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Hello there! This is Krista with Episode #112 on the Wag Out Loud Pawdcast. Have you checked out all of the amazing partner products that I highly recommend? Products that I've tried that will help your dog to thrive? Check out the Partner Products section at WagOutLoud.com, most items with discounts, and see what can make a difference in your dog's life.Do you realize that a big part of protecting your dog from heartworm is protecting his immune system? That's right! When you think of your dog's immune system, you probably think about it warding off disease. But it also protects his body from parasites, like heartworms. A strong immune system is the difference between a few heartworms and an abundance of heartworms that would affect your dog's health. Just another reason we need to improve our dogs' gut health!Hi there Dog lovers! Thanks for tuning in to another amazing episode of the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. Back for a 2nd time, Joel Baardseth is here to share some great information. If you didn't catch his earlier episode about Rawsome News for Leaky Gut, have a listen! Joel has been in the pet industry for twenty years and each year he learns more about the Power of Food to help our four-legged kids live their best lives. He is the Sales Operations Manager for an excellent raw food company, Steve's Real Food. He teaches retail staff and the public how to use food to help with common dog and cat ailments.Joel, thanks so much for being on again. Thank you so much for inviting me back.This is always fun chatting with you, we get to geek out and this time on air and people can learn from everything that you have to share with us. Oh, we'll take nerd to the next level. All right, let's do it. Well, Joel, you are going to chat with us about the wolf on your sofa. What does that mean? Well, I like to use a relationship of dogs to wolves as a starting point, whenever I do presentations, I think it's important just to kind of realize that regardless of what leash colors and pink bows we put on our Chihuahuas that really, we did bring a wolf into our home. And it helps for the sole purpose of nutrition, and how to make them thrive. And I personally enjoy researching wolves. I also have a big affection for like wild cats, you know, jaguars, things like that. And something I've always loved as a kid is just kind of like and then these sort of be able to bring it into my my work world has been awesome. But the starting point of all this is that, you know, most people don't realize that wolves and dogs are, you know, they're 99.8%, the same DNA. And that point 2%, that's not identical. That's the difference in what we see. That's the difference between a chihuahua and a wolf and a mastiff is that point two. On the inside, they're all the same. So when wolves are studied, and if they were to open them up and look at the inside to learn, and you have an identical sized dog, right next to them, you wouldn't see a difference. And that's kind of awesome, right there. And in addition to that, they have the same scientific classification, and Canis lupus familiaris. You know, they're, they're the same, we know that they're the same for this reason, Wolves and dogs can mate in even produce offspring. That's how we know they're the same species. A horse and a donkey mate, they get a mule, but the mule is sterile. So the donkey and the horse are two different species. We want to have this because it helps us teach the wolves kind of we don't know exactly why. But they started to be domesticated maybe 15,000 years ago, you know, all this is going to be rough estimates. They've done DNA tracing, to get it that far. And there's competing theories on why wolves came into our, into our world, if people did it, or if wolves, self domesticated, that's a theory that's out there too. But really why it's important is that's a long time, that they are eating what we'll call their ancestral natural diet. So both dogs and wolves are what's called opportunistic hunters. So in the wild, wolves and dogs, wild dogs, they have to form packs to survive, because they're not that good at what they do. meaning they're not that good at hunting on their own. They need that team to be able to do that. And that is a business relationship and the business is survival. Sometimes they get fresh prey, most of the time they're actually either scavenging or they actually graze. So they have a digestive enzyme You and I have it's called amylase, that allows them to metabolize like plant material. So in the wild wolves aren't just getting meat, and they're not only a carnivore, they actually have omnivore tendencies. They'll eat wild flowers. They will eat overripe berries, they love them in the fall and particularly berries that you and I wouldn't pick because they're too mushy, are loaded with lycopene, that is an antioxidant directly related to heart health. Now whether or not wolves know that they are absolutely drawn to them. So they do eat a lot of things because and they develop a wide variety of a diet. And it all stems from they're just not that great at hunting. Cats by comparison are true carnivores. They are flat out awesome at hunting, so they didn't have to develop…They don't have amylase in their saliva. They can't really metabolize plant material. Dogs can, wolves can, they need to in order to survive, so they can handle this wide varied diet. But they lean toward carnivores, they might have omnivore tendencies. But they absolutely perform best with a closer to a carnivore diet with maybe 15 to 20% plant material. That's really when they're at their best that we have found. So I have something really cool. Do you ever get to Minnesota?I've never been there.Well, okay, so I have these two lists to dos when you come. You probably don't want to come to this time of year, we're gonna have negative two degrees on Saturday as the high. so about an hour north of Minneapolis is this really cool place. It's called the Wildlife Science Center. And Peggy Callahan has been running it for 35 years. So this is a shout out to her too. And all the awesome work that she does, but on Saturdays, it's open to the public. And it's not a zoo, it is a sanctuary. She has about 110 wolves. So these wolves have come there for various reasons. Maybe mom got hit by a car. And you know, the young would die if they weren't brought somewhere. Or she had a pack of wolves that the alpha female actually taught the pack to hunt sled dogs. And so they're either getting killed or they had to be removed. So she brought them in. And so she's this wealth of information. And like, you know, Peggy, I need some cool stuff when I when I do these interviews, and I do you know, my webinars. And she told me she said that when she took it over 35 years ago, this sanctuary. The government was running it and they did a pretty good job, but they were limited budget. So they actually use kibble is what they fed the wolves, and I go all right. And she said so the first switch she made, and it turns out, it's the only dietary change she made was she worked out a deal with a DNR. In, you know, 100 square miles around the sanctuary, she gets all the roadkill deer. So her wolves' primary diet, is road kill deer. And then she'll throw in wild flowers and you know, berries, just other things supplementally they're here and there that they would eat the wild. But they went fed kibble to that the life expectancy when they from all the records when fed kibble was 14 to 16 years, they now live 18 to 20. They have zero joint zero dental issues. And they average 130 pounds now, they actually averaged about 115 to 120. So they've gained muscle mass all by going from cooked food to uncooked food. So it helps us know what we can then apply to our four legged kids, to our dogs by using wolves and that knowledge. So wolves in the wild, they don't smell. They don't shed all over the place. They don't leave piles of poop that last three weeks. You know, all of those things are things we created that we think are normal, because of kibble, because of cooked food because of processed food. And it was created for the same reason, fast food and minute Rice was created for us convenience, it's meant we live fast lives. And we brought our dogs into that world too. And if we slow down a little bit, and take a look at this. And now we can get some knowledge from wolves and help guide us to keep our four legged kids a long, long time.That all makes complete sense. Well, Joel, I've heard that scientists have found a genetic difference between dogs and wolves. And I think you alluded to it earlier that dogs appear to have a greater ability to digest starches, and that the wolf genome has two copies of the alpha amylase 2B, which helps to process starches. And dogs have somewhere between four and 30 copies of this gene. So some people might say when it comes to diet that treating dogs like wolves doesn't make nutritional or biological sense. What do you have to say to that?I say that there are definite differences. If you look at just the fact that nature's survival of the fittest, and we try to keep the dog we bring the dog into the home that matches our personality that we connect with. And we don't know breeding history and all these things that can change kind of their immune and all of that. So sometimes, you know comparing them you know, you take Peggy's wolves 18 to 20 years, no joint issues average of 30 pounds. Well, we would love our large breed dogs to read like that going on to an uncooked raw diet isn't going to do that. But the trick is the raw diets that are the best, in my opinion, have about 20% plant material. And then you have the option to give treats and things like that. Remember, we're just going at that base diet, there is a fine line, you can amylase in your saliva. But that doesn't mean they can only eat they, they can have all the plant and all the starch that they that they want, there is a cap. So think of them as omnivore tendencies with kind of like a carnivore base. Peggy's wolves are based with roadkill deer, and then she gives these other things around it. Our dogs, even if that were true, that's still not enough to compensate for the level of starch and plant material that are in common kibbles out there, right. So we do want more protein from meat, we do want a higher meat content and keep that plant material at about 20%. And the results are awesome. I mean, that's, that's really what we look at is the results, how quickly, skin, eyes, teeth start to clean up, long life, muscle mass, these are all things that the raw feeders see over and over and over again. And so, you know, kind of the proof is in the pudding also. And so eliminating that, that high starch, I don't think starch should be factored in with what amylase can do. starch is bad for us. starch is bad for everything, you know, especially the processed starches. If we talk about fruits and vegetables, that's a little different. There are people that feed raw that give a lot of fruits and vegetables that they add to the raw and their dogs do great. But they're not adding high processed starch. They're not giving a pile of pizza crust or breads, like, that's where we gotta kind of draw the line. But whole living foods is a great way to roll. But there's so much this is what I love though is that Think about it. Like when Steve's came out, there was no raw commercially prepared at the time. And then, you know, we got into grain free kibbles. Now we have, you know, specific quinoa in kibbles. And now we're talking about amylase, we couldn't have that conversation in the 80s or 90s, it would have gone over everybody's head. So for me personally, everything that you just said is more things for me to dig into more things for Steve's Real Food to consider, talk through, get the right testing and the right, you know, labs involved. And you know, the right animal scientists that we that we kind of talk through and have consult, because we want to get better. And I don't think any raw food on the market is perfect. I think we're all trying to get better every year and every year. And that really should be our goal. And so this is all new knowledge. You know, if you look at the you know how many years we've started studying this, if you're talking about 10s of years, that new, that new stuff. So we do have a long ways to go. But I love the starting point of carnivore with omnivore tendencies. I think that is a great way to kind of look at it, we're going to do a base diet, high meat, and then we can supplement with Whole Foods, fruits, vegetables, things like that. If you do that, we already know we're getting good results. Perfection is hard to hit though. So we'll keep trying on that.I find it so funny that a lot of the dog food brands out there have pictures of wolves on their bags of kibble. And I just don't think wolves would prefer to eat kibble out of a bag versus going after prey. Just saying…Exactly. Now, although there is this other side, to your little example there. if you had a plate of fresh carrots and broccoli and then there was a bag of chips next to you know, so that you might prefer something but the body might not. It is fascinating to watch. You know the change and the amount of changes I've seen, you know, when I first started feeding raw 20 years ago, I should say the month before I started feeding raw. I told my boss at the time, you know he he owned a distributor and I was one of the sales guys. And he brought me to the back of his warehouse and his name is Kirk Dietz and I'll make sure he listens too by the way. This was my shout out for him for bringing me into the pet industry. He walked me back to the back of his warehouse and he had this chest freezer that you might have in your garage. And he opened the door he goes Joel check it out. Raw Dog Food. And it's the best way to feed and he got all excited to tell me all of this and I shut the door and I said, I'm not gonna sell that hippie food. I don't know what that is because I was picturing leftover human food hitting the floor at the processing plant and swept into a bag. It just, it was. So out of my norm. I grew up, you see stacks of kibble in a store, and that's what you feed a dog. You know, I didn't know. So we've all had to kind of learn. And I look at as walking up through a staircase, if somebody is not comfortable yet, feeding all raw, there is enough health benefits out there that have been proven, feed, some, use it as treats, then. have their treats, be this uncooked, food that's very natural, that's fine. I'm on board with that. And if you start seeing good results, just see what happens if you add a little more. So I don't get down on anybody who is either anti raw, or because I was that person, I had to go up the staircase before I was comfortable. And I think it's totally okay, as long as they at least are open minded to listen, and just bank the information as we learn and can present it better. That's great advice. And when I think of wolves in the wild, I mean, they must have so many different protein sources. You know, deer and moose and boar and rabbits and you know, beaver fish, what have you. So if our if we look at the way that we feed our dogs, maybe the same exact protein source day in day out, I would have to think that our dogs if given a choice, and I think when they have more protein choices, that means they have the different amino acid profiles, which has to be more nutritious. So do you recommend that we do rotate our proteins?Constantly rotating for a couple of reasons. Number one, we would not want to eat the exact same thing day after day after day, it would get boring. So that's more on the emotional side of it. The other side of it is think 30 day health, not one day health. And I think people will do a lot better is there is there's nutrition in venison, and you can't get in chicken and vice versa. Rotate like crazy. Let's cover the gamut. Add in some goat milk too. give bones give freeze dried turkey necks then back away from those and add more of a higher protein source. It does prevent true food allergies. Now there's conditions out there that mimic food allergies, they give some of the symptoms but a true food allergy. If you have a dog that's susceptible to a true food allergy, repetition of the same thing over and over and over again, could ignite that. by rotating you can prevent that from ever happening. And so I love rotational diets, because wolves in the wild are used to this high variety. I can't use this example, if we if you and I ate the exact same thing. Let's say we had a baked potato every meal every day, you know for two years. And then your'e like, Joel I'm in town and there's this new seafood buffet. And we went there, we could really upset our stomach. But if we ate a lot of different ethnic foods and a lot of variety, you can do a change and feel nothing. Our wolves and our dogs are the same way. So if you have a dog that has digestive upset rotate like crazy, and they welcome that it gives them a better healthier gut, work in canned food work in some good treats, stuff the Kongs with i like i like taking frozen. And I like taking cat food, canned cat food, it tends to be a higher meat content, a lot of times I put it in Kongs and I freeze it. And that's what I like to give. It's fun, it's different. It's unique. It's a different texture. It's all in the treat world though, you know a base diet is a complete raw diet. And then I have fun outside of that. And I like doing that. It makes life more interesting for the dog. The way I feed is if I change, flavors, formulas, or form every once in awhile I work in some freeze dried just for fun. I have special jobs that my Doberman has to do for each different food. And that's how I let her know what's coming. So when I make a food switch, she has a specific command, and then I switch and then she knows something different is coming her way.That's a great idea.Well, food is the biggest, single biggest We are the number one resource for our dogs. And you combine it with their second biggest resource which is food and that's their most personal interaction with you. And that's the best time you're going to have to feed them anyways. We're busy people . Make that interaction count. It's kind of the way I look at it. And it just gives you this awesome opportunity. I'll take freeze dried, you know, we got snow all over here right now. And I'll go to the tennis courts by my house, shut the gates, and just throw, freeze dried raw in the snow, and then Bimi has to find it. It's fun, it's entertaining. You know, it keeps them. But variety does that variety allows you to do those things. And then she can have something special and new and unique. That wasn't on the menu before. Once you establish variety, they can handle a lot of change. And it makes it a lot more fun. For both you in the dog.Great, great advice. Well, as we're coming to a close, Joel, I was gonna ask you, I've read that wolves can eat seven pounds of food in a day. But they might not eat again for several days. So that brings me to the question of should we fast our dogs and give their digestive system a break?There's one of those debates that can go either way. I do not fast my dog? Because I think about it as is that really by design? Or is that prey and food availability? And so that's one of the things I asked Peggy too and she's like, she doesn't fast her wolves. You know, she's like, that's kind of a availability thing. And I just lean toward her because her wolves, you know, average 130 pounds in captivity or 18 to 20 years. I like that. I want to follow that. And I can go either way. I've seen people get awesome results. When they fast once in a while. I just look at it as I lean more toward what if the prey was available? And would they be eating it. And that kind of comes down to wolves and dogs are opportunistic hunters, they don't know when their next food is coming. So they eat it all that's in front of them not knowing if it's gonna come? When would they be like if it was readily available. And I tend to lean towards that personally, I have no objections to people who do fast their dog once in a while, just be very careful with it. Because I've heard that they've gotten great results too. So I think this is one of those. We're still learning things, which makes it exciting. Because next year, we might do a podcast with the answer. Who knows? But right now we're still learning. Yeah.So Joel, why don't you talk briefly about Steve's because I am a huge fan, what goes into the formulation of your food and what sets you guys apart?We're an 80/20. Raw meaning 80% meat, meat by food definition is muscle meats, organ meats, and ground bone. And then the other 20 is going to be fruits, vegetables, you know, any kind of power foods in there that we add. And then we add goat milk to our entire line, if there was a separator amongst the raw brands that commercially prepared raw foods, and just so you know, I don't believe that there is a best brand, I believe that Steve's is the best food for me, because I love our commitment to the environment. I love that we're education first, that matches my lifestyle and the way I want to be. So there are other great brands too. And we all have small differences. We're all taking that same core knowledge. And then we kind of put our extended research on top, our extended research is, we add goat milk to the entire line, because we believe so strongly in gut health and goat milk is naturally loaded with probiotics. So there's a high level of goat milk in there to get a good healthy gut for our dogs. And so that is a, that's a big differentiator for us, that we get really good results on. I think we do a good job of being very transparent with our sources. So you know, competitors don't call up our sources and, and negotiate for them. But we're very transparent. I've visited some of the farms, I've been to the goat farm. And it was awesome. And the goats they're not only, you know, taken very good care of they retire on site. So this whole past year, that's their retirement, and looking at how much fun they were having. I want my retirement to look like theirs, right? They are well, cared for, they are happy and loving it. And that matters to me. You know that? That doesn't matter to everybody. You know, they're looking at their dog, and that's what matters to them. Well, I kind of I'm just a big picture thinker. And so, you know, we're part of a green initiative to you know, we're trying to get biodegradable bags, we're trying to do things that help beyond just feeding the dogs well. And so those are things that are unique to us. That's for you know, that's what makes it the best brand for me. And it's not always the best for others, but it absolutely is. The best for me. And on top of that, it just flat out performs. Yeah. And I think that's, that's the big one, right there is performance. You know, we've been around since 1998, with a lot of healthy dogs to show for it, like lots of awesome stories, healing stories. And, you know, that's kind of what we go by, is, wow, we just keep getting validated for this excellence. And that's what drives us.That's so cool. Well, and it's so easy to feed as well. And if anybody listening is interested in trying Steve's Real Food, they are in most dog boutiques. So ask your local retailer, or if you would like it delivered right to your front door, we are offering a discount, so you just have to go to RawPetFood.com. Use the code WOL10. And get 10% off of your order. And I have a feeling that your dog will be very thankful that you do that. Joel, where can everyone find out more information about you and Steve's Real Food?StevesRealFood.com, absolutely. Visit our website. There's some great knowledge in there. There's blogs, there's all kinds of extended information. There are studies that have been done. My email is joel@stevesrealfood.com And I do not mind people emailing me saying I've got this German Shepherd with this. any guidance you can give me and I'll do my best to take that first step and and to help out. My favorite part of my world is the teaching portion. You know that that's what I love to do, and taking care of as many four legged kids as I can. So well, I should say, dogs and cats. I can't help you with a hedgehog or an eguana, although I think they're cool. I can't really help you with those.Okay, just dogs and cats then.Yep. All right Joel, thank you so much for sharing with us today. Appreciate it.OFFER: You too can try Steve's Real Food by going to RawPetFood.com and Use code WOL10 to get 10% off of your order!Joel, where can everyone find out more information about you and Steve's Real Food?Stevesrealfood.comjoel@stevesrealfood.comSocial Media: FB & IG @StevesRealFood

I am a mentor for the Notion Advanced track of Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain, Cohort 12. This is the cleaned up audio of the second of 5 mentorship sessions with Q&A at the end. The first session was last week.Recommended reads PARA: https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/  Blogpost Annealing: https://www.swyx.io/blogpost-annealing/ Twitter as Universal Meta-Commentary Layer: https://www.swyx.io/twitter-metacommentary/ Digital Garden TOS: https://www.swyx.io/digital-garden-tos/ Devon Zuegel on Epistemic Status: https://devonzuegel.com/post/epistemic-statuses-are-lazy-and-that-is-a-good-thing Slides and Video.Timestamps Prelude [00:00:00] Housekeeping [00:01:09] Content Recap [00:02:34]  Q&A: Constancy/Consistency [00:11:17]  Q&A: Maintaining the Second Brain [00:14:34] Q&A: Weaknesses of PARA [00:17:55] Q&A: Broken Links in Notion [00:19:16]  Q&A: Automation with Zapier [00:22:34] SMART Goals [00:23:25] Denormalizing Notes [00:25:01] Open Source Knowledge [00:28:27] Brag Documents [00:29:28] Just Do It [00:30:57] Q&A: How do you share in public? [00:31:45] Q&A: Atomicity/Denormalization [00:34:02] Q&A: Why Notion? [00:37:33] Q&A: Book writing? [00:38:28] First Wrapup [00:40:23]  Q&A: Twitter Links Extension [00:42:30] Q&A: Chrome Extensions [00:43:33] Q&A: How do you balance research and writing? [00:44:39] Q&A: Converting Resources to Projects [00:47:37] Q&A: Video/Audio Capture [00:49:11] Q&A: Speaking [00:50:39] Q&A: Writing My Book [00:52:58] TranscriptPrelude [00:00:00]swyx: [00:00:00] Why PARA? Have you considered why only four letters? I really liked the thought process going into that.  That's actually touched upon in the blog post. I'm not sure that you covered it in the lectures, but I think it's just really great to have something that's barely minimal enough that it covers the span of everything that we organize our information because I think in past attempts, I know I have probably, this is a common experience, you try to organize all the things and then you have like 15 different categories to spot stuff in and you just get overwhelmed because  you're like, I don't know where to put stuff in. So the second week, week two is really about organization. So that's what we're trying to optimize for.And that's what PARA is. Christopher says some of the mentors have modified the acronym shock. What, what modifications have they said?  Some mentors only have PAR or PA. Yeah.  I will say my A and my R are merged, Maria says PTARA for tasks with silent T that's. Cool. Yeah, because you do need tasks as well.  So I'll mention something about your calendar as a to-do list, because that's pretty important. Someone should blog about that because then you scoop Tiago. Alright. Okay. So I'm going to get started and I'm going to try to keep the chat alive. Housekeeping [00:01:09]This is a little bit stressful as always, cause I'm not used to such a big zoom but thanks for everyone for making the time on the weekend. This is the notion advanced group that I lead. It's Sundays at 5:00 PM, as you might know. And it's a very developer focused the meet up because there are a lot of developers in BASB, but we do try to keep it generally accessible. Part and just I'm going to give an agenda that's happening cause last time it didn't. So you know what to expect and you can jump off  if you have other stuff going on. So we're going to do a little bit of content recap. I got very positive feedback from last week about what did we cover this week? From my point of view, and then we'll talk a little bit about projects versus areas. I'll give some extra content around what I think para is. I don't have, I didn't modify the acronym. That's a very smart move. I wasn't smart enough to think about that. And then we'll just have a general Q&A . Last time we went for 90 minutes, this one, we try to keep it to an hour, but.Some housekeeping, the three rules that we have from zero, because we start at zero in this house stupid questions are welcome Second rule Often beats perfect. So don't try to do it right, but I try to do the best, just do it a lot and you'll find that you do more than if you try to do the best and third rule this is a discussion, not a lecture, so I'm not an expert and I don't have the right answer. And I fully welcome people here to answer questions that other people have asked, because I don't know the right answer as well. So it's a discussion that I'm  facilitating. So that's the framing that I want to set for this session. Content Recap [00:02:34] Okay. So now into the content recap I'm just basically going to pick the three best slides that I thought really represented this week. So if you remember nothing else from this week, hopefully you remember these slides.So the primary thing I think that everyone needs to get from this week is that completed creative projects by the oxygen of your second brain. In other words, action. Right. Or what did someone say at the start of the session, christopher said, para is a methodology to organize the action ability, basically like optimize for taking action, nothing else matters.And your system needs to help you get there. And your second brain has helped me get there. I like the metaphor of oxygen because without oxygen, your second brain is going to starve. And I definitely find that very true of myself. We all have stuff, we haven't competed. And then we just reinforced this identity of a person who does not complete projects. So the smaller your ambitions the more you can feed them the more you have reinforces image of someone who completes projects and you get more done. This is PARA in one slide, very ambitious. I basically wanted to summarize, what the main aspects of PARAwe should have for those who might've missed it. I did share the slide deck, so you don't have to screenshot or anything. So I'm going to share that in the chat right now. Well, it's actually P stands for projects, A stands for Area, R stands for resource and archive is basically inactive  items from all three categories. And one of the key insights is that it's arranged in order for more actionable to less actionable.And the other order that you see as well is that there are less projects in there. There should be the most number of archives. So I think if you saw Tiago live session, he showed you his own Evernote where he actually showed like the number of projects was like 5% of the total number of notes that he was taking and yet hundreds of archives.And that's what the rough order that you shouldn't taking it. Things can also move fluidly between categories. So something to start off as a project and then broaden out into an area and eventually make his way to an archive, but he can also make us wait the other way. So that's the purpose of this blue and green circle things that's going on. And then finally, the thing that he wanted to really drive home with the project list was that the project should be connected to a goal. And a goal should be connected to a project and the project without a goal is a hobby. And then go without a project. It's a dream because you don't have plans to accomplish it.So that's para in a slide for me. I that's why I like  asking people to summarize what para is, because I think it's a very personal thing because it's the way you organize your information. But I think trying to have a decent summary of what para is for other people helps you internalize it as well.Partially why I'm doing this mentorship thing. Okay. So I think there's something that people have really tried to struggle with is the difference between projects and areas. That's something that toggle mentioned, in, in David Allen's book, getting things done. He mentioned that the people can surprisingly have a lot of difficulty separating between projects and areas. So project has an outcome to achieve, and it hasn't been like, whereas an area has a standard with no deadline,  but as per the standard quality while we were at 50 people already. Okay. So, I just want to share people. Yes. Someone asked me just like that again, it's down here.But I just want to see in the chat a little bit This week, your homework was to figure out your project list  and sort your stuff into projects that areas. So what are some examples of projects that you have identified for yourself? If you can just share in the chat that'd be really great. I just want to see people's projects and I can give more examples if you want.  Dennis's project is a weekly podcast episode.Very nice, man. He says tax filing for 2020. I hope he got that done. Cause I think the deadline was tomorrow or Friday. I got my, I thought that I thought the tax filing deadline was April 15th. So I got my deadline there. I think everyone should have a extension automatic extension for tech solving.Sam Wong says crypto training and seminar. That's excellent. Excellent. So all of these have defined deadlines except for Dennis. Dennis has a weekly podcast episode. Arguably that's not a project it's not specific enough. It has to be this week's podcast episode. Yani is project. Very good. I was hoping for this on and Karen as well. What would them, once you complete the ASB and have a functional second Brain by June obviously that's something that we all hope to get you to at the end of the day Maria says she wants to work on newsletter volume three. Peter brace has a very specific work within the deal. Close the deal with jet Beck. Good luck, Peter. I hope you close that deal. I'm working on a couple of deals at work as well, and Yeah, well is out of my control sometimes. You just, once you've done all the paperwork, yeah. Okay. Slobodan an interesting one, implement power for kids and powerful family.So this is another level of,  once you really internalize para, you want to do it for work. You want to do it for family. You want to do it for kids. It's super interesting. Just, take it easy.  It's a long game. Okay. And Christopher Horn wants to refactor notes. Is that what Gaston by me, 16th? Yeah, have a deadline. And see a lot of people with desired outcomes, but make sure you have a deadline, make sure it's not too far in the future. And if it's too big you gotta break it down. You go more to something  achievable because of the motivational factor of completing projects.Oh, we do have a question from Sam Wong. I think this is relevant to Dennis. The other person want to do podcasts. So Sam Wong's question is how do you handle monthly tasks, invoicing, for example, it is a project when it repeats.Yeah. So you have an area of responsibility, which is a would you say standard to be maintained and it doesn't have a deadline. It just keeps repeating, but it spins out projects every month. That is one way to think about it. But obviously if it's a task, like if it's, if it can be done in one session then it's less of a project and more like a task that you can probably knock it out in five minutes or something.Then yeah, that's why I think people, when they establish a fifth category apart from PARA probably the other one that makes sense is T the task category. So, we'll talk about that at the end. But essentially I just put it on my calendar as like thing I need to get done. There's no point having a to-do lists because the to-do lists.It very wishy-washy it doesn't actually set aside time. So you might as well use your calendar as a, to do this. That's the I'm giving away the ending there, but that's, that's really the conclusion. Okay. I had some feature quotes from this one this week. I thought this week where it's particularly quote worthy, I like collecting quotes. And in fact, if you notice in the circle community, there is a section just for quotes. And I think quotes can help you really crystallize some of the learnings. And that's why I wanted to focus on some, but please feel free to share also in the chat some course that you liked Or did it stuck in your head?You don't have to get it precisely right. But try to remember some quotes because you're going to have to repeat them for yourself, for other people. So one thing I think people don't focus on enough is the importance of archiving. So this is why I want to feature this quote here. We can not do our best thinking when all the information from the past is cutting our attention.That's why that archive stuff is so crucial. Right? That's actually the first thing that he showed how to do in his live demo. The other thing, and this is very much in line with, well, number one, I think that we had the value. It doesn't come from the tool. It comes to you using it repeated thing. So despite people really identifying themselves by the tool, right? Like, we are the notion group. Then they're getting teams that the wrong group and never the Twain shall meet. It's less about the tool because the tool will come and go and it's more budgets getting more use out of the tool. Same for blogs, by the way, a lot of people resolve to start a blog and then they'll write the blog.And they'll say like, you know how I wrote this blog? The first book was a bit of a world. Of course, second blog would be how I meet this blog. And then third blog posts would be, sorry, it's been a while since I last updated. And that blog will be less updated as a two years ago. So definitely, well, you don't want to have that kind of thing where you're, over-invested picking the tool and then you never use it.Okay. So, and then difference between projects in areas, projects of sprints areas and marathons. So you do want to go for sustainability in areas and then projects juggle says, give it everything you've got. That may be a little bit harsh, but  I do definitely sprint a lot for some something projects, which a lot of should have blogging.Right. But also when I published my book last year I realized I didn't. I didn't introduce that part of myself but for those one year two micro yes. Part of the reason why this is an advanced group for BSB is that I do definitely want to people to ship and even make money from shipping.So if you, if your intent is to publish a video or a book something from as a capstone for this course, this is the right group for you. And I'm definitely open to questions about that. Okay. Finally, a project without a goal is a hobby. You go without a project is a dream. That's not something we covered earlier and completed creative project. So the oxygen of your second brain. So that's that those are the quotes that I pulled out. I do definitely encourage you to save your own quotes. That's probably one of my main research areas or  just like collecting quotes, I do like collecting quotes and questions.Okay. Brief reminder that you can also share your stuff here in, in the project list on, on the circle. And I think it's a very good motivational tool to check out what other people are working on and how to how to see what's what's happening there. Q&A: Constancy/Consistency [00:11:17] Questions and discussion on this week's content in general.Speaker1: [00:11:20] So I raised my hand  on the interface, which I'm doing for the first time from an iPad. So I had to reach for it as well. My question is you were talking about the value of what I characterize as constancy, the repetition, the rigor that's my number one problem. And I don't know that I'm unique in that.There's always, I read somewhere that there's always this point when you're cultivating a new mental model or skillset or whatever, That works. It works, it works. And then all of a sudden, the old way that you used to be rears its head and tries to pull you back in and then you fall off of it. And I guess I'm wondering, based on anybody's feedback here, what is the best practice around achieving or cultivating or keeping that constancy?swyx: [00:12:00] Is there a reason you call it a constancy instead of consistency? Speaker1: [00:12:03] Because I'm weird. Okay. That's cool. I read a lot of, I read a lot of archaic texts and when I say constancy of probably drawing from Thomas Jefferson, which I was just reading this morning. Sorry. I apologize. swyx: [00:12:17] Wonderful. I mean, Hey, he's a good person to learn from. Does anyone have thoughts on constancy? Feel free to speak up?  I can give some thoughts, but I didn't want to take all the air in the room. Joseph I don't know how to pronounce the last name. Sorry. You need to form a habit, which means it takes around 60 days to form. I like that. So a lot of consistency or constancyis about identity.I like this. I like this thing about identity change that James Claire has. So he has this three circle thing. We're effectively doing some kind of behavior change and this is. This is effective for para is effective for capture and the other habits that you're going to learn in the other weeks of the class.So, it's around your identity, right? So check out this, there is a behavior change idea. So they're, three shells to your model, right? Like, so, there's your appearance, there's what you do. And then there's your identity, how you, how you think about yourself. So, you can try to be the person who do, who does like a hundred pushups in a row, or do PARA for 60 days. That's a very forced motivational thing. Like you can publicly commit to it. You can pay a charity and say like, if I don't know, if I don't complete this, I will lose some money.There are a lot of little tricks that really hack at the outward appearance of that. Then there's the performance, like the actual actions you take to ensure that you do that. So, so that can be like actually doing the thing. So instead of saying that you're doing it, you actually do the thing.But the one that really sticks with you is identity change. Once you to say, I am a person who does PARA for me, I am now a BSB mentor. Which means I am someone who just like inherently people can come to me to talk to for BASB advice. That has changed the way I approach BASB, because now it's part of my identity and someone who identifies as someone who's cause forming the habit was capturing this building a second, bring.You don't need some trick. It's just a thing that you do. If you're a religious person, you just go to church, you don't have some counter of like how many times I've been to church in a row. You just go. And if you it's okay to break it every now and then, but then you pick the rabbit up again because that's your identity.To me, that's the most motivational thing I don't need anything else, but joseph just let me have other thoughts as well. Yeah, peter says, I prefer to keep my identity inconsistent so that doesn't work too well for me. You do it, you are allowed to change your identity and that, that is a fluid concept. So yeah. Are there other forms of commitment to me work as well? Okay. Hopefully that was a decent start. Thank you for breaking the ice.Q&A: Maintaining the Second Brain [00:14:34] There was another question here, but I'm going to, I'm going to acknowledge Yanni, who has had her hand.Speaker2: [00:14:37] So I think it's actually probably can be a followup out the previous question that Christopher dresser mentioned. I think first of all, thank you so much for sharing the identity part, because I think that's a big owl consider as a principal that I can follow up.I can think of, but now the question is the implementation of that identity. I think I think about the consistency aspect of the second brain comes out the main tennis aspects. So I'm curious about how you maintain your second brain. I used to just unconsciously associate the main tenants as a reviewing process.It can be, but I'm just curious you, Shawn, as a person who creates a lot of value on a weekly or monthly basis, I'm curious how you're maintaining your second brain. At the implementation level. swyx: [00:15:20] Yeah, I knew I was going to be  asked this and I knew I was going to have a terrible answer for this. So Maria, you might want to do you might want to show your system in case I fail and crashed and burned, but I'm just going to be brutally honest. I don't do much maintenance. I I do rent, so I do have I have show this  in the past preview. So, these are resources. I don't. I started on with para and that was a year ago and things have evolved since then.So part of I've been told that it's actually a good idea to show people how para is used in real life, that it shows you that it's okay not to be perfect because Tiago is  perfect PARA.  So I do have projects. One of them is BASB mentoring, for example, that's what we're on today.And I do have resources that I share. I do have special categories of resources. These are just resources that I have for myself. But for example, when I worked at Amazon, I did have public resources that I shared is it public notion. And I think Sharon dozers, reusable resources are, is very helpful because it's no extra work on your part.Other people might find it very valuable. And I do encourage showing the resources as far as maintenance go, actually. The, so the other part of my system is simple note. I do a lot of review on weekends. So every Saturday I do my newsletter and the newsletter helps me triage things as they come in. And that goes in from right to left . From simple note, which is my quick access thing. That's always fast cause notions slow into notion in the right categories. So that's really it for me, in terms of maintenance maria, I don't know if you want to jump in and you have anything to add for maintenance.Speaker3: [00:16:47] Yeah, I put something in the chat about it just really depends on what I care about. So, my projects are maintained daily and then I have a weekly review where I think about like the areas in my life that are most relevant. So it really depends on like what I care about now. And then I organize as I, as things come up.Yeah, so that's, that's about me. That's depends so much on how I do it in notion, but it's like the mindset around that.swyx: [00:17:16] I think it's a good idea to set like a quarterly or annual reminder to archive all the things. And that's something I haven't done, just quite, quite frankly I haven't done any archiving. I have just a mess of stuff since I took BSD last year. So I really should archive it,  check out this thing where I say, Oh, projects, I didn't really archive anything. So it's a good idea to clear the deck every now and then. And just like Jonah says, don't be afraid about archiving stuff. You can, it's always still in the same system. You can always search it. Christopher says he archives annually. That's something that's good as well over a visual overwhelming is a real thing. All right. Thanks, Danny. Thanks. Good question for that. Q&A: Weaknesses of PARA [00:17:55]Julian says, Julian Alvarez says what weaknesses and drawbacks have you experienced implementing PARA and how can those be addressed? So I think a lot of people  have talked about the weaknesses, which is that it doesn't have any room for tests. Julian. So the way that I think about tasks is that so I do have a work to do list. That's a lot of my stuff. I do have 70, this is like the most overused of simple note. I'm not sure if this is like the right thing. I do a lot of speaking, so here's my speaking calendar. So I make sure I'm on top of my my talks and I'm recording and speaking.My blogging goes here. That's essentially all it all. I need, in order to inform my personal stuff, my worst stuff has a different notion tracker, which I probably should not show and publicly. But then I also have this concept of the calendar is a to-do list. So, you're on Kevin calendar as a, to do list. So, I have written that up here. I'm going to share that in the chat. But I do like basically this idea of time block planning that when you want to get stuff done attach it to a time just thinking it to do this without any notion of priority or amount of time estimated to complete is not enough.So that's that's, what's going on over there. If anyone else had like weaknesses, a para that they've come across, I'll just leave room for one more response. Yes. Nope. Okay, parents. Perfect. I am interested in the other questions, the other formulations of para. Q&A: Broken Links in Notion [00:19:16] I'm going to go to Juliana now who also has her hand raised Hey, hi. Speaker4: [00:19:20] Right. So, it's a question about archiving things. I started setting up my bearer and I already have I already have a task management system, so I have a database with the tasks and I started to another database with the projects and another for the areas and another for the resource.And I, I thought it was a great idea because I could Link all the stuff and make relations like in the database, but  I'm having difficult. I, sorry about my English. I am, I'm having a hard time to archiving these things because when I try to move to another archive database, I lost, I lose the relations.swyx: [00:20:13] Oh, okay. Got it. So I don't Speaker4: [00:20:16] know if somebody has the same problem and could help me. And swyx: [00:20:21] and yeah, I think that's it. Great question. I have no idea how to answer this. Cause I don't have a solution for that as well.   Christopher Horn says I created a page and I'm city and that collects all open tasks into one master page.I put it into a template for my daily planning notes. Joshua says filter status of archive works. Okay. So you add a filter status, Juliana, like basically add a filter. Nope. That could work. Speaker4: [00:20:44] Yeah. I filter the task in dance, but like, the projects in the areas, maybe like putting a filter might be good.swyx: [00:20:54] Yeah. Speaker4: [00:20:55] But then I wouldn't, well, I C I can create  another view of the database and just filter with the archive.swyx: [00:21:04] Okay. Joshua. Yeah ductal Joshua is sharing what what works for him? Yeah, we do use views at work for what it's worth notion is our project management too. I work as well. So yes. Music grief for that. Correct. Yeah.  In terms of breaking relations I don't actually know how to fix that. If you move stuff around, I don't move stuff enough to, to answer that I do like duplication. So I'd rather copy and paste that link. But that's just me. I know that people like to link back and forth when stuff  I think the backlink functionality in notion is pretty good.  So if this is if broken links is something that you care about then having that, this is a new, basically the wrong column of notion  you can establish back things and if you move stuff around, I think this was, this will be always correct, because the identified based on the IP of the document is structured within the note taking system.Yeah. Joshua says I like to avoid databases and just link pages with linking instead. Yeah. Which means he can move it without them breaking. So maybe just don't use linking or use backlinking. That seems to be the answer. Filters are really good for what it's worth Joseph. I don't actually recommend using notion is like a read later app. So I noticed that  Joseph says that he has a reading list in notion. I actually use, you can use instead of paper you can use. So I have up next, this is what I have , I'll just add it to up next and then I'll read it on my iPad. But you can use Instapaper, you can use some sort of meet data. Okay. All right. Joshua has book notes. All right. All right. So Juliana hopefully that was good.  I don't think it was like a perfect answer, but maybe notion wasn't really designed for that. Definitely try to make more robust things that won't break.Q&A: Automation with Zapier [00:22:34]All right. We'll take one more question. Thank you. Take one more question. Cameron has has an interesting one. What kind of workflow automations do you use with if this, then that Zapier? So this is about automations. Kevin says I created a zap so that every time I create a new notebook, it creates a new folder on Dropbox that you drive. That's pretty handy. That's more backup. Yanni says I use, I have TTT for Evernote Instapaper pocket highlight evernotes goes to Evernote.Yep. They are all going under inbox folder for me. Maria says Google calendar to notion database with Zapier. Wow. Okay. Why Google calendar like tweets the notion. Wow. Okay. This is really good.  I think this Lightspeed's emotion thing.  That's a good idea. Cause there's it's not intuitive to search your own. The tweets that you've liked before. So having the automation makes sense. The calendar one makes is unusual. SMART Goals [00:23:25]Alright, I probably missed some questions on the way. So I'm gonna leave those to the end, but I'm gonna go into some of the unique content that I think about we've covered some of these areas.I'm going to go into a little bit about some other thoughts that I've had personally, as part of this BSB journey. There's probably one other. Weakness, maybe at the power content that we talked about this week is that we talk a little bit about goals, but we didn't define goals, right?Like we talked about where is it in here? We said PA already, there's no G here. And jeez are very important for projects this and we didn't really talk that much about what a good goal is. So I think this framework, which I use, you can't go very far into, in productivity canon without coming across smart is a good idea for thinking about your goals.Does is it specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound? Timeline is obviously the deadline thing, but the other elements very helpful as well. I think the measurable ones. Yeah. A lot of goals are binary. So did you do it or not? So in that case, it's a very, it's very simple measurement. And I think the other one is attainable that people really should think about like is if the goal is too big, then it doesn't feel attainable. It's gotta be something that's within reach. So I think a lot of goal setting, a lot of smart goal setting is really just narrowing down the size of your ambitions. If you want to do something perfect, or if you want to do some huge, impressive thing you may not have built up the muscle to do that yet. You might need to break it down into something smaller and just make smaller goals along the way to that big goal. Okay. That was the first thing that I have planned.Denormalizing Notes [00:25:01]The second is for a little bit of the developers in the room, because I like these analogies. There's an idea of normalized schema versus de-normalized schema. Normalize is where you split everything into this most atomic categories where you can think things back and forth without knowing what, how are you going to need them ahead of time?Denormalize is where you put everything in a single object where you know, you're going to need it together. So the, my assertion is that projects are essentially de normalize and areas of resources or not. And so you want to break stuff down into the six areas, whereas projects you often are bringing together content from a few different areas of resources and synthesizing them in a special way.That's the idea about thinking about projects and I do encourage actually just copying and pasting. Like if you have, if you come across something useful, some piece of content, that's some thought that's really useful.You can just paste it in areas and paste it in projects. So I do like the idea that you don't follow this strict idea of like. One thing goes in one place. I do a lot of double pasting of stuff and that's just intentional denormalization and the way that I approach this is what I call MES on plots writing.Like you want to place everything that you're going to write about ahead of time in, in a place that you're going to use them. And this is independent of the areas of resources  where you're collecting them. So that when it comes time to write, you're only right. So all this happens, asynchronously serendipitously as a pre-writing phase.And then when you're writing, you're just sitting down and focusing on converting all of this pre work into the final finished product. That's I think, a sustainable way to essentially reduce the amount of time that you spend researching and ideating and looking at the right references. Oh wait. Okay. I do have a, do you have a response there from Christopher Horn, another interesting feature to add to the ethnicity debate? Do you normalization? Yep. Okay. Yep. Great. So I'm going to drop a link to this doc for people who this is specifically for people who write a blog posts, as well as books, I'm going to show you a little bit about when I say I do this, I really take it to heart. This is the, this is how I wrote my book for my BSB sort of capsule last year. I planned out all the chapters that I was going to write originally, all of these things were white. And then I just slowly converted them into blue links, one by one, but each of these linked to the issue where I just slotted ahead of time.The ideas and the resources that I wanted to talk about. So that when I felt that I had, I was ready to compile all these things. I started from a good base of these are the points I wanted to touch on that I spent, three months thinking about and collecting.But everything was in its place. When I finally wrote the final chapter and this is me writing it. And that's something I encourage people especially people who are planning big books. If you're working on, for me, I was working at 40 chapters simultaneously to really think about just slotting everything in its place and having like a measle class attitude to writing.So obviously this works for a book, but you can also think about it as working for a blog where I'm working on simultaneously. 20 different vocals ideas and you should have some amount of idea of velocity where you're thinking of all of these things at the same time. So yeah. I encourage you to try to denormalize for action, at the end of the day, you want to try to produce output and then you're trying to normalize for resources.When it goes to resources, I'm just loving it. I've been here and you can do it twice. It's fine. There's no perfect system. If you figured out a way to automate it, Great for you. I haven't got there yet because I'm so pretty and so busy and focused on producing. Open Source Knowledge [00:28:27]So let's talk about source knowledge.So this is another developer analogy again if you're not familiar with open source knowledge, just think about. The old school, one encyclopedias versus Wikipedia and how Wikipedia completely destroyed encyclopedias because it was collaborative. The assertion here is that resources should be, open-sourced like everything else in para can be close, can be closed, can be private, but there's no reason why resources themselves should not be shared because as long as someone can benefit from it, then you essentially, when a friend while you're sleeping, if you just share it and if people can contribute and that's the open source nature of it then you really benefit because they help to correct you or they help to ask the question or they actually just give you extra things that you may not have known about.So I really liked that. I do have a talk on this copy open source knowledge doc. I really should have edit the link open source knowledge, right? I I'm just gonna give you the slides.That's my slides for open source knowledge. But yeah, I think when you combine para with learning in public, it becomes extremely powerful for building a brand as well as you are a network facing time.Brag Documents [00:29:28]Something that was briefly, very briefly mentioned in Tiago is lecture, which I think is super underrated, is this idea of a brag document. So let me see where he talks about it. So here doing during this is during one of the lectures that he had, and you can see, this is my own notes. I'm going through the course with you. During one of the lectures he had this idea that this comparison between projects was serious and you talk, and he talks about why you need to connect projects to goals. So there are three reasons why you need to collect the goals. You need to know the extent of the commitments need to connect current work to your long-term goals.But then the last part, you also need to know if you're making progress towards your goal. This is something which I think is understated in terms of para, which is at the end of your project, you should. Not just wipe it off, but actually stick it somewhere in a brag document, in a materialized view of the things that you've done this year.And so that you can actually review it because you're not going to, it's hard for you to remember them sometimes. And and especially at work, it's really helpful for a peer reviews and promotion packets and stuff like that. Even for the psychological pick me up, I think it's very helpful.And personally, in, when I work a stack is actually a stack is actually a really good channel like a prototype channel for bank documents. So it might have a sectional with only me in it. And I just post in that channel whenever I've finished something that I probably know, I want to review in my like three 60 feedback session, if you want to brag about yourself you need to be the best bragger of yourself because the one else is going to do that for you.Okay. Just Do It [00:30:57]Glen, I'm going to get to your question a little bit cause we have one more slide left and that is insert generic motivation. Just I think ship Ira Glass, the gap video is also pretty common. Like this idea that you need to just do it more, right? All this there's all this theory.There's all these Images and advice. You just need to do it more like this parable of the pottery class as well, because something that people say a lot and I've referred to it as well, as far as I can tell it never actually happened. So it's literally a parable or a fable. But anyway just do it right.And that's a recap of the kind of stuff that we covered in the extra content section of this talk. So I'm going to head over to questions and discussion. We have a few I did have someone raised their hands, so now's a good time to raise your hands for some chat.I'm going to answer things in reverse order so that I can keep on top of things. Q&A: How do you share in public? [00:31:45] Glenn G says. Could you show how you share your resources in public? Was it making your notion public and people can contribute to it? Or how does the contributing part work? Okay. So notion is not very conducive to public collaboration because I think it will be a mess if people can randomly rearrange stuff.But yeah, these are my notions and then I'll just share it in public. So you can, you're welcome to see my BWS bullshit. But for collaborative stuff, nothing's better for developers than get help. Right. So here is my launch cheat sheet. So when I launched my book I took my notes as a resource and I just posted it all up. And so you can see,  I didn't have that many contributors, but the people who did actually volunteered information and for, and now whenever I need to launch my next thing, I have this resource available so that people can find it. So, Hey, I need to do it endorsements and testimonials.These are all the notes that I've taken for myself. And it's useful for other people, like so far. 500 people have started on GitHub. So probably more people have seen that. And it's also a nice way to promote my own book. So it's a very useful thing. I do this a lot. If you go to my GitHub profile, you see that the extent to which I have bought into this idea that you should open source your resources.So I have done a launch cheat sheet, a CLI cheat sheet podcasts. This, these are design resources. So here are my design resources. This is the biggest one. 5,000 people that start this. And it's just got things I use. So if you want to reference and typography I can pick my fonts in a way that has been pre-vetted by people I trust because I don't know anything about design, but I can, I can look like I know by stealing from other people I can steal code.So here's a fun loading strategy that some expert has approved. So I'm just going to steal that. It's essentially a swipe file and it's open source. So people contribute. So I had 32 contributors so far, and yeah, it's just a really great way to have your resources open. So the work you're doing anyway helps to benefit you professionally.I like it a lot. There's this concept that comes to mind call it the friend catcher, which isn't my idea, but I didn't, I do have the reigning Google search on it. Think. Yeah, I had number one to Google for that.  So this idea that you should make friends online, what you seek by, by sharing these resources.So para are in Paris, extremely soul, super powerfully. We just keep it up and make it useful. Put a little bit of design on it. It's great. So highly recommend. Okay. Do you want to brag about myself too much? Peter braceQ&A: Atomicity/Denormalization [00:34:02]okay. Christopher Horn, let's go.Speaker1: [00:34:04] Okay, there we go. I'm sorry. Head down mute. My question is going back to that French term that I am not going to try to say that ends in the word place. I think. So we have two concepts that I, in my fevered brainer intention. One is the notion of normalization and de normalization. The other is that French term.And I guess what I struggle with and is if I am pursuing a philosophy of atomicity, which is to say that, where I fall on the normalization versus denormalization the reason that one of the reasons I'm doing it is because there are ideas or concepts in my second brain that are not going to feed just one project, but might feed many projects.And instead of pulling them all into one place and associating them with one activity, I might need to refer to them from two different directions at once. Does that make sense? swyx: [00:34:51] Okay. So what's the question. How do you reconcile that tension? So Speaker1: [00:34:55] it feels like what I understood you to say was you pull all the resources into one place and you dedicate it to one task.And I'm just trying to reconcile that with my notion that there might be multiple tasks that need or projects that need to draw from the same swyx: [00:35:08] artifacts, if you will. Yeah. So that's what I was saying. Like I do the lowest tech. Thing possible, which is I just, I double paste I'll, I'll copy it out into the other place, needs it. But if you are a little bit more sophisticated, you can use the linking, you can use the Rome style of the cake to irrigate. Are you familiar with those? I Speaker1: [00:35:30] am. Yeah. It's just a matter of, are you tolerating redundancy or are you just going to handle it by reference swyx: [00:35:36] only, right? Yeah. Yeah. So people are really like starts.I find them in practice, not that useful because they're just pretty. Anything that's great for ultimately I tell you what's the best thing to link to a public URL that you've blocked, right? Like last week, we talked about the three strikes rule.If you reference an idea for multiple times, don't keep it to yourself, just put it on your blog and then link to that. Fair enough. That's a good, I that's a good note. Yeah. And, just break down that idea that you're your, everything you blog has to be as like big thought leading piece or anything.It used to be a resource. Okay. We had some other questions. Julian had a really interesting one that I want to address. Would you recommend using GitHub for open source knowledge that is not coding related? So get helps really good because it has a really good collaboration model, but it might not be accessible for people who are not technical Google docs.So this guy frameworks, the 0.1. So they have that, oh my God, this guy does such a good job. I'm gonna read this to you because it's so true. I realized that the main reason I don't publish as much content online is that I prefer to Erie my thinking continuously making your part to publish something extraordinarily high we'll work around a shipping, an alpha version of a thought.And then blah, blah, blah. He published his work in progress, thoughts as a Google doc. And of course he never actually published the final document. Like that's how it's helped people are  with their thinking. But a lot of discussion happens. There you go. Okay. Yeah. There's so much discussion here. When you can write your, you can write what you're thinking or researching and you let people comment and that's a really nice way to open-source it as well. Some collaborative thing like that, it can be useful to a lot of people. Cause this one went viral, look at them on a discussion it's still ongoing, and yeah, it's a really great tool and actually you should use this more.It's so simple. Everyone has access to Google docs. So there may be other tools, I think there are there like collaborative notepads that are out there that I've used no pads. I forget the name of them though. Deep note, no bureaucratic, no joy. There are a bunch of these that, that you could try using, but there's, they're just like startups, they're less reliable because they might go away some time. So, yeah, you don't have to use GitHub. Q&A: Why Notion? [00:37:33]Okay. We have a question from Probita. Hey. Speaker3: [00:37:35] Hi, John. Thanks. Fantastic succession. So, just a couple of quick questions, if you don't mind starting with a comment I think you do speak very well.You have clarity of thoughts and a it, it like the sort of the wisdom and the knowledge that you applied comes out very easily. So thank you for that. I think I I might've picked up that you took the course last year. Is that right? Yeah. Right. So were you already using notion at the time, or did you, were you in between a couple of programs and then you decided to work with swyx: [00:38:06] notion?  I was even worse than that.  I was using one note going in and then I switched halfway in the middle because I got frustrated with one notes and then I saw that most people using notion. So I jumped on a notion bandwagon. Speaker3: [00:38:17] Yeah, yeah. Right now I'm using Evernote, but I'm just wondering if, for folks who are more tech oriented or tech savvy, it's easier to establish themselves in notion, but that's something for me to just try that out and figure it out.Q&A: Book writing? [00:38:28]But a related question the book that you have published, which looks great. So I will check it out.  Is that like the writing of it? Did you use notion for that? For most of swyx: [00:38:38] it. I used GitHub, like I just showed you, I showed you the process. I don't know if you were here for that. So this is for version two of that. I'm hoping to publish mix in July. But yeah, I use GitHub to draft. I had reviewers come in and these are my editors that came in and gave me comments. So this guy, I paid him to edit my work and he submitted and get up, Salesforce is great. It's a great experience. But like, drafting, I think you can pull in your ideas wherever I just happened to use GitHub. Like the tool doesn't matter to me, just so much as like the process. Right. I did use typable I forget the name of it. Basically. There's a better markdown drafts app. So the motion does export markdowns. And I do use markdown to publish, but it doesn't have I don't like the way it edit stuff. So I needed a simpler interface and Typora. That's the tools use pepper. This is a free open source tool. That just gives you marked down and is not as complex as notion. It only does marco. So no, no fancy blocks. When you slash it, doesn't try to search your whole database for you.It just doesn't work out and it presents it nicely. So that's a really good writing app. I think anything that distracts you from the act of writing can be a negative sometimes. So I used that poorer, if you want to try and check it out. Speaker3: [00:39:47] Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, it sounds like you're just All these tools that you apply them greatly, or you have applied them in the past and you just have a great wealth of information.So think thanks swyx: [00:39:57] for sharing. This is also by the way you can use GitHub projects for people with developers. Like this is literally my launch plan T 14 T minus 14, all the way to T minus one. He has, I hope ended up, whatever tool you can get pretty creative. And I find that my brain doesn't require one tool to rule them all.So I can segment by like, okay, I'm working on book, totally different set of tools than like regular knowledge ingestion and someone that works with me. If you're okay with that, okay. First Wrapup [00:40:23] Thanks, Maria. I want to acknowledge Maria for swinging by the mentor sessions here have always had like this. Do of support and I just want to acknowledge, thank you so much, Marina for swinging by to help out. Okay. All right. I think we're over time. So that's it, as far as the present, the pre-prepared questions have our concerns. You're welcome to email me@swyxandsix.io. That's my email  if you're not comfortable asking questions here or you think of them later on. Email me here and I'll see you here again next week. And yeah, that's it next week is C O D distill. So we're going to go into distilling and I really like the progressive summarization idea, I don't necessarily do all the steps by I'm a fan. I'm a fan of  Reviewing multiple times so that you really get to the gist of of a piece that you're writing about. I'll give you one example of that. So   this is going to look super overwhelming to you. So please don't feel like you need to do this.  I did have an example of people always think about this quality versus consistency. Trade-off of Hey, I want to produce, but do I produce on a regular schedule and trade-offs and quality, or do I infinite highest quality thing I can do and maybe not be so consistent with what I do. And so I've been, I actually collected three different podcasts clips from audio doll. My audio doll from Tim urban and then from James, Claire over here and I synthesize them into this blog post. And that actually did very well for me. I think the, the post that I had by the way, this is a really cool extension. If you work a lot with Twitter, I do use Twitter as my second Brain sometimes. I think this post did really well, just because of the number of people that picked it up independently. You're doing the work by summarizing and synthesizing and comparing, right? So, I was able to find someone who stood out for consistency and made that case.I was able to find someone that stood up for quality of me, that case. And then I just put together that debate and then offered some solutions to it by synthesizing different resources together. And distilling is a key part of that work. So that's what we're going to cover next week. Speaker3: [00:42:10] Okay. Thanks Shawn.Just if you don't mind, three quick questions sorry. I did miss your introductory session last week. So, Shawn Wang, of course, that makes sense doubly or rather why X, what does that stand for? swyx: [00:42:21] That's my English and Chinese initial sec. SW was English and NYX is Chinese. And I don't bother to tell people what the wax is because they're not going to remember.Yeah. Q&A: Twitter Links Extension [00:42:30]Speaker3: [00:42:30] Okay. And then this Twitter extension that you just mentioned with the design, swyx: [00:42:34] So this is a unpublished Chrome extension, just from a friend who wrote this, essentially, whenever you go to some somebody's site, if you want to see the metal layer discussion around this, here's the blog post that I wrote about that. Let's say that's what you want to find the power of blog posts whenever you're like, okay, I read this, I want to discuss it with people.Who've also read the thing what do you do? Right. You drop it in a Slack, you drop in a discord or something. And then people who have also read it. But what's better is you can actually just say like, okay, I'm going to click this Twitter links thing and just plug into the stream of people who talk about this stuff.So Joel talked about it. So Shawn talks about it and then you can respond directly to them. But you can see like the disagreements or you can post about it. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's, it's very useful for, and this is me talking about it. Yeah. I think it's helpful.  You can also do this on hacker news. I just like plugging into the commentary layer because it opens your mind as to if people strongly disagree, if people like, have extra points that they want to make.I think Twitter is a meta commentary. Raider is a very interesting idea.  Q&A: Chrome Extensions [00:43:33] Speaker3: [00:43:33] okay. So because the topic of extension has come up and I've been meaning to find the right opportunity to ask this to someone A lot of people use the Evernote clipper and similar extensions. And when you try install them, be it on Firefox or Chrome, it does ask for permission. And part of the permission is that it, it can have access to all your websites and whatnot.And I'm not necessarily big on confidentiality or whatever security, but at the same time it does yeah. For data for all websites. So is that something that that's just standard or like, do you have any thoughts on that as a tech person? swyx: [00:44:15] Yeah. Unfortunately it's pretty standard people and, and this may be a slightly alarmist, but at the end of the day, you just do have to trust them. The trust model for Chrome extensions is  just that broken. You just have to trust the publisher. If you don't trust them, then don't install it because they can for example, you can look safe at a time of publishing and then you install it and then they can secretly update it.And they might get you that way. So you just have to trust that the, they won't ever abuse that. Q&A: How do you balance research and writing? [00:44:39]Speaker2: [00:44:39] Awesome. So just question around, I really do appreciate the idea of set your focus, your focus on creation. I think that's what the whole point of the second brain. Now the question comes down is how do you eat? I just curious about your personal experience, last preference.How do you balance research and value creation in terms of time and energy perspective? So I do, for instance, when you were making a blog paused. Yes. There's a creation for sure, but definitely there's some, a lot of research going on. It can be the pre-writing work. I wondering how you balance that activities.swyx: [00:45:15] Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yeah, of course. The research is just always ongoing in the back of my head which is why I have this idea of pre-writing right. This is passive. This is just a background process. It's always happening. And whenever it's something relevant comes up to a top favorite problem or a project that I'm working on, then I'll just slide it right into there.I'll find I'll pause what I'm doing and just go add that piece of information. So research the passive for me. And then when I make time to write, which is often like, probably a Saturday when it, like I have like three, four hours open. I think I'm trying to move to one hour a day before work.I think that'd be a really good model for me, but just quite honestly, I don't do that right now. But you should have everything in place. So David Perellcalls this start from abundance or write from abundance. I don't really like the way you phrase this. Okay. Yeah. Start with abundance. There we go. How to cure it, write it, write this book. There we go. All right. So , you can take his word for it, but essentially you just have the research as a background process. And then when you write, just write you can of course, improvise and research here.But if you do too much of that, then you will not ended up publishing, so I totally get it. Yeah. I do have the same process by the way. When you publish, because it's a digital document digital garden terms of service. So I have this idea of a digital gardens. So it's like when you publish you, can you have the right to be, to update it as you go along.Right? So as long as you as a contract, if you're with your with your readers is very clear, then people won't expect you to be complete and you're not promising to be complete. You can even insert disclaimers. So I've been starting to insert disclaimers as well. So for example, stuff like here, I think I have the disclaimer here.So you can have like this where you can say like, blah, blah, blah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back from it. It's not fully formed yet. Devon Zuegel has this idea of epistemic origin. So she'll tell you a friend, the kind of work that she put into the post, is it high? Is it high confidence?Is this a high confidence post or is it just the theory? This episode, you guys, and then the amount of effort that was put into it, is this just a random thought or is this like the result with three years of research? And that  sets the tone for people. So they don't get upset, especially if you have a lot of readers, they're like fuck you.Like you're an expert. And you didn't consider all these concepts and you should be open about that. I just, I don't like the word epistemic, cause it sounds very pretentious. So I just simplified it disclosure. When  I tried to make that a thing.Yeah. Q&A: Converting Resources to Projects [00:47:37]Speaker2: [00:47:37] Thank you. Just one last follow up question. So I'm trying to map that blogging whole process to the para modal. So for instance, that the older passive activity going over research, I can see based on my knowledge, you go, we'll go to the resources. But when that let's say that content for specific blog pause is filled like ready for 80% that I think I can, I can see that I can convert that blog post for that particular topic to a project.Is it how you also organize it? I see. Okay. Sounds good. Speaker3: [00:48:06] Thank you very much.swyx: [00:48:07] Yeah, no worries. I have another thing which I, after you publish this, a really interesting conversation you can have with your readers is you should not think about it as like a one to many thing. It should be like a back and forth.So I call this annealing — I almost included this in my slides, but I didn't. But essentially like when you image three, go. Okay. So when you have the idea for posts, right? You're like researching, researching, researching, like accumulating knowledge stuff like that. And then towards the end, when you're ready to write, you'd just do the sprint of writing.And then you have this draft. Maybe you have a group of friends that are peer reviewing. So you're workshopping this idea and I have a separate post on that. And then you publish, but right after you publish, you have a bunch of public feedback and you can actually have a conversation with them. And your posts continues to have increasing quality because you have a conversation with readers, gives people an incentive to respond to you quickly because there'll be shot at there'll be mentioned.This one, I didn't have it, but people mentioned, I, I shut people out one day when to respond. Yeah, it's just a really good model of of don't think about it as a single game. There's multiple stages that it's okay.All right. Thanks, Danny. Yeah.  I'll take one more question.Q&A: Video/Audio Capture [00:49:11]Sam Wong question for Sam Wong. I do a lot of YouTube on iPad and have taken screen capture.Is there a method to sort them into different projects in areas? Every ? I have no idea. YouTube and iPad and screen captures. Who does, if it is  video, any ones? I don't really, I take, I think a timestamp. So yeah. Does anyone have thoughts on YouTube or iPad screen captures like part of the I'm sure. Toolkit. Yeah. Part of the capture toolkit, one of the six is audio and video transcription. I just haven't had, I haven't cracked it.  Yeah. So  part of your toolkit is audio video transcription. And I only do audio I don't do video, so yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what this tools are, but you can check out the tools that people are using here.Sonic study, I guess. I don't know. I haven't tried. I haven't tried these notion YouTube. Yeah. I do a lot of timestamps, so these are my podcast notes, I'll do here's the, what I want to feature. And the it's 36 minutes in that's essentially the extent of work that I do.Probably no thinking it's really crappy, but at the same time, I'm going to minimalist in the way that I do this stuff. Yeah, right. Thanks that. Okay. Well,  I think that's it. I don't see any other hands up and we've gone over time, so you're welcome to ask me questions through email again, if I can find it a success six, that IO and if not, we'll meet again next week and talk about distilling. So thanks.Thank you.  hang around say hi to people. We'll say, bye. Thanks Dennis. Thanks for all the questions, everyone. It really helps to make this not a monologue. Q&A: Speaking [00:50:39] Speaker3: [00:50:39] I'll just say all those speaking gigs that you do, it definitely shows in your presentation.So you do quite well swyx: [00:50:47] trying to do more. Yeah, this is so for those  who are speakers, this is what happens when you have this extra speaking schedule and no time to update them. So these are, you said the talks that I do.So these are all my talks, but I haven't updated them since december. And these are all the talks I haven't added yet. God. Yeah, I need to, I need to go make myself, I don't, I know I didn't, I need to update my own documentation, but yeah, if you want to do something well, do it a lot and I don't think I do it very well. I have a little bit I speak at it roughly about 10 times. A minute and that's not very good. I think so. Speaker3: [00:51:28] Yeah. No, I think your sort of weapon is what'd you swyx: [00:51:32] mean collegequantity? Yes, exactly. Speaker3: [00:51:38] I was just going to say while the EMEA, so I think you be at writing or be at speaking. I, I feel like that's how you're going about things and the more you do it, the better you get just your, your you're finding the time to do everything, or that's just the discipline that you've developed over the years, but it's, swyx: [00:51:54] it's pretty good.Cool. It's funny. Cause you can think about it as discipline, but you can also think about it as just. Being less perfectionist, right? Like I'm just lowering the bar on what I do in order to do more of it. And I think he also noticed when you have speakers where you didn't think about speakers well there two things.So one is when you think about the greatest features in the world, the Steve jobs and they have very pre prepared speeches, but then when they speak off the cuff, they have all the ums and AHS, they have the false starts and rambling around random rambles. So you don't have to be the best speaker in the world, but you can, you just have to be functional.You can get a message across, you can think while you talk. So you can plan ahead what you're about to say. And the other point I was going to make is that writing helps you speak better because it helps you rehearse things and be heard as the freezing and think of what structure.  I have this quote  in my writing chapter about, again, I'm not going to look it up right now, but when you write, when you have written down something and then you speak about the leader, whether it's a conference talk or workshop, or like a podcast, or just a regular one-on-one chat you sound smarter because you've written about it.So you should write more and you will magically become a better speaker. That makes Q&A: Writing My Book [00:52:58]Speaker3: [00:52:58] sense. What when did you have the thought of writing a book on the specific topic that you have written on the coding manual or whatever manual it is like, when did that sort of come swyx: [00:53:08] up? I have an exact date sorry. So you can see how often I use Twitter as my second break. So, Daniel was a friend now tweeted this if you're tempted by this. So, so Nevada tweeted this, I, there's never been a better time to launch a digital product. This is April last year, which is like the depth of the recession.Right. And then you were like, and this guy, this advice was like create a small product, something you can finish in two weeks and charge $10 for it. So I decided that I was going to do that. I think I did it here. Hmm. I don't know. I don't know where I actually quoted it, but essentially I have, that's the exact date that I started April 10th, 20, 20, 20. I decided that I was going to launch this, this book and then it just carried on from there. And originally was going to, it was going to try to finish it in two weeks, like you said.And it blossom into two months because I found that I had so much content to share. So, books, I hear that it tends to happen to books because people, especially when they're first time authors want to squeeze everything in. I think for, for second and third books, you tend to try to foc

Whats going everyone welcome back to JAB Sports talk! Joel and Branden are back for a SPECIAL edition of JAB Sports TALK. In this special edition we talk about the popular NFL topic that is the NFL QB Carousel. Popular NFL analyst Adam Schefter recently tweeted that he expects the Over/Under on QB being moved at 18 and OVER! So Joel and Branden will hit you with some potential landing spots early on in the process for the most popular QBs available this offseason. From DeShaun Watson to Ryan Fitzpatrick, which teams will be active in looking for a QB? Who will land the GRAND PRIZE in Watson? As always we hope you enjoy the episode and have a great week! If you are interested in becoming a monthly supporter of our show click the link below :) --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jabsportstalk/support

Joel Ong is the creator of the Expert to Authority coaching program for business owners to use their smartphones to make videos work for their business in 90 days (without having to hire a professional costing thousands of dollars).   “We have more processing power in our mobile devices than what Armstrong had in his spacecraft the first time he went to the moon.” Joel Ong   Worst investment ever Fueling his Instagram influencer dream Joel wanted to be like the travel influencers on Instagram and wealthy business owners that he saw traveling the world first class. However, he didn’t have the money or the influence to do it. He just didn’t have the confidence to be an influencer of any sort. But, Joel truly wanted this life, so he thought of all the ways he could achieve this. He figured that he could pick up the camera and influence from behind it instead of in front of the camera like the other Instagram influencer. This started Joel’s journey into travel videography. A humble beginning Joel started with a very cheap imitation of a GoPro camera that he borrowed from a friend in China. Slowly he started living his dream to be a travel influencer by collaborating with models and travel photographers. Doing it as the stars do As Joel interacted with famous influencers in the industry, the pressure to get sophisticated video equipment got real. He wanted to be like the rest of them, and so he invested thousands of dollars in video equipment. Joel bought better lenses, better lighting, a stabilizer gimbal, and more. His travel backpack got heavier and heavier. As Joel continued to travel the world more with his new equipment, he realized that something was still missing. Now he needed to improve his skills as well. So Joel paid a lot of money for several online courses. He thought that this would get him fame and glory quickly. In the end, after spending so much money, it didn’t work. Joel learned that besides proper equipment and courses, he needed to put in the work to get to the success he wanted. Lessons learned The key to success is to focus on simplicity Everything that works is simple, but it takes execution and work. Simple is not necessarily easy. Don’t expect a magic formula to find success; you’ve got to put in the work, trust the process, and go through it. Shift your thinking If you do not see any success, then you need to start doing things differently because, like Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” So shift your thinking. Decide what you’re prepared to lose Before you invest, think of the worst-case scenario. If it doesn’t work out or it underdelivers, what’s the most that you can afford to lose? When you think of investing in that way, then it makes everything very clear. Invest in your skills too People who are very good at their craft have a very high level of expertise that allows them to get a lot of returns from it. If you don’t practice your skills consistently, you’ll become poor in your craft. Andrew’s takeaways Keep it simple It’s easy for anyone to complicate things, but not everybody can make things simple. Things tend to move towards complexity, particularly in business, and it takes a lot of effort to keep things simple. But make an effort, because simple works. Successful people know there’s no magic formula There is no shortcut to success. The secret of success is to go through the work. If you take shortcuts, you will pay for it in some way. Actionable advice Decide if you are going to be 100% transparent, honest, and accountable with yourself. The key to success is to commit to put in the work and get it done regardless of any circumstances or challenges. No. 1 goal for the next 12 months Joel’s goal for the next 12 months is to get his private coaching program Expert to Authority out to the market and more people. The program is based on all the best investments that Joel has made before. The program will take you from just being an expert or business owner to a brand authority using video in only 90 days. Parting words   “Stay safe, guys.” Joel Ong   Connect with Joel Ong LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram Website YouTube Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Andrew’s online programs Valuation Master Class Women Building Wealth The Build Your Wealth Membership Group Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Andrew Stotz: astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Joel Hansen is a 22 yr old from British Columbia, showing us just what Generation Z is truly capable of as they discover and do what they’re made for. Joel is the Business Development Manager for a PE firm, he is a Youth Editor for LinkedIn. He also speaks, writes and regularly advises companies on marketing strategies. Joel is making connections wherever he lands. He carries an incredibly teachable spirit with him, so it’s no surprise he has learned a ton already in his roles, and has a lot to teach us about setting up great habits so you can do what you’re made for and reach the goals you’re meant to reach. I love how freaking practical this conversation is. Joel goes a little into his story of discovery, but mostly he’s got lessons learned while grinding away as a young professional. Learning his limits, learning the system, and learning how to make connections that count. You’re gonna love it. We’re starting something new here and splitting our conversations in half to make the episodes shorter meals to chew on. So Joel and I chat here for a while, then we’ll take a break and invite you into the conversation again later this week.

I was recently asked by a friend that I hadn't seen for a while, "So Joel, what's been going on?". My response was, well... pathetic. In this episode I'll examine why, as we ask ourselves what really defines who we are.

What does it take for a company like HubSpot to double its website conversions and inbound call volume, increase demo requests by 35%, and increase product sign ups by 27% This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, conversion copywriting expert Joel Klettke shares the process he used, along with a team from HubSpot, to achieve such remarkable results. Known as "the guy who 2x'd HubSpot's conversions," Joel is a world renowned conversion copywriting expert and the founder of Case Study Buddy. Listen to the podcast to learn exactly what Joel and the team from HubSpot did and get specific takeaways you can use to improve the copy on your site and increase conversions. Transcript Kathleen Booth (host): Welcome back to The Inbound Success podcast. My name's Kathleen Booth and I'm your host. This week, my guest is Joel Klettke. Joel came to the podcast via a casual mention at first by Ian Cleary who was on a few episodes ago. And Ian, for those of you who don't know, is the founder of RazorSocial and OutreachPlus, and a well known marketer and keynote speaker. He happened to mention the great work that Joel did at HubSpot and then lo and behold, Andy Crestodina, one of our past guests as well, commented, "Joel, you should come on the podcast." I love when this happens! So Joel, I'm so excited to have you on and I love that you came via Andy and Ian. Welcome to the podcast. Joel Klettke (guest): Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm really pumped to get a chance to chat with you. Kathleen: For my listeners, Joel is a conversion copywriter who has worked with some incredible brands and gotten really great results. I already mentioned that he did some work for HubSpot. He's also worked for WP Engine, which is a platform that we love here at IMPACT, InsightSquared and others. He is also the founder of Case Study Buddy. So Joel, I could probably talk a lot about you - you've got a long and interesting resume - but I'm going to ask you to tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Joel: Yeah. I mean, the quick and interesting, hopefully interesting version, is that I got my start kind of fresh out of business school. I knew more about the type of place I wanted to be than what I wanted to do. I sort of randomly found my way working agency side doing search engine optimization (SEO) and that was my whole world for about five years. I really enjoyed the analytical side of it, but always had this sort of passion for writing. I just never thought there was a job in it for me. I didn't want to be an author and that whole world of kind of writing websites and landing pages wasn't on my radar until I started working on them for SEO and went, "You know what? Someone's got to write these. And it's not enough that they get found, they probably have to convert people." And so little by little, over time, I got to pick up more of those types of projects. And in 2013 I went out on my own focusing mostly on the content pieces at that point - so blogs and E-books - and then kept getting deeper into this conversion stuff and it finally became my whole focus by 2015. So I've been doing it since then working with a lot of cool companies like you mentioned - HubSpot and WP Engine and InsightSquared - to get more customers to convert. And then about two years ago, I saw an opportunity to build a business product. I was kind of working on making case studies available to these awesome agencies and software companies. This was an area I saw them really struggling in, struggling to capture these stories, share them, how do you use them. And so I saw an opportunity and created Case Study Buddy. I've got a team and we've been kind of stealthily moving along and this year it's becoming increasingly part of my focus. Kathleen: I think it's really interesting what you're doing with Case Study Buddy, because having been in this business for a long time and owned an agency and worked with just a ton of different companies, case studies seem to be one of those areas where we as marketers really phone it in. Like, there's this formula like "This was the challenge. This was the solution. They came to us, and here's what we did, and here's the results." It's that three part formula and I think we feel like as long as we're following the formula we can say, "Check! I did a case study." I have to believe tremendous opportunity to innovate in that area because we know from experience that case studies are of huge interest to different audiences. Everybody wants to see examples of your experience. They want to see the proof that you know what you're talking about. But for something that that is so valued by the consuming audience, it's amazing how little effort we put into them. Joel: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's funny too, because it is formulated. People always say "Well how hard can it really be?" and they go off and they slap these things together, but they don't realize that there's so much to capturing a story worth telling. And then telling it in a way that's worth reading. Even though the "problem - solution - results," yes, that's always going to be the heart and soul of it. But what's different, what's interesting, is how you tell that story and how you bring in the customer and how you weave it all together. And then increasingly too, how you use it. Where and how you wield that proof to make it useful. So a lot of companies, the big problem, once they have a case study is it gets relegated to a little resources section. And maybe sales pulls it out once in a while, but they don't have a plan for it. Both in the creation side of things it kind of gets overlooked or neglected or slapdash, and then in the actual using it, we're kind of like, "Well, okay. We'll email it out." Then we're yelling, "We have it and resources section, good work for us." And that makes me sad, because case studies are the one content asset that can play across the entire funnel. From acquisition, to nurturing, to upsells, to retention -- you can use them everywhere, but we don't. And so that's why I'm so excited about that space. Kathleen: Oh, I love it. Well before we dive too deeply into case studies, I really want to talk about the work that you did with HubSpot. Because as I mentioned, this came up when I had Ian Cleary on as a guest and I don't remember the context of exactly what we were talking about, but he was like ... he didn't even mention your name. He said, "There's this guy who was at HubSpot and he 2X'd their conversions." And it was so funny because HubSpot is a company that is known for being good at maximizing conversions. Like that's what they're all about is lead generation. And so, to know that there was an outside expert who came in and helped HubSpot take it to the next level - that immediately caught my attention and I was like, "Ooh, who is this guy?" And that was when I think it was Andy who chimed in and said, "That guy happens to be Joel." So, I would love to hear this story of what you did at HubSpot. We could start with what was it? Problem-solution-results or you tell a story that makes it interesting. Joel: Yeah. Well, before I dive into that piece, I want to make one thing really clear, because I love the fact that people are talking about it. This was such a rare opportunity to come into a situation and work with a company who is known for their lead gen. I want to make sure people understand that this is not something that I did alone. There's a great team there. People like Pam Vaughan were really instrumental. Austin Knight who was doing their design at the time was so instrumental. So this was definitely a team effort and I couldn't have done it alone. And it was a fantastic kind of case study, I guess, as we'll dive into here, in what can happen when you've got a whole team of people committed to doing this and committing to getting it right. So with that as the backstory, I want to kind of lead up into how this happened. So I had known Matt Barby for some time outside of that context before he was even at HubSpot. And so Matt and I had kind of chatted on Twitter during my agency days and we just continued to have a casual friend relationship. When Matt went into HubSpot, something he identified really quickly was despite the fact that yes, they are known for lead acquisition and they're quite good at this whole inbound mentality, he saw opportunity for them to grow. Opportunity for someone else to come in and objectively look at what they were doing and make some recommendations. And so because he'd followed me along, he knew where I was at in my career, which was I was working with one or more software companies on this type of thing. And so we decided, "Okay, well, we don't have buy in for the full project from the outset." You can imagine that for a company like HubSpot, they've got this brilliant team and there's a lot of moving pieces. So we thought, let's just focus on doing one section at the beginning. So originally, I got to work with Matt on revamping the CRM page. So just that product. What I introduced there with Matt was a very customer driven approach to writing copy. Customer driven research. So we were doing things like running a customer survey. And we were looking at things like, when people talk about the CRM out in the wild, what are they saying? What benefits are they mentioning? What pain points are they saying that it solved? And how does that stack up against how the company itself is talking about things on this CRM page? And so as we dug into this customer research, and as we pulled in the data from these surveys, we learned a lot of things. We learned, for example, that there was some language customers were using about the outcomes they achieved that we could pull in and we could put into the headlines. We learned that the things that the company thought was really important as far as features to be emphasizing, didn't necessarily align with what customers thought was important and the features they wanted emphasized. So, we revamped that landing page, saw positive uptake and that was the buy in that Matt needed. So, from there, I got a chance to be brought in for the whole big website project, which as you can imagine was a big endeavor with a short timeline. HubSpot wanted to have a brand new site ready for their INBOUND Conference. So our timeline was about 2.5 to three months to do the whole thing. Kathleen: What? Joel: Yeah. Kathleen: Oh, my God. Joel: Yeah. And that's why I say, you can imagine it took a village. I cannot pretend like I just was the hero riding in on the white horse. It took everybody being committed, and Kieran Flannigan and all those guys were there and present and so instrumental. I want to break down the process we used a little bit more to get the result that we got and how we did this on a scale. We took what we did with the CRM page, but we took it some steps further. So what we want to do when we're working on conversion copy, you can only sell to a customer you really understand. Everyone talks about understanding your customer but hardly any companies actually put the rubber to the road and do what it takes to do that. So again, we had a tight timeline, but thankfully HubSpot has got a huge customer base. So we ran some surveys to learn about how people were using it, whether or not they understood what the products could do for them and what the role of each was. HubSpot had recently split into these three products and the historical perception was that it was one thing. It was just HubSpot Marketing, but now they had HubSpot Sales and HubSpot Marketing and HubSpot CRM. And these are just different products. So we looked at customer surveys, and we asked questions like "What was going on in your life that led you to look for this solution?" And then we asked "How do you use this solution day to day?" to get them talking about the problems they solve with it. And then we got them to force rank the different features of the products they used by what was most important to them, again giving us a hierarchy for how we organize the page so people see that. The second kind of interesting thing we did that I always, whenever I give a talk on this, I always recommend companies do because it's so easy and it can be free, is we made sure that we went and looked at their chat logs. You can launch chat on your site tomorrow. It's dead simple. A lot of people are hesitant, because they're like, "Well, I can't monitor it 24 hours." You don't have to. Just make yourself commit to making yourself or your team available to do chat for a two week period and I promise you're going to be tempted to continue. After that point, you're going to want to make it a priority. But we looked at their chat logs, and we were looking for questions that came up again and again. Because those questions would be the things that the copy of their website wasn't doing a great job of answering. So if people are constantly asking questions like, "Which of the three products do I need to accomplish X?" Kathleen: Yeah. Joel: We found out really quickly that there was some confusion in the market about which product was right for each and how they interplayed and that sort of thing. So we started getting some insight into where people are at, what awareness level they're at, and what they're struggling with. We took all that information, combined it with the survey data and then worked closely with the internal HubSpot team and Austin -- as I mentioned, just probably the best UX designer I've ever had the privilege to work with -- and we started revamping the pages around addressing customer questions, around addressing features and benefits in a hierarchical way that met what the customer wanted to see and needed to see first. And then probably the most impactful thing we did, and I think it's still live on the site to this day (as you can imagine HubSpot's continually evolving) was we found some great language for talking about the way that their new tool suite worked. And so that's where the lines like "HubSpot tools are powerful on their own and even better together" come from. And we started being able to break down what each one was for and the benefits of each and then once you combine them, how they work well together. So clarity just went up and up and up. People started to finally get the picture of what HubSpot is today. Kathleen: That's really interesting. Let's go back to how you gather data because what I find interesting is you had a 2.5 to three month time frame for this massive website redesign. And having been through enough of these projects, I mean, I know that lots of people would hear that and it would feel like their hair was on fire and they just had to start writing and building pages from the day that the project began. But you guys stopped and slowed yourself down and did some homework. What I think is really interesting is not only did you do the surveys, which I feel like there's definitely people out there who do that, but I love the notion that your data already exists and you can find it by looking at the chat logs and looking specifically at the questions. Were there other existing sources of data that you drew upon? Joel: Yeah. Kathleen: And how long did this research process take? Because I can imagine you were under pressure to get it done pretty quickly. Joel: Yeah, really, really great question. I talked about surveys already and when you've got the customer base of a HubSpot, you can do that really quickly. But I should mention, you don't need 2,000 responses. Our threshold online is if we can get 1,000 or sorry, 100 really good responses. After that, you start seeing kind of diminishing returns. Chat logs were available to us, but other places that more companies who aren't at HubSpot's level can go are things like your testimonials, your reviews, and your case studies. We talked to sales. We interviewed their internal team. We asked sales and support, like, "What questions do you get all the time? What do you find yourself constantly having to explain that you wish you didn't have to constantly explain? So, myself and Josh Garofalo -- who I brought into the project to help me kind of cover the huge scope of it, because I couldn't possibly write all the pages alone -- interviewed that internal team. Often what our role becomes or what my role becomes in projects like this, is I'm unifying departments. Because they're all great at their own thing, and they all understand their own area, but sales might not have talked to customer support in a while. And marketing might not have talked to sales in a while. We can pull all these perspectives together, and then present to them and say, "Here's where you guys are actually at and where you're creating problems for the other side or where they're having an opportunity that you're not capitalizing on." So talking to your sales team, looking at existing reviews and testimonials to see what are these people already talking about, how are they talking about it -- those are existing data sources that are already there. One thing I want to drop as well. If you don't have a lot of these, go look at your competitors. And positive reviews are one thing for them, but go look at their negative reviews. Because those are things that you can exploit and position yourself against. So if, for example, people are saying, "Well, this solution is really slow and clunky." You can emphasize that you're agile and fast and easy to use. So by getting kind of a landscape of what your competitors struggle with, it also helps you understand how you can position yourself against them. Kathleen: That is a great idea. It's interesting because I feel like a lot of companies do the opposite, which is they look at the competitors but they look at the competitor websites. And they look at what the competitors are saying they do, as opposed to looking at what the customers feel that they don't do well. The result, when you look at your competitors and try to emulate them, is everybody starts to sound the same. Joel: Totally. Kathleen: And that actually suppresses conversions instead of improving them. Joel: There's this crazy fallacy that companies have that somehow their competitor knows what they're doing. They don't. I've written for the competitors. I've come into situations where I have written for both sides, the people being evaluated and the people being ... Often they're starting from the same point. Every company is just trying to figure it out. Just because someone launches a timer on their homepage, they didn't necessarily do that because it works. They're just trying stuff to see what works. Kathleen: They're throwing a bunch of darts at the wall to see what sticks. Joel: Completely. I would say more companies don't know what they're doing than really do, because why I'm so excited about conversion optimization and conversion copywriting as a whole, is I very much see what I'm doing now as in the same vain as where SEO was eight to ten years ago or inbound marketing was five to eight years ago or whatever it might be. It's still so young and so much opportunity and companies are waking up to the value of this. The tools are getting cheaper, the methodology is getting very defined. It's a fantastic time for companies to start thinking about this and to be moving ahead because we're getting to the point where if you're not, your competitor is. But there's still so much time to move and be the first to really measure and test and do this well. Kathleen: Oh, I couldn't agree more. CRO, conversion rate optimization, there's so much buzz and interest around it but there are so few people who really can claim to be experts in it, with true experience. One thing I want to talk about... so we start with all the homework you need to do before you can even sit down and put pen to paper or virtual pen to paper, however you decide to do it. Then there's really understanding the audience. There's the insights that come out of that. Obviously what you've talked about is to truly write for the audience but are there also certain universal truths or rules in terms of either how you structure copy on a page? I'm thinking of Joanna Wiebe who has her "problem-agitation-solution" formula or certain words that you should or should not use. Are there those universal truths out there that we should know about? Joel: Yeah. You know, everybody wants there to be this formula or this code. Plug in X, get out Y, but I think even Joanna would tell you the PAS, the problem agitation solution, that's a fantastic framework that can do brilliantly in some contexts and miserably in others. Joanna uses it all the time for emails and email series and that kind of thing. It works great. Let's put it in this context. There's different stages of awareness. So, if your customer already knows your brand and they already know they're sold on you, then a problem-agitation-solution format is just wasting their time because all they want to know is the deal. So, they just want to see okay, $50 off, boom. I know the deal. I know the value. I'm there. So, for that audience, a different formula entirely works. Whereas if someone is completely ... You know, they don't understand their pain even yet, they're still coming into the point where they realize that they've got a problem, then that pain can be addressed better. But there isn't just this sort of absolute truth. I think there's guidelines, there's best practices. For example, on language, there's some misconceptions. You can go read a bunch of blog posts that say never use jargon or never use a cliché or never use an acronym. Well, even in my work for InsightSquared, their audience uses and loves and understands acronyms. If we don't use acronyms, we're the weirdo. We're the ones who don't look like we understand the niche. If there is an absolute truth that I've found, if there are things that I can say every time, 100% of the time go and do this, it's you cannot be in the business of conversion without being in the business of talking to customers and having structured, documented conversations with them. You can't do it. You can guess, you can pull levers on a wall, you can change button color aimlessly, but you can't be in the business of writing conversion copy or optimizing your copy if you're trying to cut customers out of the equation and not spend time talking to them or researching them. It sounds so intuitive, but I guarantee there are companies listening to this where their methodology right now for how they come up with new copy is to huddle in a board room, copy up with a new tagline that they all feel is clever and represents management's vision, and never talk to a single customer until it launches. So, I wish I could tell you there are frameworks for these things, but there's best practices. It's more like a journey of well, if X, then Y. If you understand this piece then try this. But there's no one black and white this definitely works or this definitely doesn't work. Kathleen: So, when you develop that understanding of the customer, at some point you do have to sit down and write. The way you write and the volume of writing you do has to also be in alignment with the actual visual design of the page. Can you talk a little bit about how you think front end designers and content creators should work together on these projects? Which comes first? The chicken or the egg? Joel: Yeah. I'm so glad that you're asking about this because this honestly to me is what made the HubSpot project successful. When you've got a timeline like that, first, let's establish that if there is an absolute, its that copy should always lead design. You cannot just pop words into a pretty picture, otherwise you may be cramming a story into a frame it wasn't fit for. We knew that. We also knew we couldn't wait for copy to be done or design wouldn't have time to do it. So, the process that we used, and what made this successful, is that what you can do is you can iterate. So, when you understand the customer and when you've got a good understanding of "Okay, they're pain aware or solution aware or brand aware," then you know okay, you can define together with design. You can say, "We know these are the types of sections we're going to need to cover. We know this is the flow we're going to need to cover them in. We don't have specific copy yet but we know right now for example, we need a hero section. After that we need about a paragraph of narrative to agitate the pain. Then we're going to need this section on emphasizing particular features that solve that pain." So, when you've got an understanding of the customer you can sit down with design. What we did is we came up with a base framework, a base wire frame for the different types of pages on the site. In some cases you can template this a bit. So, one of the people that the project could never have been achieved without was Pamela Vaughan. Kathleen: I love her. Can I just say? I have to stop you for one second. I'm a huge fan girl of Pamela Vaughan's, because I've attended a number of her presentations and as a marketer, you can go to lots of conference presentations that are full of fluff and lots of "You should do this for this reason," but not a lot of "And here's how you actually do it." She gives the most detailed, useful, actionable information of ... Probably she's in the top three of anybody I've seen present. So, that's the end of my fan rant on Pam Vaughan. Joel: No, it's well earned. I mean, literally we could not have done it without her. She wrote a huge swath of the copy that ... You know, like the individual features pages. Those were Pam's. So, we worked together to define the template for common pages and then we were able to use that same template to kind of inform. So, we started with the base wire framed together with copy and design. Design was able to go away and mock something up while copy was working on our piece of the puzzle. Then we converged together, sent our wires to design and they would make our wire frames better and send it back. So, it was an iterative, collaborative process. That's the way it has to be. I love Unbounce and I love these companies that have these templated landing pages. They're great as a starting point, but if you're switching your brain off and not defining who the audience is or what they need to hear and just picking a template because "Oh I like the way that looks," you're missing the point. I think Unbounce does a good job of educating people there. Yeah, the design piece was a collaborative, iterative thing and for anyone listening who's thinking "I want to get into conversion copywriting" or "I want to hire a conversion copywriter," look for someone who's not just going to hand you a Word doc. Learn to wire frame. Josh and I both use Balsamiq. That was a common tool of communication so writing could be on the same page as design. It's a skill that I didn't anticipate ever having to learn as a writer, and it's one I'm loving exploring because the more I understand how the design interplays with the words that I write, the more effective I can be, and the more designers are going to like to work with me. So, the two are unbreakable, and actually Austin wrote a counter piece to my piece from design's perspective, so you can go read my piece on the HubSpot blog and you can read his. You can see where we both came from and how we made it work. Kathleen: That's great. I love that you mentioned Balsamiq because my next question was going to be are there certain tools that you find are really helpful through this process? It's funny, I'm not a designer either but I've had to create wire frames. There are many wire framing tools out there. We have one that our actual design team uses. I don't remember, I think it's called Moqups and it's super detailed. It's amazing, but it's too much for me. It would be like me going into InDesign and trying to create a webpage. I like Balsamiq because it's really streamlined and simple, and for a non-designer it's a great wire framing tool. Any other tools that you have used either in that project or in other projects that are really helpful for this kind of thing? Joel: Yeah. Basically, so for mock ups and wire frames Balsamiq has been the tool that I've found easiest to use, most versatile for me. I know the platform inside and out. I've also heard really good things about InFlow. So, inFlow is another one where you can experiment with that. I'm not an affiliate for any of the tools I'm about to mention, so none of this is a paid ad but I genuinely love them. Typeform is what we constantly use for surveys. Fantastic interface. Fantastic ability to use logic jumps to show different questions to different groups, which when you're segmenting information like we were was totally invaluable to be able to just naturally do that. So, Typeform is great. For chat, the one I always recommend to companies is Drift. Drift continues to innovate, continues to do really cool things and on their basic free plan you can get your feet wet, you can control manually the hours it's live and not live so you don't have to worry about being present at four in the morning. So, Typeform and Drift. Balsamiq is really helpful. These days I've been using Hotjar to look at both heat maps and recorded user sessions and I've been really pleased taht they just announced some innovations today where they can capture more in those recorded user sessions, so that's really exciting to me. We can get a deeper look at how people are actually interacting. So, those are kind of my old standbys. Then I'm increasingly looking at Google Analytics, which you know, it's kind of people are like ... It's been around forever but people still don't have a clue the fraction of the power you can get out of Analytics. One guy that I really admire in this space who is worth following and learning from is Michael Aagaard. He just knows the analytics piece really well. I think he would even tell you, he comes by it honestly, he's not necessarily like a numbers and analytics guy but he's found all these cool shortcuts and custom reports and ways to very quickly get at data that can highlight a problem so that you can respond quickly. So, that's kind of my stack. That's my toolkit. Occasionally you'll see things like FullStory or whatever, but I think that's one thing I want to communicate, is you don't need to have tens of thousands of dollars of budget to do this type of work. You just need to have the willingness to make the most of these free or basic plans for the period that you're using them. The barrier to entry to doing this stuff is only getting lower. The tools are only getting better. So, there's really no excuse for companies to just be turning a blind eye to this and saying well it's too complicated or too complex. No way. You can start doing this stuff tomorrow. Kathleen: Yeah, you could do it all probably in Google Docs too if you really had to. Joel: Totally. I used to wire frame in Word with like tables. I mean, it's not as pretty as Balsamiq. It's not as easy to communicate, but it gets the job done. If you're going to start there, start there. Just go with what you know and evolve, but just get started. Kathleen: Yeah. Absolutely. I love all the tools you mentioned. We use a lot of those. On my team we use Drift. We have Drift on our site, so I'm absolutely going to go back and look at the chat logs after we stop talking. You know, a number of those other tools ... One of the other ones that we're huge fans of, which if you haven't checked it out you might want to, is GatherContent. It's awesome. Our content manager has hacked it in a way that when we do website pages she's able to create blocks for the different content pieces that are needed and she can add in background on personas and guidance on how it should be written. It's really cool for content collaboration. Joel: Yeah. That actually ... Kathleen: That was my addition to the list. Joel: That reminds me, there's one more. It's funny I forgot. The tool that I'm really, really excited about I haven't had the chance to use it as much as I'd like but RightMessage. Brennan Dunn launched this tool. They continue to launch all these different sub tools, but RightMessage, if you believe in conversion optimization, if you believe that this is going to be important and integral for the future, RightMessage is what comes next. It's personalization. I have yet to see a tool working harder to make that easier, working harder to make it more intuitive, to make it more accessible. So, I'm really, really excited about what Brennan and his team are doing over there. I'm trying to bake it into my proposals more often because more people need to use this stuff. Kathleen: Oh, I'll definitely check that out. Now, circling back to the project at HubSpot. You somehow got this website rewritten, you and the other team of people in this two to three month time period. The new site launched. I've heard lots of different numbers thrown around about the results you guys got. Can you break it down for us? What was the change? Joel: Yeah. I'll pull those numbers up here, but the biggest change was we effectively doubled site wide conversions. So, on the biggest broadest level across all of their conversions, we saw a doubling there.  Then, to we break down some of the more specific conversions, HubSpot started seeing two times the inbound call volume. So, not just conversions on the site. Twice as many people phoning in. They saw a 35% increase in demo requests. They saw a 27% increase in product sign ups. For a company the size of HubSpot, with the traffic of HubSpot, those are some serious, serious numbers. So, the efficacy of having customer driven copy and really a design team who cares about conversion and about telling the story the right way, and then a support team and a sales team who are open about what's working for them and how to nail that down, it all comes together to create impacts like that. Kathleen: So, I have to ask. To what do you attribute that increase in inbound call volume? Because that's an interesting stat that I was not expecting you to mention. Joel: Yeah. That one was surprising to me too. You know, if you haven't ever had Matt Barby on the program, having him come in to talk about attribution and tracking and that sort of thing I think would be fascinating. Kathleen: Oh, I would love that. Matt, if you're listening, call me! Joel: Yeah. So, I mean, Matt. Matt would be the guy to really help pin that down. Not only did we change the site, and the copy, and the way we presented their products, during this time they also started playing around with kind of a freemium model and looking at some of these more freemium-type calls, so it's possible that maybe kind of having that angle correlated with more people being willing to check it out. I really do think, though, that it was the clarity, it was the ability for people to understand on their own very quickly how the different pieces of the tool connected to feel comfortable enough to make that call so they wouldn't feel like an idiot, or they wouldn't feel they'd have to spend all day trying to just sort up with sales, getting a sales pitch on everything, they could ask more direct questions about the things they actually needed. So, that's my hypothesis, that's what I would guess. But it would be fascinating for you to have somebody on the in-house side come in. And they continue to do some really cool and innovative things, and the site's changed and grown since then, so I'm sure they'll have even more stories. Kathleen: Yeah, there's so many very, very, very smart people on that team. Joel: Mm-hmm. Kathleen: I would take any one of them as a guest. So I assume that some of the lessons that came out of that particular project, or things you have applied in other places, fast forward to today and are there certain things that you're really excited about when it comes to conversion copyrighting, or conversion rate optimization? Joel: Yeah, two things in particular. So the first is that personalization piece. With RightMessage, like I mentioned, that's becoming more possible. What I'm really fascinated by is just before, if you wanted to have different conversations with individuals, it was clunky. You had to create a whole bunch of different stuff, just even pages upon pages, and you had to really do a ton of work to try to make it happen technically. So it wasn't always possible, and I love that the bar for that is coming down. I'm really having a fun time learning more and more about how to segment and identify the differences in user groups. So, that piece, I think, is so important. It is the future of this stuff, and I'm really excited about that. For me personally, where I'm seeing the most growth for myself, this year, interestingly, I've made more off of audits and reviews than any writing. So, I still continue to offer writing, but I'm doing more and more analysis and helping companies identify what's going wrong and how they can fix it with copywriting, and UX exchanges, and things like that. So for me, what I'm excited about and continue to grow in to, it's nothing sexy, but Google Analytics. Just unpacking the power available on Google Analytics, and how to deploy that properly, and the types of things you can learn. I want to share ... I'll make it quick, but I want to share a quick story, just kind of the stuff you can learn when you're paying attention. So, I was working with a client, and I was doing a review of their site. They offer divorce packages in the UK. One of those stats we found that was fascinating to us through Google Analytics that sent up a little red flag was men converted better than women, and we know that more women initiate divorce than men. So it was kind of like, that's an oddity. Something is amiss here. So, long story short, through Google Analytics, a combination of looking at Google Analytics, the times people were actually on the site, combined with chat logs to learn what challenges were unique to women, we were able to come up with a cool hypothesis that women are in more financially vulnerable situations, they're working multiple jobs, so they want to convert in later hours, but chat was off during those hours. Kathleen: Oh, interesting. Joel: So through that, we figured out well let's test extending chat hours and see what the impact is. So, stuff like that just gets me pumped up because it's ... The amount of stuff you can learn when you're paying attention is fascinating. Kathleen: Oh, I love it. I love ... I always say I'm a marketing nerd, and I feel a sense of kinship with you on this because when I discover the little nuggets like that, it does, it gets me super excited. And I'll admit, I definitely am not as much of an expert in Google Analytics as I would like to be. I feel like every time I start to get really proficient, it's like the grocery store when they reorganize it, and then you don't know where the milk is. Joel: Right. Kathleen: Google Analytics likes to do that to us sometimes, too, but it's like an ice berg, and we kind of see the tip, but there's so much there under the surface, so much power and so much data. But I think I agree, there is so much to be learned. Joel: Totally. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: So two questions that I ask all of my guests. I want to make sure I ask you before we wrap up today. One is, company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now? Joel: The women are crushing it. All of the people that I- Kathleen: Yes. Joel: Most admire doing this right now are all women, and they're doing brilliant jobs in really different ways. So as an individual, someone who recently came on my radar and now I'm so excited to be able to collaborate with is a woman named Val Geisler. I'm not sure how you pronounce her last name. She does email onboarding series and optimizes those. What she's done, you know, she's a one woman shop, so she doesn't have the ability to publish thousands of things, but she does such targeted, relevant content. She does these really cool email tear downs of companies people know and respect. Her candor in those, you know, she's not rude or mean, but she's also very honest and very great at exposing it. "Here's what they're doing. Here's what they could do better." So Val is doing fantastic. Claire and Gia at Forget the Funnel, so they've launched this really ... Like, they are, to me, a lot of people ... we talk about blogs, we talk about e-books, but what we don't often talk about as much is building yourself a platform, giving people a reason to want to listen to you and come to you, and see you as an authority. That's what Claire and Gia have done. Two extremely bright, very talented women, who have launched this thing, and created this avenue to get exactly the right customers that they want to work with, exactly the right sets of people to listen to what they have to say. They do these great webinars, and they do these great interviews. So those would be two examples. Then one group of fellows, I think who is doing is good, is Grow and Convert, and they're putting out some really great case studies, and really great content, and really great pieces that are helping Mark [Rozano 00:38:06] and myself just stay relevant and level up what they're doing. Kathleen: Okay, what's really cool about what you just said is those are three groups of people, places, brands, etc. that are totally new to me. I love when I get answers like that, and I have new places to check out. I'm particular interested in these email onboarding series right now, because we're revamping ours, so I will definitely be checking that one out. Second question, and I'm going to narrow it down. I usually ask people, with digital marketing changing so quickly, how do you stay up to date. But I want to get a little bit more specific than that with you, because I'm intrigued that you're focused on conversion rate optimization. I want to ask you how you stay educated for yourself, and build your skills in the field of conversion rate optimization? Joel: Yeah. So there's some really important sources that I consult and I look to, just to see what they're publishing. So, Joanna Wiebe, obviously. Anytime she's publishing a case study, or puts out a course, that's relevant to me. I'm almost always going to buy it. I'm really tuned in with her, and she's got tons of free content, but even if you can find her legacy content. It's just as relevant as it was then. Conversion XL continues to publish really valuable things. So, that's been really helpful. To me, in particular, and Michael Aagaard, like I said, he's done some recent webinars and that sort of thing. Expanding beyond that though, what's been really important for me in this field, and I think anyone coming in to should know, is that it is still young, and there is so much bad information out there where's it's like we change a button color and things would- Kathleen: Yeah. Joel: You can really educate yourself the wrong way, or you can educate yourself into a corner where you're like, "Well here are the rules. And here's what worked well in this situation," and you can treat it like gospel and try to apply it everywhere. So what's been really valuable to me is I've got Mastermind, just a little group of people in the same space, and we compare notes. We talk about what's going on with each other, and what they're learning, what they're coming across. In this industry, I think in all industries, it's valuable. But in this niche in particular, being tuned into what's going on with others, and what they're learning, and the context they learn it in is really important. Then the last one I'll mention is a site called GoodUI.com. He publishes a lot of, kind of tests and examples of stuff that people are trying out. Actually, one more that I really want to mention, and I'm excited to mention because it's not going to be on hardly anybody's radar, but I guarantee it's about to be on everybody's radar- Kathleen: Ooh. Joel: There's a company called User Insights. They have launched just the best tool for user testing that I have ever seen. Small batch user testing, very targeted, way cheaper than the competition, just as good, faster, but that service aside, that's really exciting. But they are doing some very interesting stuff. They haven't launched it all yet, but they're doing some very interesting stuff with case studies and actually testing in context a lot of different things that I know people are like, "Well should I have this? Or should I have that?" They're doing a lot of that practically now with ... across multiple sites, and verifiable outcomes. So they will be on people's radar because they're doing it at a scale I don't think anybody else is yet. So, I'm learning a bit from the people running that quietly in the background, and they're about to blow up. I'm sure of it. Kathleen: I can't wait to check all of this out. I feel like that's going to keep me busy for a while. That's great. I assume that everything you've learned through all of these projects, these engagements that you've done, you are bringing to bear with Case Study Buddy to help people improve their case studies. And you have a team there, right? Joel: Yeah, so Case Study Buddy is a different kind of a venture for me. Like I said, what excites me are these content assets that are easy to get wrong, super valuable when done well, companies struggle with the process, the strategy, the ownership of it. And so I've brought kind of all this stuff I'm doing in conversion. I'm trying to bring into the elements of how do we write something that appeals to multiple different scanners and readers and user groups, and how do we educate our clients on how to use these? For example, something I learned recently that I found fascinating is lots of companies are doing cold outreach. They're sending these cold emails. I can't remember the name of the company who did this study, but they tested out what is the impact of mentioning a famous "customer", so just a known customer in these cold outreach emails. And they've tripled the number of interested responses. Kathleen: Wow. Joel: So, the power is there, and if you can imagine attaching a case study, the impact that would have. Yeah, it's a different adventure. I've gotten to build a team and work outside of myself, and all the joys and pains that come with that. Yeah, it's been really fun, and that's going to be, like I mentioned, I'm still going to be doing this conversion work and that will be my bread and butter, especially on the back half of this year, growing Case Study Buddy, and getting it in front of more people and growing that initiative is high on my priority list. Kathleen: I can't wait to see where you take it. It sounds like you're on to something here. Joel: Thank you. Kathleen: Well, I know I've had a million questions throughout this, and I've had the opportunity to have you answer many of them, but if somebody's listening, and they wanted to reach out to you and ask a question, or get more information on something you've talked about today, what's the best way for them to find you online? Joel: Yeah, so I'm very active on Twitter. I do my best to respond to everything that comes in, whether it's a DM or a Tweet, or whatever. You can find me @JoelKlettke. That's one way to get at me fast. You can also email me. You can check out my ancient and desperately-in-need-of-being-updated site at BusinessCasualCopyrighting.com. Don't judge me. I built in 2013. It's due for an upgrade, but you can email me through there. I'm happy to field questions and if there's something you're struggling with. Then surprisingly, I always kind of shun the platform, but the past two months I've gotten a ton of value out of having conversations on LinkedIn. So, another space that you can see. I publish more there, actually, these days than my own blog. I do little snippets, and pushes, and tips and tricks there. I always try to make sure I'm responding to people who come through that channel, too. Kathleen: Yeah, LinkedIn- Joel: Those are kind of the three places. Kathleen: LinkedIn's making a comeback big time. Joel: Oh, huge. Kathleen: A lot of people are mentioning that on this podcast. Joel: They went from being the platform nobody wanted to talk about, to the platform everybody's publishing on. Kathleen: Yeah. Joel: It's remarkable. Even begrudgingly, there's still the joke about wanting to connect on LinkedIn, and after the apocalypse, only those emails remain. But joke all you want, they've become a serious contender. It's amazing that that team has done. Kathleen: Definitely. I agree. Well, thank you. This has been fascinating. I've learned so much. I have a feeling I'm going to learn a lot more when I go check out all those websites you mentioned. So I really appreciate you spending the time on the podcast. If you're listening and you liked what you heard, you learned something, I'm going to ask if you would please take a moment and go on iTunes, or Stitcher, or whatever platform you choose to listen to the podcast on, and leave a review. It would mean a lot. Finally, if you know someone doing kickass inbound marketing work, Tweet me @WorkMommyWork, because I would love to interview them. Thank you so much, Joel. Joel: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

Today's interview is with Joel Holland, Founder of VideoBlocks. It is a company that has achieved 7,000% revenue growth over the past 5 years. While still in high school, Joel started a small TV show that focused on helping kids figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. They interviewed over 150 awesome career professionals for the show, and while the interviews contained extremely powerful advice, the production value of the show was lacking, because they had no budget. In one specific instance, Joel had just interviewed superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. They had this awesome footage of his advice for teens and they weren’t able to make the video look professional since it was cost prohibitive to purchase b-roll, music, professional graphics or other stock media. So Joel decided to start a company that would make stock video affordable to everyone, regardless of budget. After high school, Joel pooled his savings and purchased some professional video equipment. He then hit the road for one year... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An SLT Update, & the Value of Simple w/Joel Zaslofsky Well, we're a little over 6 months into this "whole blog/podcast thing" and we figured it was time for an update. Actually, we're probably way overdue for an update! There are some things upcoming that you may be interested in and we'll also be taking a little bit of a break as we head into our summertime family working vacation. But the highlight of this week's episode is an interview with a good friend of ours, and fellow simplicity aficionado, Joel Zaslofsky of the Value of Simplicity blog and the amazing Smart and Simple Matters podcast! Simple Life Together Update:     We wanted to let you know some things that are going on with us and the show: Photo organization: We’ve talked about this in the past and it’s probably one of the most requested topics we get. We’re still researching and asking the pro’s for some tips, so you can look forward to that in the next couple of months. Dan will be doing an Evernote tutorial, too, at some point. He's been waiting for the dust to settle and now is ready to start working on it.  If you have any special requests regarding Evernote, drop Dan a note at Dan@SimpleLifeTogether.com. Finally, we’ll be on the road a bit for the next month or so...we’ll be in Portland for Chris Guillebeau’s World Domination Summit for the 3rd year in a row and then we have some mixed business & fun time with family throughout July and early August. We typically release shows every Thursday but for July we'll have shows on the 4th and 18th and then pick back up in August! Interview with Joel Zaslofsky of the Value of Simple We had an amazing interview with Joel Zaslofsky...creator of the awesome Smart and Simple Matters podcast and the Value of Simple blog. He’s incredibly open about his journey from a six-figure corporate job to carving out a niche online, while shaping his simple lifestyle. He offers tons of tips and free resources on his website to help you "liberate your time, money and talent."  We were thrilled to be his guests on Episode 15 of the Smart and Simple Matters show back in January and we’ve been dying to have Joel on our show. Well, we finally made that happen and it was fantastic!  You don't want to miss this interview!  Here are some of the questions and things we talked about: - So Joel, who are you and how do you make people's lives simpler? - So, you talk about your “Personal Renaissance.” Can you describe what that is, what it’s been like for you, and how it has led to a simpler/more focused life? - Can you tell us a little about the backstory of “liberate your time, money and talent” as it relates to you, your clients and your people who follow your work? - Tell us about your love for spreadsheets and some ways you use them to simplify your life. - How would you define curating, what do you curate personally, and how do you think others could benefit from curating? - Batman has his Batcave, the Super Friends had the Hall of Justice, and you have the Refuge of Simplicity! Can you share what goes on there? - Can you give us any tips about “keeping it simple” with a family? - For a lot of people, the whole “investment thing” is complicated. You address simplifying that in your online course “Start Investing with $100.” Can you share a little about that? - So Joel, what have we left out that is “must know” info for our listeners? What have you got going on these days? Thing Segment Dan’s Thing: Our upcoming trip to WDS Vanessa's Thing: Passing her BCPO Exam and all the support she got from friends, family, colleagues....and even YOU...our listeners!!! Links from our Interview with Joel: Research: How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers (this is the 100,000 words a day research) Your Memory is Like the Telephone Game (this is the reference to how much our memories suck, even if we think they rock) Smart and Simple Matters: iTunes

Today Joel and I are tackling a subject that is often discussed but never, it seems, resolved. That is the question of alcohol. I’ve found this to be a hot topic where ever I’ve been because, on the one hand most see the dangers of alcohol and on the other there is no direct prohibition against it. So what are was a believers to think? Part of the problem, I think, is the inability of many to ask the right questions. If you ask the right questions, there is no guarantee that you’ll arrive at the right answers, but if you ask the wrong ones, then it’s nearly certain that you’ll be misled. So Joel and I approach this subject with the prayer that we’ll not only ask the right questions, but also draw conclusions strictly from the word of God so that may follow along and examine the evidence for yourself. So if you have ever wondered about this topic, or know someone who has (and by the way, that’s nearly all of us) then stay tuned for this lively discussion.

Let's be honest Disney channel has not been the same, you know it, Joel knows it, and I know it. So Joel and I took it upon ourselves to call out Disney channel this episode in hopes that they undo these bad changes to our favorite childhood channel. If you want to send in your love to me in order to be featured on the milti-part appreciation series both Joel's & My information is below: Instagram: @Nawitsgabe Snap: gabriel_money12 Email: gmofoke123@gmail.com Joel's stuff- Instagram: @joe_spoony Snap: joel_3m Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/mind-of-a-real/donations