Podcasts about so josh

Comic Josh Gondelman, (Make My Day Podcast, Author of Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions & Mixed Results, Writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Desus & Mero) decided to adopt a dog with his wife, but there were none available in the NYC shelters. So Josh trusted a guy on Twitter, who turned out not to be who he said was. Watch Story Smash the Storytelling Game Show on YouTube anytime! https://bit.ly/39OoTdw With your host Christine Blackburn and comedian Blaine Capatch, writer Danny Zuker and many more talented people like Wayne Federman, MaryLynn Rajskub, Melissa Peterman, Ed Crasnick, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Greg Proops! Four comedians spin the Story Worthy Wheel of Truth and tell a true 1 or 2 minute story on the topic they land. The "expert judges" comment and everyone laughs their ass off. Story Smash sold-out consistently at the Hollywood Improv for 3 years and is back! Come! It's a blast! Check out the Story Smash website here- https://www.storysmashshow.com The Story Worthy Hour & 1/2 Of Power is now once a month on the third Sunday at 7:00pm PST, at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank California! More info on the website- https://www.storyworthypodcast.com Please follow for free, rate, and review Story Worthy on Apple Podcasts here- http://apple.co/1MceZ2Q It really helps. Follow Christine and Story Worthy on Social Media- Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/storyworthy/ Twitter-https://twitter.com/StoryWorthy Facebook- https://facebook.com/StoryWorthy/ and at ChristineBlackburn.com. Thanks guys! Christine

The hosts are new, but the sarcasm hasn't changed a bit. Join Gene Ross and Josh Dooley all year long as they break down everything going on in Buckeye Nation on Land-Grant Holy Land's flagship podcast. On today's episode, LGHL's Matt Tamanini joins Josh Dooley as Gene Ross was out for the week. So Josh and Matt dive into LGHL's "Bold Predictions" Week and each comes up with one bold prediction for the offense, one for the defense, and one for the team as a whole. The takes are too spicy to put into the shownotes, but they involve where Master Teague falls in the depth chart, Kyle McCord's role on the 2021 team, a youth movement on defense, interception totals, most challenging opponents, and Ryan Day's willingness to kick field goals. Connect with the Podcast: Twitter: @HolyLandPod Connect with Josh: Twitter: @jdooleybuckeye Connect with Matt Tamanini Twitter: @BWWMatt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Founder and CEO of Rehab 2 Perform, Dr. Josh Funk, talks about his experience with the business side of physical therapy. Today, Josh talks about how he created his business culture for employees and patients, his community outreach, and how he assembles his teams. How has Josh grown his business so quickly? Hear about the importance of a balanced dashboard and being mindful, and get Josh's advice to his younger self, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “If I think of somebody who has more autonomy, I think of somebody who's automatically going to be more engaged.” “The first thing that you need to start with is admitting that you don't have all the answers.” “We move fast, we break sh*t, we fix it, we move on.” “A lot of it [growth] starts with continual self-analysis.” “Me working in my business was the single biggest blockade for us moving forward.” “We've put equal investment on people, we've put equal investment into our local communities, and we've put equal investment into the company as a whole, and as long as we continue to feed those three different areas, and maintain lines of communication, I think we're going to continue to be successful.” “A conscious capitalist is somebody that's mindful of all stakeholders.” “I view the 35-50 year old female in the community as being probably the single most influential person in your local community.” “When I think of marketing, I always think of market relationships.” “When you start your company based on core values, you have people that are culture champions.” “Your balanced dashboard is most likely going to lead you to better decision-making and getting a better gage for what is actually going on behind-the-scenes in your business.” “Much of healthcare practices from a business standpoint are extremely dated, and you are better off spending time studying businesses in other industries for inspiration.” “Continue being open for inspiration in a wide variety of places. You'd be surprised, if you had an open mind, what you might be able to see in something that, maybe at one point in your life, you completely ignored.”   More about Josh Funk Dr. Josh Funk was born and raised in Montgomery County, MD and attended Poolesville High School. Josh went on to play Division 1 lacrosse and earn a B.S. degree from The Ohio State University before earning his Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree from the University of Maryland-Baltimore. It was a little over 3 years after graduating from Maryland, that Rehab 2 Perform was founded in late 2014. In addition to his physical therapy expertise, Dr. Funk has been equally, if not more committed to the growth of his role as CEO of Rehab 2 Perform. He has made sure that his personal development is not just reserved for the clinical side of things, but also to ensuring that Rehab 2 Perform is one of the most well-run and well-known health care companies in the area. Dr. Funk has immersed himself in business programs and community initiatives over the past few years in his efforts to ensure that the team and clients of Rehab 2 Perform are receiving everything they need to be at their best. It is his goal to push Rehab 2 Perform to the forefront of the community through innovation, progressive business operations, strategic growth and clinical excellence. A lifelong athlete, Josh became interested in becoming a physical therapist when going through PT as a D1 lacrosse player at Ohio State. After avoiding shoulder surgery for a torn labrum and rotator cuff, Josh has been entrenched in the world of physical therapy and sports performance. Over the years, he has continually developed his knowledge base and expertise as a physical therapist through continuing education courses and working with athletes of all ages. A Montgomery County resident, Josh is heavily involved in all areas of the community throughout the region.   Suggested Keywords Rehab, Physical Therapy, Physiotherapy, Autonomy, Community, Business, Metrics, Performance, Processes, Teams, Decision-Making, Healthy, Wealthy, Smart,   Round Table Talks: Round Table Talks   To learn more, follow Josh at: Website:          https://rehab2perform.com Email:              drfunk@rehab2perform.com Facebook:       Dr Josh Funk                         Rehab 2 Perform Instagram:       @drjoshfunk                         @Rehab2Perform                         @R2Pacademy Twitter:            @drjoshfunk                         @Rehab2Perform LinkedIn:         https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshfunk YouTube:        Rehab 2 Perform Round Table Talk: BizPT    Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:                https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Transcript Here:  00:02 Hey, Josh, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on today. Karen, thanks for having me. I'm just a big fan of everything you have going on and just everything you're doing for people in the profession.   00:13 Ah, thanks. That's nice to hear. And today, well, actually, this whole month, we are talking about the business side of physical therapy. And so I wanted to have you on because from what I can tell, not that I'm knee deep into your business, but from what I can tell on social media and your website is man, you are really growing, you have a budding business, it's an interesting business, it looks like your customer service is top notch. And people genuinely like your business. And they like you. So let's talk about the growth of your business and how you're able to do this in I would say a relatively short amount of time. So I'll just throw it over to you to just talk about your your business, why do you talk about your business first, so the listeners know who you are, what you do where you are, and then we'll get into how you've grown so quickly. Absolutely. So   01:09 for the listeners out there, I am the owner of rehab to perform. It's a fitness focused physical therapy company, offering, obviously physical therapy, sports rehabilitation services, concussion rehab. And then we have a couple different wellness offerings, including a golf program, golf fitness program, and our two p plus, which is kind of a discharge program, that people utilize an app receive home workouts and are able to communicate with their PT after more formalized discharge. But you know, you alluded a little bit to the growth that we've had, over the years been very fortunate past couple of years, including even during a challenging year, last year, just to continue to be able to move forward, I would if I had to break up, the time that the business has been in existence, I would say you have the first three years, and then you have the last kind of three and a half, almost four years, first three years, really just trying to figure things out, put the pieces together, do everything you can honestly to get out of debt have that minimum viable product. And when I was thinking about that minimum viable product, viable product, a lot of it surrounded creating an environment where PT was not a grudge purchase. So how do you create healthcare and physical therapy that is not a grudge purchase, it's something that has very, very minimal friction, people easily interact with it from a from a, you know, front desk customer service standpoint. And then when they actually experienced the clinical side, it is something that speaks to them, it is something that is enjoyable. And that goes for everything from just the processes and the kind of people that you have, as well as the deliverables. So, you know, these past three and a half years, we've been fortunate to, you know, heading honestly into opening our sixth location this fall. And we're very, very close to opening our seventh location. In early q1, we are based out of the DMV, and for anybody's unfamiliar with that, that is DC, Maryland and Virginia.   03:16 Awesome. I mean, it's just, it's pretty amazing. And you you hit on something that I want to talk about really quick before we go into the how you grew. But that's creating a culture that's not a grudge purchase. So let's talk about how you created your business culture, because I think this is something that is often overlooked, especially in in a lot of businesses. But how did you create that culture for your employees and for your patients?   03:52 I think if I start with the employees, I think a big part of what at least has influenced me was being in situations in which I perceived there to be too much rigidity, in terms of the how, and there was not enough autonomy given to people to just execute. Everybody executes things slightly different. And much like I would say, a good clinical framework. But if you have a very, very good cultural framework for your company, people kind of bounce back and forth between the guardrails so to speak, but you don't have this rigid playbook. Were rigid rules that are in place. There's a little bit of flexibility, adaptability, and at the end of the day, it is a shared way of doing things. It's a collective and it is not a top down style of leadership. It is more of this, what I'll call like circular leadership. So people are more familiar with, you know, an organizational chart. That's more formal, obviously, if somebody's at the top and it kind of trickles down and always whether or not it was you know, Anything from a student internship program to a specific program that I mentioned earlier, or somebody who's taking a role just on a project, or somebody who's in charge of a specific location, there is a certain a certain amount of autonomy that they are able to have. And I think that that ownership that is created really allows people to, I think, engage more when I think of somebody who has more autonomy, I think of somebody who's automatically going to be more engaged. And then if I think that I take it to the consumer, the customer, and I always like to call them clients, because at the end of the day, especially in a place like Maryland, you know, they have a choice. Direct Access is something that we have almost, you know, a, I would say, the most liberal version of it. In the United States, we have more than probably 75% to 80%, I can say definitively on a regular basis of people who come to us without having a physician tell them to come to us. So that being said, the only way that that happened was creating an environment that was enjoyable, I wanted to create chairs, a barber shop in your local bar, and deliver PT, so the more that you can make it, something that resonated with them. And for me, I always thought of a gym environment, it was very, very enjoyable, people liked being at the gym, you rarely wanted to, you know, potentially leave as well. So when you walk in, you know, it's it's open, it's friendly, there's quotes, there's gym equipment, there's a certain way of greeting people, people are going to greet you that aren't even necessarily your PT, the manner in which you're communicated to is going to be, you know, there's there's a certain amount of intent and thoughtfulness behind it. What you're going to be provided during that session is going to be something that ideally you leave with, and you go, this is personalized, individualized, and it resonated with me. So I was thought about trying to create an environment where somebody went, Oh, man, I got something small going on, I'm just going to go right into rehab to perform because I love going there, I get to go there, instead of I have to go there and that small change. And we can go down to all of the many pitfalls of your local pops, physician place that's sterile, right? It's boring, you have something that looks cookie cutter, you are doing the same thing, almost every single session, there's a lack of connectivity, right? There's not even music at some of the places in there. Everybody's wearing the same exact thing every single day, right. And we can go down that rabbit hole that people went down recently on Twitter surrounding professionalism. But I think overall just you create an environment that if I take it back to the top, you create an environment that has been shaped by so many people that have been a part of our company, too. I might be the CEO at this point. But I'm just a really good listener, just listen to people. And we make changes based on what the group wants. I'm not sitting here. And just telling everybody that I have all the answers, there was no different than advice that I gave to a young clinician the other day where he was like, Where's the first place I need to start, I was like, the first thing that you need to start with is admitting that you don't have all the answers. And the sooner you get somebody that's a cultural fit that comes in your place. And they show you a new way of doing things, the better off you'll be. But too often I think people get in a situation where they can't let go. And they can't allow other people or they think they found the special sauce. And I sit here today with a team of about 35 people. And I will tell you that I will listen to the new new front desk person that we just hired because she has new perspective and a new way of viewing things. And she can add value. And we never get to a point where ideally we're that we're that fixed project, fixed product. And then it has been that collaboration over the years that led us to both have an environment that people enjoy working in an environment that people enjoy interacting with the professional physical therapy.   09:08 Excellent. And this is gonna sound really familiar to you. But it sounds to me like your operations and processes. So if I say that to Josh, Josh and I both took while I'm still in it, he has taken the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business program, we were talking about operations and processes, which is one of the modules before we came on. And the thing that resonated with me with what you just said is you you give people the process or the sub process, let's say and the details are up to them. So you're giving them autonomy. And to me that leads to innovation, it leads to better care leads to better efficiency, because you're allowing people to make the process there. own while still getting the work done, right?   10:04 Yes. And I would say that that makes me think of the number one question that we ask when something gets done wrong is not a people person, it is a proper process problem first and foremost. And we go to that person and say, hey, how can we make sure that this does not get done wrong? Again, okay, we did not provide you with enough support, we did not provide you enough clarity, we did not provide you enough, whatever. But I am asking that person who may have automatically get on the defensive because they got something wrong, quote, unquote. And instead, they're becoming a part of making sure that process is easier, it takes less steps, there's more clarity, whatever. And then there's ownership. And then they automatically feel like oh, my God, okay, now, instead of me getting yelled at, I'm in an environment where when screw ups happen, we just, we just work on it make it better, like, then they show up to work every day, you never really worried about screwing up. Because what do I tell people all the time, we move fast, we break shit, we fix it, we move on, okay. And at the end of the day, we are we're trying to move relatively quickly. We're trying to be agile, we're trying to make sure that we're doing everything we can to kind of get out in front of, you know, really the, you know, the profession in healthcare as a whole and ideally, continue to show other people that, you know, there's a different way of doing things, a different way of doing things.   11:30 Yeah, I love it. And, and that is something that I didn't really think of before until literally today. Just before we went on the air is all these like operations and processes, which I always thought were so rigid, right. But if you give people the autonomy and innovation, I can only imagine that helps you grow faster and smarter. So let's talk about your growth. How did this happen? I think we can confidently say operations and processes are a big part, what else helped you to grow your practice, because I think there are some listeners out there who might be at the stage, like I'm going to grow my practice, but I have no idea what I'm doing.   12:16 I think, you know, a lot of it starts with just continual self analysis. And I think that I finally got to a point where I recognized that me working in my business was the single biggest blockade to us moving forward. And I think part of that also was me recognizing that I, I have a little bit of a unique skill set. And that's not to say that my skill set is more important. But then from a collective standpoint, my brain works a lot more in branding, sales, and marketing. And I needed to be spending more time in that area. So let's say about three years ago, I finally stepped back. And I put myself in a position where I was spending more time than ever, on the ins and outs of the brand of our company, the brand of the profession within our company, our sales and marketing strategies, and then to be quite honest, doing a better job of making sure that we had more of a predictable rollout when opening up a new office. So at this point, you know, we have, I hate to go back to processes again, but we have a very clearly defined rollout. And it starts about six months out. And every 30 days, you're doing X, Y and Z. And there are you know, at this point it I hate to say it, but you're almost following a playbook. And much like I referenced earlier, it's not necessarily rigid. But we know that at least if we're doing these things here, and at least 90% of that we're going to put ourselves in a good place to be successful. But I think you know, the biggest thing was recognizing that I had what it took. And it was after the Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses program to actually operate a business because before that program, I was solely a PT, who had hired myself to deliver good PT, I wasn't necessarily doing everything that I needed to to support the team. And to put us in a position where growth was naturally happening. Now if I get back to why we're growing now, I think we've put equal investment on people, we put equal investment into our local communities, and we put equal investment into the company as a whole. And as long as we continue to feed those three different areas, maintain lines of communication. I think we're going to continue to be successful when we go in and we just opened up a new location last Monday. And I think we're going to just put ourselves in a good spot and that kind of goes to just some found Thanks for me, I know that a lot of people hear the word capitalism. And I think they there's enough stories out there and examples of, of what I would consider more of the poor version of capitalism, that crony capitalism, one that maybe is a little bit more focused on, you know, your, your, your money, right, you're just focused on bottom line. And that's pretty much it. But I think of a cop of capitalism, I always want to think about being a conscious capitalist. And a conscious capitalist is somebody that is mindful of all stakeholders, all stakeholders, being the people on your team, they all matter, the small people, the big people, whatever you want to, you know, do people that people have been with you forever, that people that are new, right, you have to make sure that you're placing value in those people. And then for us, we have five different community hubs, so to speak, that we have initiatives under just to make sure that we're making connections, we're involved or engaged, we have a pulse on the community. And then we're finding ways to meet people where they're at outside of our four walls, ideally, deliver value even without asking for anything in return. So that that conscious capitalism piece, that's one of my favorite books, I think that's always been something that's kind of been near and dear to my heart. And in putting something out there from a business product standpoint that people could look at and say, you know, what, that's a that's a big, it's a business of the future, just in terms of how it's run.   16:18 So let's talk about that foray into the community. Because that is important. So if you are setting up shop in a community, what advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs and therapists who maybe have been in practice for 10 or 15 years, but maybe they sort of stalled? You know, because that can happen? Right? So what are some examples of your community outreach or outreach? Excuse me, or how you insert rehab to perform in the community?   16:52 Yeah, I mean, I think a big part of it centers around our avatars and our avatars being like our ideal consumer, right? Who is your target audience who interacts with your business the most at the location in which you have right now or locations, and you build out the community touchpoints that that person has. So I'll be quite candid, I don't think anybody will be surprised. But I view the 35 to 50 year old female in the community as probably being the single most influential person in your local community, probably you can stretch at 35 to 55. She is in a family where she is literally dictating the decisions for the head of household, the kids, the grandparents, the in laws, etc, there is nobody who is more influential in terms of what people are doing in the family, and where they're going. So if you just appreciate that as a whole, then you start to look at a little bit more of trends. And some of the metrics surrounding where that type of demographic is interacting. And for us, we also build this into our five hubs. So, you know, from a medical standpoint, fitness standpoint, business, youth, sports, and schools, what is that particular target demographic doing? Where are they interacting? Where are they going, and then you start to have a little bit better idea of where you potentially need to develop your connectivity, but initiatives under those five umbrellas after first and foremost, creating that lead avatar is something I recommend to everybody. We do have other avatars, I would say for us, it's a competitive athlete, college athlete, high school athlete, you know, your your clubs, use sport athlete. So, you know, who are the influencers in that community, who are the influencers, providing guidance to that individual is everything from skills coaches, to strengthen conditioning coaches, to the actual sport coach, to the club director to the athletic director, and you start to build out these chains of almost influence that that these people are connected to, and you have a better idea of who you need to have that market relationship with. And when I think of marketing, I was thinking of market relationships, right? It's not necessarily creating a piece of content to put in front of somebody, it's not necessarily you know, sending somebody something and give him a hard sell. Sometimes it's just the Hey, I saw your work I'm connected with so and so they just came into the office, you know, I keep hearing more and more and I'm at least curious at this point. Can we go grab coffee or if we got on a phone call? I'd love to learn more. And the more that you're genuinely curious about people, and you're invested in learning about them, and and actually taking the time to show that you're, you're genuinely interested in in that particular relationship. I think the easier that these relationships come about their authentic people can feel them and it becomes a lot easier for you to get into what the most important is part is who you are, what you do, and, and how you solve people's problems. So once you have those three things communicated, and I should say, once you have that authentic relationship, it's much easier to clearly communicate that those three things you bring to the table once again, name, what it is that you do, and how you solve people's problems. So that's kind of a little bit of the behind the scenes just in terms of, you know, my thought process. When we go to new location, you know, we have our initiatives, you have a pretty good idea of what works, obviously, there's some uniqueness to each area. But we're starting to develop those relationships, probably a relatively early time period. I mentioned before, we have a six month clock that we function off of. And really, you're just trying to find a way to almost solve their problems before they even necessarily need to send somebody into your office.   20:55 Yeah, amazing. I love everything about what you just said. And I really hope it gives people listening who are maybe thinking of starting their own practice or expanding like this is work. Yes, right. It's not like I'm gonna open up a practice, just because I feel like it is like you have to do this is done before you open your doors, you need to know who your avatars are your ideal clients, your ideal customers, whatever you want to call them, and you have to build them out. And there's more than one. And for every single one of those, there is a separate marketing plan. There is a separate communication plan for each and every one of those avatars, you do not use the same marketing plan for Well, the 35 to 50 year old woman who Yes, the women are the users and the decision makers. We all know that they run the show. There's no secret anybody out there says no, you're sorry, sorry, wrong. But you know, you're going to market and communicate with them differently than maybe the local college athlete.   22:06 Yes, right. 100%. They have different needs, different interests, different places that they're frequently interacting in the community. 100%   22:15 I love I love everything you just said. I think that is just a wealth of advice for anyone listening to this podcast, who I can't wait to we do our roundtable next week. Awesome. Or I shouldn't say next week. We're recording this a little earlier. Tomorrow, tomorrow. All right. So now everybody, the jig is up. It's not live. But yeah, no, I love that. All right. And then last thing about growth and movement within a business is really assembling a good team. Yes. So talk to me about how you assemble your team or teams within your business.   22:56 Here's the part that I'll be at least honest about the early part of the business and say some of it was just damn good luck. The first person that I had a part of my team probably could not have been more of a culture fit than if maybe he was a part of my own family. So we went to PT school together. We didn't grow up very far at all. From a high school standpoint. family values were all very, very similar. We had very similar outlooks on the world similar ideas when it comes to came to leadership. And when you asked us in general, what your principles and values were, that governs your life, they were very, very similar. So I was fortunate to actually and I'll probably get a couple chuckles here, I convinced him to quit his job. Right after his wife had delivered their first child, I think that their first child was four at the time. And I gave him three months of paper checks. And I said, hey, there's enough money here for you to quit your job and give it a go. But nonetheless, he helped me kind of shaped the culture of the company. Our next hire was a female was more compliance oriented, somebody that we definitely, definitely needed. And then the fourth person, some people might be familiar with Dr. Jared Boyd. He's now an NBA PT for the Memphis Grizzlies. And his commitment to I'd say, research, and the clinical side of things was kind of what Zack and I needed. And what we needed was contrast. So we overlapped on a lot. And we were able to find contrast in terms of areas in which we didn't have a natural affinity to we're really have that much interest in diving into and then moving forward. We hired people predominantly off of, once again, a collective decision making process. It was, Hey, is everybody comfortable with hiring this person? There was no one person in charge of the hiring process. And a lot of what we did was make sure that there are multiple touch points for that person to interact with our business. So whether it was an early exploratory phone interview, that then would follow into a formal phone interview, obviously, that things like a background check references, etc. And then you would actually have them come into the office and spend some time Hey, Shadow, people spend time with the front desk. And you start to get multiple touch points where every single person at the office had at least interacted with them enough to go Yes, or we've had more than our fair share of knows where somebody's got a wrong vibe, or something was said or something was picked up on. But making sure that you know, hires especially at this stage of the game, where we do have five locations, me hiring for a location, and me being the sole decision maker is silly, I do not work at an office with these, right, these people for 30 to 40 hours, I'm spending a much smaller block of time. So at the end of the day, the people that need to have the most influence are the people that actually are the leaders at that office that are at that office every single day that to be quite honest, probably have more control over what's going on in the culture and in the environment at that particular office than I do. So I once again, I think it goes a little bit more to like your decentralized leadership style. And your you have more of this flattened approach to leadership where a lot of people are involved. But if we talk about just central pieces to team, what are your values? What are your principles, those have to be the early conversational points, that that drive the conversation about whether or not this person is a fit, we have our core values literally on the wall, every single office is transparent, so much even that the clients can see them. You know, so when when you start your company based on core values and principles, everything from I mean, a couple like just basic things, obviously, you know, education, empowerment community, for us to be talking about principles on offense at all times, right? solutions instead of problems. Or we say thumb first, instead of pointing a finger, right? What can you do to potentially change something than then pointing a finger in another direction. So I think when the foundation of the company is just so grounded in in those core principles and values, you have people that are culture champions, and at the end of the day, people understand that, that the sole reason why we've been able to do that we've been what we've been able to do is attracting people for the right reasons. It's not people that necessarily are championing solely their GPA or their clinical knowledge and expertise and kind of beating their chests about how smart they are. It's first and foremost, foremost, like, how does this person align with us on a foundational level, we know that at the end of the day, that person will become the best version of themselves within the company, because they value with the rest of the collective value. So I know when a bunch of different directions there, but I think, yeah, I mean, we've been very just purposeful. And there's been a lot of evolution, I'd say there over the years and knock on wood. And I never like to honestly say this without just just being aware that it's not just me, it's our whole team. But we have only had three pts in almost seven years decide to leave the company, one was for the MBA, one was for home health, because she wanted to spend more time with their kids and another one would took a military job. So we've not had a single person yet that's had a parallel move to somewhere else in the local community. They've either completely moved in are on a base somewhere or in a professional sports organization, or in home health, spending more time, you know, raising their family things that we can't compete with as a company.   28:55 Right, amazing. And, and I really like that your approach to hiring, I guess it's the hiring funnel. You know, we talk about sales funnels and marketing funnels, you have a hiring funnel, where it starts with some exploratory calls to more formal, and then you keep going down. So you may have 100 exploratory calls. But as you funnel down into how many ideal candidates are for the job, maybe it's two. Yep. Right. 100%. So I think it's a nice visual for people to see that.   29:27 I am involved in exploratory. And that's literally about it. At this point, I will get resumes and stuff will catch my eye or somebody will connect with me on social media. And there'll be something that I'm at least like, hey, let's explore this. And I'm often handling an exploratory call on looping in people, most likely the site directors at potential offices that could hire this person. And then they actually start to incorporate the other members of their team for calls as well. So it really becomes a point where this person goes, Oh my gosh, I could be a part of this team. I bet make an impression, or different times or five different times because all of these people are important. And if any one single person says no, then we move in a different direction. And that has happened before.   30:10 Hmm. Amazing. I love it. Okay, so we touched upon your company culture, we touched upon your avatars, your team, how you've been growing? I mean, we can go on and on and on? Or is there any other major point that you wanted to hit about the growth of your company that we didn't touch upon that you're like, Man, this is super important. I really want people to know this. I think a balanced   30:39 dashboard is very, very important. And I think that in a world where people do focus a lot on productivity and utilization, right units, or how many slots you have filled, and I'm not here to say that that's not important, because at the end of the day, you need to have a business that is delivering a service for a certain amount of time, and having an individual which you're providing a salary benefits, etc, PTO, whatever, some some benefit, that certain things are also, you know, reciprocated. So it's not to d value those but to paint a better picture of business health and metrics that would support at least for us, when I think of smart growth, it's like, Alright, how do I know that we're just not adding locations, and the quality is rapidly diminishing? Okay, that stuff over there good. We get people in the doors, okay, yes, in terms of just keeping the lights on, we need to be able to have a certain amount of billable units. And if we hire somebody, they need to have a certain amount of slots allocated. Beyond that, what else is meaningful for us to continually be looking at. So net promoter score and churn rate are two big metrics that I'd say we've looked at more and more, especially over the past two years, for people are unfamiliar with Net Promoter Score, it's considered a gold standard with regards to brand loyalty, and the creating the kind of word of mouth referral generating, I think all of us are looking for. So I say this, once again, just to provide perspective, but we add locations, we have to make sure that the company stays above 90, which is considered world class. And when we don't, or something pops up, or somebody is saved below 90 for a given quarter. You know, there's certain just conversations that are had, in addition to the fact that when we have a seven or eight, or a six or below, there are certain things that are happening internally to make sure that we're being mindful that somebody is either potentially a little bit passive on what we have to offer. And they've communicated that or they potentially might be somebody who's going to drop off. And then when you think about churn rate, just think about somebody interacting with your business and having a negative experience and not even really giving it a chance for you to work with them. To get towards ideal outcomes. At the end of the day, we're trying to drive outcomes. So when you get somebody in, and you've put time and energy behind communicating what it is, who you are, what you do, and how you solve their problems, and they get so turned off after a visit two visits or three visits, that they've gone somewhere else, or they just altogether potentially left the profession. That's not necessarily a positive thing. There is metrics out there to support that, say, if they get to four visits, they are X amount more likely to actually go through a plan of care and be able to see some of those ideal outcomes that I think all business owners would think that their business can, can provide. And then, you know, outside of that, I mean, obviously online reputation, being mindful of Facebook reviews, Google reviews, those are some some big ones for us. And then not to completely discredit your functional outcome measures, right. And then there are certain things in web PT we have afforded where you're able to track pain from IE to DC are able to track satisfaction goals met, in addition to some of your outcomes measures that are a little bit more formal. And yeah, the insurance companies telling you to do them, but doesn't mean you should automatically dismiss them. Right? There's, there's often some tangible and objective data out there that a lot of other people are valuing. So take it with a grain of salt, you're not putting much like your evaluation, right and your return to sport testing, because that's the world we live in where everybody likes to argue about that all the time. You're not putting any more value on any one given thing, the more that you have this aggregation of data, the better off you're able to look at that and maybe potentially come up with certain trends or or certain things that in terms of painting this more broad picture better define your your business health So figure out your balance dashboard, your balance dashboard can be applied to a lot of different things obviously could go behind the scenes with regards to finances and stuff like that, but all other conversation 100% but you know, your your balanced dashboard is most likely going to lead you to better decision making. And giving you a better gauge for what actually is going on behind the scenes in your business. And it really, it's, it's, and I always look at that, and I go, Well, this is telling us whether or not a process actually works. And if I'm not getting what I want to hear, we need to go back to process,   35:14 I was just you took it took the words out of my mouth, I was gonna say having that balanced dashboard allows you to make better shared decision making 100 better, better shared, better shared decisions. Yes, just like just like we would do with a return to sport after an ACL. It's a shared decision making between the therapists, the coach, the parent, the the patient, whoever it is, everybody's got some input. So when you look at a good balanced dashboard, and just for people who aren't familiar when we're talking about what a dashboard is, it's where you have, what metrics you're using to evaluate your business. And those metrics can be your net promoter score, it could be your net profit, it can be patient satisfaction, it can be whatever it is for your business you want to have on that dashboard. And it's different for everyone and should be, right, yes.   36:13 and dare I say after 10k, SD, my dashboard looks a lot more like an Excel spreadsheet at this point. And I know you can relate.   36:20 I can't go into Excel spreadsheets right now. But yeah, so just so people know, like your dashboard is anything that you're using to measure something, a process in your business. So it can be a whole boatload of different things. But just like we do with patients to look at that dashboard, and be able to to look at it with your team employees, whomever, and be able to make informed shared decisions on how you're going to move that business forward. how you're going to make changes in your process, like you said earlier. So perfect. Perfect. All right. Now, last question are actually no, where can people find you? Let's talk about that first.   37:03 For sure. Instagram and Twitter is probably where I interact with the most I try to keep Facebook honestly just a community connection. So if you friend me on Facebook, don't take it the wrong way. I just try to keep the PT side of things off of Facebook. But from a professional connectivity standpoint, at Dr. Josh funk on Twitter, and Instagram, my email is also Dr. Funk at rehab to perform calm. If you really want to get a hold of me, DM me on social media, get my phone number, text me your availability, that's the best way to get things done. Email right now is very chaotic. We just opened up a new location. I'm also getting married in about three weeks. So my life is not necessarily all that organized. And just because there's a lot of moving parts right now. So email, not the best place. But I'm very happy to interact, always happy to make time for a call, especially when I'm driving sometimes I like to just honestly plan out a call for when I'm driving between locations or something like that.   38:00 Excellent. Well, thank you so much for giving people all that info. And last question, knowing where you are now in your life and in your career. What advice would you give to your younger self, let's say a young grad out of PT school,   38:13 I think I would have focused more on expanding my horizons outside of healthcare and physical therapy sooner. I think the more that I started to look at what was going on in other industries, other professions. It made me better at PT and especially made me better at running a business, I can safely say that much of healthcare practices from a business standpoint are extremely dated, and that you are better off spending time studying businesses and other industries for inspiration. It's not to say that there's not some people that are doing amazing work in our profession and healthcare as a as a whole. But I would say the collective is still I almost at this point. I wonder if it's decades behind, just with regards to just how they're operating. So continuing being open for inspiration in a wide variety of from places, you'd be surprised if you just had an open mind. What you might be able to see in something that maybe at one point your life you may be just glanced past or completely ignored.   39:16 Love it. Excellent advice. Josh, thank you so much for coming on. And again for the listeners tomorrow at 730. Yeah, right. No eight. Oh my gosh, where's my head tomorrow? The 27th at 8pm we're going to have our roundtable with Josh, Eric mellow Michelle Callie and shantay Cofield. So if you haven't signed up yet, definitely sign up because we're gonna be talking like this but probably more in depth and we need your questions. This is a this is your chance to ask people like Josh and Shantae and Erica and, Michelle, any question you want to have these four people together on one sort Stage, it's not going to happen anywhere else. So now's your chance, ask those questions. You ask those burning questions to four amazingly successful entrepreneurs in the physical therapy space. So I encourage you all to sign up. You could do that at podcast at healthy, wealthy, smart, calm, click on the tab that says round table talks. So Josh, thanks so much. And again, looking forward to tomorrow. So thanks.

No exit, indeed. The West Wing kids are locked up in a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..... Nothing happens. So Josh and Dave talk about some other shit, including the depraved orgy known as the White House Correspondents Dinner. Don't worry, folks - next week's will make up for this shit show. 

Justin Stoddart  So the big question is this: How do those of us in the real estate industry, with crazy amounts of ambition, how do we Think Bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously seek success and significance, income AND impact? My name is Justin Stoddart, and this is the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.Justin Stoddart  Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart, where we help you not just pursue success, but significance. Today's guest is all about significance. He's someone who I admire deeply. I can't wait to introduce you to him. Before we go there. I want to remind you that inside of the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook, we go deeper on these topics. Listening gets you to one level of understanding, but when you start engaging with it, that's when it really becomes knowledge and even onto wisdom. Justin Stoddart  Super excited to have again, today's guest His name is Josh Kalinowski He is a former  professional baseball pitcher, turned real estate agent, now investor. His story is fantastic. Before I go deeper on your story, Josh, thanks for coming on the show today, man. Josh Kalinowski  I just Oh man, this is a pleasure. Super excited to be talking with you and your audience. Justin Stoddart  Talk about a big thinker and you your early days of baseball. Now let me let me bring in some context here for everybody that's, that's listening that saying, Okay, I'm not a baseball player, does this relate to me right? Today, what we're going to be talking about is how to overcome disappointment. Okay, so whether your first career didn't quite work out now you find yourself in the real estate industry, and or even in the real estate industry right now you're finding yourself, like a little frustrated not getting the wins that you expect yourself to be having, this episode is for you. So Josh, let's go back, you from a very young age knew that you had some talent. throwing the ball, right? Josh Kalinowski  Yeah, yeah, I grew up with knowing my purpose. And that was to be a professional athlete in some form or another, right. So either a quarterback in the NFL, or left handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. In fact, I really kind of wanted to be both man, Bo Jackson was my hero. And coming from a very small town, I was a pretty big fish. And so success came very easy for me at the very early stages of my life. And so that was everything. To me sports, was it and I felt like that's exactly what I was created to do. And I felt like God already had that plan. And I was etched in stone to be a very successful Hall of Fame, professional athlete. Justin Stoddart  Did you have the shirt made? Josh knows kinda like Bo Knows? Josh Kalinowski  Yeah, right. Basically, it was pretty much that already did there's no, I had my, I had my number picked. I knew where my stadium was going to be. And I knew exactly it was gonna be called Cal's corner, and that was gonna be my pressbox area. Like, dude, it was already there. You know, those vision boards had a vision board before they even knew what a vision board was. Yeah, this is, you got it? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Justin Stoddart  So it's super interesting, because you hear you talk to any of the success gurus, right. And they say, if you want to accomplish something, get laser clear on what you want to accomplish. And it's just a matter of time. And that's what you had been taught. It sounds like and you were like, crystal clear on this is exactly where I'm going. This is one way to have. And, and like you said, I knew my life's purpose, it was to be a professional athlete. Right. And with that, you're gonna do a lot of good along the way. But that was the climax. That was where you were headed. Josh Kalinowski  That's exactly right. And yeah, my father had he always, you know, my dad was a great he was an athlete as well, too. He was an all American Basketball Player. And so he understood the competitiveness, I was literally like, I was a miniature Dave Kalinowski. And he always set goals for us, he always helped us set goals for ourselves. And so at every level, no matter where I was at whether I was in, you know, t ball, or in high school, or in college, I had a list of goals that I want to wanted to accomplish. And they all revolved around sports, right, if I was going to get A's in school is because it allowed me to play baseball, not because I really wanted to be a great student, was because that's what allowed me to play the game that I absolutely loved. Justin Stoddart  Yeah. Well, just to put some context to this to how good you were, and you probably wouldn't say this, but you pitch the no hitter. Right now. It's extremely rare, right? For anybody that that knows baseball, knowing that pitching a full game and having zero, like on base is a phenomenal accomplishment, right, which just fed the fuel right, we just fed up to be like that. I'm absolutely on this path. Right. Josh Kalinowski  Exactly. Justin Stoddart  That and then being strikeout King right in your league, being drafted in the minor leagues by the Rockies, right. Just all these things are just lining up just the way they're supposed to. Then some things kind of started to not go your way. Right. Talk to us a little bit about the disappointment because again, whether people have experienced disappointment in the past and they're still hanging on to it, or they're experiencing it right now in this crazy market and or just in their personal life. Yeah, a little bit about yours so we can kind of relate to a guy like you. Josh Kalinowski  You bet. Well, let me make it very relatable if you were in the market, selling real estate prior to 2006 and you were having success, and you were doing everything right, right. And then the market gets crazy. And you're like, Oh my gosh, like, I'm like, I am the best agent out there. I cannot believe how much money I'm making. I can't believe how many clients I'm serving. I can't believe how easy this is right? Well, that's what baseball was for me. In a sense. I was throwing a no hitter. I, I had a 20 game strikeout I was MVP of the league. I was an all star candidate. For three years of those years, I led the minor leagues and strikeouts, a little Colorado Rockies in strikeouts, you know, so everything was saying, you are going to be a Hall of Fame pitcher, it's just a matter of time for you to get there. Right. So 2006, you're in real estate, this is going to be awesome. I'm going to retire by the time I'm in 2010. Or I'm going to take over the world in 2010. And then 2008 hits and you're going What just happened? Like I wasn't ready for this. I wasn't prepared for this. This was so so go on forever, right? Well, that's what happened to me. in my baseball career at the age of 26. Too many surgeries and baseball really shut its doors on me and and I had to retire as I like to say, but it was more of a I had to really walk away from the game that I absolutely love because it was moving on without me. And I could not keep up with it. Justin Stoddart  Yeah. Well, yeah, we've all felt that I love the context you brought in because you're right. I was a homebuilder up intil 2009. For a while, I felt like I could do nothing wrong. Maybe real estate agents here over the past little while have felt that way, right? had a pretty hot market for the past number of years, almost in the past year and a half or so it's been like, wait a minute, this isn't quite as fun. All of a sudden, I've got eager buyers, I just can't find the sellers, right. I've got sellers, and how do I possibly go through all these offers? Like it's just a lot, right? It's just a lot more than what people are used to going through a lot of potential disappointment. Okay, so walk us through kind of your story, like what came next, you started to have some, like your body started did not quite work like you wanted it to? Right? Josh Kalinowski  Yeah, you know, at the age of 26, I'd already had three surgeries. Three on my shoulder, my shoulder, one of my elbow. So I was really broken. And I really was unable to perform like I used to I my mind was there, but my body was basically broken. And you know, I remember, you know, at the age of 26, as a professional athlete, you also gotta remember to is that I'm like four years away from retirement, like, you know, 26 years old at the age of 30. That's when most guys are thinking of retiring. So in my mind, I was an old man, I was getting to that point in my life that it's like, I got to really start thinking about the rest of my life. And so as I continue that journey, and really trying to figure out who I was, what my greater purpose was, and that's when I walked away from the game. And you know, that, you know, I've got a book called strike three that I and I talked about the 13 years it took for me to really overcome that failure. Right. And, you know, as you talked about it, you know, it's it's such a common theme with real estate agents, one of the things I love about our industry is that I feel it's so relatable because most of us did not come into it as our first option, just like we've talked about, and you you have said many times, you know, we come in and because it's like, what other options do I have left, right? And then, of course, sometimes we come into this with this guise of like, well, gosh, if I, if I only sell one house a month, like that's 12 a year, that's going to be an $8,000 Commission, like, then I'm gonna, I'm like, $100,000, that's pretty easy. That's I can do this part time. And we all know that the industry will absolutely Eat up. It's a super tough industry, and it really will consume you, if you do not make sure that you're using it as a entrepreneur, as you're acting as an entrepreneur in this industry. So. So that's a little bit of just once again, I think the reason why I transitioned into real estate is because I found a lot of similarities of the competitiveness, and the fact that there is absolutely no ceiling in either one of those realms. And I was able to find a greater passion in this industry.Justin Stoddart  Great for really, again, kind of bringing some context to the kind of the correlation, right is that you went from having these big dreams, big aspirations, and maybe others that will listen to this for like, yeah, yeah, I was supposed to be XYZ, no, by myself in the real estate industry, right? Yeah. But for some could could be a disappointment. And once you get in, you're like, wait a minute, why wasn't this planet right? This was actually pretty good. Right? If you do it, right, absolutely. can be pretty good. Walk us through again, because the the promise to the audience today is how do we overcome disappointment? So as you started to realize, like, I'm not going to be Cal Ripken, Jr. as much as I thought I was going to be or Nolan Ryan, right. Like, I'm not going to have that kind of major league baseball career, you went into a little bit of a spiral I know you talked about in your book, which again, for those that are looking for a great read, strike three, just call an auskey. It's a great read. You can get it again, if you don't listen to the whole episode, at strikethreebook.com, so get yourself a copy of that. But you talk about in the book about how there's this this point where you kind of went dark for a little while, like you had a really tough time realizing like wait a minute, what happened? What happened talk to us about that turning point. In fact, I just read it through the day where you had this turning point where where it became very clear that disappointment doesn't mean failure, right? Josh Kalinowski  Absolutely, like, well, let's see. I'll give you the short version. Thirteen years of my therapy that I had to go through in order to do this, you know, one of it, I think that is a big theme in my life was that I had to learn to move my finish line. You know, I felt like my life was over. Like the purpose was I kind of said that earlier that in this in this podcast that I knew from a very early stage of my life, that my purpose was baseball. Right, I was baseball, I thought that like I knew that distinctively. But then I had to realize that it was not my purpose that I was not baseball, baseball happened to be the platform that allowed me to go and have success and find out who I was. But it was really only a chapter in my life. And so for years, I really looked in the rearview mirror, and saw my successes back there and never felt like I could have success in the future. And so until I got to that point, where First of all, I started to tell myself the truth, right? A lot of us tell ourselves these stories, and there are a lot of them are lies. Let's just let's face it, right? I started so myself to find the truth in the story. Why was I created? Why was I given this opportunity to chase this amazing dream? Why was it taken away? Right. And in the book, I talk about that experience that I had that really that come to Jesus moment, where was literally point blank to me, and I heard that voice where it said, Dude, like, I did not create you for baseball, I created you for so much greater. And it's like, Okay, all right. Now I've got purpose. And now I've got something even greater, I got a bigger chapter in my life that I can pursue. And I've got to move that finish line. And so that was that process. And there's a lot of things that continue to develop in me. And there's a lot of things that I can talk about even more so. But if you're going to just have one theme, moving your finish line will help you achieve greater things in your life. Justin Stoddart  But it's so powerful. so powerful. And remember the analogy you use in the book, which is this was a chapter, this wasn't the book, right? And you can even add on to say like, this is your first book, right? Like, yeah, there's so much more. And I think we oftentimes get so myopic, looking at the here and now and we forget the fact that Eternity is a really long time, right? Even our lives go really long time. Yeah, it's hard to put that into context. And it's like, you know what, it's okay. These disappointments are exactly that they're simply a disappointment. And they don't have to sink me they can if I'm not careful, but they don't have to, you know, I, I work with people and kind of a big theme of of my life, Josh is helping, you know, there's endless gurus that are teaching success. There's countless paths, like in their great paths to get there. I feel like there's too little too little emphasis on, on building significance. Yeah. Which I believe success fits within that, but of actually taking care of the other areas of life because you can have a very successful business a very successful career. Meanwhile, everything from marriage to even finances, to your health is crumbling in the background, mental health, right, all that stuff. And so what I like the lessons that you're teaching here fit so well under kind of the value that I want to bring to the marketplace, which is helping people to think bigger than real estate, to think bigger than your business think bigger than your career and realize it's a component of it. And even within that career, there's chapters and there's multiple books, there's lots of story to be left. Justin Stoddart  Remember Barbara Corcoran who's kind of the queen of New York real estate right Shark Tank for those that are returning place that name she said I would take something somebody like to me the most successful people are the people that can get up the fastest they're like we're all gonna get knocked down. How fast can you get up? You know, that's the difference in someone who I want working with me as opposed to somebody that's Uber talented, but when they suffered up with disappointment they can't pull themselves up for for you know, for far too long. You know, what a great lesson that you just taught us there which is bumped the finish line out like things aren't as bad when you zoom out and be like, Oh, this is a speck in the scheme of things right spec This is an everything like we have once expected so very similar to you I had ambitions to be like about your hex right to be you know, I want to play college let you know college football at the highest levels ended up playing small college football and you know, it's kinda like a Rudy character as opposed to like a character, right. And so I can I can feel your pain there a little bit. I wasn't nearly as talented as you were. But remember that disappointed of like, Oh, crap, that's not quite how I planned it to be. Yeah. So anyway, I love the lessons you're teaching. What else would you say to somebody that's like, Man, this is resonating with me. I want to think bigger than just my real estate career. I want to get over these disappointments, whether they be kind of the direction my career's gone. And or like the direction that my business is going right now in this tough market. Is there anything else anything else that you want to kind of point out here that you pulled from that time that would help people to to overcome more quickly, right, be that person that bounces back quickly? Josh Kalinowski  Absolutely, buddy. Well, I think I want to highlight a couple things. One is, you know, you're talking about these other areas in your life and in the book I really talked about why do we really believe in five foundational pieces, right? We, we've got to create a very strong foundation in our life, and five foundations or faith, family, fitness, finance and future. And specifically in that order, you know, in faith is really the faith and belief in a higher being, I know that you're a man of God, I'm a man of God, but also that faith within ourselves, you know, we, when we experience brokenness, we lose faith in ourselves, we lose faith in the abilities and the talents and the uniqueness that we have. And we, we often build up these walls in our lives that we think that there to protect us. But in actuality, what it does is it actually holds us back, it holds us back from what I call being three dimensional, right? It holds us back from being the dad that we want to be in the husband that we want to be or the mommy wants to be. And the entrepreneur wants to be like all of these features. And so as I was going through my evolution of a man, I was man i was i was really, I was watching and looking at other men be successful. And just like you said, I was really getting tired of watching men be very successful and one attribute and their life and a complete train wreck. And the other ones that I'm like, gosh, there's got to be more like, why can't I be exceptional in all of the areas of my life? Why can't I be a great man of faith, a great family man, a great entrepreneur, and businessman. And so I really started to chase that down. And what I found is that when I started building integrity moments in my life, I started having the confidence that I could go out there and be the man that I wanted to become, right. Josh Kalinowski  And so one of the things that I do on a daily basis, this is just a great hack that if you're looking for like, Okay, well, what does that mean? How do I build integrity moments, it's called The Pill. So every day I take the daily pill, now it is not a pill that's gone. This isn't like a physical pill by any means. But this is a pill that you can take every single day. And so the P stands for painful, alright, so every single day, I'm going to do something painful, I'm going to do something that embraces the heart, or if you've heard it before, like do something that embrace the suck, right? I'm gonna do something every single day in one of those areas. That's hard for me to do. Now, the easiest way to do that is typically when somebody does it in the physical part of their role, right? The fitness part like so it's really easy to do the painful thing, go do the Murph, go run a 5k, go do the 45 minute workout, I know you're on 75 hard, you could do the painful thing every single day twice with those 45 minute workouts, right? Go take a cold shower, right? Like those types of things. Josh Kalinowski  And then the I stands for intentional. So every single day I identify something intentional, that I need to do in one of those areas doesn't have to be all of them, but just one of them. And then so as I mark that out, and I do that, of course, obviously, I'm starting to complete this pill. Josh Kalinowski  The next thing is lazy. You know, we are all lazy at something in our life, right? I don't know about you. But like, every time I walked by the trash, I'm like, I'll get it on the next trip, right? Like, I don't want to do this. Now wait for it to get a little bit fuller, right, or, I hate doing the dishes like that is like my nemesis, that's not going to happen, right? So every single day, I identify something that I'm lazy at. And so when I start to do the things that I avoid the things that I really don't want to do, it's amazing how much integrity I started building within myself confidence and discipline. And all of these things are these attributes that help you have a strong foundation and belief in yourself. Josh Kalinowski  And then the last thing, which is really the most important to be honest with you is because this is one area that we neglect so much in ourselves is that you have to identify something that you love to do every single day. Something that you love to do for you is even more important, because we as leaders, as you know, we give of ourselves and this industry, it is so easy to get burned out because you are emptying your cup on everybody, right? Your clients, your friends, your family, everybody that needs you, right, you have the responsibility to help other people in every aspect of their life. Well, the problem is that we often don't fill our own cups, and we don't give ourselves the attention. We do not give ourselves the permission to do the things that we love that lightest on fire, right. And so when you can identify just one thing, one simple thing, right? Go on a 10 minute walk, do an interview that you love to do a podcast, right, listen to a podcast, something that fills your cup. It's amazing how much more power you have to pour out to other people's lives. And so that in itself, right, there has been one of the key factors that has really helped me overcome the failures in my life and understand there's a greater purpose and I have a roadmap that I can be doing every single night, every single day to continue to keep building myself. Justin Stoddart  Was that an acronym? Can you say it again? So people like the way that they can remember that because it was brilliant content, like what a way to really prepare yourself to be of greater service. Josh Kalinowski  Yeah, so it's called the pill. So you got to take the pill every single day. So it's painful. And attentional lazy and loving. Justin Stoddart  I love it. And that's in the book. Am I gonna get to that here at some point? Josh Kalinowski  Yeah, no, that's not in the book. That's actually a part of our Kingsmen Group which I know that you've got a little bit of that as well to get you a little swag. Yeah, yeah, we were but yeah, that's part of we, we have a group of, of men that we love to pour into, and they pour into us. And it really just helps us attack life. So that's one of the things that we do is help them with that the idea of what a pill is so. Justin Stoddart  So cool. Can't wait to learn more about that. Yeah, I do. I am sporting some, some pretty cool gear these days. Thanks. Thanks to you. I love it. Awesome stuff. Josh. Can't can't thank you enough for number one being the kind of leader, right, that looks at life and says, Okay, what can I learn from this and then share it with other people, right? It takes an added amount of courage to say, look, this was a real failure, I'm going to share it with the world, because the lessons are so important. Because it's so important for me to help lift other people, I'm going to be super transparent and say, Look, this is where I spiral. This is where I failed. This is where I sucked it up. And, and it's just it's a great tribute. Because really, we can't relate to people who haven't gone through difficult times. Yeah, when someone's vulnerable enough, brave enough to say, look, I really blew it. Here's what I learned from it. Man, we you know, you get an army, you know, coming around you saying, you know, you're a leader, like, let's, let's go. So, again, for any that, that want to learn more about Josh's story and feel like, there's still some some unmet opportunities in your life that just because you failed in the past, whether it's been in business, whether it's been in marriage, whether it's been at health, whether it's been at, like your mindset, whatever it is where you're like, "Man, that's really holding me back." Know that Josh has created a powerful story for you to dig into and realize that like not all dreams are fulfilled, even if you do everything that the Guru's tell you to do. Right? Have a clear vision and move forward, work towards it every day. Sometimes things still don't work out. But your perspective Josh and helping us to see that that is a powerful chapter to help us go fulfill what we were actually designed to do is where all of us need to go now. So again, if you're looking to get your hands on that story, you can get it at either Joshkalinowski.com. So get your hands on, I'm totally enjoying the read. Super fun to get to know a guy who I really admire level he's doing. So final question. You're a big thinker, right? That's what you are doing have done. I want to hear from you. What if What do you do to continue to be a big thinker and expand your own personal possibilities to continue to grow day in and day out? What does that look like for you? Josh Kalinowski  Yeah, great question. Man. I love that we're ending on this. You know, I tell you what, there's no doubt that my development that my maturity and where I'm at today is, has not been because of the fact that I've put myself in front of people that have been my mentors, the amount of podcasts that I've listened to the books that I've read, and here's the thing is that you know, all of that free content is amazing, free content is awesome. And you can soak that up, but I will tell you some of the most impactful most life changing opportunities that I've had is when I've paid to play, when I've actually searched out and actually paid for somebody's mentorship, or I have paid for an event. Like when I started investing in myself financially, we can invest in ourselves with all of the things that we can do and content, we can get YouTube, once again, podcast books, that's awesome. That is so good. But when you start evaluating how much you are worth, and your success is worth, and you start putting a ton of money price on it, I tell you what, man that has grown in me so much over the years, and I I pay, I'll give you a maybe you should, this isn't the best thing to do. I pay more in my personal investments than the salary that I take a year. It's powerful is it well in Listen, when you want to make impact when you want to have when you when you want to take everything you possibly can out of life. It's worth it. It's awesome. The people I get to meet, I mean, getting the opportunity to meet you Justin like those wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have put myself in those positions in those situations. And so I just want to encourage people when if you're listening to this free content is amazing. But you will truly have significant content, you'll have truly significant relationships, when you're willing to invest in yourself financially and help yourself get to that next level. Justin Stoddart  I could not agree more you right our paths would not had had not had one of us not chosen to invest in a shared mentor, we wouldn't have made that connection. Right. But wouldn't it and there's so many belly Yeah, not only is it so much knowledge, but so much such a great network of people. When you're around people that get it that those that pay, pay attention, those that invest are invested right. Put yourself in a unique class of people that want it really, really bad when you see people who are willing to part with the almighty dollar in order to get the help get the knowledge get the you know, get the network that they need to move their, their life and their impact to the next level. So great stuff Josh, thank you so much man for being again the person who you are and for sharing so much with us here today. Again, if you're looking to follow this guy, go find them joshkalinowski.com you'll learn all about what he has to offer so and to everybody listening today. My final request is this, they are three simple words, you know what they are, Go Think Bigger! , Josh. Thanks, Rob. I want to thank you for tuning in to this episode of The think bigger real estate show. If you found value here, I asked three things. Number one, give us a review. Number two, go to Facebook groups search, think bigger real estate and apply to join. Here you will find a community of big thinking professionals that will help you grow your income, your independence and your impact. And my third request is go think bigger

Hey Peeps, This month Hanny and Liz have an in-depth discussion about the statement that our wonderful friend Lynn made; "Centuries old practice is not learned on  TikTok.  Don't school others on lore you read "somewhere".  Chop wood, carry water puppies. There are no shortcuts." -- Lynn Parlett. During the discussion, we cover:What is learning?How adult learners differ for childrenWasps... yeah, there was an interloper or two!How annoying being schooled is... and is it okay to 'school' people?How readily available instruction is in the witchcraft communityIs caring about other people's practice a good use of our time?Are there shortcuts we can take in our practice?Resources mentioned: In Search of the New Forest Coven by Philip Heselton (Peter was sooooooooo close, but it's Philip!). Published: 1st September 2020. ISBN: 9781913768003Pan's Daughter: the magical world of Rosaleen Norton by Nevill Drury [2016]. ISBN: 9781906958411The Witch of Kings Cross (2020): Documentary. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13795322/It turns out there are a few books titled Chop wood, carry water. So Josh's book is not the right one! It is: Chop wood, carry water: a guide to finding spiritual fulfillment in everyday life by Rick Fields. Published 1st December 1984. ISBN: 9780874772098

This week Hamer is off educating the youth of America. So Josh takes the time to interview CJ about his life and career. Enjoy this deep dive with Union's wild boy.

Authoritarians like Sen. Josh Hawley don’t have much to defend these days. Their little insurrection failed, their Dear Leader is gone, and his stewardship helped kill more Americans than World War II. But they’ve still got the politics of aggrievement. Of victimhood. Of straight-up whining. Take this past weekend, when Hawley mewled about being silenced—on the cover of a major national newspaper. “It was the absolute pinnacle of the very white, Downy white, snowy top of Mount Snowflake,” Rick Wilson laughs on the latest edition of The New Abnormal.  “Oh, I can't, I can't say a word—except on the Senate floor, where I was elected by the people of Missouri. I can't say a word—except on Fox, the largest cable network in the country. I can't say a word—except the New York post, which is millions of people every day. I can't say a word except on Facebook and Twitter and TikTok and every other platform in America,’” Rick adds, channeling Hawley.“But what you should be saying, Josh Hawley, you fucking snake is this: ‘I apologize to the family of officer Brian Sicnick for having incited the crowd which murdered him.' So Josh is not muzzled. He just lacks a moral compass to speak the truth about what he is,” Rick says.Speaking of the Senate, Adam Jentleson—author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy—joins the show to talk about how the Democrats can free themselves from Mitch McConnell’s grasp.And speaking of problems with the truth, a number of MAGA men could be in a world of trouble for airing a bunch of nonsensical conspiracy theories about Dominion, the election technology firm.  The company has sued a bunch of folks in greater Trumplandia for defamation. The latest: Rudy Giuliani, for a cool $1.3 billion.  “If you haven't read this filing, it is quite something,” says Molly Jong-Fast. “It includes such things as: ‘also during that defamatory podcast, Rudy claimed supplements would cure his viewers’ achy joints and muscles and implored them to stop wasting money and switch. He instructed them to use his name when ordering and said they could get a second bottle free if they ordered now.’”But what’s really “interesting about this lawsuit is that they use Tucker Carlson's statements that there's no there there to then attack Sean Hannity—and to ask why Fox news gave Giuliani a platform on Sean Hannity's show, even though Tucker Carlson had said it was a scam,” she adds. Rudy and the rest are talking tough. But their lies—that Dominion “really is a Venezuelan company” (it’s Canadian) and helped steal the election (no)—are too big. They are going to have to back down, Rick predicts, or pay up. “The fact of the matter is, Molly, Dominion has them all by the balls.” If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Josh Foster is one of the only people I know who can get into an uber ride and leave the car with a job offer from the driver! We all know those people, who seem to connect with almost anyone in such a genuine way. So Josh came on the podcast to tell me and you all how networking can be done in a way that is not inherently transactional. Our conversation led to him coining the term "microwave networker", cluing me into one of his special day jobs, and sharing with me a hilarious, yet concerning story!

Show Resources:Split test calculator Ep 07 - LinkedIn Ads Account Organization Ep 15 - Benchmarking Your LinkedIn Ads LinkedIn Learning course about LinkedIn Ads by AJ Wilcox: LinkedIn Advertising Course Contact us at Podcast@B2Linked.com with ideas for what you'd like AJ to cover. Show Transcript: Bro, do you even test? Yeah, we're talking AB testing your LinkedIn Ads today. Let's do this. Welcome to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Here's your host, AJ Wilcox. Hey there LinkedIn Ads fanatics. LinkedIn Ads provides the absolute best testing ground for learning about your audience and your account. No other ad platform can match it. And over the years, we here at B2Linked have honed our account structure and testing strategy. And I'm about to reveal it all for free. The only thing I ask in return is that you ship me bottles of your local root beer. I'm just kidding. It's truly free. But I wouldn't hate on receiving root beer shipments. In the news, LinkedIn launched its new site redesign on desktop. And this probably went out to a third or a fourth of all LinkedIn members. So chances are that most of you by now have it. But I'll tell you, it's not a huge departure. It's very much a redesign, but not necessarily adding any new functions or really changing anything, except making the whole background gray and having rounded buttons instead of more squared off buttons. I'm kind of ambivalent on the whole thing. But I do appreciate how it doesn't really look like Facebook all that much anymore. It sure seemed like they were going pretty Facebook there for a while. Along with this release, LinkedIn released LinkedIn stories. So again, maybe most of you who are listening right now have this, I was part of that initial test group with LinkedIn stories. But quite frankly, I'm really scared to actually hit the button and release my first story, because I haven't ever used them on Snapchat on Instagram, or anything else. Stories is totally a new format of sharing for me. And I'm really excited to see how business to business does these well, because I really don't even know where to start. Maybe by the time you hear this, I'll have created my first story. The part that I'm most excited about with LinkedIn stories is if you listened to Episode 16, with Ting Ba from LinkedIn, she alluded to the fact that we were going to have stories first, and then we would have stories as an ad product. And every time I talked to someone at LinkedIn about stories, I asked them the same question, which was, is stories inventory exactly the same inventory as the newsfeed or does it have its own inventory? And the reason why I'm so curious about this is because when LinkedIn releases a new ad format that has its own inventory, what happens is that inventory all starts with zero competition, meaning a lot of times we get significantly cheaper traffic for sometimes a year or two. So I love getting new ad inventory. And sure enough, what I found out after stories released, this is its own inventory. So it starts with a fresh auction at zero competition. So as soon as these ads come out, man, I want to be the first one to launch one. I wanted to shout out a couple reviews here, both of them on Apple podcasts. Sydney&Marketing says, "It feels like cheating. There is so much valuable information that is shared. It feels like it's breaking the rules. His podcasts are beyond helpful." Sydney in marketing, thank you so much for leaving a very kind review. The next one is from Jaston on Apple podcasts as well. He says, "What a digital marketing podcast should be. The Golden Age of podcasts has arrived. And there are so many great marketing podcasts. But few are as valuable as AJ Wilcox's LinkedIn ads show. I have known and followed AJ for a number of years. And I was excited to hear that he had launched a podcast, especially on such an interesting topic as LinkedIn Ads. AJ is the pro of LinkedIn Ads. And so it just makes sense that he would find a way to easily communicate all the latest trends, info and insights. What I most appreciate about the podcast is that it jumps right into the applicable information around LinkedIn and applicable information around LinkedIn Ads. My favorite information that's been shared are LinkedIn Ads Roadmaps, Mommon LinkedIn Ads Media, Common LinkedIn Ads Performance Metrics, and the Best Ways To Get LinkedIn Ads To Perform. If you have interest in running LinkedIn Ads, then I highly recommend the podcast. If you are simply interested in hearing great discussions around digital media, then I think it has a lot of value. Thanks for the great podcast AJ." Now from the username Jaston. I know that this is Josh Aston, and he's the founder of above the Fold Digital. He's a fantastic senior marketer that totally understands the process from driving traffic all the way down to analytics and CRM integrations. He's the real deal. So Josh, thank you for the kind review. I also want to let you know that I regularly rope in the team here at B2Linked to pull research and help inform the topics that we bring up. So a big thank you to the B2Linked. I know AJ will Cox gets a lot of credit in the reviews and online. But this is very much a joint effort. So thank you to the whole team, I don't want you to think that I'm hogging it. All right, I want to feature you. So please do leave a review wherever you leave podcast reviews, Apple podcasts, Stitcher, anywhere, I'll find it and share it out and give you a shout. All right onto testing methodologies. Let's hit it. 5:23 Testing Approach Now when I say AB test, I actually don't mean testing in the same exact way that you would think a strict AB test is, I'm basically just talking about testing two things against each other. We try to do this in a smart way. So that we're comparing things that actually will tell us a result that we're looking for. And we try to keep the data as pure as we possibly can. I say this because one of my favorite AB tests, which isn't a pure AB test is where you test one offer against another offer. So let's say that you have a webinar coming up. And then you want to test that against a report or an E-book, you wouldn't call this a pure AB test, because both of these offers are very different. So you're going to have different imagery, different ad copy. But because the offer makes the biggest difference in your conversion rates, I still think this is super valuable. So if our clients have multiple different pieces of content or offers, that's probably the first test that we'll do. But then once we found a winning offer, we'll start doing pure A B tests. And these will be the same offer with ad versus ad. The first thing I like to test in the actual ad copy, if they're both going to the same offer, is intro vs. intro. And there are a few flavors here, you can have two different calls to action. So you can test which call to action gets people to take action. You can also test pain point against pain point, or motivation against motivation. And this can help you understand what your audience responds to best. What are they most motivated by? Is it fear based or aspirational? Is it statistics or clickbait, whatever it is, you can find that out with an intro vs. intro test. The next thing we'll test is headline vs. headline, I wouldn't do a headline vs. headline test until you've already tested your intro. Because that generally has the biggest effect on your click through rate. Then as soon as we see performance for an ad version starting to decline, then we'll do an image vs. image test where we take the best performing intro and headline and test two different images and see if we can find what kind of image catches people's attention best. And then let's say you settle on the best combination of intro, headline, and image. You could even go really advanced and do a landing page vs. landing page test, same ad copy going to two different landing page experiences. So you can test what elements of the page are getting people to convert better or worse. As you're doing these tests. Go back and listen to Episode 15 on benchmarks, because that's where you'll learn what benchmarks to watch for. You know, let's say you have two tests and one is outperforming the other, but if they're both performing below LinkedIn's average, then you might want to end the test early and scrap it. And there are several different metrics that you can watch to see how your ads and offers are doing. And I'll start from the least impactful metrics, and then we'll work towards the most important. What To Look For: 8:27 Impressions So the first is impressions. If you see that one ad is receiving more impressions than another, what that teaches you is basically what LinkedIn thinks of the ad. If both of your variations are getting a similar amount of impressions, then you know that both have a similar relevancy score. And so LinkedIn is giving them traffic evenly. LinkedIn doesn't see a big difference in click through rates. And that's okay. The next metric to watch is actually your click through rate. And this is how you can tell what ad copy and what motivations are good at getting the customer's attention. Again, if your click through rates are similar, let's say one is a 0.8% and is 0.75%, those are so close I wouldn't say oh, yeah, let's do whatever got 0.8%, they really could be similar. But if one is a 0.4% and one's a 1.2%, you've got a winner. Cost Per Click The next is watching your cost per click, because your cost per click really is a combination of both your audience competition, how your bidding, and how your ads are performing. And so especially across audiences, if you see significant changes in your cost per click, that teaches you something about how either that audience is responding to your ads, or the increased level of competition among different audiences. 9:48 Conversion Rate Next is your conversion rate. Your conversion rate is going to teach you how effective your offer is at getting people to take action. How attractive it is. We see really good conversion rates on LinkedIn of being 15% or higher. So compare that against your variations and see how you're doing and and which one wins. Cost Per Lead The next is your cost per lead. And that is how much of an outlay and cost it requires to generate a lead, a conversion, an opt in, really whatever it is that you're going for. If you're spending a lot, or have been spending for a long time, then you could measure your ad differences by cost per lead, and tell which one is better at getting people to convert. So if you are testing things like ad copy, image, someone's motivation. Click Through Rate The things that you're probably paying attention to, are going to be the click through rate. And in order to get enough data about your click through rates to make sure that they are significant, we found that that's usually, at least if you're in North America, you're usually going to be spending between $300 to $1,000 across those two ad variations. Make sure that you get enough volume so the results really are significant here. If you're paying attention to the cost per click across your tests, you probably want to spend about the same amount that same $300 to $1,000, but make sure that this goes over at least one calendar week. And that's because costs per click can vary significantly by day. So you don't want to have just a partial week and then have a messed up data set. And your cost per click will also vary as your ad performance adjusts over time as well. Now, if you've got larger budgets, you're probably going to be paying more attention to the conversion rate. And this is where I highly suggest that you get to because the conversion rate of your offer is a much better predictor of how well your your ads are going to be performing than any of your ad copy. It's deeper in the funnel and therefore more impactful. Your conversion rate is really going to vary based off of the type of conversion that you're promoting or call to action that you're asking for. If you do what we recommend, which is starting with a content offer, something like free gated content, you will likely average between about 10 to 15% conversion rates. And those conversion rates at average costs per click within the first thousand dollars in ad spend, you should have a good feel for an asset, whether it's an ultra high converter, or a total dog or somewhere in the middle. And then by the time you've spent about $5,000, you'll likely have statistical significance on your cost per conversion, and your conversion rates all the way to the 95% confidence interval. And this should tell you whether that offer is really hitting the mark or not. And if you should do more like that. Also, this many leads should give you a pretty decent feel with how the sales team is measuring and responding to the lead quality. And it should be a high enough quantity of leads that your conversion rates from let's say, marketing qualified lead to sales qualified lead actually become meaningful. And of course, remember that the value behind LinkedIn ads is in the lead quality. So ultimately, how they result in those lower lead stages is really what matters. Now, if you're pushing people right to what I call a high friction asset, like right to a demo request or a free trial, or talking to sales, or buying something that will likely average somewhere between about 1.5% to a 4% conversion rate. And because that conversion rate is so much lower than if you were going to be releasing content, you'll have to spend significantly more to reach the same levels of significance. So keep that in mind, you might spend $5,000 to reach significance around content assets. And you might have to spend $25,000, to get the same thing around demo requests. 13:55 Statistical Significance Now I've been talking about statistical significance and it really is important to define it for our purposes here. What it is, is a statistical measure that's mathematically complex. And the output is kind of confusing. One time I built it manually in Excel and now I only use online calculators. But what it really boils down to is the difference between your two test variations that you're running is unlikely to happen by chance. Or in other words, that the winner of your test is actually the winner and not just a statistical anomaly. For AB tests in digital marketing, I use a 95% confidence interval, which is pretty high, but it's not the highest you can go. And what that would mean is we're 95% certain that the winner of the tests, the one that appears to be the winner is actually the winner. So if you need to make decisions faster, or maybe you have a lot less data, you can get to statistical significance faster. If you use something lower like a 90% confidence interval. If you want to calculate this, there are hundred online calculators if you just Google it. But my favorite so far is splittestcalculator.com. And if you scroll down to the show notes, you'll see a link to that. It makes this process super straightforward. So if you're testing the conversion rates between, let's say, two different assets, what you do is you take variation, one's number of clicks, and then you input variation two's number of clicks, and then down below, you put variation one's number of conversions, and then variation two's number of conversions. When you hit calculate, it'll tell you the conversion rate, and whether or not it's significant to that 95% confidence interval. And statistical significance is really hard for me to say. So from here on out, I'm just going to call it stat SIG. That'll be a lot easier on my tongue. So if you're testing the stat SIG around your click through rates, just put impressions in that same calculator instead of clicks, and then put clicks instead of conversions. The surprising way that stat SIG works is that your results will oscillate in and out of statistical significance quite regularly. So you want to make sure that you don't call the test too early. To keep from doing that, you may want to set an amount of spend that you're comfortable with as part of the test. And in statistics, we call that a horizon. So then go and check for significance as soon as you hit the horizon. And that should help protect your results, making sure you don't choose the wrong variation. And right now, I'm thinking through a way to have a live significance calculator for our LinkedIn Ads, so we can track when results become significant. And when they've oscillated out. So if anyone's done anything like that, reach out, and let me know I'd love to chat with you about that. Okay, here's a quick sponsor break, and then we'll dive into exactly how we structure and account for testing. 16:52 The LinkedIn Ads Show is proudly brought to you by B2Linked.com, the LinkedIn Ads experts. 17:01 If the performance of your LinkedIn Ads is important to you, B2Linked is the agency you'll want to work with. We've spent over $130 million on LinkedIn Ads, and everyone you talk to here is a LinkedIn Ads expert. So you'll get the very best advice with no sales pitch. We're official LinkedIn partners, and we're the only LinkedIn Ads agency confident enough to share all of our secrets publicly on a podcast. Fill out the contact form on any page of B2linked.com, to chat about your campaigns, or heck send a postcard, our mission is always to make you look like the hero. Alright, let's jump into a bit more of a b testing as well as all reveal our secret sauce and how we structure accounts for testing. 17:43 There are a whole litany of AB tests that you can run. So depending on what it is that you're testing, here's what you can expect that to affect. So if you're running an image test, expect that to alter your click through rate. So if you're testing images, one against another, don't watch for the difference in your conversion rate, your conversion is so far away from the image that you probably won't see that much of a correlation. So watch your click through rate there. Images are much better at getting someone's attention, leading to a click. The next is if you are doing an intro or a headline test, because this is ad copy, it will very much affect your click through rate. But depending on the call to action, and how valuable you write the ad copy to be, you can actually affect conversion rates from here. So maybe test against your click through rate as well as your conversions. If you're testing differences on your landing page, or even on your LinkedIn lead gen form, you'll see those results directly affecting your conversion rates. And then if you are testing your offers, the offer itself really permeates through the entire funnel. Because a really attractive offer can make for some really attractive ad copy, teaching you about click through rates. Because a really good offer is really easy to write really good ad copy around. So you'll see that effect in your click through rates. But then, of course, the offer really is what it is that you're calling someone to action on, you're telling them this is what I want you to do. And so that will also influence your conversion rates. Back when I used to run a lot of Google Ads, I ran quite a few of what I called AAB tests. So what I would do is come up with an A and a B variation. But then I would launch an exact copy of the A. So there were technically three ads in that ad group, but two of them were identical. And the reason that I did this is because I could look at the difference between my identical ads. And that would help me understand how much variance I could expect in my data. So for instance, if click through rates were close, then I could assume that measuring my AA against my B would be a worthwhile pursuit. But if click through rates were very different, I knew I really couldn't trust the difference between my A and my B nearly as much. Now I'm ashamed to say that I don't do very many AAB tests on LinkedIn. So if you are currently running these, please reach out and tell me about it. I would love to see those results. All right on to the exciting stuff. 20:14 B2Linked Approach So what I'm about to present to you is the official patent pending. Patent is really not pending. The B2Linked approach to an account setup. We've honed the SAM account testing strategy over the years and it has worked really well for our AB testing and pulling insights out. What we do is we take the target audience, and we break them into small micro segments. Go back and listen to Episode Seven, if you haven't already, and dive into how that works. Then what we do is we launched the same A and B variations into each of those separate campaigns. So each campaign is running its own AB test. But it's the same AB test that's running in every other campaign across the account, get it? Now, because the whole account is running the same two ads, at any point in time we can roll all the results up to the whole account level and look at the difference between A and B variations, totally ignoring the fact that these are all across multiple audience segments. At any point in time, you're only 35 seconds away from getting this data by hitting export from campaign manager, throwing into Excel, creating a pivot table, and boom you're looking at it. And because each campaign is running the same ads, we can measure the difference between each of those campaigns being just the difference in the audience. So it's an AB test of audience vs. audience. So you might find something like hey, the click through rates are higher with director level than they are with VP level folks. Or maybe cost per click is lower when we target the audience by job function than with job title. And then you could use those learnings to find out how you get more traffic or cheaper traffic or better quality of leads. You can roll that data up to the account level at any time at any granularity and find insights fast. You can roll all of your similar types of targeting up, you can roll all of your similar sonorities up to learn about them, the world is your oyster. And then of course, each of those individual campaigns as they spend and amass data, you'll eventually be able to draw conclusions about them individually. So how this targeting type and this segment of the population converts to this exact offer. So really, I told you that this episode was all about AB testing. But the way I'm describing it to you is actually setting up a series of AB tests, that's AB tests around your ads, and AB tests around your audiences. And simultaneously running a giant multivariate test of ads against individual audience micro segments. Boom, talk about under promise over deliver, whoo, give myself a high five. If you are a total stats geek, and you're geeking out with me on this, then I'm sure you're going to be lured in by this concept of you can tell LinkedIn you want to rotate creative evenly, instead of optimizing to the best click through rate. So fight that urge. The reason why this is is it's really a misnomer in the way that LinkedIn presents it. It's not going to show both ads evenly to that audience. What it's going to do is enter them both into the auction evenly. But of course, LinkedIn is going to give different relevancy scores to each of those ads, meaning that the one that performs higher is going to get shown more, it's going to win more auctions, and it's going to win them at a lower price. And the poor performer won't show as often. So if you select this option, you'll find that even though you're rotating evenly, you still end up with a mismatch in your impressions and your clicks. So I call the rotate evenly option, the charge me more and show me less button. I don't like pushing that button. But there is a solution for this issue coming. LinkedIn announced that they're going to have a split test option coming where you'll effectively be able to split test your different ads against each other, and it actually will split them 50/50. I keep asking LinkedIn how this works with the auction and how it avoids falling into the same trap as the rotate ads evenly, but no one's gotten back to me on that one yet. I figure it's probably implemented the same way that Facebook's is because Facebook has an A B testing option as well. But I haven't found anyone who can tell me how Facebook pulls it off, either. So if any of you know reach out, I would love to hear how this interacts with the auction. All right, I've got the episode resources coming up for you right now. So stick around. 24:51 Thank you for listening to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Hungry for more? AJ Wilcox, take it away. 25:02 Resources Alright, got some great resources for you. The first is that split test calculator. It's called splittestcalculator.com. It's a great one to go and pop your your stats from your campaigns into and see if they're significant or not. The next is, if you haven't listened to it Episode 15, all about benchmarking, you'll see that option that link right in the show notes below. And you'll also see a link to Episode Seven, all about account structure. This will give you a little bit more insight into how we structure and account for manageability and for testing. And if you're new to LinkedIn Ads, or you have a colleague, who is point them towards the LinkedIn ads course on LinkedIn Learning. There's a link to that below as well and it's a great intro course into LinkedIn. And because it's on LinkedIn Learning, it is ultra cheap. It is literally 1/24th for the cost. If you had me come and train your team on exactly the same material. Make sure you look down at your podcast player and hit that subscribe button, make sure that you've got every one of these episodes coming at you. And please do rate the podcast. And then if you leave us a review, I would love to shout you out as well. And then finally, if you have any ideas or questions or topics that you'd want to cover here on the podcast, reach out to us at Podcast@B2Linked.com. And with that being said, we'll see you back here next week, cheering you on in your LinkedIn Ads initiatives.

Kevin Wilhelm is the author of "How to Talk to the Other Side" and CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting and is one of the world’s pre-eminent business consultants and speakers in the field of sustainability. Kevin brings over 20 years of experience working with 165+ businesses ranging across 37 different industries including clients such as New York Life, Expedia, IAC, Nordstrom, REI, Alaska Airlines, The Seattle Sounders, North Face, Tommy Bahama, the Northwest Seaport Alliance. He has spoken hundreds of times, taught 13 different business courses on sustainability and is the author of three acclaimed books in this field including: Return on Sustainability: How Business Can Increase Profitability & Address Climate Change in an Uncertain Economy Making Sustainability Stick: The Blueprint for Successful Sustainability Implementation Sustainable Jobs: The Complete Guide to Landing Your Dream Green Job. Kevin joins the Sustainable Nation to discuss: Kevin’s new book – How to Talk to the "Other Side": Finding Common Ground in the Time of Coronavirus, Recession and Climate Change specifically about the power of listening, engaging in a difficult conversation, polarization of climate change, and the power of allyship Evolution of sustainability consulting over the last 16 years Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Kevin's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Well, I would say anything you can do right now, especially over the next 18 months or two years, where, when you are trying to talk about sustainability, if you can get some training in how to make the business case, how to, show the financial benefit of, you know, whether it's cost savings or enhanced revenues that you might bring in by using sustainability. It's really important to have that because as we head into another period of economic uncertainty in the fall, and certainly into Q1 next year, if you want to jump into the profession, it's great to have all the skills to do the work, but if you can also have the skills and speak the language of business, you're going to be a little bit more successful. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I think the reality that things that seemed impossible in February now are just taken from the norm. I think that the change in mindset on the idea of working from home on the idea of needing travel to business meetings, needing to, you know, go to actual conferences in person, as opposed to speaking by video, I think it really fills me with a lot of excitement because I think it breaks down a lot of the norms which were in the offices. And I think it might lead to further innovation on other great challenges that we need to address. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? So Josh, can I plug my own two books or do I need to throw another one? I would say that if, if you're trying to make that business case, one book that, you know, was put together with about 65 different other thought leaders kind of on sustainability about how to actually implement sustainability, it's called Making Sustainability Stick. I will shamelessly plug my new book. It's called How to Talk to the Other Side, which is about finding common ground in a time of coronavirus, recession and climate change. And really the reason why I wrote this last book and I'd recommend it to your listeners is that people know what we need to do. You know, people know it just like with the masks and dealing with the pandemic, people know what they need to do, but emotion overtakes reason. And it's the same thing as trying to get people to take action on issues like climate change. They know we need to take action, but they just, for some reason don't. And so my book breaks down kind of the why behind it, and then how to actually engage people on a more personal and human level on an issue rather than trying to hit them over the head with science and facts. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Gosh, that's a great question, Josh. Well, I'd say, certainly check out this podcast, and follow it on the news. But I would say a lot of the resources I go to are, you know, sustainable brands, environmental leader, triple pundit, and using those, you know, not only bookmarking them, but make sure that the newsletters are coming to your office. You don't have to search for it and they're hitting your inbox. And then as far as tools, I think that, one of the most important ones for any audience listener to understand is how you really, especially as we lean back into climate and as we come out of the pandemic is how to do a greenhouse gas inventory. So if you can go to the World Resources Institute or the WBCSB, just get familiar with, you know, what is a carbon footprint, how to do it, because it'll take away some of the mystery to you. And if you're able to kind of understand that you'll be able to take a greater step towards helping organizations take action on climate change, which is what we all need to do not only after the pandemic, but we can even start doing right now. And finally Kevin where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work, and maybe find your new book? Yeah, thanks, Josh. You can go to learn more about my company and myself you can go to our website, which is sustainablebizconsulting.com. There you'll also find resources on, you know, in blogs and other things that you can follow as a listener. And then to find my book it's available on Amazon. So you can either search by my name, Kevin Wilhelm or How to Talk to the Other Side in books. And I will just put the, you know, you gotta get the tagline on it, which is about finding common ground and the time of coronavirus, because there are some other books that are out there called how to talk to the other side. And it's about how to talk to people in the afterlife and things like that. And don't buy those books. When I was searching for my title it didn't pop up. And then a few of them were published like that. And I was like, oh, maybe I should've changed the title, but I'm not talking to people in the afterlife. That's for sure. About Sustridge Sustridge is a sustainability consulting firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, sustainability reporting, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in a TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

Mary Palaca has been a CAP, a Taco, a two-time Barmania champion and also was the head of her high school cheerleading squad. So Josh asked her about Bring It On. She is also nominated for this years Tales of The Cocktail Spirited Award for Best American Bartender, whoich she is flattered by, but wants us all to remember that she is part of a team.

Buying a Business With Carl Allen Josh: G’day everyone out there in podcast land and welcome to Business Built Freedom where we build your business and you get to hear other businesses and how business owners have built their businesses up. So today we've got a cool guest on Carl Allen and he's going to be talking to you guys about how you can grow your empire through strategic acquisition and being able to finance your acquisitions without investing any of your own money. So Carl, tell me when is the right time? When's the right moments in your mind where you have that aha moment, I've got to invest and use other people's money? How do you have that mind shift from pulling dollarydos out of your own pocket to grabbing it from someone else's? Get more tips about buying a business at dorksdelivered.com.au Carl: Sure. So Josh, first of all, great to be on the show. Thanks for having me. So what's really interesting is most business owners, you know, don't know the process of what I'm going to talk about. So most business owners will start a company and then their only way to grow it is to do it organically. So more customers, more leads, more products and services. They might do some JVs or affiliate marketing with other people. But they typically don't go down the route of, you know, what can I double my business in a day by essentially acquiring another company. So if you've got a $500,000, or a million dollar business right now that's profitable, and it's taken you five years to get to that stage, it might take you another two years to double it. But if you go and find another business of the same size, you combine it with the business that you already have, and you use other people's money to close that deal, then you can effectively double the size of your business and save two to three years of your life by hustling to grow it organically. And the process is really simple. You know, there's tons of deals out there there's loads of businesses that are for sale for you know, for a lot of different reasons people want to retire, they get bored, frustrated, sick, in a burnt out, you know, run out of ideas. And they decide it's time to sell their business, the business that they've built, and they've made successful. But what's really interesting is people think if you want to buy a million-dollar business, you've got to cut a million-dollar check, and you don't. You can actually get that money from other people. So the first place you can get the money is from the seller. There are some sellers and you might find this strange, they will sell a business and let you pay for that business over time. It's called seller financing or vendor financing in some countries. So that million-dollar purchase, if the business is really profitable, you can pay for that business over time using the profits that the business is generating. The other methods you can use are those trillions of dollars globally of acquisition financing. So if you find a strong business that's got, you know, a healthy balance sheet and it's got great cash flows, then you can use those as leverage to go and get a bank or an investor to give you financing. So you can buy that business, and then you might pay for half of the business up front, the closing payment using that financing, and then pay for the other half of the business, paying the seller over time. Then there are in some instances where you can actually go and sell pieces of that deal to an investor, to an angel investor or a venture capital or private equity company, who will, they'll partner with you in the deal. They'll co own the business with you, but they'll give you a ton of cash flow so that you can go out and bolt these acquisitions on. Because the bigger you grow your business, obviously the more profitable it's going to be. Businesses, and for the most part are worth a multiple of their earnings. And that multiple increases, as the earnings increases, so it compounds. That's why a small business might be worth three times its earnings. Yet, a public company might be worth 30 times its earnings. The bigger the company, the bigger the profit, the bigger the multiple, the bigger the valuation. So the bigger you scale your business through acquisitions, the more it's going to be worth so that when you sell it, the higher your net worth and the more money that you put into your own bank account. Josh: So you've got a bunch of fantastic points, and I have been frantically writing notes here. So ultimately, I guess the metric everyone should be looking at isn't what is something worth its time, because you can have a $500,000 business send it to a million, a million to a 10 million, but it's do you want to have the old not able to use that money and be in a restricted into it in a sense? Well, you know, you're not skydiving or whatever it is that people enjoy doing nowadays. If you're not able to enjoy that wealth, what's the point if it's going to take that long and time, something you can't get back? So, in trying to find a new business, would you look to something that's a mirror business, something that's nearly exactly the same as yours. So you're pretty much buying into the database and staffing systems. Or a Ying Yang, so it's giving you opposing services where they're noncontradictory. But you kind of own the supply chain. What's the process? Carl Lewis: It is all of the above. So if you own a business, then there are three types of acquisition that you can do. So if you own a software company, for example, then you just go out and buy a competitor. So you can go out and buy a company that does very much the same as what you do. So what you're doing with that is you're just doubling down on your market share. And obviously, you're going to get economies of scale if you've gone from being a $5 million business to a $10 million business. There are a lot of economies of scale when you double. The other thing that you can do is you can buy into your supply chain as you've described. So let's say you own an engineering business and a big part of your cost base is acquiring raw materials and other components. You can go and buy that business because then you're doubling down on your margin. So rather than giving a huge part of your margin to a third party, you're keeping that within your own business. And then you can leverage off what that business is doing with its customers. But the smartest type of strategic acquisition is when you buy a complementary business, the yin and yang that you talked about. So let's say you own the software company, you could go out and acquire an IT services company. And then you can sell the software to your IT services customers you just acquired. You can sell the IT services that you just acquired to your existing software company. And then as you bring the two companies together, there's a boatload of financial synergies that you can generate. So you're saving probably on premises. So rent, property tax, utilities, maintenance insurance, all the administrative overhead. You only need one financial controller, one HR person, you can consolidate your marketing budgets. So what happens is when you do that combination, it's a one plus one equals three on the revenue side, because you've got the software revenue, the services revenue, plus the cross sell. And then it's on3 plus one equals five on the profit side, because as you're scaling the revenues on the top line, you're stripping out all this duplicate cost. So you can 5X the value of your company, just by doing one simple bolt on acquisition. Josh: Alright. So if I decided that, hypothetically, I've got an IT company that I'm running and I'm looking to grow this company, okay, hypothetically. Now, if that was to be the case, what would be the next step to using other people's finances to grab a bolt on? It sounds very much like If what you're saying is like a nearly like a joint venture type arrangement where there’s the same client base with his non competitive things that you're doing with each other. So if you were to be buying into the company, how do you go about having someone else say, you know what, that's a great idea. Here's some coin and what's the buyback period? Is that something that's just an overhead? Carl: Yes. So the first thing that you got to do, it's a three stage process, really. So the first thing that you've got to do is you've got to clearly articulate what the perfect business is going to be for you. Because in your situation, the type of business that's going to move the needle in your empire is gonna be very different to the type of business is going to move the needle in my empire. So you ask yourself those kind of high level questions, you know, what type of business strategically is going to make me do a big leap in terms of the size and scale of my business? Once you've determined that, then it's all about deal flow. It's all about deal origination. And there are four primary ways that you can originate deals. So the first one is you can go public with Business Brokers. Obviously, that's the easiest method on the one hand, because you know the business is for sale, they listed it with a broker. But it can often be the most challenging because Business Brokers tend to hype up the valuations of the businesses that they're trying to sell. But Business Brokers will get you a big strong source of deal flow. My personal favorite is to leverage one's network, whether it's via social media, or your human network, because what's interesting is only 20% of business owners that decide to sell a business, actually list it with a business broker, the other 80% it will get passed through their network. And when you're a business owner and you decide to sell, you tap into your inner circle. So you'll talk to your accountant, you'll talk to your lawyer, you'll talk to your wealth manager, you'll talk to your bank or an investor that's tapped into your business. So what I coach my business owner students is how to build those deal intermediary networks and how to leverage them. Get deal flow. And not only does it give you access to deals, you're building relationships with people that once you find a business can help you close that deal. The accountant can help you with the due diligence, for example, to make sure that the business is doing what it says it's doing, and it's in a good place in a good state. And then your lawyer is required to help you paper that deal, to create the legal documents that you need to sign to transfer the ownership of the business from the seller to you, the buyer as the new owner. So once you've got the deal flow, and you've obviously been to see the business, you've talked to the seller, you've got all the information, and you're confident that this business is going to do for you what you think it is, then it's all about financing the deal. So it's all about structuring the deal, so that it's a win for you and it's a win for the seller. And in most deals, you're looking to pay some of the money at closing and then some of the money over time in seller financing. And then once you know how that is basically going to work, then working with financiers to give you the capital to be able to do that. It's actually the easiest part of the process. There's billions of dollars even in Australia, there’s trillions of dollars in the US, but there's billions of dollars even in Australia, available from bank’s finances and investors to go into the right deals. And, you know, my simple message to people that want to do this is don't go and buy distressed businesses. Don't go and buy businesses that are instant trouble because you're just in inheriting somebody else's headaches. You want to buy a business that's cash flowing, that as soon as you buy it, and you integrate it to what you've already got, its earning’s accretive, its earning’s positive from that very first day. And what's interesting is, the more the profit, the stronger the business. Yeah, the more valuable it's going to be, but actually, the easier it is to raise the financing. Josh: Okay. So if you are the seller, I guess and you said is a seller financing or as you also described vendor financing what is short of the seller being distressed or getting out of this part of their life and moving into something else? What is the advantage to the seller and being a put into a seller financing position or selling the business? So why do you see people selling businesses? Or is there a plethora of businesses being sold? I know a lot of businesses, especially with the whole pandemic thing that's been happening, they haven't even considered a broker, they've just gone I don't have any value to sell here. And so they've just closed down and that also interests me, like how many businesses decide I don't think people want to do what I'm doing or I know I can do what I'm doing. I would rather just see it die rather than have someone else kill it, I guess. Carl: Yeah, it's crazy. There's always value in businesses. You know, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? You know, there might be an IT company out there who thinks what you think that, you know, my business isn't worth anything, maybe I closed it down. But for you, you know, that could be an amazing source of new cash flow because you can integrate that into what you've already got. And you're right in what you said, the number one exit strategy for most small businesses is actually to close the door and turn off the lights. And it's such a shame, which is why we have other dealer origination methods outside of going to brokers. So one of the other methods that we teach our business buying students is the concept of a direct approach. So how you can leverage free business information databases, you know, generate a list of businesses that strategically are going to fit what you're looking to do. And then we approached them. So we approach them and we say, Hey, you know, here's, you know, I'm Josh, I own an IT company, and looking to scale my business through acquisitions. I've been studying the marketplace. You know, your business is very appealing to me and you tell them why, so you do a little bit of research or you can outsource that to a VA, you might like their customer base, they might have a really cool process, they might have won some awards, you know, whatever it is, whatever reason you like that business, and how it's gonna move the needle for you, you know, you'll bring that into the conversation, or you'll bring that into the email, or you'll bring that into the letter that you might send them. And then once you've done that, then you start to connect with them, you know, to build some rapport. So there's a really cool couple of hacks that we teach, where we go find them on Facebook, for example. And we look at who they are, do they have a family? What sports are they interested in? You know, do they drink beer? Do they drink wine? Whether they go out for dinner, whether they go on vacation, and then you drop some of that stuff into the conversation. And what you're doing is you're instantly building a relationship with somebody who once they know you like you and trust you, then they're going to be in a much stronger position to potentially want to sell their business to you. And they're thinking of it from the seller side, you'll sit there thinking, I've got this business, I don't really want to work in this business anymore. I don't think I can sell it because who would buy it, maybe I just close it down and liquidate my balance sheet, sell my assets, pay off my liabilities and then just take home the cash that's left, and then all of a sudden you contact them and say, hey, you know, I'm Josh and I'm looking to grow and I really liked your business and you're very complimentary about it. Feels like you know, you've got to know them and what's going on for them and what they do. You know, if I was that person, I'd be like, Dude, come see me. This is amazing. Come see me. I'd love you to have this business. Do you think it's going to really help you? Let's see we can work something out. And then what you find is the more distressed the seller, not in terms of their business, the more distressed they are in terms of their psychology, the bigger component of the deal that they are prepared to put into seller financing. And then, you know, the most common question we get asked about that is, well, what's the risk to the seller if you do the seller financing type deals? So you're not paying them much money at closing, you're just paying them over time. You know, you absorb their business and carry on and make trillions of dollars in profits. What's to say, you're not going to pay the seller? And what we do in most cases, is it's written into the legal agreements that if we don't pay the payments that we're contracted to make, then the seller just gets the business back. So it keeps the seller, you know, highly de risked in that deal process. Josh: Okay, and obviously the buyer very engaged to achieve the objectives. Carl: Yeah. And so it's very different if you're buying a business for the very first time. So if this was your first deal that you were doing and you had no leverage, then clearly, it's only the performance of the business you buy that's going to drive the cash flow for you to pay for the deal. When you own an existing business already, and when we talked before about all the cross selling that you can generate, and all the other cost saving, you know, you might buy a business that’s doing half a million dollars a year in cash flow and your deal as you're going to pay $250,000 of that to the seller over time. If you combine that business with what you're doing, you're able to multiply that where it's generating a million dollars a year of free cash flow, even $2 million a year of free cash flow. So the percentage of that money that you're paying to the seller is a fraction of what is now being internally generated. And sometimes in a deal, you might have to include a little bit of that upside, because the seller might think well, okay, you're buying my business for a million dollars, and you know, you're going to make $5 million dollars out of this if you do it right. And obviously you're gonna have to do all that work. You know, I want a little bit of that as a bonus, so I want 1,500,000 for the deal, not a million. But I'm prepared to take a lot of that money as an urn out, or as a bonus payment or as a contingency payment for how you're going to scale and really explode the value of my business once you've acquired it. So all that comes down to kind of creativity in your deal structure. And, you know, we've been talking for hours if I was to walk you through it in detail, which is, which is why we have some free training available for anyone who's really interested in this and wants to understand, you know, what are the eight steps one needs to go through from a blank piece of paper to closing a bolt on acquisition and combining it with what they already do. Josh: Okay, and I understand that if people did want some training and bits and pieces, you've got a link that people can go. It is trainwithcarl.com/bbfreedom, is that right? Carl: That's absolutely right. Yeah. Josh: You guys have heard it. So trainwithcarl.com/bbfreedom if you guys want to have some of that training to see, and I'm going to be jumping They're checking it out. I think it sounds awesome. And I think that hearing about the way that you can structure these deals to make sure that it's a win/win for both parties, some of them sort of feel like they're losing out is sounds really cool. One of the things you actually brought up earlier was an approach that I think a lot of businesses should do. You've got all this information available online. I'd call it stalking. But that sounds weird, but it's not stalking if people have publicly made the information available to everyone else. If you are researching and finding information and seeing are these the target customers or target acquisitions that you're looking for, what would you normally say is the timeline between picking up the pencil and doing the research to the hammer going down on the sale? Is that sort of a day, a week, a month, 10 years? Carl: So it depends, right? It depends on the size of the business, the complexity of the business, the amount of due diligence you need to do. I've done deals in a day. I've done deals that have taken me six months. So the average is typically about 90 days. If you look at the process of closing a deal, so first of all, you've got to decide what type of business you got to buy, then you've got to do some deal origination, then you've got to go and have meetings, then you've got to do a little bit of analysis about the numbers they'll give you, the type of business, then you've got to make an offer, then you've got to negotiate that offer and get to terms and deal points which are mutually agreeable and a win/win. And then you bring in your little micro deal team, your accountant and your solicitor, your lawyer, and they will kind of hammer out and fine tune the details. They'll do the due diligence, they'll draft the legals, as part of that, then you're raising the financing. And then you're putting together your integration plan. So that as soon as the deal documents are signed, you can get to work and integrating that business into the one you've already got. So bear in mind, most business owners, they've got other things going on that you know they're running their business already. They're probably looking at other deals. They've got families and all these different things. So on average, it's about a 90 day process, but it can be much faster. But again, that depends on the type of business, type of seller, and what else the buying business has got, you know, going on. If they're rolling out a brand new contract, or there's a whole ton of other things that they're doing in their business to grow organically, that can slow down the process, but on average, it's about 90 days. Josh: Okay, so with that being 90 days, I guess, like obviously, that that's if a business is about to is they ready to sort of hit the hammer already, sort of that's not a front from inception perspective, I guess you haven't sort of planted the seed and they've gone maybe I should sell the business or something like that. Or I guess something I hear all the time is every business is ready to sell. It just comes down to the finances and the dollerydoos. So is that you contacting cold calling, contracting a business out of the blue that has at that stage no interest in selling to 90 days and they're like where am I? Carl: It’s the numbers game. So it's like sales, you know, you got to build a pipeline of prospects, some of them are gonna be ready, some of them aren't. You might contact a business, who's had no interest in selling, but then you have the conversation with them. And you trigger various emotions in their mind whether thing, you know what? This has happened for a reason, maybe I should sell maybe I should go and do something else, or you'll be contacting people that are already having those conversations and, and, you know, they don't know where to start, you know, because most people that own businesses never sold a business. About 98% of people that own businesses have never gone through a sale of a previous business. So they don't understand the process or they don't understand the emotions of the process. Josh: Or its like they just entered in a divorce. Carl: Yeah, it's interesting, and it's really a game of psychology in a lot of cases because if you take the typical business owner, you know, they started a business say 20 years ago, and they've run that business for 20 years, they've spent more time in that business than they have with their own family. And often, it's like saying goodbye to your children. You know, I know when my son emigrated to your part of the world, my son, Ryan, he moved to Australia when he was 14, so nine years ago now and he's 23 now. You know, when he when I felt like the seller of a business, you know, my child was leaving me to go off to pastures new. And I was highly supportive of him making that move, and it turned out for him phenomenally. He's an Australian citizen now, by the way, and he lives near you in Brisbane. He's a great guy. When he left I have the same basket of emotions that most business owners feel when they sell a business. They want it to go to a good home, they want to know that it's going to be looked after. They want to know that it's going to grow and it's going to carry on, you know, being successful. So it really is an emotional relationship process. And, you know, sometimes you might find the perfect business and it might take six months for the seller to come round to the concept of selling it. But because it's a numbers game, if you have enough quality shots on goal, if you play in the hands of cards, then you know you're going to laser target those sellers that they are ready, they're just waiting for somebody to have that conversation with them. So it is a numbers game. Josh: I imagine like your training goes into how to as you said 98% of everyone has no idea what they're doing. Everyone had those butterflies in their stomach when they saw the hot girl or hot guy or whatever at school and they went, oh man, I'm going to go talk to them, and 98% of people didn't because they freaked out. And I guess my question is the training of people will freak out about potentially selling their business but as a training sort of put your mind at ease a bit there and put you into a spot that you can say okay, this is how I strategically go about doing this, or is it a helping hand to or getting you the confidence to do that? Carl: Yeah, so it's definitely not a helping hand. What I do is, it's an implementation system. So it's not a helping hand, it's not theory. It's not just a bunch of training videos, kind of a how to guide. It's an implementation system that's been tried and tested over thousands and thousands of deals in lots of different parts of the world. And you know, in Australia, you know, I've personally bought and sold multiple businesses in Australia. So that system, our deal maker, while society system is the implementation engine for any small business owner, or even any want to be business owner to go and buy a business using other people's money. And one of the other things that we didn't talk about yet is if you buy a company, you don't necessarily have to run it. I own nine different companies. I don't work in any of them. I spend about an hour a week, one hour per week in my businesses. I have general managers in my portfolio businesses running them for me. And yeah, I give them little pieces of ownership, they’re my partners. I want them to be incentivized to do the right thing. So I'm an owner/investor. I'm not an owner/operator. There's a really, really big difference. Yeah, I'd say about half of that. So I coach and mentor about 5500 people all over the world to do this. And they're all doing deals every day, in all different countries in all different sectors in all different sizes. And I'd say about half of those students are buying businesses to operate. And half of those students are buying those businesses to be owner/investors. And there's no right or wrong way. If you want to be an owner/investor. The benefits are, number one, you can buy businesses anywhere in the world. So I own businesses in Australia while I was living in the UK. It's a bit of a journey. So obviously, it takes two days to get there. So I'm not going to commute to that business every day. And it means you can own multiple businesses, you don't have to stick with one. If you own multiple businesses, then you don't have to work in every month. It's like getting an executive salary from every single position you own and you stack them. You know, there are benefits of, I guess, being an owner/operator or a business. Some people just like running a business. They like being there everyday. They like that tactical day to day, you know, working in the business. And then there's a hybrid, you know, you could still work in, you can still be in your business every day, but you know, but work on your business. Be the guy that sets up the strategy, be the guy that's all about the planning, be the guy that's all about building those high level, needle moving relationships, and then let your team do the day to day technical, tactical work that execute the plan and the vision that as the owner, you've set up. So there's no right or wrong way. But, yeah, it's all about doing deals. It's what the Wall Street guys do. That's where I grew up. You know, I spent the first 16 years of my career doing large mergers and acquisitions for Wall Street investment bank and for big corporates, and that's where I learned the process. And the mechanism we use, Josh, it's a fancy banking term, it's called an LBO leveraged buyout. So some of the largest companies in the world have been bought and sold through a leveraged buyout model. And a leveraged buyout is you find a business you like, and you just by using other people's money. One of the largest leveraged buyouts in history, massive American company called RJR Nabisco. It was bought for $25 billion in the 1980s. There's a great book about it called Barbarians At the Gate. A must read for any wannabe deal maker. That business was bought for $25 billion. The guy that bought it didn't spend $1 his own money. He’s packaged that model down for the small medium enterprise. It's the same process, just on a much smaller scale. Josh: You stole my final question, which was what would you suggest someone to read to further understand their knowledge of what you do and that's, you've explained it. So make sure to read barbarians at the gate. It’s fantastic. I've really enjoyed having you on the show. And if anyone does have any questions are the popping through on the reviews for us on iTunes, or otherwise jump across to trainwithcarl.com/bbfreedom for more information and to get some training underway. Before we close out there, Carl, has there been anything else you'd like to cover off on? Carl: No, I think we're good and I'm happy to come back. If you want to do a part two. I think there's a lot of extra stuff we didn't dive into. We've got some Australia connections between us. So, yeah, if the listeners really resonate with this. They want us to go deeper on some of the other issues, then I'm happy to come back, dude. Josh: Absolutely. Well, I'd definitely be interested to do that. As I said, like it, you've got a wealth of knowledge there. And I think a lot of people will be very interested in hearing this, especially around this time, where I think a lot of people might be sitting on the fence is what zombie businesses is the main goal coming out in the cracks around the place. So I think there's a really good time to be considering this with different people's mindsets shifting. It's kind of like if there was to be a new year's resolution. It's kind of like we've had three months to think about it instead of one night. So I think we're going to be seeing a lot of changes very, very good, good information. So if anyone is interested, make sure to jump across to trainwithcarl.com//bbfreedom. And yeah, otherwise, go over to iTunes. Leave us some feedback. Give us some love and everyone out there, stay healthy and stay good.

Josh Weiss believes very deeply in the power of story. When you tell a story, there isn’t debate because they’re real things that really happened—not just theory. When people are skeptical of negotiation, its value, or its applicability it's often based more on myth than fact.  So Josh set out to show people what negotiation looks like in real-life in his new book, The Book of Real-World Negotiations. In this episode of the Negotiations Ninja podcast, Josh shares some of the stories that can bring immense value to the negotiation process. Don’t miss it!  Josh co-directs a project with William Ury at Harvard called the Global Negotiation Initiative. He directs Bay Path’s Master of Science in Leadership and Negotiation (which is completely online). Josh is also a negotiation consultant who works with numerous organizations. Outline of This Episode [2:22] Josh Weiss background in negotiation [3:24] Josh talks about the power of story [7:19] How to make an agreement better [15:18] The value of the relationship  [21:27] Hostage negotiations and onions [25:16] Team-based negotiations and deal fatigue [27:09] How to connect with Josh Resources & People Mentioned Howard Raiffa Getting to Yes by William Ury Getting to Yes with Yourself by William Ury Association for Conflict Resolution Connect with Josh Weiss Josh’s Website The Book of Real-World Negotiations Connect With Mark Follow Negotiations Ninja on Twitter: @NegotiationPod Connect with Mark on LinkedIn Follow Negotiations Ninja on LinkedIn Connect on Instagram: @NegotiationPod Subscribe to Negotiations Ninja

In this episode Bruce and Josh are excited to share games they are looking forward to. This includes games they have purchased, games coming out, games back on kickstarter, and the like. This is in an effort to share some things that you too may look forward to amongst all the different times we are living in. Specific Games Discussed: Perseverance by Mindclash GamesWarhammer 40k 9th Edition by Games WorkshopPendulum by Stonemaier GamesSleeping Gods by Red Raven GamesRaccoon Tycoon & the Fat Cat Expansion by Forbidden Games To learn more about Board Game Impact you can: Join the Patreon: Board Game ImpactLike the Facebook Page: Board Game ImpactInstagram: @boardgameimpactEmail: boardgameimpact@gmail.com Audio Transcript (Powered by AI) 00:00:10 - 00:05:03 Welcome to this episode of Board Game Impact Today. We're talking about things we're looking forward to so kickstarter games that we've got games that we were starting to work with and going to play eventually. We're really just some cool game. So stay tuned. Hey Josh Hey bruce were throwing something different at y'all. So. Welcome aboard game and backed Josh both work in higher education. Have Masters degrees in the things, and we're breaking down game experiences and and what we're experiencing in the hobby for your benefit. So that sounds cool. Hit subscribe. Josh in the last episode, I'm like all amped up right now I don't know why. A whole new energy for whole new. Yeah. This is not normally what this is like but maybe So in the last episode Josh, you and I were talking about how kickstarter has been on the rise and they had forty percent increase on things of sales even when you remove allies. Frost haven being one of the most successful funded things on kickstarter ever. Things are going really well on there. I know were in the middle of Covid, but we're also getting to experience some things digitally. Some. Of these things and so with that being said I thought it'd be cool to just make this its own episode and let's talk about. Games were looking forward to so this could be. We've backed during this pandemic kick starters back before this pan-demic or games pre-ordered that are finally coming and that we're going to get to experience soon. Or Games that we have and we're working on, they'll make that'll make sense in a minute. But we can't play yet. So Josh, why aren't you jump in with this with just an example of what we're talking about and kickoff absolutely. So we'll start with. The thing that I am most amped because it is the most recent announcement. I. Guess There's one on here this more recent and we're honestly amped. were an for. I think lanes what I'm talking like my my my amps name right now. But yeah, Josh what is it? I. WanNa talk for a second about perseverance. Perseverance is something we all need in our lives right now Josh Nova in the game yes. By mind clash, do you need it in our lives in more ways than one if you have been a listener of this show for quite some time, you will know that one of my all time favorite game publishing companies is mind clash gains mind. Clash Games has published. Two of my top ten games of all time Tra Kerryon and an acronym along with another fantastic game that does not get enough. Love Ignition Serie. Brea. Mind, clash is back with their fourth project and. I don't think they have missed yet. I think every game they have published has been a home run and this looks like a yet another. Grand Slam in in. My Book. Perseverance is a game that is live on kickstarter as we record this. Only two days left to go. So probably by the time this goes live, it will be down hopefully leaving leads. There will be some late pledges out there for. All of the listeners. WHAT PERSEVERANCE IS IS A. Game it is actually two games. Oh. Perseverance is to standalone games which can be played either independently or as a chronicle So Yixin on the Kelly castaway chronicles. Yes. Appearance cavs,

The guys are back and on this episode we have a little fun. Since Pro Wrestling Edge started we have been assumed by many out of state talent to be a wrestling promotion and we get DM's all the time of highlight reels and promo pics for wrestling trying to get booked for our "promotion" and since we got several of these DM's this week we decided to fantasy book our own shows. So Josh, Nick and I take a stab at booking our six match fantasy card as if PWE was a promotion.    Listen, Enjoy and subscribe!!!

If you’ve been a part of the First15 community for some time, you know that it is our passion to help you develop a deeper relationship with God through meaningful time with him every single day. So Josh and I were thrilled to have a conversation with Jillian Edwards, a songwriter and artist whose songs invite us to rest in the presence of God, and to see ourselves from his perspective.  Click here to find out more about Jillian Edwards!          

Eddie Murphy turns 59 on Friday, April 3rd. So Josh and Andrew figured it would be the perfect time to take a few minutes to debut their new theme song and shine their gargantuan "Stand up Spotlight" squarely into the face of one of the top comedic actors of the last 40 years. AND.. if you like it, send us a message or drop us a note via email at popuwithjoshanddrew@gmail.com or hit us up on Twitter @PopUniversityP1. And don't forget to rate and review them on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts! And if you REALLY like the show, feel free to check out the link below to support us in a monetary way! We love those dollars and cents baby. https://anchor.fm/popuwithjoshanddrew/support thankee thankee! Disclaimer: Hey yall, this episode was recorded before the pandemic started making its way across the country, so that's why you won't hear us discussing it.. But just know that we want everyone to be safe and healthy! Hopefully we can bring a chuckle or two to your day during this difficult time. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/popuwithjoshanddrew/message

Eddie Murphy turns 59 on Friday. So Josh and Andrew figured it would be the perfect time to take a few minutes to debut their new theme song and shine their gargantuan Stand up Spotlight directly into the face of one of the top comedic actors of the last 40 years. And if you like it, send us a message or drop us a note via email at popuwithjoshanddrew@gmail.com or hit us up on Twitter @PopUniversityP1. You can also follow Andrew @andrewmuhl and Josh @joshvanjoshua. And don't forget to rate and review them on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts! And if you REALLY like the show, feel free to check out the link below to support us in a monetary way! We love those dollars and cents baby. https://anchor.fm/popuwithjoshanddrew/support thankee thankee! Disclaimer: hey yall, this episode was recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic started making its way across the country, so that's why you won't hear any references to it. But just know that we want everyone to be safe and healthy and we're thinking about each and every one of you. Hopefully we can bring a chuckle to your day during this difficult time. Go visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/index.html for more information on how to protect yourself and others.

It's March and Christine has been wanting to watch Leprechaun for years.  So Josh gives in and we watch Jennifer Aniston's film debut in this campy, horror-comedy, cult classic.  Does a nearly 30 year old low budget film hold up? Is the sequel on par with the original? Can we pin down the Leprechauns powers? Find out on this edition of the MIGsy Film Club! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindinthegutterpod/ Other Pods: Mind In the Gutter & Balls In the Gutter: A Fantasy Football Podcast

Last podcast episode of 2019! Thank you for a great year! I gave peeps on instagram the chance to ask me anything! So Josh and I are answering your questions honestly and vulnerably! Connect with Girl Wonder: My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/girlwonder twitter.com/girlwonderpod instagram.com/girlwonderpodcast Email: girlwondersquad (at) gmail (dot) com Buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/girlwonderpodcast

The dreaded office holiday party: For many of us, for MANY reasons, this is a situation fraught with difficulties. To go or not to go. To eat or not to eat. To discuss or not to discuss our religious/holiday/personal lives and plans. As IT folks with a strong religious/moral/ethical POV, navigating this ONE (supposedly optional) yearly occurrence can be the cause of more stress than any other event. In this episode we’ll unpack the what and why, and - like the IT pros we are, offer advice on how to navigate through this seasonal obstacle course. Listen or read the transcript below. Kate: 00:00 Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experience we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion (or lack thereof). We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Leon: 00:24 This is a continuation of the discussion we started last week. Thank you for coming back to join our conversation. Josh: 00:31 So up until a few years ago, I was one of those people where if you said "happy holidays" to me, I would say "Merry Christmas" back because you know, it's Christmas time and you got to put the Christ in Christmas, right? Leon: 00:45 Sure. Josh: 00:46 And my wife and I were talking about this just the other day yesterday, I think. And we have decided that regardless of what holiday someone wishes us, our response is going to be, "Thank you. You too." I mean, Holy crap, right? It's like mind blowing. Yechiel: 01:08 Radical. Leon: 01:10 What a crazy idea. Just saying thank you. Josh: 01:15 Ah, and she, she said, "Oh, I posted this to Facebook that I'm going to do this." And she's like, "I wonder how many people are going to be offended?" And I thought, Who in the world's going to be offended by saying thank you?You too. Leon: 01:27 Okay. And, and the answer is? Yechiel: 01:29 Well, it's is Facebook, so... Josh: 01:30 Right. Everybody. Leon: 01:34 I was going to say, how many hundreds of, of responses about "this is part of the war on Christmas!!" Have you gotten so far? New Speaker: 01:40 Um, I don't know. I don't go on Facebook, so I have no idea. Uh, I don't, I don't have an account anymore. Um, so I don't know. I get it right. I, I'm with Doug. Um, if, if you, if for you, Christmas is about the birth of the savior. Um, I mean, pro-tip: Jesus was born where there were shepherds who had their flock in the fields. It was not December, just saying. Um, anyway, so if, if that's the time of year in which you get aligned to your faith in Christ, go for it. But don't rob other people of the reason that they like to celebrate. For me and for people that I like to associate with Christmas is a time where we get together with friends and family, where we bring, you know, we, we bring in this idea of being, uh, increasingly generous with, um, those around us where we're reminded that we need to be generous. So it's, for me, it's not really this dueling religion thing at Christmas or, you know, whatever holidays happen to fall around this time of year. It's, Hey, you know, there's this spirit of generosity and camraderie. Let's just get together and hang out. Um, and we don't have to call it a Christmas party. Uh, yeah. All Christmas party planners, you know, corporate offices need to probably hear that message. It doesn't need to be a Christmas party. It can just be a party, Leon: 03:10 ...a party, right a part... End of year party and stuff like that. But w'ell, again, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna offer some, some insights based on this. Um, so as a non Christian, I think one of the challenges about this time of year also again - that comparative, uh, religion conversation in the worst possible setting ever - is the, the need of some folks to say, "But, but your holiday is just the same as ours!" Like to find equivalence where there isn't necessarily equivalence. Um, you know, Hanukkah isn't, you know, the Jewish Christmas, there's no such thing as a Hanukkah Bush. There is no such thing as a Hanukkah Charlie. That... And it doesn't need to exist. You know, it, it goes into, um, this homogenization of, "Well, everyone can celebrate Christmas in their heart." There's... No, no, there doesn't, no, we don't need to do that. I don't need to be included because that becomes a, unfortunately for me... And I apologize, I'm gonna get a little bit prickly here. It becomes a little threatening for me because that leads, you know, that dovetails into being proselytized to or at, in a very uncomfortable situation. Again, we're talking about an office party and to have a coworker or a boss suddenly raising this, you know, "But, but everyone believes in Jesus." No, everyone doesn't. And, and insisting that I do puts me in a very difficult position where, you know, my desire to be authentic as a Jew and my desire to be employed as a human are suddenly possibly in conflict. Josh: 05:05 I mean, I, I, uh, I don't know, maybe I'm a bit of a crap disturber but I would definitely recommend brushing up on, um, what historians are now calling the authentic Jesus. Um, and he was a real crap disturber so I mean, you could be like, "Oh yeah, let's talk about Jesus. Let's talk about how he did this and this and..." You know, you know, kicked over these tables and you know, made a mockery of, Oh wait, no, let's not talk about that because that's not really, yeah, Yechiel: 05:34 Something tells me that wouldn't go towards making the party more of a festive occasion. Josh: 05:40 I think it would make it very festive, actually. Leon: 05:42 I was going to say... "festive" in a very completely different way. Yeah. Josh: 05:47 Josh is never being invited to a party ever again. Right. Leon: 05:52 There's also an, and unfortunately this has happened to me, this desire again, this does that, you know, "everyone, everyone likes Christmas. Even in their heart, even if they don't know it" there's this insistence of, you know, you just, you just haven't tried it. You haven't tried the right one yet or whatever. And you know, "come take a look at this beautiful Christmas tree. Wouldn't you love to have a Christmas tree? Like this isn't this great?" You know, and right behind it is this wall full of crucifixes and then they take a picture and all of a sudden it becomes a picture of the Orthodox Jew. You looking up at an admiring, you know, a Christmas tree and a wall of crucifixes and it becomes this, you know, 'caption this photo contest'. You know, I'm not interested in being in your picture like that. Josh: 06:34 "Leon wonders why people put pine trees in their houses." That's, that would be my caption. Leon: 06:40 You know, it can get really prickly. It can, it can, you know, people, again, people get caught up in the holiday and in their love of the holiday, their enjoyment of holiday. When you discover spin class, which Joshua and I have said, you know, CrossFit is a cult, Josh: 06:54 It is. Leon: 06:54 ...you know, and but the desire to have everyone else involved in CrossFit or you know, veganism or whatever it is, like you love it so much, you need other people to love it. Just as much. Josh: 07:09 I will have, I will say, and maybe this is completely counter to what we've been talking about, but I have received a Christmas card from a Muslim friend this year already. Very first one I received. Um, and I have neighbors that are Muslim and they will without fail bring us a Christmas gift. We even have, we have a, uh, some Muslim friends, um, who were neighbors that are now friends cause they've moved a few blocks away, but they will make the Trek over to our house every year to bring us. Um, uh, and I authentic. Um, I, I believe they're from uh, Iran. So they will bring us an authentic Iranian festive dish to share at Christmas because they know that it's important to us. I, I don't know how to take that whole corporate thing though and make it like human beings act so good to one. Another one on one is when we get into these large groups that suddenly things get real awkward. Right? Yechiel: 08:14 Actually that's, that's an interesting point that I think like that people don't understand that the so called war on Christmas, um, like Jews, Muslims, we don't care that Christians celebrate Christmas, you know, good for you. Uh, it's fun. It looks nice and everything. Just don't make it the default and assume that everyone celebrates Christmas. Don't tell. Like when you tell me Merry Christmas, I'm not going to get offended. Of course, I know you mean well, but that's not my holiday. That's not what I celebrate. But on the other hand, I don't mind wishing you a Merry Christmas if I know you celebrate it and I don't mind sending you a Christmas card. Leon: 08:49 The example that's used a lot and I like it is, is the concept of happy birthday. That if you know, if it's birthday, we all show up. We tell Josh happy birthday, but we don't feel the need for everybody to say happy birthday to everybody else. It's not everyone else's birthday. So you know, it's your holiday. So Merry Christmas. Absolutely. You have a great time on your birthday, on your holiday. Um, but don'tto Yechiel's point. Don't insist that everybody celebrate, you know, their birthday on your birthday because that's not how things work. Josh: 09:23 I think after this episode we're going to have to start a business where we hire ourselves out as event planners for corporations that want to be both unoffensive or I mean reasonably unoff.... Nevermind. It would never work. Yechiel: 09:40 It's still 2019, you know. Leon: 09:43 Okay. So something that we hit on earlier that I just... Is interesting to me is again, trying to be unoffensive. One technique that especially HR departments try to do is again, to create this false reciprocality of things. So, you know, "We're going to put up, you know, trees, they're holiday trees, they're holiday wreaths, they're holiday baubles, you know, hanging from the ceiling and everything. But in order to be inclusive, we're also going to put a menorah next to the tree. I am here to tell you that at no time is a menorah next to a Christmas tree, an image that makes any sense to anybody except perhaps the people working in HR. It's not a thing. It does not make me feel more included. You know, again, Hanukkah was three weeks ago. Chad don't need to have them menorah there. You're not, you know, it's, it's your holiday. And, and I've actually gotten into conversations with HR, not in my current job. It was a while ago when I was a little bit more loud mouth about things and perhaps had less impulse control. You know, they... right! Less than I have now. I know it's a shock. And I actually got into it with the folks in HR and they said, but they're not Christmas decorations, they're holiday decorations. This is, there is no holiday that I celebrated anytime of the year that has decorations like this. Please, you know, let's be intellectually honest about this. Josh: 11:09 Even an authentic question. What would be your preference? So my heritage or my beliefs trend toward Christianity. Um, would you prefer for Christmas to just be, "Hey, like this work going to have Christmas stuff?" Um, but then how do, how do we handle it on the other side? Like, do we need to have a celebration for every holiday? Because I have noticed some companies doing that, right? They will, um, celebrate, you know, Diwali, they will celebrate, um, you know, Hanukkah, they will celebrate, uh, Kwanzaa. They will, they will have every single holiday represented. Is that the right route to go Leon: 11:57 To have an ofrenda for Dia de Los Muertos? Like yeah, I mean, so again, we're going to have, you know, we're going to have a section where we try to solve this, but I think that that what you're getting at is there seems to be, I'm not saying there is, but there seems to be two options. Do nothing or do everything. And I think there's some other options there. But my preference, and this is my personal preference, this is independent of a religious outlook or whatever, is that if the company feels it's important to make a display around the December time frame, great. You're talking about Christmas, go do it, Josh: 12:38 I like that. Leon: 12:38 Don't, don't pretend. That that would be my thing. And I am very much from a Jewish standpoint, I am very much a please include me out. Like I am actually more comfortable, personally, not having a company that isn't intrinsically a, a Jewish knowledgeable, uh, group of folks try to put something together, which is always back to the food conversation. You're going to work really, really hard trying to buy kosher food and you're not going to do it. And I'm going to tell you you missed and you're going to be offended because you tried so hard and I'm just ungrateful. So in the same way, like you're going to try really, really hard to decorate for my holiday and something is going to not match up somewhere you're going to. "But, but they were Hanukkah tree decorations. Doesn't that work?" You know, like no, that the tree was the problem, you know, and someone's going to feel frustrated that they had put this effort and I'm still being ungrateful. Josh: 13:36 I think if we were to look at this from the reciprocal, right. And so last week, Leon, we talked about your trip to Israel. Um, if, if we weren't in North America, if we were in Israel, would I, should I make the choice, um, to be offended by Jewish celebrations or celebrations of my Muslim coworkers because Christianity is not the predominant religion, right? Like, I, I, I think I, I think we need to think about things in that way, stops, you know, I need to stop saying, well, you know, because Christianity is the predominant religion in North America, blah, blah, blah, and say, well, what if it wasn't, how would I want to be treated? And then just act like that. I mean, there I go, trying to solve a thing. I know. Leon: 14:30 Okay. And it sounds like we're in the problem solving section, which is, which is great. And I think it's, it's about time, but actually I haven't lived in Israel enough during the holidays to even know what offices look like during any of the normative Jewish holidays Yechiel, I don't know if you have any experience with that. Yechiel: 14:48 Following Ben Greenberg's Twitter account. Um, it seems companies will have a Hanukkah party. Um, I don't think they have Christmas parties. They probably have a new year's party cause that's just universal. I mean, obviously everyone celebrates Hanukkah in Israel or at least the 80% of the country that's Jewish. So yeah, I would say Hanukkah and Israel is sort of like Christmas in America where it's just everywhere. Leon: 15:08 It's just a different times, different times of the calendar. Yechiel: 15:12 in terms of how pervasive it is. Leon: 15:14 All right. So Josh, I want to circle back to the question you asked before. You know what, now we're speaking directly to the company, what, you know, what are the correct options, what can we do to fix this? And again, we said there's the do nothing, which I think is an option. Right? You know, we're talking about the dreaded office holiday party, so we can say don't have them. Yechiel: 15:33 I'm definitely on that team. I mean, but that's due to not just a religious reason. Just you know, all the reasons you mentioned like also at the beginning of this stage, like I don't know, I feel like they're more trouble than they're worth. I mean before I got into programming, I worked at a Jewish company in Williamsburg and they didn't have a holiday party. Instead they gave a present around the, they would give everyone a pretty nice, decent, decently priced present around the holiday time. In addition, they also give like a holiday bonus around Passover and Sukkot, which was totally not tied to your performance bonus, which was a completely different thing. Like everyone would get, it was small. I think it was like $250 maybe, but it was just a nice extra, something special. I just think employees would be happier if instead of spending all that money on a party that no one wants to go to anyway, it would find some more creative way to use that money. But yeah, we're not talking about our work. Let's talk to companies who are having a party. Leon: 16:28 Well. Okay, but again, not doing it and you've just offered some alternatives of, okay, so if we're not doing that, like what, what are we doing? Do we just say it's a regular set of work days and you know, tough luck because that feels, to use a Christian concept, it feels free. Scrooge ish. 'Bah humbug.' You know, so, but you just said you recognize... Yechiel: 16:48 Well, correct me if I'm wrong, most holiday parties aren't on Christmas, are they? I mean, at least not on the companies. I've been to. Leon: 16:54 Correct. No, no, no. They're there. Usually the lead up to... Yechiel: 16:57 I mean, Christmas is a day off and new year's is they off. And sometimes the week in between is also off. So it's not like a regular work to, anyway. Josh: 17:03 So I'm completely on board with you heal on this one. I think that companies should really ask themselves, "Do we need to hold a a holiday party or Christmas party?" So I, you know, I work for new Relic. New Relic is a global company. I have colleagues that are in Europe and you know, me and Canada. Colleagues stretched across the United States. How do you get people together when a significant portion of your workforce works remote from their home offices? I mean, I can have a party, but it's going to be a party of one. Leon: 17:41 Oh, right. which may be the best party of all. New Speaker: 17:44 Right? So instead, um, I like the of saying to, um, to your employees, like "look in lieu of a party because it just doesn't work logistically, here's what we're going to do. We're going to give you some money you can do with it. What, what ever you want. If you want to use it to, you know, um, augment your, your own earnings, great. If you want to go out and donate it to charity, great. If you want to shred it, you, you do whatever you want with it." I mean, that allows people who want to amplify their, you know, their Christmas celebrations to do that or if they time it, right, their Hanukkah celebrations or their no celebrations at all. Leon: 18:33 Right. Okay. I'm just going to go in and I'm going to, I'm going to strongly correct you in this one. If you as a company decide, you know, if you as an individual who's received cash, your immediate urge is to shred that money. Please consider sponsoring an episode of Technically Religious. We will... Just send it to us. We will dispose of that money for you appropriately. Yechiel: 18:57 Alternatively, you can just sign it to me. I have a professional shredding service on the side. It'll be shredded completely. Nothing will be left within a few minutes. Leon: 19:05 How many kids do you have? Yechiel: 19:07 Five. Leon: 19:08 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that is, that is effectively shredding your money. Yeah. Right. It's, you know, diapers and tuition. Yeah. The whole thing. It's, it's gone. It doesn't, don't worry about how it got gone. Okay. Sorry, I just need to jump in. Like shredding money. No. Sponsoring Technically Religious. Absolutely. Or sent it to Yechiel and you know, you can find his information in the show notes. Josh: 19:28 Did you just equate giving, uh, giving us money to sponsor an episode with shredding your money? New Speaker: 19:34 No, I'm saying it's a BETTER option. New Speaker: 19:36 Oh, okay. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't insinuating the sponsoring an episode of Technically Religious was as worthless as, shredding your money. Leon: 19:44 No, not, I would never say something like that! Um, also as we were preparing for the episode, um, we also talked about again, part of the challenge with the holiday party is all the emotions and all the um, sort of expectations that come with it. And those are layered on top of the emotions and expectations that we have at this holiday time of year overall. And I think that someone brought up the idea of not having... Having a party just don't have it now have it, you know, at another time of year you can have a, you know, I'm not a big fan of Christmas in July, but having a summer kickoff holiday party, a pre-vacation pre, you know, to use the European term pre-holiday holiday party might be an interesting idea. Or you could do it at the company's fiscal end of year. If it doesn't match up with the calendar end of year. You could do that. So I think it would make the accounting department even more excited that their, that the, the rhythm that they hold to is something the company now acknowledging in a meaningful way. Josh: 20:49 I had friends that would celebrate the summer solstice and the winter solstice. Now granted the winter solstice happens to fall very close to, you know, the Christian Christmas. Uh, but you know, Hey, celebrate with them both. That's two parties, right? Leon: 21:09 Right at the, at both of them. And you can do the standing the egg up and you can do all those different things. Um, right. That would be, yeah, that's it. It's as meaningful or as exciting as some of the holiday traditions that we've developed over the last 50 years in America as well. So any other solutions that we have to offer organizations or HR departments that are trying to figure out this problem called the office holiday party. Yechiel: 21:34 So I would say assuming the holiday party is not going away, I think the one single thing that can go the furthest towards making parties feel more inclusive to everyone is cutting out the alcohol and not just for Muslims or people or Mormons or people who won't drink alcohol for religious reasons. I think just like so many of the problems that can come up at parties are either caused or exasperated by the presence of alcohol and people having a little bit too much. I think just that one little step can just go to a huge way towards making so many people feel much more comfortable. Leon: 22:12 Right. About attending at all. But yeah, absolutely. Josh: 22:15 Yeah. That, uh, T to that point, we're not just, it's not just a religious thing. You've got recovering alcoholics who maybe don't want to out themselves as recovering alcoholics at this holiday party, to all of their coworkers who maybe aren't friends, they're just coworkers. Um, you've got people who maybe have lost someone to drunk driving or have a spouse who's an alcholic. It's just the, the things that you on, um, that you uncap by having a, and again, this is a mandatory attendance right? There's, you must attend this holiday party cause you're part of the team, right? Josh, you like you're, you're going to show up and then we're also going to make this a alcohol-laden event. It just really problematic. Uh, you know, back when I didn't drink, I would attend events and then would always leave early. Always leave early because I was just like, okay, everyone's had enough alcohol that they're not going to remember that we left. And then you just leave and then just, it becomes a, an abbreviated evening for you. You know, you don't get to enjoy. I'm one of those people who I will go to a party. Yes, they are. I am an introvert. Mostly. They are rather exhausting for me. But I will go because I do enjoy getting out of the house every so often. Um, and just, yeah, I, I'm, I'm with you Yechiel. I, let's, let's either really curtail the alcohol or just not serve it at all. Leon: 23:50 Yeah. I'm, I'm a big fan of don't serve it at all. Just don't, okay. Any final words before we wrap up? Josh: 23:57 Um, did Adam Sandler's a song, um, about the Hanukkah song, uh, offensive, offensive or not? Leon: 24:06 I, it is not part of my, uh, Hanukkah playlist. It's, it's probably right up there with, uh, what is it? Uh, the, the Christmas donkey... Josh: 24:15 Dominic the Italian Christmas donkey. Yeah. Leon: 24:18 Yeah. No. Yeah. It's still also a no. Josh: 24:20 Okay. Yeah. I, I just, I was asking, I was curious. Yechiel, do you listen to it? Is Leon the only curmudgeon here? Yechiel: 24:28 Um, I would say it was entertaining, but yeah, I wouldn't say it's part of my Hanukkah celebrations. Josh: 24:37 Perfect. Leon: 24:40 Thanks for making time for us this week to hear more of technically religious visit our website, http://Technically Religious.com, where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect to us on social media. Leon: 24:52 Hey, Josh, how was the last Christmas party you attended? Josh: 24:55 I passed through the seven levels of the candy cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then I walked through the Lincoln tunnel. Yechiel: 25:03 Wait, is there sugar in gumdrops?  

"Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team!" - so goes the impossibly catchy song from the Lego Movie. In IT, we are often expected to be caught up in that same spirit - hyped up on the adrenaline of fixing systems, catching hackers, and inventing new stuff. These expectations - which come from external sources like our boss or company or IT culture at large, or internally from assumptions we've taken on as personal truths - can fly in the face of how we're actually feeling. When our feelings turn from just being "a little tired", "a little frustrated", or "a little sad" to serious challenges like burn out, rage, or depression, it can be hard to admit, let alone seek help or ask our coworkers for support and understanding. And yet religious, moral, and ethical traditions are rich with stories of people coping with the exact same challenges. In this episode, we're going to get brutally honest about the mental health challenges we've faced and are facing today as well as what lessons from our faiths we can carry with us to provide insight, comfort, and even strength. Listen or read the transcript below. Destiny: 00:00 Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Music: 00:24 "Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you are part of a team. Everything is awesome..." Leon: 00:31 So goes the impossibly catchy song from the Lego movie and it we are often expected to be caught up in that same spirit hyped up on the adrenaline of fixing systems, catching hackers and inventing new stuff. These expectations can come from external sources like our boss or company or it culture at large. We're internally from assumptions we've taken on as personal truths and can fly in the face of how we're actually feeling Yechiel: 00:56 When our feelings turn from just being a little tired, a little frustrated or a little sad to serious challenges like burnout, grades, anxiety or depression. It can be hard to admit or let alone seek help or ask our coworkers for support and understanding. And yet religious, moral and ethical traditions are rich with stories of people coping with the exact same challenges. Josh: 01:15 In this episode we're going to get brutally honest about the mental health challenges we faced and are facing today as well as what lessons from our face we can carry with us to provide insight, comfort, and even strength. I'm Josh Biggley and the other voices you're going to hear on this episode are my partners in podcasts, crime, Leon, Adato. Leon: 01:35 Hello. Josh: 01:36 And Yechiel Kelmenson. Yechiel: 01:38 Hi again. Josh: 01:39 Hello. All right, so this is a bit of an odd episode for us. Um, I mean this, this feels a little heavy. So before things get to, you know, heavy for us, little shameless self promotion. Leon, why don't you lead us off? Leon: 01:55 Okay, so I'm Leon Adato, uh, I'm a Head Geek at SolarWinds. You can find me on Twitter @LeonAdato. I blog and pontificate on all sorts of technical things at www.adatosystems.com and identify as an Orthodox Jew. Yechiel: 02:11 I'll take a next, uh, I'm a Yechiel Kelmenson. I'm an engineer at Pivotal. Um, you can find me on social media at @YechielK, um, if you want to read what I have to say, it's on my blog at RabbiOnRails.io and like Leon, I'm an Orthodox Jew Josh: 02:26 And I'm Josh Biggley. I'm currently an enterprise monitoring engineer, but by the time this episode drops, I'll have started a new role as a senior tech ops strategy consultant at New Relic. You can find me on the Twitters, uh, at, @jbiggley. Um, I don't actually have a place where you can find me other than I would say Twitter, LinkedIn. I I've taken to, to posting a fair bit on LinkedIn. Um, and I identify as an ex Mormon, Leon: 02:52 Um, and I'm obligated to point out to everyone who might be scribbling madly to try to write that down, that we will have show notes and it will have all those links and everything else we refer to in this episode. So please don't worry, just sit back, relax and listen, just to enjoy the conversation. So I, I have to say that this entire episode was actually inspired by a comment that Josh made during one of our other podcast. It was episode 28, which is titled Release to Production. Once again, we'll have a link to that in the production notes and around the 12 and a half minute mark, Josh said this: Josh: 03:26 And then in my own family, right, I suffer from depression and my work toward getting promoted happened to coincide with a really difficult depressive episode. Leon: 03:37 So Josh, I want to start off by talking about that specific moment. Um, do you find that you're talking, you talk about your mental health often. Josh: 03:46 I mean, you know, mental health, um, I, you know, as this episode title fight, the stigma, um, says is perhaps not something that I've talked about often. Look, I've, I've dealt with mental health issues, um, at least going back into my late teens. Um, it's something that, that kind of ebbs and flows for me. It's something that I'm comfortable with talking with my family about what my immediate family. Uh, and there are a few other people in my circle of trust who I've, I've talked to my I talked to about my mental health. Leon: 04:21 Okay. So that being the case, you know, you, you're not mental health forward when you have, hi, my name's Josh and here's my depression is not how you do things then. Then I have to ask because it, you can hear in the clip. It was just something you said and it was a point that you were making as part of a larger conversation and we move, you know, and we moved on from it. But I have to imagine that that had to feel a particular way to say that on the air like that. Josh: 04:49 I think the advantage of doing a podcast is that you record it and then it's done. And then you, you almost forget that you say it at least until I do the transcriptions. And by that point, Leon: 05:01 by the way, thank you. Josh: 05:01 You're welcome. And by that point, here's the thing, when, when you're struggling with something, um, confession is good for the soul. And I honestly, I do believe that it is good to share. I mean, did I intend to share at that particular moment? No, I didn't. Do I regret sharing? No, I don't regret sharing. Leon: 05:29 Okay. Which, which takes me to the last, you know, basic question about that moment, which is have you gotten any feedback, you know, on, on social media or in, you know, on the blog that's associated with Technically Religious or anything, you know, or even just comments that you've gotten one-on-one. Josh: 05:44 Has anybody come in and said, wow, you know, you said that and X, Y,Z , you know, uh, I haven't, and, uh, honestly, listeners, I'm a little disappointed. Uh, I know that mental health is a real struggle for people. I know many, many people, and we'll talk about this a little later, who struggle with mental health, whether we're talking about full-blown depression, whether we're talking about anxiety, whether we're talking about, you know, unhealthy levels of stress, whatever it might be, and nobody reached out. Um, I think the stigma is very real. And so, you know, if, if you're struggling or if you want to talk, you know how to find me. Leon: 06:26 Right. And I think that goes for certainly all three of us. And I, I would also say that, um, the, the Technically Religious, uh, speaker cast at large, um, one of the things we've all been very open about is, is saying, look, if you have a question about anything that you are dealing with struggling with, have a question about, curious about, we're all pretty, Oh, we wouldn't be doing a podcast if we didn't want to talk about it. Josh: 06:50 That's right. And we do like to talk. I mean, we're, we're pretty good at it. Leon: 06:54 So that's on sort of the, the podcast technical social media side. Have you shared these kinds of things in religious contexts? Josh: 07:03 Um, no, no, no, I haven't. Eh, and, um, yeah. Uh, and there's a reason for that. Um, in my, my religious community, um, as I said, I'm ex-Mormon, uh, now as our listeners know, I've, I've been transitioning since this podcast started. Um, there is a very toxic culture of perfection. Admitting that you have a mental health struggle is not a minute, is not looked at. It's looked at as a weakness. All right. Um, I F my personal experience, um, included some really fantastic people, but I also met some of the most cutthroat people that I've ever encountered in my entire life. And when you showed that soft underbelly, that weakness, your fear was that they would got you. Um, and here's the thing that's not unique to Mormonism. Um, I expected that is anytime you get a group of people together, you're going to find those, those individuals. I mean, in some organizations they may be more, but there's probably one, at least one in every organization. And for me, ultimately the, the question that I, I had to ask myself was, am I, am I generally comfortable with sharing this, um, within my religious context? And the answer was no. I mean, it's not that I didn't share it with people who shared my religious beliefs. I certainly had those, those moments, but it wasn't something that I got up in the middle of a sermon. I was like, yeah, yeah, I, I suffer from depression. And those things just didn't happen. Leon: 09:01 Right? So I think it's, it's important to point out, and, and I've said it in a very particular way on this podcast a couple of times a Judaism and apparently Mormonism also have not found the cure for the common asshole. There's still gonna be, you know, individuals who are jerks regardless of their religious affiliation. And that's, you know, that's the truth. But it's got to be hard when you are talking about, uh, w when you're having conversations around ethics and charity and Goodwill and kindness to know that there is a line in the sand that you're just not comfortable crossing that by all accounts shouldn't be there. Um, so in the Orthodox community, my, my first and my visceral experience with talking about mental health, and it's not the only one, but it's the one that comes to mind every time, is that when, when mental health comes up, um, where a lot of people go is that admitting to or getting help for mental health will make it harder for, uh, children to get a shidduch or get a match for a marriage, um, either for themselves or for siblings. So a lot of families will sweep those kinds of things under the rug. And again, it's not just don't talk about it, it's also not medicating children for everything from attention deficit to, to anxiety, to oppositional defiance disorder to anything. Because the medication itself is an admission of a problem and that can get out in the community and that can be seen as a challenge. I'm not saying it is a challenge, but I think that a lot of families immediately, that's their first worry is my kid won't be able to get married because of it. Yechiel: 10:47 Yeah, I definitely seen saying as far as the Orthodox Jewish community, that's probably the biggest obstacle in terms of talking about mental health. Um, and then on a secondary, uh, you know, started saying secondary and isn't that it's not as big a problem as the shidduch problem. Um, I find also that people have a hard time sort of owning up or admitting that they have, that they have issues because there's like, there's so much stress put on, on, you know, believing in God and trusting God that everything is good, that everything that God does is good and therefore you should be happy and you should be confident and you should be. Um, the umbrella term for it in Judaism is betach baShem to have trust in God and you feel like when you don't feel that way. When you feel, when, when you do have depression or anxiety or whatever it is, you feel like there's something wrong with you. Like if I was religious enough, if I took these ideas more to heart, I wouldn't be feeling this way. I wouldn't, you know, it's a, it's a failure on my, on my part as a person, as a religious person, not realizing course that it's a health issue, like any other health issue. And just like getting the flu doesn't mean that you're trusting God is lacking. So it doesn't getting depressed me. That is a problem in your life. Leon: 12:04 And that's, and I think we'll, we'll talk more about that in a little bit about, about how things can be addressed. But yeah, it's, it's really hard when a crisis of mental health also becomes a crisis of faith because I think those two things have a really easy time of feeding upon each other to make the entire situation much, much worse. Josh: 12:24 So I'm curious, something that, that comes to mind, um, that, at least on the surface appears to be a commonality, is this idea of the gospel of prosperity. And you see it a lot in Christianity, right? It's the whole idea that, well, if I'm, if I'm obedient enough and if I give enough than if I serve enough, then God will give me. And if I'm, if I am poor, if I'm sick, if I struggle, then you know, obviously I'm not doing, or even worse, you know, if you Yechiel, you know, if he's struggling, well obviously he's not. Uh, and then we get into that judgment that is unfortunately very prevalent in Christianity. And, and for those who are, who cannot see Leon, he is, he is writhing and agony here. Leon: 13:18 I only learned about prosperity gospel a year or two ago. I never heard of it before. And the whole thing just, I can't, I still can't wrap my head around it because it's not, it is absolutely not a Jewish concept. Um, and it, that's not what this episode is about. Josh: 13:39 That's interesting though because it's, at least within Mormonism, there is a lot of veneration about leaders and you know, how do we follow those leaders? And one of the things that at least if you go to your local bookstore and cause they still exist, there are places you can actually buy books that aren't online. I know it's weird, but if you go to your local bookstore and go to the self help section, you're going to read a titles from people who are leaders in their spaces, right? And we look to those people for inspiration. Today I was on LinkedIn and uh, uh, Jeff Weiner, who was the CEO of LinkedIn, shared a post, uh, and we'll put it in the show notes, but he was asked about what his leadership values were. And I thought that these were really interesting because as, as we're talking about this stigma or the potential for a stigma around mental health, um, if I had mental health struggles, I would want to be an environment with a leader like this. Here's what he said, "Be compassionate, be authentic, be open, honest and constructive. Be of service others. Lead by example, inspire." I thought, Holy cow, that that is what I want would want in a leader. And if I had a leader like that, then I would feel comfortable opening up to them and saying, look, these are my struggles. This is what I'm dealing with. Ken, how can I help? Or how can I continue to work and work through these struggles? I dunno, uh, Yechiel, what values do you have or what attributes do you value in, in others professionally, whether fellow engineers, managers, leaders? Yechiel: 15:38 Obviously in addition to having their technical ability, I think if they can't share that tech and global, I said, I don't have the empathy to, to look back and bring back, bring people up with them, you know, um, then, uh, they're started sort of uselessly. Um, there's a whole thing going on in Twitter now about 10X engineers. And I heard someone who said it that defined it very well. 10X engineers that someone who writes 10 times more code at 10X engineers, someone who can teach 10 times 10 more, 10 other engineers who can create 10 other engineers is sort of as a force multiplier. So if you don't have this empathy of, you know, if you don't have the communication ability and being able to bring other people up behind you, then what are you worth? Josh: 16:27 Hmm. I like that. Alright. Leon? Leon: 16:28 Yeah. Um, so in terms of professional values, I think it's all the things that are unfortunately labeled soft skills, which says everything that you need to know about how an organization perhaps views them, um, which is wrong. I think that people's ability to connect on a human level is significantly more important than their ability to do any particular technical trick. Um, or I guess I should say that if I need a particular technical skill that's a consultant or a contractor that's not a colleague, a colleague is somebody that I wanna build a relationship with. And, and Josh, to go back to your point from earlier on, I want to be among people that I am, I would be comfortable sharing those parts of my experience, not saying my life. I am not saying that you have to work with people at work who you're buddy buddy with, but you have to work with people who you can be vulnerable with in a work context where I can say, I don't know, or this has me frustrated or I'm really frightened about taking on this task. I'm, you know, I'm apprehensive about this. And you have to be able to say that, not because it's important to be vulnerable or whatever, but because if you, if you can't say that, then you're going to either avoid doing things that are, uh, opportunities for you to grow in your career and your skills, or you're going to do it anyway, and you're going to sort of do it in that sort of blind haze of panic and you may not execute well. Whereas if you have a team where you can comfortably say, I'm having a really hard moment right now, can I have, can I have five minutes? Can I have half a day? Can someone sit with me while I do this? You may not have to do anything, but I just need, I need a buddy on this. You know? Um, when you have a junior engineer who comes in and says, I've actually never, you know, done this kind of coding before and can feel comfortable saying that and the team and say, not a problem. You know, I'm going to sit right here. I'm gonna do my own thing. But when you have a question, I'm right here to answer it for you. You know, that's again, that's a vulnerability in a work context that I have to be comfortable enough to say that's the things that I value are people who, who foster those kinds of conversations. Josh: 19:03 You used a, a phrase there, um, or an example where you said, I'm not comfortable doing this thing. One, that is a really tough thing to do professionally, but it reminded me of one of the very last experiences I had in Mormonism. Um, so for context and Mormonism, there are no, there is no paid clergy at the local level. Um, they do practice lay ministry. So that means that the, the leader of your congregation is, could be your accountant to, it could be, uh, he could play a plumber. In my case, um, the, the leader of the congregation I attended as, is actually a fellow it pro, um, works for the provincial government. Really nice guy. Um, but my responsibility in the congregation was as the clerk. So I, I had a chance to invite, uh, people at the direction of, um, our Bishop to, to give sermons on Sunday and we call them talks and Mormonism. But we've actually there, there are many sermons and you'd be assigned. Everyone in the congregation ultimately gets assigned. And I remember we assigned a topic to a woman who's been a member for a very, very long time, um, you know, many, many decades. And she approached me probably a week before she was supposed to give her her talk, her sermon, and she said, Josh, I, I can't do this. Like, I, I can't speak on this topic. Uh, if you're interested, the topic was the physical nature of God. Right? Um, and so, you know, Hey, it's a heavy topic, but she's like, I read this and I'm, I, I don't, I don't understand it. And my response to her was, then talk about what you're comfortable with. I mean, pick parts of, you know, the reference material that is good for you, and then deliver that. But in your, in your comments, Leon, I was struck by how rare that might be. You know, oftentimes we're told, well, you know, just, just go ahead and do that. Um, so my next question for both of you is, we've talked about these values that we, um, that we want to see in our colleagues, in our managers professionally. Are they any different than our religious observance? Yechiel: 21:16 Not necessarily. Um, and Judaism, there's, there are two kinds of commandments. Um, there's been a bein adam lamakom, which are commandments between man, between a person and God. And bein adam lechaveiro between a person and another person. So the first category would be commandments around prayer, around the holidays, things that are between you and God. Um, the second one includes things like, do not steal, be nice to each other, help each other out. And the Talmud is full of quotes that say that if someone says that I owe, you know, there's a quote about the ethics of our fathers. If a person says, I only have Torah, then he doesn't, then even Torah, he doesn't have meaning. If someone says, yeah, I'm just going to study and learn Torah all day, that's my thing. Uh, doing things and, you know, being nice to others. That's that, you know, that I'll leave that for others. Then he doesn't even have the Torah because the Torah is all about helping others and being good with others and being good to the world. So, yeah, so just like an it, having the, you know, having the, the brilliance is nothing if you're not going to share with others, if you don't have the humility to pay it forward. Leon: 22:28 Right. And, and as an example of that, um, you know, when we're talking about rabbis, you know, the, the congregational leaders, and, and we'll get to that in a little bit also. Um, well what that really means in a Jewish context, but if a rabbi isn't comfortable getting up as part of his discussions, whether it's a sermon or a class or a lecture or, uh, a conversation, um, and say, and this thing happened, and I was, I didn't even know where to go with that, or I was feeling really overwhelmed or it really scared me. You know, any of those things. Once again, same thing as we talked about with the IT people. If they're not comfortable admitting to that, you know, quote unquote weakness, then that's, um, that's problem. If they're laboring under the misguided assumption that they have to be infallible, that is not going to end well. Yechiel: 23:27 Yeah. Uh, actually reminds me of something like my teacher brought up a lot. Uh, one of the foremost commentators on the Torah Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki, who lived around 900 years ago in France. And he, so he's like the foremost commentator on the Torah, every pretty much every homeless you'll find at any synagogue has his commentary there. And there's actually a pretty famous, uh, one of the verses, Rashi quotes some line from the verse and says, I don't know what this is teaching us. And my teacher said, you know, why did he bother saying that? If you don't know, just leave it out. I mean, you're not, why do you have to tell us? So how many did you say that, you know, it's true. There were probably many other places where Rashi didn't know any, he didn't say anything, but he made a point to say it at least, at least once. So that we should know that it's okay to say, I don't know. Josh: 24:18 I liked that. I liked that. So what happens when we encounter in our professional, personal, religious, you know, community environments, people who look at these values that we have, that we, that we desire and others and be like, I don't care. Wait, I, I'm going to violate these values. I mean, I can tell you what happened to me that led to my transition out of Mormonism when I saw people within Mormonism, uh, specifically leaders of the church who were acting in a way that had I acted locally, my wife would have been mad at me, my fellow congregants would have been mad at me. My Bishop may have pulled me in and said, Hey, Josh, like, what the hell are you doing? Like this is not the way you behave. Um, I certainly would have been judged. And so when I saw that from others, that began my spiral down up. I don't know which direction, uh, at the time it was down, but now I feel like it was up. Uh, and, and ultimately out of Mormonism. So, I mean, Leon, Yechiel what happens, what happens when we're, we're, we're, our values are violated? Yechiel: 25:23 So I think like Leon mentioned earlier that, you know, no one found the carry out for the common asshole. Um, you realize that you know these things, you know, these people exist and they are not the people that we want to be around. If it's possible, like you did so cut them out of your life though that does come from place of privilege and how it always is that an option both in religion and in it, not always can you just leave your job or leave your congregation or leave your community. Um, but if you can do it, if you can't try to distance yourself as much as you can. Leon: 25:59 I know that Josh, your, your transition was, you know, there wasn't like, well that was the one thing, you know, there was a lot of things that led up to this, this decision. So I don't, I don't want to characterize it as well, if only you had done this one thing that you wouldn't have those problems. You know, again, it was like all real problems. It was complex and had a lot of moving parts. Um, I think that if, if anyone listening has an experience with somebody where, you know, again, they violate these values that the religion as a whole holds as fundamental or that you personally hold as fundamental. I think the thing is to remember that they're one individual, that they're, you know, that, that they don't make up the sum total of a community, IT community or, or other. If you find yourself in an environment where those values are upheld and lauded, you know, the, the so-called toxic environment, you know, bro-grammer culture in an IT department or um, you know, or, or toxic management or, uh, or just a really unhealthy congregational life or a congregation that, that espouses a value that isn't intrinsically negative, but it's not something that's helpful for you, um, to remember that you, you do usually to Yechiel's point, usually have a choice. And that choice doesn't have to hurt. It just, it might be different. And to give you a very innocuous example of that. And I've talked about this on our podcast before, I, I read Hebrew very slowly. I'm, I've been working on it for a long time. I'm getting better, but it's still slow. And so when I find myself in a congregation that values the speed with which the prayers go, "we can get morning services done in 20 minutes. It's great!" You know, when, when I'm in there like, Hey look, I found somewhere that's not my place. This is really not for me. Um, and as you know, if I'm, if I need to be in that environment for whatever, I just sort of tough it out. But I know that as soon as I can get out of that environment, I, that's, that's what I'm going to need to do. It's not helpful for me. It's not healthy for me. It doesn't do anything for me. So that's again, that's an innocuous version. If you are in an environment that is exacerbating your mental state, um, either because you know, what you're hearing in the pews is mimicking the, the mental negative self talk that you have going on in your own head or it's making you feel more anxious rather than less or you feel like you can't share anything about who you really are with the people around you. Then, you know, it may take time, but you need to know that there are other communities, there are other places to go in most cases. Again, I'm not diminishing the, the long journey that Josh, you and your family have gone through. Josh: 29:04 No. Yeah. I think that Maya Angelou really sums up something that I wish I had known before and I, I didn't know who my Angelou was before I began my faith transition. But among other notable quotes, she says, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." And I think that that's really powerful when you are, when you're looking for people who you need to trust. Um, especially when it comes to our mental health. Um, if someone tells you, I am not someone who's going to protect you, um, and you see that, don't bring them your struggles because they're there, they're not going to be healthy for you. Leon: 29:46 Can't wish people into being the person that you need them to be at that moment. Josh: 29:50 That is right Leon: 29:50 We know you can't listen to our podcast all day. So out of respect for your time, we've broken this particular conversation up. Come back next week and we'll continue our conversation. Doug: 30:00 Thanks for making time for us this week to hear more of Technically Religious, visit our website, TechnicallyReligious.com, where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect to us on social media. Josh: 30:14 At Technically Religious, we usually have something funny to say at this point in the show, but mental health is nothing to take lightly. If you are struggling, please reach out to a family member, friend, or a healthcare professional. If you are in crisis, please seek immediate medical attention. You are not alone. Fight the stigma.

To all the Jeep and Jeep Gladiator fans out there, this episode is for you! In this special edition of Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram podcast, host John Haggard sits down with Josh Ellison, Jeep’s Brand Manager for the Southeast Business Center at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). Not only is he one of Jeep’s Brand Managers, but he is also a hair metal fan who loves the outdoors! Together, they talk about the following topics: How Josh Started in the Automotive BusinessWhat Does a Jeep Brand Manager Do?Why Jeep Is a “Lifestyle” Brand The New Jeep GladiatorThe Return of the Mid-Size TrucksGladiator’s Open-Air FreedomHow Strong Is the Gladiator?Gladiator’s Features and TechWhy Pick Gladiator Over a Pickup?Josh on Music Theory and His Favorite BooksJosh’s Advice on PerseveranceWhat’s Coming for the Jeep Brand in the Future Transcript John Haggard 0:02 Welcome to the Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram podcast where you will learn the best ways to purchase, lease, service and maintain, accessorize, sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible when you’re ready, and also to learn more about the capabilities and fun features of new vehicles. I’m your host, John Haggard, and you know, throughout each month we have special guests join us and you’ll also see a transcript of each podcast for quick reference. On this podcast, we’re speaking today with Josh Ellison. He’s the Jeep brand manager for the Southeast Business Center at FCA. Hey, Josh, welcome to the podcast. Josh Ellison 0:37 Hey, John. Thanks for having me on. John Haggard 0:39 We always like to jump in and find out a little bit about the person that we’re speaking with today. So before we dive into the world of Jeep and what’s going on now and also what you see for 2020, tell us how you got started in the automotive business. Josh Ellison 0:53 Yeah, um, so when I got started, I was kind of always around it was always in the back of my mind and have always been around it I had a buddy whose dad worked for the company for about 25 years. I was selling beer before I got into the automotive business. And before that I worked at a grocery store so kind of naturally progressing through the sales world had a buddy say, Hey, you know, this is a great place to start working, you should come aboard. And so I checked it out, got the opportunity to go seek an adventure out in Colorado and kind of jumped in and I’ve been here ever since. And it’s been a great ride so far. John Haggard 1:26 So where are you originally from Josh? Josh Ellison 1:28 Originally, I’m from Oviedo. So it’s on the northeast side of Orlando, Florida. John Haggard 1:33 All right. All right. Okay, so where do you live now? Josh Ellison 1:36 I actually still live in Oviedo. Having made a trip around the nation for the most part. I actually live 10 doors down from where I grew up. So… John Haggard 1:45 10 doors down. That’s kind of rare. Josh Ellison 1:49 Yeah, it’s, you know, whenever I left, I was like, Hey, I’m never coming back to this place. And now that I’ve got kids and a wife, I’m looking at it going, you know what, maybe it wasn’t such a bad place. We got the opportunity to jump on a house there. And we did. So we’re pretty happy about it. John Haggard 2:03 So when you’re not working Jeep 24/7, what about your passions outside of work? What do you like to do? Josh Ellison 2:09 Yeah, I’m pretty outdoorsy. I grew up in Florida. So I love the ocean love to fish. I love to surf all of that. My family’s probably passion number one, we enjoy traveling together. And then I’m also an avid guitar player and about 20 years so I enjoy strumming on the six-string as they say. John Haggard 2:28 Wow, so did you have a group at one time? Josh Ellison 2:31 No, I’ve played in church a little bit every Sunday morning. I had a couple of guys I got messing around with. But for the most part, it’s just kind of been a hobby that I do on my own and I’ve got some buddies that we get together and just kind of jam and enjoy the instrument. John Haggard 2:45 So favorite song? Josh Ellison 2:48 Favorite song? That’s a tough one. I’m actually a huge hair metal fan. So I’m a big fan of Iron Maiden. I would probably say that Iron Maiden “The Wicker Man” is probably one of my favorite song. So it’s hard to narrow it down. There’s so many different genres and you know, blues and country as I’ve gotten older I’ve really gotten into but, you know, starting at the roots that that was song one. John Haggard 3:11 Alright. So you know, speaking of things that are like that +. If you could have one superpower, Josh, what would it be? Josh Ellison 3:18 Oh man! If I could have one superpower. I would have the ability to teleport. John Haggard 3:25 Teleport did you say? Josh Ellison 3:26 Yeah, teleport. John Haggard 3:28 Okay, so talk about that. What is teleport for folks who don’t know? Josh Ellison 3:31 Yeah, so it’s the ability to go from one point to another instantly. So if I could get myself from the office to home and not have to sit in an hour’s worth of traffic, I would totally do it. So that would be probably the most beneficial superpower I could have. John Haggard 3:48 Wow, that would be fun. You know, they’re talking with all these drones and everything that’s out there. Amazon’s talking about hey, you know, we’ll just drop it off. at your house. Maybe one-day people will be in a small drone and that would get you to work. Who knows? Josh Ellison 4:00 Yeah, it’s crazy. I’m pretty sure that Amazon’s going to take over the world one day, they’re just going to put a fence up around us and take over. John Haggard 4:07 I think you’re right. No, I would think that a lot of people Josh would love to have your job especially in the world of Jeep, a really cool brand. It really is. And so how did you wind up as Jeep brand manager for the Southeast because there’s only one – and that’s you at this point. Josh Ellison 4:22 There’s nine of us around the nation. You know, basically just kind of working through the steps. So when I went out to Denver, my first area was out in Colorado and did some traveling out there and big Jeep territory for sure. So naturally, you start to love the product and then going up into Montana, which was my second area. I got to spend 18 months up in Bozeman, Montana. I had a guy who was a professional he used to race Jeeps professionally. And so… John Haggard 4:49 Race Jeeps? On a dirt track or what? Josh Ellison 4:52 Oh, yeah. Dirt track, you name it. Upsides and mountains. And so every time I meet with him, he’d picked me up for a Jeep ride. And really a great guy. His name was Ron. And yeah, so definitely got to love the product from that standpoint. And whenever I moved back to Florida, I was presented with the opportunity to oversee sales share and marketing for the brand. Naturally, I jumped at it. John Haggard 5:15 Well, so tell us very specifically about your role. When you hear Jeep brand manager, what specifically I mean what’s your typical day look like? Josh Ellison 5:24 A typical day is taking a look at retail sales and market share versus our targets. You know, how are we looking versus last year. Look at the inventory mix, making sure that we’ve got the right product and enough for the right product. And then in addition to that, we’re also taking a look at different opportunities in the market, you know, ways that we can maybe grouped together some packages and optimize what gets put in front of the customer. And I’m also in charge of experiential marketing for the region. So I coordinate a lot of the auto shows a lot of the ride and drive type events that we have around the area as well. So You know, between the two of those things and the constant, ever-changing world of sales, it keeps me pretty busy. John Haggard 6:07 You know, they say there are different types of buyers for different types of products. And so when you think of a Jeep buyer, versus maybe a truck buyer or you know, small compact SUV buyer, if you’re kind of going to profile people who buy Jeeps, what are they like? How do they differ from people who don’t buy Jeeps? Josh Ellison 6:29 I think the thing about Jeep is really, it’s a lifestyle brand. And it doesn’t really matter what your lifestyle is. I think when everybody thinks of a Jeep, they think of it being synonymous with a good time, a good life, being outdoors, driving through the city, whatever that is. So, you know, I think we’re able to offer that to everybody. So to really narrow it down, I think. I think it’s people who love to live the life they enjoy being out and about in their element and I think Jeep provides that pretty effectively for every one of those buyers. John Haggard 7:00 Alright, so let’s talk about the new Jeep Gladiator. As I understand it, never in its history before, has Jeep ever offered what I call the Jeep pickup truck combination. Would that be an accurate way of describing the new Jeep Gladiator? Josh Ellison 7:15 Yeah, I think so. You know, Jeeps had a pickup in the past, you know? Before the Gladiator, they launched the Comanche back in 1986. And that’s just really a small pickup, right? You know, we had the CJ8 Scrambler back in the early 80s, which is probably the most similar thing to what we’ve got with the Gladiator. However, yeah, I mean, this is – it looks like a Wrangler, but it is 100% a truck with the capability of the Wrangler that you’re looking for. So I would say that’s probably a pretty accurate way of describing the new Gladiator. You know, it’s a Wrangler. Plus, it’s not just a Wrangler with a bed on it’s got more so… John Haggard 7:53 And where did this idea come about for a Jeep Gladiator? Josh Ellison 7:57 It’s hard to say but I would say that demand is where it originated from you know? The return of the mid-size pickups have been pretty big out in the marketplace, Jeep obviously having its foot in the 4×4 segments and SUVs. You know, it’s kind of the natural progression to Hey, how do we expand this a little bit further. So, you know, market demand has really come out for Jeep, you know, Wrangler sales have been through the roof. People love the product, they love the car. So to be able to put a pickup bed on the back, and you know, bring that functionality down for somebody who maybe would be getting a Wrangler, but needs the functionality of a pickup that, you know, it’s kind of a natural fit just to progress in this manner. John Haggard 8:37 Alright, so I did a little bit of research before calling you. Just kind of looking at the website and seeing about the Jeep Gladiator up to 7650 lbs of towing capacity and also an available 1700 pounds of a payload capability. I mean, that’s just want to have one heck of an engine to be able to draw all that. It takes a lot of power that so that’s a bunch of weight! Josh Ellison 9:00 Yeah! You know, it’s like I said it’s all truck. Oddly enough, people would think that you know what type of towing capability, it must have a V8. But it’s you know it’s got a three-six pennant star, hooked up to an eight-speed automatic transmission, you know it gets the job done. It’s all trucks! John Haggard 9:17 So the Gladiator then you could load up your Jeep put a couple of dirt bikes back there and haul a four-wheeler behind it as well. Right? Josh Ellison 9:25 Yeah, absolutely shouldn’t be an issue. John Haggard 9:27 And then something else I saw. Getting through creeks and streams in depths of like up to 30 inches – that’s almost three feet. So without flooding out. I mean, it did no problem getting through? Josh Ellison 9:39 Yeah, the water flooring capabilities of it are awesome. And you know, that’s 30 inches straight from the factory. That’s not a, it’s not a list or anything like that on it. That’s just from the factory. So, you know, a couple that with, you know, almost a full foot of ground clearance shouldn’t be very many obstacles that get in your way of the new Gladiator. John Haggard 9:58 Yeah, you know, you mentioned lift. That’s something you know, it seems really big sometimes when I go out to eat, I’ll see a lift kit on a Jeep, you know, and it’s got green color over here and red color underneath over there. And it’s really cool how they can I guess you call it tricking them out, so to speak, Unknown Speaker 10:13 Being a natural derivative of the Wrangler, I mean, the Wrangler is one of the most accessorized vehicles in the world. So you know, Gladiator has definitely followed suit and, and people are able to make it their own. So it’s definitely cool seeing the different followings that you get the different looks that people like and the ability for everybody to kind of make it their own, so to speak. John Haggard 10:33 So Josh, what would you say are the most exciting features of the new Jeep Gladiator? Josh Ellison 10:39 To me, I mean, I think it’s open-air freedom. That’s something that we talk about a lot with Wrangler, and also, you know, it’s like Renegade. But, you know, Gladiators got open-air freedom. So it’s the only pickup truck where you know, you could take the top off of it, you can take the doors off of it, let your feet hang out if that’s what you want to do, you know. So again, The ability to just really kind of be out, you know, as mentioned before, in your element, whatever that is, and draw that into the interior. And then one of the cool things that I think it has on it is this kind of trail cam. And then me being an outdoor guy, you know, I kind of said, hey, what why, why on Earth would you need a camera at the front of the vehicle? Yeah, for going down a trail? This thing is awesome. It’s, you know, if you’re a one-man guy out there, or one woman, you know, out there by yourself and you need to get through the trail, this is an excellent way for you to be able to navigate some of those blind, blind drop-offs and see what’s out there. So you know, again, just something progressive that we said, Hey, this is something that we’ve done in the back to keep you from getting rear-ended or healthy back into a parking spot or out of a parking spot. How can it help you go forward, and I think they’ve definitely made a functional use of this trail camera. John Haggard 11:52 Yeah. So tell us about the Gladiators technology. A lot of people these days are, you know, real tech oriented like to see all the goodies, the electronics, things like that as well. What’s going on that way? Josh Ellison 12:02 Oh, yeah. So Gladiator has got all the connectivity in the world. You know, it’s right up there with every other vehicle that’s out there. You know, and it’s also got blind spot for collision with active braking, cross path detection, adaptive cruise control with full stop for those who may live out in the city, use cruise control on the interstate, you know. So it’s got all the technology in the world that could get you through your daily commute, you know? But still true to its roots of being an outdoor vehicle. John Haggard 12:35 You know, we also see on the website that the Gladiator comes with available Android and Apple Car Play. Are there advantages that Android and Apple Car Play have over other systems? Josh Ellison 12:46 Yeah! You know, I think both those systems in general just the you connect system itself, which is our exclusive platform that we use for connectivity, and we use for Android and Apple Car, play it 16 Extremely functional and intuitive. So, you know, the base that we operate Android Apple Car Play on is intuitive itself. But then you know, the Android and the Apple Car Play. I mean, that’s basically if you could just take your phone and stick it up on the dash, you know, all of your apps, all your icons are right there. Talk to text so you can keep your hands on the wheel. You can use Siri if you’re an Apple person. So it’s super functional. Like I said, it’s intuitive, it’s easy to use, and it really makes life a lot easier while you’re still able to be in full control of the vehicle. John Haggard 13:33 So the Gladiator Josh, how many people can it comfortably sit? Josh Ellison 13:38 It can comfortably sit up to five. So we got three in the back and then two in the front. John Haggard 13:43 Gotcha. All right. What would you say the top two or three questions people asked about the Jeep Gladiator? Josh Ellison 13:49 Oh, man, the top two that I always get? The first one is, what is that? Um, you know, it’s still being pretty new in the market. Most people think you’ve taken a Wrangler and you’ve just chopped the back off and then put some pickup bed on the back, but certainly not the case. So, you know, get asked a lot what is that, of course, it’s pretty easy it’s to speak to the product and walk the individual through it. And then the other one is kind of you know, extra on top of that is you know, is that just a Wrangler with the bed? You know, the answer is in theory, yes. Whenever you look at it, it’s not. It is a pickup truck through and through with all the four by four capabilities of its cousin, the Wrangler. John Haggard 14:27 All right, and why would somebody pick a Jeep Gladiator, Josh, let’s say over another pickup truck? Josh Ellison 14:33 Oh, lifestyle! Really. I mean, you know, what other pickup truck can you take its, you know, you can take the doors off of it, you can take the top off of it on the weekend and you can put it back together for your morning commute. You know, Monday through Friday, you can take it out in the woods, you can beat it up. It’s really up to you. So whatever your lifestyle is, there is a way that Jeep Gladiator continued into that. John Haggard 14:55 Got it. Alright, so when you are hungry, what’s your go-to order at your say your favorite hometown restaurant? Josh Ellison 15:04 I am a sucker for Mexican food. So any sort of steak burrito I will eat without any question. And then I don’t know why I’m a glutton for punishment apparently but I love hot wings as well. So, the hotter the better. If I’m sweating after them then that I’ve picked the right place. John Haggard 15:23 Then you’ve got the right ones, exactly. What who would you say in your life as you look back has been your biggest influence? Josh Ellison 15:31 Biggest influence in my life as I look back? Ooof, man, that’s a tough one. I would say most recently, you know, of course, my parents have a big you know, stake in my life and my wife but my kids have had easily influenced, how I view the world how I view my day how I view everything, you know? They definitely, they put things into a different perspective. You know, the days get little bit longer but the years gets shorter and it makes you slow down a little bit. So I would say that they have been by far the most influential in terms of shaping my thoughts and some of my actions as well. John Haggard 16:08 You know, it really does change a lot when you go from single to married and then married with kids, don’t it? Josh Ellison 16:14 Yeah, absolutely. Well, fortunately, we have to, so we’re only, we’re playing [inaudible] no zone defense going on here, you know? John Haggard 16:22 Yeah. How about a book, any book that you would recommend that someone it’s like a must-read? Josh Ellison 16:30 A must-read book. Well, I’m a big fan of the autobiography. So you know, being a guitar player The Slash autobiography was fantastic. I’m a big Guns n Roses fan. So I got to read that that was a good one. But in terms of this classic American literature, now the first one that comes to mind would be Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God. So that’s probably one of my favorites. It’s based down here in Okeechobee, Florida. And I just think it’s it’s fantastic. It’s a great book. John Haggard 16:58 So what would you say that you wish, Josh that you had known? Something that you know now but when you first started out in the automotive business, you really would have liked to have known this and what is this? Josh Ellison 17:14 Enjoy where you’re at. Kind of more or less a life lesson but, you know, sometimes you look back on things and you go, Well, you know what, that was really great. I wish I would have slowed down a little bit. But I wish I would have known how to slow down and just kind of enjoy, enjoy the spot that I’m at, you know? Can’t get that time back, but had I known then what I know now, I may have done things a little differently. John Haggard 17:36 Yes. And do you feel like is there a unique skill or something that has really helped you go from point A to point B, like you’ve been talking about this really made you successful? Something, Josh, that you would say, you know, I don’t know if it would work for you, but you might be able to learn from it here would be my advice. Josh Ellison 17:55 Oh, my thing would just be perseverance, really. I mean, I think it’s something that anybody can have but You know, it’s tough sometimes to just keep going, you know, sometimes they’re, they’re tough days, sometimes they’re great days and you know, you gotta gotta take the wins with the wins and losses with the losses and move on. So if you can persevere in whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish, you can do anything you possibly want John Haggard 18:19 Anything that you are really most curious about right now? Josh Ellison 18:24 I’ve been getting a lot into music theory, it’s definitely way over my head in terms of where I’ve gotten to. You know, it’s more or less a second language but I’ve been diving pretty deep into music theory. So I would say that’s probably the most curious thing I’m into right now just kind of learning the difference you know, the different ways that you can put music together and piece music together. So… John Haggard 18:48 Yeah, you know, in Nashville, which is one of them, you know, Music Center headquarters of the world, I would say, there’s the chart system, they tell me. I’m not a musician, so I don’t know. But rather than running out notes, they say This song is a 135 or something like that. Do you do numbers like that? Unknown Speaker 19:04 Yeah, national number system. That’s what they refer to it as within each key, you have seven notes. So if you know what notes are in the key, you can just say, hey, the first note is, you know, this one, the first notes that one. So number one, the key of C is, is C. Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty easy. It’s nice to be able to transpose on the fly. But, yeah, I’m very familiar with that. John Haggard 19:27 You know, as you look out, just from your opinion, you look at the automotive business as a whole, you know, getting ready to go into another election season, lots of things going on in many industries. If you were going to look into that crystal ball, Josh and say, here’s what I see for the Jeep brand going in the next, you know, two to three, four or five years or maybe just the automotive business as a whole. Do you see anything that’s going to be really dramatic for the industry that’s going to change or just improvements on what we have? What do you see out there? Josh Ellison 19:56 Yeah, if I had to take a look at it, you know, from a Jeep brand perspective, you know, We’ve got a lot of, you know, exciting things that will be continuing to progress forward. I think every automotive manufacturer out there in the industry right now is trying to find what gives you that competitive edge. You know, it’s something that we’re all constantly striving for. But I would say that, you know, you’re definitely going to see a shift in terms of people’s perceptions of, things like electrified vehicles, and you know, maybe even ride-sharing and that kind of stuff with autonomous vehicles. So, it’s certainly an exciting time to see what’s going to happen and see what comes about and how the consumer takes to it. John Haggard 20:39 Josh Ellison, everybody the Jeep brand manager for the SE Business Center at FCA on the Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram podcast. Thanks, Josh, for joining us today and join us again right here for other topics on the podcast throughout each month. You know, our goal, show you the best ways to purchase, lease, service and maintain, accessorize, and also sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible when you’re ready to do it. And to learn more about specific vehicles that you might be interested in. And as you know, we will post the transcript of the podcast right here so you can easily go back, find out any information that you want, right at your fingertips. I’m your host, John Haggard, and we will see you next time.

So we got an email. So Josh promised to write #Reylo fan fiction. So he did. So the boys performed in a very dramatic installment Poe Boy Theatre starring Pete as Rey and Josh as everyone and everything else. So. And then we talk about the newest episode of Resistance.

Well this one is the one that Josh has been creatively saving for just such a day. Auston was unable to be on the podcast. So Josh has taken the audio from some of the video that we made years ago and made a podcast. This week we hear a song from Mest. Hope you enjoy this one. Normal links below. AFI Top 100: goo.gl/953i2s YouTube: goo.gl/SnC8Kk Instagram: www.instagram.com/itshouldntbethishardpod/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/ItShouldntBeThisHard Email us at itshouldntbethishardpodcast@gmail.com Spotify Playlist: goo.gl/EiqiVa Anchor.fm: goo.gl/XzzR5Q Google Play Music: goo.gl/pe4mnt Stitcher: goo.gl/3RpbV3 iTunes: goo.gl/Zkt9Vj

This week we had Josh Withers of the Rebel's Guide to Getting Married on the podcast! Josh isn't just another podcaster, he's also a marriage celebrant in Australia. Josh is the owner of Married by Josh (his wedding celebrant company) and the co-owner of The Elopement Collective with his wife. Josh also runs the Celebrant Institute which helps educate other celebrants. In this episode, Josh came on the podcast to talk about what it means to be a wedding celebrant and how to turn your wedding ceremony into a celebration of you! When you get married, you're deciding who you and your significant other are as a couple and presenting that to the world. So Josh wants to help you put your best foot forward. He also wants to help you start your marriage out right! We also talk with Josh about elopements and what it means to be a professional in the wedding industry! Find more information about Josh: Married by Josh, The Elopement Collective, The Celebrant Institute, and The Rebel's Guide to Getting Married. You can also find Josh on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Episode artwork from Heart and Colour and The Elopement Collective. Help us grow the community of love buddies: Join the Facebook Group! Find out more about Jenn and Steve at: weddedpod.com, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Jenn's Instagram, Steve's Instagram --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wedded/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wedded/support

We often want to see results all at once, or at least quickly. But that's not usually how it works. In this episode Leon, Josh, and returning guest Al Rasheed explore how the philosophies of slow growth in other areas of our life - from religious to healthy living - inform our expectations with regard to gaining new skills in IT. Listen or read the transcript below. Josh:      0:00        Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is technically religious. Leon:     0:22        We often want to see results all at once or at least quickly, but that's not usually how IT works. How do the philosophies of slow growth in other areas of our life from religious to healthy living inform our expectations with regard to gaining new skills in it? I'm Leon Adato and the other voices you're going to hear on this episode are my partner in podcasting, Josh Biggley. Josh:      0:42        Hello, hello. Leon:     0:44        And returning guests. Al Rasheed, Leon:     0:46        Hello, thanks again for having me. Leon:     0:48        Welcome back again. Um, okay. Before we dive into this topic, uh, as always, we wanted to have everyone, uh, take a moment for shameless self promotion. So Josh, why don't you kick it off? Josh:      0:59        Hey, so I'm Josh Biggley, I'm a senior engineer in the enterprise systems monitoring space. Uh, you can find me on Twitter at @jbiggley or if you want to follow the chaos of my, my faith journey, uh, you can go to FaithTransitions.ca where you'll be forwarded to our Facebook group. Leon:     1:16        Fantastic. Al, tell us about yourself. Al:           1:20        I'm Al Rasheed, I'm a systems administrator here in northern Virginia for a federal contractor. Uh, you can find me on Twitter, @Al_Rasheed and in my profile for Twitter you'll also, uh, you should find my blog URL. Leon:     1:33        Fantastic. And as a reminder, uh, all those links and everything else we talk about in this episode are going to be in the show notes. So you don't need to scribble madly and just rounding things up. I'm Leon Adatoo, I'm one of the head geeks at solar winds. You can find me on Twitter @LeonAdator and also I blog and just pontificate about life in general, uh, at AdatoSystems.com so you can find me there. All right, so, uh, we're going to divide this up basically into two sections, talking about growth and personal growth in the religious philosophical context first. And then in our IT life second, but in religious context, I think it's important for us to frame out what is there to grow in, in terms of religion or philosophy? I think, I think a lot of folks feel like, well, you know, you just, you show up, you sit down, you listen for a little while, and then ya go, you know, have some fried chicken or whatever. Like what, what is there to do better in religion? What are your, what are your thoughts on that? Josh:      2:31        You know, Leon, I honestly, I think that, um, the whole premise of religion is about being better. Um, again for the listeners, right? We know that, uh, I was Mormon and Joseph Smith, who was the founder of Mormonism, uh, famously said, and I'm probably going to do a terrible job at paraphrasing him, but, um, no religion, um, that is, you know, worth its weight. Um, that doesn't require a man to sacrifice and become better, uh, should be practiced. So the idea being that if you're going to do religion and you're just going to stay static, why do it that at all? Al:           3:08        Right. And I, I think there's some people who do show up, you know, look, I belong because my parents belong to this church or synagogue because my grandparents belonged here. I'm just, you know, I, that's, that's why I'm here. You know, I just show up because that's what we've always done. But to your point, I think it's, it's not, I'm afraid to say it's not the right reason, but I think it's not a very productive reason to be there. Um, I think also, depending on your religious, philosophical point of view, and this is definitely philosophical, I think that people who say, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. There's still an element of this. There's some mechanics involved. Uh, I know for myself, and I talked about it in a previous episode, uh, I still struggle learning Hebrew, just making the sounds. Uh, it wasn't a language that I was comfortable with growing up. Uh, I was comfort with a couple of other religions, a couple of other languages, but not, um, Hebrew. And so I really just, the decoding of the non-English characters has really been a stumbling block for me. So, and I know that, you know, other religions have Latin Al uh, we were talking about it earlier, that, uh, in Islam, you know, Arabic, that's, you know, I don't know whether if you don't speak Arabic, I don't even know how, how do you manage? Like, can you, can you do the prayers in English? Is that all right? Al:           4:26        Yes, you can. And there are, there are some countries that are, you know, Indonesia for example, their primary language isn't Arabic. Uh, but they've got a, a heavy base of Muslims and you know, there, there are means to every way. Al:           4:40        Okay, okay. I wasn't sure if it was, you know, Arabic or, you know, go home and practice until you can come back, you know, whatever. So at least it gets good to know. But it's still, I think there's also, you know, if you want to study Torah or Quran or whatever, ultimately, or, uh, The hunchback of Notre Dame or the Upanishads or whatever, like studying it in the original language is, is the goal because things are always lost in translation. So you still have that linguistic skill element to it. Um, regardless, um, there's other, there's other things though that I think we, we try to improve on just in terms of showing up and being religious. Any other ones that you, you guys want to shout out on? Josh:      5:27        And so, uh, one of the things that that Mormons do, um, we go to are the temples. Um, and so in the temple, um, just like every other temple, uh, attending faith, there are rights and rituals that are performed and uh, you know, they're, they, they have a very specific methodology for them. Um, I mean, when I attended regularly, um, when I was living in Las Vegas, I would go every single week and it was goal to learn, uh, verbatim, the, you know, the required, um, statements that you make, um, as part of that ritual. And it's interesting, you know, you think, well, why would you do that? Because if you make a mistake, there's somebody there to help you. I mean, if they're not going to say, "Oh, geez, Josh, way to go, you screwed up, get out." Leon:     6:18        You've ruined Mormonism for us! Josh:      6:21        Right, that will come later, Leon:     6:23        ...later in this story. Josh:      6:26        Um, but it's, it was one of those things that it made me feel, um, it made me feel as though I had to accomplish something as though I had, um, I had been devout enough to, to memorize this thing that, you know, you hear it once as part of this worship service that lasts about two hours. Uh, our, sorry, I guess we heard two or three times, but it, you know, it's a fairly long phrase that you have to say and it's not like you can go home and practice it because in Mormonism that thing is not, it's not written down anywhere. Um, that you can read outside. The only place you can study it or hear it is, is in the temple. Um, so to get to a point where, and even now, you know, 20 odd years later, I still can remember it. Um, it, it just, it was one of those things that helps you focus or at least was intended to help you focus on the divine. Um, so, you know, what can you do better at in religion? You can find the things that help you focus on the divine, whether it's, you know, the recitation of a specific prayer or, um, some sort of right or ritual. Um, or even just for some people just showing up at church. I mean, that's a good thing if you want to be religious. Leon:     7:39        Right, and, and in, again, in talking about the things that people take step by step, that, that's a good point is I hear a lot of people from various faith, uh, again, philosophical areas saying, "I just need to learn how to focus better", whether it's meditative, um, or focusing on the prayers, what's happening, not getting distracted and having a side conversation. Um, you know, being able to keep your, your focus focal point of attention longer. That is definitely something that a) people work on, b) people get very frustrated about because they can't do as well as they want to. Um, and c), to your point also deepens their experience, uh, you know, in what they're doing. So that's, that's a nice one. Um, I, I also think that there's just learning, and this is slightly to your point, Josh, what happens when?, You know, is this the standup part or the sit down part or the walk around the room part or the, you know, just knowing this is where we are, because not knowing, again, not knowing, doesn't ruin Shabbat right now. Josh:      8:47        For a minute there, I thought we were doing the Hokey pokey, Leon:     8:49        Right. Although sometimes it feels like it. Like at no time do you know, did anyone ever turn to me and say, okay, Leon, you, you just broke Shabbat. We'll try again next week. That doesn't, that doesn't happen. But knowing what's going on and feeling, uh, feeling fluent in it and competent in it allows you not to have to worry about it. It allows you to focus on some of those deeper issues Al:           9:13        Or a sense of being a part of something, a meeting and accomplishment. Um, but there is a certain sometimes level of intimidation if you don't feel like you're meeting those expectations, especially when it does come through religion. Leon:     9:27        Right. And, and I, I wanna say that in most cases, our co-religionists are not putting pressure on us. They're not judging. They're not holding these in insanely high expectations. Sometimes they are, sometimes, you know, they're that person. Uh, and that's its own set of challenges. But most of the time I think it's really what we think, they think that...that gets us. So, yeah, it's a good point though. Josh:      9:57        So I have this really bad habit of, uh, thinking about things that I did in my life and I remember them with crystal clarity and they don't matter to anybody else. For example, I remember the time that a group of, uh, of, uh, classmates and I were walking into the front of my high school and there was a flat cigarette package kind of laying on the ground and I went to go kick it with full force, you know, thinking I was just going to scoot it along the ground and I completely missed and the force carried me up into the air and I slapped down right on my back. Leon:     10:35     Charlie Brown! Josh:      10:35     It was classic! Leon:     10:38     Classic Charlie. Arrgh! Josh:      10:40     And I remembered that with crystal clarity. I don't think anyone else who was around, I mean, they all laughed at me, but nobody else remembers that. And that's, that's like religious observance. If you screw it up, nobody's going to remember and good, good chance that, uh, you know God or however you name your, your Diety, they're not going to remember either. Leon:     11:05     Well, okay, so I'm just going to walk that one back a little bit. God will remember everything, but God will not judge one context. Josh:      11:13     Right. You know, God does say I remember your sins no more. So I don't know. Leon:     11:19     There's, okay, there's a difference between holding you accountable and remembering them. Uh, but I think that, you know, in the same way that we as parents look at our children when they do something really silly and we remember it, but we don't, we don't look at it. They're like, "Oh yeah, you're the idiot who did that thing." You know, it, it just becomes part of the, their overall character. Josh:      11:41     I think we remember them and we hold onto them for when they get married. And then at the celebration afterwards, we tell the stories. That's why we remember them. Leon:     11:52     And we have pictures. Josh:      11:53     Yeah. I don't know. Does that make me a bad parent? Leon:     11:55     No, no, because Al shaking his head "No!" Al:           11:59     No, that's what life is all about. So you can look back and reflect and laughing and joy collectively. Leon:     12:06     Right, right. Exactly. Okay. So, uh, what else in a philosophical context, what, what else about it is, is, is growth related or again, this slow growth step-by-step? Josh:      12:17     I mean, what, what do we want out of life? When I was a, a Mormon missionary, um, I remember as I was preparing to go, my father saying that there were three golden questions, right? It was a, where do we come from? Why are we here and where are we going? Uh, and that like that, "Why are we here?" that, man, that's a heavy question. Like, really what do we want from life? Al:           12:42     But, but that question and that thought is ever evolving. Um, it's, it's, it's, you know, there's times where, and some of the points that I'll focus on, I want peace. I want a, you know, clear conscience. I avoid negativity. I don't want to be remembered as, um, someone that got in a way or someone that wasn't helpful. I want when I'm done for the day, for example, in the office, I know when I leave, I've done to the best of my ability and the time. That was a lot of to me. Um, additionally, um, if you've got a sound mind, you have a sound body and those two go hand in hand. Uh, especially in IT, we all realize IT is, we're very blessed. It's a, it's a great, uh, way of making a living, but it can be challenging on both sides, uh, mentally and physically and, and additionally, um, you always want to be happy, but you want to be happy, not only in the office, but you want to bring that happiness home because if the home isn't happy, then you've missed the whole point. And um, you bring that negativity. There's a potentially bring that negativity, negativity home, or if you take it to the office and the whole mood just goes tumbling down. And lastly, you want to, everyone wants to be successful, but it has to be done in the correct way. You have to be a thorough through your hard work, but be honest, doing so. Um, but also in always focused on trying to bring people up as opposed to bringing them down. Leon:     14:09     Right? And those are all really good framing ways of framing what we're doing and what we're growing toward. But I also think those are good examples of, of areas of our life that when we, when we fall short or haven't yet achieved a particular level that we have in our mind, that creates an enormous amount of frustration for us. You know, just taking health as an example. You know, when, uh, you know, if, if we are exercise, uh, prone, if we, if we like to exercise and uh, we've pulled a muscle or whatever and we need to give something arrest. I, I, I grew up in a household where lots of people in my family played lots of different sports and there were injuries and I just know there was an enormous amount of frustration waiting for those injuries to heal. And not wanting to wait and wanting to get right back to it. And I'm losing so much ground and you know, or as we get older, perhaps, you know, I can't do what I used to do. And all those things weigh on you. And again, to the, to the point of this, uh, this episode, this podcast, is that we have to find ways of pacing ourselves, finding the right pace for the right moment. Because otherwise, you know, like, you know, health, it's not what I want it to be. Okay, fair. But at the same time, it is what it is, what it is. That doesn't mean you settle for it, but today your health today is your health today and you have to come to terms with that so that you can get to your health tomorrow, which hopefully will be better, which hopefully will grow. Um, but denying or, or railing at it, I don't think is gonna help you get anywhere. Josh:      16:02     Yeah. Yeah. I would really want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean a old Arnold, new Arnold, whatever, like. Leon:     16:08     I was going to ask, 'Which one?", like seventies Arnold. Josh:      16:10     Yes. Al:           16:10     Or the latest terminator movie, Arnold? Josh:      16:13     Yes, I mean all of them are improvements on the current, uh, Josh Dad Bod. But it's just not worth pursuing for me. I do not want that level, but I am in awe of people who are willing to put the time and effort in. And, uh, you know, the previous episode we talked about how Crossfit is a cult. And I still do believe that however, I am completely amazed at people who do Crossfit the, the feats of strength and endurance, that those, those dedicated individuals pull off their mind boggling. I, I'm absolutely, I, I honestly, it's overwhelming for me to watch them perform. Leon:     16:57     Okay. So, so I just want to clarify though, just because we understand realistically that, that we, you and I, at least I'm leaving out loud at this one. You and I at least will never get to the Arnold Schwartzenegger, uh, you know, pinnacle of health, the, the 80 year old Arnold, um, pinnacle of health. Does that mean we don't start, does that mean like, oh well I can't, I will never be natively fluent in Spanish, so why bother? Josh:      17:23     Yes. Leon:     17:25     Really? Josh:      17:25     No, I mean someone had to say yes. There's always gotta be the opposite. Leon:     17:29     Oh, ABC -- Always Be Contrarian. Josh:      17:32     Yes. Leon:     17:33     Okay. Al:           17:33     If I could share one example, it's not about me, but, um, you know, I've put on some weight in the past few years. A lot of it is attributed to my lifestyle. Um, I will blame, I, it's my responsibility. I accept ownership for it. But about five, six ago, I was actively jogging. I didn't care how fast I was doing it. I was doing it for the sake of getting out there. Uh, and it was, it was, there were two factors that were involved, obviously physically, but mentally it cleared my mind every time I went out. Josh:      18:05     Yeah. Sorry, I'm reading a great book. Uh, and I mean, shout out to my coworker and friend Zach Mutchler for recommending this book, but, uh, and I'm going to talk about it a little later in the podcast as well, but then this book entitled Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. He talks about that the runner's high, that, that thing that you get when you run in. I honestly, I have never, no, I shouldn't say never. When I was younger, I was a cross country runner. Um, and that runner's high is real and it is very much a, it is a chemical reaction. Uh, and it puts your body in your mind, um, in, in, in harmony with one another. And as I'm talking, I'm thinking, "Josh, you are such a hypocrite because you don't run and you don't want to run." But, uh, there are, there are other things that I think can establish that same, a harmonious balance and maybe without, you know, the impact to my knees and my back and my feet and all those things. Leon:     19:11     And that goes, and that goes back to what I was saying about, you know, health or whatever, you know, "Ugh, I can't run anymore because my back" my like, okay, but look, what can you do? How can you get that? Um, and just, you know, for the record, I'd never had a runner's high. I'm also, I just, I don't know why I put him in the same category. I've never had meat sweats. So those are two goals that I think that I still want to try to figure out. If I could find my way to, um, Josh:      19:33     The latter is not going to happen with the former. I made the.. Josh:      19:36     No, no, no, no, no. They, they cancel each other out. Correct. And also meat sweats is a very expensive proposition. We've talked talking about kosher meat. Okay. So, um, it doesn't mean just because we may not be able to attain the a particular goal, whether that's a runner's high or whatever, or, you know, I can't run because of my knees. It doesn't mean you don't start or start something. It just means that you're realistic with yourself. You're gentle with yourself about it. Al:           19:59     Right. And if I could add to it, sometimes the juice is not necessarily worth the squeeze. So you've gotta have a considered approach. You have to consider everything that's involved and be thorough and analytical while considering these choices. And you know, as we, as we get older, um, patience is critical. So we have to practice it because, you know, I forget with the, it was Joshua or Leon that just mentioned this is a potential for, you know, a higher risk for injury. As we get older. We're, we're not that spring chicken. Like, you know, like we'd like to hope we are and um, you know, you just have to be smart and wise with your decision making. Josh:      20:36     I think as my previous story demonstrated, uh, even when I was younger, I was at a higher risk for injury. Um, so people like me probably just should not do sports. I mean I tried out for the football team and got hurt in the first practice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks Leon. Leon:     20:54     Not a problem. I can just look, I mean, you know, we're only so tall and we were only so, like, there's just, there's a reality there. Right? Josh:      21:02     It's true. It's true. It's so, you know, as I think about how would I go from a, you know, my glorious Dad Bod to Arnold Schwarzenegger, I think that the article that really got us kickstarted, um, talks specifically about how to do that. And it's this idea of these micro shifts. Um, and that if I'm going to, if I'm going to decide that I want to achieve a goal, like, uh, speaking Spanish, am I going to become fluent in Spanish tomorrow? Uh, unless I can pull a matrix and get jacked in and it downloaded. It's not going to happen. Although if that exists out there, um, my, my contact details are in the show notes. I want it. Al:           21:47     [Laughter] Josh:      21:47     Um, it's the micro, Leon:     21:48     I know Kung Fu. Josh:      21:49     I know. I mean, I don't actually put that past you, Leon. You also know how to do sword fighting, so... Leon:     21:57     Well that's true. Josh:      21:59     But I think it's still those micro shifts, right? Do what do we change today so that tomorrow we're better? And whether we're talking about an intellectual pursuit or a religious pursuit like that, that's where we go. I can't be the same today and tomorrow as I was yesterday because then I haven't improved. But if I improve in those, those very, uh, nominal ways, the collection of those, I mean, I think this is called life. The collection of those experiences gets me to my destination. Leon:     22:28     And that's, I think that's a key is, is both recognizing and appreciating the value that those small micro shifts, um, can make. Uh, just reminds me when we were, uh, we were in Jerusalem and my family and I, and my son was, uh, about eight or nine when we went. And one of the the one of the features about Jerusalem when you're going down to the Kotel to the wall is there are a lot of people asking for charity. They just, you know, sort of sit in chairs on the steps down and stuff like that. And, and, um, my son had a pocket full of, and he was very excited. He had a pocket full of Israeli coins, some shackles, and he was really happy to use them and whatever. And this woman asked for, uh, you know, this woman had her handout. And so he was really excited to be able to give charity like that. So he handed her and she looked at him and I, I apologize because it does not cast her in a very good light. She looked at me, she says "This, this is nothing." And we were all taken aback by like, it'd be one thing if a grown adult handed her a penny, you know, like what do you think you're doing? But this was a little boy who, you know, probably didn't understand what the value of the coinage, you know, together ...And, but I, my son was so brilliant, he, he looked at her and says, "But they add up!" And we just, we walked on. But that's always stuck with me is, you know, how many times are we the person with her handout saying "This is nothing." And how often do we need to be told, like my son said, "But it adds up." Al:           24:08:00               But his intentions were well. Leon:     24:10:00               Right, right. No, no, his intentions were pure. And I think that that's the other thing, when I want to learn Spanish, when I want to go for a run and I make it, you know, three houses down and then I can't keep going or whatever. It's not, oh that was nothing. You shouldn't, why bother even getting up, putting your shoes up. No, it adds up. Okay, so you made it three houses tomorrow. Make four houses a week from now, make four houses, who cares? You went for a walk. You know, I think that we have to be gentle with ourselves in that way. Um, you know, we, we talk about our religious philosophy and I think we're all aware that all our religions teach, uh, teach kindness, you know, be kind to others. But we forget that that also includes ourselves. That we need to be kind to ourselves and we would, we, who would never be that brazenly mean to another person about their progress. If someone said, hey, can you tutor me in this thing? We would never get in their face about how poorly they're doing or how slowly you have long it's taking or how slow they're going. We would never do that. But at the same time, our own internal mental self-talk can be really, at least for myself, I'll speak for myself. My, my internal self-talk is brutal sometimes. It's really, really painful. Josh:      25:24:00               One of the most devastating experiences I've had in my life and in my entire life was coming to that moment. And we, we talked about it on the last podcast where I knew that I could no longer be Mormon. It wasn't that I thought, "Oh, well this Mormon thing is hard. It was holy crap, I can't do it." Followed shortly thereafter by "Why didn't I know this sooner?" And, uh, my, uh, Maya Angelou, who is a preeminent, uh, African American poet, said something that it touches my soul every time I read it. And she has been misquoted by so many people, so this is the actual quote "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." And to me, that really is the key, right? That is the thing that unlocks the ability to continue to grow in life. Uh, without it. If we were to hold ourselves accountable, um, for the things that we didn't do or that we did when we didn't know that we should or should not do them, we would be, we would be gripped by that guilt of a failure. Um, or that, that guilt of acting. Um, I mean, yeah, if you didn't know you, you couldn't be held accountable. And that, that's the key for me. Uh, and I, that goes to everything, right? It's not just my religious pursuits, but I mean, I make mistakes at work all the time. Uh, and that's usually just, you know, I in the first hour of my day and the, the key is, did not, "Did Josh make a mistake?" It's, "Did Josh make the exact same mistake that he made yesterday and that we taught him how to not make again, did he do it over and over again?" And that to me is, that's how we measure progress, right? I mean, we're not ever going to find the perfect person, the perfect IT pro, they do not exist. There are no rockstar candidates out there. Leon:     27:37:00               Um, so I wanna I wanna point out that in a previous episode Yechiel Kalmenson, uh, mentioned that programming is basically the state of going from, going from a state of brokenness, complete brokenness to a state of functionality. Not the other way around. That when you start out with a clear screen, basically what you're saying is the entire program doesn't work. And as you begin to add lines of code, you're adding things that do work. So, you know, I, I think sometimes we think it's, it's working and then I broke it. You know, Josh, to your point, I made mistakes. No, no, no. You showed up in the day, you know, beginning of the day and everything needed your help. And so you just started working your way through those things. It's again, a way of us being gentle with ourselves. So one more thing I want to just throw out there before we transition to the IT version of this conversation is that a, so my oldest son is on his way to YUeshiva. He graduated high school and he's on his way. And part of his post high school curriculum includes, uh, an entire section of what's called Mussar and Mussar is self-improvement. Um, so just imagine going to college and having an entire section of your class of your curriculum dedicated to being better, being a better you. And some of the hallmarks of this, uh, program of this movement is that first of all, you're gonna work with a coach. You're going to work with a Rabbi and you're going to talk about who you are and where you are now and who you want to be. And the, the key pieces that the, the Rabbi that you're working with is typically gonna tell you to do something insanely small. Like really, we would almost look at it as being in consequential, you know, put your right shoe on before you put your left shoe on. Like what? No, just do it. Just, that's the improvement. That's what you're gonna work on. Like are you, I just told you that I have trouble like with gossiping. Yeah, I know. I know. Put your rights, you on your left, you want. And some of it is just terraforming your brain to accept doing things differently. But some of it is back to the point that was made earlier. You know, making small changes in some cases are the only kinds of changes you can make. But making sequential small changes, again, it all adds up. So I find that wonderfully inspiring that there's an entire movement that looks at things this way. Josh:      30:14:00               I like that thought process. I like, um, I think in the times with other respect that we live in now, I think a lot of more people should focus on that aspect. Josh:      30:22:00               Yeah. And once we picked that idea of doing, um, that opens up new pathways, I everyone remembers that scene from, uh, Indiana Jones, um, where he, he's going for the, the Holy Grail. Right. And he comes to that, that chasm between, you know, the two doorways and he can't see the path. Right. And then he's got to take that step out. I mean, okay. It's kinda kitschy. I get it. Um, but that really is our life. Sometimes we have to step, no, let me rephrase that. Every time we have to step out so that we can gain the perspective of the road that we've walked on. And sometimes, I mean, especially if it's Monday morning and you're, you're, you're me, you're going to come to a point, uh, and you're going to step out and you're going to realize that's not the road that you are should be walking and you get back up and you go back to bed. No, I mean that doesn't happen too often, but you, you have to realize sometimes you have to step down the wrong road to know that that's the wrong road and it does mean having to backtrack a little and then you walk a different path and that's also okay. You are not going to make the right choice. But if your every day making those small incremental changes, then you don't have to unwind, um, a lifetime of change to go down the path that is actually the right path for you. Al:           31:50:00               Baby steps. Josh:      31:50:00               Baby steps. Leon:     31:52:00               Are the only steps. Honestly, that's not the only ones you can take. Okay. Let's, let's take all of this into the IT context. Um, you know, again, the idea of step-by-step and incremental growth and learning what, you know, what experiences do we have in it that reflect this outlook? What experiences do we have that either standing contradiction to it or work against it or support this idea? Josh:      32:17:00               I just have to point out that every time you say step-by-step, uh, Martika's Toy Soldiers runs through my head every single time. I just, I, I can't undo it. Al:           32:28:00               That's your, that's your ear worm for this podcast. Josh:      32:31:00               I was thinking Backstreet Boys or what was the other boy group that had that Song Step-by-step, Josh:      32:36:00               uh, Boyz2Men, no, not Boyz2Men,... Al:           32:37:00               N'Sync! Leon:     32:40:00               There we go. All right, so we are now fully dated in our eighties. Worry. Very good gentlemen. Very good. Okay. Okay. Josh:      32:48:00               Can we, can we revisit that idea? The idea that there is no Rockstar job candidate and what can we s let's stop assuming that you can take, you can fire somebody and then go find the perfect and, and I'm air quoting my brains out right now for all of our listeners, that you can find that perfect candidate. There is no rock star. The rock star is the person that is sitting there who has contacts in your company, who knows you, who knows your goals, who knows your ideas, ideals, train them, give them the support, and they will be calmed that rock star. But nobody, nobody walks in off the street and goes, yeah, I can totally kill this. Leon:     33:34:00               So I just want to point out that just an episode or two ago, a Doug Johnson, another voice on the podcast who used to be a DJ. He was actually the number one rated, uh, news time DJ in Cleveland for a while, for a few years there. Um, he said, I, "I've met rock stars. You don't want to be them." Like they're not, they're not people that you should aspire to. Certainly not people that you want to hire. They're not reliable in that way. They're, you know, they, they play by completely different rules. They're fun to watch, but they're not somebody I would want on my team necessarily when we're talking, when we're thinking about rockstar personalities, that's not exactly what we're talking about. So, yeah, I want that whole phrase, that whole term just to go away. Al:           34:23:00               Yeah, I know. And it button, it's taught in other professions as well. Inevitably we're always surrounded by that hero, that person that wants to put themselves out in front of everybody else. But sooner or later that hero comes tumbling down in their true colors and their intentions come crashing down on them. Leon:     34:41:00               Right. Josh:      34:42:00               Um, it's, it can be a challenge professionally, especially if you're in a team centric environment because you find yourself, and I can only speak for myself, but again, we've probably all been in this situation. It's hard because you want to bite your tongue, but on the other hand you want to say something and point out this person. Yeah. And so it's, it's a balance and you have to take those considerations and in fact, what's most important for you but also your team members moving forward. Josh:      35:10:00               I mean, once again, Martika comes to the rescue, right? Step by step, heart to heart, left, right, left. We all fall down like toy soldiers. Al:           35:18:00               This guy's on fire. Leon:     35:19:00               Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Um, very good. Yeah, I think that, uh, um, uh, again, the, the concept of rock star is, is not a healthy one. It's not healthy to try to conceive of yourself as one of those kinds of personalities. And um, certainly often not healthy to be around. And I want to differentiate between a quote/unquote a rock star and somebody who, uh, the term I used as a force multiplier, you know, somebody who is so effective in what they do, that they make the people around them better as well. They lift everyone up. Um, not through necessarily technical prowess. It can be through enthusiasm, it can be through a positive outlook. It can be through just being really, really good at documentation or being really organized about things. I mean that that can be its own force multiplier, but a Rockstar is, that's not, that's not what's meant when employers say, I'm looking for a rockstar candidate. And that's not the same thing as a force multiplier. Somebody who actually makes you better "for being in the team with them. Al:           36:29:00               Right. Josh:      36:31:00               Um, okay. So other things about it and this idea of slow, steady growth. What else? What else? What other thoughts do you have? Al:           36:38:00               I mean, for me personally, I think you need to think things through. Take your time, put in the effort and collaborate and communicate with one another. As the old saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day", but on the other side, sometimes you don't know what you got until it's gone. So, um, never take things for granted. Um, be kind, uh, be willing to assist one another and don't do it just to say that you did it, but do it with good intentions in mind. Leon:     37:06:00               Right. And, and to your point about, you know, the hero personality eventually comes out, so does yours. Yup. So even though you're biting your tongue, even though you're holding back, even though you want to say something and whatever, you don't need to because your intentions will come out, will be, you know, will be seen by the people who need to see it. And I realized that that is, uh, a faith statement. And I realized that it is not 100% true in every workplace environment. There are toxic environments. I'm not, you know, I'm not naively suggesting there aren't a, but I will say that in, in a healthy work environment, you don't have to work that hard for people to notice what you're doing. And if you're not in a healthy work environment, okay, now we know what needs to get worked on. Al:           37:51:00               Right. But you can be efficient at what you do and do it at a high level without going over the top and bringing attention to yourself. Al:           37:59:00               Correct. Correct. Josh:      38:00:00               I just want to point out that the 80s comes to the rescue again. I'm like, Cinderella's "Don't know what you got till it's gone". "You don't know what you got until it's gone. Don't know why what it is. I did so wrong. Now I know what I got. It's just this song and it ain't easy to get back. Takes so long." Al:           38:21:00               And that's actually where I got it from that line because when you guys started with the rolling stone, it's on, uh, the, the, that's, I immediately thought of that Cinderella Song for whatever reason. Leon:     38:33:00               There we go. Okay. This, this episode is, it's got people gotta have ear worms coming out of their ears. That's great. Josh:      38:39:00               It was brought to you by the 80s, Josh:      38:41:00               Right? Right, the 80s and, and, and Top 40... Top 40 radio. So, uh, I think there are some things that in it we have to assimilate quickly. We have to, you know, get this knowledge or get this skill down really fast. But I don't think that is certainly not always and not necessarily even often the time. I think that the lifelong learning that is implied by a career in IT. And I do truly believe that. I think that if you want a career in it, you are committing to being a lifelong learner. And I think that means in many cases, taking a long view of how you're going to learn something. And you know, one thing that comes to mind immediately is programming. Um, you may learn a couple of programming verbs. You may learn a couple of, you know, you may be able to go on and stack, Stack Exchange and get some snippets of code that you can slam in there. But in terms of really learning how to program that is going to be, you know, it's going to take you a while. Um, and Josh, I think, I think you can attest to that. Josh:      39:43:00               Oh yeah. Every single day mean Google is the way that I survive what I have to script it, the, that and uh, and Zack, that's how I survive. Leon:     39:55:00               Okay. But, but at the same time, I've listened to you over the course of months talking about your, your coding, scripting skills and they are improving. You know, you're not, you know, you might not be a Zack or you know, Doug or whatever, you know, that level. But those are people who have been programming for a while. And that's the thing to remember is that you are on the, you're near the start of your journey and they're not, um, Josh:      40:18:00               Don't make me quote Martika again! Al:           40:23:00               [Snicker] Sorry. Leon:     40:25:00               [Laughing] Alright, go ahead. Go. Josh:      40:27:00               No, no, I'm not going to call I, I mean don't literally don't make me quote Martika again. That's just step by step thing. We, We can't go there again. No, you're, you're rightly on a I am. I am far better today than I was five years ago. I, I, I remember the moment that, uh, my manager, uh, five years ago was actually our manager. He said to me, "Josh, uh, this team needs this monitor built in SolarWinds, this, this SAM Component Monitor. And the best way to get it done we think is in PowerShell. Um, we'd like you to do it. And I'm like, PowerShell. Google, what is powershell? Leon:     41:08:00               [Laughing] Yeah, right!?! Bad sign, bad sign! Josh:      41:08:00               And it took me a week to write this one line cause I was like, oh crap. Like I don't even, I don't, I don't know what the PowerShell is. I don't know if it's installed like nothing. And I'm much more comfortable now. So yes, you are right. I have improved and I think we need to remember that. Um, on the flip side, I'm going to say that one of the things that always has always come really naturally to me is being able to tie the technical side of what I do to the business. So, I mean, one of those lifelong skills is just because you are a technical person does not mean you don't have to know about the business. You hav..., I mean, invest the time. Okay, look, I get it. People are not always going to glom onto, uh, doing spreadsheets and financial analysis of technical solutions like me. Those things really get me excited. Like, that is what I live for. Leon:     42:06:00               I love you so much for saying that. And, yeah, I think that all it people need to at least have a little bit of fluency, like, you know, and speak a little Spanish, speak a little business. Josh:      42:17:00               Speak a little 'C-suite' Leon:     42:17:00               Um, it doesn't mean you have to become a pointy haired boss. It doesn't mean that you're going to become, you know, evil incarnate. Um, but it does mean the ability to translate technical information into a business relevant context is enormously important. Ah, Bob Lewis, who used to write one of the, uh, Op Ed pieces in InfoWorld back in the day when InfoWorld was, uh, printed on actual paper and delivered using actual post, uh, you know, uh, post office people. Um, he said "There are no IT projects. There are no technical projects, there are business projects with a technical component to them." And if you don't understand that you are always going to be working across purposes to the people who actually pay for things. And they're going to continue to say no because they don't understand. You haven't helped them to understand the value of what you're asking them to do. And not saying it's not important. I'm saying you haven't explained it. Josh:      43:17:00               I'm cheering right now, me and at least two other people. Leon:     43:21:00               But the thing is is that that isn't a skill that you need to assimilate all at once. It's something that you can practice a little bit at a time and grow in somebody who's at the start of their IT career probably isn't going to have enough context or experience. That doesn't mean they can't try, but somebody in the middle or later on in their career is going to have seen a lot more business situations, met a lot more business leaders and really will need that fluency to go along with the cachet of their credibility and their experience, so they can justify the projects and the tools that they're probably talking about at that mid or even late point in their career. So what else, what other things in an it should we be gentle with ourselves in terms of not beating ourselves up because we don't know it right away, but that doesn't mean we stop working on it. That we continue to work on it. Josh:      44:12:00               You have to know how to tell good stories. Honestly, if you cannot tell a good story, and I don't care if you're in the C-suite and talking about a business case or if you are, I'm over with the, you know, the lead architects and talking a technical case. You have to tell a story. And to that end, I have a story to tell. I spent the past seven months, uh, as part of a leadership development, uh, program at, at my company and they had pulled together 20 people from, uh, you know, the ranks of 16 or 1700 other IT, uh, folks and then a whole bunch of customer service folks. And they brought us all together and they said, okay, look, you 20, you have been nominated because you are the high potential high performing employees. Over the course of the seven months we did this project and we, we pitched out on the second last day of this program to our peers and we, you know, we had spent a lot of time putting together this, uh, this pitch, this, uh, this presentation and it. Fell. Flat. Oh my goodness. And I thought like, work, we're good. Like they were good engineers, we're good customer service people. Like we know how to present. And we sucked. So that night we all got together, you know, late after our long day of training. And we rewrote our presentation and we focused on the narrative of the story instead of just trying to dump data into people's heads, we brought them along on the journey and people, oh, like we nailed it. Uh, so I think that that idea of, yes, I need to convey to you all the important details needs to be interwoven so beautifully with, let me tell you why these details are, let me help you understand why these details are important to you. So, yeah, learn how to tell good stories, Al:           46:09:00               right? I, I, I often find myself and we've got an intern, an intern that's currently working with us. Um, his first, uh, experience in IT. I always use expression with when I'm describing something with him, I'm painting a picture. I want you to see it for yourself. I want you to comprehend it. I want you to understand that. But let me know if there's something you're unsure of because if I'm not explaining it properly, I'm not doing my job and then I'm failing you. Leon:     46:35:00               Right? And, and also say your work with Tech Field Day. I mean, that's what tech field day is all about, right? A bunch of it thought leaders and experts in a room all telling stories to their audience about what they're seeing. Um, you know, it painting that picture, allowing the reader to live vicariously through your experience, to see IT through your eyes. That's, you know, that's what makes you so valuable in that tech field day context. Um, and, and y, you know, you're invited to be part of that group. So that's, that's it. That's the skill. Josh:      47:07:00               I think that Al has demonstrated that. The other thing that I, I think takes a career, a lifetime to build and that is to be a leader and not a manager. You talked about establishing that vision for this, this new, uh, individual who was in IT letting them see for themselves. That is what good do. Again, I talked about this book, leaders eat last, why some teams pull together and others don't. By Simon Sinek. It was recommended to me about a week and a half ago by a coworker and friend, Zack Mutchler. I have been devouring this book ever since Zack made this recommendation. To me it might be the to the detriment of my career because it sends, set some pretty lofty goals for what leaders should be. But, oh, that idea of, uh, rallying people around the, uh, the thought, the idea of the vision is such a powerful narrative. And there certainly, we should talk more about that book. I'm going to put that out for an idea cause there are some great, um, some really great parallels between that book and, uh, our, our religious beliefs. A future episode to come. Leon:     48:19:00               You heard it here first. Al:           48:20:00               Yeah. Right. Leon:     48:21:00               All right. Anything else in the IT context? Anything else that, uh, you know, slow growth step-by-step applies. Josh:      48:28:00               So the, the article that they kicked us off, um, had a quote in it and it was right at the end of the, the article and it said, "Stop just wanting to get things done and start, becom..., Start wanting to become the person who gets things done." And that, that goes to that really incremental changes you can achieve. And I think Al, you talked earlier about achieving a certification, you can achieve that. You can, I can learn how to quote "program in Python" or I can learn how to quote, "speak Spanish". You know, "Yo quiero Taco Bell" is Spanish, but I am, I don't actually know how to speak Spanish. Um, so be the person who, who brings about change by, uh, by your actions, those small and simple things. And that will really, that that's, that's where we get enlivened and then we become better people. We become better coworkers, better friends, uh, better spouses, uh, you know, better brothers and sisters and I mean the world world's better place. And then the eighties kicks in. Josh:      49:36:00               I definitely draw motivation from people that come back to me, uh, and it could be five, six, seven years, however long from now, but they'll come back to me and say, "You know what, that moment that you explained something to me and it wasn't done in a technical way, made the difference for me in my career." You shine light where maybe others didn't or they weren't aware of how to do it. And it just like a, and then you said it earlier, Josh, and as well as you Leon, it's just painting a story, telling a story, being relatable, not talking down to a person but talking to them. Leon:     50:10:00               Right. Sharing with a person. Yeah. Um, yeah. So Josh, to your point that, that last quote about, uh, just stopping, I'm going to get things done. Um, a friend of mine, uh, who would tutor kids in at both ends of the intellectual spectrum. So she tutored, uh, special needs but also tutored, um, kids who would be classified as geniuses. And she was working with one sixth grader who was, you know, quote unquote a math genius. And the kid himself said, well, you know, I could just skip a couple of grades and you know, get to ninth grade and start, you know, and just work there. And my friend said, why, why do you want to do that? You know, if, if you want to do that because you see the, all the really cool math is in ninth grade and you want to get there sooner. I'm right there with you all help. But if you want to, if you want to just get this done so that you can, you know, play video games, it's not worth it. You might as well stay in sixth grade math and just skate through it because you're not doing it for any particular point. Do you want to get math done so that you can focus more on, you know, physics or English or something else you want, you want this off your plate, you have more time for something else, fine. But if you're doing it just to get it done, I just want it done. I want it out of my way. I don't care about it intrinsically. It doesn't represent anything for me and I don't have any plans to do anything else either with it or, or in place of it then then what are you doing? Who are you? You know, you're the person who skipped two grades of math to play World of Warcraft. Like that's not, it's not a thing. So, um, I think about that in the same way. You know, I want to be the person who got to do this other thing. I want to be, you know, I want to get ahead so that I can do more. I can enjoy more. Al:           52:01:00               Yeah. You're striving to excel and achieve and you've got a desire to continue to improve. Leon:     52:09:00               Okay. So any final words? Any final thoughts before we wrap this up? Josh:      52:12:00               Uh, in the, uh, the immortal words of the wonderful Australian rock band INXS, Al & Leon:           52:20:00               [Snickering & laughter] Josh:      52:20:00               uh, don't change for you. Al & Leon:           52:27:00               [Hysterical laughing] Leon:     52:27:00               [Laughing] No, go ahead, keep going... [More laughing] Al:           52:27:00               [Laughing] It's a good thing. People will see this, but they'll just hear this. Josh:      52:31:00               This is good. Don't change... Josh:      52:37:00               [More laughing] No, no, it's great! Everyone:           52:37:00               [Laughing so hard we are crying now] Leon:     52:37:00               [Laughing more, trying to get under control] Ok, ok, I'm muting myself. Okay, go ahead Josh. Al:           52:37:00               [Laughing so hard he is snorting] Josh:      52:37:00               [Breathless laughing, pounding the table] Leon:     52:37:00               Josh? Al:           52:37:00               [Laughing] He walked away. He couldn't take it! Now he's got me looking up an INXS on my phone. Nevermind. Right. Leon:     53:01:00               [Laughing] We're going to leave you guessing. Read the show notes. We'll find out what the quote was. Thank you so much, Al. It's good to have you back. Al:           53:07:00               My pleasure. Leon:     53:08:00               [Much more laughing] I love you like a brother. Okay. Josh:      53:11:00               [Laughing] See you later guys! Josh:      53:13:00               [More laughing] Pleasure to meet you Josh, thank you. Beautiful. Speaker 5:           53:14:00               Thank you for making time for us this week. To hear more of technically religious visit our website at TechnicallyReligious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions, or connect with us on social media. Leon:     53:26:00               You can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you might find you get what you need. Josh:      53:32:00               Wait, did you just quote the Rolling Stones? Leon:     53:35:00               No, that was, that was from a wise old man. Al:           53:37:00               Mick Jagger is wise??

Josh LaJaunie is faster and leaner than he has ever been in his life - and he’s mentally stronger too. This inspiring man went from being a Louisiana College football player from the deep-south Bayou, tipping the scales at over 400 lbs, to hitting a wall where deep down, Josh was actually dying a slow painful death from overeating, despair, embarrassment, and shame. This kind, warm-hearted family guy’s self-esteem was declining and it started eating away at his overall well-being. So Josh did what few people are able to do in this situation – he pivoted – he put the breaks on his life as he knew it, and he changed his perception about food. By second guessing his cultural norms and redefining what winning meant for himself, for his body and for his life - he healed, inside and outside. He adopted a new normal which included switching to plant-based healthy diet, changing the way he moved his body, and he developed a new mindset. The result - Josh lost 200 plus pounds. He overcame tremendous obstacles to restore and maintain his health. He reinvented himself as athlete, crushing marathons, winning an ultra and even gracing the cover of Runner’s World magazine. Check out his new book Sick to Fit: Three simple techniques that got me from 420 pounds to the cover of Runner’s World, Good Morning America, and the Today Show and learn how to beat those nasty excuses that stand between you and the person you were born to be. Also check out his Missing Chins secret Facebook group and new business that is serving others - WellStart wellness start-up.

Kia Ora whanau. Josh Komen grew up on the West Coast of the South Island and spent most of his younger years outside with the sky and ridges as boundaries. Josh loved movement and physicality- playing rugby league and running with past and future legends Ruth Croft, Eddie Gray, and Boston Marathon winner Dave McKenzie. Josh, as many people on The Coast do, equated being busy with being happy. So Josh would wake up every morning, put in a 10 hour shift maintaining the high power lines that link the West Coast of the South Island to the grid, then chop and collect firewood, then he would run. Fast. Josh was one New Zealand’s brightest track talents, heading to the next Commonwealth Games in the 800m when his life changed forever when he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. What follows is the most unalloyed and powerful conversation we have ever had on Dirt Church Radio. We talk about Josh’s journey through two cancer diagnoses, a stem cell transplant, and how in trying to save his life, it was nearly ended. Josh discusses his darkest times with a disarming frankness and ultimately, this is a conversation about how fear, rage, and despair can be bested by acceptance, connection, and love. It is clear to hear Josh tell it, that these hard learned lessons are absolutely applicable in everyday life. And despite all that Josh has lost, Josh continues to live his life by these values. We are so privileged to have been able to speak with Josh, and are delighted to share our conversation with you. Enjoy.

Do you feel overwhelmed and think that if there were just more hours in the day you could get it all done?  Instead of managing your calendar, manage your energy.  Learn how one minute can save hours with my guest Josh Davis, PhD and author of the international best-seller, Two Awesome Hours. He is Sr. Director of Research and Faculty at the Institute for Personal Leadership.  He is a trainer at the NLP Center of NY, and teaches The Art of Public Speaking.  He received his doctorate from Columbia University, then joined the psychology department at Barnard College of Columbia University, prior to working in leadership development.  His writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, strategy+business, Training + Development, People & Strategy, Psychology Today, and others. He or his work has been mentioned in the Times of London, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other major media sources. Well. Josh, thank you so much for joining us today. I really look forward to what you're going to be sharing with us on the podcast. My pleasure. It's really nice to be back with you. Well, Josh, why don't you tell us - what is the science that you're going to share with us today? I'm looking forward to sharing something about how the brain works that we can leverage in order to get ourselves out of that state of overwhelm when we're stuck at it being like, oh my God, it's just so much to do, right? That kind of a state and instead be able to get us to a place where we're putting our efforts into the things that really matter. I love it. That's something I hear all the time with the executives I work with. They're overwhelmed. There's not enough time in the day and this is definitely something that is going to resonate with a lot of people. Excellent. It just seems to be getting worse. Actually. There's more and more on everybody's plate is no longer a nice to have and I think it's becoming clear to many people that it's not going to be possible to solve this problem by trying to cram everything into the calendar. I don't know. Some of your listeners may have already come to that conclusion, but if they haven't, that's also something that I'm going to suggest. That's great. Why don't you share some of the hacks that you have around how we can become less overwhelmed and really be more effective with our time? Okay, so first of all, I think it's helpful to draw a contrast between what many of us do and you don't have to admit publicly that you do this, so you may recognize this behavior in yourself from time to time that you know when we get overwhelmed, what we tend to do is to just think like, well look, there's so much work to do. I just have to keep myself working constantly. I've got to work every minute. I've got to work more hours. How else am I going to do it? And logically, it makes a lot of sense. It's simple math, right? Do you have a team? You get them to do more work as well and have no downtime as much as you can. That would be a fantastic solution if what you were talking about a factory where you get the exact same output every time you run the machines and then you should just keep that thing running. But human beings are not anything like a factory. Yeah. When it comes to this, we are different in a really important way, which is that we can be phenomenally creative, productive. We can make clearheaded decisions, we can map out plans, we can think about how to influence others, all of the things that are so key to knowledge work. We can do these things just exceptionally well at times and very quickly. You could have a morning where you're just hitting it out of the park. You're taking care of everything that was on your list, and then at other times, if you're anything like me, you can spend three days where you're, you're practically worthless. So the solution is not going to be that what would seem obvious if we were thinking about something where you get the same output every time you run it. Instead, what we need to do is to work with the way that human brains and bodies work now because we can be so quiet, impressively productive and creative at certain times and not at others. It means there are certain conditions that helped to set that up and when you turn to the research you can learn what some of those conditions are. Some of them have to do with things like rather than trying to manage your calendar, you can be trying to manage your mental energy. You can be trying to manage your attention. There are times in the day where if you've just been through a really tough meeting, you might be highly emotional. It's actually harder to think clearly in those contexts that in those moments you actually are not as capable and you may not realize it of making good clear decisions or making them as quickly or even taking into account the same information you would under different circumstances. If it's later in the day and you've been making a lot of decisions, it has been shown with judges, for example, that they tend to make worse decisions as the day goes on and now these are decisions that have major implications for people. Parole decisions for example, that are made later on in the Judge's day, or this side or that side of lunch, they tend to be either better or worse for the people seeking parole - that what happens is when the judges are more fresh, they are capable of and motivated to take into account more information. Now the judges are not aware of doing it differently. They still think they're doing the best they can and being very fair. Right, right. This is all happening often outside of their awareness, the brain is simply operating differently. Once you have accumulated a certain amount of mental fatigue, it is just simply harder to make those kinds of decisions. The thing is, we can take this stuff into account. Now, you can take it into account when you're about to start an important task. You could take it into account when you're planning ahead, you can say, look, this is going to come late in the day. Then the really important negotiation, I'm going to create a space for myself to be able to refresh before that. Get a little exercise, take a nap, something like that. But Carl Icahn, famous billionaire, he is said to have scheduled frequently his really challenging negotiations in the afternoon because he knew that the other lawyer he'd be interacting with would be fatigued and then he would schedule a nap beforehand. I mean, the thing is, it's evidence. So simple. You might say, well yeah, of course I'm fresher. Of course I'm better, but yet you know what the science says you are so much fresher than you realize, the difference is extraordinary in terms of making that an incredibly productive and effective time period or not. Now you can also in the moment, when you're about to sit down to do something, say, is this the right time for it? And now you might say, well look, I'm tired all the time. As time goes on. If you're focused on setting up these periods of time when you can be at your best and the most important work, you will find that you started doing things that enable you to not just be tired all the time, that it actually starts to lead to greater work life balance and what happens is not that you're doing everything on your list, but you're getting to that elusive goal of saying no to the things that are not as important because you're able to think more clearly about it. So I'll pause here for a moment. I've been weaving together a few different pieces. Yeah, I really liked the fact that you talked about not managing your calendar but managing your attention and managing that calendar is something that I struggle with and other leaders struggle with. What are the things from a leadership perspective that you would recommend be on the calendar earlier in the day when you're fresher to really be more effective leading yourself and leading others? Yes, I do have an answer for that. That I think is really an essential piece. We have to step back for a moment and think about what's really important to do day-to-day. And if you're a successful person, you could probably, you know, if we're having a conversation over beers and we were just on the weekend, at some point you could tell me, well look, these are the things that are important for me to do. You know, there's certain relationships I want to build. There's this new marketing platform I want to invest in. These articles I want to write, whatever it is, the important stuff. You could tell me that and then I could ask, how do you spend your time? How long have you been saying to yourself - that's the important stuff, right? So you know what the important stuff is usually from time to time, sure it may not be clear, but you know what the important stuff is usually. And then we find ourselves saying, how did I just spend three hours on that, on these forms or these things that I should have outsourced that to somebody else? Or you know what? I didn't even need to do some of those , to respond to some of those emails. What, you know, what's wrong with me? Right? Right. And so we, we look at it and say like, my calendar is so packed but back to back. Right? And you know, these kinds of ways of talking to ourselves and yet at the same time we can have these experiences of wasting time feeling like we actually wasted the afternoon. We didn't get to the important stuff. So what I'm going to suggest is that the issue is not a calendar issue. The issue is that we're not finding a way to connect with what's important. Now it's not that you don't know what's important and it's, and you've probably have read Covey and you know that you should be putting x percentage of your time into the stuff that's important and not urgent, right? You know those things. But for some reason you're not doing it well. Here is what's going on. Once you get started on a task, you get into this reactive mode. You're kind of on autopilot. You're leveraging parts of the brain that are relatively less conscious, where you're going to be relying on parts of the brain that has to do with habits, behavioral habits, habits of thought. And the thing is as we go through life, we accumulate more and more habits. And the whole point of that is that we don't have to expend as much mental energy conscious. Deliberate focus is very energy intensive and so we avoid it whenever we can. So whenever there's some kind of way of being on autopilot, we do it well. What happens is that let's say you flip open your email and you started checking it, you get on autopilot, right? That takes over and you become reactive. As soon as, that is another way of talking about it, this reactive mode, as soon as you, you're in that reactive place, all of a sudden it's just much harder to be in touch with what's important. It's that it's hard to even recognize that you need to take a moment and step back and think about what's important and whatever you're doing in the moment. Yeah, there's some importance to it. So it's going to feel important in that moment. And so this is why we have to create opportunities and we have to start practicing doing this. To make it a habit, you have to create opportunities to break out of autopilot, to step out of that reactive mode, bring back online this conscious, deliberate attention and focus that attention on the question - "What's really important today?" You know, by the end of the day, which thing am I going to be happy that I spent some time on at the end of the week, by the end of the month, even by the end of my life, which are those things and leverage that conscious, deliberate focus that we can have when we break out of autopilot. The thing is to break out of autopilot, you can't just willfully do it in the moment. It's so strong, it's very hard to willfully break out of it. So you've got to plan ahead. And one of the things you started out by asking me "What can you do first thing in the morning?". First thing in the morning, and I would actually recommend doing this a couple of different points in the day, like first thing in the morning and then right before you actually started your first task in case things have shifted or just to help you refocus is to how, it can even just be one minute. It could be 10 minutes, but it could even just be one minute where you have freed yourself out from being reactive. The computer is not open so you couldn't be responding. Your phone is not in your hand, so you can't be responding to it. When there are not other people in front of you, so you can't just be reacting to them, but you create a space where you can actually step back, often physically, I encourage you to physically step back from the desk if you can and just pause until you can connect with and remember, okay, what is that important stuff? Once you have that in mind, then if you're a competent person, you're going to be able to find ways to think about -  okay, you know, what? Could I afford to spend some time on that right now? If not, when can I do that today and how can I make it so that I'm going to be mentally fresh when I get to that point? Does it mean that I want to do it after lunch, before lunch? Create a little bit of a break, do some exercise right before to reset. That, if that's the important stuff, then it's the important stuff. And what happened is that it also becomes much easier to say, look, here are some of the things that I'm, I'm going to save for when I'm fatigued or I'm just not going to get to, right? Because it's not the important stuff. But the thing is you've got to leverage those moments that you build into the day to do that because you're not going to be able to catch yourself and think about it as you're going through the day. Once you are in reactive mode, you're in reactive mode. So that's something that I think is absolutely critical to do at the beginning of the day. And of course you can do it multiple times a day and should, you know, put it on your calendar or the beginning of any new task or the end of the meeting. Have one of those moments where you step back and you'd do that. I call them decision points. So I think that's perhaps the most important thing that I can offer actually in terms of reclaiming your day and doing the stuff that matters and doing it well. Yeah, I love that. I got that from your recent book, Two Awesome Hours, where it talks about those key decision points and knowing when you have to make those decisions on either, like you said, going forward with the work you're doing or stopping and saying, is this really where I need to spend my time? That's really powerful. In those decision points you can also, after you've connected with what's really important, you can also just quickly check in and think about how, how mentally energize or fatigued to am I right now? Because I don't know about you, but I can sometimes, if I'm sitting at the computer and I am in reactive mode and I'm doing stuff, I can think like, you know what, I feel fine. I could keep going for another couple of hours, but once I step away and I go get that coffee or something and I'm standing there, I realized how clouded my thinking is. Yeah. And I realized this is not the time to tackle those challenging issues that I'm going to do it in half the time if I wait till the morning, you know, or if I wait till a little bit later and I'm going to do it better and this is the time for me to do something else. So, so you can also check in on your mental energy in those moments you can make a big difference. Yeah, I think that's a great point. Especially the standing up, moving around, catching yourself, even if you took a minute, right, you said, this isn't a, you're not talking 15 to 20 minutes meditation, you're talking one minute, get up and really move yourself away and, and check with what's going on. I think that's a really powerful tip and something that I know I need to do more myself and I know it makes a big difference when I get up and walk around throughout the day, keeping me fresh. One minute to save hours. Right. Especially if you got in that rut, that rut of maybe checking email or focusing on something that's more of a tactical task in the morning. So Josh, how have you applied this to yourself? Oh, you know, that was one of the wonderful things about writing this book. You know, I already had some ideas. There were some things I had experimented with, but when I did the research, I started to, you know what? I started to believe it a lot more to be honest. Yeah. And so I would actually go and experiment. I mean, I was like, oh wow. You know, these things do make a difference. So, for example, , and this was something that you shared this with me earlier, that you went ahead and and redesigned your office. Right? That's so me. Even now that I know that essentially my attention systems are designed to pick up on things that are sitting around precisely, you know, that's what it is for. My attention systems are not designed to stay focused, they are designed to pick up on whats changing, what needs attention, what is threatening, things like that and all the things that are sitting on my desk are things that I owe to somebody or I forgot to do, or it was important or it seemed hard. They're exactly the things that are going to take my attention. It is simply not fair to myself to sit down at a desk littered with these things. It's so much extra mental work. I'm fatiguing myself unnecessarily. Every time I get distracted, my mind's gonna wander to one of those things instead of wander to creative solutions on whatever I'm doing, right? And so I've just gone ahead, you know, I was not somebody who cleaned up my desk and cleared things away all the time. And now you walk into my office and there's nothing on the desk. You know, even like people see it and they sort of, they comment on it. They're like, oh wow. You know, and, and whenever there is a shared space that I'm using, you know, people come in, they always want to sit down on my desk because it's the cleanest one, because they're drawn to that too. They know it's going to be easier for them, right? And it's easier physically to sit down, but also mentally it's easier. So I mean those are some of the things. And there's another one was like learning about how exercise, you know, we think of exercise as this thing that it's like, well if I exercise I'll probably be healthier long term. And of course that'll help my work. Cause if I'm healthier I won't miss work and blah, blah, blah, Right? That's motivating to some degree. You know, it's like I don't want to die young. Yeah. Right. There is some motivation. But what that motivates me to do is a few times a week go and try to work out for an hour, an hour and a half, really hard, right? And it could happen anytime. I could do it right before going to sleep, but now I've seen that exercise is one of the most reliable ways to reduce anxiety in the short term. Meaning like in the next few hours. So if I want to reduce my anxiety and have an easy time paying attention, easy time staying present, essentially letting go of the things that don't matter, exercise is a virtual guarantee, and it doesn't have to be for an hour or two hours. Moderate exercise, 20 minutes on the treadmill, working up a little bit of a sweat breathing heavily, that's going to give me those psychological benefits actually better than if I'm really pushing hard and then I don't want to waste those on sleeping. I mean, sure it will help me sleep. It's nice, not a waste. These are the things I want to strategically use for the immediate benefit. All of a sudden I can just switch into a state where I'm less anxious and more present and have an easier time focusing. Anytime I'm doing important work, that's where I want to be. So now all of a sudden exercise become something that I'm using strategically. I was able to exercise every day. You know, I really, I exercise every day, sometimes a couple of times a day, just briefly if it's going to be key for work, I use it as a strategic tool. So actually thinking of exercise as this strategic work tool has gotten me to exercise more regularly then when I was exercising for its own sake. So as a result of having the health benefits too. That was a big shift for me, was that exercise is a strategic tool to be used for that day or your work capability that day and it's a reset button. You can do it anytime if you need to reset, there's an important thing later in the day, you're having a tough morning, you can build it in. Those were a couple things I think were really unexpected that were kind of real pleasures of doing this research. Changed how I function. That's great. What's the exercise? Can it be 10 minutes walking? Maybe brisk walk outside if you don't have a treadmill or something available for you throughout the day? So there's a slightly more nuanced answer to that. Short answer is yes, but the longer answer is that some of the psychological benefits will occur from something like just 10 minutes of something that you do have to get your heart rate up. You do have to, you know, you want to be breathing heavily. Maybe getting to the point of almost breaking a sweat, but it should not be more than moderate. So if you want all of the benefits then moderate exercise is key. If it's a brisk walk, often it doesn't need to be longer. Like if it's a brisk walk and you're not actually breaking a sweat, then what would get to that level of moderate exercise from, in terms of the physiological factors that are changing, it would probably be more like a 40 minute walk. You know, like going for a brisk walk at lunch kind of thing or a brisk walk while you're having a meeting or something like that. You know, a walk and talk kind of thing could be done if you've got somebody else's really on onboard with that. Something really brief. 10 minutes, you know, going up and down the stairs, doing a few jumping jacks, that kind of thing. But you know this also depends on the person, what's going to count as something that requires exertion. Great point to mention how in shape you are, how far you can walk in and what it will take to do that. I know people who might be in less good shape might have an advantage here because there's a little bit less time they could put it into it and still get some of that. I haven't experimented with that. I just had that thought in the moment. One of my favorite executives that I worked for, every morning he made sure that there were not meeting scheduled before eight o'clock. It was a rare exception because it was so important for him to make sure that he did get exercise and work out that morning because it just made a difference in his day. Yeah. That's great that you have that have that reference experience. Nelson Mandela made it a part of his daily routine in jail. He would actually run in place for 45 minutes cause he knew that it made him so much mentally sharper, is how he described it. Yeah. Well Josh, have you worked with any other leaders or organizations to implement some of these techniques to help them with overwhelm or just be more effective? So I have had a number of opportunities to go in to companies, share these ideas and the different ways that people apply it are just to me, kind of extraordinary. Ways that I wouldn't have expected, you know? So you've got some people, let's say salesforce, that might be in cars all the time, right? And so you think like, oh, well how are they going to apply some of these things, right? They have these very restricted physical locations. And here I've got people talking about how they're able to take exceptional advantage of the idea of these decision points because they have this forced time when they can't be writing, they can't be staring at something else. And so rather than just putting on something to listen to, they're deliberately taking some elements of that time to do some of these decision points and as well as some elements of the time to do something else I talk about in the book, which is really great for fostering creativity and then ending up working less. And I have had, now this will sound like bragging a little bit. I've had people come back to me and say, I have a new problem. Some of my colleagues are getting frustrated with me because they feel like I'm not essentially overworking myself. I'm not, you know, it used to be a badge of honor for everyone to talk about how hard they're working, how many hours they're putting in, how exhausted they are. And to be honest, I'm getting what I need to get done. In fact, I'm getting more of it done and I'm not as exhausted and I'm not staying late all the time. And I've had a couple of people who were sort of frustrated with that, what do I do about that? And I, you know, so there's a famous psychotherapist who once said "progress is moving from the same damn thing over and over again to one damn thing after another." So that's where we want to get. It's like, let's get to that point, let's change that culture. Let's start deciding, well what is it for me, that counts as success and look, some people have been very clever, right? You know, there are some situations, and I've been in these from time to time who I've learned to not let people see that I have work life balance because I know they're not ready for it. So, I don't know if that's where you're going with the question, but those are some of the things that I have heard and worked with people in financial institutions and the big names places and then worked with people in pharmaceutical companies and various different types of industries and different types of levels as well. There's one group that made it a big part of their onboarding program based on this book. You know, there's been different ways that people have implemented this, but those are some of the kinds of things that I'm, I'm very happy to say do really seem to make a big difference. And I also kind of want to let people know it is possible. That's a great problem to have that you know, people look at you and you are so put together, you know, don't seem to be stressing as much as they are. But tell me a little bit more about some examples of decision points that they were making - the salesforce. So I did not in this specific example I was offering, I didn't actually probe and get a whole list of the specific decisions. There's a couple of things that I did get that I can share it so I don't have a whole lot of examples in this case. But one example would be there are certain key accounts and look, everybody knows they need to be putting in, every salesperson knows they need to be putting in more into their key accounts, right? Because these are going to have an outsized impact, right? And therefore need outsized attention and yet it doesn't always work out that way because of the amount of time, the amount of effort that can just go into these other leads. And I'm like you don't know exactly where they're going, right? It can draw your attention and can really like, you don't want to leave any stone unturned. And so it's actually a very disciplined, conscious decision to actually come back and be able to say, "All right, let me step back and look at the big picture here and be very strategic about where my attention is going and about which relationships I want to nurture so that these key accounts, they are getting the love from me that they need on a regular basis." So some days where it could have been days that would go by without them getting the attention because you're attending to these other things, but ultimately you actually don't think need as much attention - its that kind of a shift. Actually intentionally looking and saying, where am I spending my time? And there's a lot of mental offered on client that's not as high a return as others. And it's about being intentional. And the thing is, nothing I'm going to say here, is going to be rocket science, you know? And that's, but that's the point, these are things that we can know ...we're just not doing them. So what I want to suggest is that if we want to learn to do them, we can take advantage of understanding how the brain works and how, where we get into these pitfalls, how we get stuck and when we have the opportunities to think differently, what we would have to do to be, to step back and connect to what matters. That's great. I love that. So as leaders listening to this podcast and thinking about, Gosh, I am at the overwhelmed stage, or I'd love to have that work life balance problem where it, you know, I've got it pretty much under control. What's one thing that they could do right away after listening to this? One small thing that could make a big difference? So there's also a phrase from psychotherapy that "You're looking for the difference that makes the difference". So I will suggest that the thing that makes the difference may be different for different people. But if this is something you're not already doing, then I would say see what happens this week. If you give yourself one minute when you get to your office, when you sit down, before you look at any media, before you look at email, before you open your computer, where you pause and you think about "what's the really important stuff that matters to me today and when during the day am I going to do that?" If you just give yourself that one minute, once a day, each day this week, just try it and notice what happens. Now if that is something that you're already doing, then what I would invite you to do is to go to the next step and during that one minute to ask yourself, "what's my mental energy like right now and as a result, do I want to reorder how I'm doing things?" If there is a really important presentation coming up in an hour and I don't want to be fatigued for it, maybe now is not the time for me to go and make a whole lot of meaningless decisions about emails that are just going to get me kind of frustrated. Maybe now is the time for me to go and do something creative. That's going to get me energized for this and you might end up coming to a different decision if you're thinking about what's the mental energy I want to show up to that meeting for. So that's the second thing you might do during that minute. I love that. Yeah, just that short reflection time, if they're not doing, can make a big difference. And sometimes it's right after you wake up because that's when people check their media. Yes, yes. Most of us have our phones as our clock right by the bedside and pull it up and you know, you're curious and sometimes it's exciting, sometimes even want to see what there is. And regardless if you pull that up, just realize you'd get into reactive mode and look, you can recover from that, but you'll need to have some planned time to step back. But at some point that morning before you really get into things, I recommend if you're open to it, to experiment with not even looking at it until some specified time of the day, like 10:00 AM or even later, you know, just to discover what happens for one week. Just discover, do I actually survive the week? Am I still alive at the end? Do I still have a job, right? Did I end up making different decisions as a result of giving myself that mental freedom in the morning? Yeah. So if you're willing to try that, I encourage you. That's great. I think that's a great tip to start and you have so many great tips in here too in your book Two Awesome Hours. Like I told you, I did read it and I have been applying it and I like that you've got tips in here, not just for yourself but from almost an organization perspective and environment and a space perspective. So I'd really recommend everyone get a copy of Two Awesome Hours and read that. Its a really easy read as well and it's very practical and it's not sciencey. So you did a great job with that too. Thank you. Thank you. I, you know, I worked hard on all of those things. I'm glad to know that you had that reaction. And you know, you remind me of one thing also is that when everybody else in your environment knows the same thing, you can support one another in it. Right? You know, you can know, you can leave one another alone when you're thinking, for example. From a culture perspective, what you uncovered I think has a lot of implications that leaders and HR leaders too can really be thinking about, to set the right environment for their teams. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today and I just wanted to check in with you and say, was there anything else that you wanted to share? Anything you've, maybe you're working on next? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yes, for those people who do find public speaking to be a challenge, I'll just put this out there as a teaser that, it is possible to actually learn to not just get through it, but to enjoy it. And so if you're curious about that, then you know, look me up on Linkedin and you'll see the next time I'm offering the course. I've been teaching it for many years and it's a very different approach to public speaking. It's about how to learn how to enjoy it. And it is also science based, research based, drawing on tools from the behavioral sciences and psychotherapy as well. Oh, that's excellent. And so they should just look up Josh Davis on Linkedin. Josh Davis, Phd, there's a ton of Josh Davis's, everybody had the same idea to name their kids that at the same time, but, but Josh Davis Phd will take you there and that way you'll see the next time I'm doing it, I do them in LA and sometimes in New York. Great, and I'll put your information on the transcripts as well. Well Josh, I really appreciate you spending time with us. I look forward to having you back to share more of your work. Maybe your next book. I'm sure you're working on your next book at this point, right? Yeah, just beginning it. Oh, okay. Yeah, just beginning the process right now, so yes, I would love to come back. All right, well thank you and I hope you have a great day. All right, thanks. Take care. So to recap, to get ourselves out of that state of overwhelm when we're stuck thinking we have so much to do, we can utilize decision points to get us to a place where we're putting our efforts into things that really matter. The issue is not a calendar issue. The issue is that we're not finding a way to connect with what's important. Avoid getting into that reactive mode or autopilot. Create decision points and put them on your calendar because you're not going to be able to catch yourself and think about it as you're going through the day without being intentional. You have too many habits that you've built. Josh also reminded us of the psychological benefits of exercise, even 30 to 40 minutes of moderate exercise to keep your mind fresh. Here's one thing to try over the next week. Give yourself one minute when you get to your office, when you sit down, before you look at any media, look at any email and before you open your computer.  Pause and think about what's the really important stuff that matters to me today and when during the day am I going to do that? If you just gave yourself that one minute once a day, each day this week, just try it and notice what happens. As Josh shared one minute to save hours, I really recommend reading his book Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done, it has some great tips in there. I hope that this was helpful to you and I would love to hear how you're implementing these tips yourself. I use these myself and share them with the leaders that I coach. Want to know more about what Josh is doing - www.twoawesomehours.com is the place to go.  Linkedin is also a way to connect with Josh. If you're interested in coaching or leadership development for yourself or your organization, please reach out to me directly by email at jillwindel@talentspecialists.net Have an amazing day.  

We made it to seven episodes! That's one less than Star Wars has, if you're only counting the main entries. Speaking of Star Wars, there's a brand new one coming out. That's right, Star Wars Episode 8 The Last Jedi hits theaters tonight! So Josh has been marathoning the Star Wars movies in order to get himself caught up on the story. After dragging himself through the prequels and barely escaping with his dignity, he brings a huge question to the table. He asks us what we think of Star Wars compared to other franchises out today. He compares it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Alien, Harry Potter, etc, and asks us if when measured against those films is Star Wars just okay? Since this is such a huge question, we decided to bring on a good a friend of ours. That's right, Gerald Glassford from the Pop Culture Cosmos show joins us to discuss all things Star Wars, including where it might go after episode IX. After all director Rian Johnson just announced that he would be directing an entirely new franchise separate from the Skywalker saga. How exciting! All of this and more on this episode of Topicocalypse. And remember, if you want to ask us questions and have us answer them on the show, feel free to send us an email at topicocalypse@gmail.com or you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Also, if you happen to be iTunes or Apple Podcasts, we would love if you could rate and review us. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

In IT we know that the only constant is change. And for the most part, that's OK. What is difficult is when standards or processes are framed as immutable, and THEN they change. How do we adjust when the company spends $5million on a data center expansion, and then moves everything to the cloud 2 years later? Or when Windows abandons the GUI and goes to CLI, while Cisco moves away from IOS commands and on to GUI and API-driven interfaces? Does our religious/ethical/moral background help (or hinder) us from accepting and adapting to these moments in our work as IT pros? In this episode Kate, Josh, and Leon try to unpack the question and formulate some answers. Listen or read the transcript below. Leon: 00:00 Hey everyone. It's Leon. Before we start this episode, I wanted to let you know about a book I wrote. It's called The Four Questions Every Monitoring Engineer is Asked", and if you like this podcast, you're going to love this book. It combines 30 years of insight into the world of IT with wisdom gleaned from Torah, Talmud, and Passover. You can read more about it including where you can get a digital or print copy over on adatosystems.com. Thanks! Kate: 00:25 Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experience we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion (or lack thereof). We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh - or at least not conflict - with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Leon: 00:49 Last week, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints made an announcement which sent shock waves through the Mormon community and tremors throughout many other religious communities as well. We'll get into the details about that in a minute. But it caused us here at Technically Religious to think about how supposedly immutable truths, whether we're talking about replacing Latin with English during mass or Microsoft's adoption of open source, affect us and how we deal with those changes. Joining the conversation today is Kate Asaff Kate: 01:17 Hello. Leon: 01:18 And Josh Biggley. Josh: 01:20 Yeah, it's still cold in Canada! Leon: 01:23 and I'm Leon Adato and it's slightly warmer here in Cleveland. So Josh, do us a favor and run us down just the main points of the announcement from last week. Josh: 01:34 Sure. So this announcement was made in early April, and in order to understand it, we have to go all the way back to November, 2015, and maybe even a little further. So the Organization of the Mormon Church, or the LDS church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is such that it's a top down organization. So the President, or prophet, of the church, he makes a declaration, often he has to get his two counselors and the other 12 men that sit on the quorum of the 12 apostles. And then those 15 men make these proclamations. So in November of 2015, the church released a policy internally, that was leaked, and then they had to address it publicly, that said that any child who had parents who were of the same gender, so you're in a same sex-relationship or a same-gender relationship or if you are trans-gendered - first, they were now labeled apostates. And that's really heavy language within any religious community. There's one thing to have transgressed, but there's another thing to be considered an apostate. And then in addition to them being an apostate, they also said that no child whose primary residence was with those same sex couples could receive any ordinances within the church. So that spans the entire gamut of: You could not be blessed as an infant within the church; to: you couldn't be baptized; to: if you were in the church - there are certain things that you that you undertake within Mormonism, you know, if you're a boy at the age of 12 (and now the age of 11) you can receive the priesthood - just things that you can't do, many of those rites of passage. So last week, and of course we're recording this in the early days of April, so last week the church came out and said, "Hey, that policy that was put into place in November of 2015? We're going to change that policy. And we're going to make it so that now if you are the child of an LGBTQ family, you can be baptized as an infant, you can be blessed within the church, under the understanding that of course the church is going to reach out to you and, throughout your lifetime because you are now officially a member of the church, once you're, once you're blessed and in the LDS church. That's a huge change because leadership within the church and members at large - admittedly myself prior to my transition away from Mormonism - defended that policy with a couple of talking points. First and foremost that the prophet, he specifies what is the will of God. He speaks for God. He's God's mouthpiece on earth. And second that this was an act of kindness, because we didn't want to - as a church - we didn't want to have people, with their children attending the Mormon church where the Mormon church was teaching that their parents were apostates. And then having to go home to their parents and say, "Hey mom and dad...", sorry... I got... hey, look at that. "Hey Mom and mom, dad and dad." Or "Hey, mom and dad, you know, dad and dad or mom and mom. You're an apostate." Or "You know, we think that you should be excommunicated." And all those horrible things that go along with that. So yeah, that's um, that was huge. I was pretty... I'll admit I was pretty pissed off on Thursday. Not because I disagree with the change that children should be allowed to join whatever church they want to regardless of their parents. I was just pissed off because lots of people put a lot of time and effort into setting aside their personal views and trying to make it so that they align with what they were being told from the top of the church. And then the church went, "Hey, by the way, we're going to change." Leon: 05:36 Right. And you'd actually mentioned in an earlier episode when we talked about opposing as you follow, you said that that was one of the things that caused you and your family to move away from the Mormon church for a while. And then you came back and you suffered censure and a bunch of other things for those views. So you directly experienced some of that just for expressing an opinion. Josh: 05:58 Yeah. And that actually goes back pretty far in my marriage. That goes back probably 15 years ago when that particular experience happened. I mean, just to give some context and then, and I know that we want to talk about this as a foundation for IT. And I think there's a great parallel. And Leon, thanks for calling it out. Harold B. Lee, who was the president of the church from July of 1972 until his death in December of 1973, he said this: "You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory." So, you know, pretty powerful language from the LDS church. Fortunately in IT, apart from Mac users, right Kate? Nobody thinks that their salvation from any of their other platforms. Leon: 07:09 I think actually, yeah, there is actually a Mac airbook that blocks the gates of hell. Kate: 07:14 It's actually an iPad. Leon: 07:18 Oh, of course. It would be. And that, with making a little bit of lighthearted humor is where I actually want to go, which is the IT aspects of that. But before we dig too far into that can we think - the three of us - can we think of any other analogs in religions that may have been that same kind of thing? Again, I'm not talking about the fact that things change. I'm talking about things that were supposedly immutable, or somewhat permanent, and then the group, the organization sort of pivoted away from it. And, and I brought up one which was the change from the Catholic mass from Latin to English, which you know, happened I think in the seventies, if I remember correctly? I could be wrong because I don't pay very much attention to that kind of stuff. But I remember that it caused quite a bit of a stir, Josh: 08:13 Yeah, the ordination of women in the United Methodist Church, which happened well before I was born back in the mid fifties is an interesting one. Again, linking it to Mormonism. A woman named Kate Kelly founded an organization called Ordain Women. She's a lawyer and an activist and she was excommunicated by the LDS church in June, 2014. So everyone kind of waits for the day in which women will be ordained within the Mormon church or within the the LDS church. I don't know if it's going to happen, but we certainly see that adopted. And that's a huge thing, right? Because traditionally, you know, as far back as tradition goes religions tended to be very patriarchal. Where, you know, men were the heads, the household, they were the heads of the church. And so for the United Methodist to allow women to be ordained officially, even though it had been doing it for a long time, unofficially. That was huge. Kate: 09:04 It kinda reminds me in the 90's when the Catholic Church decided to start allowing girls to be altar servers. I remember there was a cardinal in Boston who had saw these girls serving and before the proclamation came from the Vatican, the story I heard was that he told the congregation, "Get these girls out of here." He didn't want to see them serving and that it was something, obviously 20 years later it has stuck with me Leon: 09:34 With religion you have things that really are dogmatic. Sometimes we throw that word around somewhat flippantly but religion actually is dogmatic. It has, you know, strictures or rules that are, at least in the eyes of it, internally immutable. And so you've got that. But pivoting to the IT piece, I want to talk a little bit about, about that. What are some of those changes? It's not going to change and then it does and you have to suddenly cope with it. What are some of the ones that we've either heard about or experienced ourselves? Kate: 10:08 Well since you guys were poking fun of me a little bit earlier as being a devoted Apple fan girl I will bring up the 2006 when Apple changed from Motorola to Intel processors. That was a huge thing for the Apple community and you know, many of us had spent years structuring these complex arguments as to why RISC processors are better than CISC processors and you know, insisting that megahertz and gigahertz aren't true measures of processing power. And then all of a sudden, like everything for us was just blown away overnight. Now Macs were Intel based and we kind of had to let go of, you know, our are sworn allegiance to the Motorola chipset. Leon: 10:56 That's, I'm going to say funny, not funny ha ha, but I just had, I would never have expected that to be overwhelming to a community. But I can see that the way that you describe it, I can absolutely understand that you had an emotional investment in a particular hardware standard. Josh: 11:16 Yeah. Well, I think that functional workspace, right? You know, Kate, you talked about defending the position of you know, RISC processors. That's why it's good. That's why it's the thing that makes Apple as awesome as it is. And we all go through that. You know, I've been in the industry long enough that I remember walking into data centers and seeing literally big metal, there were mainframes sitting on the data center floor. The idea that we would virtualize? It blew people's minds and I was like, I thought that was a great idea. Let's virtualize, let's get density. I will admit to being a little slower to adopt a shift to cloud because it, it put in place some barriers to entry for me. When I started my career, I loved the idea of networking, although I'm not a networking engineer, but I loved the idea that you could plug in cables and lights would start blinking and things just work. You know, there was, there was a command line and I actually, I had a reputation for asking questions in class, like "How do you do that from the command line?" But it got beaten out of me. I was that guy. But it got beaten out of me because Windows was the thing, Windows and at the time, a Netware were the platforms for for server managers and that's where I was headed. We've made this swing to having to code, and I don't code, but everything is code now. Networking is code, storage code, servers are code, everything is code. I'm made a very firm stance early in my career that I didn't want to code because I wasn't good at it. I'm still not good at it. I feel like I'm fumbling with 14 hands tied behind my back. I don't know what the analogy is. I just feel dumb. I feel like I'm the guy smashing his face on his keyboard trying to make things work anytime I code. So I get it. Those shifts are hard, and they're not hard because we don't, I don't want to accept the shift to cloud. It's hard because it makes me address other deficiencies in myself that I don't know that I'm 100% ready to address. Speaker 1: 13:24 And I think that that's actually a good point is that the change, the changes themselves may not be so troublesome, but they address either inadequacies or perceived inadequacies in ourselves and we don't like that. We don't always like to have a mirror held up to it. Sometimes I think it's not that though. So given a quintessential example, and I think many of us in IT have experienced this, where on Monday the business says, "Hey, you know, this event is occurring," whether it's a merger or an acquisition or whatever it is, "but don't worry, nothing's going to change for you. Everything's going to be just fine." And then Friday, metaphorically, they say, "Oh, by the way, we're shutting down the location" or "You're being let go" or you know, "We're moving this entire department to merge with this other department" or whatever it is. And, whether it happens in days or weeks or months, "You first told me nothing was going to change. And then it did." And that's the part that I think a lot of us have a hard time coping with. Don't tell me that it's not going to change when you know full well that it is. Enough times in business, things change and everyone says, oh yeah, we had no way of knowing that was going to happen. Those changes are unpredictable and so you just deal with them. But when it's clearly predictable, that's the part I think that is more difficult for us in IT to deal with. And I think that's the whole point of vendors offering what's known as LTS, Long Term Support, for something, like "We promise we're not going to pull the rug out from under you for x years." Josh: 15:09 I want to make sure that we understand or at least that we agree that IT is not religion. Religion is not IT. There's certainly some overlap and are dogmatic beliefs on both sides of of the row. But I tweeted earlier today and I'm going to read it, "A gentle reminder that you are more than your nationality, favorite sports team, political party, or religious ideology. Be more than the sum of your parts. Be better than your weakest part. Be human." And I think that that applies to IT as well. You might have been the person who was responsible for gateway computers, probably cause you liked cows. I don't know. Just because that is what you've always done doesn't mean it's what you always need to do. You are more than capable of transitioning and learning something new. And a coworker of mine, Zach, if you're listening, shout out, he will, he will admit that I am not a great scripter, but I'm also more than capable of being taught how to be an okay scripter, you know? Under his tutelage, I've become kind of useful with powershell and I have even remotely built some shell scripts recently. So it's possible you can be something more than what you thought you always were. And that is really a beautiful thing, both in IT and in humanity. Leon: 16:31 And I've written about that in the past. And I probably will again in response to this podcast about that's actually not what you are. You might be, you know, a Cisco IOS command line jockey. You might be, you know, you might know everything there is to know about the Apple platform, whatever it is, but that's not actually what makes you a great IT professional. What makes you a great IT professional is your sensibilities. The fact that you understand how networking works, how hardware reacts with software, how architecture and design and you know an idea converts itself and moves through the pipeline into an actual product. Those are the things that make you a great IT practitioner and those things will persist even when the foundational platform - software or hardware - change. But again, just to drive it back again, the point is that, you know, we know things change, but when we are told something is not going to change and then it does, what do we do about that? So my question does our perspective, our outlook, whether it's religious or philosophical, whether it's moral or ethical, does that make it easier or harder to deal with? Kinds of events that you know, we promise it won't change it than it does. On the one hand, I could see someone saying that if you are heavily religious, you come from a strongly dogmatic frame of view, then you carry with you baggage of what "forever" means. And when a vendor or my employer says "It's never going to change, we are standardizing on x," and then they change. That can feel like a betrayal because I brought along, "No, no wait, you said the f word, "forever", so you know that means something to me and you just broke your promise." That could be much harder than somebody who might not have, like I said, that baggage coming along with it. I don't know what, what's your take on that? Kate: 18:36 We talked about this a little bit before, but what I found was interesting about that question was that as an atheist, I obviously have a somewhat fluid view of, you know, how the world works and how things are. I am also, technology-wise the quintessential early adopter. I'm the first day that it's available. I will consume it, upgraded, download it, in any way that I can get the new stuff. I'm on board. Josh: 19:03 So I think that that makes you Kate an IT relativist. There's this great thing within Mormonism about moral relativism and how it's such a bad thing, which that is a whole different discussion, but I think that the very best IT practitioners are those who can balance a bit of that. Conservativis... can't say that word... Conservativism plus that moral relativism within IT that you see the changes, you're willing to bring them in, but you do it in a way that requires that you parse them through your personal and your community experience and then say, "Yes, that's something we actually want to bring in to our enterprise. We're willing to adopt it." You need to know about it so that you can also say to someone who has read a shiny brochure or seen a vendor pitch about how amazing a product is and say, "Nope actually that's not something that we want to do and here's why." And being able to speak to a multitude of points. I think makes us great IT practitioners, if you are just that sole sourced individual who only knows about one technology, you're going to find yourself in some IT challenges. I've got a great friend, who coincidentally is also ex Mormon and his name is also Josh. Interesting point. It's interesting for me to listen to him talk about his challenges within his career. He's a great DBA. He is actually not just a DBA, but he designs databases and he's worked on a bunch of different areas and he has really struggled because he thinks that he's only in that data space. And I want to say to him, "Hey Josh," which is a little weird cause I'm calling my name, "Hey Josh, you need to understand that you're better than what you think that you are because first, you're willing to look at your career and figure out the parts that are really useful for you and you know where your weaknesses are." That, for me, is the big part. Are we willing to look at what we're doing today and understand both its strengths and weaknesses and then leverage the strengths and minimize the weaknesses by adopting other technologies? It would be kind of like me saying, "Hey, Mormonism is still really awesome," - which I do think. There are some wonderful things about Mormonism, but I also am willing to adopt some ideologies from Judaism. Thank you Leon. And I'm also willing and very open to adopting that moral relativism that comes along with atheism and other non traditional religious beliefs." Leon: 21:36 I definitely think, Kate, that we have a new topic idea on the horizon, which is whether or not being staunchly religious makes you more or less likely to be an early adopter of technology. I think as an IT person, I really want to solve that problem because I like new technology and I would hate to think that I'm predisposed as an Orthodox Jew to like not want to do the things. Of course I could be an outlier. I could. So Josh, to your point, I think that that IT is not like religion in the sense that no matter how strongly a vendor or an organization says that something is never going to change, it's gonna. Right? Yeah. I mean we just know that that's the nature of IT, is that things are going to change and probably sooner rather than later when you look at the long game. However, I think one of the things that makes this issue, you know - "It's not going to change," and then it does - similar in both religious and IT contexts is what we as people hope and expect from that event. Which is, I think, that whoever's making the change needs to be transparent about it. I think they need to be intellectually honest about it. And they need to be consistent about it. And what I mean by those things is that they need to say that "This change is happening. We saw it coming, even if we couldn't tell you at the time, but we're telling you now that we knew it was coming. We just had to," you know, whatever it was, the merger was coming, but we couldn't say anything because blah, blah, blah, legal, blah, blah, blah, Wall Street, whatever. Right? Um, it needs to be intellectually honest. We're doing this because it supports our brand values. It supports our corporate goals. It, you know, whatever. And it needs to be consistent. And I think most of all, if people were hurt by that first statement, this is the way it is. "This is the way it's always going to be." And then it changes. And people were hurt. You know, an example that happened a couple of jobs back for me: $5 million investment in a data center, building it out, putting tons of hardware in there, and then they moved to the cloud. What are you kidding me? Like, we just bought all this stuff and the company did say, "We know we hired a lot of you for your depth expertise in on-premises data center operations. And now we're asking, you - we're in fact demanding - that you move to a cloud based model. We know that some of you are going to be upset by this. Some of you may want to leave. We're going to support you in whatever decision you make, but this is the direction we're going. That kind of statement makes it a lot easier to accept the, "We never will... Oops. We are" kind of thing. And I think just to tie it back to our opening topic. I would hope, although I'm not in the community, but I would hope that a statement is made to the families that were hurt within the Mormon community for, you know, the years of being called, you know, apostates and all that stuff, and say "We're really sorry about this and we're going to do what we can to make it better." I would hope that that statement would be forthcoming. I guess time is going to tell. Josh: 24:55 Time will absolutely will. Unfortunately Mormonism does not have a history of apologizing. The unfortunate reality of some of the current leadership has come out specifically and said that the church does not ask for, nor does it offer apologies. Kate: 25:12 A long, long time ago I worked for MCI Worldcom and, if you recall, it is now Verizon business. It was sold to Verizon about 18 months after the CEO promised all of the employees that he was not looking to sell the company. MCI is also a huge company. It had definitely been in the works. So your comment about honesty really struck home with me. Nobody likes to be blindsided by change, but even more, nobody likes to be lied to about it. Josh: 25:45 Thanks for making time for us this week. To hear more of Technically Religious, visit our website, technicallyreligious.com, where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect with us on social media. Kate: 25:59 To paraphrase and old Greek guy, "the only constant in IT is change."

Emotional eating can be a real challenge in finding balance. Sometimes there is a sense of helplessness to it. In today’s podcast, Josh Hillis shares his emotional eating coaching strategy to help our listeners find new ways to cope with stress that doesn’t always revolve around food. What you’ll hear in this episode: How effective are cravings control strategies when you have emotional eating issues? Is the answer to emotional eating more control? The emotional release effect when you emotionally eat after tight control The role of acceptance in emotional eating Normalizing the existence of uncomfortable emotions. Diffusing uncomfortable emotions - what does that mean? Gaining perspective around the perceived urgency of feelings The role of mindfulness in managing negative emotions Defining emotional or disinhibited eating Learning to let the monsters ride the bus Being in the driver's seat of how you deal with feelings Introducing a waiting period to delay emotional eating The value of taking time to identify feelings Ways to scale and create distance between you and your feelings Three ways to feel comfortable with your feelings without using food Managing expectations of emotional eating - moving past all or nothing Psychological flexibility as a goal, defined. Identifying and being aware of your “monsters” Thought suppression and the health and wellness industry sales tactics Frequency and emotional eating Rules vs Self-Loving Guidelines Tracking progress - things you can track   Resources: Josh’s Blog Fat Loss Happens On Monday Everything You Know About Emotional Eating is Wrong - blog post Annie quotes Mothers, Daughters and Body Image - Hillary McBride’s book Getting Older: Hillary Mcbride On Women And Aging Episode 13: How Your Body Image Impacts Your Children With Hillary Mcbride Learn more about Balance365 Life here Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Android so you never miss a new episode! Visit us on Facebook| Follow us on Instagram| Check us out on Pinterest Join our free Facebook group with over 40k women just like you! Did you enjoy the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play! It helps us get in front of new listeners so we can keep making great content. Transcript Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversations about food, fitness, weight, and wellness. I'm your host Annie Brees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We are personal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balance365. Together we have coached thousands of women each day and are on a mission to help them feel healthy, happy, and confident in their bodies on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discuss hot topics pertaining to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy. Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio. I am so excited for today's guest because today's incredibly smart and talented guest goes way back with Balance365, so far back in fact that he knew Lauren, Jen and I before we were even a business. Josh Hillis has been a longtime friend and mentor to the three of us and I'm so excited for you to hear his wisdom on today's episode. Josh helps people beat emotional eating using a skill-based not diet-based approach that allows people to create a new relationship with their bodies and food and get results that have previously never been possible. Josh is the author of Fat Loss Happens on Monday and the upcoming lean and strong and yet untitled emotional eating book coming out in 2020. Josh has been writing for his blog losestubbornfat.com since 2004 and he currently attends MSU Denver and is doing his thesis on contextual behavioral science and emotional eating. He's the perfect guest for this topic. The current standard answer to emotional eating and the health and fitness industry encourages individuals to just have more control, more control over their diet, over their thoughts, over their emotions, more control over your cravings. But on today's episode, Josh shares why that advice usually doesn't work. For those who struggle with emotional eating and provides multiple practical tools to help you overcome it, I think you're going to love it and joy. Annie: Josh, welcome to Balance365 Life Radio. We're so happy to have you. You go way back with our team like way, way back. How are you? Josh: I'm good. How are you guys? It's so cool to see you guys again. Annie: I know, like, we're still, like, we're still together. The last time we were Facetiming was under a little bit different context. We were Healthy Habits Happy Moms then and we were, you've kind of helped us mentor us as far as like habits and skills and philosophies and you're just a really great coach. Just flat out really great. Josh: Thank you. From you guys, that's awesome. Annie: So we're so happy to have you and Jen and Lauren are here too. How are you guys? Jen: Hi- Lauren: Good. Josh goes way back to like before we were even a thing. Jen: We met Josh the same time we met each other. Lauren: Yeah. Josh: Wow. Jen: Years ago. Annie: Yeah. Josh: Oh Wow. That's awesome. That's amazing. Annie: So you're kind of a big deal to us, are we making you uncomfortable yet? Josh: That's awesome. Jen: When our book comes out we're going to have a page for acknowledgements and I was just telling the girls last week, like Josh Hillis is going to be my number one acknowledgement. Josh: Are you serious? Jen: Yeah, just like all your work and your blog, like it's been so insanely helpful to me. And even just watching you in conversation with people, like, as creepy as that sounds, but just how you handle people, how it's just and you're just so objective and, and really what we try to embody at Balance365 as far as there's no right one right way for every single person and just being open to tools and helping people build a, just a more varied toolbox and they currently have for their health and wellness. Jen: And also the other big thing that we come up against is that, because we're all about self acceptance and embracing oneself, we also often get lumped into a segment of this industry that we all know about, which is basically the anti weight loss movement, which is like weight loss is so bad. Why? Like nobody better talk about this. And a lot of dietitians are on that train as well as psychologists. And so it's just, it's like frightening for me at times. And I found myself questioning, you know, cause you go to the, you see these other professionals and you're like, "Oh man, like, she makes a good point, like what's?" And you've question your own values and what, but ultimately we have risen as like, look, we're just, we're just trying to take a messy middle approach. And there is really nothing inherently wrong with weight loss, changing your behaviors. Jen: And I so appreciate that and you, because I see you as a real leader and professional, not just in the health and wellness industry. Well the health and fitness industry I should say, but you are now a part of the psychology industry. Lauren: Say, "Hey, this is okay. Come on" Annie: And you're not a jerk. Like you're not, like you're not out there shaming people and you're like still able to like help them achieve the goals that they have in a really like compassionate, positive way, which is awesome. Jen: Yeah. And you've got a couple of clients I was reading yesterday on your page that you have a couple of clients that have lost over a hundred pounds. That's like, that's a, that's a life changing, values altering like those clients, like you've totally changed their lives. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Annie: So now are you uncomfortable? Josh: No, this is like the coolest, most thoughtful, most wonderful compliments I could ever get because you guys are acknowledging me for the things that I've worked the hardest at and that mean the most to me, like in the world. So I totally appreciate it. I totally, totally, totally appreciate it. Annie: Yay. Well, we're like, we can just be your ultimate hype women when you're having a bad day. You can give us a call. Okay. Josh: Can you guys introduce me on every podcast? Annie: We can. But peaking of podcasts, we should probably talk about the topic that I, that you actually wanted to talk about because we've been trying to get you on the show for a while and you're a busy guy. So, when I said, are there any topics that you wanted to jam on and you were like emotional eating, like top on your list. So what is it about emotional eating that you love so much? Josh: I think, so a couple of different things, on like the bigger, like zoomed out level, I think it's access to making the kind of difference that I want to make with people. If they can get, what's really neat is if someone really struggles with emotional eating and they can get that under control it tends to spiral out into other areas of their lives and they have like better relationships and do better at work. I mean like it's, it's really like I don't coach any of that stuff and that kind of thing shows up. The other thing that I like about it is I think it's a place where people feel so out of control and they feel like they can't be this kind of person that they want to be and like they're like, they're being driven by this other thing. And so I like it cause I want to put them back in the driver's seat. and then also the framework that I study, which is contextual behavioral science is just really good for that. And so that's- Annie: I think it's great because I, you have, you have an incredible blog. One of the blog posts you shared with me, you noted that the typical response in the fitness industry to emotional eating is like control, like just control more things and then like, you'll be fine. And,in order to control emotional eating, individuals just they need to control their diet, then control their thoughts, their emotions, their cravings, and you think that that's pretty much crap. Josh: Yeah. Annie: So tell us why, why do you think it's crap? Tell us more. I mean, we agree. Josh: Yeah. So, one thing I just want to preface this with, because it's the most surprising cause I do think it's totally crap and I've gone that way for a while, but I was really surprised this year that I found some studies where they separated out people that had a high degree of emotional eating and cravings, eating and external eating, which is like, you see food and you want it versus people that scored really low on that. And for the people that scored really low on that control was actually fine. Control actually totally worked just just fine. But that's not the clients that I get, you know, they don't hear me. So, the flip side is that control, if you do have issues with cravings or emotional eating, tired eating or and you're procrastinating or any of those things, then control will have an opposite effect. If it works, it always rebounds and the rebound is always, pretty un-fun. Like people really feel like a really, really bad loss of loss of control and they feel kind of gross and they don't feel good about themselves. Jen: So it's sort of that the more tightly wound you are, the faster, harder you'll spin out. And applied to eating, I think people get that release, like they're so tightly wound around food trying to control everything then getting out of control, they just, I mean in the moment it's like a release, right? Josh: Yeah. So you bring up these two really big points. Oh man, it's so cool. So on one hand you've got this like rule based way of living and the problem with having a totally rule based way of living is you break the rule and you're like, I'm off. I'm like explode. Like do it all because this is the last time ever. So, there's that huge like explosion release thing there. And then the other side is that, like, food really does work temporarily for numbing emotions. So, those two things kind of spiral together where people, like, break the rule and they're like, "Oh no, I'm, I'm off my diet and I'm going to go into all the things." And then they start to feel guilty about it. And then they actually are eating to numb the guilty feelings they have about breaking the rules. It's like- Jen: layer one and layer two. Lauren: Wow. The plot thickens. Josh: Totally. Annie: So I understand if you have emotional eating issues or cravings control strategies backfire, like they aren't helpful. What does work? Josh: Great question. So, it kind of all fits in the world of like acceptance based strategies and I get, I like, I have some clients to kind of freak out when I say, like, "acceptance", you know, cause they're like, "I don't want to accept." But that's just kind of like a family of strategies. And what kind of falls inside of that is, the first thing is actually normalizing. It's just recognizing every single time that you have uncomfortable thoughts and uncomfortable emotions, that it's normal to have uncomfortable thoughts, uncomfortable emotions and, like, the foundation is people, like, believe that that's not okay. You know, cause they've heard so much about, like, positive thinking or controlling their thoughts or all of these things or they were, maybe it wasn't cool growing up for them to have emotions or whatever. Josh: But for whatever reason, they think they're supposed to be a shiny, happy person. And just recognizing it's normal to feel sad sometimes. And the number of coaching calls I get on where something really bad happens to someone and I have to say like, "It's okay. It's okay to feel to feel bad. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay. It's okay to have all these feelings." So recognize that it's okay and normal and healthy. Sometimes we can even pair with, well, that's jumping to the next thing. So the next thing is getting a little bit of distance from uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, in act and acceptance commitment training they call it diffusion or fusion. So if you're fused with your thoughts, you feel like they're coming from you, you feel like they're true or true or false, and you feel like there are a command, you feel like there like something that like urgently needs to be fixed. Josh: Diffusion is getting enough enough distance from your thoughts. You can see that like these thoughts might have come from my parents or the media or magazines or whatever. But like, my automatic thoughts aren't me. Right. They aren't true or not true. They're just thoughts. They aren't an urgent problem that needs to be fixed, right? It's normal to have these thoughts and feeling and so diffusion is a matter of, if people have done any kind of like meditation or mindfulness and like, noticing your thoughts and like not so that's where people get caught up. A lot of people have done, I've tried to meditate or do mindfulness in such a way that they were trying to change their thoughts and not have thoughts. So, it's not that, but it's like being able to notice like, "Oh, here are these thoughts and these emotions." Josh: And it could be as simple as saying, "I notice I'm having the thought that blank" versus just treating the thought like it's true. Or probably a little later we'll get to, there's a metaphor for all this called, let the monsters ride the bus and it will kind of pull this together, but, basically get it, get enough distance from those thoughts that you can be with them and that they're not driving and then the third thing is you've got to drive. Like you're the bus driver, but like you can have these thoughts and still take actions that fit your values in your life. And then the last thing is that requires having actually, like, clarified your values. Jen: Right? Right. Annie: This is like my therapy. This is what I discuss with my therapist. Josh: Do you have an acts therapist? Annie: I don't know. But there's, it does feel very similar into that, like just acknowledging like, these are my thoughts. These are my emotions. What is this? Where did this come from? I don't have to act on them. I can just acknowledge them and, and then sitting with them, not like trying to numb them, not trying to run away from them or like avoid them. Yeah. Lauren: I've realized recently that my, I'm very prone to, what did you say? Fusion? Josh: Yeah. Lauren: Where I'm like, this is my thought and I have to fix it right now. Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jen: We know that about you. Annie: We could've told you that, Lauren. Jen: She's doing that thing again. Lauren: Well, I recently found this about myself. Jen: This is like my inner Spock. Like when my inner Spock is like, "Halt." You know what I mean? When we have to, "Let's analyze this." Yeah. Annie: So, okay, so Josh, what does this, what does this look like? So people have stress, they have an emotion. They have like, I mean, it could be emotional eating, it can be a wide continuum of emotions. It could be happy. It could be- Jen: We didn't define emotional eating either at the beginning. Annie: Yeah. Do you have a definition, Josh, that you, or a way to define emotional eating? Josh: So most of what I'm looking at is disinhibited eating. So that's, like, a feeling of loss of control with food related to strong emotions, good or bad? Good, good or bad. Wanted or unwanted would probably be more accurate, external, like, seeing things and cravings and so it'd be eating in response to any of those things. With my clients I also lump in, to me it's all the same thing. I also lump in procrastination eating, tiredness eating. Those are the other two. Yeah. Annie: Tiredness eating being that you eat when you're tired. Josh: Yeah. Annie: That's me. Annie: I do that I think. Yeah. Okay, so you experience these emotions, any of them. And then you have a behavior around food. Is that- Josh: Yeah. Annie: Any behavior or it could be a wider range of behaviors? Josh: Oh, it's typically like feeling some degree of loss of control. Like you're not, you don't feel like you're choosing to eat the Brownie, like, I woke up and there was brownies everywhere. Jen: It would be different than happy eating cause we had someone in Balance365. I feel like her emotional eating was out of control. She ate when she was sad, but she also ate when she was happy. But it's more of a loss of control aspect to it. Not a, "Oh, I'm so happy. Let's grab a cake. Celebrate." It's right. Josh: Yeah. It's not, "Let's have a bottle of wine at on date night." It's not, "It's my grandma's hundredth birthday. I'm going to have a chocolate cake." It's not that at all. Should I get into stuff like what, what we do about it? Annie: Yeah. Go for it. Jen: If you want to. Josh: So the simplest thing to do is to put in a waiting period. Right. Could be waiting. 10 minutes, could be waiting a minute. Does it matter? All we're trying to do is they've got this really, really ingrained pattern of have an emotion, eat and if we can separate that, we're good. So that means, like, if I've got clients with pretty legit emotional eating problems, we'll start off with, they have an emotion. They wait 10 minutes, they eat the thing anyway, almost every time. That's fine. We can totally start there. Jen: Progress being the waiting period. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So, the progress is it's not automatic, they might have to like struggle with it for that 10 minutes or they might have to think about it for that 10 minutes, but at some point, but they've got enough time, they get to choose in that case where they're having it all the time, they don't, they don't have a lot of choice. But it's at least we're breaking that pattern where it's automatic, where they might not even know what they're feeling. They might not even know what they're thinking. Which is actually really common, which is really, which is why, another really, so things you can put in that 10 minutes, you can put it in like looking at a feelings wheel and being able to just like pick out this is what I'm feeling, which actually creates some diffusion that creates some separation. And there's something really magical about people being able to figure out like going from, "I feel bad" to "Oh, I'm sad. I'm sad because this the, you know, my boss yelled at me and that sucks." Right? Maybe it's normal to feel sad when my boss yells at me or whatever. Jen: I do this with my kids like they, but Brene Brown talks about how she has some research that shows, she's done research on college age students and they can only, they only identify three emotions and that's like- Josh: Really? which ones? Jen: Happy, mad and sad. And so she talks about how, you know, in order to be in touch with our emotions, we need to be able to identify emotions and we just aren't taught how to identify. I do this with my kids and we, like, talk about all these different range of emotions outside of mad, sad and happy because you can feel so many different things. But it's so interesting for you to talk about this because I also see so much child psychology stuff that actually applies to two grown ass adults as well. Like we need, you know what I mean, because we weren't taught in childhood. So it, yeah. So it needs to be brought in. Josh: All of the emotion regulation stuff for kids I use with adults. It's awesome. Annie: There's Josh Hillis' coaching secret. Kid psychology. Jen: Go grab your feelings wheel. Annie: Where are you on the spectrum? Jen: Next time Lauren has a meltdown I'm going to say "Go grab your feelings wheel." Annie: All of our slack community, our corporate communication is now going to be, "I feel because" statements, so Josh, you, so you create some distance, you identify some feelings or what your feelings, you get really clear on what that is and then you can eat the thing if you want to still, right? Josh: Yeah. And so they're sort of like these, like, kind of guideline-y things, like waiting 10 minutes. Another like guideline-y thing that I'll start off with, like, either don't do it, do whatever you want. If someone is eating the thing every time then we'll add in like a 50% guideline where 50% of the time they'll eat the thing and 50% of the time they'll find something else. And again, that's just sort of like some training wheels to have to like think about it and choose and be like, you know what, I ate the thing three days in a row. Maybe today I should try going for a walk. Jen: Right, right. Annie: And the point is to really just disrupt the autopilot, right? Josh: Yeah, yeah. Jen: Yes. Right. And also sounds like scaling a little bit. Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jen: Rather than, again, what we see big, big, big problem is people try to go from zero to 60 and it never works. It never works. And Lauren had a really good idea for bridging the emotional eating gap. She said if eating a piece of cake is your coping mechanism, try pair it with a bath, go eat your cake in the bath, and then eventually your association can be more, can become about the bath and then remove the cake and then have it be about the bath, right? It's about scaling that towards a healthier coping mechanism. Josh: That's awesome. Jen: Yes. Go Lauren. Annie: Are there, Josh, do you have any other ways to create distance or to even just feel comfortable feeling your feelings without food? Josh: Yeah. So there's always going to be three different things that you can do, three different effective things. One is you can create distance and just sit with it. Like, just accept this is normal. Right? And a lot of times that's really cool. If you're in a situation where you can't do something else, right, Like maybe you're at work and you've got to keep working, and so what you do is you notice those feelings and you come back to being present with your work or your family or whatever's going on around you. Like, you actually get present with that. The other thing would be to have a menu of different self care things that you can do. And so you notice you have those feelings and then you take a walk or do some deep breathing or take a bath or read a book or whatever. At this point I think I've got a list of like 70 different things in like 15 categories. Jen: I want to just say one thing for the moms who listen and the dads, when I find myself emotionally eating, my kids are often a trigger and alternative forms of self care are not available to me. Right? Like I can't go take, I can't check out of parenting and go take a bath or even go meditate or whatever. And so sometimes I'm just freaking eat a bowl of chips. One thing I would say is that I've scaled it from diving headfirst into a bag of chips to like getting out a little bowl and putting some chips in there and then just eating them and going, "Yeah." So I would say like, I mean my emotional eating skills are not, but they have greatly improved over the years. Josh: Well look at that. So there's a couple of great things about what you just said, right. Number one, parenting is a great context for, like, being able to just, like, accept it and be there. Also, you, you did look at, like, separating out the chips and, like, having a certain amount versus just, like, grabbing from the bag, which works for all kinds of treats all across the board. And then the third thing that that brings up is, it's actually, and this is another thing that's such an important thing. It's normal to eat to chill out your emotions sometimes. Jen: I totally agree. I don't think the goal is like 0% emotional eating. It's like, really, how often are you doing it and how, what is the loss of control there, right? Rather than- Josh: Yeah. Jen: Like emotional eating isn't all bad and it's like, really? Is it? Josh: Yeah. Jen: A couple of chips when my kids are losing it? Is that so bad. Annie: Is it problematic for you? Josh: Oh, and it's one those things where like, like the goal is psychological flexibility. So psychological flexibility is the ability to make different choices. Right. It's just an ability to make different choices. Jen: Right. Right. Josh: Like, never emotionally eating is rigid. Jen: Totally. Josh: Always having to, like, where most of my clients had is they've got like a rule, they don't, they don't say it as a rule, but like they've got a rule that if they have emotions they eat, totally rigid. Jen: Right. Josh: If we can get in the middle we're rocking. Jen: Totally. Yes. Annie: That sounds so familiar, Jen. Jen: The messy middle, yes. That's where we like to hang. Josh: I loved that so much. That is like the best phrase in the world. Jen: Brene Brown, I've brought her up a few times now. You can see I really like her. Josh: I like her too. Annie: But- Jen: Yeah, she talks about being in the messy middle, but when you're in the messy middle you get arrows from both sides, which we have also experienced as well. Being in the messy middle between hardcore health and fitness and hardcore body positive anti weight loss. Hanging out in the middle is can be quite lonely and you can get arrows from both sides. But- Josh: I get that. Annie: Okay. So say you're finding yourself, like, face deep in, like, cake or chips or whatever it is and you're, like, you have this, like, moment of, like, "Whoa, what am I doing?" Josh: Yeah. Annie: Like you're like in this middle, like an emotional eating extravaganza. Josh: Yeah. Annie: What do you do? Do the same thing, like, create some distance still or are there different rules? Josh: Oh no, that's, you nailed it already. It's the exact same rules. So, you notice you're in the middle, you separate yourself from it geographically. You give yourself some time to think about it. You do some sort of diffusion exercise. Whether that's, well, where I talked about, like, a feelings wheel, but also I've got some clients that will journal, they'll write out everything that they're feeling and just writing it out gives them a lot of distance. The biggest thing my clients use actually a metaphor called "let the monsters ride the bus" so we might as well dive into that now. So, it's a really, really common act metaphor and the metaphor is, you're a driving a bus and sometimes you get really cool passengers that get on the bus and they're like, "hey, you're great and we love you and high five!" Like that. Josh: And they get on and off when they want. And sometimes they get monsters, they get on the bus, they're like, "Hey, you're ugly and stupid and you always do it wrong" and they get on and off when they want. And your job as the bus driver is to drive the bus and you could always make a left turn towards, like, numbing and controlling, or you can make a right turn towards your valued actions. And what this allows people to do is allows people to realize like, "Hey, I've got these monsters that will get on, will ride along with me and I can still take a right turn towards my values. Even with the monsters on the bus. Like, my job isn't to get rid of the monsters. It's not to not have monsters. It's to let the monsters ride the bus." Josh: And my clients have identified, they almost always have identified, like, what their most common monsters are. And my clients get to a point where they have identified the monsters that they have in the middle of emotional eating. I've got a lot of clients that have a monster that's like, "One more will be fine, one more will be fine, one more will be fine." Or they might have a monster that's like, "You've already ruined it. Might as well go for broke. Let's start again Monday." And so when they have those feelings, again, they don't treat them as true. They don't treat them as, like, them. They're like, "Oh, there's that monster again. And that guy can ride along the bus. And I know that when I'm in, when I catch myself in the middle, my monsters are super loud." Annie: Are you familiar with Pema Chodron's work? She's a Buddhist nun. Josh: No. Annie: This is feels very similar because you have in that blog post, and I think, I think I pulled this quote from your blog posts it said, "The irony is that when people accept cravings as being normal" or I'm assuming these uncomfortable emotions, "they have an increased capacity to tolerate cravings" and that's just very similar to her work. That's like you actually, by just acknowledging the feelings and emotions you suffer less, like, and that's, like, instead of trying to avoid it or like do all these things like this contortionists, like, "I'm going to avoid it in any way possible. I'm going to do all these things so I don't have to feel the thing that I'm trying to avoid feeling." If you just like feel it and like acknowledge it, like, "I see you, monster, you're on the bus, I hear you, but I'm not going to listen or I'm not, you know, whatever." Josh: Yeah. Annie: It's like you can still take action as you notice, what did you, how did you say, that aligns with your values? Josh: Yeah. Annie: Yeah. Even though you hear them, even though they're on the bus- Josh: You nail. Yeah. Yes. The same. And that's a really, really, really big. So, here's the paradox there. You're 1000% right. The paradox is that when you allow the monsters to be there, it is a lot less painful and it's a lot less intense. The paradox is that you don't want to approach it as, "I'm going to allow the monsters" to like force it to be less intense because then it doesn't work. And so that's not actually doing it. But what you're talking about, which is really cool, it's really, really cool, is that there's two kinds of pain. There is normal human pain, which is like the feelings and an uncomfortable thoughts that we all have. And then there's like the added pain that comes from trying to, like, control and fore and not, you know, and so, you do get to avoid all of the added pain and you're not the first person to be, like, you know, there's this Buddhist that kind of sounds a lot like these acceptance and commitment training people. Annie: Well I think it's, I think it's, I don't know if it's just the universe, like, I've been doing kind of this emotional work to like make these messages become really clear to me. But it seems like I've been trying to, and I've talked about this on other podcasts, outsource feeling good or feeling great all the time. Like you said, like we get this message that like, "Maybe I shouldn't be feeling these things" or like "Everyone else feels great all the time and they never have bad days" or "They never have self-doubt" or they never have body image issues. And it's like, "That's actually just not the case. Like, just acknowledging that like you get to feel all the things and you still live, we're going to be okay," like that. It's like, that feels really powerful to me. But I like that you say like, I love that analogy of let the monsters ride the bus. I could see that becoming a big phrase in our community. Can't you Jen? Jen: Yeah, I was already picturing it as a hashtag soon. Josh: That's awesome. Jen: The other thing is I think when I was hearing you say, Josh, is because we have this other guests, she's been on twice now. Her name is Hillary McBride. We have to, we're going to call her Doctor Hillary McBride soon cause she's almost done her Phd and she is also psychologist and she works in body image and she has a book called Mothers, Daughters and Body Image. And so she has sort of encouraged the same process as far as thoughts about your body, like kind of stepping outside of it. But, and then I think her version of monsters on the bus is to acknowledge the monsters on the bus. But to say, is this really true? Just that simple question, is this really true? And I just sort of have this vision of being a driver on a bus hearing all the monsters in the back, but being able to say, "Is that true? Like, do I have to do that? Am I, you know, am I helpless to this? Is that true?" And you know, the answer is often, like, "No, it's not actually true." And then you can kind of just, yeah. Keep doing what you were doing. Josh: Yeah. Jen: Yeah. Josh: Just to, like, it's, like, notice. Jen: Yeah, just notice. Yeah. Josh: Like it's, it doesn't, yeah. Cause we, it is so normal for us to treat it like it's true. Like it's, like, it's so true. Jen: Right. It feels true. Right? Josh: That's awesome. Annie: Okay. So Josh, we discussed, being aware, creating distance, normalizing the experiencing of different emotions. Is there anything else that comes to mind when I'm addressing emotional eating? And again, I do want to recap that this is like as you, as you said at the beginning, that those are tools that work for people that have emotional eating issues. If you don't have emotional eating issues then, like- Josh: You probably don't have to- Annie: Then it doesn't apply. Or what was the difference that you said? That thought control or thought suppression would work for people that,- Josh: yeah. So, here's where it gets really funny. Cause I got really spun whenever the research that thought suppression worked for cravings and emotional eating for people that don't have cravings and emotional eating issues. And but, like, at first I was like, "thought suppression is always bad. Like how does that work?" And so I actually talked to my friend, Amy Evans, who's this brilliant behavioral analyst and she's like, "Well, of course not because the function is different, right? So if the function of that controllers is trying to like push away these uncomfortable emotions and cravings, then it's like an avoidance strategy. But if you don't have issues with those, then it's actually kind of like, maybe it's just like conscientiousness, right? Like it's a totally different thing." And I'm like, "Oh!" So it's good to have genius friends. Jen: Right? So can you give us an example in context? So person A doesn't have ongoing emotional eating issues, so we're talking about, but then something, a craving pops up or, or they're feeling emotional and they're feeling some kind of urge to eat if they don't struggle with ongoing emotional eating issues, then suppression works. Josh: Apparently. Yeah. I mean I don't coach that, but in the, in the research, yeah. Jen: So what would suppression look like for them? Josh: Yes. So, I'm guessing if they didn't score very highly than it's just a simple guideline that they're just like, "Oh, I don't, I don't eat between meals." I don't eat from the, you know, which is, which is totally fine. Jen: Right? Yeah. We call these self-loving guidelines in Balance365. They're not rules. They're flexible guidelines that keep you in a place of self care kind of thing. Josh: Yeah. So like- Annie: Oh, sorry, go ahead, Josh. Josh: I was just going to say if someone doesn't score really high on cravings and they have a little craving, it's pretty easy for them to go like, "Oh, I'm not going to do that." Jen: Right. Josh: "If someone scores really high on cravings- Jen: Then it's a bigger deal to say, "No, I'm not doing that." Yeah. Okay. Annie: I think it's important to note though, as you noted, as we noted in the beginning of the podcast is that that can work for some people, but right now the majority of the health and fitness industry are selling thought suppression. Josh: Yeah. Annie: To everyone. Like, that is, like, the widely accepted common answer versus, "Hey, like, maybe this is normal." Jen: They're also selling emotional eating at any point as as unacceptable. And so, you know, a person who is has an emotional eating episode one day, that's, you know, we're trying to say in this podcast that that's not wrong. And really, if you don't struggle with emotional eating, whether you do or don't engage in emotional eating is not a make or break for anyone's life. Right. It's not, whether you choose the chips or don't, it's just not really an issue. Like it's really a small, tiny little rock that really, you know what I mean? Like we're talking about, there's people that have real loss of control that going on, you know, sometimes daily for them around emotional eating. So, and it comes down to the frequency. How often are you engaging in these behaviors and ultimately what does that end up? What does that look like for you? After three months, 12 months, three years, 20 years, right? Josh: Frequency's everything. Jen: Right. Annie: Josh, you're so much fun to have on our podcast. Do you have more? Josh: Can I throw one other thing out there? The other thing that, the biggest misconception that I've gotten when I've talked to people about this and I've got it so much that I want to make sure not to miss it. This is still a behavioral approach, right? Like they're like, "Oh, you're like deal with your thoughts and like that" but you still, like, you still have to clarify your values and attach behaviors to that. But it's like, so self love guidelines was that? Jen: Self loving guidelines. Josh: Self loving guidelines, or like kind of like more, more intuitive skills or like, all these different things. The whole point of all this is to be able to do those things more frequently. Jen: Right? Josh: Right. So, all of my clients, I shouldn't say all of my clients. The majority of my clients track behaviors, right? So they track how often they have like a mostly balanced meal or how often they have vegetables or how often they, you know, snacked between meals or how often they noticed their hunger before they ate or how, you know, like how often they were full and stopped and like, they track actual behaviors and things that we can count the real world. Monsters on the bus is another thing that they track and count how often they use it. They also track if they didn't need it, like, "Oh, I didn't need it today," but- Jen: Oh interesting. Josh: If they're like, "Oh, I didn't need it and I used it" or "I didn't need it and I didn't use it." Those would be different things and it seems really weird maybe to use like a metaphor as a behavior to track, but it works really well. Jen: So ultimately you're tracking, the behavior change that you have people track is not necessarily emotional eating episodes, but how they dealt with those, whether they dealt with it in a manner that is more healthy than bingeing. Josh: Yeah. Jen: Right. Okay. Josh: Yeah. And so that could look really differently for a lot of different people, but it's like how often did you use this metaphor? How often would you use a diffusion technique? How often did you use your menu of things you can do? Jen: Right, right, right. Annie: Great. So, so you're putting behaviors with it. That's great. Josh: That's what grounds it in the real world. Annie: Yeah. Josh: Otherwise it goes way. Jen: Josh had a thread on his page, several months ago where you said, "sometimes I think" as far as your weight loss clients, you said "If we changed nothing at all except working on stress reduction methods, people would lose weight without changing anything at all." And then I had mentioned or just sleep, like, just a sleep habit, which is, you know, kind of goes hand in hand with stress- Josh: So good. Jen: Isn't it? So it just sort of like, yeah. So imagine if people just, so what we find is people hyperfocus on food, like they just are hyper focused on it and if you zoom out and you get back, if you just laid your foundations for say stress reduction, better sleep hygiene, anything you identify that helps your wellness wheel go, the food just doesn't matter. People will kind of eat until they're satisfied. Do you know what I mean? Like it's often these, the overeating tendencies we have are often a result of these high stress, sleep deprived, poor coping mechanism, lifestyles that we're living, the rest of the overeating issue. You don't have to be so hyper focused on the food or crank the wheel to the right and jump on the Keto wagon or cause you're really never getting to the underlying issues of why you're overeating in the first place. Right? Josh: Yeah. With my most successful clients, all these things we're doing show up as self care. Jen: Right. Totally. Josh: And it's like, and then the people that struggle are the ones that keep trying to do it as punishment. Jen: The food, the food. Yeah, totally. Josh: And the thing about sleep is no one makes phenomenally great food decisions when they're exhausted. Jen: Nobody. That's right. Yeah. Josh: I will throw out there in case there's any people that work like swing shifts or anything like that out there. For a while I had a ton of clients that were nurses that worked overnight and so for them, a lot of it was just acceptance of every time their schedule shifted they were going to be like unusually hungry. And so that is workable. But for everyone else, if we can just turn off screens like an hour earlier, like, man, this all gets easier. Jen: Totally. We just interviewed a sleep doctor before we interviewed you. Josh: Oh really? Annie: Yeah. He said the same thing. Jen: Same thing. Our podcast is the best. Josh: Your podcast is the best. This was so much fun. Annie: Are you always this energetic? I mean, every time, I've talked to you twice in five years, like you always have such great energy about you- Jen: And smiling. You're always smiling. Josh: You're super great. It's fun hanging out with you guys. Annie: You are welcome back here anytime. Josh: Also, this is, like, my favorite stuff to talk about. Annie: So yeah, you are, you're welcome back here. Anytime. Anything, any projects you're working on that you want to tell us about or where can we, where can our listeners find you or keep up with your work? Jen: You're working on a million books. Josh: I am working on a million books, so, losestomachfat.com is still my blog. I still do celebrity workout stuff and emotionally eating research, which is now a weird combination. I've got two books coming out. Lean Is Strong is coming out at the end of this year. And then the untitled emotional eating book is coming out next year. And that's my big stuff right now. It's top secret. Annie: Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Alright, well thank you so much, Josh. Josh: Thank you. Annie: We will talk soon, hopefully. Josh: Okay, cool. Thanks guys. Annie: Thanks. This episode is brought to you by the Balance365 program. If you're ready to say goodbye to quick fixes and false promises and yes to building healthy habits and a life you're 100% in love with, then checkout Balance365.co to learn more.

Religion and IT share a common ground when it comes to humor. In both cases, if someone doesn’t “get it”, it could take HOURS to explain enough for them to understand. in this episode, Leon, Josh, and special guest Doug Johnson talk about whether that is unique to IT/religious people, our own experiences with tech- and religious-based humor, and whether (as Josh asserts), Mormons just aren't that funny. Listen or read the transcript below. Leon: 00:00 Hey everyone, it's Leon. Before we start this episode, I wanted to let you know about a book I wrote. It's called "The Four Questions Every Monitoring Engineer is Asked," and if you like this podcast, you're going to love this book. It combines 30 years of insight into the world of IT with wisdom gleaned from Torah, Talmud, and Passover. You can read more about it, including where you can get a digital or print copy over on adatosystems.com. Thanks! Doug: 00:24 Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore the ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh, or at least not conflict, with our religious life. This is Technically Religious, Josh: 00:49 So we just missed a very special holiday. Leon and Doug: 00:52 Wait, what? I... Leon: 00:54 International women's Day? Doug: 00:56 Ash Wednesday? Leon: 00:57 Mardi gras? Doug: 00:58 Pi Day! Leon: 00:59 The opening of Captain Marvel!! Josh: 01:00 Uh, no, no. It's that special day when we as it pros, we do important work, like changing everyone's password to "butthead" or setting everyone's email quota does zero, or setting off 500 alerts, you know, for no reason. Leon: 01:15 Oh April Fool's day. Josh: 01:18 Exactly. And in honor of that blessed day we're going to talk about jokes Doug: 01:24 Religious jokes? Leon: 01:25 Well, kind of. I think that religion and IT share a common ground when it comes to humor. In both cases if someone doesn't get it, it could take hours to explain enough for them to understand it. And by that point it's not funny anymore. So today I think we should focus on "jokes I wish I could tell." Josh: 01:39 So like religious jokes, you can't tell at work, not because they're bad but because it requires too much background knowledge? Doug: 01:48 Sure. But maybe also tech jokes that you can only tell the other it people. Josh: 01:53 Or even tech jokes you can only tell other folks who understand YOUR sub specialty? Like enterprise monitoring? Leon: 02:01 That would be like the story of my life as a monitoring engineer. Exactly. So before we dive into the topic, I do want to do some introductions. With us today is Doug Johnson. Say, Hi Doug. Doug: 02:11 Hey, hi.. uhey, Leon: 02:14 You missed it. Doug: 02:15 I know! All of a sudden I realized.. and oh no. I hate those jokes. Leon: 02:22 "Good night Gracie" Okay. Well, and today especially, we can talk about the jokes that we don't appreciate. So that's, that's fine. That's fair. I didn't mean to set you up for a joke you didn't want to hear. Um, so like I said, I think the tech and religion have like similarities to them that they're in the, you know, if you're not in the "in" crowd, you don't get it. But the other part of is that I think as IT people and also as people with a religious background, whatever, we keep TRYING to tell these jokes to people like, "No, really, you're going to love it once you understand it." Like, we keep doing that. Um, and, and that expands, I think to nerd or geek culture overall. The number of times I've tried to explain, you know, Harry Potter or Star Wars or whatever to people who just did not want to, did not want to hear it. Right? Doug: 03:08 Oh, I know. One of the problems that you run into is, you know, here we are, we, we've got all of these jokes that we really think are great and maybe they're jokes in our religious area or they're jokes in our technical area and there's a whole bunch of people we can't tell them to, but there are jokes. Right? Leon: 03:23 Right. And they're our people. You know, just because I can't tell, you know, something that really funny that happened at synagogue or a, a funny Jewish joke to people at work... But they're still my friends. Right? So I want to share those aspects of my life and vice versa. I want to, you know, share a RAID array, joke with, you know, people you know, at shul and they're just, they're not going to care. Josh: 03:46 It's funny, as you were talking Leon, I was thinking first you've just described my entire teenage life, sitting in the corner, you know, laughing about jokes that nobody else gets. And the harder you laugh because you know, you're making fun of that football player who looks like the ogre from your campaign last night and then suddenly you know you're running because you're, and you're trying to run and laugh and you know, you're dropping your "Magic, the Gathering" cards and like it's just, it's a, it's a nightmare. Um, yeah, sometimes you're, you laugh and sometimes you're laughed at. Doug: 04:21 But then the other thing that comes out of that though is if you think, I mean, we want to share the jokes, but sometimes as you note, you're just laughing so hard. Everybody says, "No, no, no. Tell me what the joke is." I mean, they actually, they try and get it out of you and you're going, it would just take too long. Leon: 04:35 Right. Okay. So that, that leads me to, I think the first big question that we should address, which is: is it really that specialized, you know, is religious based. You know, humor and/or geek tech humor so much different from say, sports humor or city location humor or humor that you would only understand if you were of a certain age or whatever. Josh: 05:00 Uh, yeah, Canada jokes, ya hoser! Leon: 05:04 Okay. But again, you know, we're not talking about jokes that make fun OF somebody. We're talking about humor that you'd only understand if you were Canadian. Right? Josh: 05:13 I have a perfect example for you. Okay. So, uh, and this is a great extent. This is a great example of how I have to give you the backstory. So, uh, one of the former prime ministers of Canada, his name was Brian Mulroney, and he was recently in the, in the news for making a very derogatory comment horde, a young politician. He called her" little lady" a way to go. Brian. Brian is famous for bringing in something called the "goods and services tax". It's, it's one of those taxes that was supposed to be temporary and it never was. And so, um, to the tune of the Tiny Tunes theme song, we used to sing a, "...we're tiny, we're twoney, we're all a little loony, since Brian Mulrooney invented GST." Leon: 05:58 Okay... Josh: 05:58 And we think it's Hilarious, right? Where it, and it takes not only an understanding of Canadian politics, but you have to be someone who appreciates children's... uh.. not-children's cartoons... NOT children's cartoons. Yes. Leon: 06:12 Right. Okay. So to my point is, is the premise of this episode not to, you know, pop poke holes in the premise the episode, but is is the stuff that we're talking about tech jokes and and religious jokes. I they is it really so specialized? Doug: 06:27 The thing that makes things funny is the element of surprise that comes, I mean, so that's why the one, two, three for jokes worksheet thing number one, thing number two, and then thing number three comes out of left field, New Speaker: 06:39 ba-dum-bum Doug: 06:40 Ba-da-boom. Right? That's, that's sort of the nature of all at least verbal humor. The problem is in the case of religion or IT or Canada or sports or whatever, you have to have enough knowledge to know what is normal so the setup works, if you don't understand the normal, then there's no surprise cause it doesn't seem any different from the first two parts that were there in the first place. I mean it's, I don't know that it's necessarily that different from other very specialized areas, but the fact is it's a specialized area that requires a knowledge for there to be a normal for there to be a surprise. Leon: 07:22 Right. And, and I would also argue that the populations that we're talking about are significantly smaller. It, it's a lot easier to find a group of people who would probably understand a, let's say a Cleveland joke or again, not to joke about Cleveland, but a joke that only Clevelanders would understand. Josh: 07:42 Did you just insinuate that Cleveland has more people in it than Canada. Leon: 07:45 Uh, no, I was not that at all. I was actually supporting it or it can, you know, Canadians, Doug: 07:51 They do have more people who are willing to go ahead and laugh at themselves though. Leon: 07:56 Canada does. Canada is very, yeah. Um, yeah. Clevelanders are just tired of it all. So, uh, anyway, um, Josh: 08:05 So Doug, when you were counting, I feel like I was, I was, uh, almost having to hold myself back, um, about making a number two joke, you know, you're like number one and number two, I feel like there's a, there's a universal joke that every everyone gets and I feel like, you know, boys get it around the age of three or so, like as soon as those sentences start being stitched together. Leon: 08:30 And they never lose it, Josh: 08:32 They never lose it. Leon: 08:33 Or as somebody said that, you know, all babies when they're first born have to be burped. Um, boys just do it on their own from that point forward. Um, and you're right, there was a study that was done and they found it two specific... Specifically two types of humor work regardless of culture, regardless of where you're from or how old you are or anything like that. And that is scatological or a fart and poop jokes and mother-in-law jokes. Uh, those are appreciated everywhere. Right? Doug: 09:02 Makes Sense. But, and the one that the, I've also heard that it's like universal and frankly it doesn't appeal to me at all, Is physical humor, slapstick stuff. I mean, if you look at even the comedy that we got in the beginning of the, uh, the film era, that was all slapstick stuff, right? And everybody loves it. I just don't, I don't know. It's not me. Leon: 09:25 Exactly. And I think that's another important point, right, is that whether you understand the joke is different than whether you like the joker. Appreciate the joke. Um, you know, to give an a, an a tech example, a lot of people who know even the littlest bit about networking say, you know, there's no place like one 127.0.0.1 right? Okay. There's no place like home, there's nobody, you know, or I could tell you a UDP joke but you probably wouldn't get it right. Ha Ha. Okay. That's all right. I, you know, but there's, even though that is, uh, that is a joke and, and some people will laugh at it. There's a lot of networking people who are like, really? I just, that is the 1024th time I've heard it. Right. Doug: 10:09 Oh Man. Leon: 10:18 So, uh, yeah. And, and it, there's a group of people right now her listening to this podcast who are like, "I don't, I don't get it" so, so Doug: 10:26 You just need to wait a bit Leon: 10:27 So "getting it" and "liking it". Right. Uh, oooooh. So, um, so you're liking it and getting it to, okay, this is where things get interesting. Um, I, I was playing around with the idea of like worlds colliding. Like are there jokes that you have to be both? Do you have to be like you have to be a Mormon and also a network engineer, you know, FULL INNER JOIN to get, you know, certain humor, stuff like that. I didn't know if you've run across any of those. Speaker 3: 11:01 Well, having been Mormon for 41 years, I, and as we talked about an episode two now post Mormon, I can tell you that the majority of Mormons, so that I know have, uh, no sense of humor. And it's not that they're not funny, it's just the things that they laugh at our really contextualized for Mormonism, um, like, um, pickup lines at a BYU, right? Um, you know, hey, well things like, um, uh, "Baby, I came here to feel the spirit, but I didn't know that I would see an angel." I, you know, Doug: 11:38 Oh yeah...f Josh: 11:40 So as I was looking for, for Mormon humor, I realized that most of it is around getting married. Uh, which I think is, that ties with the youthfulness. And you know, LDS people tend to get married younger than others. And generally, if it's not about Green Jello with carrot in it, if it's not about a, the relief society, which is the women's organization, uh, making ice sculptures, there's a whole, there's a whole trope of Mormon movies like "The R.M." Um, well "The R.M." is the one that we laugh at the most and it's, it's takes all of the sticks about Mormonism and cram them into, you know, 90 minutes of, of stories about people's lives. Um, all of those things, although we laugh at them, they're not really that funny. It's just, it's more self deprecating humor. So maybe we're really good at picking on ourselves. I don't know. Leon: 12:35 Huh. And then again, trying to get the technology in there is probably a little tricky. Doug: 12:39 It just doesn't happen. That's what I mean. We're just not that funny. Leon: 12:42 Huh. So I did here. So a friend of mine, Phil Setnik, posted on Twitter a little bit ago. So just for context for those listening, even though this is the April podcast, we did record it. Uh, not yesterday. We recorded it a couple of weeks ago and Purim the Jewish holiday of Purim is coming up in, one of the things about Purim is that you are commanded to drink. This is where everyone starts like, "Wait, wait, I want to convert!" Um, you know, you're commanded to drink until you don't know the difference between the sentence that the phrase, uh, "wicked is Haman" and "blessed is Mordecai". And so Phil posted that on May 4th, we're commanded to drink until we can not tell. The difference between "blessed is Obi-Wan" and "Cursed be Vader". This is the, this is none of the Mitzvah. The commandment known as "Ahd Lo Yoda". Doug: 13:31 Yeah. Leon: 13:33 Right, right. Okay. So requires deep knowledge of both Geek, you know, culture and also whatever. So I just wanted to get props out that, that this is a difficult brand of humor to, um, to perhaps a trade in and yet Phil managed to do it. So hat's off. Josh: 13:52 Does this mean that we had to have watched Star Trek? Leon: 13:54 Uh, no, no, it doesn't. Doug: 13:59 If you come down to it though, it just comes down to audience size really. I mean, we would go back to mother-in-laws and fart and poop is relatively universal, whereas people who both have seen Star Wars and know the stuff+ behind Purim are relatively few. Leon: 14:18 Right, right. Doug: 14:19 So you're, I mean you'll, I'm sure you, you'll kill it, your audience, but it's not the two people. Leon: 14:28 Exactly. It's Phil and me and maybe one other person. Yeah, exactly. Um, there's a few of us, but you know, it's, it's definitely a small group. So, so talking about that, like what are some occasions when, because it's so hard to find these populations. I want to hear about some times that you've tried to tell a joke to the group and they just, they didn't get it. Like what are those? Doug: 14:55 I live those every day. I work out at my home, so, uh, you know, I do all of my social network stuff while I'm sitting down in the living room next to my wife and I tend to laugh out loud when I read things that I find funny and my wife will be sitting there, she'll go, "what?" And you just do a take where you sit there going, how long would it, how much do I have to explain for her to get it to make it worthwhile? And then it always comes down to, and all the, all the answer is, is "Geek joke" and we're done. It's just she, she now has, cause we tried in the, you know, years ago, she would say, "No, no, really, I'll get it." And we'd go through it and she'd just eventually realized that it's not worth it to her for me to explain it to her. Leon: 15:50 So I had that the other day. And, and uh, again, for background context, uh, I, I work from home, so I had the same situation, you know, my wife and her sitting at the table for breakfast and we're doing, you know, reading stuff. But on top of it, my, my daughter and her children, my grandkids are living in the house with us also. So I have a three year old and a two year old and all of the things that they, they do and they listen to and their very sophisticated music that they listen to. So all of a sudden I'm laughing hysterically and my wife says, "what?" And I said "wireshark, do, do, do, do, do wireshark, do do do do", because you have to understand that that "Baby shark" is sung probably 52,000 times a day in my house. So it was just one of those things and she's like, "I don't get it." You were so close, you had everything except that one little piece. So, yeah. So Josh, how about you Josh: 16:52 Not to feel left out, I also work from home and I'm super grateful for it. One of, uh, one of the engineers on my team who lives in Boston. So if he's listening to the podcast, you know who you are. Um, he always drops these great, uh, pop culture references. Um, he is a veritable catalog of pop culture, uh, both current and historical. And the problem is that, I mean, I have no idea the other engineers, you know, they're like doing the ROFL and the LOL and you know, emojis are flying and I'm googling like a madman trying to figure out like what is so funny about that. And then I'm like, oh yeah, right. Ha Ha, lol, lowercase. That is my life. I get it. It's hard. But you know, fortunately worked from home and Google have made me seem kind of hip, you know, like, Leon: 17:44 right, exactly. And that's not just like IT people to non-IT people. I think it works for people who work in one area of IT and you know, versus another one. I think there are jokes that, you know, you have to be a storage engineer. You have to be like to "get it" right? Josh: 18:02 Yeah. We actually have a, we have a saying that it's kind of an inside joke. And I think that a lot of these jokes that we tell are really inside a humor as opposed to the traditional, you know, uh, a "Jew, a Mormon, and an atheist walk into the bar." They don't start like that. But we have, um, so our, our cloud team, uh, whenever they do something that were, uh, upset about, we'll say "what the cloud?" because that's our thing, right? It's, it's almost like, you know "what the fork?" or "holy shirt!", uh, from "The Good Place." If you haven't watched that on Netflix, you should. It's hilarious. Teaches you how to swear without swearing. It's great. Uh, but I think we all have those little sh...ticks that we throw out and uh, that is the ultimate insider jokes are the ultimate exclusivity of humor, right? You have to literally have been there and done that in order to get in on it. Um, and we've got them for technology. We've got them for a situational humor. We've got them for, uh, our religious things. Like I said, you know, the, the Green Jello joke, it just goes over roaringly, uh, and, and Mormon theology, uh, discussions and everyone else is like, "What Elliot? I like Green Jello. You guys put carrot in it? That's weird man. I don't understand you Mormons" Doug: 19:20 Thing that it does is the exact opposite? We talked about, you know, how you trying to go ahead and reach out to other groups and it's really hard. But what Josh is basically saying is we can actually use our humor to go ahead and cement the solidity of our very tight group. Oh Wow. That's so many of the jokes that are coming out of this pop culture type stuff. And you know, you are willing to go ahead and Google pop culture. And I appreciate that, uh, Josh I just, I admire your willingness to do that. I've just, uh, I've reached the point where I just don't care anymore. I was a disc jockey for like, you know, 12, 14 years. I was in pop culture. I would say celebrity, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. I haven't listened to I, it's not, we were just talking about that today. My wife and I said, I, I don't know if I've ever heard a Taylor Swift song I may have. The fact that I know that she exists is pretty much it. And so I not only am not current on pop culture, but I've also now reached the point where I don't care. I just don't care anymore. Leon: 20:23 And I think that that's sort of like you've reached your final form, you know, not only, you know, not only do you not get the joke, you don't care to get the joke. It's not, you're not curious about the joke. You just like, you know what, you know what you think is funny and everything else is like you do you, but I'm going to stay over here Doug: 20:43 Pretty much it, and they're perfectly willing to not explain it to me. That's one of the nice things about reaching a certain age is youngsters no longer care to even bother explaining it to you anymore. Leon: 20:55 Right. They just assume that you don't know. Doug: 20:57 Yeah, yeah. Josh: 21:00 You can always get back at them Doug. I found that as my teenagers drop jokes and they will sit with their friends and banter back and forth and they're just dying laughing. So the way that I get them back is that I, I drop their vernacular. I'm like at the dinner table, you know? Um, so I'll be talking to my wife and I, and I'll be telling her a story about work and I'll say, "Yeah, today I was a real baller at work. I was, you know, totally..." And my kids, let's just look at me and say, "What are you doing?" Um, so when you get, when you get to our age, I think, isn't it? You can really, the, the joke is on them. We don't actually care and we're just going to pick at you for thinking that you're, you know, so funny and welcome to old age or middle age or I don't know what we are the, we won't talk about that. Leon: 21:55 My kids have banned me from being jiggy with anything anymore. New Speaker: 21:58 (conversation fades) Josh: 22:01 Thanks for making time for us this week to hear more of technically religious visit our website, technicallyreligious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect with us on social media. Doug: 22:15 Hey, thanks for having me on. Until next time, I've got a funny story... Leon: 22:19 You know what? Nevermind, you probably had to be there.  

Sign-up for DigitalOcean ($100 credit!): do.co/42Welcome to import this a podcast for humans. I am sitting here and a beautiful park in the middle of Winchester, Virginia with the beautiful view of this church and this beautiful sky and I just got done skateboarding with a great pilot. Nice to that I've known since high school. Josh Crim, Joshua and cramnnfor right. Yes, sir. Speak up. We can't hear you.nnSay dude,nnuse an authoritative sick Durrell voice when your podcasts here.nnPeter voicennYou'rennYou're good. You're talking to me? Yeah, you're just speaking a little louder so the microphone can hear you. For audio clarity, right? Look at me. Hey, look, it's fine. I can edit this out. Already. Yeah, I'll try again.nnPick itnncaters. To donnthis. Let me wait. You don't have tonndo this.nnI'm not putting you on the spot.nnI know. I helped me.nnHello, everyone. Welcome to import this podcast for humans. My name is Kenneth Reitz. And I'm sitting here today with Joshua krim. Excellent friend of mine who we are we're skateboarding at the moment, we're taking a break here in the park. And we are surrounded by beautiful environment. The wind isn't too bad. I apologize for the field recording, but podcasts or podcasts and they are what they are. So Josh plays the guitar. He sings.nnHe does. He does the guitar. He does escape board. Henndoes apply thoughts.nnWhat else younndo? Tell me about the technologies that you like justnnthrow some buzzwords that recently I've been unfortunately supposed to be as six. Yes, sir.nnJavaScript?nnYes. Yeah. What do you think of it? Yeah. You know, are using strict mode?nnNo, I'mnot. Oh, I know. I didn't bother. Yeah, we we this app used to me coffee script. And so it was built like, okay, seven or eight years ago.nnWe were thinking about TypeScript. We're actually looking at converting to using React Native. Yeah, be throwing in TypeScript, possibly Vue. js and thought that that? No, it's think I was kind of worried going into it. I think a lot of Python development maybe would feel the same way. learning JavaScript doesn't seem like a fun time. Look into it wasn't too excited about the project.nnJavaScript is a great language for just kind of developingthings in a rapid prototyping fashion, especially if you're working in a purely a synchronous environment. Python is technically capable of this, it provides the primitives for you to build things this way. However, the software has not been built by the community at to do that, for example, those are a failure by the requests library to do so. I'm working on that actively.nnYou can't do a thing going away with requestsnnand the new promises stuffed with Jonathan JavaScript. It's wonderful. absolutely wonderful.nnIs there an equivalent of that and Python?nnNot that I'm running, the new facing stuff is out.nnTell us about promises. What is the promise?nnIt's kind of For me it was a huge replacement for callbacks. Like the whole I've never experienced callback hell is that what a simple way it is? Yeah. So what is that? Oh,nnwait, I'm actually genuinely asking the question. Problemnnis like, I don't know what it promises. It is. It's an asynchronous cool. And so you call a promise, you have reject the result? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Oh...we’re 280 days early?! Well time is construct that SpongeBob doesn’t adhere to! So Josh and Omar are experiencing the first ever SpongeBob Christmas Special. This episode may be filled with the Christmas Spirit but lets see if your hosts also share the sentiment. Things get deep when we discuss the meaning of Christmas, talk about giving, and learn a valuable lesson about genies from Patrick. Don’t wait around to start listening! Santa is coming tonight, tonight!

Josh is joined by Danny Kelly, who is embarking on a journey to create a draft guide for The Ringer this offseason. The core of this conversation focuses on prospects who offer conundrums in their play style and how it might translate to the NFL. So Josh and Danny attempt to find the truth.

Hello Ne3rdom is back to talk about the Spider-Man Far From Home Trailer that just dropped this week. So Josh and Felix wanted to talk in detail about trailer. This is kind of a test to see if we can make it work with Felix in Mass. Also please let us know if the quality is OK that would be a big help. I hope you all enjoy and hope you have a great week. iTunes: apple.co/2JaD257 Google Music: bit.ly/2q1rOrR Facebook: www.facebook.com/ne3rdom Instagram: Ne3rdom Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC9NUI5lKal7sA5cDtL2DEEQ

It's a cold one out there in nerdland! So Josh and fill-in host David will warm your spirits with a discussion about more casting for Stargirl. Some surprising research into Americans liking libraries, plus Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel cameo and Gerry Conway's thoughts on the Punisher logo.

If there are bands that you would like to hear on the show or if you’re a band that would like to join me for an interview, please reach out to me at podcast@beyondradentertainment.com. So Josh was one of the singers in a band that made a big impact on me and my passion for music (The Anniversary), so it was absolutely awesome to hear that he had joined forces with Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic (The Get Up Kids) and Adam Phillips (the Gadjits and The Architects) to form a powerhouse band called Radar State. This interview was super awesome, and Josh is such a cool guy! I hope y'all enjoy, and without further adieu, let's just jump right on in! Social: Facebook.com/beyondradpodcast Instagram.com/beyondradpodcast or instagram.com/MrRadChad facebook.com/radarstate facebook.com/berwangermusic instagram.com/radarstate instagram.com/berwanger_music --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/beyondrad/support

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but it's Christmastime. Christmastime, when you work at a church, means a lot of busyness. So Josh is a little braindead this week, but there's still some time for a little small talk and a lot of...big talk? about the Bible and sexuality. For some more thoughts on this week's topic and other things we enjoy, check out: James White's debate: Does God affirm homosexuality? and another debate: Is Homosexuality Compatible with Christianity? Rosaria Butterfield: Homosexuality and the Christian Faith Ben Shapiro interviews John MacArthur The Bluestocking Baptists Podcast If you'd like to reach out, you can Talk to Us via email at SotalktomePodcast@gmail.com, on twitter @So_TalkToMe, or check out our Facebook Page

It is no secret that parking in New York City is a miserable experience.  Everyone knows this, but especially Josh Futterman.  He's been driving and parking in New York City for 34 years.  Spending a lot of time battling New York City traffic and circling the blocks looking for an elusive parking spot, Josh thought there had to be a better way. So Josh decided to start a company to solve the problem and ParkYou! was born. Josh's idea is centered around the concept of bringing drivers in New York City together. Of course, you can't bring all 8.5 Million people together all at once, so Josh is starting in micro-communities. Unlike other companies that have been algorithmic predictors of parking availability or even tried to monetize public parking spaces, ParkYou! is based on the concept of sharing. Once a user indicates that they will be leaving a parking space another user will be matched if they are parking in the area at the same time as the first user is leaving. The secret sauce: in order to be able to receive a parking space, you need to have first offered up a space. As Josh says, "it's forced altruism". Listen to the episode to learn more about New York City parking and the extensive research Josh did before starting the Company and why the Company's mission is so important to Josh and how the start-up was destined to be born in Harlem. More on ParkYou!: https://www.park-you.com/ For a transcript of the episode please visit: https://nylaun.ch/parkyoutr

So Josh won’t be able to make the podcast on Sunday so we casted on the way to see Every Time I Die! Danny was definitely bummed that there wasn’t any Shinedown merch. We also wrapped up the podcast with driving home from the amazing Tatsu Ramen. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fucast/support

Click Above To Listen In iTunes... So the big question is this, what would you do if money didn't matter? So you had millions in your bank account, what would you focus on? Would you spend more time with your family, with your wife, with your kids? Take family vacations. Would you pursue your gifts and talents and dreams? Serve your local community, teach others, serve your church. You see if what you would do if money didn't matter, it was pursuing your gifts and talents and dreams to serve others, and that is probably what you should be doing. The problem is most people are in the rat race, living five inches in front of their face with no time to pursue what they were born to do. That is the problem, and the solution is to develop enough passive income to replace your working income so you can quit your job and be free to live your life the way you were created to. That is a solution and this podcast will show you how... Ryan Enk:What's going on? Everybody? Welcome... What's going on everybody? Sorry. Welcome to the latest episode of Cash Flow Dad Life. I apologize guys for missing last Thursday. I had full intentions to release a podcast, but I was actually in Tampa looking at a billion dollar multifamily investment operation... So it was really cool stuff which I'll share with you guys later. But today I'm stoked to have on our show and experts in the hotel industry. I ended up suckering him to come on here and share his expertise with us and his wisdom. His name is Josh McCallen. Josh, you there? Can you hear me alright? Josh McCallen: Absolutely. Great to be here Ryan. Ryan Enk: And for those of you that are watching, Josh has got a sweet green screen in the background with his perfect, perfect setup. So Josh is actually an expert in the hotel industry and our episode today is going to be about how you can get started in playing monopoly in real life. How you can get started in investing in hotels like in monopoly. You know, the goal of the game is you first go around the board and you buy a bunch of houses, right? And then once you get past a certain level, you get started with investing in hotels and if somebody lands on your spot then you're bringing in a lot more cash flow. And so we're seeing a lot of different trends in the industry... What we're going to talk about today is the different ways that you can get started investing, the different strategies, the different plays that are out there. And Josh is going to give us the wisdom... Josh, can you give us a little bit of your background? Like what's your story? How did you even get started investing in hotels in the first place? Josh McCallen: Well, it's absolutely great to be with you Ryan. So the answer to that is there's a short form and long form, but the short form is this. I first was a house developer, very, very high end beach front. It's a matter of fact. We, uh, I was the project manager guy on the field building five, $6,000,000 houses during the boom days. Oh, six. Oh seven. And then right as the 2008 crash came at, business models stopped. So then years later we had a condo building, a hotel that we thought would be a condo building and by 2012 we were comfortable enough to try to get into the hotel industry by fixing that up. So basically the story is, I'm like, you just said, I'm just like most of your listeners. I started in the house world. Of co --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cashflow-dadlife/support

0:15  We’re Live. Chuck coming in from the Frameworks Summit in Park City Utah. Chuck gives a fun down of the various core teams and technologies being discussed at the Summit. Chuck talks about networking and meeting with previous guests on the podcasts show on Dev Chat TV. Chuck talks about being in Orlando last week and being productive.  5:00 Josh asked about the pre-sale on the book. Chuck about selling 16 copies of the book. Mani gives suggestions on what he would have done. Mani was concern about the book sales verses the course sales. Mani and Josh talk about the offers and ways to execute the sales success. Mani asks more about the emails and links for the landing page.  10:00 Josh and Mani talk about the analytics and the actions people were taking when they visited the landing page.  Mani and Josh continue with their opinions about the next steps on how to successfully complete the sales. Mani thinks there is too much information on the page. Mani mentions that the carts have to be optimized a bit more. Mani suggests losing the navigation on the shopping cart.  18:00 Both Mani and Josh show their add to cart features and show how it works. Mani asks about cart abandon rate for Simple Programmer. Chuck asked if there is a list of numbers of analytics on cart abandonment. Josh talks about the different carts he has used in the past. More talk about carts and sales between Mani and Josh.  25:00 Chuck says his plan is to sell the book on Amazon and let the book drive sales to the course. Chuck says this process is helping him learn about pricing, carts, and marketing his product in general. More talk about trial and error.  28:00 Josh and Mani discuss the launch numbers. Mani makes some guess based on a few numbers Josh provides.  Josh says $199 on the live 3 week course, 80k emails sent out. Mani makes some great guesses on the out rate and clicks. Josh says there were no prices mentioned in the email. Mani settles on 100 sales. Josh says he only got 40 sales. Mani says with that rate, Simple Programmer should start selling book summaries. Mani and Josh continue with ideas on the live sale.  38:00 Josh talks about how the high price course model is dead. Also a bit on the overall take on the products since John is not teaching the courses or feature on the product. Josh says no one. Is willing to pay over 200 dollars for any course anymore. More on price declining on the course.   45:00 Josh talks about tactics with Interview Cake. Josh talks about caps on promotions as in their take.  Josh continues to talk about John lasting impact from leaving Simple Programmer. Josh talks about a slow decline of audience and engagement.  53:00 Josh talks about promoting more than a few products. Mani talks about Robert Farrington and his email courses and affiliate courses. Mani mention pushing things down the route of the Simple Programmer community that may help. Chuck mentions that Josh should clarify what he is trying to transition too as the manager of the business. More talks about Interview Cake. Chuck chimes in with telling people where he wants to take them.  1:07:00 John shows up with no shirt.  Chuck suggests ways to look and execute Josh’s vision for the future of Simple Programmer. Chuck thinks a John had a vision of what people wanted. Mani suggests that John should talk rather than talking on his behalf. Josh gives his numbers to John base on the launch on his part. John talks about the economy and talks job market at the present moment. John talks about the immediate situation of the economy and what people need.  1:15:00 Chuck talks more about making a connection with the audience with John’s direction. Mani talks about the growing pains and void of personality. John talks about the sales on the membership. Josh shares on how it is flat based on the email list. Chuck leaves the podcast called. John talks about those who need the resources like Interview Cake.  1:24:00 John says Chuck is probably right about how people associated Simple Programmer as a company that helps people find ways to improve their life a programmer or developer. Mani talks about how he gets emails about John’s Soft Skill program or book. Josh talks about doing a launch on a type of reading club. Mani says excuse me, you thought of that.  1:33:00 Josh says he is surprised by the grown of the Simple Programmer company. John talks about the staple of the company. John talks about doing a Complete Software Developer Career Guide in the near future. John talks about doing videos and such. Josh says for the foreseeable future is the only idea he is wanting to launch at the moment. Mani suggests a membership or community with this title.  1:40:00 Josh talks about what he thinks Simple Programmer is as John the face of the company compared to who he is and is about.  So he is seeing an underline issue if it is not there. John talks about the things Josh has started to do, and follow the path as an entrepreneur with an extreme talent.  So Josh is fit to take the company to the next level. John shares more on the influence he has had on the Simple Programmer mission with Jason Humphrey.  1:50:00 John talks about the Dave Ramsey dinner or gets together. John talks about how if you develop the smarts to become a successful entrepreneur. Mani asks about the value entailed to find the level John is talking about.  1:55:00  Mani asks John to run a list to begin the process. John says it is a way to promote yourself and self development. Mani asks this is a way to replicate John.  John talks about ways to co-write idea to appeal to people to improve their lives.  2:00:00 More talk about the Career Guide” sales and greatness. John talks about the values of the message. Josh talks about testing this out. John suggests a free webinar about Simple Programmer is about, including what Mani has to say. Mani is blown away with what John says about Teaching Programmers that They Can Be More. Mani talks about John be the move without being the face of it.  2:10:00 More talks about the movement. Mani suggests talks about the course once a week. Josh talks about a general discussion. Josh surest following the Soft Skill guide. Josh joke about the OMAD diet. John reinforces Josh’s confidence that he is still doing a great job with Simple Programmer.  2:17:00 John talks about the values of the company and how Josh values all those things. John says that BlueHost is willing to help them with websites and marketing for their customers because that is where self-marketing being, a website. More talks about meeting people on John’s visit to. Thoughts for the Week! Mani - Going back to the purpose or why… John -  Stay the course.  Josh -  Sometimes you eat the bear, Sometimes the bear eats you 

Hey, folks, welcome to a special edition of Whitetail Rendezvous Deer Hunting – Real Tree – Josh Honeycutt. All our editions are special, but what we’re doing with Realtree and Josh Honeycutt, he is the deer hunting manager. And what does that mean? He takes care of all the digital. You go to the website and look up “deer hunting” and there’s josh, and he’s handling all that for Realtree. So Josh and I have come together and once a month we’re going to kind of go over what they’re putting out, what they’re seeing on a monthly basis. And this session we’re going to talk about prepping for the season. That’s wide open, that’s a lot of things. And the other part, the second part of the show, we’re going to talk about land management. Josh, let’s just start right off with, you know, what you’re seeing, what you’re hearing, and what you’re telling people about preseason prepping. https://www.realtree.com/brow-tines-and-backstrap/21-off-season-tasks-for-true-deer-hunters Yeah, I mean this is a good time of year. 21 Off-Season Tasks for True Deer Hunters Turkey season is starting to wind down, I’m actually finishing up https://www.realtree.com/turkey-hunting. I’ve got three more episodes of our digital turkey series The Reason for the Hunt https://www.realtree.com/deer-hunting/videos/the-reason-for-the-hunt-early-season-deer-hunting-and-droptine-bucks that we’ve put out, we’ve got three episodes of that to release this month, and then we’ll be full bore into deer season. But, yeah, it’s the time of year whenever everybody is really starting to transition off of turkey season or starting to think more about land management, starting to think more about getting out there and getting ready for deer season. But, yeah, there’s a lot of things that we’re doing right now. We haven’t actually started putting out mineral yet here, at least not in Kentucky. Some states can, but we can’t put mineral out until May 31st. You can’t feed wildlife from I think it’s March 1st to May 31st. So we haven’t really started putting mineral out for deer yet, we haven’t put any kind of bait out for deer, I have not put my cameras back out yet. Once June 1st hits, you know, usually that first week of June, that’s when I put my mineral out, that’s when I put my cameras back out. But right now I have been pretty heavy on planting spring food plots. Or, excuse me, planting early season food plots for early bow season that we’ll kind of focus on during September and October. https://www.realtree.com/users/jhoneycutt So early season food plots is a big topic right now because everybody is planting those. If you want to plant fall food plots, obviously we’re going to wait until August or September to plant those, but depending on where you’re at in the country. But, yeah, it’s the time of year where it’s not quite full bore in preseason mode for most people, but we’re definitely right on the cusp of that preseason work busting loose. So early season food plots is a big topic right now Now when you’re saying you put in some, you know, summer crops, what are you putting in? Well, mostly what we plant for early season, at least here what I prefer, and this is all personal preference, I love for an early season food plot… Because, see, I’m in an area where it’s a good mix of timber,

Modern Agile stickers everywhere are helping Modern Agile stick.  Dean Chanter of Capital One recalls his Accidental Experiment with Modern Agile (cake for every release!).  Bob and Dean talk through the power of the laptop sticker, evolving and “upskilling” ScrumMasters, and Lean roots.   Transcript Bob Payne: [00:00:05] Hi I'm your host Bob Payne and i'm here with Dean Chanter and Dean you're from, You're at Cap One.   Dean Chanter: [00:00:11] Yeah, Currently at Cap One.   Bob Payne: [00:00:14] You're doing some work with scaled Agile and you're saying you sort of accidentally started applying Modern Agile. I'm super curious about that journey.   Dean Chanter: [00:00:25] I did it was very interesting so I joined Capital One about seven months ago, was with Intel for about 13 years before that, and when I first got to Capital One everybody had a Modern Agile sticker on their laptop there was actually a bunch on my desk. So I just slapped one on my laptop. I had heard about it before I got the Capital One but Intel was a big SAFehouse and so that was kind of how we did things there and made a lot of sense and so, maybe three or four months ago, my gallbladder decided that it no longer needed to be in my body and so's listening to Josh's podcast and listen to things and he and John Cutler were talking.   Bob Payne: [00:01:02] Okay, yeah I've had Josh on my podcast.   Dean Chanter: [00:01:04] Yeah. So Josh asked John -he's like What do you think about Modern Agile. What do you mean to you. And John was like you know what. It really makes me feel like we can try anything and we don't have to stick to one framework another. And I realized then that some of the things I have been doing it kept on with my teams was just that right. I had a lot of teams that were Scrum Teams and Kanban teams and we had ARTs so we had you know single teams but they needed... They were looking for a refresh right.   Dean Chanter: [00:01:37] You know some new ways of thinking about things that we brought in things like product discovery. We started looking at cycle time. Right. We just we started celebrating everything. Right. We had cake for every release we had you know just how.   Bob Payne: [00:01:54] Dangerous when you're a real DevOps...   Dean Chanter: [00:01:56] Exactly. Exactly. Well that was one of the things we went from releases that were on average and they say average because it wasn't a true cadence of about six to eight weeks. We're now releasing twice a week. OK. You know just because of trying to setting audacious goals right. Right. Using that we want to really use more frequently. Right. And once we set that goal we started working through the different things and different challenges that it takes to get through. We actually even if we don't have content for release on a particular day that we're supposed to be released, we'll still do the release. The reason is is because it allows us to go through those motions right and should identify more ways to we found things by doing that that maybe we should leave - blue green releases right. So maybe we should leave green up a little bit longer so we could fail back if we need to. Eventually, you know the goal there is eventually getting to where we could do continuous delivery if we wanted to.   Bob Payne: [00:02:56] Yeah. That's great. So I'm so curious how you got the big batch of stickers. Did Josh come to CapOne and.   Dean Chanter: [00:03:03] He did.   Bob Payne: [00:03:04] Okay.   Dean Chanter: [00:03:05] So Josh came to camp while he was a keynote speaker. CapOne does a technology agile conference internally once a year.   Bob Payne: [00:03:13] I've spoken that years back yeah.   Dean Chanter: [00:03:15] I wasn't there for that yet but that's how the stickers ended up on my desk. So.   Bob Payne: [00:03:21] Yeah I have been doing a series of of of talks using modern agile as a sort of framework to look at Lean and depending on where I go and how how I either call it. "No one gives a shit about your practices" or "disrupting the cult of the cult of practices". I'm a scrum trainer but fundamentally believe that scrum is a starting place and the goal is not to like do scrum. The goal is to get into this. You know this idea of experimentation learning and changing and and so you know I was an old XP extreme programmer guy. So you know I've known Josh for a long time and you know that talk really. It was actually that sticker was the deflowering force.. It's probably not appropriate to say but I had always had Virgin Macs with no stickers on them until that one made it on my last Mac.   Dean Chanter: [00:04:31] That was the first sticker I put on my cowpat on issue laptops. Have it if you have a habit of putting stickers on stuff for me is like yeah I'm fine. I agree. I agree. You know that's actually one of the things so I do manage a group of Scrum Masters right, and ScrumMaster is fhe title that Capital One gives them you know I looked at, look at them more than just that, right? They're team coaches, I've got a couple that work as a scaled coach right? As well, and so-   Dean Chanter: [00:05:05] That was one of the things that we spent a day together back in March you know kind of strategizing you know our improvement areas that we wanted to go with the team right. And so that's one of the things that I mentioned to them right is that you know if you look at it from that Modern Agile lens you know then I'm asking you to balance that coaching and the delivery right and ,. And one of the things we talked about is like sometimes as you know agile coaches all too often want to wait for that big moment and that big huge coaching opportunity, that next retro or their next delivery, right? So one of the things I talk to them about is sometimes coaching in the moment and being a player with your teams is actually the best opportunity for that coaching moment. I actually got one of my Scrum Masters now who is actually a performer on the release. So since we've got teams that are applying good DevOps practices right the teams are the performers on the release and so she's actually the performer. What.. and the reason for that is that it allows him to have an extra person separation of duties or his since she's not coding that she can have that access to that prod environment. But it's a lot harder to identify a lot of areas of waste that the teams were seeing because she's got that different lens.   Bob Payne: [00:06:20] And when you get when you get even further down the dev ops path you'll be able to deploy without access to prod.   Bob Payne: [00:06:27] Exactly. Have an auditable..   Dean Chanter: [00:06:33] Yes. That is the goal.   Bob Payne: [00:06:35] Yeah.   Dean Chanter: [00:06:36] But in the meantime it's allowed the ScrumMaster to provide value in ways that they haven't in the past.   Bob Payne: [00:06:43] Right, You know just you know I like to poke at stuff. It's kind of what I do.   Dean Chanter: [00:06:50] Oh yeah.   Bob Payne: [00:06:52] So you were working with. Well my friend Beth Wong.   Dean Chanter: [00:06:58] Yes. So that's another interesting thing. So Beth and I are actually kind of paired together with the teams that we're working with. OK so where I'm providing that more tactical delivery focused management of the scrummasters, Beth is actually paired with me as a true coach. Right. And so she doesn't have that accountability to the product. And so she she and I are able to do things that having a single RTE in a scaling house wouldn't be able to do. So Beth is able to run workshops and you know she was able to bring in someone and worked with them and that's how we started our lean product discovery is because I was able to stay focused and she was able to coordinate those types of workshops. Another thing that Beth is is able to do. She's actually run in a technical coach and so that's one of the ways that we're accelerating that automated release goal that we have for this.   Bob Payne: [00:08:00] Yeah. Yeah. I loved working with Beth and I know she's she's excited to be the guys now.   Dean Chanter: [00:08:05] So yes it's a great partnership.   Bob Payne: [00:08:08] Yeah. Super. So what else is exciting for you lately?   Dean Chanter: [00:08:13] I mean definitely as we're evolving you know our scrum masters you know and what we call upskilling them. Right.   Bob Payne: [00:08:21] So we've got some folks on my team that you knew six seven years ago as CapitalOne went through its original agile journey right went to see some class and you know they're great at following those rules.   Bob Payne: [00:08:35] You probably are not aware of. In 2005 they started a huge agile journey.   Dean Chanter: [00:08:43] I've heard that.   Bob Payne: [00:08:44] It's been swept out and then.   Dean Chanter: [00:08:46] Exactly as a multiple and in depending on what Capital One is a large organization depending.   Bob Payne: [00:08:52] Are we talking card?   Dean Chanter: [00:08:53] So I'm in card, right. Exactly. So different journeys there but the teams I've been working with I've been five or six years is kind of about as far as they can look back.   Bob Payne: [00:09:05] Right.   Dean Chanter: [00:09:05] And so again kind of going back to that me asking my team to be that more player coach. So we're looking at different ways of kind of seeing the way the teams work right. Right now they're working through Mary Poppendick's original book.   Bob Payne: [00:09:22] Yeah.   Dean Chanter: [00:09:23] Right. So one of the interesting things about me and my journey started with Intel and so Intel being also not only a product development team but also a manufacturing to Jamie Flinchbaugh in the intel years and years ago long before I started there.   Bob Payne: [00:09:40] Right right.   Dean Chanter: [00:09:40] And turn into a lean house.   Bob Payne: [00:09:42] Right.   Dean Chanter: [00:09:42] And so   Bob Payne: [00:09:44] Lean manufacturing. It's always ironic to me that many of the organizations that do really amazing lean logistics are lean manufacturing and I'm not saying this about Intel because I don't actually have firsthand knowledge. They look at agile they're like you know we can't do that. That's not it's not you know it is really ironic that it is they do have the same same roots.   Bob Payne: [00:10:10] You know clearly manufacturing is a different is a different thing than product development.   Dean Chanter: [00:10:18] Right.   Bob Payne: [00:10:19] And. But but lean product development has also been around for you know almost 75 years.   Dean Chanter: [00:10:27] Exactly. So and that's where my journey started right. Is is in then so. It's almost like if you talk to the folks at Toyota about Lean manufacturing right now. What is lean? this is jus t what I do. So, at Intel, for me that's what it was right. You know I.   Bob Payne: [00:10:43] They don't fetishize lean in the way that scrum teams fetishize Scrum.   Dean Chanter: [00:10:47] They don't.   Bob Payne: [00:10:53] My Precious Scrum.   Dean Chanter: [00:10:53] Exactly. Exactly. And so you know I you know we you know when I was running a team.   Bob Payne: [00:10:57] I'm the agile golem.   Dean Chanter: [00:10:59] yeah yeah yeah exactly. So when I was running at my first team team ride of developers and we had daily stand ups and we committed to you know we committed to the goal for that day and the next day we talked about you know how we go towards that goal right. Even if we were working on a bug right. We didn't commit to finishing the bug. We committed to the experiments that we were going to run that day. Right. So when I transitioned to Agile you know it just kind of made sense for me right now come in the CapitalOne that I think it's kind of flipping the coin. I feel like that's a lot of the things that we're working through as a team evangelist. At least in my area is bringing some of those thought patterns.   Dean Chanter: [00:11:41] Identifying the waste and running experiments right and less about any one particular process or and other. Metrics is another thing that we are bringing and doing which has been very interesting as well.   Bob Payne: [00:11:55] Cool experiment to learn rapidly.   Dean Chanter: [00:11:57] Absolutely.   Bob Payne: [00:12:00] And in fact the only one I have a little trouble explaining to executives is the make people awesome, because they don't care. Many of them don't. If they could go to the boards and saying yes we're we're we're we're selling the customer crap, we're torturing people and we've got higher revenues you know.   Dean Chanter: [00:12:25] And that's definitely a shame but.   Bob Payne: [00:12:27] It is. It is. But I've I've enjoyed I've enjoyed you know Josh's poke in the eye and you know I think it's going to stick.   Dean Chanter: [00:12:41] I think so too.   Bob Payne: [00:12:42] Yeah because it's a sticker because he often makes a joke how do you make. How do you make an idea stick? Turn it into a sticker.   Dean Chanter: [00:12:50] Turn it into a sticker I haven't heard him say that but I like that. Well I like what he's been saying lately. right. He was at LeanAgile US in February and I got a chance to see his keynote there right. He opened the keynote. Are you curious as I say that's what I took back to my team. Right. You know are we curious? You know and another one of the things he said there is I know have you identified a ceremony or practice on your team and just gotten rid of it to see what would happen. Right. And that's another one of the challenges that I gave to my team as well.   Bob Payne: [00:13:24] Yeah I mean you know Toyota doesn't.. They'll throw stuff out left and right that you know. Lean is the machine that eats itself to make itself better.   Dean Chanter: [00:13:37] Yes.   Bob Payne: [00:13:37] And I don't think Agile is there yet but that's that's one of my goals. So I really love you know he framed it in a way that pulled together many of the thoughts and conversations a lot of us had been having. And so I'm happy to carry that torch for him for a little while.   Dean Chanter: [00:13:58] I almost kind of I don't know if it came on the cusp of or maybe there has something to do with it but I feel like a lot of the fights that you see you know on Twitter or blog spaces you know around Scrum vs Kanban, estimates or not... I feel like a lot of that has calmed down recently. I don't know if it's if there's a correlation there. But at least for me that's what I see.   Bob Payne: [00:14:25] I think there's more correlation than causation would be my guess. I think people are just worried about you know foreign policy being run on Twitter. So no estimates or mob programming thing is just..it's like Oh my God I can't believe we were arguing about that stuff.   Dean Chanter: [00:14:40] Yeah maybe.   Bob Payne: [00:14:46] So thank you very much for coming in and appreciate it and hope you have a great talk.   Dean Chanter: [00:14:52] Yes. It was fun.   Bob Payne: [00:14:53] Great.  

This is The Do It For Yourself Podcast.  Each week I sit down with someone who is doing it for themselves and chasing a dream they just couldn’t suppress.  This is often speakers, entrepreneurs, or athletes.  They all share one thing in common, they are overcoming challenges and never giving up.  Someone who is Doing It For Themselves is not selfish in their pursuit, they are simply chasing a dream or working towards a goal because it is something THEY want to do.  They are not forging down a path because society or someone is telling them it’s what they should be doing.   This week my guest is Josh Sprague, the owner of Orange Mud.  Orange Mud is a hydration pack that actually sits between your shoulder blades as opposed to the more tradition belt style packs.  Josh came up with this idea after many frustrating long runs while training for Ironman distance races.  He simply could not find a belt that he liked or worked for him.  So Josh took to his garage one night and used some of the resources he had to make his first prototype.  From there he was off and running, literally and figuratively.     Josh jumped into this with both feet and began dedicating all of his free time to making this pack perfect.  From sourcing to materials, to production, it was all at night or on the weekends as he was still working a full-time job in medical device sales.  Josh was beginning to realize that this was something more than just a hobby, he knew he was really on to something here, but he was nervous about leaving the steady income to go after this dream.  Luckily for Josh, he managed his finances well and set himself up to jump into Orange Mud full time.     Join us on this episode as we learn where Josh found his passion for endurance and adventure and how he took that first "rough" prototype into the production of a product that is not shipped all over.   Orange Mud Website Orange Mud Instagram Josh Instagram   Do It For Yourself Instagram

We made it to seven episodes Thats one less than Star Wars has if youre only counting the main entries Speaking of Star Wars theres a brand new one coming out Thats right Star Wars Episode 8 The Last Jedi hits theaters tonight So Josh has been marathoning the Star Wars movies in order to get himself caught up on the story After dragging himself through the prequels and barely escaping with his dignity he brings a huge question to the table He asks us what we think of Star Wars compared to other franchises out today He compares it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Alien Harry Potter etc and asks us if when measured against those films is Star Wars just okay Since this is such a huge question we decided to bring on a good a friend of our Thats right Gerald Glassford from the Pop Culture Cosmos show joins us to discuss all things Star Wars including where it might go after episode IX After all director Rian Johnson just announced that he would be directing an entirely new franchise separate from the Skywalker saga How exciting All of this and more on this episode of Topicocalypse And remember if you want to ask us questions have us answer them on the show feel free to send us an email at topicocalypsegmailcom or you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook Also if you happen to be iTunes or Apple Podcasts we would love if you could rate and review us

In this episode, Josh drops by to discuss building up the best prepper gun battery on a small budget. Many preppers obsess over their gun battery. There's a good reason: they are among the best tools to help keep us safe and defend our lives with. And, let's face it, most of us like guns a whole lot. They're fun to play with and many find shooting to be a relaxing hobby. (I often call it yoga with loud noises and a little more smoke.) But building a full prepper battery of guns is expensive; especially if you are just starting out. And guns can be the most expensive part of a preppers overall kit. It’s easy to drop $5,000 just on guns and glass. Five bills or more is a big bite to take for a lot of people. Buying a full gun battery eats into what many long-time preppers feel is as important to nail down quickly: Food, medical supplies, and training. Then there's more training. So Josh and I discuss the best guns and strategies for starting out your prepper gun battery on a small budget. ~ Become a supporting member here now: http://www.itrh.net ~ Resources from this episode can be found at: http://www.intherabbithole.com/e231   Best Gun Battery on a Small Budget Topics: The benefits of using a commonality team mentality Budgeting for today and tomorrow Preparing and buying for the 80% of what might happen first What is the prepper gun battery Deciding on the order in which to build up a prepper gun battery Best budget Handguns Best budget Shotguns Most accurate and best budget Bolt-action rifles Best budget AR-15s and other semi-auto rifles Best budget 22lr Rifles How to Buy Used Guns and Save Money

Today marks the 200th episode of the Happen to Your Career podcast.   Can you believe it? (We hardly can!)   Scott started the podcast 4 years ago, back when he was also working in a corporate job that he liked well enough...but wasn’t his dream.   He had a WAY bigger vision for what he wanted to create in his life, and how he wanted to help people.   So when you’ve heard him talk about how to transition and optimize your life from good to great on this podcast each week for the past four years(!), he’s not just spewing some BS he read that morning on a career site. He’s lived it.   And, so have the people whose lives he’s touched.   (Maybe you’re one of them?)   Josh and I rounded up some of the people who have been an important part of HTYC back from the very beginning (people like Scott’s wife Alyssa, their kiddos MacKenzie, Camden, and Grayson, and HTYC co-founder Mark Sieverkropp).   Then I grabbed some of the people whose lives have changed because of HTYC, including past coaching clients and team members like Erica, Mike, Tracey, Josh, Kirby, and Jacqui.   I asked them each three simple questions:   Where was your life before you encountered Scott? What impact did Scott and HTYC have on your life? What's different about your future because of HTYC?   And their answers Blew. Us. All. Away. So Josh and I wanted to share them with you.   If you’ve been curious about what it’s like to get to know Scott personally -- or to get to work with him -- this episode is a must listen.

For this weeks 40 for 40 episode there wasn't too much to talk about. So Josh decides to cover Donkey Kong Classics and Double Dragon! Don't worry there will probably be a proper episode for Double Dragon sometime in the future. End Song: Yoshi Gran Prix ft. RobKTA Artist: Kevin Villeco Album: Year of the Yoshi http://gamechops.com/year-of-the-yoshi/ More great music at: http://gamechops.com/       Tags: gaming, retro gaming, double dragon, donkey kong, donkey kong classics, nintendo, NES, nintendo entertainment system, video games

Even with John and Joe on vacation the show must go on! So Josh, Chad and Sterling decided to become the Smallmouth Bass Brothers and head over to Hilliard to check out the Submarine House. Food, antics and the usual fun were had by all.

Episode 172 “Kiss off Mickey” 0:15 We’re Live! Chuck immediately says he world is blowing up. Chuck mentions having to find ways to pay things, such as server hosting. John says it is good that things blow up early, to figure out how to not go into the hole bad.  3:30 Chuck talks about how some of his revenue is not till a few weeks away, according to to sponsor payment cycles. “Its just freaking hard.” Chuck talks about an upcoming conference he is coordinating for quick income.  5:44 John asks questions about how to avoid short term solutions. Chuck talks about how at the beginning of the month he will have funds for business, but questionable for personal stuff. Chuck talks about adding possible podcast sponsor to his lists.    9:00 Josh ask what cause the “Current Crunch.” Chuck says it was paying taxes for the whole year last year. Chuck talks about his plan to not going into he red with paying taxes at the end of the year. Chuck talks about cutting on spending an saving in places where he is not using services.  14:00 John says to tells Mickey Mouse to kiss off. John talks about how they have to live an die based on looking at the monthly report. Chuck says he expected this year to look like last year as far as number goes. John says “You need buffers.”  17:00 John suggests to have your book keeper level off or spread the cash over the next few months to get a better idea of how much money you have. Chuck says this is kind of a belt tightening mode.  21:00 John talks about 6, 12 month rolling averages to gauge budgets. Josh suggests going back a looking the sales cycle, it is the summer, and that effects sales every year.  25:00 John says that Chuck is setting up himself great for the future, he just needs to survive till the future. Chuck says he is not going to be able to get to a promised project. John says just to do the deliverables, and tell your clients what you are going to do next.  29:00 John talks about threading or multitasking, and how that still slows progress. So bucket own and do the projects.  31:00 Josh ask if Chuck heard the new of Josh hitting mile stone 2, and is now a 50% Simple Programmer owner. John talks about arm wrestling his father. John says there is only two things that can only happen with money in Simple Programmer, expenses or income.  36:00 Josh talks about exporting his bank info. and built a budget around that information. Josh talks about getting a call from his bank, and how they see that he is run a business out of his account. So Josh is opening a credit card account for business.  40:00 John suggest just setting up a business account rather than changing banks. EntreProgrammers talk about business credit cards.  44:00 John talks about using 99 Designs or a designer for the UK  for the book landing page. John talks about DHH.    Thoughts for the Week Chuck - Git yer done.  John - Like is an obstacle course..  Josh - Carve away stuff.. 

Josh Horton joins us today on The SHAIR Podcast, and Josh's story was featured in the Oxford Eagle online newspaper titled, Meet Joshua Horton: Ole Miss Law student overcomes odds, fights to make difference. Josh is a second-year Old Miss law student who finished magna cum laude from the Ole Miss Honors College, but prior to his achievement Josh was a train wreck, wreaking havoc everywhere he went. That sound about right, Josh? Josh Horton: Yeah, I don't know. It might be more of a plane crash than a train wreck but yeah, it was pretty bad. A little bit's happened since then. That was a few months ago. We've had a lot of progress since then. Matter of fact, I'm from Atlanta originally which I'll get into in my story. We had a large center feature on the front page of the Atlantic Journal Constitution talking about “No Matter What” and what that means in my recovery and the story of my journey that has brought me to law school. Omar: Do you have a Favorite Quote? Josh Horton: Why yes I do… "The test of success is not what you do when you're on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom" ~ George Patton Omar: I hear you brother! So what is the best suggestion you have ever received? Josh Horton: My sponsor made a comment to me once. I told you my father was killed when I was a young man or a baby actually. For a long time I was looking for a father figure and I was looking for somebody to show up and rescue me or take care of me. I was talking to Tim about this and I said, "I've always just wanted a guy to show up and be that father figure." He goes, "Josh, when you going to stop looking for that guy and start being that guy?" That really I think was a pivotal moment in not just my recovery but my entire life. He was right. When I started to do that, my life changed. My whole ... Everything started to kind of shift and I realized I don't have to wait on anybody else anymore. I can go do that now. I can go be what I've been looking for my entire life. I don't have to wait on somebody else to show up and do it for me. Omar: That was another beautiful God shot right there, the miracle of sponsorship. So Josh if you could give a newcomer only one suggestion, what would that be? Josh Horton: Surrender I think. That's the answer to most of my problems today is the ability to surrender in whatever I'm doing. It's kind of like that spiritual jujitsu. If I'm willing to surrender I can overcome just about anything. My pain usually comes from my resistance to the process and the more I try and resist the more pain and discomfort I have and the more mental anguish and turmoil as well. That's the biggest piece of mind I can get today. It's just this ability to surrender. Support The SHAIR Podcast: Donate with PayPal -  http://theshairpodcast.com/donate/ Amazon Link - http://theshairpodcast.com/amazon Facebook Private Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/theSHAIRpodcast/ Recommended Books: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth - by M. Scott Peck A New Pair of Glasses 9th Print Edition - by Chuck "C" The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life Paperback – by Emmet Fox Contact info for Josh: Website – Southern Recovery Advocacy Twitter - @Legal_Rebel Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/josh.horton.37    

Josh Zepps is a very talented Australian broadcaster based in West Hollywood in Los Angeles California.He’s done many things over his extensive career however his latest project “We the people live” is a podcast focused on making debate healthy again.In the last few years, you may have noticed online and elsewhere - especially in politics - that reasoned debate and discourse has vanished from the public space. Opposing viewpoints get shouted down from polarized positions, and utterly disregarded purely because they came out of the mouth of someone who identifies with a different part of the political spectrum as you.So Josh is trying to bring debate back, and often has viewpoints on his show that are confronting - however he moderates the conversation in such a way that despite my initial knee-jerk reaction to hearing these things, I’m able to see past that and into the deeper concept behind what the person is talking about.So right up front - right here - I will tell you this conversation will use words and phrases and cover concepts that we aren’t used to hearing.To talk about the problem with debate it’s important to talk about the different parts of why debate is broken.And part of that is restraining our initial reactions to hearing concepts and hypotheticals that aren’t entirely unimaginable but are still confronting to hear.You’ll know what I’m talking about when we get there.I highly recommend you check out Josh and find episodes he’s guested on other shows - particularly Joe Rogan’s incredible podcast where he often goes to dig deep into what is happening in the world at the moment.This is a heavy political conversation - but it’s one I feel is healthy to have, and I don’t even mind if you do this one in chunks - listen to five minutes of it, go check an episode of the Dollop - come back here and listen to five minutes more.You can find Josh on twitter @joshzepps.We recorded this over Skype so a big thanks to my podcast producer Andy Maher for chopping it together and making magic out of a dog’s breakfast of audio files. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on TRIO SIMPATICO David and Joshua have fallen off their bikes somewhere deep in the woods! They don't have a flashlight and forgot to pack their walkie talkies! Just when things couldn’t get any worse they stumble upon DAN KEARSEY, and he’s hungry to talk about the new Netflix series STRANGER THINGS! Wait! That actually sounds like a pretty good time! So Josh and Dave sit down to discuss childhood, the 80’s, and imponderable horror! But have no fear if you haven’t had a chance yet to watch STRANGER THINGS! During the first half of the show we have a spoiler free general discussion of the show informing you about its premise, some of its influences, and why you should watch it immediately! BUT watch out after the break because we jump out at you with a spoiler heavy second half that really gets into the nitty and the gritty of this nostalgic, suspense-filled Netflix romp!    TRIO SIMPATICO is out there!

So Josh pretty much talked to himself for the first few minutes of show as the rest of the crew ignored him. Par for the course at this point though really. Also we decided... The post Episode 113 – Is Anything going on?? first appeared on The Craft Beercast.

EntreProgrammers Episode 75    3:05 We’re Live!   John is coming to us from Belgium. Chuck sporting a pretty cool Mic Flag.    6:30 Josh shares that he is having a little bit of a tough time with his client. Josh shares his challenges with his marketing strategies, cost of clicks and conversion rate issues. “Eat’n Crow”  Josh is going to scratch his July invoice and pretend in never happened. Also, Josh is going to try to take control of the SumoMe stuff for his client.  John and the team tell Josh can’t not be responsible failed marketing attempts of his clients business if things are not going well.     20:00 Derick gives examples of his own marketing efforts that are not guaranteed. So Josh should not scratch his invoice for the month. The EntreProgrammers tell Josh there is not way for him to know the market ahead of time, so the risk is in the hands of his employer.    27:50 Josh may drop this current client, but still want a referral for this client. Derick suggests to do the minimum and exist this job with this client. Chuck says to reevaluate his situation and maybe reorganize.    35:00  Josh relayed information that AdWords was not going to work after sometime. But, Josh continued with this project, until he knew it was not going to work. John tells Josh to ask himself if he is willing to invest in this project, if so it is worth working on the project. Josh is looking into another client who is not willing to pay Josh’s fees.    45:00 Josh is talking about testimonials he has received from big names, and wondering if he should use those testimonials for future business.   Josh share more about a new client, who is not delivering needed material to get the project rolling.    52:00 John and Josh agree that this is a great learning experience. The Josh will have a better idea on the kinds of projects he could take on. Josh mentions he may want to find someone who experienced what he is going through to get some coaching.    57:50 John suggests that Josh should picking one or the other jobs, as far as doing copywriting.      1:04:00 Josh maybe thinking about leaving or doing copywriting along with starting another entrepreneurial project. Josh wants to build authority in his industry and wants to fill his time with things he can do until things pickup.    1:13:45 Josh is talking about writing copy for an amazon seller for 500 dollars, 3 paragraphs. Even in all the tough circumstances, Josh is optimistic and has the right attitude.   1:16:00 Chuck shares a visual of “Essentialism.”   1:17:50 EntreProgrammers Retreat! We’re dead serious now! We will take your money!    Sign-up by the end of August   Only 10 Slots To join the EntreProgrammers  in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Sign up and save your spot at: entrepreprogrammers.com/retreat2015   The EntreProgrammers share their plans for the retreat.    1:25:30 John sold the crap out of his sale! Without trying…   1:28:30 Josh talks about the new tracking links in Drip.  Chuck ask a question about Drip features.  The EntreProgrammers discuss that features of Drip.    1:34:00 John asks how things are going with the Libsyn features. Derick talks about how some people want to buy SignalLeaf. But he says it is not willing to sell, because he thinks it is junk.    1:40:00  Derick is still trying to figure out how to sell his RabbitMQ package. Derick shares some stats and marketing information on RabbitMQ ads.  Derick is running out of avenues to advertise the RabbitMQ package.     1:50:00 Derick is think about using AdWords for RabbitMQ marketing. Josh gives some feedback about the conversion rates, click rates, etc.    1:58:00  John asks if anyone know someone who is making money off of AdWords selling a digital product?    2:01:00 Chuck confirms that signup for Rails is hard to find.   Chuck explains the madness of the signup issues of Rails Clips. But, he is getting great feedback about the videos. Chuck is talking to some sponsorship prospects. Chuck share in little bit about the Web Security podcast. Chuck is working on the recommendations the team gave him.     Meet with Chuck, 6pm at Coopers BBQ, Fort Worth TX  

So, uh, this has never happened before, but a series of events have left us with only one host this week. So Josh forges onward by his lonesome, and his fatigue is palpable. But the week’s comics still get covered, and then there’s some free-for-all at the end. This will never happen again. Maybe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Justin is out this week! So Josh gets his brother as well as his friend Jason to talk about the game. Sorry if the audio is bad in this. We were laughing a lot =)

Are you ready to soar to new heights? Have you checked your mental baggage? Are your tray tables in their fully locked and upright positions? Oh, sure, you're rolling your eyes at this aviation-based puns, but if you think similar jokes aren't littered all over the new movie Planes, you've got another think coming. Yes, this week on Mousterpiece Cinema, it's time to face off against this new not-Pixar movie inspired by the Cars films from Disney/Pixar honcho John Lasseter. And once again, Gabe's nowhere to be found (though he might've made the right decision). So Josh is joined by Noel Kirkpatrick of This Was TV and Mark Pfeiffer of Reel Times to ask the hard questions: is Planes as bad as the chatter would lead you to believe? Does Dane Cook remind anyone else of Alex Rodriguez? And what kind of vehicle would Hitler be if Hitler was a vehicle in the world of Cars? (And...oh, yeah, why is World War II invoked in a kids' movie without humans? That too.) It's time to answer those burning queries and depart on the Boeing 747 known as Mousterpiece Cinema, so get on board!

People were sick and we still wanted to give you a special something. So Josh interviewed Sammy J about his television career so far and how he feels about hosting a new comedy show on the ABC.

Welcome to The Heroes Tavern. Grab a beer, pull up a chair and settle in for some game banter and laughs. So Josh actually edited the podcast this week but forgot to note down timestamps....whoops! This week the boys cover off some big news in the VR space as well as each playing a new game! Nick explored the Russian wasteland in Metro Exodus, Callum broke out of a science facility in Ape Out and Josh built a village in Dawn of Man. With @HitThatRowdyy, @SpazRus and @TheBSMuffin. We are @HeroesTavernpod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can email us at HeroesTavernPod@gmail.com. Visit our new website www.HeroesTavernPod.com ( http://www.heroestavernpod.com/ ) Catch SpazRus on twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/spazrus