscribe and tell your friends about The Snowboard Project. Thanks.   Mark Sullivan: [00:38:46] Ok. Well, I want to change subjects here. I have some questions, you know, about the Olympics, but actually not the same questions you've been asked before. Because I've seen air interviews of them. There were a lot of them. Right.   Mark Sullivan: [00:38:57] You did a lot of interviews and that's actually the same.   Red Gerard: [00:39:00] Yeah. Right. It's like, OK, you know, 18 of your family members were there. We knew you forgot your jacket. Right.   Red Gerard: [00:39:07] We have you know these things, right, Billy? Yeah. Yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:39:10] All these things are like the kind of common knowledge, but it's like, what was it like? Like after winning, like in all of this? And then what was like the interviewer tour like? I mean, you've probably never done anything like this. I've never seen anything like this. It is like 50 interviews in a week. Right. What was that like? How did that go down? Can you describe that? Like that scene with next week after winning gold was like.   Red Gerard: [00:39:35] Yeah, it was not. It was even like the next week. It was like the next 24 hours is crazy. So, yeah, I did that.   Red Gerard: [00:39:43] And then I light up until that moment after my run like I after I won. Like I still thought the Olympics was just like in X Games the whole course.   Mark Sullivan: [00:39:54] And I now I know like where the Olympics gets his big name because of how many. I think it's because of how many.   Red Gerard: [00:40:01] And like all these interviews and stuff and all the publicity around it makes it the Olympics, you know? Yeah, it's definitely not the cause or anything because I mean, that course was actually pretty cool, is definitely more creative. I thought I thought I was sick when I was pretty sick.   Red Gerard: [00:40:15] The real sections were pretty sick and there were definitely. Yeah. Interesting. Joe takes on the jumps, too, like you did that like over like from a transition over the rail at reentry in the rail section.   Red Gerard: [00:40:25] That was. Yeah. Yeah I know. That's exactly what I thought. Like I like out of all courses. There's definitely more plain ones that you know like that. Yeah. You know, top three most creative at bottom. So I. After that I went into like just so many interviews that day like twenty four hours of it almost just go and did some interviews at that mountain. And then did my drug testing all that.   Red Gerard: [00:40:53] And then I went like this in this car car ride down to the media center and I was there prior to like 12 or 1 a.m. I think just doing back-to-back interviews. And that's where you saw those 50 you know, the 50 interviews, the same exact questions. It was just like hopping from each station to each station, you know, is a massive it was like being in a Lowe's just full of interview, interview people, you know, like each race, like CBS or whatever had their station, ESPN had theirs. It was like being a different photo booth.   Mark Sullivan: [00:41:27] And then what? That next day actually is pretty chill. I like I listen until it's well, I got to go up and watch the women's slopestyle, which was really cool. And then right after that was done, I went back down to the coastal side of the Olympics, which was like a two hour drive.   Red Gerard: [00:41:45] And did went to their media center and did all theirs.   Mark Sullivan: [00:41:49] And by this time I was a chauffeur and like the handlers going everywhere with you in that kind of thing.   Red Gerard: [00:41:55] Yes, sort of. Sort of.   Red Gerard: [00:41:56] It was just mainly like my brother Malakai and my agent Ryan Rocchi. And then there was like a little media team set up for for all that that was controlling it. Mm hmm. And then that next day I flew back to America, went to L.A. for I did like three interviews there, which was the Jimmy Kimmel one. Mm hmm. And then I was a good interview.   Red Gerard: [00:42:22] Oh, thanks. I mean, people felt different.   Red Gerard: [00:42:24] There's like some people that didn't like it. Some people did like it.   Red Gerard: [00:42:28] But yeah, it was it was thought I was doing the snowboarding. I thought you came across like a snowboarder. That's what I get, right?   Mark Sullivan: [00:42:34] Yeah. And then the people that weren't snowboarders didn't like it.   Mark Sullivan: [00:42:37] So you weren't polished enough for them. It's like I'm 70 gaborik.   Red Gerard: [00:42:41] Exactly. I'm jet lagged as hell right now. I'm so I hate. But. And then from there I went to New York for two days and did like Good Morning America and all that and did those and then went back to the Olympics and no more interviews.   Red Gerard: [00:42:55] When I went back to Korea, I was like a.   Red Gerard: [00:42:59] I show is just getting ready for big air. There is one more time. You know, but my I wish I like after doing the contest and after settling down like I was so already, like complete, you know, after winning slopestyle that I was going back.   Red Gerard: [00:43:12] I didn't even care how I did it. Big and big air. You know, I actually ended up making finals. I was like, oh, my God.   Red Gerard: [00:43:19] Like, kinda like, oh, almost a little bummed at the time. And like making finals and like, I don't even know what to do, you know, like I have I don't have enough shakes for Big Bear. Like, I have no clue. But I wish I was a little bit more focused going into it.   Red Gerard: [00:43:32] Like once I settled down I I kind of realizes like, dang, that would've been cool. You know, try to go for another medal or something.   Red Gerard: [00:43:40] But yeah, but maybe like I didn't have the pressure on you like to the same degree. And maybe that's also why you made finals, you know.   Red Gerard: [00:43:49] Yes. Like 100 percent. Yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:43:51] And I lose your time zone. Like what? Did you stay in like Korea time when you went back to America? Did you try to stay in the Korean time zone? I do. I got so messed up. I went to Korea. I was just on the way there for like a week and a half, two weeks. Like most of the Olympics. I was jetlagged.   Red Gerard: [00:44:07] Yeah, yeah. Not I was pretty good. I mean, I went back to America, was super jetlagged, waking up at like 2 a.m. and stuff. But I didn't. I just kind of dealt with it like I just did it all. It wasn't that bad.   Red Gerard: [00:44:20] Like going back to Korea was super easy for me because I felt like I still was a little down at times and I never really adjusted.   Red Gerard: [00:44:27] Like I remember waking up at like like in New York, waking up like 3:00 a.m. and I called my girlfriend at the time, which was she's over. She was over in Korea. So I never really adjusted. I felt like. But, yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:44:43] Do you feel like a little bit weird about the fact that you had like another contest at the end of the Olympics and you won the gold, but then they're like, OK, we're going to take you out of the Olympics, take you out of the way from your friends. And now you have to go on this tour and jump through all these hoops. It's like, yeah, you know, dance, clown dance. Right. You did that for a week and then you're like, oh, get back into the mindset of competition and Olympic victory right now.   Red Gerard: [00:45:06] It was a little bit weird, but I was actually so psyched at the time, like, yeah, I was like all sick. I get to go back to America like this can be so fun. Just guys like I love on trips, like I I love going back home and stuff.   Red Gerard: [00:45:18] I love taking the time and, you know, going back home.   Red Gerard: [00:45:22] But it was weird coming back into it like my head definitely was a little bit like, you know, outerspace and all that. And I think if I was more focused, I would have made more of like a stretch to say, like, I'm good at like, I don't I don't want to go back to America.   Red Gerard: [00:45:40] I want to stay focused for a big error. But I just wasn't really like took it all there for Big Bear. Right.   [00:45:46] So they put the decision partially in your hands, whether you do this whole media gantlet EPU room.   Red Gerard: [00:45:52] Yeah, it's pretty 50/50 for sure. Like I think I could argue did to go.   Mark Sullivan: [00:45:56] Ok, so what was the first meal that you had after winning your gold medal in America? What was like the thing you're like, okay. I can't wait to have Taco Bell or whatever. What was it, dude?   Mark Sullivan: [00:46:05] I think it was to pull away. Honestly, I have no. I'm trying to think. I think is viable. Yeah. Really?   Mark Sullivan: [00:46:12] So you're Donner maybe you maybe like.   Red Gerard: [00:46:14] Yeah, maybe even room service. I can't really remember. I know once I got the first thing I did when I got back from Korea after Big Bear we went on like a whole other media tour, but it started in L.A. again.   Red Gerard: [00:46:25] The first thing I did when I got off the plane, I went straight edge. Okay. Nice. Yeah.   Mark Sullivan: [00:46:30] What do you think of the food in Korea? I thought the breakfast was a little bit crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I like the food there, but it was definitely different, you know.   Red Gerard: [00:46:39] Yeah, for sure. Definitely was a little different. I thought his Big Bear the Korean barbecues. Yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:46:46] Like the ones in the athletes village. I thought I thought that the village food was not that great, but we were super lucky. The US team had like their own USA house which left athlete village.   Red Gerard: [00:46:57] There's like a bus leaving every 15 minutes and they were always cooking up food for us, which is really nice of them. All right.   Mark Sullivan: [00:47:04] So you could get something anytime you want. That was actually like healthy. Good. Do they have, like me? Exactly. The athlete village.   Red Gerard: [00:47:11] It was it was a weird scene like the they had at anything you want. It was like a world class one.   Red Gerard: [00:47:16] it was like you could get like sushi. That was not that great sushi or like pizza that like totally tasted like, you know, I got it was out of a frozen freezer. But then like Hailie and Kyle Mac. But I was in America doing my like inbetween contests. They went down to the coastal one night, the coastal athlete village, how much the eating place there. And they said the food there was like fantastic.   Red Gerard: [00:47:41] And they loved it. Really, really. But the mountain wasn't that good.   Mark Sullivan: [00:47:45] I guess you got the short end of the stick up in the mountains.   Red Gerard: [00:47:48] So yeah, I guess that was pretty mellow though I think in the athlete village because it's like people who were in the media.   Red Gerard: [00:47:55] We don't get to go into the athletes village. So I'm just curious. Like what? Sassine, like, what's your accommodations like where you're staying?   Red Gerard: [00:48:02] Accommodations were a little interesting, we were actually pretty squished. It was like me and Kyle Macro's shared a room. But in our apartment building, in the same building, it was like Chase Josie and Jake Pates were in the room right next to us. And then Ben Ferguson was there in Ryan's day. So Chris chording were in a room, those really small apartments with like 30 rooms in each apartment. But it was cool where with like we knew everyone. We had a really good squad. It would have been different if it was like you roomed up with someone that did like bobsledding or something, you know, because everyone was in the same building, like we had a USA hotel. Basically, it was like a tower, you know, just rooms in it. That was all USA. So school then to Paris up with their friends and stuff.   Mark Sullivan: [00:48:50] Did you guys get in to any run in with the authorities? I mean, I know you guys are snowboarders and I know that you're out to have a good time as well. And after the pressure was off, I guess you were probably caught up in this, the media crush after that and probably on your best behavior, I would imagine as well, because all eyes were on you. Did you get into any trouble or have any.   Mark Sullivan: [00:49:12] Like, you know, hijinx over in South Korea? No. Let's see.   Red Gerard: [00:49:21] No, no, I didn't actually in like, you know, any time I was messing around, my whole family was there. So I went to hang out with them. And that was actually the best meal I had was with my family and some Korean barbecue. Right now, everyone was so fire.   Mark Sullivan: [00:49:37] Everyone knows it. Like 18 of your family members were there. I think your brother was at the top of the half pipe or the slope style rate before you dropped in. Is that correct?   Mark Sullivan: [00:49:49] Your brother? No. He was in because he was so hard to get your attention since I write a lot of data in there, but he wasn't. But I remember Frankie Chapman was there, which is really cool.   Red Gerard: [00:50:01] He's like one of my best buds. OK. That was said to have them up there. But now they were all down on the bottom. It was so hard to get your attention.   Mark Sullivan: [00:50:08] Something right. I mean, it's pretty, pretty gnarly. But who.   Red Gerard: [00:50:13] Who were the family members that came out? Obviously, your you have a big like God direct family. But then, I mean, not 18 brothers, sisters and parents. So who were the people there from your family? Let's talk about your family for a few minutes, because you I think in a lot of your interviews, you're like, hey, man, I'm stoked. My family's here. Right. Let's talk about your family being there and pay them the respect they deserve.   Red Gerard: [00:50:34] Yeah, totally. So all my brothers and sisters, there's seven of us, including me and then my mom, my dad and then my cousins were there.   Red Gerard: [00:50:44] And then basically, I think was. Just my cousins.   Red Gerard: [00:50:50] Other than that, which is basically like we were we were on a really tight family, like my cousins are basically your brothers and sisters and stuff, and we're always spending Christmas together in a few of my cousins live like 30 minutes from where I'm at right now.   Mark Sullivan: [00:51:04] So we hang out with them like every weekend and stuff. So are they snowboarders, too?   Red Gerard: [00:51:09] Yeah, everyone Stowe was not as much as I do, but it was nowhere.   Red Gerard: [00:51:13] All right. So let's talk about that. Like, how did you actually, like, learn how to snowboard? I understand that your older brother kind of taught you how to ride at a very young age.   Red Gerard: [00:51:24] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My older brother and my dad, I think from what I can remember, my dad, just like we're in Whistler Blackhomb only family trip was super. Yeah. I think they remember this, but my dad used to just carry me up the hill because he wanted in lift tickets for me and just send me down the hill. And I remember moving out to Colorado the first you removed out here. I thought I was such a king on us. No, we're back in Ohio like ribbon on nails. Got here, went up a chairlift. I was like, oh, my God, these men are so much bigger. And we're just bombing down the whole hell and sliding my sliding to my butt. And if I did that for like the first seven, 10 days out here and then I finally learned to like link some cars.   Mark Sullivan: [00:52:06] So do you learn how to ride a bike first or how to snowboard first?   Red Gerard: [00:52:11] I think it was kind of both that same year, too, it was two years old, that was a big year for me apparently because I learned how to ride this little dirt bike that we had, this little Honda 50 and a bicycle. That same year. And so it's skateboarding and snowboarding.   Mark Sullivan: [00:52:26] So how did you actually like what was the impetus to actually move from Ohio to Colorado? Because I don't really you know, I don't understand how that happens. I would like a whole family picks up and moves like across the country, you know?   Red Gerard: [00:52:42] Yeah. It wasn't even it definitely wasn't for me by any means. It was. My mom, just like my brother Brandon, went to Crestview Academy in Colorado and my mom and dad did like a couple, two years in a row. They did like visits to him out there and they loved it a lot. My mom hates when I say this, but she was hit. I was is like a little bit like a midlife crisis sort of thing where she has had to get out of Ohio because I'm in the winters is like it can get pretty ugly. Pretty depressing. Depressing. Sorry, depressing. Yeah. Just so dark. And, you know, it's like really cold and so dark.   Red Gerard: [00:53:24] And my dad can work from home, from home. So it was a pretty easy thing to do. The first year we just rented a house and kind of brought everyone out there for the winter. And then we did that for a couple of years and we went out there in the winter and then went back to the summers, did that for three or four years.   Red Gerard: [00:53:45] And then one year we just stayed out there full time. And eventually my parents ended up selling the house in Ohio and buying a house out there.   Mark Sullivan: [00:53:54] Cool. You know, my mom actually came from a big family, like kind of like yours. And it struck strikes me that like every kid in that family is like different. Right. They all have different flavors. They all went on to do different things in their life. What is it like? What is your what do all your brothers do? Like what is Creighton do right now?   Mark Sullivan: [00:54:14] Where's he at? Core?   Red Gerard: [00:54:18] Honestly, they should know this. And I kind of do. He's like. He's like. And his lawyer's assistant, which I'm probably saying that really wrong and has some title. But he lives actually back in Cleveland. He's lucky with his jobs every month. He gets like he gets like 10 days off every month. So he'll usually go back out to Colorado and go hang up my parents because he he's slowly turned.   Red Gerard: [00:54:46] I think get out of Cleveland a little bit. Right. And then Trevor works for fall shoes and Malachi works. I mean, he's a film or he's he's filming the then our next year project as well.   Mark Sullivan: [00:55:00] But any and Trever, live with you right now in Oceanside.   Red Gerard: [00:55:04] Yeah. Yeah. They live. Yep. And then what? So then, yeah. Chi also helps out with my sister.   Red Gerard: [00:55:13] She does. My sister's a food blogger. She Bone zone business called half a Tavis. Right. And my brother Malik makes all of her videos over food and all that.   Mark Sullivan: [00:55:25] Really? She's like famous. So she's like in certain circles, she's more famous than you.   Red Gerard: [00:55:30] Oh, she's way more famous than me. And she. She kills it. She, like, has almost a million Instagram followers and all that and really always is flying to New York and find Ali and stuff on talk shows like every day.   Red Gerard: [00:55:41] And people love love her. He has got to check it out. There is less than you know.   Mark Sullivan: [00:55:46] But what's the best meal she's ever made for you? Because I assume she knows how to cook.   Red Gerard: [00:55:51] Pretty good. Yeah.   Red Gerard: [00:55:52] And I've been trying again to cook, too, as I've done, like, you know, living in my own house. Now, I've been trying to get into it, but she. The best to try this one. It's been going around in the family for a while. It's pretty easy. But she's potato chip chaikin. Get some chicken crush ups and potato chips and put LONGERGAN over the college meal.   Red Gerard: [00:56:14] But it's pretty fiery. I love it.   Red Gerard: [00:56:16] And she makes amazing, amazing dishes, though, like really good pastas and all that. And her sweets are unbelievable. I like your desserts.   Mark Sullivan: [00:56:26] And that's Teagan, right?   Red Gerard: [00:56:28] That's Teagan then Brandon.   Red Gerard: [00:56:30] He is like a manager of a shipping warehouse in L.A. that is now wife.   Red Gerard: [00:56:39] It's his like his wife's sister owns this business and he runs the shipping department of the business.   Mark Sullivan: [00:56:44] So how does he feel about having a younger brother who is like an Olympic gold medalist?   Red Gerard: [00:56:51] I think he loves it.   Red Gerard: [00:56:53] I don't know.   Red Gerard: [00:56:54] I actually cannot really tell you anything they ask them, but I think he likes it. I love when he likes. There's a couple of contests that he'll fly out for.   Red Gerard: [00:57:03] And like, it's funny seeing him snowboarding isn't really. He lives in L.A. now and doesn't snowboard as much as he used to. It. Do it, runs it, and then like I was sleep on, like how good he was. All right.   Mark Sullivan: [00:57:16] Ok. So I imagine that your family is, like most others, their sibling rivalry. Right. And so all of your family's snowboard zoĂ. And so, you know, I remember this very distinctly when I actually considered myself least on my own, had better as a snowboarder than my older brother.   Mark Sullivan: [00:57:32] When did you get better at snowboarding than Trever, Brendan Chye and Crighton?   Red Gerard: [00:57:39] I don't know. I would say when I got better than Chi Chi was my main competition and his younger brandnew was out of reach.   Red Gerard: [00:57:48] Yeah, yeah, he was too good. But I got better than Chi Chi like had some unfortunate injuries and all that from snowboarding when he was younger. And I think he'll save. And I just passed him on to one of his injuries out of that. Well, I just came home and I was a little bit older than him or something.   Red Gerard: [00:58:07] And then, Brandon, I know that you could eat.   Red Gerard: [00:58:10] That's a question for him.   Mark Sullivan: [00:58:13] He'll never forget that day.   Red Gerard: [00:58:15] Yeah, he's still sleeping. He thinks he is the better one still.   Red Gerard: [00:58:18] Yeah. You've got you've got some other hardware to contests that.   [00:58:22] Yeah. You know, but he's pretty good at arguing. He's the arguer of the family. You can win any argument so.   [00:58:29] Well you think you're winner and legal brother Creighton would be the better arguer.   [00:58:33] Yeah he is. But he sleeps. He's real quiet about it. He's the, you know, really low key about everything. He just kind of hangs out. Okay. Okay. Cool.   [00:58:43] Yeah. And Trevor still writing to write.   [00:58:46] Yeah. Yeah. All right. He actually just flew to Colorado today. He's going to get some work out there. And you snowboard, too.   Mark Sullivan: [00:58:54] Cool. So. So when does your season actually begin? Like, when are you like, pack in your bags from Oceanside and being like, this is winter time now. I'm now in snowboard season.   Red Gerard: [00:59:07] I think it kind of already happened.   Red Gerard: [00:59:10] I always feel like it happens like right when we go to New Zealand, but I think it realistically full time happens like when we go to go to Europe for all those training camps.   Red Gerard: [00:59:21] So you're going to have to start talks at the end of the month. Stuff like that. Yeah. I flew from Europe to like Joy for the premiere there. So you guys are stomping ground park session. That's awesome.   Red Gerard: [00:59:34] Yeah, I did that. And I feel like that's where it always starts. And I'm supposed to fly back to Europe all. On the thirty firs

Danny was unable to join the show for this episode somewhat unexpectedly.  So Chris takes questions from the audience about the food and wine fest experience.  (Mainly since we dont take many questions during trip reports.)  So this is something of combo of an "as Chris anything" and a part 2 discussion of the Fest. Dont forget to tell others about this episode! We invite all of you to follow us on our social media platforms, you can find them all here: Facebook – behindtheearspodcast@gmail.com Twitter – @BehindtheearsPC Instagram – Behindtheearspodcast Email – behindtheearspodcast@gmail.com YouTube/ Behindtheearspodcast Facebook group – “WDW Community” Like always please RATE and REVIEW the show on iTunes and if you would like to see any of our videos or archived shows you can always find them on our YouTube channel. We want to thank our sponsors of the show. They help us bring you the best in Disney podcasting. Please take a moment to look them up and give them a try! Expedition Roasters is ‘THE’ artisanal roaster of specialty Disney inspired coffees. Why not brew some magic at your home? Some of their coffees include Skipper’s Brew, Ghoulish Delight, Enchanted Tiki Coconut, Redhead Rum and many other unique roasts. Their coffees are certified gluten & allergen-free and feature unique custom artwork by guest artists. Trader Sam’s Coffee Company offers an adventure in every bag! So, start your adventure today by visiting us online at Expeditionroasters.com, That’s Expeditionroasters.com And Behind The Ears, listeners be sure to take advantage of this exclusive offer and save 20% on your first purchase with code: EARS20 – That’s EARS20 at Expeditionroasters.comBrew Your Happy Place! Tired of lugging that stroller on to the plane? Maybe it’s taking up too much room in the trunk on your drive down to Disney World, but who can you trust to get a stroller? How about Kingdom Strollers. They have a variety of sizes and models to fit every family and their budget. Plus, there a trusted Disney brand so save you the hassle and space and simply visit KingdomStrollers.com for your next family trip! Now sit back, Relax and enjoy your trip through Disney World! ** Theme song owned/created by Behind The Ears Industries LLC **

This is The Do It For Yourself Podcast.  Each week I sit down with someone who is doing it for themselves and chasing a dream they just couldn’t suppress.  This is often speakers, entrepreneurs, or athletes.  They all share one thing in common, they are overcoming challenges and never giving up.  Someone who is Doing It For Themselves is not selfish in their pursuit, they are simply chasing a dream or working towards a goal because it is something THEY want to do.  They are not forging down a path because society or someone is telling them it’s what they should be doing. This week my guest is Jono Hooper.  Jono was born in Australia and went through school there.  When it was time to think about college Jono was considering coming to the United States to attend college or university.  Through a school fair, Jono got connected with a guy named Chris Bates who acted as an agent to help students get scholarships to schools in the states for athletics.  Jono was always athletic but running was something that he really stuck with and so this is what he decided to pursue in order to get into a school in the United States.   Chris went through this process of going to the school in the United State so he uses his knowledge of the process to help athletes do exactly what he did.  Chris is not allowed to be reimbursed by the colleges or universities for his services so this is all paid for by the student-athletes.  After going through the process Jono decided on a school in a very small town in Iowa.  He knew going in that he was going to a very small school but he picked this school because of the location and price.  Jono had one other school that accepted him but the location just wasn't going to work for him.   Jono and his mom set up their trip and got ready to come to the United States for his schooling.  The trip to get to Iowa alone was a lot of travel.  They had to travel from Brisbane to Los Angeles and then from Los Angeles to Chicago and from Chicago to Iowa.  Even after all of this travel, Jono knew almost immediately he wanted to transfer out of his school in Iowa.  He knew that eventually, he was going to have to transfer to finish his degree because Indian Wells was a community college but he wanted to speed up the process.  Jono felt as though he had a debt to pay to his coach because the coach took a chance on him so he committed to running for the two seasons that he said he would. As a college student who is paying their way through school Jono had expenses that he needed to cover just like most college students.  The tricky part for Jono was though, as a student on a visa you are limited on how much you can work while you are here depending on what you want to do after graduation.  Jono had about 10 months in Brisbane before he was coming over to the states so he worked two jobs to sock away as much money as he possibly could.  Once Jono arrived he knew that he needed to live VERY frugal.  After the first year in the states, Jono went through most of the money he had saved and was still only able to work 20 hours per week. After Jono completed his two seasons of cross country he knew he needed to make a decision about where he was going to go next.  Luckily as part of the program and process with Chris, Jono was still able to use him as a resource to help with this process.  So Chris and Jono began to look into different schools over the country.  Jono met someone who was transferring to Goldey Beacom in Wilmington Delaware.  They have a cross country team and he could complete his degree there so he applied to this school as well.  After having a long conversation with the cross country coach from Goldey Beacom Jono was committed to going to this school to help the coach rebuild the cross country program.   After finishing his four-year degree Jono went right into a masters program.  Jono is currently working on finishing his law degree.  ono definitely how to overcome many challenges in this journey and I am honored he came on the podcast to share them.   I hope you enjoy this episode.   Jono's Instagram Do It For Yourself Instagram

Growing up a gay guy in the Midwest corn country, Christopher Beasley kept a lot bottled up growing up. He grappled with his double identity for years before coming out, but has used that struggle to better work work with formerly incarcerated people who have to deal with the stigma of being ex-felons. His time behind bars came from being involved with the meth scene and just "got pulled over too many times". Being gay in prison was traumatic for Christopher but that was where his transformation began. Out of prison with a year of probation to serve, Chris still lacked direction until an uncle asked him if thought about going to college. So Chris decided to at least try out an academic career that has now made Professor Beasley not only a role model but a mentor and motivator for other exes. Felony Inc Podcast with your host Mark Gailey We record the Felony Inc Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland. Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main Website was designed by Cameron Grimes Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster Theme music "Free" written and recorded by Dave Dahl, all rights reserved, motherfuckers This weeks podcast brought to you in part by soap-on-a-rope, when you don't want to drop stuff Felony Inc Podcast supports City Central Concern at centralcityconcern.org 10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes Listen to the Felony Inc Podcast live on-air every Friday at 10:00am pacific time on Startup Radio Network at startupradionetwork.com

We all encounter setbacks - but it’s how we handle them is makes the difference in our resultsChris Namoli was a fast runner in his younger years. But like all of us, he experienced a setback.Chris completely lost contact with running and a healthy lifestyle. Then he gained weight - like a lot of it. But Chris knew he could still be a great athlete. So Chris made some serious changes in his lifestyle to see how fast he could become. And now Chris is one of the fastest masters athletes in the country. Chris is a great example of a comeback story and of someone who wanted to maximize their potential as an athlete. During the episode we cover:How to shift your mindset and habits to make changeWays to use your diet as a tool for weight loss and performance Why committing to yourself is the first step to success.Follow Chris's journey on IG @Cnaimoli Hit Subscribe to get the latest episodes of Reinforced Running PodcastApply for One-on-one Coaching hereFollow along Reinforced Running IG @reinforced_running_richTwitter @ReinforcedRunJoin our private training group on facebook here.Get your free Guide to faster running @ reinforcedrunning.com/runfaster

So Chris is out sick so Geoffrey takes this one solo for a special half-episode of the Strong Style Story Podcast. This time out, Geoffrey talks Super J-Cup 2019 and Royal Quest as best he can since the footage isn't available on NJPWWorld yet; previews the Destruction cycle of shows as best he can since the full lineups aren't out yet (but hey we have Blue Justics IX and Young Lions Cup!); takes El Phantasmo to task for using ableist slurs in promos; and more! Chris is at twitter.com/BrasilianFury Geoffrey is at twitter.com/StrongStylStory and twitter.com/gdwessel The blog is at strongstylestory.tumblr.com

Things get pretty hot in the recording studio, so we rigged up a system that dumps water from the ceiling on us immediately after a podcast session. You know, like Flashdance. So Chris decided to pick the Flashdance soundtrack for this week’s episode to pay tribute. And boy oh boy, did we have a lot to say about this movie. Tinseltown Tunes is back and more obscure than the ever! Honestly a lot of this episode is discussing what the hell is happening at Mawby’s Bar, the adult talent show/cabaret/burlesque/art house performing center that caters to steel mill workers in PITTSBURGH.

Summary:  Today, we're going to discuss when it's appropriate for FIs to implement ATM video solutions. As we all know the banking industry continues to transform and FIs have to transform along with it, but this doesn't always mean that the same solution will work for every FI. Video solutions can be tricky and may or may not be the right solution for your customers. Our panel today will discuss how you will know whether or not video is right for your environment. Related Content: Blog: Interactive Video Teller: Another Dimension of Self-Service Blog: The benefits of looped Cash Cycles: A Conversation with Volksbank Albstadt COMMERCE NOW Website Diebold Nixdorf Website   Transcription: Scott Anderson:               Hello, I'm Scott Anderson and I'm your host for this episode of COMMERCE NOW. On today's podcast we welcome Diebold Nixdorf's Chris Gill, Senior Director of Global Advisory Services, Dawn Winston, Senior Product Manager DN Banking Teller Products and, Brendan Thorpe, Senior Global Demand Lead for Banking Software. Scott Anderson:               Today, we're going to discuss when it's appropriate for FIs to implement ATM video solutions. As well, we all know the banking industry continues to transform and FIs have to transform along with it, but [00:00:30] this doesn't always mean that the same solution will work for every FI. Video solutions can be tricky and may or may not be the right solution for your customers. Our panel today will discuss how you will know whether or not video is right for your environment so let's dive in. Scott Anderson:               Dawn, I'd love to start with you to sort of set the stage here. Can you give us a quick overview on the video solutions that Diebold Nixdorf has brought to the table today from a product standpoint? Dawn Winston:                 Yeah, absolutely and Diebold Nixdorf is committed to [00:01:00] offering several different video teller solutions to financial institutions, banks, and credit unions and really we want to be able to offer what makes sense to a financial institution's business model and branch concept model. So if you, as an institution, are more interested in furthering your customer or member experience and making sure that you have that personal touch or the interaction with an employee at your [00:01:30] institution, then you would be more interested in something interactive video teller. Dawn Winston:                 And that interactive video teller, essentially, allows the teller to drive the entire transaction session with the consumer standing at a service device, with the consumer just offering input or approving transactions, and that does allow the teller to have that longer touch time with your customer or your member. So they can do things like [00:02:00] improving that customer's experience or even doing things like upselling to your customer or member. Dawn Winston:                 And then we do offer another solution that really is more about switching your staffing model. So maybe you want to transition some of your teller staff to do other roles like selling or marketing some of your products and you're more concerned about efficiency of your financial institution, so in that scenario they're not spending as much [00:02:30] touch time processing transactions. They really are focused on doing things like cardless authentications or overrides and approvals of checks and the transaction at the consumer's end switches back into a self-service mode freeing up more time for your branch staff or your central office staff to work on other roles within your institution. Scott Anderson:               Great stuff, thanks for sharing that. And given some of the capabilities that our portfolio offers today in the marketplace, Chris, I'd like to [00:03:00] ask you from the perspective of our advisory teams and the customers you're speaking with, what are some of the more common use cases for the deployment of video by banks and credit unions today? Chris Gill:                             There are really three different categories of use cases that we've seen in the market. Chris Gill:                             The biggest one is really around improving branch operational efficiency and in this case the institutions are looking to impact the staffing costs in the branch where they're servicing the drive-up, and they may have certain tellers that [00:03:30] are servicing the drive-up. Whereby replacing the drive-up lanes with ATMs with two-way video, they can impact the staffing levels in the branch and reducing the costs of operating those branches. At the same time, sometimes, there are some branches where the drive-up area is removed from the lobby area, and it creates some inefficiencies in handling branch traffic, so a video solution there can again, help with the operational efficiency [00:04:00] and require less staffing. Chris Gill:                             We do see there are some instances where there are certain types of branches where the use case is more compelling. We've had a couple customers that are looking at in-store supermarket branches where they're eliminating the teller counter and replacing it with ATMs with two-way video. That way they can focus in those branches on opening up new accounts and interacting with people in the store and not doing transactions so that's kind of [00:04:30] one use case in this category. Chris Gill:                             Another one would be where they have branches in smaller markets or remote markets, where the low transaction volume branches, yet they still have to maintain a certain minimum level of staffing to handle transactional activity. And in those cases again, they could really eliminate the teller role but still provide the routine transaction capabilities but with video agents instead of tellers in a branch. So for the most [00:05:00] part improving operational efficiency is really the primary business case. Chris Gill:                             Now, I think the use case around institutions that are looking at expanding their branches into new markets or to fill gaps in their existing markets, but they're looking to do it at a lower cost. So we've had discussions with a number of organizations that the opportunity here is to build a branch where they can still provide routine transactions using video, and they [00:05:30] have a couple people in the branch that are there for customer service and opening up new accounts. So it's perceived as a way of not having to spend as much money on a new branch, but they can still provide that face-to-face service albeit over video. Chris Gill:                             And then the last kind of use case that we've seen is around improving customer convenience and hours of operations. So some institutions have video tellers that are available until [00:06:00] let's say 7:00 PM or even 10:00 PM, that provides a competitive advantage in the market where they can provide teller service at longer hours of service. Or we've seen a couple institutions that are in markets where they are competing against institutions that are seen in stores that are offering longer hours and so their competitive response is offering video to match their competitor's hours of operation advantage. Chris Gill:                             So in North America, I would say those are really the key use cases. Now in, [00:06:30] outside of the US, we've seen, typically in the Middle East, where they're using video primarily from an expanded transaction set point of view. So for example, the Middle East where they can provide greater withdrawal amounts in cash leveraging video rather than enabling at an ATM, so they can provide longer hours for that but provide that capability leveraging an ATM with video. Chris Gill:                             So again, in some markets they're looking at the [00:07:00] ATM with video as an opportunity to provide additional transactions that cannot be done on a standard ATM. Scott Anderson:               Interesting, so lots to think about for financial institutions who are trying to make some decisions around what video might look like as part of the retail banking strategy. What do you think some of the key criteria that institutions need to consider when they're contemplating video as part of their retail banking strategy? Chris Gill:                             So I think there are really three different areas that institutions need to consider when contemplating [00:07:30] video. Chris Gill:                             Number one, is looking at their customers and members, currently serving or in the markets that they're looking at serving. So we've done some research in this area around consumer acceptance of self-service and video and not surprisingly younger consumers tend to be more self-service oriented and so they tend to have a higher level of interest in video than older consumers okay. So looking at your existing customer [00:08:00] member base, or the markets that you're in, it's important to really look at the characteristics of those consumers and are they more open to using alternative methods to doing their transactions than other segments are, so I think that's number one. Chris Gill:                             Secondly, is important to look at what kinds of activities are they doing, are you doing in the branches and again, to some extent, the customer mix. So are you doing fairly routine deposits and withdrawals in your drive-ups [00:08:30] or in the lobby that can be easily moved over to being done over video, or contrast, do you have a lot of business customers coming to the drive-up and they're making large deposits that involve coin, or do you have a lot of check cashing transactions at your branch where customers or members are looking for cashing checks to the penny. If that were the case then that maybe, that would probably, be less attractive as an option for a branch to deploy video. Chris Gill:                             And then [00:09:00] I think the third thing is you need to look at branch specific factors from a location and site point of view. So for example, if you have a branch that's located on a high traffic road where there's a lot of road noise, that may not be a good candidate for video just due to some of the issues around the engagement, and the customer experience over a drive-up ATM, maybe less conducive to an area where there's a lot of noise for example. So I think it's important to look at the characteristics of [00:09:30] your existing branches as well when determining whether it's the appropriate location for video. Scott Anderson:               Great, thanks Chris. Brendan, anything you wanted to add to that? Brendan Thorpe:              Just to pick up on some of the points that Chris was making. One of the key things around video is making sure that users have a great customer experience when they're actually using the video solution. There's a couple of key factors that will play into that. Brendan Thorpe:              One of the key messages Chris was making was really you've got to think about what it is that you're actually going to deliver [00:10:00] using video. Typically, it's not going to be your general transactions. It's going to be transactions where something's either gone wrong or somebody needs assistance with something. So straight away you're pushing it down into some of the lower volume transactions, some of the more difficult things. Brendan Thorpe:              So obviously one of the key things is once you get to that point you're either frustrated because you can't move forward, or you're in a situation where you really do need help. The system needs to be responsive, so the teller needs to be available to come online. [00:10:30] So you've got to look at the type of transactions, what the volume is going to be of those transactions, how you're going to staff it to make sure that consumers aren't standing at an ATM blocking it from other people but aren't getting frustrated because it's not getting responded to quickly. But also making sure that the teller on the other end is capable of actually delivering the transaction that they're looking for. Brendan Thorpe:              If you get that mix wrong, you're going to end up in a situation where people will try video and then will fall away. They won't use it again. So for [00:11:00] video to be successful, it's got to deliver something that you can't do with a card and a pen. Something that's a little bit unusual. It maybe at a stress situation where you've lost your wallet, and you need access to cash services quickly, and it's a great way to do it or it could be, as Chris says, drive-up ATMs where typically you may have had somebody using vacuum tubes and a glass tube but now you've got a machine there. They still get the same kind of experience and it's immediate. Brendan Thorpe:              However, you do it have a clear vision of what it is you're trying to deliver, the transactions [00:11:30] that you're trying to deliver, and understand how you're going to staff it and make sure that customers get a good experience. Brendan Thorpe:              I don't know if you'd add anything to that Chris? Chris Gill:                             I think it's really important to understand typical consumer behavior and the typical consumer that maybe using video. Chris Gill:                             So in today's environment a customer that comes to a branch, their mindset, is they're going to either park their car, walk inside, and do a transaction at a teller or they're going [00:12:00] to drive up to an ATM lane and put their transaction in a tube. So in the latter, the first case, they're expecting to walk inside the branch and so if you've got an ATM in the vestibule that's running video, but you have a teller inside, a consumer is not likely to stop at that ATM and use that for video teller when they can walk inside and use the regular teller. Chris Gill:                             So one of the things that we've seen is if you give customers options, one of which they're already very comfortable with, and the other that they've never experienced, they're always going to default to [00:12:30] the option that they're most comfortable with. And we've seen some institutions that have deployed video in the lobby or the vestibule, but they also have full-service traditional teller services inside and that has resulted in very low transaction volume using video because they're giving customers an alternative or different options, one of which they're very comfortable using already. Scott Anderson:               So Chris, with all of these criteria and the different options that FIs have to consider, what are some of [00:13:00] the key drivers to finding an accept rate of investment on video? Can you share some examples of what might be required to achieve an acceptable ROI? Chris Gill:                             So there are a couple factors there. One is really around the staffing ratio for the number of video agents per video ATM. So typically, we will see 1.5 to 2 video units per video agent. Going with that kind of a ratio you need to have some cost take out on the teller side in order to balance that. So [00:13:30] quickly we have to say for every video agent you need to reduce this 1.5 to 2 teller staff in order to get the appropriate ROI. Chris Gill:                             So the staffing ratio is very very critical into achieving the ROI. Yet, at the same time, critical in that if you don't have the right ratio you could lead to a suboptimal customer experience because the customer will be waiting much longer than desirable for a video agent to become available. Chris Gill:                             The other key factor is really [00:14:00] the scale of deploying video terminals. So what we have found is that given the upfront investments for video, it's important to deploy video at a minimum of six to eight locations, if not more, to really get that full ROI on the solution because if not, then you're looking at a much much higher cost per transaction then you would by deploying it at multiple locations. Scott Anderson:               Got it. Thanks so much for that. What in your opinion, Brendan or [00:14:30] Chris, are some of the characteristics of institutions that have been most successful in deploying video to date? Brendan Thorpe:              So from my perspective the ones who've done video the best have all had a clear understanding of what it was they were trying to achieve from a customer experience perspective. They knew the transactions they were trying to deliver and they were very focused about it. Brendan Thorpe:              I think it's also important that at the end of the day video is a multi-channel activity. It's one of those things that generally covers a whole range [00:15:00] of different channels. You can deliver video on mobile. You can deliver video on a self-service terminal. You can deliver video at kiosks in branch. Brendan Thorpe:              However, you do it, delivering something that is purely just self-service, in isolation, and not integrated into the branch environment, which are the ones that have been really successful have done, is leading yourself down a route where you're going to basically build a lot of costs that's not going to deliver the kind of return that [00:15:30] you're looking for. Brendan Thorpe:              Chris, I don't know what you'd add to that? Chris Gill:                             The most successful deployments are where it's really an integral part of their strategy and achieve certain objectives and they really have defined the use case most effectively and then deployed the right configuration of video. Chris Gill:                             I would say the other characteristics of leading institutions are they really demonstrated a high-level of execution of the video concept. So they thought through [00:16:00] the people that are working that are handling the calls. They well thought through the transaction set and the desired experience. They are measuring the right things in evaluating whether they're getting the return on investment. Chris Gill:                             But I think, as a side note, I think what institutions really need to recognize is that most consumers have never had an interaction over video from a banking point of view. So from our experience, the imperative is on delivering a great experience [00:16:30] the first time they use the technology because if they don't have a good experience, they will not use it a second time. So all too often institutions that have rolled out video haven't executed very well and as a result they're not getting the user take up and user adoption that they're hoping for with respect to video. Brendan Thorpe:              As Chris says, that's one of the key symptoms of poor implementations, and we've seen that in some very very large implementations in the US. [00:17:00] Where it's just been deployed for general transactions without having a clear vision of what they're actually trying to deliver beyond the different experience, and it does deliver a different experience, but you don't get the repeat usage and that's critical to making video successful. Scott Anderson:               So with all of this in mind, and as financial institutions are grappling with do I or don't I consider video as part of my strategy, Chris, what other alternatives do we have versus investing in video [00:17:30] that might achieve similar objectives and what should they consider before going down a video path? Chris Gill:                             Well, so I think there are a couple different options, and I'm sure Brendan can chime in after as well. Chris Gill:                             First, is the objective really is to prove operational efficiency and reduce operating costs at the branches. Then making sure that the institution has appropriately leveraged their existing investments in ATM, online, and mobile functionality that improve customer convenience [00:18:00] and migrate routine transactions to self-service. Chris Gill:                             I would say a majority, a high percentage, of institutions that we work with have not fully taken advantage out of investments in deposit automation on the ATM or mobile deposit or things like person-to-person payments for example. So I think the first step is to really make sure you're getting the most value out of the investments you've already made in self-service and digital channels. Chris Gill:                             I think secondly, [00:18:30] is if you're again, looking at migrating certain activities to a lower cost channel, is looking at the functionality of your existing ATMs for example, and it maybe a better use case to increase the functionality of your existing ATMs, which could therefore move additional transactions to that channel, rather than laying in the additional costs of the video infrastructure. And to that end, we're seeing institutions that are doing core integration, [00:19:00] adding additional functionality to their ATMs, that can achieve that objective. Chris Gill:                             And then last but not least, I would say some institutions are looking at tablet integrating where for certain kind of exception transactions like over the limit withdrawals or enhanced funds availability on a check deposit for example, that could be enabled via tablet integration. Where someone in the branch could get alerted that there's someone [00:19:30] at the ATM and wants to get a thousand dollars in cash. They can approve that transaction without requiring a customer to interact with a video agent. Chris Gill:                             So I think there are a number of alternatives to investing in ATMs, video ATMs, that actually offer a more compelling return on investment than the video route. Scott Anderson:               Brendan, anything to add to that? Brendan Thorpe:              Yeah, just to pick up on a couple of points Chris made because there's some really good good ones that he made there. If you look at, let's [00:20:00] just pause video for a second. Let's look at branch. Brendan Thorpe:              Branch, at the end of the day, irrespective whether somebody's coming in via self-service, somebody's coming in via another mechanism, the most powerful thing you can do within that environment is start to link up those systems so that they can all work and adding video to that adds another dimension to that system in terms of the ability to make sure that customers are getting service quickly, easily. They can use the channel of their choice, and they can interact with the financial institution [00:20:30] in the way that fits them best. Brendan Thorpe:              Now, for some demographics that means going to the teller. For other demographics, that means they'll always choose self-service. Others will do everything they can through mobile. There will be a very strong place within that for some form of self-service transaction whether somebody is doing that through mobile, somebody's doing that through a traditional self-service device in the form of an ATM, where they need assistance and that assistance can be provided either by somebody walking up to them saying hey, can I help you, without [00:21:00] using a tablet, or it could be provided remotely by somebody using a video solution. Brendan Thorpe:              One of the things that DN brings to this, and I think this is absolutely unique in the market, is that when we look at how we deliver that solution, it's delivered using the same base technology. To give you an example of this, if you were at a self-service device, and you hit a help me button and that help me button is connected into our systems, it goes into the same queuing mechanism irrespective of whether it's being directed to a tablet, because the [00:21:30] branch is open, and you're going to get assistance from somebody walking up to help you, or if it's out-of-hours, it's going to go in that same queuing mechanism and then get allocated to a video teller who can then interact with you. Brendan Thorpe:              So all of this technology is connected and integrated into a solution that's focused on one thing and that's giving consumers a great experience within that financial institution's systems and that's really important. Scott Anderson:               That's great. That very important point Brendan and a wonderful segue. Dawn, I wanted to sort [00:22:00] of present you with the last question. We have some fantastic perspectives and needs in this marketplace around assisted service, video in particular, so what does the future look like for video solutions within our Diebold Nixdorf Portfolio? Dawn Winston:                 Yeah, so we are not really changing what we will be offering from a consumer standpoint so what the customer or member necessarily will be seeing. We'll still be offering both incarnations of the solution that I mentioned at [00:22:30] the top of the podcast. Either the full interaction throughout the entire session if a teller or a representative at the FI or just the video assist option where the teller or the employee comes into give overrides or do that cardless authentication. Dawn Winston:                 What we really will be focusing on the future at Diebold Nixdorf is our, kind of our Commerce Now slogan, Beyond Omni-channel. So we want to make sure that, as [00:23:00] Brendan mentioned, if they want to start a transaction on a mobile device or start it on their online banking or what we've been mentioning so far here, start it in a self-service channel. We can easily pause a transaction or hold on to that transaction and resume it in another channel, and because we have the advantage of a common transaction processing engine, we have the infrastructure built in order to be able to easily move [00:23:30] seamlessly from one channel to another so that you can pre-stage transactions. Dawn Winston:                 You can start out with a transaction you think is not so complex but suddenly becomes very complex, and bring in that financial institution employee, so the Teller or the Customer Service Representative, to do those assistance type functions or completely take over the transaction and complete it for your customer or your member. Dawn Winston:                 So that's what we're focusing on now and for the future [00:24:00] is making sure that we are making that omni-channel or that multi-channel experience seamless to your end users, to your customers and members and providing a better experience because we can have that common transaction processing engine and common infrastructure on the back side connecting all of our channels together. Scott Anderson:               That's great. Thanks so much Dawn. Really interesting, that from a Diebold Nixdorf perspective. We [00:24:30] thought long and hard about this and we've got solutions in place that aren't just single use alternatives here. That we've really thought about how we can leverage this across the infrastructure and enterprise up in FI. I do think this is a great place to wrap up and thanks again for all of you joining us today. Scott Anderson:               To learn more about topics like this logon to dieboldnixdorf.com or click on the link in the podcast notes shown below. Until next time. Keep checking back on iTunes or however you listen to our podcasts for new topics on Commerce Now.  

Download this Episode When the transaction closes, do you continue to develop and nurture the relationship or do you move on to the next deal? Tune in to todays show to hear what some agents are doing to keep the momenntum going! reThink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 33:22 RTRE 58 – Keeping A Relationship Great Post Closing [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. Missed you in the last week. We're glad to be back. Got Christian, Nate here. And last week we left off with Christian kind of giving a little tease. We're gonna talk this week about how to continue the relationship with your clients post closing. So let's not waste any good time. Christian let's dive on in. What are you doing to improve and continue that relationship with your clients once the deal's done? [Christian]:  Sure yeah I mean, there's so many things you...you can do. Unfortunately it's...it's kind of the consistently lacking aspects of a lot of agents business even if your tool rock star and you do a great job it's often very easy to lose track of your clients. And they lose tracking you and, you know, you're later they're like “I can't even remember my agent's name or how to get a hold of. I'm gonna contact someone else.” So to help avoid that obviously the creating unique content, you know, whether that's through email or social media. Whatever it is kind of the...I won't say the easy way, that's probably one of the harder ways. But there's a lot of services and companies you can use that will help provide value as well. I kind of alluded to a the service that we have started using called Home bot. And that has been very cool because you can essentially…now it doesn't work with sellers because they've just sold their home, you know, unless they bought a new one. But it's kind of geared towards homeowners. So obviously it's gonna be your buyer clientele. But it's pretty cool because it's...it's cheap and you sign them up for it. And it will send them a monthly email that's real easy to use information, you know. With like says, you know, your estimated value for your home is X and it shows a graph of the value. And it'll, you know, he knows your mortgage and whatnot. And it will say “Hey your your net worth of your home is this. This is how much you've paid in toward your principle, toward your interest.” If you're to, you know, refine in 15 years or 25 or 30 this is what this payments would look like. If you made a payment of an extra whatever, you can choose that within the...within the portal. It will show you how much you'd save over the course of the loan. If you're to Airbnb out a room it will show you, you know, based on the average in your area how much your revenue you would have, you know, extra per month.  [Chris]:  So hold on. On a per-room basis? [Christian]:  Yeah. [Chris]:  Wow that's cool. That's really cool.   [Christian]:  Yeah so it's got all sorts of cool analytics, you know, that show you all your options. And, you know, and it has its own firm within it. You know, you're...you're the one that's branded in there and, you know, so it's always kind of putting the bug in the air. If like “Oh look at this is, what the market's done. This is what my house may be worth…” You know, and prompts them to like “Get a CMA from your agent”. And then it has all the links in the backend of like “How many have been sent out, what are they clicking on, do they open it?” But like the open rates and click through rate on this stuff is way, way higher than any email. You don't care how cool and revolutionary your, you know, your email marketing is.  [Chris]:  Like what are you talking like… [Christian]:  If you're...if you're killing it with the email marketing you have like a 30% open rate. I think the average in our industry is 16%. So you typically will get 20% where did a lot of, you know, unique content it's just... it's hard to get people's attention. And, you know, in email marketing so...so this is… [Chris]:  Have you heard from your clients on what they think of it?  [Christian]:  I mean we…were pretty early on and using it. So not yet. But I know some agents that I really respect, you know, they're really killing it. And they've got great things to say about how you've actually gotten the listings from this tool, you know, from people that are their clients and the other people who aren't their clients. So if you can use it as…as marketing and lead gen as well, even though it's kind of set up and branded as something to provide value ongoing for your…for your buyers. So that's one…that's one tool. You know, I've got a whole workflow process to stay in touch with them that reminds me to actually, you know, reach out to them.  One good point of contact can be, you know, if with your buyer clients to remind you, you know “Beginning of the year hey don't forget to send out, you know, that…the final settlement statement.” And it gives you a reason to contact them. Say “Hey, you know, here's your final settlement statement in case you misplaced it. You bought a house last year. You're gonna want this for your taxes.” You know, so…so that sort of thing. [Chris]:  That's awesome. Nate what are you doing to continue that relationship afterwards? [Nathan]:  I'm not [censored] out all my data to other people like Christian. [laughter] [Christian]:  [censored] out what data?  [Nathan]:  Just teasing. I keep it simple. The good old 26 and 52 rule. I'm sure one of you know what that is. Right?  [Christian]:  I say marathon. No it's 20 miles. I don't know. [Chris]:  26 contacts for 52 weeks. [Nathan]:  You got it. Keep it simple stupid right. That's…it's…there's 26 letters in the alphabet. You just go down twice. Make…make your phone calls. I don't do anything crazy. Again it's…I call it the…the personalized organic thing. Just call people and say “Hey Chris what's up? How are you? How's the kids?” I think people appreciate that as much. And the reason I do that is because that's what I like. All the [censored] I get in the mail, all the stuff that I get an email, I just hit delete delete delete. Or I throw it in the trash. But if somebody actually takes the time to reach out to me and say “Hey” I find value in that. So I forget who it was talking to the day. They were talking about, you know, lead gen and all that. And they said, you know “Find whatever you're good at and you enjoy doing and do it well.” I don't enjoy making the calls and doing all the other stuff. I'm annoyed by the other stuff. So I therefore don't do the things that I would find annoying. I just rather make a call and say “Hey how are you?” And, you know, my wife was just down you know, in Athens Chris. And did me a favour [crosstalk] Well and, you know, I call it…I called a client, a past client of mine. I said “Hey I know you love creature Conference. Wife's down in Athens.” And he said “Oh my God please have her grab me a case.” Right listen that…that case of beer goes a long way. [Chris]:  Oh yeah.  [Nathan]:  You know. [Chris]:  Because it's not just the beer. It's not the item. The fact that you thought about him.  [Nathan]:  The fact that I thought about him. That's right. Yeah for me it's, you know, that's what works. I…I…I'm really turned off by…I like what Chris and Christian mentioned. And I've looked into that a little bit. Not read a lot on it. What I don't like is these automated things that go out that they don't have…they just…they have no personal feel. And so I think, you know, that's a value out on my side. I think it's where realtors really lose sight. They just…they turn into this transactional thing and they could'tn care less after they're done with you. [Chris]:  So the way Christian's working it I think it's kind of like the best of both worlds. Because utilizing something like this to automate some of the contact, but then also following up within the CRM to make sure that those relationships stay nurtured and that it doesn't become an automated feeling. [Christian]:  Right. Well and…and this isn't a replacement for those touches. This is an excuse to reach out and be like “Hey I just set you up with this cool tool. This is how it works.” And , you know, and, you know, because…because I know for me…I mean the key really is find out something that works for you, that's natural, that you enjoy doing. Because I know for me if I just get a random phone call from someone that I haven't heard from for a while I'm thinking “What do you want? What's your angle?”  Like, you know, and, you know, and I used to kind of approach it when I was a new agent that way. But it always felt weird because I'd be like I just call someone out of the blue and never really coming around to. So I'm kind of looking for business, you know, like “No I am not looking to buy or sell.” So like don't do that. You know, but if you don't have an excuse or you haven't built, you know, done the hard work of building that relationship either through the transaction or afterwards, you know, it's going to come off as I'm calling for a self, you know, motivate gain. As opposed to “Here's a tool you're gonna find really cool. It can benefit you.” And it gives you an excuse to also reach out and contact them, you know, in person. Which really is going to have your biggest…your biggest bang for the buck. You know, over email or text or something. [Nathan]:  I'll be honest too. They're the clients that I don't I don't want a referral from them. And it's not that there was a bad thing or the transaction was bad or anything. I just…they weren't my type of people. And so, you know, I…I don't really need a referral from them. If that makes any sense. I just, you know, it's…it's kind of the way. I am…it's like I developed these almost deep emotional bonds with my client. I mean it's…it becomes a friendship. So, you know, if we're not buddy-buddy afterwards that's OK. You know, and maybe they do refer me somebody but there's some that I just…I don't really give a [censored] about. And I'm OK with that. [Chris]:  Well I think that having an excuse to reach out to people is definitely a good thing. There needs to be a few touches where, you know what, you're calling them just to call them. And make them feel like you were just thinking about them. But one of the things that I've kind of talked about with my agents over the last few years, is that keep it…keep a tab on when the anniversary of their house is and every year send them a CMA. Let them know “Hey this is what your home value is.” Seems like Home bought does that on a regular basis for you. So… [Christian]:  You can still send out your own or call them.  [Chris]:  Yeah send out your own and call them. And check in on the value of the house. In Georgia we have a lot of…we have homestead exemptions where the tax break is different on your personal property. And that has to be filed by a certain date each year. So before that filing date, January, February, having the agents contact their clients from the past year and reminding them “Hey don't forget to file for your homestead exemption.” There are…there are lots of reasons to reach out to people over the…for post closing. And I think that, you know, as long as we're doing it that's the most important part. [Christian]:  Yeah oh no sorry I mean to interrupt. [Chris]:  No go ahead.  [Christian]:  OK. The…what we're talking about so is kind of the ongoing long-term stuff, right. [Chris]:  Yeah. [Christian]:  You know….you know, if a big thing to you is providing, you know, an exceptional client experience is something that's gonna, you know, help, give them something to talk about so they're actually, you know, advocating for you. You know, something that's been really effective for us is doing a complimentary housewarming party. You know, for us we have a lot of people here that are new to the area and, you know, they may not, you know, have a close network of family in whatever. And something that if we can provide some drinks and some appetizers and organize it for them, and there is this, you know, fun event to welcome in their neighbours and their friends and co-workers and whatever else. Like that that is going to be way more impactful and help you build relationship with them. And something remember then, you know, customized steak knives or some cheesy ask-your-realtor closing gifts [laughter]. [Chris]:  Yeah. [Christian]:  You know, I mean closing gifts are a huge waste of money and time if you're just trying to like get your quote brand in front of them on some cheesy kitchenware. [Chris]:  Cutting board or knives or…Nothing against Costco but frankly… [Nathan]:  I go for the experience over…over the things. I mean items are forgettable experiences. It's much harder to forget. [Chris]:  Yeah I mean that's like gift-giving 101. Right you give a gift that you…that means something to the person not because you want to give the gift. Like if you're gonna give a gift you make sure “Hey look this is…this is…I'm giving it to you because I think this is something that's gonna mean something to you”. Not “Hey I'm giving it to you because, you know, this is my personal brand and this is what I do.” Like everybody. Because now you no longer stand out like somebody that is thinking about them. You just stand out as, you know, they're one of everybody now. So it's making people feel unique, I think is definitely a huge thing on the gift-giving front. And Client Giant does that, right? Christian you're using them. [Christian]:  Yeah, yeah they do kind of like touch point, you know, gifts when you passed your inspection. And then, you know, half of your transaction they'll send out moving boxes and your closing gift and move your utilities over. And, you know, all with handwritten notes from, you know, white gloves. Coming from you. And if it's…if the gift doesn't seem like something that's appropriate for your client you could, you know, send a message say “Hey do you have something else because blah, blah, blah, blah.”  You know, if they don't cook they don't a cutting board or whatever. You know. [Chris]:  Yeah I mean and for some people like a housewarming party that's gonna be a big thing. Unless they hate people. [Christian]:  If they're so introvert that's probably not a good gift.  [Chris]:  They're probably not gonna want that. But I think your idea behind that is that during the course of that relationship you're gonna determine whether or not that person is somebody who's gonna want that. [Christian]:  Sure. Well it's great because it it's something that they may want to do but may never get around to. Or it's a big hassle. And it also gets you in front of all of their closest people, you know, so it's a natural networking, you know. Because I mean they're gonna be like “Oh here's my agent that helped me blah blah blah.” They'll be talking you up, hopefully, if you did good job, you know. So all sorts of opportunities, you know, for you. But then also for your client. You know, because I mean you don't just want to be thinking about, you know, ask ask ask. You're gonna be like give give give give. And they're doing the, you know, reciprocating and advocating for you without you having to directly ask them. [Chris]:  Sounds good. So we're…we're approaching the halfway mark in the episode now. So we're gonna go ahead with week two of doing the re:Think Realty bonus thoughts. So as I'm just seeing this for the first time. These are some thoughts on things that exist in real estate and we're gonna get everybody's two thoughts on it.  [Christian]:  What is it? [Chris]:  Signs in neighborhoods and in houses. OK so this one I think this is signs that have been found in houses.  [Christian]:  Not signs from God? [Chris]:  Not signs from God. But these are some signs that have been found in houses and in neighborhoods. I just want your first reaction on them. Christian you're gonna go first. [Christian]:  Yeah well so I show the house. [Chris]:  I've got some some here that I'm gonna read off. I want your reaction on them. [Christian]:  Yeah. Oh I got you. I got you.  [Chris]:  So a sign that says “Please do not drink this water.” Above a toilet. [Christian]:  Yeah w-wait that'd be weird. That would be weird. I have never seen that.  [Chris]:  Yeah that's a little weird. “Please do not flush paper towels tissues and wipes kitchens…kittens and puppies hopes and dreams. Thank you.” [Christian]:  OK OK trying to be funny. Cute. [Chris]:  Trying to be funny. Thing…things in houses. “Beware of smartphone zombies.” Nate. [Nathan]:  Stupid.  [Christian]:  Stupid. [laughter] Hard crowd today.  [Chris]:  “Don't make our butts pick up your cigarette buds.”  [Christian]:  OK. [Chris]:  The roaches are getting cancer. [Christian]:  Cool. [Nathan]:  I mean… [Chris]:  Found in neighbourhoods.  [Nathan]:  Yeah that's gotta be somewhere like [crosstalk]. [Chris]:  Yeah like an ATA. What are some weird signs that you guys have seen in houses? Anything? [Christian]:  Well…Sorry go ahead Nate. [Nathan]:  Well I mean I've never seen it on a sign. I have seen it on a billboard. It's in Atlanta and it stands out. But that's the only one that ever…you know. [Chris]:  Which one? [Nathan]:  One for the pink pony it says “Do you love candy? We do too and all our friends.” [laughter] OK that's creative marketing but like I've never seen like…I've never seen signs. I've seen things displayed that I thought were inappropriate. Maybe.  [Christian]:  OK. If it's inappropriate for Nathan it's gonna be really bad. [Chris]:  Oh yeah. You gotta share that. You can't let us hang. [Nathan]:  So no like I got a client ready to list his house and, you know, he was a good old boy. And that's fine. But he had rebel flags and things of that nature all over the home. And some other very derogatory racist things that, you know, he's like “What do you think I should do with them?” And I said “You take them down.” Like, you know, cuz somebody like might come and burn your house down. Yes that's right. Yeah but it's like, you know, I've seen things like that. But not, you know, not sign…signs that are cute or… [Chris]:  Things that are divisive. [Nathan]:  Yeah right. like you want to sell your house. You don't wanna have it burnt down. [laughter]. [Christian]:  Yeah I mean I've…I can't think of any, you know, memorable signs per se. But I do remember showing a house once where, you know, sometimes listing agents will have like, you know, house signs up on the wall or whatever to like highlight unique things about the property. And this person went to town. I mean I walked in and it was like just signs everywhere on everything. I was surprised they had like a sign on the floor that said like “Floor”. [laughter] You know, I mean it was…it was over the top. I took some pictures of it because I was like “Why do they have a sign in the kitchen saying, you know, “Kitchen counter”. Like obviously it's a kitchen counter. That's not a unique feature.” Like… [Chris]:  Nice.  [Christian]:  Yeah it was ridiculous.  [Chris]:  That's good stuff. There wasn't one of my properties or one that I've shown but there's an agent that I know here in Atlanta, and she posted the other day a property she was in. It was like an old commercial property and there was like makeshift altars and just like the stuff nightmares are made out of. They had upside-down crosses. They had crucifixes. Like in the basement to support beams they had like big crucifixes. It was absolutely bizarre and there's a lots of… [Christian]:  Blood pools on the floor or anything? [Chris]:  No no I didn't see any blood pools but it did look like it was like an old school. So imagine like an old like elementary school basement. Like tiny windows like 1942…15 build. [Christian]:  Hounted.  [Chris]:  The windows are like plastered over. Like and then you just see these crosses that have giant crucifixes. And look…and there was like altars. And just weird. There were mattresses on the floor like something weird was going on there. So yeah there's crazy stuff out there. But that that kind of ends this segment of re:Think Real Estate bonus thoughts. Tell us what you think, whether you like it or not. Just kind of switching it up a little bit. Leave us a message on Facebook. Shoot us a review. Comment on the website rtrepodcast.com. And make sure you sign up for our newsletter.  So getting back to our topic today talking about continuing the relationship with your clients post-closing. And we've covered a lot about how to just keep talking to them. And basically just keep talking to your clients. But how do we…how are we able to make sure that we're doing that? And I want to talk to you Christian on this. Because I know we all kind of gave up on Nate ever building out his CRM. [laughter] So that…you're never gonna live there. But Christian so it…how are you utilizing your CRM to continue your client relationships post-closing? [Christian]:  Yeah I mean in a nutshell I'm using it as a tool…as a tool to remind me to stay in touch with, you know, my clients. It's not doing it for me. It's not a drip campaign. It's not automated in that sense. I still have to take action. I still have to send an email or still have to call them. So I mean that's…that's what I think the real strength of technology is. Because usually if something's fully automated people can tell. And it's really hard or if not impossible to have that personalized touch, you know, and so I use the technology to remind me to send out, you know, anniversary email. And I usually coupled that with, you know, once again we're talking about to buyers, you know, homeowners. Couple that with a handwritten note and maybe a CRM or, you know, one-page snapshot about their house or something. So trying to hit multiple layers not just like once a year they hear from me from an email or a phone call. It's, you know, a layered effect. Where Brian Buffeny [phonetics] says is a stacking effect. So, you know, you strategically have OK an email followed up by a call followed by, you know, a handwritten note or something. Yeah whatever seems like… [Chris]:  Different avenues. [Christian]:  Exactly different…different touchpoints that's complement each other. Not that look sporadic and un-thought through or inconsistent.  [Chris]:  So using the CRM to remind you to do this stuff, how difficult was it to set that up? [Christian]:  I mean that's the…the big challenge I think for a lot…for a lot of agents, you know. They got great ideas but, you know, how they do it or how they have time to do it or it seems so daunting that they never do. You know, from for me it was like “OK here's my process.” I mapped it out and then I found the platform to be able to do that. For me it's Realvolve. And so over one, you know, Christmas break I basically took a week and set out and just built out workflows. Not the funnest thing to do but I mean it's…it enables you to really provide that client experience and make a consistent thing. Then, you know, I'm kind of constantly tweaking it as, you know, I'm refining my process and whatnot.   And as a brokerage owner we provide all that to our agents, which is a huge value gained over maybe, you know, a brokerage that provides a CRM but there's no processes involved. They just have an address book that they have to upload stuff into, you know. So to be able to have, you know, those reminders and touch points all built out and stuff for you is pretty big. [Chris]:  Awesome. Yeah that is huge and kudos for you for building that out for your company. So Nate I know you're not using a CRM, what are you using to track…like making sure that you're going through the alphabet twice every year? And you're using the…what is that? Just your phone? [Christian]:  Garmin [phonetics]? You're using your Garmin? Your phone? If you unmute yourself we could hear you a little better.  [Nathan]:  Yeah. Yes I am using what you thought. Yes that's…I am not… [Chris]:  Our audience can't see us.  [Nathan]:  Yes sorry. Yeah the iPhone, the iPhone X. Give me that. But yeah and I use my brain, you know. It's  our computer out there. Right. [Christian]:  That's the most defective part of man.  [Nathan]:  I know I get crazy with it. Could I be better? Oh absolutely. But I'm forwarding… [Christian]:  When you gonna build out your CRM Nate? Just think about workflows. You just asked for those.  [Nathan]:  I don't know. I just…I discontinued Realvolve months ago. [crosstalk] [Christian]:  The decline starts. [Nathan]:  Why pay for something that I'm not using.  [Chris]:  That's a big thing with real estate where agents pay for things they're not using all the time. And the whole power of a CRM, everybody asked “What's the best CRM out thee?” “The one you use.” [Nathan]:  Yeah, you know, and then I use Google for about everything else. And I use Google a lot so if you wanted to say I had a CRM, Google I mean…I use all my transactional stuff, timelines, everything. All that is all built into Google. So I've in essence created what works for me. I guess if you would. But I don't have a traditional third-party both on technology. But again I use Google. It's a free platform and I like it. So… [Christian]:  You just mean like the calendar essentially? You're… [Nathan]:  Yeah. [Christian]:  What aspect of Google? [Nathan]:  Yeah the calendar, the contacts, the whole shebang. I mean docs. All of it. I mean what else do I use? [Christian]:  How does that…how does it help you with your…when you're working through a transaction? Or  staying in touch with clients? Is that just like a reminder? You have on your calendar? [Nathan]:  Yep. I plug all the relevant dates into my calendar. And then I set reminders. And that's what I do. And that works for me.  [Christian]:  Well if it works… [Nathan]:  Luckily…luckily for us here in Ohio, contracts aren't that difficult. You know, the timelines they're not…it's not rocket science, you know. So… [Chris]:  Yeah I've seen your listing agreement. It's two pages. [Nathan]:  Yeah it's…it's not… [Chris]:  Tiny. [Nathan]:  It's not…it's not complex. So again if you can like…if I go in here, I mean I know when all my stuff's happening because I just put my reminders in there. Make sure you don't have your reminders set ten minutes before. You know, I know people like come in and say “I had it set but then it reminded me 10 minutes before it was due.” I'm like “Yeah you might want to do it a couple days out there.” But… [Chris]:  Maybe. I don't know.  [Nathan]:  There are plenty of CRMs that integrate with Google. I just don't use one. So just me. But again what I do is way different than a lot of people. [Chris]:  Yeah so I do want to talk a little bit more about what you do. Because some of the things that you're doing are very similar to what Client Giant does. [Nathan]:  Yeah. [Chris]:  So instead of using Client Giant, you're actually putting in the legwork to make the client experience special. And…and memorable. So what are you doing in some of your transactions now Nate? [Nathan]:  So I…I mean I stole a lot of J's stuff if you would. Best ideas are stolen. Right? But from having carpets clean, homes clean, cars clean, boxes delivered. There's all kind of different things. It's what I like the ability to do is tailor each one of those to each individual. I don't want it to be every client gets this and every client gets that. Because we all know that every transaction is different and so there may be some concessions I make. I may do something different. Right. I give up part of my commission sometimes to bridge a gap. Right. Does that suffice?  [Chris]:  Good agents do that. [Nathan]:  Right. Does that suffice? Doing something above and beyond for your client? Yeah I think it does. So each one's different but I like to do something that it's just a personal touch. Again we've talked about it before that, you know, you're…you're marketed or branded candle that I really don't like, I don't want in my house anyway. So or you just got paid 10 grand and you bought me a $20 bottle of wine is kind of the biggest f you I think in the world. So again I literally, you know, like I said with the cleaning company I contract with that does house cleaning, carpet cleaning, all that. When I met him I did exactly what Jay said. I said “Hey I have an opportunity for you. If you can do this for me. Give me a better rate and I'll give you business.”  Works out great. I just had an agent the other day she said “Hey who's that guy you use?” He calls me and he's like “Dude thanks so much.” It's been a…it's been a great relationship. But again it's each…each one's different. But like I said a lot of what Jay does. I'll have your carpets cleaned. I'll have your house cleaned. Post…post-closing or before, you know. Just each one's different but I think those things are the value that we need to deliver. I'm helping somebody move. So, you know, it's a… [Christian]:  OK some legwork in there.   [Nathan]:  Yeah you need your house power-washed. Fine so be it. There's different things you can do that I think are way better than a bottle of wine and a candle.  [Christian]:  Yeah well good on you for flushing that out yourself. Like I know initially when I heard Jay's presentation, the setup a 5 star service in a 3 star industry I was like “That's…that's the missing piece”. You know, and I started, you know, flushing out “OK how can I build this out myself?” And then like a month later you came up with Client Giant because, you know, there's so many people in the industry that are…want to do that but I mean that's a big administrative overhead, if you're gonna do that for entire, you know, for your clients or let alone for the entire brokerage, you know. But good on you for doing that. But as a point of clarification, the Client Giant stuff is customizable. So it's not like every…every package is the same. So you do have that option. [Nathan]:  So then let's just check that box where it says I'm a control freak. So… [Chris]:  We didn't know.  [Nathan]:  No I had a client. The one that I told you about in the last episode with the, you know, that I told her that her paint was F-ing ugly with the wallpaper. [Chris]:  Yeah. Like “What do you think of this room?” “I think it's [censored] ugly.” [Nathan]:  Yes so I called one of the companies I contract with. Final Touch Painting here. And had him out. We needed to do some painting. And what the bathroom that had the wallpaper and of course I said “Well this is all gotta go” And she's like “What color should I choose? And I looked at her and I said “Jane what do you mean?” She says “What color should I choose?” I said “You don't get to choose.” She said “Why not?” I said “You're selling the house. It's not yours anymore.” She goes “Are you gonna let me make any decisions?” And I said “No I'm not.” She goes “OK”. [laughter]. And might you, my broker is with me on this appointment and he's like “How do you get away with that stuff?” I am like “I don't know”. But, you know, again it's…it was great. I loved it and, you know, she wants to be…I don't, you know, she wants to be told what to do to get her house sold. I think people appreciate that. [Chris]:  I think a lot of…in those interactions I think a lot of agents are afraid of making the wrong decision so they don't make decisions at all. And I think that's part of the reason why a lot of people don't see value in real estate agents. Because they feel like “Oh this person is just gonna be a yes person. This person…what am I paying them for? Walk me through a contract when they're just gonna ask me what I want in the contract?” You know, don't be afraid to grow some. And, you know, actually have a conversation where you're taking the lead and walking your clients through it. Because it's part of being memorable.  [Nathan]:  And being a professional.  [Chris]:  Definitely part of being a professional. Definitely part of being memorable. And if you're doing a good job then guess what? It's a lot easier to keep that relationship alive post-closing. [Christian]:  Yeah. If you're just an order taker I mean it's gonna be harder to justify, you know, the…some of…some of the rates that are common for agents. You know.  [Chris]:  Yeah. You go to a great restaurant you're not telling the chef what to cook. [Nathan]:  Exactly.  [Chris]:  Alright I think...I think that just about does it for this week's episode of re:Think Real Estate. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Again please don't forget go to our rtrepodcast.com. Sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss a beat when we drop a new episode.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Sales And Belief – Behind the scenes of the two comma club awards, the two comma club presentation, and all the other cool things that happened on day #3. On today’s episode Russell recaps day three of Funnel Hacking Live 2019. Here are some of the amazing things you will hear in this episode: Find out what all the speakers spoke about. See what TV show everyone at the event was able to watch and how Clickfunnels is involved. And find out why the event is choreographed the way it is, and why they try to keep the order of speakers a little secret. So listen here to find out what happened on day 3 of Funnel Hacking Live 2019. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to day number three of Funnel Hacking Live, the recap, the breakdown. I hope you enjoyed day number one and two. If you haven’t listened to those yet, go check out those, and then make sure you get your ticket at FunnelHackingLive.com, we’ve sold out every year in a row. And now you’ve got some time to start planning and preparing. So you might as well get your ticket now and then prepare your babysitting, get it on your calendar and all that kind of stuff. Because every single year people are like, “Oh if I would have known when it was happening, then I wouldn’t have missed it.” You know now, you have been warned. So get your ticket to Funnel Hacking Live. With that said, let’s queue up the theme song and I will see you guys in a second. Alright, welcome back. So day number one was deep into the foundation, day number two we talked about funnels and traffic and stuff like that, day number three, which was Friday, this is when we start getting into selling and the Two Comma Club and the future, which is really fun. So the way it started is the very first person up was Mr. Myron Golden and if you don’t know Myron, man, there are few people on this planet that, every time he talks it’s just like gold falls out of his mouth. I love him, I respect him, I’m so grateful for him. And he spoke about how to sell and he totally shifted people’s minds. And it’s interesting because a lot of people, he did this whole, I wish I could show you the whole presentation. Dang it, why weren’t you there? If you were there, thank you for being there. But he talked about how money is measured more in time than in wealth. He said that if you make a million bucks, are you rich? It depends on how fast you make it. He said if you make a million bucks in the next four years, that’s $25,000 a year, are you rich? No. but if you make a million dollars in the next 12 months, are you rich? Yes. It’s the same amount of money, but it’s the time. And it’s funny, he did this whole joke about, he’s like, that’s why when someone says, “Is this a get rich quick scheme?” He said, “It better be or I don’t want part of it, because I could make a million bucks in the next 40 years, or I can make it in the next year.” But it’s understanding that and just so many things breaking people’s mindset about what’s possible with money and wealth. Ugh, so cool. So Myron killed it as always. After that, Jim Edwards came out in a huge blow up unicorn outfit. It was interesting because his presentation was on copy right. In fact, his title was make them thirsty and then sell them a drink. That was the title of his presentation and he came out there and did his thing, but what’s interesting is, it was so cool because it was probably the most emotional presentation of the whole thing. I’m not going to try and tell the stories because I don’t want to ruin them. But he was telling stories about what money has made possible and how he was literally able to save his son’s life. It was amazing and emotional. And then afterwards he had me come back out onstage because, I can’t remember exactly, I’m probably going to mess up the story, and I apologize if Jim’s listening to this, but it was 8,700 something dollars of what he was making per year, back in the day. And then that’s how much he needed to help people. So he actually had me come out on stage and he gave me a check for the exact same amount to give to OUR, and it was just really symbolic of what’s possible when you do these things. Possible how money can change people’s lives, and it was really, really cool. So Jim killed it, people were crying and it was funny and fun and he’s just awesome. I love Jim. After that, then we had Eyana Golden and talk about email story selling. I wanted to do an email session for years, and I never have because we just haven’t, I don’t know, it just hasn’t worked right yet. But Eyana’s been in my inner circle with her boyfriend James for the last couple of years and always paid attention. She had her own business and other things, and recently, over the last year and a half, 2 years, she started writing emails for herself, like doing story selling emails and getting good at them. Then she started doing it for other people, then she did a bunch for me as well. She became really, really good at this. And I wanted people to hear for a couple of reasons. Number one, we need to become better story tellers, we need to become better at sending out emails, telling stories, and I think her presentation nailed that. The second part is, I think it’s interesting, and this is kind of like, she didn’t talk about this specifically, but I hope people kind of got this. There’s so many pieces in this business. There’s the traffic and funnels and design and email, and all these things. And she took just one piece of that, she took the piece of, “I’m going to become really good at email story selling.” And she geeked out on it and mastered it, studied it and became great at that one piece. And then she started doing that for herself and made more money. Then she started doing it for other people, and again I don’t know how much money she’s making right now, but a year ago when I was talking to her about it she’s like, “Yeah, I just passed $30,000 a month writing emails for people.” And I’m like, $30,000 a month as a person who just writes emails. That’s insane. For anybody, as you’re going through, if you were to learn one skill inside of Funnel Hacking Live, you can take that skill and become a master at it, and then charge people to do it for them for their funnels. That’s what Eyana did and has this huge thriving business now, writing emails for other people. Anyway, I wanted to share that for two reasons. Number one is the skill set to learn, number two is understanding, grasping that. Master one of these skills and become the expert at that, and it creates a whole new huge income streaming business for you. After Eyana got done, then Brendon Burchard went up. And it’s funny because Brendon, the last day we had him doing his high performance presentation, which is fun and high energy. And here he’s teaching a more nerdy funnel one, how he does his 7 day launch funnel. And I was like, “Man, my people will love you and respect you more if you do this first because then they understand you’re one of us. You do funnels just like us.” So he laid out the framework for his 7 day launch funnel, which was really cool. Same funnel that he taught this to me almost 2 years ago now. Actually it was 2 years from right now, this month. It was right when I was launching my Expert Secrets book. So we actually did the Expert Secrets book and then did the 7 day launch right afterwards. And we netted a quick million bucks from that. So he showed the whole funnel and walked it through, which was really cool as well. And then after that, then Miss Julie Stoian got up, and she gave a really special presentation, I was really excited for it. We called it Freelancers Secrets to how to start your own agency. How to, if you don’t have a business or a product yet, how do you start this game? How do you get this thing all kicked off? And you do it by starting your own agency. And she came and gave this presentation on how she started when she was a single mom and all these things and bills and all these problems. And what does she do? And she’s like, “Well, I learned these skills and then I started being a freelancer, and then I did for it other people. Then I made someone in the Two Comma Club. Then I started using the skills for my own things. And now I’m doing it for Russell’s company.” And she shared this whole journey. I think for most people they’re like, if you don’t know where to start, you start by being a freelancer. You start by doing that. That’s where you begin at. And she, the presentation was so good, I want to make everyone in our community watch it. It was so, so, so good. She just nailed it. And I felt bad for her, she was so funny. She’s like, after Brendon got done she’s like, “Why do I have to speak after Brendon? That’s not fair.” But she held her own and just killed it, it was amazing. So then after that, oh and she showed the trailer for a new TV show coming out called Freelancer Secrets, which is hilarious. So we showed that. Then everyone went to lunch and when they came back from lunch, we had two of the guys from JK studios, which if you ever watch Studio C, Studio C is like clean comedy. If you go to YouTube and just type in Studio C, it’s like the best comedy for your kids to watch. Every Sunday my kids are like, “I want to watch TV.” And we’re like, “You can only watch Studio C.” Because it’s like, I don’t know, 10 seasons of like clean sketch comedy. It’s amazing. But they recently, all the founders of Studio C ended up leaving and starting their own company called JK Studios and we sponsored their very first show and it’s called Freelancers Secrets and it’s kind of fun. So part of the sponsor thing, we get to weave Clickfunnels into some of the things they’re doing. They have one episode where they actually built a funnel inside of Clickfunnels. So they had the first episode done, so we actually got to show it. We had Matt Meese and Stacey Harkey actually come onstage and set up and tell about it, and we watched the episode. It was so funny, so awesome. So you’ll get to see 8 episodes this year of Freelancers, which is a TV show we’re sponsoring, an online TV show, and they weave Clickfunnels into it, which is so cool, so fun. Anyway, so that, we watched that with everybody. So that got done, then we did the presentations. And we started with the inner circle members, everyone who won inner circle member of the month came up onstage and we awarded inner circle member of the year, which was Dave Lindenbaum, which is awesome. Then after that we did our affiliate dream car winners, brought them onstage. And we did Two Comma Club award winners, and we had 200+ people come onstage and win a Two Comma Club. And then we did Two Comma Club X, which we had a new 25, I can’t remember the exact numbers, 25 people won Two Comma Club X, meaning they made over 10 million dollars in a funnel. And we did this huge award ceremony, which was amazing and fun, and pictures with everybody. I always tell people, this is like the Oscars, the Emmy’s of entrepreneurship, and it’s just fun. And it’s crazy, every single year I’m always thinking, people are not going to come to this session, they’re going to stay out in the hallway or whatever. But it’s crazy, every year the entire year is filled and people sit there quiet for an hour and a half and we give awards. And I think for most people it’s this time to sit back and reflect like, yes, I hit the award or I didn’t. And what do I gotta do for next year to be able to get this. And it’s just like, I don’t know, it’s special. It’s one of my favorite parts about Funnel Hacking Live. So we gave everyone the awards and then when it got done we did a quick break. Then we came back and I did a presentation called Secrets of the Two Comma Club, which is like, the people who have been getting the Two Comma Club, what do they know that you don’t know? If you’re not here yet, there’s something they know. So we have to understand what they know and believe what they believe if we’re going to do it. So instead of me just doing a whole presentation, I brought some amazing people from the inner circle to come up and tell parts of the story, things that they believe that I think everyone has to believe if they’re actually going to do it right. So first I had Chris Warrick, he came up and he talked about forgiveness.  A lot of people aren’t successful because they haven’t forgiven themselves, or they haven’t forgiven other people and they hold that resentment back, which keeps them from moving forward. And Chris, you guys heard I did a podcast episode a little while ago, I shared him speaking at Inner Circle about forgiveness it was insanely amazing. So he did a whole presentation on that. And he had everyone do this forgiveness prayer, which was so cool. It was amazing, other than I got three people who complained that we prayed in an event. But you know, that’s what we do. It’s my event so I will, I didn’t know Chris was going to pray, but I’m grateful he did. We had other people, I had one guy message, “I’m an atheist. The first time I ever prayed in my life and it changed everything for me.” And other things, it was just a really special experience. So Chris came and talked about forgiveness, that was the first thing. You have to forgive yourself if you are going to move forward. That was number one. Then James P Friell got up and talked about an identity shift. He talked about when he wanted to become a drummer he sucked at drumming, but he was like, “If I’m going to become a drummer, I have to act like a drummer. So I bought drumsticks and drum clothes, and bought this stuff and I got lessons. I had to become, I had to shift my identity to become a drummer if I was going to become a drummer.” A lot of people want to lose weight, but they like, “Oh I’m going to lose weight, I’m going to lose weight.” But until they shift their identity to, “I’m someone who is fit, I’m someone who’s in shape.” It’s almost impossible to lose weight. So the next lesson was like, you have to actually shift your identity to like, “I’m a marketer. I’m a funnel builder. I’m a funnel hacker.” If you don’t shift your identity, you can come to these events all you want, but until you shift your identity, you’re never going to have the results and success you want. So Chris talked about forgiveness and James talked about shifting your identity. Then number three, I have them out of order here, I think number three was Stacy Martino. I had her come up and talk about your seventh power of community. And she has this cool concept called right hand, left hand, which I may have her do a whole podcast on that in the future. But it’s really just a really cool thing. Like, here’s your family in one hand, who you love, but they’re not into personal development and marketing and these kind of things over here. And it doesn’t make them bad, it makes them great. And then in the left hand are the people who are in your tribe, your community who are like obsessed with you. If you’re like, ‘I’m going on a juice cleanse.” And they’re like, ‘Sweet, I’ll do it too.” And they’re all excited. She said a lot of times, if you take your left hand and right hand and put them together, it crushes the people in the middle. You have to understand that it causes conflict. A lot of times we try to do that, we go home to our friends and family who we love, who are amazing, and we’re trying to be like, “Hey come juice cleanse with me. Read this book. You should go to this training course.” And we just kind of bombard our personal development stuff on people and they feel alienated and it causes separations. We have to understand that the people in your left hand, those are the people who love that stuff, geek out with them. The people in your right hand, you don’t try to shove these things down their throat, you just try to be an example to them. And if you’re an example some will come and follow you and others won’t and that’s okay. But it’s just understanding which hand the people you’re dealing with are. So you can understand, these are my community who I focus on this stuff, these are the people I love over here. It was just such a key, important part because a lot of people get those things mixed up, which causes the problems why they don’t succeed. So Stacy talked about that, then Myron Golden came up and talked about making a covenant. Like how do you actually make a commitment and covenant as opposed to a contract. And you have to covenant with yourself if you’re going to actually have success. He talked about that whole thing of like, you have to make a covenant and a commitment if you’re going to actually be successful. And it was amazing. And Stephen Larsen came up and talked about Just In Time Learning. You don’t have to go and read 50 books to be successful, it’s like, understand the steps, what’s the next step, and then just geek out and learn exactly what you need to learn to do that next step and that’s it, because too many entrepreneurs are trying to read a book a week and trying to listen to 400 podcasts a week. And it’s like, no, no, no. When you’re a CEO and you’re running a business you can read a book a week. But when you’re an entrepreneur in the startup phase, you’re going to be focusing on what’s the next step and just put 100% of your effort, time and energy into that next step and just focus on that, which is amazing. So he did that and then I kind of had them all go down and I did a presentation on the who not the how, which I was really, really proud of. And then the waffle, which I’m not going to get into that on this podcast, it might be confusing. But it was a whole concept of understanding it’s not about learning how to do all these things, it’s understanding who are the people you need to be able to get to your vision and how do you get there the fastest. And it was really fun. We did that whole presentation. And then we sold, once a year we sell the Two Comma Club X coaching program. And what’s cool, everyone that renewed from last year, I gave them huge watches, which really symbolically meant a lot to me and we got them designed to be Clickfunnels watches. So we gave them to all of them. And then we said, “Everyone who’s got a Clickfunnels watch come up on stage.” And over 300 people from the audience came up onstage with me. And I said, “This is your tribe. If you decide to come with us, this is your tribe here.” And I said, “Who’s your mentor?” and I brought up the coaching staff, “These are your coaches and mentors and this is your tribe. These are the people who support you to get you to the Two Comma Club by next year.” So it was super overwhelming. It was way more people than I thought as we brought them onstage, which was really cool. Then they all sat down and I did this presentation and made them an offer for Two Comma Club X, which turned out amazing. So that was awesome. Then we broke for dinner, and after dinner we had another session where people who took the Two Comma Club last year and had success, they came back and shared their stories from stage, which was amazing. And then a lot of people signed up for Two Comma Club X coaching at that point. And that was Friday. So that was the third day, such a good day. So many cool things, from the belief, to selling, to stories, to all the pieces. It was amazing. I love how we choreograph these events. I hope you guys realize how much time, effort and energy goes into that for how all the pieces go together and how one thing breaks the belief in the next thing. It’s the reason why people don’t sit in the hall networking, because they would miss the whole storyline. People are like, “Why don’t you publish who all the speakers are going to be what time?” And I’m like, because I don’t want you guys to, “I’m going to go to this one. I don’t need that one. I don’t need Julie’s freelancer secrets because I have my own business.” No, you need it. There’s so many things that she taught that are so essential for you to understand the next piece of the puzzle. So that’s why we’re kind of more secret about who’s speaking, when they’re speaking, because I want people there for every single session because they all build upon each other. They’re strategically placed in a way to get people the experience they need. So that was the crazy day number three at Funnel Hacking Live. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about Day number four. There was some controversy at day number four, there was some crazy stuff, there’s up and downs, and I’m going to walk you guys through all that. And I will tell you how many people have joined Two Comma Club X coaching program if you’re interested. So with that said, if you haven’t got your tickets to Funnel Hacking Live yet, seriously what are you waiting for? It’s time to commit. Make a covenant to yourself that you’re going to come and you’re going to be part of this community because this tribe, this community they are here to support you. They love you and they care about you, but you’ve gotta make the leap of faith and come. So with that said, go to funnelhackinglive.com and get your tickets. And I will see you guys tomorrow on day number four of four of Funnel Hacking Live. Thanks everybody.

GUEST BIO: Chris has worked as a lead developer on some of the largest web projects and is currently a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft.  He is also the author of several JavaScript books and the Developer Evangelism book as well as being a regular presenter at conferences. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Chris Heilmann.  Over the years, has worked as an HTML and web developer on some of the largest web projects. He has worked for netdecisions, Agilisys, Yahoo UK and Mozilla. Today, he is a Senior Program Manager Developer and Evangelist, at Microsoft. Chris is also an author who has written mainly about JavaScript. But, he is best known for his Developer Evangelism book and for his conference speaking. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.00) – So Chris, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Chris starts off by explaining that he did not take the normal route into an IT career. He did not go to university. His IT journey started with him writing games for the Commodore 64 and other early computers. After leaving school, he became a journalist and newscaster. In 1986, he discovered the internet and was immediately hooked. Fairly quickly, he was able to bring his two passions of tech and journalism together. Almost immediately, Chris could see the internet was going to help him and his colleagues to easily publish on a worldwide. He says that he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. (2.25) - So, presumably your background in journalism has helped you in terms of other things you have done. For example, writing your books and public speaking. Chris agrees, he says his journalism skills were a great help when he started blogging. He found that his experience of writing for radio translated particularly well when writing for an online audience. When writing for the radio you have to ensure that every sentence makes perfect sense. Usually, people are doing other things while listening to the radio, for example, driving. So, they cannot focus 100% on what you are saying. The clearer you are the more likely you are to keep their attention and really get through to them. It is the same when people are reading your stuff online. You rarely have their full attention. We all tend to skim through things, so every sentence has to clearly make its point. This ability to make a point effectively and hold the attention of the audience has also been very useful when it comes to public speaking. His work as a journalist also helped Chris to adapt his message to suit the audience. (3.14) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Chris says that being flexible is vital. He has moved to several different countries to pursue his career. If you are willing and able to be flexible there are a lot of opportunities available in the IT world. For example, You need to be prepared to work at strange hours sometimes. Doing so opens up the opportunity to collaborate with people from across the world. Being flexible enables you to put yourself in the right place at the right time, more often. Chris also thinks it is important to be prepared to physically travel so that you can work with others from across the world. Even though we have the internet you tend to get far more done when you spend time working with people face to face. (5.05) – Can you tell us what your worst career moment was? And what you learned from that experience. For Chris, his worse career moment was when the UK office of a company he was working for was shut. When that happened, basically, all of the talented people they had pulled together over 10 years were scattered to the winds. The team he was working with was very talented and worked quickly. They achieved more than the Silicon Valley team did in far less time. Yet, they still closed the office and asked everyone to move to the USA. Some people went and just stayed with the firm for the 2 years they neede for the visa. Then, naturally, they left for better offers. Chris felt that this action showed an incredible lack of insight on the part of the company. It led to all of that talent being lost just because they were geographically in the wrong place. Plus, naturally, a lot of the people were bitter. Many left in anger, which is a bad idea, especially in IT. Even today, it is quite a small world. Chris says that the best approach is to take the high ground. Don’t bad mouth the company to others. The chances are you are going to come across these people again, in the future. (7.00) – Phil asks Chris about their best career moment was. Chris has had lots of great moments. He really enjoys the fact that a small change on the front end can make such a huge positive difference for users. It is also nice when you build up your reputation to the point where finding a new job becomes almost automatic. Chris also gets pleasure from seeing the careers of others he has worked with flourish. (9.18) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that computers are taking over more is something that really excites Chris. This is despite the fact that AI is set to cut into the amount of work that will be available for him. Currently, he sees too many security issues slipping through the net because the code has been written by people who are basically bored with their job. In the future, much of that boring work will be done by computers. AI machines will be great at finding and fixing malicious code and debugging. They will be far faster at it than humans are. This will free developers up to become even more creative and innovative. However, for this to happen quickly the industry needs more data scientists. We need people who can see the patterns and teach machines to recognize them too. He points out that a lot of code has been written already. It is just that much of it has not been shared yet. The open source movement is helping to sort that out. As a result we are now moving forward at a far faster rate. Chris is also excited by the fact that new roles are constantly being created within the IT industry. There are dozens of exciting and interesting jobs that simply did not exist a few years ago. (12.20) – What drew you to a career in IT? Chris explains that he has always loved computers, so when he saw the chance to make working with them a part of his daily life he lept at it. He was also drawn to the sector because he realized he would be able to help people to overcome their fear of working with computers. His work on the front end was helping people to tap into this new technology and achieve more, something he really enjoyed doing. (12.51) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? That was – don’t forget to network within your company, especially when you first join. Get to know the people and their problems. Help others and do everything you can to get departments to talk to each other. Get to know other communicators within that business. Doing all of this helps you to understand your company and find your place within it. Taking this approach ensures that you will always have a backup plan. If your fantastic boss suddenly leaves and your new one is awful, you will be able to quickly move to another job. Plus, when you play a role in getting something difficult fixed you are going to quickly be seen as a valuable employee. So, staying there long-term becomes a viable option. Provided, of course, that is what you want to do. (14.31) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Nowadays, having a proper IT degree is a good thing. Chris knows that he was lucky to end up working in the IT field without a relevant degree. He says that the degree he would take now would be data science. Chris also thinks he would start out by working for smaller startups. He says that this enables you to focus on one project and see it through. This hones your skills and helps you to learn how to turn what you are working on into a success. He also says that he would not go into gaming. It is really hard to become successful in that field now. Nowadays, there is a huge pool or pre-done stuff you can draw upon to get things done quickly. You no longer need to know how to code everything from scratch. So, Chris would also focus on maximizing the potential of this. He would familiarize himself with the various components and frameworks that are available and learn how to use them to get things done fast. (16.49) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Chris’ main objective is to move up and start building a team again. He wants to have team members who can replicate what he is doing right now, so he can focus on working with just a few clients. (17.48) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Chris finds that he uses his communication skills a lot. It is important to know how to talk to people. It also helps you to recognize when not to pursue something. Just because you have identified the perfect solution does not mean that you should insist on developing it right there and then. Sometimes you have to think of the needs of the project, chunk up your knowledge and put together something that works for now, to move things forward. Then, perhaps circle back later to push your idea and get it implemented.[[ (18.59) – Phil asks Chris to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Make sure you stay interested in the job you are doing. Don’t do a boring job or one that you do not like, just for the money. If you do that, you are setting yourself up for failure. You have to find something that challenges you as well. If you are hiring people, always hire someone who is better than you. When you do, you open up the opportunity for you to delegate to them. They get to develop and you are freed up to do something else. In time, they become able to replace you, by which point you will be ready to move on, anyway. You should not be afraid of the people that work for you. BEST MOMENTS: (3.57) CHRIS – “Being flexible in your time and being flexible to actually work across the world is something that a lot of people still have problems with. IT is not a 9 to 5 job." (9.26) CHRIS – "I'm actually very excited that computers are taking over more and more." (9.54) CHRIS – "We should not be bored by writing software. Computers should actually be good enough to write most of the code for themselves." (13.00) CHRIS – “When you join a new company network inside the company." (16.47) CHRIS – "We are reusing 90% of the time what other people have been doing." CONTACT CHRIS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/codepo8 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianheilmann/ Website: https://christianheilmann.com/

For those of you lucky enough to have outdoor space that you put your houseplants in for the warm summer months, this episode is for you! There comes the time with that first snap of fall weather, when we realize the lovely Summer is over and it’s time to bring our plants back indoors, to protect them from the upcoming cold months. But there is an art to this transition. It isn’t as simple as just grabbing the pot and sticking it on your kitchen table. So Chris from The Sill joins me to break down exactly what the two week process of transitioning your plants back indoors looks like. This has been a highly requested episode, and I’m so excited to bring it to you! Chris is the Plant Scientist at The Sill and a dear Plant Friend of Mine. If you don’t know already, The Sill is a plant brand with two brick and mortar shops in NYC and an online shop that delivers nation wide. Their quality of plants, and the way they ship plants is unparalleled. They have a huge focus on education with awesome online classes and in person classes in their stores. The also just launched the Plant Parent Club! Which is their monthly plant subscription service! Visit www.thesill.com to learn more.   In this episode we learn: - When exactly it’s time to bring your plants indoors for the cold months - How to prepare your plants before you bring them inside - How to manage pest outbreaks that might come from the outdoors - Should we worry about fungus? - How you need to trust yourself to create your own care guide - How to prepare your apartment for winter - How you will care for your plant differently in the winter than the summer - How to trust the dormancy - Annuals vs Perennials - What to do with the plants we leave outdoors for the winter To check out the products and lights I use in my apartment, visit www.bloomandgrowradio.com/resources If you are interested in using grow lights to help your plants stay happy this winter, listen to Episode 12 of Bloom and Grow Radio, where Chris joins me to discuss the science of light and everything we need to know when choosing the right light for your apartment. Follow The Sill: @TheSill on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Tumbler  and www.thesill.com     Follow Bloom and Grow Radio: @BloomandGrowRadio Website: www.bloomandgrowradio.com Garden Club: www.bloomandgrowradio.com/garden-club