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This week's podcast features author Nicholas Mills and Guest Editor Allan Jaffe as they discuss the article "High-Sensitivity Cardiac Troponin on Presentation to Rule Out Myocardial Infarction: A Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial." (https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.052380) Dr. Carolyn Lam: Welcome to Circulation On The Run, your weekly podcast summary, and backstage pass to the journal and its editors. We're your co-hosts. I'm Dr. Carolyn Lam, Associate Editor from the National Heart Center and Duke-National University of Singapore. Dr. Greg Hundley: And I'm Dr. Greg Hundley, Associate Editor/Director of the Pauley Heart Center and VCU Health in Richmond, Virginia. Well, Carolyn, this week's feature, we're going to examine cardiac troponin, high-sensitive cardiac troponin, and its association with myocardial infarction. But first, before we get to that, how about we grab a cup of coffee and start in and review some of the other articles in the issue? Would you like to go first? Dr. Carolyn Lam: I would love that. The first paper brings up the problem of stroke, remaining a devastating complication of transcatheter aortic valve replacement or TAVR. Now, this stroke risk has persisted despite refinements and the technique and increased operator experience, while cerebral embolic protection devices have been developed to mitigate this risk data regarding their impact on stroke and other outcomes after TAVR are limited. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Dr. David Cohen from Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York and colleagues performed an observational study using data from the STS-ACC TVT registry, including more than 123,000 patients from almost 600 sites who underwent elective or urgent transfemoral TAVR between January 2018 and December 2019. Dr. Greg Hundley: Wow, Carolyn, this sounds like a really good use of the registry. What were the results? Dr. Carolyn Lam: Indeed, in this nationally representative observational study, the authors did not find an association between embolic protection device use for TAVR and in-hospital stroke in their primary instrumental variable analysis. And that's a technique designed to support causal inference from observational data with site-level preference for embolic protection device use within the same quarter of the procedure as the instrument. Dr. Carolyn Lam: However, they found a modestly lower risk of in-hospital stroke in their secondary propensity weighted analysis. These findings provide a strong basis for large-scale randomized control trials to really test whether embolic protection devices provide meaningful clinical benefit for patients undergoing TAVR. And this is discussed in a nice accompanying editorial by Dr. Tam and with Wijeysundera from University of Toronto. Dr. Greg Hundley: Very nice Carolyn. Well, my first paper comes to us from Professor Hua Zhang from Shanghai Children's Medical Center. Cyanotic congenital heart disease is a complex pathophysiological condition involving systemic chronic hypoxia and some cyanotic congenital heart disease patients are chronically hypoxic throughout their lives which heightens their risk of heart failure as they age. Dr. Greg Hundley: Hypoxia activates cellular metabolic adaptation to balance energy demands by accumulating hypoxia-inducible factor 1-Alpha. And Carolyn, this study aims to determine the effect of chronic hypoxia on cardiac metabolism and function in cyanotic congenital heart disease patients and its association with age. The authors investigated the role of hypoxia-inducible factor 1-Alpha in this process, and the potential therapeutic targets for this were explored. Dr. Carolyn Lam: What did they find Greg? Dr. Greg Hundley: In cyanotic congenital heart disease patients maladaptation of cardiac metabolism occurred during puberty, along with impaired cardiac function. In cardiomyocytes, specific HIF1-Alpha knockout mice, chronic hypoxia failed to initiate the switch of myocardial substrates from fatty acids to glucose, thereby inhibiting ATP production and impairing cardiac function. Increased insulin resistance during puberty suppressed myocardial HIF1-Alpha and was responsible for cardiac metabolic maladaptation in animals exposed to chronic hypoxia. Dr. Greg Hundley: Pioglitazone significantly reduced myocardial insulin resistance, restored glucose metabolism, and improved cardiac function in pubertal chronic hypoxia animals. And so, Carolyn, perhaps future studies could test whether pioglitazone administration during puberty might improve cardiac function in cyanotic congenital heart disease patients. And this article is nicely accompanied by an editorial from Professor Ghofrani. Dr. Carolyn Lam: That's really interesting. For the next paper we're going from cyanotic congenital heart disease to plain old hypertension asking the question, What is the association of blood pressure classification using the 2017 ACC/AHA blood pressure guideline with risk of heart failure and atrial fibrillation? Well, this question was addressed by Dr. Kaneko and colleagues from University of Tokyo who performed analysis using a nationwide health claims database collected in the JMDC claims database between 2005 and 2018. Now note, this was more than 2 million patients followed for a mean of more than a thousand days in whom more than 28,000 incident heart failure, and more than 7,700 incident atrial fibrillation events occurred. Dr. Greg Hundley: Carolyn, this is a really large cohort a lot of events. What did they find here? Dr. Carolyn Lam: Among adults not taking anti-hypertensive medications and with no prevalent history of cardiovascular disease, stage one and stage two hypertension, according to the 2017 ACC/AHA blood pressure guidelines was associated with a higher incidence of heart failure and atrial fibrillation. The population attributable fractions for heart failure associated with stage 1 and stage 2 hypertension were 23.2% and 51.2% respectively. The population attributable fractions for atrial fibrillation associated with stage 1 and 2 hypertension were 17.4% and 34.3% respectively. The categorization based on 2017, ATC/AHA blood pressure guidelines may improve risk stratification for identifying adults at high risk for heart failure and atrial fibrillation. Dr. Greg Hundley: Wow Carolyn. Really useful data and something I love about our journal, a transition from a large cohort study on hypertension, and now we're going to delve into the world of preclinical science and talk about myocardial hypertrophy. Carolyn, exercise can induce physiological myocardial hypertrophy and former athletes can live five to six years longer than non-athletic control suggesting a benefit after regression of physiological myocardial hypertrophy. Dr. Greg Hundley: Accordingly, these authors led by Professor Yulin Liao from Nanfang Hospital and Southern Medical University hypothesized that anti-hypertrophic memory exists after physiologic myocardial hypertrophy has regressed increasing myocardial resistance to subsequent pathological hypertrophic stress. In this study, C57BL, six mice were submitted to 21 days of swimming training to develop physiological myocardial hypertrophy. Then after termination of the swimming events and exercise, the physiological myocardial hypertrophy regressed within a week. And these physiological myocardial hypertrophy regression mice termed the exercise preconditioning group or HP, and then sedentary mice as a control group underwent transverse aortic constriction, or a sham operation and were observed for four weeks. Dr. Greg Hundley: Finally, in these two groups, cardiac remodeling and function were evaluated using echocardiography invasive left ventricular hemodynamic measurements and histological analysis. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Wow. Exercise induced and I hypertrophic memory in the heart. That is so cool. Greg, could you summarize what they found? Dr. Greg Hundley: Yeah. And how about that exercise stimulus? The mice were swimming. Carolyn, these authors found that exercise-induced physiological myocardial hypertrophy can produce cardioprotective effect. And this cardioprotective effect continues to exist after the physiological myocardial hypertrophy subsides. And it's termed a phenomenon exercise hypertrophy preconditioning. Dr. Greg Hundley: Now, mechanistically, the investigators found that exercise hypertrophy preconditioning up regulates the expression of the long noncoding RNA Mhrt779 by increasing the three methylation of histone 3 at the A4 promoter of Mhrt779. Dr. Greg Hundley: Carolyn, also cardiac overexpression are knocked down of Mhrt779 respectively enhanced or weakened the anti hypertrophy effect of exercise hypertrophy preconditioning. The clinical implications of this research are that these results will likely stimulate further research into the mechanisms of exercise hypertrophy preconditioning, and Mhrt779 may be a potential therapeutic target for myocardial heart hypertrophy and heart failure in clinical practice. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Wow. Thanks so much, Greg. That was an incredible summary. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Let me tell you what else is in today's issue. There's an exchange of letters amongst doctors Mehmood Donkor, and Westermann regarding the article “Left Ventricular Unloading is Associated with Lower Mortality in Cardiogenic Shock Patients Treated with Venal Arterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.” There's an ECG Challenge by Dr. Bhasin regarding “A Young Woman with Palpitations. Is It a Poison or Is It a Reality?” Dr. Carolyn Lam: In Cardiology News by Tracy Hampton, she describes new research, revealing mechanisms behind exercise-induced heart damage, new details behind muscle injury repair, and new insights on plasma membrane rupture during cell death. Very interesting. A new section there. There's a Perspective piece by Dr. Passman on “'Pill in the Pocket?' Anticoagulation for Atrial Fibrillation. Is That Fiction, Fact, or Foolish?” Dr. Greg Hundley: Great, Carolyn. Well also in the mailbag, there's a Frontiers and medicine piece from Professor Rohatgi entitled “HDL in the 21st Century: A Multifunctional Roadmap for Future HDL Research.” And then finally, Carolyn, a Research Letter from Professor Felker, entitled Probabilistic Re-adjudication of Heart Failure Hospitalization: Events in the Paragon-HF Study.” Well, Carolyn, what a great group of articles summarized. How about now we proceed to that feature discussion? Dr. Carolyn Lam: Let's go Greg. Dr. Greg Hundley: Well, listeners. We are now to our featured discussion today and we have with us one of our associate editors who has submitted a paper, Dr. Nick Mills from Edinburgh, Scotland. And then we have a guest editor. Sometimes he's been a feature author, but now he's serving as a guest editor, Dr. Alan Jaffe from Rochester, Minnesota. Welcome gentlemen. Dr. Greg Hundley: Well, Nick, could you start us off first and describe for us the hypothesis that you wanted to test, and then maybe also provide a little bit of context or background around the study that you and your team have just performed. Dr. Nicholas Mills: Thanks, Greg. I've been working for about a decade trying to understand how we can get the value from high-sensitivity cardiac troponin in our clinical practice. We've tried a number of different approaches to implement them for the benefit of patient care that I'm particularly proud of this trial. What we'd recognized that I think with the rollout of these assays across Europe and more recently in America is that they're excellent tests, but they do generate some diagnostic uncertainty in clinical practice. Dr. Nicholas Mills: But as we've got used to using them, we've learned that actually their major strength is that the confidence that they bring in ruling out myocardial infarction rather than ruling it in. And they allow us to make really early decisions often with a single test at the point of arrival, where we can say with absolute confidence that a patient does not have acute coronary syndrome and it's unlikely to have a problem in the next 30 days or one year based on just how low that high sense of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin result is. And I've been a strong advocate for using these tests in that way for some time. But the limitation has been that much of the work in this field has been observational. And so the patients were actually managed accordingly because of uncertain pathways. And there's always been some uncertainty as just how effective they are when in clinical practice, whether using these approaches are safe. And so we designed the Historic Trial to address that definitively in our hospitals in Scotland. Dr. Greg Hundley: Very nice Nick. So what was the study population and what was the design for this Dr. Nicholas Mills: Thanks Greg. So we use an interesting study design set wage cluster, randomized controlled trial, where rather than randomizing individual patients and randomized hospitals in Scotland, in order to do a trial like this, you need very detailed infrastructure because we wanted to enroll every consecutive patient, attending our emergency departments with symptoms, suspicions of acute cardiac syndrome. We embed it so into our care path, which allows our clinicians to enroll patients for us. We were keen to enroll all consecutive patients because we wants to be confident that our findings were truly generalizable at any included patients with complex comorbidities presenting that of ours who were sick unwell, which is often not the case; they've been observational studies. We randomized hospitals and follow up patients with acute coronary syndrome up for a year in order to determine whether the implementation of already changed clinical care and that was safe and did not lead to recurrent and in the future. Dr. Greg Hundley: Very nice. So Nick, in this randomization of hospitals, how many total patients did you encounter and then what were your study results? Dr. Nicholas Mills: So we enrolled 31,492 consecutive patients. I've crossed all seven hospitals implementing our early relapse pathway, reduced length of stay overall in the hospital. By just over three hours, we increased the proportion of patients who are directly discharged home from the emergency department by more than 50%. So that overall 71% of patients attending hospital with possible acute coronary syndrome were able to be discharged from the emergency department rather than being admitted unnecessarily for further investigations. But the critical result was, was that major change in the care pathway safe. We had a non-inferiority design. We had a very small number of safety outcomes at 30 days, and it was difficult to prove non-inferiority, but the event rate favored the implementation there. Dr. Nicholas Mills: They will have pathway with the 0.4% of patients we attend within 30 days of heart attack or dying from heart disease for our implementing it and 0.3% in and crucially, we followed everyone up for a year and were able to demonstrate that the safety outcome was not increased in those that we are able to that pathway one year with absolute confidence. And furthermore, there was no difference in re attendance or an all-cause mortality. We the two different arms of the trial. So we concluded that the early relapse pathway was effective and safe, and that using this approach we'd have major benefits from patients who can avoid unnecessary for healthcare providers in terms of reducing actual cost limitations. Dr. Greg Hundley: Fantastic. Well listeners, we're now going to turn to our guest editor, Dr. Alan Jaffe, and Alan, could you help us put into perspective these new data regarding high sensitivity, proponent, and also comment what attracted you to this article so much so that you feel it's needs to be published and circulated worldwide in the literature? Dr. Allan Jaffe: One of the important areas in the field of biomarkers is the movement just finally occurring. And Nick has been the forefront of this, of starting to do randomized trials. Observational data is just that it's observational. The patients are not created based on the information that is by the biomarkers. Patients can be missed if you're missing a sample, you exclude those patients. In addition, most observational trials, try and get informed consent. And by getting informed consent often miss the sickest patients. So what's desperately needed by the field. And which is just now starting with two or three ongoing randomized trials is just that a randomized trial where the investigators are forced to use the data, to manage the patient. And by using the step wedge design that Nick and his group has used in other trials as well, they guarantee that they don't miss patients either. Dr. Allan Jaffe: So that it's comprehensive and takes all into account. This is terribly important to then validate things like in this instance, the rule-out pathway. And I think these data do substantially confirm the fact that a single sample rule-out strategy using the cutoff value that Nick had previously established as optimizing the percentage of the population that can be included works well. It is unfortunate that the way in which they design their trial mist and design their non-inferiority outcome for safety was such that they ended up not finding significance to that. But I agree with Dr. Mills in the sense that the outcome adverse effects were so low, that despite that I think there's very important and reasonable data that this strategy is also safe. Dr. Greg Hundley: Very good. Well, Nick, thinking forward, what do you feel is the next study that needs to really be performed in this area? Dr. Nicholas Mills: I completely agree with everything Alan said. I think there's lots of really interesting approaches to find a group diagnosis, risk stratification of this really common condition. We need trials that demonstrate these approaches actually influence care and outcomes. For me, the challenge remains how to really harness these great tests to route the ruler of my cognitive function. I run about ads of patients with elevated cardiac troponin added due to an underlying condition that is an acute coronary syndrome. And we're starting to think about ways in which we can individualize our decision-making a little bit moving to walk away from binary thresholds, because values are influenced by age, by sex, by comorbidities like renal disease and preexisting heart failure about heart disease. Dr. Nicholas Mills: And by incorporating some of these patient factors into the interpretation of cardiac troponin. I think we can give clinicians better guidance on who to treat early with antiplatelet therapies and who needs invasive investigation than just simply saying that the troponin concentration is all positive or negative. And it's our challenge, I think, is how to harness that information, make it workable in clinical practice, and then demonstrate that by doing so we actually target effective therapies better, and that it makes a difference for patient care. So this is where we're working on at the moment. And I hope that in due course, we'll be able to do randomized trials in this space and that will move things forward again. Dr. Greg Hundley: Alan, do you have anything you'd like to add to that? Dr. Allan Jaffe: Yes. I think we're in a new era. We are finally starting to see there are now two or three randomized trials. It is time that the biomarker diagnostic studies graduate to a higher level of evidence, meaning randomized controlled trials. Nick is leading the way in that regard and I suspect and hope that subsequent trials, although observational trials may help inform which ones we should do, but that subsequent trials will continue to be randomized and generate the more robust data that randomized trials are capable of generating. Dr. Greg Hundley: Well, thank you both. And Nick, thank you for bringing us this research and also Alan, for evaluating it and providing this commentary today. It's quite exciting to have really this new information produced from a randomized trial, which evaluated the utility of a low high sensitivity treponema value in patients presenting to hospitals with chest pain syndromes. Well, on behalf of Carolyn and myself, we want to wish you a great week and we will catch you next week on the run. This program is copyright of the American Heart Association 2021. The opinions expressed by speakers in this podcast are their own and not necessarily those of the editors or of the American Heart Association for more visit ahajournals.org.  

Lately, as many people have noted, the landscape of Magic has changed. There are more players than ever, and the MTG markets in the USA have been growing at an unimaginable rate.  One of these effects has been that it's simply more difficult than ever for most players to acquire Reserved List cards.  So Nick and Zak got to thinking: What would Commander look like if all the cards on the reserved list were banned? What happens to the format, and what would players do?  This is 100% just a thought experiment. We are in no way advocating for this, but the conclusions reveal a lot about what players are playing with and where the format is headed. So listen and find out! This episode is also a 2-parter. This week we get into "Traditional", casual Commander. Next week we'll have a special guest to talk about cEDH, and what might happen in that format if the cards of the Reserved List were to disappear tomorrow, so stay tuned!!  Our YouTube has videos for even more Commander content!If you like our podcast, please support us on Patreon!If you're planning on shopping with TCGPlayer, you can support the show by using our affiliate link. It costs you nothing and earns money for the show!The opening theme is Lincoln Continental by Entrophy (now Nic Cage on Soundcloud)Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/commandertheory)

Nick tackles the greatest virus that is killing America today, worse than COVID combined with the common cold and that is the terrible office employee that you can't fire. Nick knows that in today's passive-aggressive world that it takes months even centuries to fire someone and it can still have legal/media ramifications that can hurt your company. So Nick has developed a few methods on how you can get your terrible employee to leave on their own accord and save your company billions of dollars. You will not want to miss this episode because it will save the American Economy, because terrible lazy employees are ruining it.    www.cutellicomedy.com   

Why are lead generation and prospecting so important? How do they complement each other in the sales process? Why is keeping your pipeline full so important? How does cultivating an awareness of needs lead to a higher close rate? Nick Kane—a Managing Partner at Janek Performance Group—shares his point of view in this episode of Sales Reinvented. Nick is a published author and sales performance expert. Don’t miss out on his expertise—listen now! Outline of This Episode [0:55] The difference between lead gen and prospecting [1:44] Why are both important to sales? [2:53] What Nick’s prospecting process looks like [4:44] The 3 components that lead to successful prospecting [7:42] Skills sales professionals need to develop [9:24] Top 3 prospecting and lead generation dos and don’ts [14:27] Prospecting in the life insurance industry What Nick’s prospecting process looks like Without prospecting and lead generation, Nick shares that you’ll struggle to generate new business. You have to keep the funnel full or you have to rely on a high close rate. An organization must focus on generating enough leads to keep their salespeople busy and help them hit their quotas.  Nick emphasizes that both activities are complementary and benefit from each other. Lead generation consists of getting new opportunities in the pipeline and moving them through the funnel. It is a multi-prong activity that could include paid search, SEO, content development, sponsorships, and more. It does depend on the organization and target audience.  Nick points out that prospecting depends on who you are going after. Prospecting should include leveraging social media and social selling, networking events, business development activities, referrals from existing clients, and more.  The 3 components that lead to successful prospecting Nick believes three components lead to successful prospecting: Mindset: Direct prospecting activities require the ability to deal with rejection. You have to be prepared to handle rejection. You must also help your customer create an awareness of needs to provide valuable insight, to raise a customer’s interest.  Skillset: You must have a willingness to help, be persistent, and be consistent. You can’t just focus on the opportunities right in front of you and neglect prospecting. When deals are closed out you’re left with very little.  Process: To Nick, top-performing sales professionals are not just calling anybody. You need to identify the right targets who will value what you have to offer. Narrow a list to a smaller pool for targeted prospecting efforts.  You want to have strong initial questions to ask prompted by data or insight. It is important to create awareness of needs because prospects aren’t waiting for your call. You need to have the capability to identify good data to be thought-provoking. You just need to win the phone call, conversation, and meeting. You also need the ability to work through initial objections and earn the right to have the conversation. Prospecting in the life insurance industry Nick had the opportunity to work with a global life insurance organization. Prospecting in that industry is extremely challenging. You operate independently and there isn’t a lot of lead generation. The salespeople didn't have strong processes, skills or strategies. So Nick’s team put together a strong and effective approach to support the sales professionals prospecting activities. They needed to maximize their personal and professional contacts to develop prospects.  They helped develop a personal brand for each sales professional. How did they want to be viewed online? How did they want to come across to prospects? They started to adjust their personal brand and enhance their efforts. They helped them come up with key metrics and how to track those activities. What level of activity is needed to fill the pipeline and drive results? The combination of those three things drove results for that organization. Prospecting led to more appointments being booked. Their conversion rates are up. Overall revenue is up. They drove overall results for their clients. You can’t just ask salespeople to go out and prospect and let them figure it out on their own. They need support. They need preparation. They need to learn how to cultivate an awareness of needs in their prospect. Learn more about Nick’s process by listening to the whole episode! Connect with Nick Kane Connect on LinkedIn Follow on Twitter Connect With Paul Watts  LinkedIn Twitter Subscribe to SALES REINVENTED Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com

Very exciting news - on this week's episode, we're joined by Lucy and Simona for Kid Corner! If you want to hear what they have to say, you'll have to listen to the end. You can also watch on YouTube to see how freaking adorable they are on camera. In addition to Lucy and Simona's podcast debut, we try the brand new Decoy wine seltzers (Nick was super pumped about them), play some crazy fun Irish-themed would you rather, and lots more fun.Here are links to what we talked about on this week's episode:Bridget loved this story about a figure skater performing RIVERDANCE ON ICE! You need to watch the video here.Nick wanted to give some serious props to our podcast host Buzzsprout for their response to a DDOS attack. You can read about how they responded on their blog post about the incident.If you're interested in starting your own podcast, we'd recommend watching Buzzsprout's "How to Start a Podcast in 2021" video. It's fun, easy to watch, and informational. Bridget is getting crafty with this 4000 (!!) piece clay bead set. Hit her up if you'd like a bracelet. Our friend Sean Payne pointed us to Sister Golden, an artist that makes incredible artwork from flowers and other natural items. You need to check out the website.Bridget stole Nick's recipe idea for the week of cooking Irish Colcannon Potatoes. So Nick is going to instead get in on the Beer Can Chicken recipe.We hope you enjoyed this week's episode and that our kids didn't ruin it for you. It was just too good of an opportunity to pass up to have them get a taste of the podcast life!If you can please subscribe, rate us, review us, and share with your friends, we'd really appreciate it. Remember, you can follow us and get in touch with us through the following channels:Watch on YouTube Subscribe on YouTubeVisit our websiteLike us on FacebookFollow us on InstagramGet links to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite appOr email us at: hello /at/ dinnerlusdrinks /dot/ comSláinte, everybody! Enjoy St. Patrick's Day, and we'll see you next week!~ Bridget and Nick

Charlie is not in station today, So Nick and Tyler joins the show! 

Nick Cranfield is the Global Director Legal Operations at Dyson.Since joining Dyson in June 2017 he's been responsible for building out a global Compliance and Ethics function. Amongst other things, this involved the development and launch of a new Code of Conduct. Nick was also responsible for preparing Dyson for GDPR and took management responsibility for the Privacy Team.And in November 2019 he moved into a new role of Global Director Legal Operations to support Dyson's Chief Legal Officer in managing the Dyson Legal department and leading a transformation programme across Dyson's Legal Teams.Globally Dyson has about a hundred legal IP and compliance professionals working across its legal teams in 12 jurisdictions,  servicing their internal clients in around 36 different jurisdictions.Nick's first challenge was setting about trying to improve the experience for the people working within Dyson's legal function. As an in-house function, unlike an external law firm, the services they provide to the business are free at the point of delivery, a bit like the NHS. Effectively demand is completely unconstrained. That creates a lot of pressure for the people that work in legal. So Nick wanted to try and improve that experience. His second key objective was to make sure his teams continued to deliver excellent legal services to the business.One of the things Nick learned along the way was to align his legal operations strategy with the wider IT strategy. Using Microsoft 365 became a really fundamental part of that. By building within that native platform, it meant his development was already supported, and they were seen as 'good corporate citizens' because they were utilizing the IT tools which the enterprise was asking them to use.His advice to other inhouse legal operations directors is to have the courage to start. Make the changes that you want. Start to do something you need. Every journey starts with that single step and don't be afraid to take it. "We're not constructing a nuclear reactor. So if the portal goes wrong, if someone ends up at the wrong place or they don't quite get the guidance they wanted, as long as you provide feedback loops that are working. As long as you've got a non-defensive approach to feedback and you can fix things quickly."Nick says that's the big advantage of using Microsoft 365. It's not difficult. It's not technically complicated. So you can fail fast and move on. Tune in to hear more of what Nick had to say.

In this episode, Nick talks about how to survive the fear of firings in the workplace. The American office which has turned into a Middle School Drama filled Cafeteria is scared to death of fire and people due to frivolous lawsuits. So Nick has come up with the perfect fall guy planned they can save your office boost morale and have the client love you for life. Check it out! To contact host Nick Cutelli visit his website atwww.cutellicomedy.com  

Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Mindshare Mindcast where today our guest is Nicholas Ortner. He's the CEO of the Tapping Solution, a company with a mission to bring into the mainstream - a simple, effective natural healing method known as emotional freedom technique, EFT, or tapping. You've probably heard of it. You're in Mindshare. Tapping is a healing modality that combines ancient Chinese acupressure and modern psychology. Nick's goal is to empower people to create healthy, abundant, and stress-free lives through his books, films, CDs, online events, speaking engagements, attracting people from all over the world. And it's working. He's a New York Times bestselling author of The Tapping Solution, A Revolutionary System For Stress-Free Living, and The Tapping Solution For Pain Relief, a step-by-step guide to reducing and eliminating chronic pain. Now, prior to that, Nick created and produced the breakthrough documentary film, The Tapping Solution, which actually follows ten people around who use tapping to overcome significant challenges, including chronic back pain, and fibromyalgia, insomnia, grief, all kinds of stuff. And Nick's books, and films, and all of that document the real and extraordinary results that tapping has inspired tens of thousands of people to experience. So Nick, welcome to the Mindshare Mindcast.

Alright, everybody. Welcome back to the hungriest episode of the mind of George show. And I'm going to be really, really honest. Some of you know, I'm doing the 75 hard challenge and I have to eat a certain way to support everybody and follow Andy's thing. And my guest today is probably the worst guest to have when it comes to being hungry and the best cast to have when it comes to business resiliency, overcoming challenges, mindset, leadership, and everything in between.Right. So like, let me just throw this out here before I bring Nick and, but we're talking world pizza team went from pizza delivery guy to owning six franchises awards across the board. Motivational speaker, everything that you can imagine. Podcast hosts has a book out there and really like probably a man after my heart.Every single thing that we talk about, or every single thing that he has somehow has pizza or food involved. So that inner fat kid that I work really hard to keep at Bay is going to be happy for today's episode. So without further ado, Nick, welcome to the show.  Nick: Thanks for having me, George, I'm super excited to be here.George: Thanks for your time. And I'm, I'm just excited after digging into like your story, I found a keynote talking about you as a child and a resiliency and mindset. One of the first things that I always love to ask my guests, and I think this is so right up your alley and something that you're probably experiencing now and also have experienced in the past. But I always ask people like, what was one of the biggest challenges or struggles or failures that you you've had in business. And what was the lesson that you learned?Nick:  There's there's been a lot of them. I think a lot of times people think that it just, everything happened overnight. They see the success and they think, wow, you know, this guy got lucky, but I think that any entrepreneur knows out there that, there's a lot of opposites and it's a giant roller coaster.From the very beginning giving I was a pizza delivery driver finally got my own shot at my own restaurant. And I had a partner from the very beginning and  It, that was it. That was the big mistake. It lasted. We took over the restaurant September 14th and by Thanksgiving I had to tell my partner, he had to go because he just could not stop drinking.We bought a restaurant and a bar andhe was somebody I knew for eight years, good friend. He was going to be high. I was going to be the knowhow behind it. And I had to tell him he had to get out and he was okay with it because he really thought, you know what? I'm okay. It's okay. Because he's not, there's no way I was going to come up with the money. And I'm the guy, the issue there who were selling it to a saw how hard I was working. So they were like, you know whatwe don't like your partner either because every time we're here, he's drunk. So we'll just go ahead and we'll finance it over five years.Give us what you can give us this amount and the rest is history, but I think the lesson I learned from that is, you know, believe in yourself, you know what? I think a lot of times people get into business and they think they need a partner. And you know, if you work hard enough and think smart enough, and there's a lot of people out there that you can ask for for help, like, don't be, you know, be humble, be somebody that will ask for help when you know.George: Yeah, man, I, I love that it, and I think that's something that you like after digging in a little bit like full disclosure. You're probably the only guest I researched because you're like the most interesting man to me. And I was like, I got to keep finding out more. And like, even at a very young age for you though, like even when you were growing up, I think you have like four brothers, right?So three brothers, even at an early age, you found that you tilted more towards like wanting to be a coach, wanting to be a leader, like finding out these parts of yourself that you could share with other people, but you had it like a pretty young age we're interested in like, Believing in yourself and doing the work on yourself, right?Like what was that, what was that journey like? I mean, I can't imagine being like 13 years old and be like, I don't want to be the star. I'm like, I want to go be a leader today. Like that didn't get into me until the Marine Corps shoved it down my throat. And I'm so grateful that they did there. There was just punk kid in me until that point. So it sounds like you've, you've kind of been on this journey for a long time and now you're kind of living in the results of it and doing it. But what was, what was that like? Like, what was your childhood like? Like where did you get started in all of this and come up and kind of keep that leadership mentality and apply it to where you got to today.Nick: Well, my older brother is a number two, so my older brother's seven years older than me. So when I was 11, he was off to college. So it was my younger brothers were four and six years younger than me. So there you're okay with a seven year old brother and a five year old brother and really for the next step. Four years, you know, it was us and he went we live in Pittsburgh. He went to college in Daytona beach. So he was for the most part, he was gone for next week, four years. So, you know, I became, I guess the older brother. And I was, I love sports. I would sit there and watch sports center every single morning with my cereal.But I sucked me. I was just a kid that was so uncoordinated and you know, there were certain, certain sports, I guess, that I would just try really hard at it. And baseball, I just could never get the hacker pack of it for the hang of it. And then football, I was just always too skinny and you know, I was probably like, I don't know, maybe. It might five, five something like maybe 70 pounds. Like I was just a beanpole. So it translates into one, I think. And that's coach. So I really enjoyed watching my younger brothers, whether it was you know helping with their baseball teams and being like the third base coach and the kid that was always keeping score for their teams.And then we had a youth foundation right down the Hill from my house and I became the floor hockey coach and volunteer the month down there. And I just was found that I love to leave and I didn't really realize it. And there were times where, you know, stupid kid stuff. And I remember a guidance counselor pulled me in probably about six or seventh grade.And he said, you know you're a leader. Don't be following the other kids. I always thought maybe it's bull crap. But the more that I look back on that. I don't know what it was, if that was just the line he gives to everybody or if he actually really saw something in me, but I was, I always have to be the one that kinda was the leader or kind of, and I didn't realize that.And I think as I got older you find that out with your friends too, like, you know, you have a certain group of friends and each one has, and I was you know, one of the ones that was always, coming up with something to do or go somewhere and I just enjoyed.  being part of sports that actually felt like I was, I was good at something.When the other kids didn't have practices and we'd win the championships and everyone wanted to be on my four HOckey team. And you know, we'd have pizza parties for, to, for the team when we won. And yeah, all kind of just little things that there was a lot of fun and like, you know, it's really hard to ask kids 16, 17, 18, what do they want to do the rest of their life?I really didn't know. I always thought maybe it was something with sports and I'll never forget. I was sitting at the lunch table in junior year and I said to my buddy, man, I'm making a lot of tips washing cars. And he said, I'm making way more tips delivering pizzza. And that was, I was hooked because I always worked from like, maybe even like 10 or 12 one, I was.Whether it was cutting lawns, lemonade stand, a baseball card show. I didn't just like go in and sell the baseball cards or flip cards. I was actually  putting the show on it that same youth foundation I'd find out that for 85 bucks, I could rent the youth foundation out on a Sunday.  So once I rent, the space offer for 85 box, we went ahead and I would go to the flea market that I went every week with my mom. She would sell chocolates there and I would go around to the guy selling baseball cards and tell them, Hey, I'm having a show. would you like to buy a table? And then beforeit I'd be putting on these baseball card shows.  So I think it was just like, I didn't realize that I was had entrepreneurial spirit in me. But,  my uncle was a butcher, always had his own business and they had a gas station and he was kind of like a, so when I really looked up to, and then my other we'll have  an awning and a roofing company.AndI just think that it somewhere in me. It was I always looked up to people who had their own businessreally thoughthat was something.George:  Yeah, man, I was riding my bike in the woods. And you were taking over trade shows at like your local center to be an entrepreneur. Like I I'm like sitting here. I'm like, man, I got such a late start hearing you, but I love it. What do you think it was like, um, you know, basically like for me, when I hear you talk about leadership and like. You know, when you talk about like you were coaching your brothers and then you were having them practice when others weren't like, it sounds like you really understood, like, okay, we put in the work, we're going to have success.Like it's inevitable, but also like, there's this piece of me that feels like you just really love people. Like you like love finding the best in people and bringing the best out of people. Is that kind of like, what kept you going? Like, I, I just can't imagine it like 14 years old being like, Oh, well I could go to a baseball card show or I can figure out that I can rent the hall for $85, put on my own flip tables and get it going.But it just sounds like every ounce of what you did was you were just like, I know I can do it. I believe in myself. I know it's just a matter of time if I keep going, but. It also sounds like at the core of it, you really just understood that people were at the core of everything that you did.  NIck: Well, I think there's a lot of truth to that. And I think the other part was by putting on the shows, I became friends with these 40 year old guys. So, you know, that was really to put a timestamp on it. And it was when the 89 upper deck Griffey Jr's came out. And so it was right around that like real big baseball card, crazy. And. And, um, you know, I guess side note, I think it's so awesome to partner to come back and, you know, Gary V's pushing them.So I think it's pretty cool that you're seeing baseball cards and everything come back around. But at that time I became friends with these older guys. So it was like they were giving me deals and I was able, none of that was putting on the shows. Like I was like almost they're equal. Sowere hooking me up in my car I was getting great cards and it just worked. I think it worked really good.  There's a certain point where yes. You know, um, Everything's about people. It doesn't matter from the pizza business or whatever it is, you're in the people business. And I guess I always go to certain things that you hear throughout your life the golden rule and treat others how you want to be treated.And I always say there's reasons that you hear these things all the time and it's because they're true. You don't just hear these things all the time because your grandma liked to repeat them. Like there's a lot of things that are just true. And I think the other part thatsome of it's how you're wired and that's the self awareness and getting into knowing yourself.But I definitely am one of those people that I'm either all in or all out. Like it doesn't matter what I do. I do it full tilt. I cannot justdo something a little bit. Like I can't, it doesn't matter if I've got a hobby and I'm feeding the birds. I've got the biggest baddest bird feeder. It's just the way how I'm wired. And if I'm in the pizza business, like there's no way I'm going to have just one restaurant. You know, that's a local mom pop shop and there's nothing wrong with that. That's great to be that community one shop, like I'm going to be the destination.I'm going to be the guy that's on the map. I'm going to be going to Italy to compete in competitions. I'm going to be speaking at the competence, speaking at the competitions and the expos. I'm going to write a book about it. Like that's jus the way I'm wired.  Goerge: So, yeah. Well, I mean, I think it speaks to the results, but also the practice, just something like the embodiment, right?There's a big difference between being interested in being committed and being interested as a hobby that produces part-time results and being committed. You're like, I'm going to do whatever, like you and I get along great. Like. My wife went to the pet store with my kids to get a hamster and came home with a pet snake. And I was like, Oh geez, here we go. And then I was like a week later, I'm like a professional herpetologist, right? Like I'm like their humidity. This is their feeding schedule. Their cages needs look like this. This is how we take care of them. Now, a month later we have three snakes and I'm like, literally like the snake whisper. My wife's like, you're obsess about this. Like, no. Well, if we're going to have them. We're going to have them perfect. They're going to have everything they need. I'm going to know everything about, I'm going to make sure they get taken care of like you and you. And I would be dangerous in a business together because it really, I feel the same way. But I also feel like that's one of the thing that's missing in today's market. Like, I feel like there's a lot of businesses. There's a lot of internet marketing. There's a lot of, you know, everyone's like, Oh, it's so easy here. Go buy this, go buy this.  But if you're not all the way in, like self-aware of like who you are and what you want to do. And then having that to go find your customers, know how to support them, know how to serve them and then apply that in your business, like it can't work. And like, I, and I'm going to give you kudos. Like you went into one of those hardest businesses that there is like not only the restaurant business, but the low margin restaurant business. That really isn't like something that was like going out for this Michelin star pizza. It's like a hobby and it's a consumable, but it's a hard industry. Like I grew up working in pizza shops and all I have left to show for it is still the burns of my arm.  Cause my armor gets stuck to the top of the oven, like once a month. Cause I wasn't paying attention, but. You know what I love about that. And I want to transition this cause now you own what?Five locations,  five or six?  Nick: We all do have five kind of mixed the six one. We were going to do one in April. And when Covid came on strong  and March, I just could not pull the trigger for a 7,000 square foot restaurant. And I'll tell you what, it was super hard decision because I'm just like you, everything. I just said, I'm always full steam ahead. Like. Man. I was like, am I being lazy? Am I being paranoid? Am I like taking the risk? And I was like, no, I think I'm actually being a little smart here, you know? But that was tough, but yeah, I have, I have five. we're going to celebrate our eighth year, um, coming up here in September and we're going to do roughly,right around $10 million in pizzas this year. Wow. Over by stores.  George: That's amazing. And so you started. You went from, okay, I'm a coach to hosting pizza parties, which I love that was just the seed you need. I have a feeling you've loved pizza your whole life, basically. Yeah. Okay. And then you went from that to like your buddies, like I'm making way more tips as a piece of delivery driver, which, by the way, I was a pizza delivery driver and I made a boatload of tips cause I treated people good. And then you're like, okay.Yeah. I want to buy this restaurant. You learned your lesson and you lost the partner. Which was a gift. Like you molded that one out and then you took off. And then what was that like first year? Like that first two years, because you had one and then what was that journey like to go from like, okay, I'm financing this pizza shop to, I have to flip this thing around. I have to make it profitable. Then I have to expand. Like, what was that journey like?  Nick: Well the journey  really starte a lot younger and a lot longer  than when I opened it. When we bought the business, I was 34. Just to give you an idea. my wife and I, we just celebrated 20 anniversary. And so we have a 20year old and 18 year old. So really when I was 21, 22, you know, father when we found out we're going to have our daughter as like in seven and a quarter an hour andwhy wait, so what are we going to do? And I said, well, we get married, get a house, you know, okay, it's a deal.And a man the next 14 years, I just really grinded. And people use that word all the time and, and I, I think I used that word before. It was cool. Like I was 80, 90 hours a week. Literally five jobs all in the same week. And, and it wasn't like side jobs. It was like straight on like full time mailman at the post office where I always say dreams go to die. And then full time at Papa John's being the general manager. I was I'm delivering it to other pizza shops. I was counting the money at the civic reader where the Pittsburgh penguins played at night. And man, I just everything I could have a normal family, you know? Yeah. And,try and raise two kids without a college degree.And I think I always was that guy and all the differentDomino's Papa John's that I worked at, they would go in and build the sales. I learned at a very young age. A manager was going to go ahead and,ire, I made the supervisor because my walls were dirty. The album was dirty and I was working 80, 90 hours a week.And we went out to a meeting in a, because that's where the other eight franchise stores were. And there was four in Pittsburgh. So every month we, you drive out to Ohio, me and three other general managers were all older than me. We would get out there. Everybody would always go ahead and go clap for whoever had the highest sales.So they'd be like, Hey, art, Nashville is up 10% clap for him. Next meeting Joe, and Youngstown's up 10% clap for him. When I heard it was going to fire me. I was like, you know what? Sales fixes everything. And I was like 22 years old and I read a guerrilla marketing, went to borders when there was a border, but guerrilla marketing right in front of the back.I can't say there's anything in there that like stood out to me besides the concept that you have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to get out of your space and go and get the sales and not wait for them to come to you. Next meeting everyone clap. Nick's up 10% next meeting. I'm ready. Clap for Nikki's up 20% next meeting Nick's up 45%. Nick tell everybody what you were doing. And what I was doing was that what the school board and I sold them on selling pizzas for school lunches. I went to the school board and being in the football stadium and the baskets.Cool sling contracts. So it was like, you know, I build myself up as a sales builder, so I always could make money for everybody else. And I think there was a certain point where, um, I guess, I guess the other part of the story, you know, real, real big part was, you know, that's probably like 22, 23, 24, 25. So right around there, dominoes picked me off and they moved me across the state to Wilksbear.And when I got out the Wilksbear was same thing. They put me in a store that was doing 15 grand. I took it to 25 grand within a year. And, know, the kids were maybe like four and two at the time or five and three,just to get an idea, it's still in Pitt, still in Pennsylvania, but it's like five hours away.It might as well be in another state. And our family's always been real close. So, you know, my wife was took her away from her family and were on the other side. And I always say we moved back again because we were homesick, but the truth was how I told you thateverything I do that I do full tiltI have become a horrible drug addict and a worse,  alcoholic.And you know, probably about 28 years old at that time. And I can say October would be 15 years clean and sober for me. No drugs, no alcohol. And what it was was, you know, she said, look, I'm going home. I don't care if you come with me or not. And I went ahead and I, I quit my job. She took the car back and the car and the phone.no kids, no wife's. And just the next day, I really, I reached down for the toilet papers and the toilet paper, and I said, you know what, I got nothing and I just hit my knees. And if you're real helped me. That was it. That was my moment. That everything changed. And,  I just realized that when I came back when my mother in law had said, Hey, my there's some counseling at church.And, that will that do, my wife needs counseling, but really I needed the counseling and the counselor said, look, if you've got you've got to take your drugs and alcohol serious and go to at least a class about it. And I was like, wow, don't have a problem. And I went and done, man, that was it.That was like where my life started, really for me and then after that everybody always talked about here was this pizza guy and family, friends. Everyone was like, you need to get a real job. That's what I kept hearing. So I did, I'm sorry, radio advertising.  I asked my favorite interview question of all time.When they're done this, a tip for anybody out there, Rick, right at the end, when they say, do you have any more questions? The best question to ask is there any reason you wouldn't hire me? And they said, because you never sold anything. And I told them about all the contracts with pizza and everything else.And they went ahead they hired me and I sold radio for the next six months and I hated it. Anyone cool itself, more power to you? I can not just walk into place and try and sell him something, not for me. Um, then I started delivering pizzas six months in and, you know, um, I was delivering pizzas.I was working all the different jobs like I was saying. And then really what happened was, is I kept hearing this real job thing. I bought about a very nice house for 170,000. Well showing my income of all the pizzas that I delivered in all my time. . So, you know, bottle off of that, I'm still with friends and family.It was like, Oh, he must be selling drugs. And he bought a house, but he was like, no, I really was, you know, I was turning my life around at that point. It was like two years into being sober. And, um, you know, I got a job at the post office cause everyone's like, Oh, you need a real job. And like I said, when I went to the post office and I looked around and I was like, you know what this is where dreams go to die, come here. And they say, we're going to work here in the next 40 years and that's it, they're gonna retire. And then really, you know, side note because everything that's going on with the post office in the news, you know, just a fact when you become a full time post office employee, the government has to back that retirement for the next, however long you're going to be at the post office until you're 65. They pay for your pension all at once. So that's why they're bankrupt. They won't tell you that on TV. The reason is because they didn't want to start here. They pay their next 40 years of pay is already in the retirement paid for. So it's like, you know what? That just tells you like that for dream to gets die.As soon as I went there, I was like, you know what, I'm going to own my own business. I don't know why it's pizza that I'm good at, but that's what I'm good at. And I love it. So I'm going to figure out how to do it myself.So that's the journey before the journey. So to answer your question and I will well ramble as long, but the, what happened was, is then that the time to figure out how to open a restaurant, I just walked in the pizza shops, once the partner said, Hey, I'm going to max out my credit cards andlet's do this thing. I, we were in the city of Pittsburgh, right by where university of pity is. And I would walk in and say some of your pizza shop and these old guys, like get the hell out of here. The fifth guy walked into so my buddy has a shot for sale in Bloomfield, which is over the bridge from university of Pitt.Still, you can deliver it. I walked in and I said, Oh my God, it's a bar. No, I walked the back full pizza, kitchen, everything, and we need, and all the numbers line up and everything.  I like to say for the next six months, I kept saying all I wanted was the pizza shop. The key moment there was, I said to my wife, or she said to me, are you going to be okay?Because at that point I wouldn't even go to the liquor store for her. I was seven years sober. I wouldn't, even if she wanted a bottle of wine, she knew not to ask me. And I said, you know what? This is a means to the end. And I asked my partner, you're going to be okay because he had a alcohol addiction, but he never reallyexpanded on or got help for it.And he said, Maybe, and that should have been assigned because it was terrible to see. You know it was the one guy that like really believed in me and not to be put his money where his mouth is. I really wanted it to work. It was a really to see how it went. That was really the struggle.And then I think the other part was, it just was, to anybody that's envisioning in the very beginning, usually I just have to do something every single day. That's that's what you have to do. I'll show you this right here. See the elephant one bite at a time. That's the elephan and that's why it's up there.That's the way I approach business every single day wasjust a little bit, what can I do today? So that, so when I leave tonight, it won't be the same as when came the day before. And every day I did that. And if you have that mentality, that every day you're changing stuff, when you look back in a year, you're like, Oh my gosh, like I built this awesome place, everything's different. Yeah. But you know, yeah. That's the way you have to approach it. That's how I approached it. Yeah, man.  George:  There's so much gold in there. I mean, there's so much to unpack. I mean, like you were working at Papa John's and then you read a book on guerrilla marketing. Seth Godin is a coauthor that book and You're like, it wasn't anything, but it shifted your perspective. You're like, I'm going to find opportunity or I'm gonna make opportunity. Right. And then it's like boom. And then it comes up. And there's a lot of gold there and it's kinda be that like Pittsburgh, like blue collar thing. Like you guys are like the hardest workers, like I ever seen in my life, like ever.And I love it. And the pride that comes into it, but like what you just shared. I think is probably one of the biggest challenges that I see in today's day and age. Like, I was lucky that I was like on deployment when the internet got popular.  Like they couldn't have a Facebook account. I didn't get in trained in social media. I was just doing hard labor in the middle of the desert, but like now, I have to remind myself daily, like just one more thing, one more step back basics, like do this thing. And like there's so much gold in that to where I think now we look at marketing sales business and it's like, we live in this delusion that it's like, I'm going to have a unicorn tomorrow, or it's going to build itself. Or it's kind of convert itself or it's going to figure itself out and like what you just said, like every single day, like just do one thing that makes it better. One thing that moves it forward, one more email, one more post, one more phone call. Like man, like I love that. Like, it there's so much gold wrapped up in that simplicity of it. I just, I absolutely love it. Now you went from that one. And then how long did you have that one before you expanded? Nick: Well, I had three goals when I took over the store in the very beginning, you know, it was very simple. Number one, to buy a car in this century, cause I was the King of $500 cars. So I won a car in the century. Second goal was, I want a little bigger house, that was, you know what, we want to win a little bigger house. And then the third one was, I want to know how I was going to pay for my kid's college because they were12 and 10 at the time. And I didn't have a single penny saved. And it was important for me to be able to do that for them. So really a year in, I was like, man, I'm going to have all these goals accomplished. Like I can see the light in the tunnel. I was like, well, well now what is that really? How I'm going to judge my success? And I said, you know what?It's not. When I can create an environment that the people who work for me can accomplish, there are three goals from working for me. Then I could feel successful. So that's what's fueled the expansion. So I was like, we have to go open another store. So, and we werea bout two years in, it was 25 months.We opened the first one in September, the second one, two years later in October. And then, the third one was 16 months after that. And then the the fourth one was, um, about the. Well, 18 months after that. And then yeah, one was a year after the first or the fourth one. So it was like every  year and a half, we were over and stores pretty much.And same reason every time, when I got to the second one, I still was like, I really, I didn't need to open more stores we've created a lot of career positions. We have over about roughly 200 employees, definitely before COVID, we still have bartenders and servers not working at the moment. We're somewhere between the one 50 and 200 brands of employees we've created great Christmas parties and holiday parties and summer picnics. And a place where people want to work andpromotions, we make a big deal of, and we just really love our people. That's what it's all about. And I think I just wanted to create an environment that somebody would actually like to work there and that's  kind of what we've created.George: Yeah, man. I mean like you literally, like, I hear my heart gets so happy hearing you talk about this. Like, I feel like as an entrepreneur, my biggest struggle for years was, is I didn't know where I wanted to go or where I was going. Like, I didn't have a goal. I didn't have a direction. Like I had a why. I want to break my pattern. I don't want to end up in the abuse cycle an addict anymore. Cause I've been through 12 step meetings and like, I want it to break it all. But there was still this level of like aimless. And I always tell people yeah. To have a why greater than yourself and you know, what it was for me, it was my children like that.Oh, was it? It was like I don't have a choice any more, like I have to do it. You know, you said that. And then the one thing that like, I want to highlight that you said that is so powerful. Well, and literally the secret to every business success. And like, you need to make this a tweetable. You're like, it wasn't enough to accomplish my goals. Your measuring stick was when the people who work for me accomplish their goals. That's how you knew that you made it, like that's what you were working towards. Like that is the secret to every single business success that it's there, empowering the people to achieve their goals, having a why, a business greater than yourself. Like that just speaks to your character and like what you've done. Like I'm not, I'm surprised you don't have 85 restaurants and 8,000 employees at this point. It's a very, very grounded noble amazing thing to do in everybody should carry through. And I was like, yep. This is the people guide like all day.I love it. I love it. And I also want to talk about though or something I heard you talk about. And I think this was when you opened your first pizza shop, right? So we hit your people. We hit your clarity, but like, Some of the stuff that you did in marketing when you were making an improvement every day, like, what is this concept of like hot selling, right?Like you had pizzas, but instead of waiting for somebody to order a pizza or buy a pizza, you would make like 90 pizzas and you would send your drivers out and have them sell the pizzas. Like you made them like mini pizza hustlers, right?  Nick:  So basically what I did was I needed to raise the sales and what I decided to do was. I called out back and I said, Hey, can I get some steak dinners for my guy? Some gift cards, I'll trade you pizzas. They said sure. And I told my guys, I was like, Hey, if you sell all your pizzas that I give you this week, I'm going to give you a  top of your pay and, everything. You're going to get a steak dinner. So for every time you sell all your pizzas. So we basically have three drivers coming in the morning, give him 30 pizzas. Each back then pizzas were six bucks for 14 inch pizza store kept five. They kept one. And they would go to big box stores, construction anybody on the side, the road, local businesses anywhere where there was people when they'd sell pepperoni and cheese pizzas for six bucks a piece and we'd sell 90 a day without the phone ever ringing.  And we did this for years. It really, the only place that it stopped working was this was great in the suburbs. But when I got a hold of some city stores, there was a lot of permits about how you can sell food in the city. Man we'd hustle. You'd walk into Walmart andthey'd buy it for the staff and everything else.And we were'nt selling 90 pizzas a day for a long time that nobody ever ordered. And then I think that's going back to where the sales fixes, everything, there was so much that yeah, I learned at a young age with marketing and all always go back to. Sometimes in school you pick up something that you didn't even realize you picked up and you know what it  was an English class in sixth grade, we had to write a fan letters and you had to write them to 20 people. And so we wrote them to 20 people and know movie stars and such like that. Everybody get a couple of letters back that,  I remember getting one back from the wonder years from Fred Savage rope hump, you know be cool when I decided to do of course, cause it can't do just a little, anything, you know, just a little bit.I wrote every single baseball team. Hey, I'm, I'm your favorite? The New York Yankees. I'm the favorite fan of them? Boston Red Fox. I'm the whatever. Before you know it all summer long, I'm getting all this cool shit in the mailbox every single day, you know, hats and a baseball bats, authograph and I mean, it was awesome.And what I learned later on was that's kind marketing. Like if you're putting yourself out there. Sure. Maybe teams like the Baltimore girls didn't send me anything. But the Yankee sent me, a ball signed by like 10 people, you know, and then maybe the Royals didn't send me anything, but the twins sent me,  this hat and scarf and winter jacket and shit like, you know, so it gave me an idea, like if you're out there, when I got in business, you can, don't worry about the no just keep going for the yes. Just keep going, just keep going. And that's what I would do. And I think it was a lesson at a very young age that I didn't really even catch. Do I have a lot of older that there is there's power in numbers. You know, the more that you're out there doing stuffthe bigger your results are going to be, and it doesn't matter how much you're doing.And then, then somewhere along the line I would say probably when I, after addiction, I really got into personal development, like real big, you know, like, I really liked what you said when we were off air, but, you know, to help with the scars, you know, and that really was, was the truth. I didn't even, I don't think I realized until you said that, but that was probably where to personal development came in.And I read a great book called the sales machine by Chet Holmes. And one of my favorite parts in there was about the dream 100. And what I would do is on the pizza world. We sold extra large  pizzas for $8.99, if you had a big order. So I went ahead and made the professor special $8.99 for the order five or more extra large pizzas.I've made that flyer. I shoved that ever under every single door and in every professor mailbox at Carnegie Mellon and the university of Pitt, and we had orders of 20 pizzas, a hundred pizzas, 75 pizzas, 160 pizzas. And I we would come in at nine in the morning, just start stretching pizzas for these giant lunches.And I mean, the professor special was like the biggest. Get the, there was, so there were so many things that I've done marketing. I really feel like on top of being the people person, I've always had a niche for the marketing. And I think that was where my cousin had hair salons and she always believed in me before I opened my own pizza shop.And she said, Nick, you can do it. You know how to market. And that's, you know, a huge part of business, like, and you're good with people. She's like, you've got to do for yourself. Like you'll be successful. And I think I'm. No, that was a lot of it. It's just believing in yourself.  George: Well, totally. I mean like this whole episodes so far, like when you really think about it, like, what you're talking about is like, you're just a walking marketing example. Like I tell people, my definition of marketing is a two way value based longterm relationship. Like that's it, that's marketing. It's a, I know you, you know me, we have a relationship let's go. And what you just said is something that I think is so prevalent where like you had pizzas, right? I tell people, you can either only innovate on product experience or customer experience.You probably already have the best pizza. You make it the best that you can. The pizza is not going to change. You have to choose change the wrapping paper like that. Professor special is genius. You're like, okay, cool. Well, I'm already doing it. How can I add personalization there? You change the title on a flyer and you slip it under speaking to your avatar. They're like, Oh, I'm a professor. I want five pizzas. Like, I it's like, it's so good. Like, what is your process behind like coming up with some of these ideas? Like, do you just like go meditate, you go for a walk or do they just hit you when they hit you? Do you like. Put it through a process or you're like, you know, this is an idea. I'm just going to try this and see what happens. But like, what's your process behind some of your crazy marketing stuff. Like, cause obviously you have the results to prove it, but I know you probably have thousands of ideas a dayNick: So there's a couple of different methods, you know, I'll be the first to say that if you see somebody else doing something that worksyou should probably try and do it too.Especially this day and age with the internet, you could see all over. People in different markets doing different things. So especially  if you've got a business zone in like pizza business, I've got, you know, I don't know, 500 to 1000 pizza friends all across the country. And, you know, with COVID, I would see so many good ideas that the pizza operators were doing during Covid and we would take that idea and just make our own. We went ahead and started doing pizza kids during COVID. And I would imagine at this point,  you probably have seen him where somebody. Saying, Hey, we're going to give you a no sauce, cheese and pepperoni, and you can take it home for 10 bucks and make it, make it a your place. Just different ideas that like those, like some we do copy, you know, we make, we make our own, but we take the idea and run with it. I think the other one is sometimes there's a, there's a need, you know, maybe we're sitting around like, okay, I'm salesmen down a little bit. Um, great example would be the last couple of weeks.This is perfect. This exact, what you're talking about. And we're, we're down a little bit because they shut down the restaurant completely. The governor did. And then they opened it up to 25% capacity to borrow the restaurant. So we just decided, Hey, we're gonna keep the restaurants close just to pick up and delivery. And I'm like, man, we're done a little bit. How can we pump something up? You know, what can we do? And we just want people to be talking about us. Cause that's what a lot of marketing is to you want people talking about you? How can we do that? And I said, okay, we're turning eight next, next month. You know, we're, we're going to have an eight year anniversary. I said  let's give away eight free pizzas for a year. And then, then we can send the press releases. We can have a contest, we can, you know, put it all over social media that we're giving away eight free pizzas. We're turning eight years old and I'm not just ate three pizzas, but free pizza for a year.Like, like let's enough to break your fast. Yeah. Yeah. I'll take it. Right. So, so that was the idea that we came up with two weeks ago and then we put it into motion, like right then and there. So I think you know, and now if we go on website and everything, it's everywhere about free pizza for a year, you know, your chance to win, enter, and win.But I think To answer your question that sometimes it comes out of neat. Sometimes it comes out of watching what other people do. And then I also think that there's a certain point where the, the mindset, the them meditating you know, I'm really big into, The book that changed everything for me, they went from five jobs to where I am now is think and grow rich book. And that's it just the mindset of, you know, not focusing on what you don't have, but focusing on what, what you do have or what you, you want to have and feeling it and touching it like you already have it now. And then that's kind of where some of those great ideas come in is like, You know, I wake up in the morning or wake up at three in the morning.I pen and pad next to my bed every night. And I'm just like, Oh, that's a great idea. If I wake up in the morning, little groggy and go through my gratitude, go to get up. I look over. I'm like, Oh cool. I had a great idea last night. Like there's a lot of things that like when you get into it, your subconscious there's a lot of things that you don't even realize are running through your mind and like ideas just pop up on no code.And what I've learned is not the question, the ideas. But to try them out and try them outfull, full tilt. And then I really am surprised sometimes when we try something out, I'm like, wow, that was like, well, totally.  George: I mean, like I'll use a Pittsburgh story. Like Vince Papale if he never went and tried out, he never would have been on the team, like never would have happened, like with the Eagles and all the football story. Like. You know what you nailed. Like, I call it those ideas. I call it intuition. Like when you give yourself the space, like you have wisdom, like you have clarity when you're not clouded by all that stuff. And, you know, to tie it back to what you said earlier, Really your belief in itself. It's not a belief in that it will work or won't work.That's not what matters. It's not about the finish line. Like I believe in self that I can try this, that I can put this in. I'm going to give it the licks. I'm going to give it the chance to win. Like if you give something oxygen.  It's bound to work. But what I love is that you're not like I'm changing my whole business model.I'm changing the recipe of the pizza. You're like, no, no, I have that. That's my control. I'm going to try this. I'm going to try to get more attention. I'm going to try to. Innovate on the experience. I'm going to get it in the hands of more people. Like I, I absolutely love it. And for those of you listening, if you haven't read, think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill, please do there's another thing on audible, you might enjoy.Um, they have his on, uh, his recorded lectures that weren't released in a book, but you can buy them on audible and it's all of his lectures, like when he was doing them in person. I think they're actually really, they're really good lessons for me after listening to both of them. And so the eight pizzas for a year thing is that you're giving away. A pizza for a year to eight different people.  Nick: Yeah. So basically the way it works is, um, the IRS is after 600 bucks, you've got to show it on your taxes. So we're giving a $599 and 99 cent gift card to eight different guys, and they can use it any way they want over the next year. That's kind of how we're doing it. You know, that's, that's the part of marketing, you know, another, I love that you love. The, the idea and the uniqueness marketing. So I'm going to give you another one of my favorite. You know, if you had to say, what's your top couple of favorite things you've ever done, this is one of my things. We, I have been feeling Facebook marketing since 2013, Facebook marketing so early, like I figured it out that if I had Facebook followers, it would translate into customers and I figured it out, you know, kind of a side story of how I figured that out.But anyway, from figuring that out, The radio station came out and they had a best pizza in Pittsburgh contest and you had to vote online. So I went ahead and I put paid Facebook ads together, got everybody to vote and we finished third, which may sound okay. Well, what would you do with finishing third? And this is where I, this is my favorite part right here. So the first two that won were institutions in Pittsburgh. They were pizza shops that had been around for years and years. And we had only been around maybe, maybe 12 months at this point. And I just took that and spun, as you know, WPXI the radio station named us best new pizza in Pittsburgh.We finished third, nobody told me we were the best new pizza in Pittsburgh, but the first two were there for 50 years. So we were the best new pizza in Pittsburgh and I took that best new pizza Pittsburgh, and I put it everywhere and I mean, I pounded and for a long time, Andthat's where, you know, that was in between store one in store two. And that's probably where the sales, we took from a $4,000 a week store to like a 20, some thousand a week store just in that first year. And a lot of those, you know, that was a huge part of it, but it's like, how do you play the words and marketing? It's so important.  George: Well, and, and that's, that's really what it is like. I think, you know, when you think, think about your marketing message, I love that. By the way you think about your marketing message, we're conveying the same message, but sometimes you have to change the order or change the language. Like sometimes it's not received in English, even though we intend it to be.And I think that's why like, Normally it's just like marketing to be successful. It's just communication. That works both ways. Right. And so if you have a marketing message and it's not working, it's not because of your product. Right? Like try something different, change the language, change the positioning, go after a pain point, go after a celebratory thing, you have to know your avatar.You have to know what they respond to. Right. And everyone's like, yeah, Everyone wants to try stuff that's new. And like, in my opinion, you should sure shit nailed it. Cause that literally was the best new pizza in Pittsburgh. Right? Like it's, it's awesome. The way that you spell it. That's amazing. I love your marketing brain by the way. I absolutely love how well you think about it and those ideas. Now, when you think about, because what I think is interesting is too, is that. You know, I talk a lot about product experience, customer experience, and I've helped local businesses, but I still, I do a lot of stuff online.  So when you think about your restaurants though, like knowing your marketing brain, knowing your people brain, like how do you think through customer experience? Like when you think through somebody comes into the store, what do I want them to feel? Somebody orders, delivery, like, do you do anything I don't need to ask? Do you, I know you do everything. For customer experience, but like, what are some of the things you do for customer experience, both like in store, in delivery intake, and then like with your marketing and messaging to have that experience with your store.So I think what's unique about everything that you said was, you know, I was a pickup and delivery pizza shop guy when I bought the restaurant and I'll never forget the very first day when I came out and there was a table with 12 and we were trying to figure out how to bring all the food out at once, how to wash the silverware.I'm like, Holy shit. I just bought a restaurant. Like, so it, I, I got to say man, we were really good at the message with the sales and marketing.   But man, we struggled with the service in the restaurant, you know the little things like we didn't have a host this one week open, so somebody would stand at the door for 15 minutes, get pissed off and nobody came up to him and left, you know, they'd finished your meal.And we weren't coaching the waitresses to go and grab their glasses, you know, quicker, get the refills quick enough offer, put their bill down at the end, like right away. Like not, um, you know, wait to put your bill down. Like it's okay to put it down a little bit. Hey, we're not rushing you, but here's your bill and your check if you need it, you know, like, and then checking back to see if it was there.Like we didn't know how to coach any of that stuff. So, you know, I always try to do that. The, the smartest thing I can is if I don't know something, hire somebody who does. You know, that's, that's my approach. So I brought in a great restaurant guy. Who's been with me six years now. He was a brew master, a bartender, a front of the house through and through he's now my beverage director for the whole company.He just came in as like my first bar manager, my first like real, uh, Haas, um, hospitality type guy. Andyou know, he helped us and I read a ton of books and I watched. A ton of bar rescue, and I don't care what anybody says about the yelling and screaming number of rescue, but there's a lot of great stuff in there.And I just really, you know, warmed it as like, I have to learn how, how this all works. So I thinkyou know, now we really try to just make sure that it's every touch restaurant somebody's there to meet, you know, and that, that's what a lot of it is that when somebody comes in the hostess is, you know, eye contact and a smile and, you know, That's what we try to preach is, a lot of it is about the smile, you know,to serve the best pizza we possibly can and serve with a smile.Like, you know, that, um, that's a lot of, a lot of what we try to do. We, we have a ton of meetings first Tuesday of every month is all the managers. Third, Tuesday of the month is upper management meetings. Every single Monday is all the general managers on a phone call. Um, zooms, a little too crazy for us, but  we do the phone call meetings and, you know, we go through all the numbers every Monday.And then the, the first Tuesday of the month with all the managers, we're talking about everything that what worked the month before what's coming on new. And then the upper management meeting is like our brainstorm, Hey, round table. What do you guys need? What do you think we should be doing? Where, you know, here's the direction I'm thinking, what are you, how can we get there? And you know, a lot of it is just the communication ofhow to achieve these things. But I think that's just kinda how it all wraps up. You know, that that's a lot.  George: Yeah. I think what you nail and I'm going to just, you know, disseminate this down is that when you've nailed culture, right? Like your customer culture, like everyone has a touch point. They have eye contact, they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel respected. They feel a part of the family. And then you foster an environment where your managers and your team members are open. It's not a dictatorship, it's a two way relationship.What can we do to get better? What do you need? How can we support you? Knowing that the undertow is you're like my job is to help my employees achieve their goals. And then they have the platform and the, and be like, Hey, Nick, we need to do this. We do this. Can we have this? And you guys foster this growth. And I think really like what I hear that I think is so important for her to take away is that. You never settle. Like there's not a day where you're like, we've made it right. Like we have it all figured out. You're like, Oh, what can I read? What can I do? How can I tweak it? How can I improve it? Hey, maybe I read something that I might want to do.I don't need it now, but I know it's a possibility. It changes the way. I think, like what I love that I hear in everything you say is that. Your a perpetual student in the business and  your focus is improving on your product, your experience, your customers, your team, and you're like willing to do whatever it takes to learn that, to figure it out, right?Like the game is the game is your finish line. You're playing it, you're playing it and you're playing it. And I don't know. I just think that's such a novel thing. I, and I have no. No shock in my body as to why you are where you are and why you do what you do. I mean, it's apparent how much you love people and how that comes up.I actually can't wait to fly to Pittsburgh and taste your pizza.  I bet you, I bet you every customer, I bet you have testimonials left and right where they're like. I can feel the family in this pizza. It feels like love with every bite. Like it, you get that when you foster that culture and that's so important in everything that you do. I absolutely love it. So I forget to do that every time, by the way. I always want to tell people to be getting where to find you. So I can say it multiple times and use some NLP, but I completely forgot at the beginning. I was so excited talking about pizza. So perfectly listening. Yeah. Uh, before we get into another question,  Nick has an awesome podcast. It's called the business equation podcast. He also wrote a book called the pizza equation, you know, like the world champion pizza team, everything like that. But, um, the best place to find Nick of course hit up his podcast on iTunes and Apple, but his website is www.NickBogacz.com.  And I wanted to say it now, cause we're going to say it again at the end, but I want to make sure you guys hear it once. Write that one down. It's I bet you, if you Google him, he's the only one you'll find. So Google would be your friend in this one, Nick Bogacz. I bet you can write like Nick B pizza world champion and find them too.But I want to, I want to close Nick with, with something we're going to end up having to do round two of this podcast. Cause I just want to rip your marketing brain out and give it. People multiple disseminations of it, but I have a, I have a question that's not about marketing, so there's a whole lot of people that have been home and cooped up for a couple of months. What are your best tips to making pizza at home?  Nick: Awesome. Yeah. Very good question. So I think it's really kind of caught fire lately. I think, you know, people are really. The grills have been really popular for for years. And I think then, you know, everybody was smoking everything for awhile, and I think you are starting to see a lot of home pizza chefs right now.And I can tell you some really simpletips, you know, you could go and find a great friend of mine is Tony Gemini. And he has a book called the pizza Bible. And if you want to know how to make any stop pizza at home, that's the book to bu. And then the secret that I will add to that is. When you make the dough. I think a lot of times people think you can make the dough in the morning and you can make the pizza at night. And a secret that I'll tell you is when you make the pizza during the day, that though rest in your, in your refrigerator for about the next three days. So on Monday, you can cook the dough on Wednesday or Thursday.At least two days, but really if you made it on Monday and cook, then on Thursday, your dose is going to be fantastic. That real nice bready, you know, won't be doing any Walton gets under Coke. It's just going to be a great bread flavor. So . Well, a lot of it's about dough, and a lot of it is, uh, you know, having the time for the no to really rise.And you know, it's funny, you said that, but being cooped up and everything, I went ahead andlast year we were in Naples, Italy for a competition. And, you know, the birthplace of pizza everywhere had the beautiful, gorgeous Naples ovens, you know, the Neapolitan style. And man,I need one of those. Like I never thought that I needed to make pizzas at home, like as much, but like, like I, I just felt like I was something that I saw that I needed.So early, early June, I went ahead and got a Neapolitan pizza oven. Put in and I'm in the backyard and it has just been the greatest gift. During COVID you know, whether it's just myself and our family cooking on it, or we do actually have not a gathering, but, you know,, my parents are come over, you know, the laws or something, a few people, and we just make some fantastic pizzas there, but. It's all about the dough. And I think you can use anything out of your kitchen as far as sauce and cheese, it's all preferred on your taste, but you really want to make a great, great dough, check out the pizza Bible and then give it enough time to rest.  George: I love it. I love it. Learning how to make pizza. I used to, by the way, I used to be a food blogger and I wrote a New York times bestselling cookbook.That was where I started in this whole game. Well, we'll have to cover that in another one, cause I really hate cooking by the way. But it was, it's a really interesting story, but  all of that and by the way, I've smoked pizza on my smoker and that's really good as well. But that dough, that Dough tip is, is legit. And there's lessons in that for entrepreneurs patients, you got to let things marinate. You got to let them live. You got to let them breathe. You gotta give them a chance to taste good. And I think that sums up this entire episode. So Nick, I'm going to give you a minute at the end, any closing words, any parting words of advice for everybody listening though?Make sure you go check out Nick, check out his podcast. I've listened to a couple episodes. I think they're great. He's had a few of my friends on and the website. I'm going to spell it again because I would need to hear it a few times for myself. So it's NickBogacz.com you can pick up his book, the pizza equation, which talks about like running a successful pizza enterprise. And I'm sure there's some nuggets. In there for business and marketing and mindset, then you have as podcast, which is the business equation podcast. And then you have Nick, the man himself, Leo checking out the website. So Nick, before we wrap any closing words for everybody, any words of wisdom, anything you want everybody to take away?Nick: You know, I think you could start anywhere that that's the thing, right? Like don't let your past to find you if, you know, if people, your listeners, if they're listening to George right now, they want fat, you know, and you're, you're doing a great job feeding them. And I think. you know, wherever they are, they can start. So, you know, today could be the first day of your new journey and don't let your past define you. And I think that's where a lot of people just get hung up thinking about every failure that they have and every thing that happened to them and everything they went through. And just, just remember that everybody starts up.Start somewhere. And I love when you start reading about, um, you know, whether it's actors or entrepreneurs or, or, um, you know, anybody that started their career late, you know, and everyone will talk guy. I think my favorite one is probably Colonel Sanders, you know, started KFC when he was like 60. Like, you know, it doesn't matter how old you are, you know, you can, you can start today. And I think that's that's a good message to bring out there is, you know, believe in yourself and, and anybody can start from anything.  George: Yeah, man, I love it. I can't even, I'm not going to add anything to that. I think that's so gold. And like you are a walking example of that, like set your focus and just start and go.And you'll figure it out as you go, you'll make adjustments and learn. So, man, it was an absolute honor and pleasure. I know we have many more in the can in the future. We'll, we'll be breaking pizza as soon as I start traveling again. And I can't wait to share. And so thank you so much for being here for everybody listening.Make sure you go check out Nick, check out his podcast, check out his book. And remember, I I'm sure I'm going to do an outro if I remember to do them, but if not remember that relationships, I always beat algorithms. Make sure you subscribe. Make sure you review. And I will see you guys in the next episode.

For this episode of the podcast, we invited Tom Falco to chat with us about his vintage clothes business, Primetime Pickups. Tom is a local entrepreneur who, like many, fell on hard times due to COVID-19 and found himself with limited job prospects as a result of the virus’ effect on the job market. However, instead of sitting idly by waiting for the right job opportunity to come to him, Tom used his free time and marketing prowess to start a successful e-commerce business from the comfort of his own home. During this episode, our guest goes into great detail about how vintage resellers structure their businesses, what he has learned from his competitors, and what Primetime Pickups does differently. Additionally, he talks about the marketing tactics he uses to cut through the noise in such a crowded online marketplace, as well as the importance of authenticity when engaging with your consumer base. We finish up talking to Tom about the future of his business and whether he intends to continue to grow the brand into a physical storefront. What we talk about Starting a business during COVID-19What marketing tactics are suited to an e-commerce businessesThe importance of authenticity and transparency in marketing Scaling up a side hustle Links from this episodehttps://www.instagram.com/primetime.pickups/ (Primetime Pickups on Instagram)https://www.primetimepickups.com.au (Primetime Pickups' Website)Find us elsewherehttps://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website)https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram)https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn)https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram)https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)  Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors [00:00:00] Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast on this week's episode, I've got Tom Falco from Primetime Pickups. How are you, Tom? [00:00:09] Tom: [00:00:09] Good. How are you? [00:00:10] Germaine: [00:00:10] Thank you. Tell us about a Primetime Pickups before we really get into the hard questions. Yeah. [00:00:16] Tom: [00:00:16] So just a bit of a basic overview would say, its a vintage clothes business, American sports in spite that I, started out of my bedroom, in Gungahlin Canberra.[00:00:26]Essentially we dropped collections. So, I'll source a whole bunch of clothes in the States, a whole bunch of sort of 90's and 2000's, vintage, sports gear. and then on one day during the month, we'll drop all that gear at once on the website. And yeah the response to that screening look incredible.[00:00:43] It's been amazing so far, so I'm pretty, pretty excited to see where it could go. [00:00:47] Germaine: [00:00:47] Yeah. Nice. when did you start this whole thing? [00:00:51]Tom: [00:00:51] It was, essentially when , once COVID, sort of hit . I really had the time to sort of sit down and really had a crack at, sort of doing it,  I had the idea for a while. [00:01:00][00:01:00]But yeah, once, once COVID hit , so it's sort of been three, three or four, four months. I think two of those months of sort of planning all out and sort of writing up business plans and strategic plans in terms of marketing, how I was going to sort of get it off the ground and then three months of really operating now.[00:01:15] So we've just dropped, uh, our collection to drop date. Um, so we've dropped one collection already. We've dropped a sort of second $25 and under collection gearing up the second collection on the 29th of July. [00:01:29] Germaine: [00:01:29] Yeah. Wow. That's that's exciting. So that's uh, about nine days away from the, from the time we were recording.[00:01:34] So, um, how old are you now? [00:01:37]Tom: [00:01:37] So I'm 24. [00:01:39] Germaine: [00:01:39] Okay. So started starting nice and young. Um, did you have this idea sort of getting into your teenage years or has it been, been a lot longer or more recently that you came up with the idea? Yeah. Well, [00:01:50] Tom: [00:01:50] it's, it's, it's, it's sort of like an idea that we'll always have.[00:01:53] Like, I, I spent a couple of years over in the States and so I got to experience sort of firsthand the market and demand for [00:02:00] vintage clothes over there. or some more so over here, but. sort of over there used to be sort of, and, you know, go to a thrift shop and you see a, an old school jacket. If it 10 us dollars and jeez like, I wish I could sort of take the time and sell it in Australia, but I never had that sort of platform to do it.[00:02:17] Um, but I guess coming home and having that time to, sort of sit down and really sort of plan it out, and that, that sort of matters should the marketing skills and the communication skills that I was able to sort of. Learn through a couple of years at uni. Mm. [00:02:31] Germaine: [00:02:31] So you had some sort of background in marketing and communications before you, I guess started the business.[00:02:38] Tom: [00:02:38] Yeah, so I did a, I did a double degree in sports, media and public relations at the University of Canberra. Through that I was, he did a minor in sports marketing and events. So although it's not sort of very specific in terms of  marking in an audience where you're trying to sell them stuff, there's still a lot of sort of skills at correlate that I learned in my [00:03:00] time there.[00:03:00] And I had the, I was fortunate enough to do a whole bunch of internships through my time at university of Canberra that I think really helped me out. [00:03:08] Germaine: [00:03:08] Yeah. Yeah. And I guess you had a, skillset that was transferable, from, I mean, sports is just sort of one, one genre, so you can still transfer it over as you've found.[00:03:17] Tom: [00:03:17] Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent. [00:03:20] Germaine: [00:03:20] Yeah. I mean, tell me how you source. So you, do you do a drop, how big, big sort of the drop in terms of say retail value? Um, how big have they been? So, [00:03:32]Tom: [00:03:32] in terms of, flux paces and. It's just my job. So the first drop was about 30 pieces. And now, obviously that was sort of the first one.[00:03:42] So we went a little bit smaller with that. Just because the overhead on buying all the imagery and stuff, it was like it was a big risk. So the second one, now that I've seen that there's a demand for it. And as a market for, and people are willing to sort of, you know, Take money out of their pocket to buy our stuff.[00:03:56] I can sort of scale it up a little bit more. So I think the next one is about 50 [00:04:00] pieces,  collection threes, ia all ordered , so that the next shop, all ordered now it's all being shipped over now and that'd be closer to sort of 60, 70 pieces and really sort of just scale it up from that point. So [00:04:11] Germaine: [00:04:11] just scaling up slowly.[00:04:13] Yeah. How, how do you source them? Like, are you, were you there originally and now are you sort of. Calling, through shops over there or how are you managing that side [00:04:23] Tom: [00:04:23] of it? It's people don't do them very similar stuff to me. So a lot of, a lot of people want to stay w. Well, we'll sort of be the first person to go to the thrift shop and buy a whole bunch of bunch of stuff and then throw it up on, apps like Depop, Ebay and other one Instagram.[00:04:38]There's a ton of people selling stuff in the sites that that'll bought from the thrift shop for sort of 10 us dollars and then sell one onto you for 15 us dollars. And then obviously you gotta pay shipping and stuff like that. But, being able to source it's very like very, it's very easy to find these people that are doing that.[00:04:55]Like it takes a ton of time. I've got, I think the first collection also was. [00:05:00] Probably about six different suppliers. and obviously I said that the first collection was 30 pieces that works out to be like five pieces as far. Whereas now I'm sort of uncomfortable with this clause that I have and the squads that I'm borrowing stuff off.[00:05:13] I'm more comfortable making. I think I did an order for 17 sweatshirts for collection two that should arrive this week. which is. So much easier than, sort of ordering a five or six different people. [00:05:26] Germaine: [00:05:26] Yeah. Yeah. And it makes it more manageable for you. And then obviously it brings down the overheads in terms of yeah.[00:05:31] Tom: [00:05:31] And in terms of prices as well. shipping is another one shipping gets expensive and if the Mo sort of more you order, the more you can save on, on each piece. But then also, building relationships with, with the supplies. I guess for me, When I first started, it was, it was very sort of like always reaching out every day.[00:05:51] I was messaging. I was probably sending close to 50 messages a day, people on Depop, people want to hear about to people on Instagram and handful of get back to me and stuff [00:06:00] like that. Now it's got to the point where I've made a couple of hours off people. Yeah, reach out to me once they've got sports stuff that I think I might be interested in.[00:06:09] So it's sort of, [00:06:10] Germaine: [00:06:10] because it's an easy sell for them rather than answering questions from, you know, every Tom Dick and Harry, it's just talk to Tom. Go mate, are you keen? This is what I've got and then [00:06:21] Tom: [00:06:21] it's much more passive on it's because I enjoyed doing the marketing side of it. I enjoy publishing photos on Instagram.[00:06:30] I enjoy taking photos. I enjoy replying to people's messages doing Q and A's live stream button. Or I love that stuff. I hate sitting on my phone and browsing through. As far as the clothes and messaging people and that like, you have to do it. but the, obviously the more, the more you do it, the more passive it comes.[00:06:48] And so I'm sort of working for point now where it's like, I don't have to put that much effort into doing that. I can focus my energy on doing different things. [00:06:57] Germaine: [00:06:57] Definitely now, um, [00:07:00] you sort of touched on it earlier, but how do you handle the marketing or how did you build up that sort of marketing initially before you did your first drop when you were essentially just a guy with an unproven?[00:07:12]Brand if you, if you could even call it that at the time, cause there was nothing, right. I mean, you started from [00:07:16] Tom: [00:07:16] scratch. Exactly. So I think, um, I think my thing was I wanted it to be locked super. Super authentic with it in terms of, in terms of like the marketing in terms of everything. So I want it to be very transparent and clear.[00:07:27] Um, I, I worked with a couple of influences, like im real big on,  influencer marketing. I think it's, it's super underrated. As long as it's done right. Instagram ads, the one that I was used to sort of build up the, the, the falling a little bit, If you don't ads as well. I think you have to, you have to be authentic with it.[00:07:47]I think you have to provide some sort of value. and for me, that was in terms of, I think I did a giveaway, which. It would receive, I think the engagements and that was ridiculous. [00:08:00] So I did a, I think I did a giveaway and run a a hundred dollars with Instagram ads on it. And the engagements were completely starving at 1,200 comments.[00:08:11] And it was all comments. Tagging people because it was a giveaway. So I was able to sort of build up sort of get people in that way and sort of get people looking at the content. And then I was comfortable enough in the content that I was producing that people would then want to stay and be like, okay, like this is valuable stuff.[00:08:30] It's relevant to me. even if they only time for the a hundred dollar giveaway, he followed me because I thought they were a chance of winning a hundred bucks. Then, to then on the page, like you have to still be providing decent content. [00:08:43]Germaine: [00:08:43] Yes. Yeah, because they've got a, I have a reason to subscribe and then a reason to keep coming back.[00:08:48]Now, so did you originally build off a, build a,  a bit of a platform and a following on Instagram? Is that, was that sort of your game plan or were you driving them to a website and then pick up email addresses? How did you sort of, and I guess [00:09:00] even before that, did you. build up the hype first, before the first drop, like, um, or did you actually have just a bunch of stuff for sale and then stop?[00:09:09] Tom: [00:09:09] So I did build out the high performance. Yeah. Which I think was very important. And, it was all done through Instagram. I think like, I think Instagram is the perfect medium to do what I do. Like, my, like my website, um, Other than when, when we drop clothes like that sort of, I think an hour or so between shopping clothes and people buying it, like that's when there's the most traffic on the website, it's not as sort of, because we don't have regular stock up.[00:09:40]my job collections, it's recommitting to us, pigs and flys. but yeah, we just send people to the website on the day of the drop. [00:09:49]Germaine: [00:09:49] Yeah. Right, right. And so you're now gearing up your third drop, is that [00:09:53] correct?[00:09:54] Tom: [00:09:54] Second and second collection, but third drop, we did a sort of, and under [00:10:00] drop, which is we got sn insane deal with 'em with one of the suppliers who sent over a whole bunch of luck, quality stock, but it was just stuff I didn't really think fit in the collection.[00:10:10] Um, sort of released it on one day and people managed to pick up themselves at bargain, which was great. And that's another thing which is, I guess, helps out with, with building that sort of loyal fan base is opening up with deals like that. [00:10:22]Germaine: [00:10:22] Yeah. Yeah. Did you, have you had to deal with, with, I guess the customer service side of things of like returns or getting, stock that is not very good quality.[00:10:32] How have you managed that? Have you had that? [00:10:34] Tom: [00:10:34] Fortunately not, I guess. With returns. Like, obviously im open to it, and if people don't like the door, I say like, um, it's fine to send it back. And obviously with vintage clothes, and sometimes it might have a stain, sometimes it might not fit. Right. And sometimes it just might be trashed.[00:10:52] I might just have to throw it out. But I think as long as you're transparent with people and as long as you are open with, how it fits the quality [00:11:00] of it. and obviously I do try and source good quality stuff. If I see a photo of something with a stain on it, I won't buy it. But as long as you're transparent with it, people don't seem to ever have a problem with it.[00:11:11]Germaine: [00:11:11] And I guess they, when you're buying vintage, you're already, you have that mindset of you're buying something that's already being used. There's no sort of buying brand new vintage. I mean, I mean you can, but it's that that's not really vintage as it, it's just new products designed to look like they're retro, like they're vintage, but they're completely different.[00:11:29] So I guess, It really fits that authentic brand as well. I mean, you talk about, a lot of marketing nowadays. They talk about being authentic. but when it comes to vintage stuff, I feel like it's. It all just fits in really nicely because, because vintage is, is very much authentic. Like it's not clothing pretending to be anything else.[00:11:49] It was just what was cool at the time. And now it's, um, now it's being sold again, sort of. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. [00:11:57] Tom: [00:11:57] If you're getting coming to that point of being authentic, he comes down [00:12:00] to everything. you know, I, I did a ton of research before I started, um, Primetime Pickups on different pages and. there was like, this is plenty of put on similar stuff to me out there.[00:12:11] Um, and there's plenty of doing it better than me and there's plenty to it. Worse. Maybe the one thing that I wanted to do was make sure that I bought clothes that I thought were cool or the, you know, that sales are going to keep it. and like, I see so many people that are trying to do this., very similar business model where they're picking up vintage clothes and you sort of go on the personal Instagram profile and they're not wearing any of this stuff[00:12:40] that, yeah, it's just, you have to be authentic. You have to be passionate about it. [00:12:43] Germaine: [00:12:43] When it's such a passion driven thing, right? Um, you don't wear vintage clothing. Because you like to wear old clothes, you wear it because you like how it looks and you definitely have to have sort of that eye for fashion and the style with that, because [00:13:00] it's all part of an part of an ensemble.[00:13:01] You wouldn't just, Chuck on a vintage jacket and, have everything else that's sort of. Not match. if, if that's sort of the best way to put it. Now are you doing this as a side hustle at the moment or workingfull-time? [00:13:15] Tom: [00:13:15] Yeah, so I, I was planning on coming back to Australia. I was overseas in the States for a couple years study.[00:13:20] Um, I graduated, came back to Australia, and had a couple. Full time jobs up in Melbourne, which is my dreamis to move to Melbourne to work for a professional sports team. What I wanted to do since I was a kid. and so an opportunity to do that came up and obviously through COVID that sort of fell through, which was devestating.[00:13:39] So then I signed a sign, a contract, working at the APS, , just processing Centerlink claims. And I do that. I think it was pretty much full time. Wake up at eight in the morning,  go there and come home at two and then, and then sort of do this on the side that contract's up now. So today's the first day that I'm not working.[00:13:59] So, yeah, [00:14:00] now I'm full time doing it. [00:14:02] Germaine: [00:14:02] Yeah. Yeah. [00:14:02] Tom: [00:14:02] It's a couple weeks anyway. I'm not actively looking for work at the moment. I think I'll just focus on this for the next couple weeks. See how it goes. Sort of test the waters a little bit. but it's yeah, my dream or my dream is to, is to go down to Melbourne and start working, but I don't see me stopping doing this anytime soon, either.[00:14:18]Germaine: [00:14:18] Yeah. I mean, it sounds like, It's, you know, fairly passive in terms of like how obviously you've got to do stuff, but it's not like you've got to be there nine to five, every day. So it's definitely something that you can. No cause you can provide support or get back to messages at six o'clock at night, if you, if you felt like it.[00:14:38]and I guess that's the beauty of running sort of a, an online business, is that it's well, I mean, even in your case, even if your time, the next drop for when you have a day off, or it's a weekend, then you can just be right there. for, for, you know, that whole period of time. [00:14:54] Tom: [00:14:54] Yeah. Yeah.  it's perfect.[00:14:55] And I guess the thing is with, with the shipping bombs over in the States and stuff, [00:15:00] it's sort of like, it does give me time to sort of relax. Over  the past couple weeks I've been posting you know sort of once or twice a day on Instagram, when a collection. Well, I think I'm waiting on another package to come in for the second collection, which dropped.[00:15:13] We had nine, 10 days time. Once that, once that comes and I'll start sort of wrapping up and posting sort of two, three, four times a day, and that's when it sort of com becomes, gets a little bit busier and then obviously drop date is crazy. I was thinking that don't want to have lobe for it cause it's, it's so stressful, man.[00:15:30][00:15:30] Germaine: [00:15:30] Yeah. Yeah. I could imagine it just being, I mean, you've got to be there. You've got to answer all the questions. and you've got to, how do you do it? Do you ship it out to people? [00:15:39] Tom: [00:15:39] So I typically what I will, obviously I've only done one sort of collection at the month, but, um, the plan going forward is to drop, Sort of later on in the week .[00:15:48] I think this week that this, this drops on a Wednesday. Yeah. it just so happens that I was free on the  Wednesday to do everything. But, I usually do it on a Thursday or Friday. And that's, so that I'll have the weekend to sort of go to the post office, get everything packed. Did you have [00:16:00] any art? Obviously you've got to wash, washing on the clothes, make sure they're presentable, but you've also got to sort of take photos of clothes that went to the website.[00:16:07]So that's, it's sort of, it's very passive when you're not selling anything. you start selling stuff and as soon as it drops coming out, like it starts to sort of ramp up. So it's been good for the past. I haven't really had too much to do. the next couple of weeks would be pretty crazy I reckon.[00:16:24]Germaine: [00:16:24] Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at it. Looking at sort of what you've done so far. We've talked about all the cool stuff. Let's talk about the not so good stuff. Have you made any mistakes so far, do you think, have you, have you sort of done something and sort of gone, hold on, probably shouldn't have done that or you sort of look back and go on.[00:16:44] If I didn't do that, um, things would have been better. Things sort of could have been different. [00:16:49] Tom: [00:16:49] There's a couple of things. The one is, understanding sort of price like the pricing of stuff. There were a couple of times where I think that was, that was once during the one collection where I really sort of [00:17:00] overpaid , for a bunch of items, which ended up selling it, but it was just, it wasn't worth what I paid for it.[00:17:06] And that's it. You got to figure it out. Things like exchange rates and shipping costs and stuff like that. And it's stuff that you can't really, there's not, there's not an online guide and how to do this trial and error. but walk on there now not to overpay for things. another thing is I, I remember getting a sweatshirt and, and it had a, it was like a, screen-printed t-shirt, Me not being the best on and clothes and washing clothes.[00:17:29] It's just graphic. It's just melted it. And I was like, throw it out, like, [00:17:37] yeah, [00:17:38] Exactly. but you know, you, you learn, and it's not mistakes that I'll make again, hopefully touch wood.  but I guess it, it, it's just all part of, or part of running a business anyway. [00:17:46] Germaine: [00:17:46] So. That's it, you just gotta to handle it and just sort of go with the flow there. C ause there's no point getting caught up in it all you've, you know, at the very least, just cause you've messed that up, you've got a whole bunch of other, clothing items that you gotta prep and sell and, and all that.[00:18:00] [00:17:59] So once you get a drop, do you start photographing sort of straight off the bat and start throwing it onto the web? Well, stop prepping. Uh, your Shopify site, um, for it to go live, is that, so do you need, you usually have like a three day period where it's, it's a bit [00:18:16] Tom: [00:18:16] tip the gap typically happens is I'll try and have a little bit of stock on hand before the previous collection drops.[00:18:23] So collection two is dropping in 10 days. Hopefully I have some gear in for collection three, so I can start posting on Instagram, start sort of transom photos up saying this is what's coming up. just to keep people interested and engaged with it. And then, so all the kids pretty much have a to, Oh, I think we're dropping next Wednesday.[00:18:44] So I'll go through this weekend and take. Sort of product photos of it. and I'll go through and I'll size everything up. Um, but the tape measure and I'll type in all the details, I'll make notes of any sayings or how clothing fits. I'll do the, all the Q and A's and Instagram get [00:19:00] people sort of familiar with what they might be buying.[00:19:02]So to get a prep prep this week, this weekend, sorry. And then, yeah, it dropped out on Wednesday or volleyball. I sort of do is relax. Most of that. I sort of stress out about whether or not people are gonna buy the stuff. And then, sort of get everyone a little bit hype for it. and then it's six, I think six o'clock you just make the website live and it's similar [00:19:22] Germaine: [00:19:22] 6:00 PM, [00:19:23] Tom: [00:19:23] 6:00 PM.[00:19:24] It's very. You've ever been on the YZY drops and stuff like that, where people just sort of sit on website and refresh the page very similar to the app, which is it's, it's, it's a, it's a very, very like nerve wracking feeling. But when it, when it hits and you see the orders come in, like it's, it's so humbling and so exciting as well.[00:19:42] So. [00:19:42]Germaine: [00:19:42] Yeah. How'd you pick Shopify to be the place to host your [00:19:46] Tom: [00:19:46] show? I've worked with Wix a little bit with my personal sort of portfolio from my media stuff that I do. And my university degrees and, regimens and stuff like that. and I, I did a whole bunch of like, I love [00:20:00] watching, YouTube videos on sort of marketing and drop shipping and obviously dropped Shopify and drop shipping.[00:20:05] Go ahead. And, and, um, so I just decided to check it out. Shopify Watts. It just seemed like the easiest platform to use. Um, Because I didn't need a super fancy website. Like all the marketing was done through Instagram, so I literally need a website. Right. We started throwing the product. So people bought them like, that's the purpose of the website is not to do anything other than that.[00:20:25]it's been unreal. Like it's, it's so easy to use. Um, [00:20:29]Germaine: [00:20:29] it's held up with the demand and things like that as well. [00:20:31] Tom: [00:20:31] I haven't had any issues with it. Like not a single [00:20:33] Germaine: [00:20:33] one. Yeah. Awesome. So anyone listening, Shopify is an easy, relatively easy sort of DIY solution for, you know, as obviously as you scale up your needs will start to change.[00:20:46] And, usually what we find is that, if you want to keep things, things, symbol, Shopify. Fantastic. and, and really you can grow quite a lot on Shopify. and it just, you've just got to sort of temper your expectations, I guess, around [00:21:00] what you want to be able to do, because there's, I guess, limits too around how custom you can make it.[00:21:06] But, like you were talking about Tom, like you've got a fairly simple. List of requirements for, for the website side of things, because you've got the marketing or handled separately. So, yeah, it sounds like Shopify is awesome. Um, now we've talked about what you hope to do moving forward in terms of sort of personal life going to Melbourne.[00:21:27]you continued to run the Rhonda store. Are there plans to expand it? Yeah. Is the next, you know, is the goal for each drop to be bigger and bigger? Are you going to go past just, I mean, when you talk about vintage clothing, is it really just like tops and bottoms? Is that a. It, or are you going to go into shoes?[00:21:48] Tom: [00:21:48] Yeah, obviously trying to expand as many ways as possible. I think the obvious one is scaling up in terms of quantity and getting more items, getting more followers and stuff like that, which is, which [00:22:00] is sort of what I'm focused on at the moment. I have sort of started to too reach out and do sort of jackets stop we're stopping for the first time this next collection.[00:22:09]the first collection was just sweaters and tee shirts. Um, shoes, probably not just because like, I'm not passionate about it. I wear beat up Converse shoes. Like I don't, I don't know. There's something about stocking. Like I'm not going to do something that I'm not passionate about. Um, I, I have this, um, obviously like really big goal of doing a popup shop in Canberra.[00:22:28] I think that'd be, I think that'd be unreal. I think that'd be really cool. And I think, if I'm able to sort of grow the Canberra market more than more than I am at the moment, I think that's something that I'll look to do in the pretty near future. Um, But yeah, just, just scaling it up in terms of quality quantities, this sort of what I'm trying to do atthe moment.[00:22:46]Germaine: [00:22:46] Yeah, that's really exciting. I mean, I guess the Canberra store sort of up, popup store idea would be obviously affected a little bit by what's happening with coronavirus and, and all that, because ideally what you'd hope is just to [00:23:00] have just so many people in one go that social distancing is just not possible.[00:23:05] Right? I mean, you'd want to drive as many people to that physical location as you can. [00:23:11] Exactly. [00:23:12] Tom: [00:23:12] And mostly what I mean, we'll see what happens with it all. it's obviously very early days in the business and so we don't really know what's going on with coronavirus at the moment. but yeah, if it happens in a year's time, it happens, it happens in six months time.[00:23:25] But like, I remember being a uni student and, going to like a UC market day. I don't know if you've ever been in one and walking down and seeing like, Kids selling their startup clothes for a bit. I just thought it was the coolest thing. I was like, I'd love to want to do that. [00:23:39]Germaine: [00:23:39] Yeah, no, I, um, we had a stall at one of those and we met our own, product.[00:23:44] It was sort of a laptop. Um, it recorded it, we called it a lap desk and it was this thing basically where you can keep your laptop and it came with an inbuilt mouse pad and he could, um, um, sort of, uh, there's a little, uh, catchment area for like a [00:24:00] tablet. So you could have a tablet on there and your phone on your side.[00:24:03] So basically the idea was that you can sort of use, like, if it's a fully fledged desk, On your lap. Um, so that like if you're watching TV or something, you can use a laptop without just having to, [00:24:14]Tom: [00:24:14] and that was at UC market, you said? [00:24:16]Germaine: [00:24:16] Yeah. Yeah, that was, Oh, when was that? 2014, maybe. Yeah. Um, it's a whole lot of fun, like you said, and, you know, being able to see the excitement and people just coming up with their ideas and all that.[00:24:27] That's really awesome. Now, where can people find out more about you? [00:24:30] Tom: [00:24:30] Yeah, so the ma the main platform is Instagram. So, Primetime.Pickups, on Instagram. [00:24:36] Germaine: [00:24:36] awesome. We'll link that in the, in the description. Um, and then obviously the, the website as well, which is primetime pickups.com.au[00:24:44] Tom: [00:24:44] Yep. [00:24:46] Germaine: [00:24:46] Awesome. Um, you ready for this? The last, last section? Awesome. Uh, top three books or podcasts that you recommend. [00:24:54] Tom: [00:24:54] I love reading autobiographies. So Nick revolt is a good one. Dying Swan. That's a good [00:25:00] one. It's probably not the most informative one, but it's bloody fun read and Pele. I was on that already as a kid that I'd got really inspired by when I used to play soccer.[00:25:07] Soccer. [00:25:09] Yeah. Awesome. Big sports fan, obviously through and through, um, top three software tools that you can't live [00:25:16] without. I'm not the best at it, but you have to have it [00:25:22] Germaine: [00:25:22] just, it [00:25:23] Tom: [00:25:23] just, it, all the graphics really, I touch up photos with lightroom, which is probably the second one. but Photoshop, Lightroom, and premiere pro the videos, but that's sort of, I really started making videos for the, for the business just yet, but I use.[00:25:41] Awesome. [00:25:42] Germaine: [00:25:42] Fantastic. Um, top three mantras, you try and live by anything that you sort of, you know, tell yourself [00:25:48] Tom: [00:25:48] or repeat to yourself. They have too many managers. Um, when I started uni, I put up this poster of Michael Jordan on the wall, which has been up for about three, four or five years. Yeah. Four [00:26:00] or five years now.[00:26:00] Um, and it has a little quote underneath. It says no board, no bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings , which I.  I just think he's a cool,quote. [00:26:10] Germaine: [00:26:10] Yeah, that's awesome. I've never heard it before, but, um, that's that's yeah, really cool. I guess, telling you to showing you that you can be humble, but at the same time, just reach for whatever it is and just climb up.[00:26:23] Yeah, love it. Um, top three people you follow or study [00:26:28] Tom: [00:26:28] in terms of, in terms of the vintage side of my life individually. Cause I think, um, Jackson from vintage kit, um, I don't know if you've ever checked him out on Instagram, but he's sort of like, [00:26:39] Germaine: [00:26:39] he's like the [00:26:40] Tom: [00:26:40] godfather of selling clothes on Instagram.[00:26:42]Mark from wacky vintages and all the one. And Dan from Dan straight vintage, all three of those guys. Not for the dogs, just softball. I would reach out to and ask one questions and we pass them too much. but they were very open and honest how they ran their businesses and, gave me some, some great advice [00:27:00] coming up.[00:27:00] So I definitely recommend checking those people out. And if you like my vintage stuff and did not go no doubt, then you do love their stuff. They're selling to. [00:27:07]Germaine: [00:27:07] Yeah, that's really cool. It's, what's been really, um, awesome going like to this whole sort of conversation is that you're really passionate about.[00:27:15] And I think, it just goes to show that we've a really passionate about it. You'll find ways to make it happen. You'll talk to people you reach out. and you know, you just got to sort of stay, [00:27:24] Tom: [00:27:24] stay a hundred percent of that collaboration as well. It's again, going back to authenticity, these blokes are.[00:27:32] So open about discussing their business plans and their strategic plans with someone who's potentially going to be a competitor, I guess, um, like more than, more than happy to, to share that with me, which I was incredibly humbled by. Um, and so whenever someone reaches out to me and said, Hey, I'm out, like, how do you go about shipping?[00:27:53] How do you go about sourcing deal? I've been once about it because folks that helped me out did the same. [00:27:59][00:28:00] Germaine: [00:27:59] Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Well, um, all the best moving forward, I'll definitely keep an eye out for the next drop and, uh, would love to meet in person sometime. Awesome. Thanks for your time. 

How does the phrase go? "May you live in interesting times?" Well here we are. Very challenging to say the least. I see so many sellers struggling (us included). The day Amazon announced no more "non-essential" inventory could be sent in our account went under review. Scary times became even more scary for sure. Just made big bets (Yes they really are bets) and didn't quite work out as we wanted to. But we are on the other side. So Nick (my younger son) and I share what steps we have/are taking to dodge the minefields and get through these challenging times. I found that picture of me and Gary V from a while back. Still was cool to me. We do have sponsors so it helps us out if you buy from them with our codes as they pay us, but this is a no pitch episode. Please don't add more fees to your business. Streamline, adapt, pivot and plan for your successful future. Reach out if I can help in any way. Stephen Sponsors https://accountingwewillgo.com/momentum (Amazon Accounting Simplified) – Learn how to manage your business with specific Amazon Accounting training for Quickbooks online from a real CPA https://asinzen.com/momentum/ (AsinZen.com – 30 DAY FREE TRIAL) https://viral-launch.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=2083 (Viral Launch – Save $50 with this link (Use coupon code: Momentum)) http://www.amazingfreedom.com/momentum-arbitrage (SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY LISTENERS ONLY) http://www.amazingfreedom.com/momentum-arbitrage (TWO WEEKS FREE TRIAL!!!!) http://www.amazingfreedom.com/momentum-arbitrage (Gaye Lisby and Garry Ray's Seller Tribe – (Get 14 day free trial!!)) https://www.solutions4ecommerce.com/momentum/ (Solutions4ecommerce) http://sellerlabs.com/momentum (Scope from Sellerlabs) https://tacticalarbitrage.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ (Tactical Arbitrage) – Get an 10 day free trial with code: “Tactical” https://freeeup.com/ecommercemomentum/ (Freeeup)– Save 10% (forever) and get an instant $25.00 voucher for your first hire. http://trygodaddy.com/click.track?CID=344983&AFID=419630&godaddy.com=momentum (GoDaddy) http://trygrasshopper.com/click.track?CID=336231&AFID=419630&grasshopper.com=momentum (Grasshopper)

So Nick seems to have the corona virus, or something similar.  We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming next week.  In the meantime, here's an interview between Jessa and film makers about an interesting true crime case. 

This weeks guest is Nick Thiel. Nick spent 20 years working in IT. He had a passion for coaching and trained as a life coach. Nick is also passionate about helping Dads become better versions of themselves for the sake of them and their families.He left corporate world in May 2019 to pursue his passion full time.Links: www.facebook.com/DadUpToday www.facebook.com/groups/extraordinaryDads playbook.daduptoday.comWelcome back to the fuel your legacy podcast. Each week we expose the faulty foundational mindsets of the past and rebuild the newer, stronger foundation essential in creating your meaningful legacy. We've got a lot of work to do. So let's get started. As much as you like this podcast, I'm certain that you're going to love the book that I just released on Amazon if you will, your legacy, the nine pillars to build a meaningful legacy. I wrote this to share with you the experiences that I had while I was identifying my identity, how I began to create my meaningful legacy and how you can create yours. You're going to find this book on kindle amazon and as always on my website, Sam Knickerbocker. comWelcome back to fuel your legacy and another incredible guest from the UK. We're going to shout out to Nick teal. That the cool thing about meeting with people from all over the world is you get to hear different opinions different mindsets and because of different economic situations, there's a lot of things that maybe we haven't thought about because we live in our specific country, that when we start thinking about how is this working in other countries, it gives us ideas of how we can maybe implement some of their strategies that they're using in our country or our culture. So stay tuned for that. We're going to maybe think about what is unique to there, or what is he doing daily that I could be doing on my end of the world as well. So Nick, he spent about 20 years in it, and had a had a full career there, but just has a passion for coaching and helping other people and specifically dad, so he considers himself a coach to dads helping ordinary men become extraordinary dads, and he's on a mission to create a new generation of dads which I love that I coach with a coach. His whole thing is called next-generation next-gen coaching as he focuses on how do you become the next level of a coach? There's a lot of life coaches out there, how do you become the next level? So I love this when you said, helping become the next generation of dads, you know, helping them be a new version, a new better version of dad. So with that being said, Nick, go ahead and introduce your past how you have come to where you're at why you left corporate America and you know, the whole spiel. I'd love to hear all about it.Sure. Great stuff. Thank you very much, Samuel. Good to be on the show with you. So, yeah, let's go back in time. So I ended up working on it. And to be honest, that was an accident. So I went through a typical, typical childhood, went to a good school, went to university got a degree in Business Studies. And even back then, I think I had a sort of entrepreneurial passion inside of me that I didn't want to follow the normal corporate world. I always felt that there was probably more out there for us than just going through and having what is so often described as a good job. You know, many times our parents Get a good education, get a good job and everything will be fine. I didn't think that would be the case. But as it was, I remember back then actually, I, I wanted to own a gym. That was one of my dreams very early on in my life owning a gym, a health club. I was really into that side of life, then I ended up getting involved in a company you may or may not have heard of out there in the States, which was Amway, a large multi-level marketing company. And while that didn't do me any favors in terms of what it gave me financially, what it did do is open me up to the world of self-development of the world of coaching if you like. And part of the journey of that was that we got a lot of books to read, which are all self-help book self-improvement books, and it opened me up to that world out there that said, you can become a much better version of yourself. I was a very shy child lacked a lot of confidence quite insecure and didn't have a lot of people skills. So reading these books, And being around this environment around a lot of confidence successful people started to transform me into someone that develop those traits. And then I thought, wouldn't it be great to teach other people the stuff that I'm learning. But as so often the case, we end up falling into a job after university, and I ended up working in it. And what is so often happens for so many of us is that once we're in a career, it's really hard to get out of a career and change career, because we developed responsibilities. And very early on in my working life, I got together with my first wife, and she already had a son who was seven years old. So I committed within a year or two of leaving university, I had these commitments to look after a family. And therefore I couldn't just turn my back on that and pursue the career I wanted to. So in the back of my mind, I thought, you know, I'd love to be a life coach, but in the front of my mind, I thought I need to keep earning money and provide for my family. And so I ended up Ending, as you said, the best part, I think it was the best part of 20, just over 20 years in it. And through that time, I moved through a variety of roles, ended up making great money, six-figure income. And before I made all that money, so I thought, wouldn't it be amazing to make six figures? I bet if you're in six figures, all your problems go away, you're happy as anything. And when I got there, I realized that actually, you're no happier than when you were earning half of that. Yes, some of your problems have gone away and things were a bit easier. But I remember turning up to work every day thinking I am unfulfilled. I didn't enjoy the work I did. I always knew that that wasn't my passion wasn't my calling. But I didn't know how to just turn my back on that kind of income and pursue what I wanted to do. And so I wrestled with that for several years if I'm perfectly honest, and during that time, I had a five-month career break when I trained, got professionally trained as a life coach. But I ended up back in it because it was the security of what I knew before I had a chance to build my coaching business. And then a couple of years ago, I started thinking, I need to do something within the coaching space. I wanted to help men because I was just passionate about wanting to see men be in a position where they could transform their lives. And then I was getting coaching myself and my coach at the time, we looked at where I'd best be we're best to be able to serve. And we realized that my experience by that point was, I was a dad to three children by then. So I had adopted my ex-wife's first, my ex-wife, son, when we got married, and then we'd had two more children ourselves, then our marriage has broken down, unfortunately. So as a dad, I'd experienced the whole range of going through adoption, becoming an adopted dad, having my children, then getting divorced. My children ended up Moving 200 miles away. So I went through a whole heartache and a process to understand how to best parent from a distance. And so working with my coach, we realized that the best thing I could do is probably to coach dads and help them goes, better equip them for the journey that they might go on. If it was similar to mine.And it was back then I started a page on Facebook for dads. Initially, I thought it would just support single dads. And then I realized all dads go through the same struggles we all have the same issues in life. So I kind of made it more open to all dads. And I knew what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to turn it into a full-time business. But it was hard balancing the demands of my career was what would be needed to turn that into a business. So it kind of sat on the back burner for a while just trickling away in the background. And then finally, this year in around March may know or May this year, things were changing. At work, and there's a lot of rules in the UK around how I was a what's called a contract. So I wasn't employed permanently by the company, but I contracted out to companies, and all of the tax rules and everything is changing in this in this country. And so it was obvious that change was coming. There was uncertainty. And I talked it over with my new wife. We've been with two years of marriage now. And we said if you're not going to do it now, when are you going to do it? Because she's been encouraging me. Most of the time we've been married, just don't do what you stopped doing a job you don't enjoy, stop being unfulfilled and start living out your passion. And I'm very lucky that I've got a wife that supports me so much in that respect because that's got to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks. And so in May, I decided that it was time to walk away from that job and go for it full time but becoming a dad coach, which is what I'm now doing.That is incredible. I love it. So You heard or read the book, The Dream giver by Bruce Wilkinson? No, no to that one. Okay, so I would read that. And anybody who's listening to this, go ahead and read that I did a book review on it. That's probably been a few months ago, maybe even shoot probably close to a year ago. It's been a long time but a super good book and I read it regularly. The thing with this at the book and why I like that this book for this analogy is because Bruce Wilkinson can put into kind of a parable about these dreams. And for Nick, you had your dream you had your first calling to a dream or to be a coach in college right? Is that that what I'munderstanding? Yeah, yeah. Back then. Yeah.And he spent another 20 some odd years not doing his dream but the dream kept coming up a piece made some small progress towards Did you take complete when you say you took five years to have it trained as a life coach. Did you take time out of Quit your it job while you what, five months? or five months or five months.Yeah, so I had a contract that ended and I decided right I won't pursue a job, I will pursue what I believe I'm being called to do. And so I kind of reignited during the first couple of weeks of doing that. The whole concept of wanting to become a life coach kind of like came back into me, my conscious because I'd almost I put it to one side so much as I'd forgotten about it. And suddenly they all came back and I thought, yeah, that's what I always wanted to do back then. That's why I should do now and then that's when I sought out the correct training, etc. and got qualified.Yeah, I love that. So the point is, your dreams even though you maybe have said no to your dreams before or in the past, they'll keep coming back up, especially if it's you if it's your purpose, if it's what you're meant to do. Those things are going to keep creeping back up into your life. And at some point, we've got to take, take a second pause, look over and Okay, what is it about that's so important? I think that a lot of people have gotten into some type of multi-level marketing Amway is we were part of my family's part of it when I was younger. And but I think it is there, these multi-level marketing people often will give them a bad name. But the reality is they're one of the big if we're talking about gateway drugs right? They're one of the biggest gateway drugs to personal development, which is awesome. And that's all they serve as an as a purpose is to help people in mass numbers get focused on personally developing themselves and focused on what value are they adding to society, if that's all that they did, and all they accomplished, that's a win. And so many people will sit there and talk about it like it's a negative thing. That's a win if that's all that they accomplish. That's huge to at least accomplish that. So I love that idea. And especially since he was a shy and almost introverted person at the beginning So the best coaches that I know and are all naturally shy and introverted.Yes, how it is. It's weird, isn't it? And I was that I was the guy that if I saw you coming down the road and I knew you I crossed over to avoid having to say hello to you, I was that kind of shy guy.I'm not been that type of shy, but I bet that crazy kind of shy. Yeah, but the point is, though, there's a lot of people who are probably feeling that same way when they go to work. They're avoiding people, they're avoiding eye contact, and they're driving, they're avoiding connection with other drivers. They're so stuck in their little world. And it's not bad necessarily to be stuck in your little world. But there is a lot of people out there that when you're willing to no longer be selfish, right, and choose to be selfless, then you are ending up gaining a connection with other people and it doesn't mean that you have to overwhelm yourself. I'm naturally an introvert as well. If there are too many people around too much going on, I'm like, going to go shut myself in a bedroom. You know, it's over stimulant but it's important to understand and that that's a natural thing. So if you're going through that or somebody who knows going through that, just be with them understand that that's where they're at. But that's incredible what do you feel like making the biggest shift for you to go from that shy introverted person and identity to willing to step out? And I'm not saying that you at your core have changed your desire, but what made you willing to step out of that box and explore new things?You know, I mean, that's a great question. So but I think probably the biggest thing was that I got, I got comfortable with who I was, I got happy with who I was. And that was the biggest breakthrough. So not only was I this shy, insecure guy but back then I was a skinny kid growing up. And then I got into weight training and bodybuilding and that was a bit of an obsession hence wanting to open a gym when I was young. Right. And, and that was me probably putting an outer shell on this Shy Guy interior. And, and then as a result of reading all of these books getting around successful people being built up by people that knew how to build you up as a person, and not just people knocking you down all the time, I started to like you I was I got comfortable with who I was. And I thought This is me. And you'll either like me or you won't like me, but this is me. And I don't need to try and be anyone other than myself. And funnily enough, when that happened, I started not only coming out of my shell and being more willing to talk to people, but I didn't I wasn't so obsessed with my bodybuilding either. Because I no longer had to wear an outer shell to protect me. I was just who I was.So what do you think it is that holds people back from liking themselves to accomplish that?That's a great question. And my wife has just released a course for people on how to like themselves. So you think God knows all the answers to this, but I think a lot of it is just that the programming we get through our childhood. So all the little things that go on as we're growing up, around affecting our self-talk, and affecting the self-beliefs we have. And we're creating all these limiting beliefs, we're creating these lies that we're telling ourselves constantly about who we are. And in this day and age, it's even harder because you've got social media bombarding you with all these images about how you should be, or the only way to look perfect is this or if you're not getting 1000 likes, then obviously, no one likes you. So we're living in this space where we are constantly judging ourselves and comparing ourselves with other people. And that makes it hard to like who we are. And we can just shift away from that and realize that we're not in a comparison world. And if we could see the reality of every person, everyone has their flaws, everyone has their weaknesses. We're all the same. And we've all got the same fears and insecurities and we should just, we should accept that we are how we are we are created in a certain way made in a certain way. And we should be happy with what we are and who we are.Yeah, I agree what what what practices Or habits or mindsets or whatnot? What would you say could help somebody who's stuck in the not liking themselves stage? What is something they could do to kind of work themselves out into ahead? I'm comfortable and I like myself like what is a practice habit, mindset or behavior that they could adopt?Yeah. Okay. So I think I think part of that is your self-talk. So whatever you whatever you're saying to yourself on a daily is what you're going to start believing about yourself. And so, the first thing is to start listening. What am I saying to myself? Am I telling myself negative stories? Are my telling myself positive stories? Am I telling myself beliefs that are pulling me back or am I telling myself beliefs about myself which are drawing me forward? And you know, even if you start that self-talk, and it doesn't convince you at first it will start to reprogram the mind it will start to change what we're doing. And then the other big thing for me is just to be around people and to expose yourself to a situation where you start talking to other people. And you realize that people do like you. And that helps. Not that we should judge ourselves on what other people think. But also realize that people other people's opinion is their opinion. And everyone's got an opinion whether it's a good opinion or bad opinion. But someone's opinion of us doesn't have to become a reality. And I heard that, quote, years ago, and I thought, what a great quote, other people's opinion of you doesn't have to become your reality. So it's all about I mean, there's a lot of big exercises I do when I'm coaching dads on knowing their identity. So looking at who are you knowing your values, so what makes you tick? What things are really valuable to you? What things do you do anything to avoid? And then looking at your beliefs, and what are the beliefs that you've grown up with that may be holding you back from being the real version of you?Yeah, I love that. So just rewind that for the last two or three minutes and start putting just one of those things. I don't care what you put in practice, but choose just one thing to put into practice and start viewing yourself better. Even the people who have the best view of themselves excuse me, in my experience can still level up their belief in themselves. Absolutely. That's just what I've experienced in the past. So one of these things that I have met with a lot of different coaches or and I don't think it's exclusive to coaches, I think this is a principle of passion that I want to touch on here. You've mentioned that you were you're in this career you have responsibilities was hard to leave those responsibilities. And it seemed that there was a binary choice between wanting to life coach wanting to follow your passion k works can call it passion, and needing money.And for some reason,it either in society or just in our own lives. We've come to believe that this is a binary choice that we can only choose one or the other. And that if we choose to go do our own thing, then we're going to struggle financially. And so now there's this fear around going and doing it ourselves. I'm curious, where do you feel like that belief came from inside of you that it was either one or the other?Um, I think it was. Well, it's an interesting one, because actually, I think in this day and age, I question whether that belief still happens, because I think we're being exposed to a new world and a new set of beliefs that says, you can follow your passion and make money. But I think there was a reality check inside of me That said, if I've got this level of responsibility and this amount of money I need every month, how can I suddenly follow my passion and recreate that level of income? Because I didn't feel quite naive enough to think that I could recreate that level of income overnight, contrary to some of the adverts that we get bombarded without there these days. So it was maybe It was a relative, maybe I had my own limiting belief, maybe, you know, none of us are perfect with we are we're talking about all this mindset stuff. But we've still all got additional beliefs that we've got to overcome. And to move into that space where you know, there are people out there doing what you want to do and making the money you need to make. But you sometimes think, Well, how do I make the jump from where I am to get to that point as well?Sure. So So what I don't know. I don't know what the real answer is. I don't know that there is one answer size fits all, you know, but I think for me when I'm working with different clients, one thing that I just invite people that person to think about his perspective. So for me when I shifted my perspective in life, to and this was from a what book was it? by Brian Tracy, I think it's no excuses for the power of self-discipline. Probably one of his best books I love pretty much all about Brian Tracy stuff his style and mine connect. Well, I jive with him a lot. But the question is, or I guess the perspective to have in life, in general, is every day in life, I if I consider myself a company, every day in the life, I am either adding value to my stock or devalued devaluating my stock. And when you start thinking of your life as a stock, or as its own company, you're the CEO of your own life and your own company, then it doesn't matter whether you're an entrepreneur or working for somebody else, okay, I'm putting working for somebody else in quotations. Because at that point, when I go into a job interview, I'm no longer waiting for somebody else to assign my value. I'm walking in saying, look, this is the value I'm offering. This is what my stock is worth. Now, are you willing to pay me what what myself stock is worth whether that's an employer, or, as in singular, you're working for a corporation or an individual or you're working for many individuals as a, as an entrepreneur, you have lots of different people that you're selling your stock to, versus just selling all your stock to one, one person or one entity. And but when you think about it like that, it makes it at least for me a lot easier to say, Okay, I have value if I, if I'm making six figures at this company, then I already know that I have my values, six figures at least, but it's actually more because they wouldn't pay me six figures unless they were making money on me.Yep, I agree. Right? No great way to look at it.So then my stock in myself is it's on a discount to this company, whoever I'm working for. What if I were to go get market value for my stock, and then I can start looking at Okay, I can make market value for my stock and all these different areas. And then it is overnight. Like I know overnight, I could be making x $9 because I know the value that I'm bringing, I know the value of my stock and what, what is being exchanged for, for the money. And so I just thought maybe if people started thinking about their life from a perspective of, I'm the CEO, and every interaction is I'm selling stock in my company. And I'm either increasing the value or decreasing the value of that stock every moment of my life, then we're more excited too, to do personal development and develop ourselves because now that's a direct investment into our value of the stock. And also, we're more excited to go share that with other people, because now we're thinking, well, if it's on a discount over here, what's the market rate for my services? And then we can go out and find a market rate for our services? And what are your thoughts about that?I think that's great. I mean, I think if I if I was going to argue with you, so to speak, from the other side, bring it on. So I agree with what you just said. With the only thought being that when you're working for someone and your value is, you know, whatever you're being paid. Then if you move out of that space to do something for yourself, if you move into a completely different area, that's when it's easy to, to not appreciate your value as being what it was for that company, because the skillset that you had for that company. So for me, I was working in it, and they were paying me to do a job in it. They didn't care whether I was a great coach or not. And they didn't care that I was making a difference to a lot of people in the company at the time. Then to move into a different space where all my value is in the coaching and the different time making the people's lives. That's when we need a real mindset shift to say I'm great I was I could make great money doing this job. But now I'm going to go and do this job. How transferable as some of the stuff. Now the personal part of me the fully transferable mindset, okay, and, and then the IT skills. They're not so transferable.So So I would so I'm not I'm like this back and forth K, argue my argument, I guess you could say or my position would be that they're not paying you to punch numbers. Right? You might think they are because that's the task you're fulfilling. But if you're an ass if you're not friendly, nobody likes you you're a pain to get along with and you don't function well in their system. It doesn't matter if you're the best person at punching numbers, you're fired because they're paying you for who you are. Conveniently, you fulfill a role for them. On the number side I most companies I've ever worked for are seeing people work for if you don't jive with the company culture, if all you do is a one skill set, and that and that's what they're paying you for. You don't get paid, you get fired. And so the recognition of what value are they paying me for? Is it because I can punch numbers, that's an added benefit. They're paying for you for who you are and your morals, your ethics. Integrity, that the ability to be on time, the ability to be reliable, all of those things we discount, and we just don't even recognize the value of what those are until you're an employer, and you're like, Okay, this person can punch numbers really good, but he ain't got anything else going for him. I can't hire that person. And so when you start thinking like an employer, all of that other stuff, that's the bulk of the value, it's not the skill that you could teach a monkey to do. It's everything else. Yeah. And that value, I would argue, is 100% transferable into any industry, that skill that you're applying that value to is is up to you.And I'm gonna have to agree with you on that one. Soit's funny enough, because when you started this conversation, the one thing I was going to say was that I actually believe the reason I was able to progress well in the IT industry, even though I didn't enjoy it, and it wasn't my passion was actually who I was as a person. As the relationship. I was able to build within any workplace. And I would often find myself ending up as leading the team, whichever team I started, and I ended up leading that team. And it was all about who I was. And it couldn't have had anything to do with my actual skills in a job. Other than my mindset did say, I will learn this skill, I will learn this job and I'll be good at it. But fundamentally, who I was the way I could relate to people across a wide range of different jobs. That was what made the difference for me to grow my income quickly when I was working in it. So you're spot on with that bit. There is the most transferable thing out there.I agree. And so the reason I'm I like this little banter between us is because this is where people are missing the mark. They think that they are like they identify their identity as being able to complete a skill rather than everything that goes with it. And your identity is not the skill that you complete your identity as who you are. Being as an individual, absolutely, and help make that distinction could be the difference between somebody fulfilling their dream of continuing to fulfill to be unfulfilled through?Yeah, I, you know, I coach guys on identity and what you just said spot on. Because so many people wrap their identity up in maybe their exact role at work or even in them being a husband or you know, a father or whatever it is. And the minute that that thing changes, so they lose their job, or they get a divorce or whatever it is. They've lost their identity because it was wrapped up in that role. But, as you say, our identity is who we are, who is this person? What attributes Do we have, when we get clear that that's our identity and these other things are roles? A total shift of who we are?Absolutely. So I think it's perspective. So I love that I'm glad that we were able to have that conversation. When it comes to specifically coach dad's helping to help men become better dads and the next generation, what would you say? If you could, and I hope that you can but described between where. And we're putting in air quotes here for anybody who's not watching this, but where our current dads like what's their current mindset and mentality, things like that? And what is the next generation of like, the new evolved dad that you're trying to coach people into? What's the difference? And how could we identify either or and this applies, By the way, this applies to women, this applies to children applies to everybody. Just because he chooses to focus on males these principles, they're human principles, not justokay, great question. Then when I look around, I think a lot of dads are in this space. So I think before we become a dad, we kind of have an idea as to the kind of dad we think we are going to be or the dad what we want to be. And that may be modeled on the dad that we had or it may be a complete opposite because often it's going to be one of the are just some ideas in our head. And then we become a dad. And we realized that it wasn't as easy as we thought it was going to be. And I think the reason for that is that we haven't when we become a dad, we still haven't mastered life. And so the bits of life that were bad enough before we became a dad, and when I talked about life, I'm talking about relationships. So you know, no one taught us how to do marriage. So we get married, and we find out well, living with someone else is quite tricky. And we've talked just about identity and no one helps us figure out who are we and we become a dad and we lose our identity of the more because Oh, so and so's a dad now and you're so and so's husband. And actually, I'm still me, what about me? And we don't we lose our sense of purpose because we get into this place like I was where we're just trying to survive, trying to bring in the money to support the family, and not really figuring out this is what my dream is, this is what I want to do in my life. We are just the Existing. And I've been speaking to some dad recently that was just saying that I just feel like I'm existing. I'm just making enough money to survive. And again, finance, you know, finances tough kids are expensive. So, so a lot of dads now are in a place where I think they, they have lost their identity, they've lost their, their, their reason for living, they're struggling in relationships with their wife. And you know, when you introduce kids into that equation, it's just it's less sleep, it's less time for each other as a couple, and therefore more stress and more struggle. They've lost their identity, they're struggling with their finance, they might have let their health go. There's all this talk about the dashboard these days. And there's the article say the dashboard is deemed like the sexy way to be now. I'm not sure I think the evidence is that people still look at the fit, fit physique and say that that guy's in good shape, and that guy's not in good shape. So all these things, we lose And then there's just the whole, how do I connect to my kids? And you know, this day and age, our kids are hooked to screens. And it's getting worse and worse. And we're trying to find out how can we stay relevant? How can we be the cool dad that I could still want to hang out with that they want to talk to. And again, no one taught us any of this. So we arrive at a place where we're trying to master the six different things. No one's taught us how to do any of it. And we just start feeling overwhelmed and thinking I'm probably not the dad that I want it to be. And you start feeling like a bit of a failure. But we have no idea what to do about it. And I think men are probably worse than women in that respect because we're not naturally good at asking for help. We don't like to admit that we're struggling. You know, I often joke that when a man is lost, he won't stop and ask for directions. He'll keep driving until he finds his way. And it's kind of the same with when you're struggling with being a dad, you don't want to turn around to your mate or your Your partner or your in-laws and say, I'm struggling, I need help. So we just kind of keep quiet, we suffer a little bit, and we struggle a lot. And that's where I think a lot of dads are. And certainly, the more I'm in a lot of groups on Facebook, etc. And I'm interacting with a lot of dads and they're all suffering from those, one of those things.That's cool. And so what's your ideal vision for them as far as where you're going to coach them into?Yeah, so kind of like turning all of that on its head. So we looked at it, it's a dad that knows who he is, is clear with his identity is happy with who he is, and doesn't doesn't feel the pressure to conform and be someone he's not someone who knows where he's going in life, someone who's got a purpose, and it's not just his purposes and just to survive, is to pursue his dream and to set that example to the family of this is what it looks like to be living a life of passion, that but the life of purpose. Someone that can model good relationships with their partner with their children, with their colleagues with their family. So we're not in this toxic situation of everyone falling out with everyone. someone that knows about health and can raise their children to understand about health because I think we've got a health epidemic going on now, particularly I don't know if it's the same out there. But in the UK, we've got some health issues that are just getting worse and worse, such as diabetes is crippling the system and it's causing more and more children to suffer. Money, again, a big problem. And we're in a world where the money is so available, you can go on gambling sites, you got lottery sites, you got credit cards, offering you as much money as you want. And no one's understanding what the impact or implication of borrowing all that money is. So again, we're not we're, the dads of today are possibly getting themselves into situations and the new generation of dad says, I'm financially responsible. I know how to handle money, and I'm going to teach my children how to handle money, how to be good stewards of money. And then in terms of parenting, it's the dad did it Want to get to the new generation of dads, they understand how to show up how to be present with their children. Because it's no good just being there. It's about being present, and about really connecting with our children. And that varies obviously from when they were a toddler through to when they were a teenager, that the whole how present being present looks and feels will vary. But it's understanding how you've got to be how you got to show up and putting the child as a priority in your life along with your partner, to make sure that they are growing up without an active participating President Biden know in their world.Now, I love that and that again, that goes to anybody. It's a husband, father, son. wife, mother, grandmother, daughter. I mean everybody needs to work on those skills, in my opinion, they're there. In general, everybody's work on we are going to find our little niche the person that we connect to the best, right but if you feel like that you could benefit from that type of coaching. Reach out to Nick. I mean, I'm sure he's willing to have a conversation very least. And if he's not the right fit for you, they'll let you know. And you can direct you to somebody who might be a better fit. I'm curious just because I've talked about this or struggle with this. And when it comes to identity, I want to help people identify their identity as well. But I want to hear your take on this. I have seen this happen, where, because two people didn't know who they were, when they got married, then they had kids, but they were the whole time they were fulfilling somebody else's identity them. And then you help them dig down and find out who they are at their core. And when both people find out who they are at their core, they find out that they don't connect. They're not a good couple. It's, for lack of a better word. It's better that they like to get divorced, and go fulfill their passions because there's So far on different pages when they get down to their core, how do you handle that from a coaching perspective? Because, again, you don't want to be breaking up families. And on the other hand, you want people to fully live and bean and fulfill their, their identity and who they're meant to be. So how do you balance that if somebody gets into a bad relationship, a relationship they didn't know was bad, or they didn't know is contrary to who they are? And then they find that out? How do you go about handling that situation?Well, that is a massive question, isn't it? And you've just landed that one on me, Samuel. Thank you. So I mean, that's a really interesting one. Because I think if you if you get to a point where you have successfully got them both to unveil their true identities, I, to me, that's a massive success. Because they can now be free to be who they are. But I think as you said that there may be an unfortunate situation where actually when they're living true to themselves, there is no connection between them. And I think you've got to look at Within marriage, you know, too often people say, Oh, I falling out of love. Well, that's great. You can fall in, you can fall out of love very easily. I love to me that is a verb, it's a do. It's an action, it's not feeling. The feeling of falling in love is great. It happens early days, it's exciting. But there will be times when that feeling can go away, but we decided to love daily. I think referring to a situation you were just talking to think it comes down to what their nature is. And all their natures align to in any way that could hold them together, where they could appreciate that their identity, their values may be a bit different, or in revealing their true identity or their values so misaligned that is not healthy for them to stay in a relationship. And while I would hate to advocate a couple breaking up when they've got children, even when they haven't got children, because I've been there I've seen what it's you know the effect it had on my children.I'm also not an advocate of couples staying togetherIf there's no relationship between them because I think you're modeling an unhealthy relationship to the children as well. So we've got to be honest with ourselves because too many people will use that as an excuse to walk away. Sure. But I think in the very least, if you've coached them through that process, and there's just such a divide between the two of them, then maybe the best thing you can do is coach them into a healthy situation where they can move apart, but in a way that's, that doesn't mean there's any animosity between them. Sure. Because I think what causes a problem in marriage breakdown is the animosity and the use of the children in the middle of an argument. So you know, I don't think we can fix every marriage going and if we can't fix it, then I'd say divorce well. And that's sometimes what is unfortunate that may prove to be the better solution.Yeah, it's an interesting thing. Question. I've talked to a quite a few marriage therapists, divorce attorney, I talked to a lot of people about that, and I don't have the right answer. I'm fully committed to helping people identify who they are at their core. I believe, as you've stated that you can choose to love anybody, and regardless of how compatible you are, but I do think that compatibility is also a big and it's got to be part of the equation you got to be you can't, you can't? I don't know. I don't know. It's hard for me.I don't know it's such a hard one is that because Idon't know what your edge outweighs that fulfilling the purpose of happiness on this planet? Yeah.And I like to say I think you've got it. You've got to look at what you're modeling to your children. Because what you want for your children is to understand how to select the right partner and make that marriage work. And, you know, I think if we're not careful, we have children growing up and thinking that marriage is all about mom and dad barely talking to each other or not liking each other. And that's not a particularly great place for our children to grow up either. Yeah, but I don't want to sit here and make it. I don't want for everyone to think, Oh, you know, I'm not getting along great with my partner today. So I better split up so that my children don't see us argue. That's not what I'm saying. It depends when those two identities come out, it just depends on how radically different their values are. And their viewpoints on life. Because there has to be some compatibility for it to be maintainable. It's interestingtoday. It's a great question. Love it. It's like that the classic ethical dilemma questions where you're just like, I don't know, I don't know the answer, but I like to think about it because I think it serves me to know hey, what, where am I at? What am I willing to sacrifice to be a share that loves and to help and serve and bless others. So I'm curious where how do we support you? How do we get in contact with you? where's the best place to reach out to Facebook? Like, what's your social media presence? Where're your websites? at what's the best way to get ahold of you if we wanted to coach, or wanted help,but the best way is probably through Facebook. So I've got a page on Facebook called dad up, and it's at facebook.com forward slash dad up today. So that's the page and then I've got a group of any dads out there listening and want to be part of our closed group community as a free group where I provide a little bit of training and we just build a community of dads. And that's facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash extraordinary dads. I'm just about in the next two weeks, I'm launching my online membership program, which will be a very low-cost membership program online for dads to get weekly coaching. So training videos on all the topics we've been discussing today. group coaching calls Question and Answer session every week, be part of a private community. So if anyone's interested in knowing more about that they best off just reaching out to me via Facebook through the means we've just mentioned. And I'll add them on to the mailing list who are going to get notified in the next couple of weeks when that all comes out. Ensure that just finding me personally on Facebook as well. I'm on Facebook, I am on Instagram, but I haven't embraced the Instagram world quite yet. But I know I need to as my kids keep telling meand yeah, it can it comes and goes for me sometimes I'm way active on it. Other times I'm just not active on it. But so this is a good time to be releasing this episode is going to be right around Valentine's Day. So if you are thanks if you just went through Valentine's Day and you're thinking man, I could do better then let's better things.Yeah, I mean, particularly, you know, relationships are one of the biggest things I want to teach that. And that we've got some brilliant tools that we can give guys that absolutely will transform a relationship for you. And it doesn't matter where your partner is that we can work just with the guy, and it's going to make a huge difference to what's going on in their home.Yep. Awesome. I love it. So here's the second the last section of the whole podcast, which is again, one of my favorites, but it's called legacy on rapid-fire. So I'm gonna ask you five questions, and I'm looking for one word, two, one-sentence answers. And depending on how you answer the first question, I may ask you to clarify. Because I've had some people who answered the same, same answer. Okay, consistently. So I'm like, well, that's good. I'm glad I'm talking to a group of enlightened people. But let's go to the next level and let's go deeper. So,you ready? I'm ready forthat. The first question is, what do you believe is holding you back from reaching the next level of your legacy.Fear.Okay, fear of what?Fear of failure?Okay. Awesome. And it's good. It's good that you're aware of that. And what do you think the hardest thing you've ever accomplished has been thehardest thing of all? That's a great question.It is maintaining a relationship with my kids after they moved away, and is consistently showing up for them. It may sound stupid to say that's the hardest thing. But in terms of consistently doing it for over 10 years, it's, it's taken a side of me that wasn't in me before.Yeah, I love that. And what do you think your greatest success at this point in your life has been?If I'm allowed to almost repeat the previous answer, the relationship I've got with my children. I think it's phenomenal. The fact that they will still travel for hours on a Friday and a Sunday every other weekend. Come and see me when they're teenagers and have a great day. social lives. That speaks volumes to me that I've done an ALRIGHT job.Yeah, that's awesome. And what would you say is one secret habit mindset or behavior that you believe contributes most to your success?Um, I would say my self talk. So just repeating the positive stuff to myself and not allowing the negative talks to come in. Awesome.And what are two or three books that you'd recommend to feel your legacy audience? I lovesort of all the classic books but I love the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the books that transformed my way back was How to Win Friends and Influence People. Great book and Rich Dad Poor Dad. awesome book and anything by Tony Robbins I'm a massive Tony Robbins fan. Sonow awesome. So this is now my favorite, favorite question to ask which is why say for last but I asked all of my clients this, I asked me and then I'm coaching this anybody who's joined my business. I am asking all of them this question. Okay, you ready for this question? I'm ready. Okay, so we're going to pretend that you are dead. You've died, and six generations from now. So this is your great-great, great, great, great-grandchildren. You get the opportunity to listen in to a conversation they're having sitting around the dinner table talking about your life neck, they're talking about what your legacy is, what do you want them to be saying six generations from now about Nick's legacy,that he made a difference. But he stepped out in faith, with courage, did what he felt he was called to do. And he made a difference that lives on six generations later. That's awesome.I love it. So I've been waiting to say this thing the whole time. But everything that it comes that we've talked about today comes down to being in alignment and finding out your identity. And so answering that question, what do you want your legacy to be if you're listening to this answer that question for yourself, I asked it on every episode. So it's not shouldn't be a new question if you've been listening, but I asked this on every episode, you'll see how different people answer it. But answer that for yourself take the time to journal, what do I want that conversation to look like? Second, what are my core values? What are my three or four core values that for me, are guiding in my life and if it doesn't, if something that I might be participating in doesn't align with those core values, then I choose not to participate? Third, what fulfills me right and you know, as we went through this thing, all these things Nick has answered he wants to be remembered as somebody who steps out and is different. His values are family commitments, serving, keeping people close and connecting with people. And what fulfills him is blessing other people's lives, seeing the light come back into their lives, and specifically working with fathers and helping them do what he was able to do and so and that and that wasn't like something just came up with as they're from the beginning of his life. And even before he went into college and got out of college, all of these values were there just took him a while to align his life in alignment with his legacy, his values, and fulfillment. And then you get to look at how can I bring that to the world? And how can I fulfill that and make money doing it? And, and I'm confident that Nick can help you with all of those things, answer those questions. I also can help you if you're interested in and chatting with me. But I just love it. So thank you so much, Nick, for your time. I super appreciate you. Thank you, gentlemen, late over there.No problem. It's been a fantastic conversation. I enjoyed it. Cool.Yeah. Well, we will catch you guys next time on fuel your legacy.Thanks for joining us. What you heard today resonates with you please like comment and share on social media tag me and if you do, give me a shout out. I'll give you a shout out on the next episode. Thanks to All those who've left a review, it helps spread the message of what it takes to build a legacy that lasts and we'll catch you next time on fuel your legacy.Connect more with your host Samuel Knickerbocker at:https://www.facebook.com/ssknickerbocker/?ref=profile_intro_cardhttps://www.instagram.com/ssknickerbocker/https://howmoneyworks.com/samuelknickerbockerIf this resonates with you and you would like to learn more please LIKE, COMMENT, & SHARE————————————————————————————————————Click The Link Bellow To Join My Legacy Builders Mastermindhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/254031831967014/Click here to check out my webinar as well!————————————————————————————————————Want to regain your financial confidence and begin building your legacy?In this ebook you will learn:- The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy- Clarify you “why”- Create Daily Action Steps To Launch ForwardWant Sam’s FREE E-BOOK?Claim your access here! >>> Fuel Your Legacy: The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy————————————————————————————————————

It's no secret Justin spends a lot of his spare time swinging golf clubs... thanks to Nick Bova. Our guest in episode 25 of the Stay Healthy New Jersey podcast is the Director of Instruction at Hamilton Farm Golf Club and has been Justin's personal swing coach over the last few months. As a kid, Nick's father told him to pursue a career that allowed him to play golf. So Nick did just that: forming a career around the sport. This podcast goes into Nick's story, how he became the #4 ranked golf instructor in the state of New Jersey, and shares practical tips and advice for any golfers out there on their swing, how to practice, specific courses, and much more.  

When we go on about pizza and the weather, you might think it’s going to be a quiet episode of the P100 Podcast, but our guests this week have anything but small talk to offer.• Nick Bogacz, founder of the award-winning Caliente Pizza & Draft House, has put Pittsburgh pizza on the global map, and he shares his story with us.• Tom Baker, an Allegheny councilman whose work with nonprofits in the region is an inspiration, talks about setting goals.• We examine whether the winter weather forecast’s a foregone conclusion.• We’ve got a preview of The Pittsburgh 100’s exciting gift issue. This episode is sponsored by WordWritePR:Centuries before cellphones and social media, human connections were made around fires, as we shared the stories that shaped our world. Today, stories are still the most powerful way to move hearts, minds and inspire action.At WordWrite, Pittsburgh’s largest independent public relations agency, we understand that before you had a brand before you sold any product or service, you had a story.WordWrite helps clients to uncover their own Capital S Story – the reason someone would want to buy, work, invest or partner with you through our patented StoryCrafting process. Visit wordwritepr.com to uncover your Capital S story.Transcript: Logan:             You're listening to the P100 Podcast, the biweekly companion piece to The Pittsburgh 100. Bringing you Pittsburgh news, culture, and more, because sometimes 100 words just isn't enough for a great story.Dan:                Hey everybody welcome back to the P100 Podcast. I am your host, Dan Stefano. I'm here with Paul Furiga.Paul:                Hey there, Dan.Dan:                And Logan Armstrong.Logan:             Let’s get it started Dan.Dan:                Let’s get it started. Okay, well we got a fun episode for everybody today. For starters, we're going to talk a little bit about a special gift giveaway…Paul:                Yes.Dan:                ... that we're going to be providing through…Paul:                Stay tuned for the special four letter word I have for you.Dan:                ...through the P100 Podcast, and The Pittsburgh 100. Something special we're doing for the holidays here and we're really excited about. Following up after that we're going to be talking with Nick Bogacz of Caliente Pizza & Draft House, who is far more than just a pizza business owner, but they are definitely successful at that. So we'll be interested to learn more about the pizza business.Paul:                Yes. He wrote the book on that.Dan:                Absolutely, he did actually.Logan:             Literally.Dan:                Yeah, quite literally. Following that we're going to be talking with Tom Baker, who's an Allegheny County Councilman, but he does a lot more in the community.Paul:                So much more.Dan:                And we're going to be talking about goal setting, which is popular this time of year. A lot of people are thinking of new year's resolutions, but he goes a lot deeper into it. He's really got a lot of great insight into leadership.Paul:                Leadership, yeah.Dan:                And after that we're just going to chat about the weather.Paul:                I mean, because why not? We always chat about the weather.Logan:             We are in Pittsburgh.Paul:                We're in Pittsburgh.Dan:                Yeah and we're going to talk about the weather and that, but. We go a little bit deeper into that, and then somehow it devolves into a conversation about baseball. But yeah, everybody…Paul:                Stay with us, it makes sense.Dan:                Yeah. As Logan would say, buckle in, let's get it started, and thanks for being with us.Paul:                All right, listen up podcast fans. I have a four letter word for you.Dan:                Be careful.Paul:                It starts with F, but it ends with E. The word is, free.Dan:             Okay.Logan:             Now you're speaking my language.Paul:                There you go.Dan:                My language is the other four letter word, but we'll, yeah.Paul:                We're not going to have that. That's been edited out, Dan. So Pittsburgh 100 fans, P100 Podcast fans, we are giving away, thanks to our very generous sponsors, a wide array of fantastic gifts. All you have to do, we're all about 100 here, tell us in 100 words or so ... we got Dan here, Dan's a great editor, he'll make sure every one of our Pittsburgh 100 stories is exactly 100 words, we're not going to hold you to that. But what we want to know from you is, why is Pittsburgh such a great place and why should people want to come visit Pittsburgh? We'll explain this in our next issue. You send an email with your 100 or so words of why you love Pittsburgh to editor@thepittsburgh100.com. Correct, Dan?Dan:                That's correct.Paul:                We've got some great prizes. Dan, tell us about those prizes.Dan:                Yeah, it's a great list here. Lots of, pretty varied, I'd say. Runs the gamut from gift cards and some actual real tangible gifts. But really popular, well-known institutions around the area like Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, passes to Kennywood, gift certificates to restaurants, like Caliente Pizza, which we'll talk about them a little bit more in this episode.Paul:                That's right. More in this episode.Dan:                Restaurants at the Waterfront, tickets to Arcade Comedy, tickets to River City Brass, which that's a little bit of a shameless plug because our man Paul here has something to do with that, right?Paul:                I'm on the board and I am actually a recovering tuba player.Dan:                Wait, okay. Not recovering. Come on. Yeah.Paul:                Well, I get it out every now and then but it..Dan:                Retired.Paul:                ... it does scare the cat and the dog at home, so.Dan:                One of these days I'm going to hear you on the tuba. It's going to be great.Paul:                Yes. We'll put that on the podcast.Dan:                But also our top gift will be a stay at a Pittsburgh hotel and that's from our friends at VisitPittsburgh.Paul:                Unbelievable that folks, if nothing else, enjoy the opportunity for a great meal and a stay in this wonderful place we call home.Logan:             Yeah, and we'll have all the details and more, as Paul said, in our upcoming issue of The Pittsburgh 100. Tell you how to enter, some of the prizes we’re giving away, and what you need to do to find yourself with a few extra gifts this holiday season.Dan:                Right yeah. The contest will be running through December 19th. After that our panel of judges will take a look and that will..Paul:                Our esteemed panel of judges.Dan:                Esteemed, right. I don't think I've ever been called esteemed before, but.Paul:                You could be called many things.Dan:                And again, you will send your award entry, your little story or 100 word story to editor@thepittsburgh100.com. So again, we'll tell you more about it in our next issue on December 12th, but we're excited about it. Start thinking folks, start writing.Logan:             Hi everybody. We're back with a special guest on this segment of the podcast. You may know him from winning Best Pizza in America this year at The World Pizza championships in Parma, Italy, Nick Bogacz, owner of Caliente Pizza & Draft House here in Pittsburgh. How you doing Nick?Nick:                Great. Thanks for having me today.Logan:             Yeah, sure thing. Thanks for being here. So for those unfamiliar with Caliente, you have five locations in the greater Pittsburgh region.Nick:                Yup.Logan:             How long ago did that start and can you give us a brief background of how that got started and what you're doing now with Caliente?Nick:                Sure. So September 2012, I took the plunge and opened up my own business. I always wanted to have my own pizzeria. I worked in the business for about 16 years before then and we opened up in Bloomfield. Over the last almost, I guess seven years, we've opened up five locations.Logan:             So five locations over the past seven years. That's a pretty spectacular growth rate. What are some of the things that you did that you thought were unique to Caliente's building a brand that you utilized to grow that fast?Nick:                I think a lot of it was we weren't locked into anything in particular. We pivoted a lot while we were branding, and marketing, and opening up Caliente. A lot of times I think entrepreneurs have a set way of how they want to do things and they think, "This is how it has to be done." But then once you're in the grind of it every day, there are certain things you're like, "Hey, wait a second, I want to be this pizzeria and get known for my pizza." But the reality is we're a bar and craft beer is such a big, big presence here in western Pennsylvania, especially at that time seven years ago, that we latched on to craft beer and became one of the top destinations for craft beer in Pittsburgh. So we let that kind of be our brand for probably the first three or four years. Then when we started winning competitions, we got to be known for our pizza, so our brand kind of switched to being really known for the pizza. Now in the last year or so, we've been trying to really blend those both together to get known for both.Logan:             Mh-hmm, right. Yeah, well, you're still doing a lot of great things with craft beer. Just a recently released collaboration with Hoppin' Frog Brewery, out of Ohio, came out just a few weeks ago. Is that correct?Nick:                Yeah, that's correct. That was probably our 11th collaboration we've done over the last seven years. We're really working behind the scenes to have our own brewery as well. That's on the horizon for 2020. So I think there's a lot of different things that we're trying to do with the beer still, we never forget that that's what helped build the brand in the beginning. I think we're just happy that the pizza's been doing so well too. From the very beginning, people would come in, they'd get the craft beer, and then they'd eat the pizza, say, "Boy, I thought it was going to be bar food, but this pizza's fantastic." Now it's not just Pittsburgh's secret, we're internationally known as well.Dan:                Yeah talking about international, you guys obviously went out and done a lot of great stuff at The World Pizza Championships. What has been happening lately then in terms of the international travels of the Caliente crew there?Nick:                Sure. So we just got back about four days ago from London and there was an international competition over there. It was a great learning experience. A lot of times we go to these different competitions you're using ovens that you never used before, judges that don't speak English. You would think in London they'd have English speaking judges but they were Italian judges. So you know a great learning experience over there. We traveled with The World Pizza team, which is about 35 representatives from across the country. So guys that have been in the business a long time or guys who have a lot of different kind of locations. They may have slice shops or they may have shops in the stadiums across the country, you pick up different people's expertise when you're traveling with that team. I just think we've really done a good job of representing Pittsburgh, especially when we were back in Parma, in Italy, back in April. I thought we did a great job over there, come back with Best Pizza in America. So I think it's just been, the international part, it's been a lot of travel this year. Before this, I had never left the country, so three times in one year. I'm definitely getting the frequent flyer miles in.Dan:                Fantastic.Logan:             Yeah, you're not doing bad. You've had a lot of success outside of the World Pizza Championships as well. But back to growing Caliente. I know you talk a lot about building a team and kind of some unique things that you've done as the leader and owner of Caliente that you believe have really propelled your business and brand further than others. Whether it's with how you treat your employees or how you're running operations, and you're talking about a lot of these things in your new podcast, The Business Equation.Nick:                 Yes. I wrote a book called The Pizza Equation. It's on Amazon, it released in February. After I released it, I had a very successful book tour out in Las Vegas signing books and I've got another signing coming up here in about two weeks in Chicago. So that went really well and I said, "You know what, if I'm selling the pizza book in my industry, what if I took my small business tips and started to share them with the world?" That's why I wanted to go ahead and start The Business Equation Podcast.Nick:                Each week is a different tip or tactic. It's a 15 to 25 minute podcast that's just me talking about, "Hey, this is how we handle staffing and our issue," or, "This is how we handle staffing in our store, in our company." They're not quite pizza specific. We talk a lot about different topics. Another one that we talked about was cashflow. I think it's important for a small business. A lot of times you don't understand how cashflow works. It's just a big term or maybe there's a college book that you read about it. But in the real world there's a lot of different tactics you can use for cashflow. I get into that real in depth. I think what The Business Equation Podcast has done is, it's that real world I'm out there living it. It's not what you learn in college, it's not what's in a book. It's a lot of, "Hey, this is what I tried and it worked."Dan:                That sounds like some pretty awesome stuff there on The Business Equation Podcast then. So we definitely recommend anybody who's a budding business owner listening here today to subscribe to that and listen. We'd also recommend that they get out to the Caliente shops, especially for this time of year because it's the holidays and you guys have some fun stuff going on, right?Nick:                Yeah. This is our second annual food drive. Last year, I don't know quite how many pounds of food we collected, but we had a full suburban full of canned goods. So from now till Christmas we have where you can bring in three canned goods, give them to any Caliente employee and they'll give you a free cheesy bread for your next order, and it all goes to the Pittsburgh public food bank.Logan:             That's excellent. Speaking of contributing things to the community, you also have been generous enough to contribute a $50 gift card to any of your Caliente locations for our gift issue this year. We're giving away gifts, thanks to our generous friends and sponsors.Dan:                Yeah. As we talked about in the opening segment here, basically all people have to do is send an email to editor@thepittsburgh100.com telling us about why Pittsburgh, why you love it so much or why it's home for the holidays in 100 words or less. You can get that Caliente gift card that will be one of the gifts that you could possibly get out of that. Nick, we appreciate you playing a part in our gift giving issue here.Nick:                Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do it.Logan:             Yeah. So Nick, to finish up your work, can everybody find Caliente on socials and where can they learn more about The Business Equation Podcast?Nick:                Sure. So The Business Equation Podcast is on all forms, Spotify, Apple, Google Play. Then nickbogaczofficial on Instagram, and then pizzadrafthouse.com, and then calienteandpizzadrafthouse on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. And then like I said, The Pizza Equation is available on Amazon.Logan:              Great. And Nick Bogacz here, owner of Caliente Pizza and Draft House. Nick, we appreciate you being here with us.Nick:                Thanks for having me.Dan:                Thanks man.Logan:             Centuries before cell phones and social media, human connections were made around fires as we shared the stories that shaped our world. Today stories are still the most powerful way to move hearts and minds, and inspire action. At WordWrite, Pittsburgh's largest independent public relations agency, we understand that before you had a brand, before you sold any product or service, you had a story. WordWrite helps clients to uncover their own capital S story, the reason someone would want to buy, work, invest, or partner with you through our patented storycrafting process. Visit wordwritepr.com to uncover your capital S story.Dan:                Hey everybody out next guest is Tom Baker. He's an Allegheny County Councilman for District 1, which covers a lot of the western and northern suburbs. But Tom, you're involved in a whole lot more. Lots of nonprofits in the region working with young leaders in the area, and in particular, one of the reasons we want to talk with you today is you're the founder and chief program officer of Get Involved!. That's a nonprofit that educates and empowers young leaders. Tom, thanks for joining us.Tom:                Yeah, thanks Dan, thanks Paul. Thanks for having me here. I'm glad to be here with you.Paul:                 It's great to have you here. Dan, a lesson to be learned, elected officials are people too. They have interests outside of the county council room, right?Tom:               We do. Many interests, absolutely. That is true.Dan:                 This is all new to me. Wow, it's remarkable. I thought they just had letters next to their name and they sat around on boards on all the time. Okay that's…Paul:                No.Dan:                 No, Tom, yeah we do appreciate you being here. Can you tell us a little bit more about Get Involved!?Tom:               Sure. So Get Involved!, actually it started as a book in 2008. “Get Involved! Making the Most of Your 20s and 30s” came out and it was a really fun experience. Got the tour of the state, got the tour of the country a little bit talking on college campuses. Your colleague here, Robin Rectenwald, actually worked with us in the early days on getting the word out about Get Involved!. In the end we found that really the mission of the book was a much better fit as a nonprofit organization. We gave it a 501(c)(3) back in 2011.Tom:               We've been running the Pittsburgh Service Summit now for 10 years. We just had that event in September, September 12. It was great. We've had a few hundred people at the event every year. It's all about bringing people together. Our hope as Get Involved! is for people to say that they aren't bored in Pittsburgh, but they're on a board of directors in Pittsburgh. That can be a board of directors of a nonprofit that they care about, a young professional board, whatever it is, we want people to get off of their couches and into the community helping other people.Dan:                Right. You touched on it, there's a lot of regular events that you guys hold. There's one upcoming really soon, and that's the annual Goal Setting Event that you do. Everybody thinks about this time of year - new year's resolutions. But on January 6th you got a pretty cool one, can you tell us a little bit more about?Tom:               Yeah. I will say a few years back I did it for two years on January 1st itself. That was a little aggressive. People were like, "I like your momentum with the goal setting, but let's have it maybe not on New Year's day."Dan:                There you go.Tom:                So we're doing it on January 6.Paul:                They might have been out the night before.Tom:               They might’ve been.Dan:                The goal setting is get over this hangover. Yeah.Paul:                That's right.Tom:               So January 6th. A little bit they'll gotten back to work at that point. So the goal really is for people to come that night, and when they come every year, to think about their careers, to think about their civic lives. We talked a little bit about fitness as well and things that they might be doing outside of work and outside of their civic lives. We'll talk about family and making sure that they have good friendships too. We'll have different tables set up again this year with different pockets of their lives and they'll set goals at each little table to figure out what they want to do in 2020. So that night they will leave with hopefully a good sheet of goals in these different parts of their lives and also at least a few dozen accountability partners, people that can keep them accountable to these goals. It's fine to say you want to do things or achieve things, but unless you actually share it with somebody that cares about you it doesn't matter. So we're making sure that they share it with other people in that room that night and that we then become accountability partners for each other through the rest of 2020 together.Paul:                Wow. So how has that worked in the past few years that you've been doing this? What sort of results are you seeing?Tom:               We see a lot more people getting onto either young professional boards or boards of directors. Being in my professional and civic life with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, we've seen a lot of people step up to become Bigs through the Get Involved! community, which we're very appreciative of. My Littles are now getting pretty old. They're 28, 21, 17, and 14. I don't want to get married again, I've been married happily for 15 years, but if I did, all four of them would be in the wedding. They're all four of the best friends of my life. So it's been an incredible experience through Big Brothers, Big Sisters. Actually my 28 year old Little, that got matched with when he was 10, he is the godfather to our toddler, Lila June. Preston is still one of my best friends. This year he flew back from San Francisco to be the MC of my 40th birthday roast actually, which is really fun. So the friendships that have been…Paul:                He had a lot of ammunition there, didn't he Tom?Tom:               He did. He has like 18 years’ worth of things to share about me. But it's been wonderful. So if it is serving in an organization like Big Brothers, Big Sisters or some of the other ones that we've been involved with over the years, certainly the goal really is to find their passion. We always say within Get Involved!, if you hit the lottery and you can do whatever you want for the rest of your life to do good, to help other people, something that inspires you, motivates you, just find a way to volunteer and help others.Tom:               So I'll just say at the last Power Hour that we had ... so this Goal Setting Party is also known as Power Hour number 72. I will say each Power Hour has fun connotations, but it really is a leadership series, it is a leadership panel, where we bring in different guest speakers. So the goal of each Power Hour really is for people to learn from a couple of different community leaders, get to know each other, and then work together in some fashion. So we've had good success over the years with people getting jobs through the Get Involved! Network, with getting put onto boards, getting appointed to different leadership roles. It's been really wonderful.Paul:                Do you think Tom, the timing of the book and the growth of the organization, there's, let’s just say, well it's open to, to everyone, you are really targeting a particular demographic, which is say people of your age group, millennials. Do you see any trends with regard to leadership that are generational?Tom:                It's interesting. Starting, we talked about county council, it will be a much younger council come January. I've been the youngest one for the last six years, but there will be one person exactly my age and then two younger. So we are seeing more young people running for office. Even where my wife and I live, all of our elected officials, the two state reps and the Senator where we live, are all younger than me, younger than 40. So we do see more people running for office. But just in general to the school district where we live, when I was on I was the youngest by I think 20 or 30 years. Now there's five people that are all within the same age range in their '30s and even '20s. So you do see more young people running for office.Tom:               But in nonprofit boards, I mean nonprofit boards want young people to get involved. That's the fast track leadership program that we do within Get Involved!. That Robin Rectenwald, your colleague and your staff member, Paul, she was actually one of the first graduates of that program years ago. The program, it's always been geared towards just making sure that young people know that nonprofits, community organizations want them. They desperately want them to get involved in their work. I think sometimes a 25-year-old thinks, "I could never be on a nonprofit board. I can't write a $5,000 check or a $1,000 check." But there's so many skill sets, and strategies, and things you can bring to the table that nonprofits desperately want and need for their organizations.Dan:                That's fantastic. For a lack of a better way to say this, how does one get involved in Get Involved!?Tom:               How do you get involved in Get Involved!? Yes. So we have an active Facebook page. Our website is just getinvolvedinc.org. We do have the event coming up on January 6th. In the course of any given year we'll have another cohort of fast track community leaders next year. In 2020 we'll have four to six Power Hours as well. So by the end of 2020 we'll be up to almost 80 Power Hours that we've done as an organization. Then next year we'll have our 11th annual Pittsburgh Service Summit. So that's a great way to come together and really get to know people here in the community. I will say, anyone that would want to collaborate on events, we love working with other community organizations. We're happy to collaborate and partner with other community groups to do good and to get each other involved in the city.Dan:                Right.Paul:                That's great. And once again, that website is getinvolvedinc.org.Tom:               .org. You got it, yup, yup.Paul:                Okay, great.Dan:                Right, yeah. Tom, thanks so much for being here, we really appreciate it. Hey everybody, get involved.Tom:               Get involved in Get Involved!, yeah.Dan:                All right everybody for the last segment today we're going to chat about the weather.Paul:                Wither the weather Dan.Dan:                Wither the weather. Wow, you've such a way with words.Paul:                I'm telling you man. I've withered outside in the weather.Dan:                Right, yeah. This is the subject that everybody talks about. You know, you're alone in an elevator with somebody, you got nothing to talk about, you chat about the weather. "Oh, it's a nice day," whatever, but.Paul:                That's right.Dan:                No, right now we're finally starting to see snowflakes. It's getting cold enough, particularly in the Pittsburgh Metro region we're seeing them. If you're out west or up north you probably…Paul:                Out east. East Highlands.Dan:                All right, Westmoreland County should not be called Westmoreland County because I always want to call it west.Paul:                That's true.Dan:                That drives me nuts, but yeah. okay. If you say you're out in Westmoreland, or up north where it's just colder, or you got more hills, you've probably seen a lot more snow so far this year, but.Paul:                A little.Dan:                I finally had to actually wipe some snow off my windshield over in Mount Lebanon about a week ago and that was something, but. So I got a little curious about the weather. I said, "Okay, what kind of a snowy year are we going to have?" Apparently the Farmer's Almanac, that font of wisdom, said that it's going to be a frigid freezing snowy winter. So I got a little deeper into it and I took a look at the long range weather forecast. So you could check into January, 2020, which obviously isn't that long from now. But they're predicting rain to snow from January 11th to the 14th, it's going to be cold, more snow the week after that, more snow toward the end of January. I've always found this pretty amazing that they can predict this stuff and they claim that it's pretty accurate, it's like 80% accuracy, until I took a deeper dive here. I checked out a little more into, yes. It turns out a study from the University of Illinois, the great meteorologists over there, they say that the Farmer's Almanac's only, say, 50% accurate. The secret formula that these Farmer's Almanacs, which there's a couple of competing ones. I guess there's the Farmer's Almanac…Logan:             …competitive landscape, I didn't know that.Dan:                ... In the old Farmer's Almanac, the old one, yes.Paul:                The old Farmer's alm?Dan:                Right, yeah.Paul:                Is it an old farmer or an old almanac?Dan:                I don't. What was it, plural farmers, apostrophe…Logan:             Or both.Dan:                Farmers apostrophe or is it just one farmer apostrophe S. I guess we have to learn about that. But I always just find this stuff kind of fun and neat to talk about. Regardless, we've got some snow coming up this winter.Paul:                Yeah, but apparently there's fake news even in the weather, huh Dan?Dan:                Accurate, accurate, yeah.Logan:             So it sounds like the Farmer's Almanac is a 50% and they're just flipping a coin and going, "Eh, eh snow."Dan:                They call it 80% after that, it's great.Paul:                This reminds me of The Wall Street Journal article several years ago where they get all these esteemed prognosticators together about how the stock market will do.Dan:                Okay.Paul:                And then they gave a monkey darts to throw at a board and the monkey did better in picking stocks apparently than some of the prognosticators. It's the whole field of weather. In Pittsburgh we have some great weather forecasters, personalities, right?Dan:                Absolutely, yeah.Paul:                But think of this, what other business could you be in and be wrong 50% of the time and people love you?Dan:                You've seen my pitching…Logan:              Marketing.Paul:                Marketing, not at our firm Logan.Dan:                You've seen me pitching to clients, they're pitching to clients stories and stuff. Sometimes you're batting below 500 on that one, but.Paul:                Speaking of batting, I mean if we want to be honest about this and maybe something like the Farmer's Almanac is more entertainment than anything else. But when you talk about a very difficult line of work, think about somebody like Ted Williams, the long deceased, but best hitter ever in the history of baseball.Logan:             Sure.Paul:                I mean the guy had a .400 average. What that means is out of every 10 times he went to the plate, he made an out six times.Paul:                So to put things in perspective.Dan:                I'd maybe put Pete Rose on that pedestal, but he's not in the Hall of Fame so I guess you can't say anything about it.Paul:                I was actually there the night that he broke Ty Cobb's record. But that's another story.Dan:            Really? That's impressive. But somehow we got into baseball from a weather conversation here.Paul:                What we're talking about is, what the difference is, I mean, I can watch Ted Williams while, I can't watch him, but I can watch a hitter and they're either going to make an out or they're going to get a hit. But what I want to know whether I need to go outside in that and I need to know what to wear, I want a little bit more predictability. Don't I?Dan:               Sure. Yeah, well, I would say try to stick with the experts then and maybe you only pay attention, say, a few days in advance because even a seven-day forecast can change pretty quickly.Paul:                Yeah, I'm with that.Logan:             And we are well beyond 100 words today. Thank you for listening to the P100 Podcast. This has been Dan Stefano, Logan Armstrong, and Paul Furiga. If you haven't yet, please subscribe at p100podcast.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and follow us on Twitter @pittsburgh100_ for all the latest news, updates, and more from The Pittsburgh 100. 

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Cheryl: So, who are some of the people who are fighting to protect these trees besides you as an environmental scientist?Nick: Well, in Tasmania, the first green political party was developed, so yeah, they obviously want to protect the forests a lot, and have big protests, tie themselves to trees. Sit up in trees to protect the trees.Cheryl: People actually still do that? Tie themselves to trees?Nick: Oh, everyday in Tasmania.Cheryl: Oh, really?Nick: It's a big issue. A very big issue.Cheryl: That's interesting. I once heard of a girl who lived in a tree for a month because she wanted to stop the deforestation company or people from taking down that tree, so she lived up there and she had people bring her supplies but she never came down.Nick: That happens in Tasmania as well. There's people today which are up in trees, maybe up to fifty which permanently live up in trees.Cheryl: Wow!Nick: Yeah, so. I don't know how they do it.Cheryl: That's kind of crazy ... So Nick, from the companies point of view, playing the devil's advocate here, I think they provide jobs for all the people who are working to make trees into paper. What do you think they have to say about that?Nick: Well, it's true, they do provide jobs, and some cities, some small towns do rely on logging industry to provide jobs and support the shops in the place, but ...Cheryl: But!Nick: But! Yeah. So tourism is a very big industry in Tasmania, and maybe the logging industry takes away tourists jobs as well, because it makes certain areas not useful for tourism anymore, not very pretty.Cheryl: Yeah, your right. If the whole forest is missing, I guess nobody would really want to go and look at anything.Nick: Yeah, there're some really beautiful spots in Tasmania which have been many tarnished a little by the logging industry.

We have an exciting announcement that we just could not wait until next week to share with you: Sarah and her husband Nick were chosen by Airbnb to be the feature of a new program they’re launching called How to Host! So Nick joins us once again to talk all about the process and share five things every host should know for creating a business plan that will help them turn property into profit. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: https://thanksforvisiting.me/ (https://thanksforvisiting.me/) Resources: Check out How to Host: Making a Hosting Business Plan (https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/How-to-Host-Making-a-Hosting-Business-Plan/m-p/1157514) Thanksforvisiting.me (http://thanksforvisiting.me/) Want to open your own short-term rental? Then get your FREE copy of 7 Steps to Your First Guest at thanksforvisiting.me (http://thanksforvisiting.me/) ! Thanks for Visiting is a production of (http://crate.media/)

My guest grew up in St. Louis on The Hill, the Italian neighborhood of the city. He now lives in the Dallas area and does some really creative deals. He started doing this in 2011 when the market was emerging from the big recession. Nick’s company buys, fixes and sells. No big deal, right? However, sales are not retail. They finance the home for the seller. They underwrite the buyers, which translates to them becoming the bank. There’s a big need for that because there are more self-employed workers now that have a hard time getting bank financing. Nick estimates that 50% of home buyers need seller financing at this time. That means that there’s a glut of houses listed by retail realtors because 50% of the market’s not even looking at those homes. Why look when you know you can’t get traditional financing? Nick rehabs houses to move-in-ready condition while keeping the homes affordable. A $100,000 house is his sweet spot with a cost basis of 75%. He asks for a down payment of 10% and 9.9% interest. That interest rate sounds high, but it’s allowable. At the $100,000 price point, the monthly payment is approximately the same as the owner would pay for rent. But homeownership gives the buyer tax benefits, the ability to sell the asset and pride of ownership. Nick holds the buyer’s note for a while and then sells them to investors. His personal note on this transaction is at 7 or 8% on $75,000, so there’s the profit. Nick once did a deal in which the seller insisted on getting $100,000 for the house, which was a retail price. Nick paid it, with $10,000 down and $800 a month… no interest. The seller got his asking price, and Nick wrapped the underlying debt into the 30-year note when he resold the house. The buyer paid $975 a month, which more than covered Nick’s $800 monthly note. So Nick paid off the note sooner than its due date. He owes no money on the house himself but is still receiving $975 a month on it. If the owner were to default (which he hasn’t), it’s less of a headache to Nick because he no longer owes on it. Nick’s notes do not vary much from the mortgage paper that a major bank writes. His Dodd-Frank requirement is to prove the buyer has the financial capacity to make the monthly payment. Nick’s willing to loan to people who have an ITIN (International Tax Identification Number) instead of a Social Security Number are self-employed or who don’t have a great credit score. Often a low credit score simply means the borrower operates in a cash economy. The key is to keep the mortgage payment and the rent payment the borrower is used to paying very close to the same amount. Nick finds his deals from sellers pretty easily because he can afford to pay more for the house since he’s financing the deal, which brings in the bulk of his earnings. He buys from the MLS and wholesalers. What’s inside: —Nick’s model adds speed to the sales process, and he profits by that speed (not by gouging). —The model fully complies with Dodd-Frank based on disclosures and buyer qualifications. —In real estate, hitting lots of singles is more profitable and less stressful than searching for home runs. —In 2018, $26 billion dollars was used for seller financing; that’s retail, land, and commercial.

When listening to podcasts about real estate investing there is a common thread that you hear. "I want to retire early with real estate". While that's a sexy story it does not apply to the majority of investors who get started. Real estate investing is a great way for many people to give themselves some financial runway to allow them to take bigger risks with their career and live a happier and easier life. Our guest this week has done just that.  Nick Giulioni works a job that he enjoys in the bay area of California. While the job is fulfilling he realized that there are still great ways to make life less risky. To reduce that risk Nick started to invest in real estate. Due to being in the bay area that wasn't something he could do locally to accomplish his goal of cash flow. So Nick started to research around the country and landed on Indianapolis. In just over 2 years Nick has accrued 45 units through a myriad of methods and he shares with us today how he accomplished that feat and how it has changed his life.

Nick is the Head of IT at Bossa Studios Originally a graphic artist Nick specialised in art with a computer specialisation. At university, he studied 3D graphics and 3D art. When Nick started working he found his industry was full of artists but not many people who were technically minded. So Nick found himself slowly gravitating to the more technical side of his role. Nick started in tech support and began slowly specialising in networking and bounced back and forth between this and some web graphics work. Eventually, Nick got offered a job at a very small ISB he became the systems administrator there and learned how to administer servers that he had a natural affinity for. Nick took several jobs as a system administrator all over the world before ending up in the UK where he’s working now.

Today we have Nick Salazar on the Podcast, who is the founder of Tririg.com; which is a site that originally started out as a review site for the best triathlon gear and equipment, but has since evolved into a company in which has designed and manufactured the most innovative bike parts on the market! So Nick has a number of hats he wears for Tri Rig; including Editor-in-Chief of the website, the Photographer as well as the designer and engineer of all of the Tri Rig gear! Nick actually does everything from the original concept, to 3D modelling, prototyping, testing and the final oversight on manufacturing and distribution! Nick truly has a passion for innovating and highlighting the best of the best triathlon gear out on the market, so who better to have on the podcast to talk to us about bike setups then the guy who designs it all himself! In this podcast we’ll learn about the roots of Tri Rig and we’ll learn all about how they have created the perfect Triathlon bike in terms of sleek design and aerodynamic components from the ground up; known as the Omni Tri Bike (which just recently was ridden by Matt Russell as he smashed the long standing Lake Placid Bike Course Record!). After this episode you’ll takeaway key concepts in understanding the best ways you can setup your bike; from the cockpit in the front end to the brakes to the rear bottle cage; and everything in between! I could keep going all day but it’s best if you hear it from Nick Himself; so get ready to take notes, and enjoy the podcast!

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/o708eAahonM" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:22] Hi I'm Beatty Carmichael and welcome to the get sellers calling you podcast and I'm excited today to interview just a really neat and top producing real turd named Nick Kerley out of Redding California. So Next say hello. [00:00:40] Hey Beatty how you doing today. [00:00:42] Well I am doing super and I appreciate your time today. I know you are busy. And for those who don't know you written it is actually a client of ours and he does have he has a really unique business model that he's been doing. He's had tremendous market share with it. Very entrepreneurial. And so I just wanted to go through a little bit of your story and what you're doing. And have you share with the folks out there maybe some things that they can tap into and try to drive on too. So thanks for your time today. [00:01:18] No problem. Thank you. Glad to be here. [00:01:20] Yeah. So just a reminder also this is an Internet call. [00:01:24] So just please excuse any internet type of interruptions. But Nick real quickly before we get fully started I'd love just to hear a little bit about your real estate career and you're mentioning as you move to Redding you only knew two people and the story of how you got started. I just want to kind of have you share that with people real quick can you. First off before we do that tell me tell us first where you are right now so people understand. Because I think you mentioned you have a big company. You have a lot of agents your brokerage kind of. Who are you right now and then we'll talk about how you got there. [00:01:59] Oh sure. All right. So we're a real estate broker. I'm going to California real estate broker I have a team of agents that that work here. We're an independent company and we last year we did about twenty four twenty five million in transaction volume that equated to about 60 transactions sides. That was myself another agent and a full time transaction coordinator. We we are probably the number three or four agent in our chefs the board of MLS. And we we have a system everything here is systematized from from the sharpening of the pencil to the to the handing over of the keys. So it's it's it's definitely a full system operation. [00:02:50] Well does I think is the thing that's been so impressive because when you and I started working you had your whole system built out. [00:02:57] So I want to get there in just a moment but tell us how you got started you were just mentioning before we started the recording showing up and writing and all you knew to people and now a few years later you're just a song you know got this great powerful business going so tell us how what happened on that. [00:03:15] Well we I've been in real estate since 2002 for so just over 17 years. I was from Southern California and the rat race of Southern California and and the wife and kids. When that starts to hate your life you start to wonder where you want to where you want to end up and where you raise those kids. So Redding is a beautiful town. We're surrounded by mountains where our backyard is Lake Shasta. We have Mount Shasta behind that. It's just an absolutely beautiful place if you ever have an opportunity to come visit here. If you're an outdoors person you you can never get tired or bored. So it was a perfect spot to land my broker at the time actually lived here with his feet on say and I knew both of them because they were originally from the same local town in southern California came up to visit them fell in love with the town way back down put in my 30 day notice and moved up pretty much 30 days later. So when I got here though I didn't know anybody and if you know real estate it's less about what you know and it's more about who you know. The good thing was is that I had the experience I knew how to run a transaction I knew how to write and offer. So on and so forth but I didn't know any people. I literally went out and doorknocked. I picked the neighborhood. I said I picked the only way I picked it was I said to myself I would like to live here. This was it this was a pretty neighborhood and I just started knocking on the doors. Luckily I didn't get shot or ran off. I had an excellent coach my former broker and been in the business for thirty five years was a top producer so he helped me out with getting some things going. Some marketing pieces but that's that's basically how I got started here and Redding was just door knocking and giving everybody extraordinary service. And once that happened and the business started to snowball and get bigger and bigger. [00:05:11] Now how long ago was that when you came to Redding. [00:05:14] I came here in October of 2013 and I'm sorry. [00:05:19] I was about five years. [00:05:22] Yeah. Yeah. We're going we're going on the five years now. Every year I've grew my business. The first year I did eight transaction sides which is not bad if you're an agent just starting out but you know 15 years in the business you're kind of wondering what's going on. Two years after that I was doing 32 transaction sides by myself hired a transaction coordinator and went up to over 60. [00:05:47] That's really amazing. And. And you found a niche and there in Redding that you really pushed into. Tell us a little bit about that. [00:05:58] Yeah we. And this is this kind of bleeds to. How. [00:06:01] How I met you Beatty but we do a lot of residential income properties a lot of apartment buildings the commercial side. I had a property management background down in southern California. So when I came up here it was very easy for me to fill right into it. I know that that niche I know that market I know how to sell that product. I know what buyers are looking for I know what sellers are looking for and I knew what to watch out for. So because I was new to town I exploited that and now we we sell probably 20 to 30 percent of the market share in an apartment buildings in the in the Shasta County area. [00:06:40] Wow. That seems like a lie. I mean 20 to 30 percent is a lot anywhere you go. What what's your key. I mean how are you. I mean do you go meet the owners so you can get their business or how is it different from residential retail sales and what are you doing. [00:06:57] Well you know direct mail is incredibly effective. When I got in the business in 2002 you'd go out to your mailbox and it would be like pulling out a phonebook because you had so much mail even in a couple of days. Then the Internet came along and email account came along and all of a sudden that mailbox the stack of stuff went lower and lower and lower. Fast forward now to two thousand and 19 and my wife goes sometimes to the mail every other day sometimes once a week. So what I'm getting at is the mailbox is a great place to share your business and that's what I started doing I started doing direct mail. I had excellent content for those apartment owners and apartment buyers and they they just started calling me. So Trent transfer that to the single family home business which we have a lot of success in but we also wanted to gain more market share but also it's a it's far more competitive. There's a lot more agents that are involved in single family homes than there are an apartment. So that's why I knew that direct mail was a 100 percent success. I believed in it wholeheartedly. I just wanted to not reinvent the wheel when it came to the content and what it was that got the homeowner to call me. And that's where I found your company and found you guys. [00:08:17] Hi I'm glad that you're here. I'd like to go in that direction. I'm not really I'm not trying to make this a pitch for what we do but I would love just from your perspective so you built a business with the residential income properties and you built it off with direct mail and now you whining and you've got 20 to 30 percent market share there. So now you're wanting to build a second income with your single family homes. So tell me a little bit about what you know how and how did you find us and and what you're excited about with what we're doing for you. [00:08:54] Yeah that's a great question especially if you have any newer agents that are listening to this because when I first got into the business I must have signed up with every single program everybody that said that they can they can bring me business and all I had to do was one transaction that day for itself. So when it came time to find a marketing system I really go through the Internet you know referral talking to talking to people outside of my market to try to find what really worked. And I interviewed a lot of other I guess companies or services and you know a lot of people want to sell you the bells and whistles online and online is the place to go and a lot of people might have success there but my success stemmed from direct mail. So when I when I stumbled upon you guys and started doing my research before making that call I noticed that you guys were just as much of a proponent as of the direct mail as I was. It's important though to understand especially as a as an agent that direct mail is not instant gratification. It does not happen overnight. Sure you can send out your first postcard and you could get a call and that's fantastic but it's going to take some months of commitment and some repetitiveness in order to gain that reputation in the mailbox. But once you do do it and you stay consistent with it. E. Almost like it's like you push through the threshold and then and then it just compounds on itself and then the phone starts ringing for you rather than you constantly having to ring on the phone. So that's that's kind of the short story of how I kind of funneled down going through some other places that. [00:10:41] That were that weren't really the same mentality that I had and found you guys very interesting. [00:10:47] So now there are a lot of people that send out postcards now. You know we postcard is this for us. It's a delivery method to get content there and we use it as you know but we're not using it with you in your particular area. [00:11:00] But we push that out through Facebook and we push it out through other forms. But what is it about us that caught your interest. [00:11:09] Because I'm sure you looked at all kinds of other companies that do postcards but you weren't interested in whatever they did. What culture interest with what we did. [00:11:19] It really is the content and the organization of how it's all put together and the science behind it really. I mean I'm the kind of person that when I'm selling a house I want to find out what or how buyers have previously found the house they bought. I want to I want to study that because those statistics are important. So then you know where to spend your marketing dollars. I mean if they if they found it on the dry driving by the house and seeing the sign you want to spend some money on your science you know you also want to be in other places like the Internet and postcards. But my point is is that when I came to you guys you guys had studied what worked and I found that so many other companies out there they were just using these bland postcards that really had no effect on the end user. And you guys were the opposite of that you scientifically if you will found out what the consumer is looking for what they want to know and what is going to compel them to to to call. [00:12:20] That was also coupled with a technology that you guys have that must be proprietary because I've never seen it anywhere else. And and how it works on the back end. I had no concern. I never I didn't care how it worked. I just I cared that it did work. So once we started using that system and I've already used you guys as program we just got started in this. I'm already seeing that that technology that you have where the sellers basically raise their hand and tell you that you know they're thinking about selling it works. It's pretty cool. [00:12:56] That's cool. Hey I want to share one other thing for the folks listening because you and I just finished doing an interview for your farm now your farm is like four or five thousand homes that we're targeting there. [00:13:09] But talk to me just a little bit about the interview and just the whole process I just kind of bring people up to speed. So Nick and I just finished doing an interview where I'm asking him questions. [00:13:25] He's responding as the realtor giving his homeowners in that farm an opportunity to meet him because the hardest part and breaking into a new market especially like a farm is them getting a chance to meet you. [00:13:40] So talk to me a little bit and just what you what excites you about that video. Because I know you put a lot of effort in in preparing for it. We actually recut it again after you watch the first one. So give me an idea just what you see in it. [00:13:54] Well you know it's great. I mean you know people these days they don't necessarily want to talk to the sales person until they have enough information to where they want to ask a question that becomes very difficult process for the salesperson of course because you know you're not going to be able to engage that seller until you meet with them so that you have that impasse there. [00:14:16] How do you how do you bridge that gap. So working with you I thought it was a great idea. But but folks out there have to understand that even though I've been in the business this long I've never I've never demand one that does video. I kind of come from the old school of you know maybe like meeting somebody at an open house or doing door knocking. But in today's technology people are on the Internet they're watching videos and other agents are doing it. [00:14:41] So even if you're uncomfortable about it I would say step out of that comfort zone. You know trust trust Fadi and his team with their system and go with it because it gave me an opportunity to do some answer some really great questions that a lot of sellers have before they decide to welcome you into their home and kind of establish that that ice break to where even if they only watch it for five minutes they still know that I'm a human being I'm the person and you know and it gives me that opportunity to to go to the next step which is hopefully an interview for the job. [00:15:19] I love it. Hey if you don't mind I'd like to whine backwards just a little bit and go back to residential income stuff a little bit. [00:15:29] I'm real curious about that because that seems like like a neat niche market that probably most agents don't go after. Do you find that it's a real competitive market or aren't non-competitive. [00:15:44] It's that's a loaded question. [00:15:45] I mean it's a it's a very competitive market. On the broker side with brokers that know what they're doing. You have to be careful in their residential income side because say for instance you have a four unit apartment building. Well that's one property but there's four doors in there there's four there's four many houses in there. [00:16:05] So you have four inspections you have four tenants that you're working with. You know you have financing that you have to understand how it works taxes. You also have to understand the expenses and that kind of thing. So there's a lot of moving parts. So on the broker side there's not a large volume of agents that do it but the ones that do are very good. They're very skilled and they know what they're doing. So you have to have that same level of confidence and education in order to compete at that level. On the other side the buyer and the seller you know these are people that own income property and you have to have a usually a minimum 25 percent down in order to purchase them. So they're there they're of high wealth usually of high education and they expect a certain level of professionalism and they expect you to know what you're doing and you're going to have to be able to deliver on those on those expectations. [00:17:01] So it is it is very competitive in that sense and the buyers are entrusting you to go out there and find them the right property. And if you don't do that they're definitely going to find somebody else for it. So go ahead. All right. That also being said if you are good and you and you do and you do know what you're doing. It's also not where a lot of other agents are. So in this day and age you're better at being a specialist at one or two things than trying to be great at a whole lot of things. [00:17:36] I fully concur on that. And we used to offer services to our clients in all rare realms of different things. And I realized you can't you can't be a Master Ball. [00:17:50] So narrow it down to where you can be a master of. How do you so. So the dynamics of this residential income is obviously it's not for every agent but for those who are intrigued with the idea. Can you give some some basic steps on what do you do or how do you get started. I love the fact that you're sharing it's lot more moving pieces so it's definitely a more process driven sale or transaction. Can you do just educate a little bit more on how you get started and what the opportunity is. Does that make sense. There's probably a lot of things along the way. [00:18:30] You're listening to the get sellers calling you podcast to increase sales from past clients and sphere of influence or from a geographic farm. [00:18:38] Learn about Agent dominator we guarantee your sales in writing or give your money back. To learn more. Visit our web and get sellers calling you dot com and select agent dominator from the menu. [00:18:49] And now back to the podcast. [00:18:53] The best thing to do to get started is to start. Start small. I mean. Yes. I mean it as a real estate agent that makes money off of commissions. You may see an apartment building out there that's you know one million or 10 million dollars and say that's where I want to go but it's better off to start. Start off small you analyze a duplex analyze it try plex for plex analyze that property so you can educate yourself on exactly what the local laws are for your tenants and what leases and how the contract works. As far as selling those types of properties and if you start there and you know maybe you sell a duplex or a four plex then you go through that process you'll get confident just like you would order when you sold your first listing or your first house. After that you felt confidence so when you get there and you get the confidence and you also get the wherewithal of what it takes to process that transaction then then I would say start going to the next level and expanding your business. But most importantly what we do here is we advertise and celebrate every success. [00:20:05] Success begets success. So once you make that sale it's really important to share with all the other property owners out there that owns those similar properties. What you've just done and explain to them how you got this property listed or how you brought that buyer and that you have more buyers or you have the potential to sell more or more properties once you start doing that and you get that side type of success that community out there that owns those properties will know will know you and know that success and it'll start to compound more business. But I definitely don't want to trade that this is an easy niche to get in. This took me years and years of work and education and hundreds of thousands of dollars. So at the end of it we have 20 to 30 percent market share today but that didn't happen overnight. It happened by starting small and celebrating every success with all of those those owners and then in turn providing the result. You can't take a listing and then not sell it and expect other people to to hire you. [00:21:15] That makes a lot of sense. How does some appear to make a comparison between the residential income and the single family home. The marketing of it either the content or the delivery. [00:21:27] What's the basic difference and what are you see as your big takeaway be no take over bring over from residential income to then push into the single family home. [00:21:41] Well the marketing is a little bit different because the end user is it is a different person in a single family home. You're marketing a place where somebody is going to a buyer. You're marketing a place where somebody is going to have backyard barbecues they're going to have Christmas morning their Thanksgiving they're having friends over. It's in a very emotional place for them and they're you know they're going to make those memories there on the on the apartment side. You're you're marketing an income. I mean that is a second stream of income. It's an asset that grows wealth for the owner and also the maintenance that it takes to run it. So you're really you're on a on a more an emotional sale in a single family home and it's more a business sale on an apartment on apartments. Both of those combined in certain terms and ways. I mean there can be some emotion that's involved in apartments and there is also some business that's involved in single family but. But they are definitely different. [00:22:40] And when marketing each one you can market them with the same vehicle like if it's direct mail but your message definitely has to be different. I mean you wouldn't want to tell the investor this is a great place to live in and it's amazing place to have barbecues you know they don't care. They're not likely not going to live there. So and vice versa. You wouldn't tell somebody who's moving in a single family home that it would make a great rental. I mean they're not planning on buying it to read it. They're buying to live there. So if that makes any sense. [00:23:13] Yeah no that makes a lot of sense. I've got a crazy question now for you. What has been one of the worst things you've ever tried that failed. OK. Does that make sense. And because I want to find out what are you done that just actually doesn't work he said. Oh come on write that one off and then I want to find out what are the things you've done that absolutely work that you're going to stay focused on. I know postcards is one of them. But over here what's the point. What are the things that have failed the worst for you. Do you mind sharing. Oh sure. [00:23:45] I mean you know I mean we've done you know we've done raffles before that we thought we were. You know you spend money on free T TV and you've done raffles thinking that you're going to get a bunch of people in also you know really to some Web sites I've spent money on Web sites thousands actually on Web sites thinking that that's going to drive people to my Web site and I'm going to get those leads. You really have to be careful when you're doing Web sites to make sure that your money is well spent there. Those types of things have been unsuccessful. I would say any marketing that is unprepared has been unsuccessful. Another thing that I've failed at and this is probably going to be a little bit hard for some agency here because there are some agents that have been extremely successful is the cold calling. I never was good at cold calling I'm not a good cold caller. I just it never really worked for me. So that's probably one of the ones that I feel the most that I didn't spend a lot of money on it but I spent a lot of time in and you know that's why we don't do it. I just it doesn't work for me. And when I found that it didn't work for me I moved away and found things I did. [00:25:02] That's destiny. And is there anything besides the postcards that you found has been really good for you. [00:25:10] You know believe it or not open houses on the residential side have been really successful for us but we don't do a standard open house where you know the seller says OK you can hold it up on Sunday and we start marketing it on Friday. We go back and you know at least a week to 10 days before and start marketing that open house. We incorporate the neighbors with invites. We do tons of signage flags balloons that kind of stuff. And in that that has been been really successful at open houses and got away from a little bit. They're starting to come back into popularity just because I think people will enjoy it. There are the looky loos out there but there are people that are going to look at open houses and they're serious about buying. [00:25:57] So talk to me a little more about those open houses so you're marketing it to the neighborhood. Are you looking for neighbors who are thinking about selling to come look at the open house. Or are you looking for neighbors to tell their friends to drive buyers to it. [00:26:13] Well both in any successful real estate business listings is the key. It just really is you can ask any top producer anywhere in the world at any point in time. Listings are the key. But without selling those listings you'll never be successful. So we're looking for both. We want to bring the neighbors in for two reasons. We want to meet them to exhibit the open house and to tell their friends and family. But we also want to hear about any future movie needs that they may have. So it's a it's two part in our marketing is in that as well. [00:26:46] So when you when you do the one you do the open house. Can you give me some examples of things that are kind of a typical example of what you what you do in marketing it and then the typical example of what type of results are you getting out of it is it just selling it faster or are you picking up an extra listing or two for every open house that you that you did. [00:27:09] Both first of all you've got to have a good house. I mean it's got to be in a good location. There ain't here. If you're you know at a 10 acre property four miles out of town on some backcountry road you're you're not gonna have success. So you've got to have some givens there so that the House has to be in a good location. We picked them for a good location. You know open houses and the marketing that we send out. We it depends on the time of season. But I mean I've had as many as no exaggeration over a hundred people at an open house before. Wow I get a subdivision a hundred. I mean it was so overwhelming we almost couldn't keep track. So what is it. It was a really cool house. A lot of people wanted to come see it. So that was a contributing factor. But realistically our open house is an average anywhere from 15 to 25 groups which if you're a realtor and you've been in the business for a while that's that's pretty good numbers to have. And again it reverts back to these are in subdivisions you know they're in good locations. and that's been really helpful. [00:28:11] So those numbers go down as your home gets harder and harder to find. And if you don't prepare for it properly out of those open houses. If the House is price right I did an open house last year that the house was already sold before we had the open house. I mean because the house was so awesome but the open house created multiple offers those multiple offers did so well that I was able to advertise it to the neighbors and one of the neighbors was thinking about selling. He was so impressed with the open house we got the listing off of that. So those are the those are the things that makes them effective. The problem with open house in the negative connotation with it is is that most agents do them and they'll set up their sign and they'll sit in the house for two or three or four hours and the only one eats the cookies is them because no one comes by. They automatically check it off as a as an ineffective marketing tool. It doesn't work. It's only you know to appease the seller and I don't want to spend my four hours there just eating cookies. I eat enough already. [00:29:17] So you know it's a marketing that drives the business there. That makes it work worthwhile. So what specifically you mentioned like rather than just you know you have open house on Sunday you don't wait till Friday to market. [00:29:31] You're actually marketing a week or ten days earlier. Tell me what you're doing. [00:29:36] Well first of all we get a list of all the neighbors that are at least within the mild two miles around the house radius and we mail them all a personal invitation. It's just on a postcard it doesn't have to be in an envelope. And we send him a postcard as a personal invitation that says you're cordially invited to our open house at 1 to 3 memory lane between 1 and 4 on Sunday. Please come on by and extend this invitation to any of your friends family and co-workers. There will be a lender on site if you have any mortgage questions along with a license realtors and we'll have some beverages. We'd love to see you. So we start out with that as an invite. We do the exact same thing with Facebook. We do a Facebook post on there. We boost that and sponsor that and explain that there's gonna be an open house. Please share that post and kind of reiterate what we said in the postcard. We also advertise it on Craigslist letting the open house know we change it in our local board our MLS allows us to notate WHEN AN OPEN HOUSE is coming up. Then what happens is this ad goes across Zillow realtor dot com all of those major national Web sites and it shows that there's gonna be an open house on that day. So then leading up to the open house day we're getting signage ready to go putting out as many signs as we possibly can. We put out flags directional signs balloons and and that really stacks the cards in our favor to have a successful open house. [00:31:10] You know that's really as I'm hearing you talk. I'm going back to you're driving the business with a residential income properties. You're marketing that you're now marketing to four or five thousand home farm. [00:31:26] And I say the same thing happening with your open houses. You don't just sit there and hope someone's going to come by. You're actually marketing it and pushing the content out to dry people there. Sure I don't know. I don't more agents do that. [00:31:43] Well I mean I think you really want to get down to brass tacks. I think it's training. And in California you just have to pass a couple of courses and take a state test and then you get a real estate license. But that does not mean that literature doesn't explain anything on how to market yourself how to market a listing how to take a listing how to talk to a seller or a buyer to get them to want to work with you over the competition. So I think that many agents out there are poorly trained unfortunately. Secondly most people think that you have to have something else to do it for you like a computer especially all the more technologically we get the more these computers and suffered doing it for us good old fashioned shoe leather. We'll get you so far in this business. It's a people business and getting face to face will save you a lot of money. So I think that's what scares agents is they get into this business that you can be your own boss and be a small business owner without a whole lot of investment. But then again you may not have a whole lot of investment and you're worried about where to spend those dollars. So that's kind of for a new agent. [00:32:54] The older agents you know maybe they just didn't plan their career accordingly the way that that we were trained or I was trained and learned is you have to invest in what you sell very in the real estate business. You should be buying real estate throughout your career. If you don't then you might be in this business for 35 40 years. Still driving people around in your car in which there's nothing wrong with that but it's probably the biggest pitfall for most agents and brokers is they forget that they they have to invest in what they're selling and sets set money aside for that too. [00:33:33] So I hope that helps explain it. I mean for the new agent just get out there and use what your resources are which is your two legs in your mouth and and then talk to people whether it be through open houses or wherever a socially you can do that. And then you know for the seasoned agencies just don't forget to invest for your future. [00:33:55] That's really brilliant. And I just love the aggressiveness not that you're an aggressive person but you take an aggressive stance to say I'm going to market this if I want to spend my time sitting there I want to make sure a lot of people coming in. [00:34:08] Absolutely. Now do you are. So you're sending out a bunch of postcards. You're boosting post on Facebook and I know that's not all that expensive but you do have some costs involved. You mentioned that you have a lender usually there. Do you get the lender to pay for any of the cost as well. Yes. [00:34:27] The lender will usually provide the refreshments. They'll also do a Facebook post on their personal Facebook site whatever it may be. They what I always ask them to do too is you know all of the buyers that you have that are pre-approved in this price range. Please send them out an email letting them know that you know you're partnering with us to do an open house. So yeah we get that we get the lenders involved as well. Whatever they want to do as far as marketing. Sometimes when we're doing the the invitations they'll ask if they can be on the invitation and then we just split the cost of the production and stay with with the lender and they get their picture on there and they're happy to do it. OK. You'll find lenders that will be happy to do it. Just make sure that you abide by all your local rest bylaws and all that stuff you were going to split it down the middle to make sense. [00:35:25] So if I were to ask most agents on a scale of one to ten ten being highest where would you rate your success rate and effectiveness of an open house. Most agents I ask that to would probably say you know maybe about a two or three. If I were to ask you when you do your open house with all of that marketing behind it where would you rate that success loan where we're high. [00:35:51] I mean I mean even a broken clock is right twice a day twice a day so sometimes you don't you strike out even with all that marketing but very rarely. I would say we're at an eight and nine and sometimes a 10. It just takes a lot of preparation. It really does. But they're effective and we get a lot of business that way. For me in my position I don't as much have the time to do it personally anymore but the agents that we're bringing on that are just getting started and wondering hey what's the fastest way that I can get a transaction or a client. And that's without spending you know thousands and thousands of dollars in marketing. And that's the effective way to do it. [00:36:33] I love it. So in wrapping up is there anything if you could maybe give the top three things ok that you have found personally. That you know you know you got a seasoned agent out there listening to this or maybe an aggressive upcoming new one. But whether the top three things she would recommend someone do and why. To grow their business. [00:36:56] Well the top two first thing is get away Get get rid of everything that's costing you money and not bringing you in clients. Find out what that is. Look in your business and see where you're spending money and not getting any return. Cut that out as soon as possible. And the second thing is is find out what you are doing successfully and do more of that. Do you do as much of that as you possibly can. And the third thing is it would be. Find out what you want to do and find like for instance. I know this isn't a commercial for you guys but I wanted to take my business to the next level with a certain amount of marketing. So I found a partner to partner with that was successful at doing that. That took a huge workload and time out of out of my my day. They took on that time and I partnered with them to do it. So getting back to the three I would say no one find out what's costing you money and not bringing you any money in return. Find out what you're good at and and do more of that or try to structure your system and business around doing more exploiting that. And three seemed where you want to go and partner with a coach or a marketing system that can get you there without you know that you trust that you trust can get you there not something that you're just throwing money at and seeing if it sticks. [00:38:21] Now let me ask you one question on that because like I was talking to an agent recently he spent ten thousand dollars a year and this magazine that just goes out like once or twice a month. [00:38:35] It's all the agents in the area advertises there. So he feels he needs to be there. But I was asking him how much money how many listings or anything. I don't know. So when you know a lot of times you have agents that are spending money. Your first criteria was find where you're spending money that's not producing and cut it out. How would you advise on if they're spending money but they don't know if it's producing or not. [00:38:59] Well you you should definitely have a system. [00:39:02] So if you're doing like a magazine like that every single call inbound call that you get. You really should say no. How did you hear about us and that way you can track that and that would that would start. That would be my suggestion otherwise you know for instance like the postcards that we send out with with your company it automatically tells us that they they got the postcard from us. So that's that's you know that's something the technology can help you track that a lot better. But we don't invest in any marketing that we can't track. [00:39:38] You know I heard someplace and I think it's OK to walk through if you can't track it. It's not marketing you're spending money right. Yep. So you definitely got to track it. [00:39:49] Well Nick thank you so much for your time is there anything else. Before we wrap up that you would like to share anything that hit your mind that oh I share a thought share this. Anything like that before you wrap it up. [00:40:02] I think we covered it. It's a it's a it's a one man business or one person a small business. So I hope I didn't give out all of our secrets but I'd also hope that we gave some good content there for some people that are listening that it that it was helpful. So you know all I got to say is I really appreciate you having me on and and then allow me to do this with you and I hope that it was helpful for for everybody involved. [00:40:30] Well thank you again Nick. And for those who are listening or watching if you do like this please describe to our podcast you'll actually find us on iTunes and deterring. [00:40:41] And Google Play on the podcast if you're watching it on YouTube. Please like it. And you can subscribe there as well. Also check out our guest seller calling you dot Web site or Facebook page and like that. So you do want to learn more about what we do or about growing your business. You can learn more about us at get sellers calling you dot com. You'll see a tap at the top that says agent dominator that's actually the service we do to help people grow business. That's what we're doing with Nick. So Nick thank you again. And you have a blessed day. [00:41:15] Thank you. Appreciate it Beatty too. [00:41:20] If you've enjoyed this podcast Be sure to subscribe to it so you never miss another episode. [00:41:24] And please like our get sellers calling you Facebook page. Also if you want to increase sales from past clients and sphere of influence dominate a geographic farm or convert home valuation leads. Check out our agent dominator program. We create custom content that differentiates you from other realtors then use it to keep you top of mind with your prospects with postcards targeted Facebook ads email campaigns video interviews and more. And the best part is we guarantee yourselves or give all your money back. Learn more at get sellers calling you dot com and select agent dominator in the menu. Thanks for listening to the get sellers calling you podcast. [00:42:02] Have a great day. 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On this inaugural episode of the Retirement Planning Redefined podcast, we'll get to know your hosts a bit better. We'll find out how they got involved in the industry, how their partnership formed, and what experiences have shaped their financial and investment philosophies.----more----Here is a transcript of today's episode: Marc Killian:                        The rules of retirement have changed. No longer can most of us rely on social security, or a single pension to fund our futures. We're living longer in retirement, doesn't just last a handful of years anymore. Instead, you might stay retired for 20 or 30 years and maybe even more. We need to look at retirement through a new lens, with fresh eyes, with a new approach and plan of attack. Here to answer the call are our financial advisers, John Teixeira and Nick McDevitt of PFG Private Wealth Management serving youth throughout the Tampa Bay area. This podcast is retirement planning redefined and it starts right now.Marc Killian:                        Hello and welcome into retirement planning redefined. Thank you for tuning into our podcast with financial advisers from PFG Private Wealth, an independent IRA. Joining us here is Nick McDevitt as well as John Teixeira. We're going to be talking about the role of investing, finance and retirement, and they're serving you here in the Tampa Bay area. Make sure you go to the website pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. John, Nick, guys, welcome into the kickoff podcast. How are you?John Teixeira:                    I'm good. How are you doing?Marc Killian:                        I'm doing very well and Nick, how are you?Nick McDevitt:                  Doing well also.Marc Killian:                        Very good. How's the weather going in Tampa right now?John Teixeira:                    It's raining quite a bit, more than usual, we usually get about 10 minutes, 15 minutes span. It's been going all day.Marc Killian:                        Oh yeah. Well that's Florida for you, right?John Teixeira:                    Yes, it's true.Marc Killian:                        Now see that through the power of the Internet I don't have to actually be in Florida to do a show with you guys. I'm actually in North Carolina, we're usually are kind of the same way. Just wait five minutes and the weather will change if you don't like it, same kind of thing in Florida. Got a lot of friends and family down there, so I'm used to that as well. But that's not what we're going to talk about here today on the podcast is the weather. Just trying to kick things off a little bit. But what I wanted to do on our first episode is just to kind of get to know you guys a little bit and get some information out there. So as we start archiving more and more podcasts and folks are finding us, whether it's on iTunes, or Google Play, or iHeart, or Stitcher, or whatever your podcasting platform of choices, they can kind of go back and get to know you guys a little bit as well through this.Marc Killian:                        So I've got a couple of basic questions for this initial a show just to kind of get to know you guys and I'm going to toss these out. Just feel free to... whoever wants to tackle this. But first question is, well, how did you get into doing what it is that you do?Nick McDevitt:                  This is Nick. I've been an advisor now since 2007, Fall of 2007, and it was something that I was always interested in kind of in high school and then throughout college, but after moving down to Florida in 2003 and starting off in a different industry and more of a sales capacity, I kind of came full circle and decided to move into the profession.Marc Killian:                        And what about you John?John Teixeira:                    Yeah. I moved down to Florida, Tampa area from Boston in 2006. I graduated in 2005 and just really actually wanted to understand how money works. I started reading some books on financing and banking and then just started diving more into the stocks, actually more of a learning thing and then I was wanting to kind of help people, so really as I started learning more about finances, figured this would be a good avenue to kind of do both.Marc Killian:                        I got to know, you said when you moved down to Florida, where are you from originally?John Teixeira:                    I'm from Boston, Massachusetts.Marc Killian:                        Okay, no accent at all, so you've definitely long since shed that, so that's pretty good.John Teixeira:                    I did.Marc Killian:                        Yeah.Nick McDevitt:                  And Nick from Upstate New York-Marc Killian:                        I was just getting ready to ask because I was going to say, Nick are you a Floridian by default there or no? But I guess not so.Nick McDevitt:                  No, Rochester, New York moved to Tampa Bay in 2003.Marc Killian:                        Now did you guys... well, I guess I'll just move around there and all my list of questions there and I will just kind of keep this little more conversational. How did you guys get to working together then?John Teixeira:                    A good question. I joined MassMutual in 2006 and then Nick joined in 2007, right Nick?Nick McDevitt:                  Yeah, the fall of 2007.John Teixeira:                    From there just kind of in the same training, became friends and just kind of really stayed in touch. I had left MassMutual in 2009, 2010 and Nick was still there and in 2016 we actually teamed up. We've been friends for over a decade. It's been a good friendship and good working relationship as well.Marc Killian:                        Very cool, well, that always helps. So you guys met through there and decided to kind of branch out. So when you set up this partnership working together, what's kind of the each other favorite part? Is that the same favorite part? Do you kind of both tend to do different avenues of the Retirement Financial Planning side of things? Or how do you guys go?Nick McDevitt:                  I think the good part or a strength of ours is that we are both pretty well rounded. I would say John's a little bit more analytical than I am, but we're both pretty well rounded so we're able to pick up the slack for each other if one of us is out of town or John's having babies like he has been over the last few years or able to kind of pick up the slack and adapt and adjust whenever the other person kind of needs a pickup. It's not that our duties are totally segmented, where it's more complimentary and we're able to work together pretty well, which is what's made it work for us.Marc Killian:                        That's very cool. So John, aside from having babies and Kudos to you for that, what kind of is your favorite part of what you do?Nick McDevitt:                  Really it's just working and helping people. We meet a lot of people and I'd say, after we're done kind of building a plan and putting a strategy in place, people leave with peace of mind of that they're on the right track and once we hit that goal for each client, it's fulfilling. I really enjoy, every day's a little different and we do get to meet a lot of different personalities and the clients end up becoming friends so I enjoy that part.Marc Killian:                        Yeah. I host a lot of podcasts and radio shows on the topics across the country and a lot of times we do get that response from people is that, it's definitely different all the time, you see so many... I think we all share commonalities when we're talking about finances and retirement planning. There's definitely generalities that go into it, but at the same time everyone is so uniquely different that it winds up branching off pretty quickly and then of course you get the different personality types and all those kinds of things in there. That works out really well to kind of keep your day interesting, I'm sure. Kind of get back into this partnership here a little bit. So you guys org... either one of you guys is numbers junkie because I think for a lot of us that listen to these types of podcasts and types of shows, maybe Math isn't always our strong suit and so we kind of assume that a financial advisor is really into numbers and so either one of you guys that way or is it really more the love of trying to help people?Nick McDevitt:                  I think that it's a little bit of combination of both. This is nick. For me, there's... I've always had a strength in the Maths space but what's interesting about our field is that from what we have found, and I don't know if it just happens to be how most of our clients come to us, but our ability to communicate with them and not talk, are not used to much jargon and be able to help them. Yeah, see the big picture and then work with them, you with different tools and with kind of the planning process that we use, to then slowly start to bring it down to a common denominator is what's made people feel more comfortable. And so that's part of why we're looking forward to doing this podcast is to provide them with additional tools to help them to continually learn, almost like a continuing education sort of program for them.Marc Killian:                        No, I think that's a good way of looking at it because I... and I think a lot of people, and that's kind of why I phrased it that way, do tend to... because you guys see the biggest thing that comes with people coming in and talk with a financial advisor's procrastination, right? A lot of times they're like, well, I don't know, I guess I could do it myself, or that's not my thing, or I don't like talking about my money, or whatever the case is. And so people tend to get a little hung up there. But I think when you're working with somebody who can talk to you and make it relatable and make it to where you're comfortable with it, that goes a long way in helping you feel better and understand your plan and enjoy your plan. Would you agree with that, John?John Teixeira:                    Yeah. Most people I think just want to know how things work and just want to make sure that you're really just advising best for them.Marc Killian:                        Yeah, I would agree. Alright, so let me turn the attention that we kind of talked about you guys and the and the partnership a little bit, how that kind of formed in your own personal things, but let's talk a little bit about the firm. So what kind of makes PFG Private Wealth a little different than the rest?Nick McDevitt:                  So we are what's called a... we're an independent firm so we're an SEC registered investment advisor firm. There is a team of about six advisors and then we have some staff members, and the firm itself has been around for... really just the original founder of the firm just hit his 50th year anniversary actually a couple of weeks ago. And so the firm's really kind of transformed over the years and continually updated and adapted to try to be in the forefront of what's going on in the industry. And so there's always been a focus on an advice-driven practice, whether it's been through strategic business with... there's a good strength on the insurance side, executive level, sort of insurance planning. Then over the years that transformed into more of the investments as Jeff Perry, who's the portfolio manager, became more involved in the practice.Nick McDevitt:                  Over the last probably five or 10 years, it's really shifted more towards the advice side so the actual fee-based financial planning and independent investment management internally. We're clearing custody with TD Ameritrade, so everything there is third party. And that's something that we always try to emphasize with the people that we're working with or the people that are coming in to talk with us is that from a conflict of interest standpoint and from a fiduciary standpoint, we do believe in having that basis, and that's really how we're structured.John Teixeira:                    Yeah. What the practice... one thing I think that separates our business model here is that we do work as a team. So Nick and I really focus on the planning end of things. If there's something where we need some assistance, whether it's asset management, we have specific guys that strictly do asset management, Bob Perry, which is the founder of 50 years focused on the state planning so he's a great resource and someone to talked to for that. It's a collaborative effort, we all work well with one another and we enjoy working with each other too, so I think that adds to it. Being independent, which nick mentioned, no proprietary products, which is very important nowadays so there's no one telling us, hey, this is... you have to use this fund, you have to use this product. It's really geared towards our client and what's best for them.John Teixeira:                    Yeah. I always kind of enjoy talking to the folks that do a lot of the independent advising. Sometimes when you think about the big box thing, I sometimes make the analogy of Walmart and sweaters and it's like a certain time of the year they get the sweaters out even now you're thinking, why a sweaters out right now, it's summertime, right? But they're trying to push him for the roll up or vice versa when the season's over, and they're just trying to get rid of them, and they try to jam everybody, I you should buy one of these, or whatever the case is. Same kind of deal sometimes when you're working with those big box cookie cutter things where they want to jam everybody into the same whatever vehicle it is because that's the hot topic that they want to get pushed that month.John Teixeira:                    A lot of times when you're working with an independent advisor, you do get, I think a little bit more holistic, if that's a good word, kind of view of everything. That works pretty well.Marc Killian:                        Alright. Nick, you kind of touched on this. I'm going to let you... I'm going to ask one more question here and then we're just to be about out of time for our first podcast but you kind of touched a little bit on the podcast. I was going to say, why are you guys looking at doing a podcast? What's kind of the overall theme that you're wanting to carry out through this?Nick McDevitt:                  Sure. What we found is that because most of our clients come to us through the classes that we teach. The classes are typically over two weeks and it's two sessions, three hours per session. We cover a broad base of topics and don't really have a ton of time to get in depth on them and when those people that decide to work with us after the class, they go through our planning process, it is fairly intensive and so we want to help and we want to have this podcast allow them to be able to touch on and remind themselves about certain things.Nick McDevitt:                  An example of one of the things that we found is, maybe a husband and a wife come to the class, Maybe they're 60 years old and they come to the class, about to focus on themselves, but during the class we mention a couple of things about experiences that we've had working with clients whose parents are becoming ill and starting to go through, and mistakes that they make from the standpoint of what their parents do with their money, and it's an additional problem, it's an additional phase that they're going to enter into, and it would be great for them to be able to listen to things in a convenient manner, be able to increase their level of knowledge a little bit so that then they can come in and sit down with us and chat with us, and they'll feel more empowered by having a higher degree of knowledge on different topics and subjects. That's really how we're... what we're focusing on is trying to give people an opportunity to increase their level of knowledge and be able to feel more comfortable having those sorts of conversations with us.Marc Killian:                        I got you. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Actually I guess I do have a quick follow up and then I'll let you guys get back into your day. So, John, with the class just kind of give us a quick overview. Nick touched on it a little bit of it, but this is something you guys offer a pretty periodically throughout the year and is it pretty easy for folks to get involved if they do want to choose so?John Teixeira:                    Yeah, so we offer it twice a year, Spring time usually falls right around January to March. Then we offer it in the Fall starting around late September, October. Most people hear about it, read about it through our mailers. And then also we have a lot of clients that will refer colleagues to the class and then also coworkers. Hey, I want... we hear all the time, "Hey, I passed your invitation on along to a couple of friends of mine. Is that okay?" And we always say, yeah, so what we'll do is we'll follow up, send them a link so they can register and register for their friends as well.Marc Killian:                        Okay, well, you can always tell the difference depending on obviously a lot of our listeners are going to wind up being in this area anyway, but I love the fact you're like springtime January to March, and it's like, I used to live in Michigan and there is no say I used to live in Boston. There is no spring in January. It's just known gold. Right?John Teixeira:                    It is. Yeah. The nice thing about being in Florida, especially in the winter time, it doesn't get dark at 3:30.Marc Killian:                        Yeah. Right? Yeah. My first year in North Carolina, when I moved from Michigan, Christmas time, it was 65 degrees on Christmas day and I was playing basketball. I was, yeah, alright, I can deal with this. It was much better shot than my friends back in Michigan. Go ahead now.Nick McDevitt:                  Now I was just saying that's similar experience after moving down from Rochester, which is very similar to weather in Michigan. You adjust quickly.Marc Killian:                        Yeah, you can enjoy that sunshine a little bit more. Well, there you go so that's our first podcast. Just kind of getting to know the team a little bit @pfgprivatewealth. Well the.com is where you can find them. That's not the name of the company is PFG Private Wealth, but if you want to check them out online go to pfgprivate wealth.com. They are an independent RIA as nick mentioned, and of course I was talking with John Teixeira and Nick McDevitt and the guys are going to be on with me from time to time. We're going to talk about various things. We're going to do a lot of different stuff on the show. We'll talk about some of the things you might hear in the class. I'll have some fun, interesting topics, kind of some oddball things all through with the guys from time to time. You can send an email questions that will cover, some news topics, lots of different things as it relates to finance, investing, retirement and all that good stuff.Marc Killian:                        As always, if you have questions or concerns, make sure that you reach out before you ever take any action. You always want to talk to a professional and John and nick are available if you need to reach out to them at 813-286-7776, that's 813-286-7776 and just share that with friends or family that you know might have a situation as well. And of course, when you're on the website, don't forget to click on the podcast that'll be coming soon and you'll be able to click on subscribe, whether it's iTunes or Google Play or whatever your platform is.Marc Killian:                        Alright, so we'll catch you guys next time here on retirement planning redefined with John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private wealth. We'll talk to you next time. Bye.Marc Killian:                        PFG private wealth management, LLC Is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for both GoT and Avengers!Hosts Nick Jarin and Dyer Oxley welcome in Jamala Henderson, a public radio vet and self-described recovering journalist, to help them break down the third episode of the final season of Game of Thrones. They get into Arya's big moment, the inevitable dragon clash, and where things go from here. After that, Dyer was so excited about Endgame that he wouldn't shut up about it. So Nick invited him to spoil the entire movie for him with zero preparation. Buckle up, because it's a wild ride.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/nwnerd)

GAME OF THRONES IS BACKKKK! So Nick is joined by two Maesters of the Realm, John and Jazz, to discuss the premiere episode of season 8!

Hi all! So Nick and Fei were at SMFM this past week, and were able to record 12 interviews with amazing people like Dr. Sean Blackwell, Dr. Cynthia Gyamfi, Dr. William Grobman, and many more. Here is a preview of their interviews.  We will be posting interviews every week, but if you want access to them now, you can become a patron on our patreon!  www.patreon.com/creogsovercoffee

So Nick accidentally clicked out of the page while this was uploading last week, meaning this episode is several days late in going up. But better late than never! Join Brian and Nick as they discuss the new Supra, the all-electric F-Series Ford pickup trucks, and a whole lot more from the live chat!

So Nick is okay for now. PHEW. Thanks Raphina! (Can you tell Eric isn't writing this summary? HE TOTALLY WANTED TO KILL NICK, DIDN'T HE, GUYS?) Batthwack has subdued Nat without killing him. (Can you tell I'm not writing this week's recap from Will's perspective? Because otherwise this would be colored very differently.) Raphina, Lank and Batthwack are trying to find wolfsbane in order to reverse the curse. That's TOTALLY GONNA WORK, RIGHT? (Ok, sorry, Will slipped through a bit there.) But will Batthwack donkey punch Lank? #questions Music by AbBowie Cross.

Episode 92 of the podcast is a special one. For starters, this interview took place in the same place (and the same table) as my very first interview for DrumGAB and one of the three guests featured in this episode was Archie, who was the first person I ever interviewed for the podcast. So that is a lot of firsts that are being revisited for this episode. I guess I could go one step further by stating that this was my first "true" roundtable interview. So, now that's out of the way, I will now introduce the guests.   John Huff, Nicholas Elie, and Archie Gamble were the gentlemen who joined me at the table at The Scots Corner bar for this session. Each of them has a history of playing in London, ON, including myself. They all have their own unique perspectives and experiences with gigging, the scene, and forging a career with music.   John has been playing professionally for about six years, while he has played drums for much longer than that he had decided six years ago to pursue drumming as more of a vocational activity than simply a hobby. He is about to head out on a European tour with Sarah Smith and he is also responsible for writing a blog as well. The blog is the reason why I invited John to the table, as some of his thoughts that he writes were fodder for a good chunk of this interview. You can check at the bottom of these notes to read up on his blog.   Next is Nicholas who is currently drumming for the group Nimway. I have been buddies with Nicholas for several years (even in the audio clips featured in this episode you can hear Nick's voice several times). Just to indicate something to listeners, those musical snippets were recorded on my iPhone (yes just a phone) a few years ago in an attic where both myself and many other local bands used to rehearse in (oh the many times I have been up there over the years). In any case, those were improvised jams that we recorded one night for fun and I held onto them over the years and decided to insert them into this episode. Anyways, back to Nick. So Nick is a drummer's drummer. He is a passionate player who simply loves to play. He has been involved in many projects over the years and while he is often found performing around London, he does not consider it his vocation. He is a lot like me that way where he just wants to create musical projects and gig here and there and have fun, while of course being compensated for his time. But he has a day job and is content with just having music as part of his life but not his sole source of income.   Finally, we have Archie. So Archie has been gigging professionally since 1984. That is 34 years....and he has been playing drums for 41 years. In London, Archie is one of the most respected and admired players around and gigging has been Archie's primary source of income since he began his career in music. He has no education, no savings, no retirement plan, and now he is beginning to experience the trials and hardships of being a musician primarily. He recently turned 50 years old and he acknowledges that this was a big deal for him as he looked around at his life and what it consists of at this very moment. Looking to diversify and find a way to survive on music alone is at the forefront of his mind when considering his professional life. It is in some ways, bitter sweet. Archie has been through many incredible experiences that drumming and music provided to him, but on the other side of the coin it has left him with very little to sustain himself unless he gets a normal day job and he damn near refuses to do that. Think about it, he has never worked a normal day job in his life. Why would he ever want to start at 50!?   So having these three at the table provides an incredibly broad point of view that is rooted in considerable amounts of experience. Between all four of us at the table there is a century worth of experience with drumming. We discuss the industry, the scene locally in London, self-doubt, taking chances, our futures, and some realities to this life we choose to live. All in all, this is an episode that I felt I had to make. I was once very much a part of this music scene in London and then one day decided that I would try to make something on my own and look outside of this city for the results I was wanting. To create something for myself that involved something I knew I really connected with and I decided to call it DrumGAB. Two years later it feels good to reconnect with some folks in a place I know all too well to discuss some topics that I know are on people's minds. Big thanks again to John, Nicholas, and Archie for their time and honest input towards this interview. There are loads of takeaways from this one and it is presented in a way that is totally different from other episodes in the podcast's catalog.   John's Socials Instagram | Website/Blog   Nimway Socials Instagram | Facebook   Archie's Socials Instagram | Facebook   DrumGAB Socials Instagram | Website

So Nick went a little overboard on this one. The Josh Doctson injury isn't severe, but likely a sign of things to come. Plus, hear what Jay Gruden's plans are for him. Gruden also has some thoughts on Derrius Guice and his video game talents. Also, DeAngelo Hall retires. The thought was to just play a part of his speech, but he's so good in front of a mic we give you the whole thing. Yeah we went overboard with content, but it's because we care.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nick and family are back in their hometown for a while and have been faced with the question full-time RVers hear all the time, "You're just living the dream, aren't you?" So Nick and I delve into what that "dream" really is, how we've made it possible for ourselves and touch on how neither of us really feel that it's our ultimate dream.    Follow Untethered: Twitter Follow Taylor: Twitter/Instagram/MOD/Best Damn EDC/CNET Follow Nick: Twitter/Instagram/High Tech Traveler/The Gray Adventures   Music: Oh Pin Dee by Jon Teague

"But I'm just one person. It's hard competing against huge fashion brands out there?" It can feel really hard to launch your fashion line when you're just one person. Which is why you have to persevere and you have to find support somewhere. And I know I sound all fluffy inspirational here...which is pretty out of character. I'm known for tactics and strategies and actual "how to's". So stick with me! Because in this episode, we talk about how to do all these things. The first time Ryan launched his brand, Till I Die, it failed. He was forced to return to corporate America. The second time? He's succeeding. But it hasn't been without said perseverance and support. So, how is he making it all happen? He works is ass off. He knows which friends have his back and which ones he needs to cut lose. He knows that to get a single "yes" from a buyer, he has to get THIRTY "no's". He knows how quickly costs add up and that may mean surviving on $20k a year and eating Ramen. Ryan also knows how hard it is competing against huge fashion brands. He and I met on the trade show floor of Outdoor Retailer when I showed up with my recorder and did impromptu interviews with 9 brands. And he told me outright how hard it was to compete in sis small 10x20 foot booth that was swallowed by the 100x100 foot / two-story / monstrous booths that the big brands spend millions on. Which leads us to the second guest on the show, Nick Eliason of Outdoor Innovation Show. I also met Nick on the trade show floor, and what he's doing with OIS is soooo cool. The fashion industry is shifting. How product is created is shifting. And how you reach the end consumer is shifting. But the trade show model has stagnated. And for a lot of brands, it isn’t working. So Nick and his team are reinventing the trade show model so it’s more inline with how the fashion / retail / direct to consumer space has shifted. It’s designed to help us all work together to create amazing product and get it to the people who need it most: our customer. You're going to love both of these interviews. Here's a sneak peak of what we talk about: Why you should 3x the amount of money you think you need If you don’t have the passion and work ethic to do the work, don’t go into fashion The importance of finding a support network of friends Why retail distribution has been key for Ryan to legitimize the brand and get a bigger reach Strategies for wholesale exclusivity and creating partnerships The real numbers and the finances: how much he’s spent, the orders he’s writing at the show, and what he's living off of (it's not much) How to compete with the huge fashion brands and booths Getting used to rejection (you'll get 30 no's for every yes) The outdated trade show model and why it doesn't work for most brands Guest Info & Resources Till I Die, Ryan's brand Outdoor Innovation Show, Nick's new trade show model (first show is July 2018) Enjoy the show? Help us out by: Rating us on iTunes - it really helps! Subscribing on iTunes - I appreciate each and every one of you!

High Point Fall 2017 Market Preview Today in The Lounge, we are talking all about High Point! Janine Wagers is the Creative Director and Showroom Designer of the Universal Furniture Showroom in High Point, North Carolina. She joins us to discuss the best ways to prepare for Market. Lisa Kahn of Lisa Kahn Designs is the keynote speaker for Gail Doby's Interior Design Summit and gives us an inside look on what she will be speaking about. As always, connect with us on our website, iTunes, Stitcher, Facebook and Instagram @thechaiselounge. Nick has been on a mission to uncover how the 3D Rendering software at Porcelanosa works. He measured his bathroom and sent in pictures to Porcelanosa to design 2 different remodel prototypes, and the process only has a two day turn around! On the next episode, we will share an interview with Carla Espino to learn more about how this product works. Additionally, we will include the BIG REVEAL of Nick's bathroom BEFORE and AFTER. Utilize this free service by going to Porcelanosa's website or by visiting your local showroom.  During High Point, Nick will be moderating a panel, Passion Sucks. It's All About the Money!, at the Universal showroom, Saturday the 14th at 11:00 am. All of the designers Nick has spoken to are passionate about interior design, but that's not what makes it or breaks it for them. So Nick will be asking Nina Magon of Contour Interior Design, Steven Favreau of Favreau Design, Kellie Ellis of Kelli Ellis Interior Design and Chad James of the Chad James Group: What does it really take to become successful? To RSVP and for a FULL list of The Chaise Lounge High Point Market events, visit our events page.  Meet Janine Janine Wagers joins Nick from High Point, North Carolina, furniture capital of the world. Her work as Create Directive and Showroom Designer concentrates on displaying Universal Furniture's products within the showroom in new and interesting ways.  Market? WHAT DO I DO? Here's Janine's advice: As a designer, you have to figure out what you would like to accomplish at Market. Ask yourself, What are you here to see? What vendors would you like to visit? Are you buying furniture? Are you buying accessories? Are you here to establish new relationships with vendors? Or are you meeting with your existing vendors? Maybe you've never been to Market and are just here to grasp, what is High Point? (It's like regional markets....but on steroids). Think about what price points you want to look at and what styles. Anyone and everyone furniture connected is going to show at High Point SO you need to plan and narrow it down to what you want to focus on. There is no way you can make it to every showroom in 5 days, that's 11.5 million square feet of showrooms! High Point Market's website has a full list of exhibitors so Janine says that you definitely want to prepare beforehand, look them up, and see which products fit into your style and price categories. You also want to target specific areas at Market, if one of your vendors is in an area, it's likely similar vendors will be there too. Get your geography down! Market is very spread out. Nick Janine advise to make a list of the vendors you want to see, so you can plan each day accordingly by location. It's also important to know that there are accessory vendors that are preset (you go in and buy it like it is), but there are also places you can buy samples or one-of-a-kind pieces! You might want to take a day to just visit accessory companies EARLY ON and pick up samples or one-of-a-kind pieces, as those go quickly. It's always fun to have a treasure to bring back to a customer. You get to tell them that you located it in High Point and it's the only one of its kind. You'll have a good story to help you sell a piece or to let someone know you picked it out special for them. The Universal Showroom Universal exclusively makes and sells furniture, but they shop Market too, for accessories for the showroom and to continue thei...

The Silver Ferns are on the rise, the Diamonds are back to a big drawing board in what was a stunning Quad Series. The wild netball west is heating up with the Roses and Proteas beginning their ascension too! So Nick and Luke dissect each team's campaign in a bid to work out who had the best series!

Julia Buckingham: From Stay at Home MOM to Interior Design Powerhouse On this Episode of The Lounge, Nick sits down with Julia Buckingham of Buckingham ID in Chicago at The Public (formerly the Ambassador East). They are both in Chicago attending Neocon. The last time Nick and Julia talked was on an actual chaise lounge with Michel Boyd at the Atlanta Market. Julia currently lives in "Casa Lantana" in Pheonix, Arizona but her office is still in Chicago with her daughters. Her favorite fashion accessory is shoes and her favorite place to vacation is Marrakesh in Morocco, which she visited with the #blondesquad (interior designers Holly Phillips, Cathy Austin, Tami Ramsey, and Krista Nichols). The most moving traveling experience Julia has had though was getting the opportunity to visit the manufacturing plants and homes of the people who manufacture her products. The Business Today Julia is in the process of opening a Modernique boutique shop in Pheonix, Arizona. Her business in Chicago is booming as she guts homes while maintaining their historic integrity and architecture through renovations and add-ons. Her firm consists of 5 people and focuses a lot on business and operations. She has 3 designers plus herself, one operations manager, and one business manager. She and Nick can't stress how important it is to have people to help run the business side of a firm. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: Nick met a student attending an ASID event while in Chicago who was actually interested in working on the business side of interior design. So Megan, if you're out there Julia would love to connect with you because business is what it's all about. Message us to connect! :) Internships Amy Flurry's art from her company paper-cut-project was installed by Julia for a client project in Chicago. Amy also recently asked Nick to talk about Internships on the show. So Nick asks Julia what she thinks: Herrington School of Design was where Julia pooled her interns from before it closed. Having an intern was integral to Julia's business. She herself has hired 3 interns over the past 10 years as a part of her design team. Interns understand that they are starting out at a level where they need to be open-minded and they embrace the tasks of an entry-level position. She does get resumes from students whose schools don't require an internship program, but she knows it can be difficult to put time and motivation into an internship without receiving any credit or compensation. In her opinion, more schools should require an internship. Julia also has people who want to relocate to Chicago to intern for her, but it's difficult to financially commit to their travels and rent expenses without knowing them. With that being said, her firm has at least 2 interns every summer and if SHE has not hired them afterward herself, some of the most amazing firms of Chicago HAVE. Having the ability to intern for a firm is integral to the growth of design students and can lead to potential job opportunities. Julia also suggests reaching out to designers to ask questions and see if they will become your mentor. 5 years ago, Tiffany Brooks who won HGTV Designer of a year, asked to meet up with Julia because she was stuck and didn't know how to have her own design firm. After they talked, Julia became her mentor and now she is rockin' it in the design world. You can talk to and learn from designers, or even go in for a couple days to see what it is that they do and how much work it is. Julia's Story 10 years ago Julia was just a mom at the Jewel. She didn't plan for a new career but she'd always loved shopping and collecting antiques. Julia and her husband have had 15 homes in 30 years of marriage and consider themselves "Cereal Flippers." Her husband handles graphics, branding, and putting spaces together while she designs them. Their love language was/is working together on these projects. Then, someone walked up to her one day and asked to buy her home,

We Get An Autoresponder After sending Nick Snapp an email and getting an autoresponder back, we decided to critique it. Couple of reasons… First, Nick is a big productivity guy. And he’s big on accountability. On his podcast, the Make It Snappy Productivity Show, he asks his listeners to hold him accountable. So in the interest of holding him accountable, and sharing some insights into auto emails in general that everyone can learn from, we decided to rake him over the coals and tell him how he’s completely ruining the internet… I mean, provide constructive criticism. Here’s the email in full. Hi - Thanks for your email! Just so you know, I have joined this group of crazy people who think they can get more done and make a bigger impact by only checking email twice a week (which is why you’re receiving this autoresponder)… Like you, I get a lot of email, and for my personal sanity and better productivity, I’ve decided to create a schedule to review and respond to emails…I know…I know…imagine that. Here’s how I manage email: My assistant is in my inbox every day. He will read the email and if he can help you, he will respond. If he thinks I’m best to handle this with you, we’ve finally worked out a process for him to flag it so I can reach out to you directly. This means that depending on when you sent your email it could be next week before I’m able to respond accordingly. You are important to me (and us), so I will respond as soon as possible…AND… …If you require immediate assistance, please REPLY to this email and let us know it’s urgent so he can bring it to my attention, or text me directly if you have my cell phone (always a better option for me than email). I look forward to connecting with you, talk soon. With Purpose, Nick Snapp, MBA PMP Productivity Aficionado Inspire Me Solutions, LLC RealAccountable.com The Make it Snappy Productivity Show MakeitSnappyShow.com Please note: to reduce your email clutter and mine, I commit to never sending you a reply message with just “thanks.” If you seek confirmation of receipt, please indicate so in your message. HOLY COW That Was Long Ralph and I took turns sharing our thoughts, so here we go… First, Ralph says this email doesn’t even need to exist. Just because someone sends you an email, doesn’t mean you have to reply immediately. So Nick can wait a few days before answering without needing an intermediary email explaining all those details. Ralph doesn’t think anyone needs all those words, and I agree. Perhaps taking the TL;DR approach can work. Open with a simple, one or two sentence statement that says the most important thing up front: thanks for your email, if I don’t answer you for a few days, don’t panic! Then if someone wants to read about how and why you’re doing that, you can add that later. Next, Ralph thinks that it takes way too long to get to a point in the email where it’s about him as the reader. From a marketing perspective, the email is all about Nick’s process which doesn’t bring the reader in. So start with your reader, and make it less me-centric. Make your reader feel like the most important person in the world. If Nick had led with a simple statement, followed by his reason for doing what he’s doing, and lastly his process, he could have framed it in the context of the reader. In other words, be helpful. Instead of sharing it as “this is what I’m doing”, frame it as “hey, want some ideas that you can try yourself?” That might inspire people to follow your lead and at the same time it will make the email about them. I also think he needs to lose the PS. Too many words, too much information and an extra unnecessary layer of complexity. Stuff Beyond The Email Some of our comments were specifically about the email. Some were more about the process. After receiving the email, Ralph posted in Nick’s Facebook group, telling everyone that we were going to critique the autoresponder. Someone else in the group said he would do a podcast talking about how great it was. The problem is that everyone in the group is a big fan of Nick’s. And sometimes fans see you through fan-colored glasses. They love you. They love what you do. Which means you’d better break out of that bubble if you want some tough love! Make sure you have people around you who will tell you the cold, hard truth. Like us! We’re super fans but we do try to be objective, too. We want to help our friends be better all the time, and we want our friends to do the same. We don’t want to be in a room full of yes-people. So listen to people who don’t love everything you do. Not the haters – that’s a whole different thing. But honest people, who honestly want to help you. One of the things that freaked me out, was the part where he mentions having an assistant read his email. I had no idea that someone else would be reading my email. I don’t know the assistant. I don’t feel comfortable knowing that someone else is reading my personal email. Generally, when you’re emailing a specific person, you don’t think anyone but that person will read it. What if we sent something confidential? Or made a weird inside joke that could be misinterpreted by another person? So maybe don’t tell me you have an assistant. I know he was trying to be open about it, but how much disclosure is too much? Better yet, Ralph thinks Nick should have a general “business” email, like support@ or help@, so there isn’t the same expectation of communicating with someone personally. Show, Don’t Tell Towards the end of the email, Nick tells us how important we are. But that’s so far down on the page… long after he’s talked about his process, and how important that is. And his sanity, and how important that is. Finally, he gets to us, but saying “you’re important” doesn’t make it true. Show me. Make the email about me. Involve me. And while you’re at it, skip the “us” part. I didn’t email an us! I didn’t know there was an us! Who is us? The assistant? The rest of the company? Other unnamed person who may be reading my stuff? Maybe a preemptive email to his list letting people know that this is the new process would help mitigate the unexpected nature of this email. Maybe springing all these details on someone out of the blue is too jarring. While we’re on the topic of “feeling important”, Nick also mentioned that we could text him – if we have his number. Ok, but what if I don’t? Now I feel really left out! How come I’m not in the special insider group of people who have his cell phone number? We think Nick needs to control that message a little better. And make it a bit easier to communicate if he really thinks we’re important. If he really wants us to text, how about including his number? Or maybe don’t say that at all, if there’s a chance he would refuse to give it to someone who asks. Messing With My Productivity Reading this very long and unexpected email took up some time! But that’s not all, because after reading it, I had to make a bunch of decisions. First, is what I need urgent? How urgent? Urgent enough to email back? Urgent enough to text? If I decide it’s urgent, then I have to take a second action. And then if I want to make sure he received my email, I have to take yet another action! So thanks to Nick wanting to be productive, I’ve had to be pretty unproductive and take multiple steps to get to the same result The key here is to simplify. Fewer words can get to the point the same way. Want to give people more information? Organize it in a way that makes it easy for people to decide whether they want to know more. Always make it easy for people to communicate with you. Don’t ask them to take multiple steps. Good Intentions We know Nick has good intentions. He wants to let people know he may not get back to them right away. He also wants to share what he’s learned about being more productive to help people improve. So keep the intention, we love it. Just make it simple, and think about the reader. In a nutshell, we love Nick Snapp! And we thank him for being such a good sport. Now, Fred, go listen to his podcast and get your productivity on! Got any thoughts on the email? Anything you think we're wrong about? Any ways you'd improve it? Let us know!

Another fight broke out in baseball, it never ends! So Nick and Trucco discuss what's slowly becoming their strongest (and favorite) subject matter.

Another fight broke out in baseball, it never ends! So Nick and Trucco discuss what's slowly becoming their strongest (and favorite) subject matter.

We're back after a few weeks off, only with no Ben. So Nick's daughters Sophia and Maddie join in as co-hosts. It's a fun-filled, loud show of nothing but nonsense. We apologize to your ears.

So Nick may or may not have lost his marbles this week on the Bachelor - and luckily, Chris, Adam, and Courtney are here to try to make sense of all the madness. They also touch upon guys loving "the chase", drunken living room yoga poses, and Adam accidentally calls Corinne "Courtney" in the most Freudian slip of all time. Stay tuned post-credits for bonus audio of Courtney's foot falling asleep!

What's a good conversion rate? One that's better than last month. But how did you get there? Nick Disabato has built a career on research-focused A/B testing. Over the past year, he's helped Shopify Plus store KeySmart achieve extraordinary success. He joins us today to discuss that journey and how you can improve your store 5% monthly with his approach to split testing. "Never forget: focusing on your customers brings you more customers. Are you focused on helping your customers, or are you focusing on what your coworkers want?" — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: How testing makes you money What makes a successful test Testing's impact on design Why testing defangs your internal debates Links: Draft The A/B Testing Manual nickd.org Visual Website Optimizer Hotjar Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com Transcript Kurt: 00:06 Before we continue, I wanted to share a quick tip from our sponsor, Referral Candy. We'll find out what's working, then do more of that, so look at your top sales channels and then double down. It's the 80 20 rule and action. For many stores, word of mouth is a top channel, but how do you double down on the word of mouth? Check out Referral Candy - increase word of mouth sales by giving your store a refer a friend program. They're giving you guys 50 bucks to get started with it. Just go to Kurtelster.com/referralcandy to get started. Kurt: 00:37 Hello and welcome to this episode of the Unofficial Shopify Podcast. I'm your host, Kurt Elster, agency owner, Ethercycle, author of the Ecommerce Bootcamp, and a lot of other things. Find out more on Kurtelster.com. That's my podcast radio voice. At this point, I can't say Unofficial Shopify Podcast any other way. I apologize for that. Joining me today is a wonderful gentleman who, through a mastermind group that he started, has changed my life and a lot of inspiration to me and is also an quite the interesting character who's been on the show before. Please welcome Nick Disabato. Nick: 01:11 Hi there. How's it going? Really happy to be here. Kurt: 01:15 So Nick, the last time you were here, it was a good episode. I enjoyed it. I like talking to you, but for you, you had a great outcome from it. You landed your favorite client. Nick: 01:27 No offense to my other clients. All of my clients are really my favorite client. I landed a fantastic client. They are a lifestyle, everyday carry brand called Keysmart. If you go to getkeysmart.com - they are wonderful. It's essentially like a multifunction tool for your keys and it makes your keys a little bit more organized, has a few extra tools and all these other things. Just to talk about what I do for a living - I run A/b tests for e-commerce and SaaS businesses. Those in the audience who don't know what A/B tests are - you have a change, you want to vet the economic impact of it, you test it against the control and you determine what the actual lift is. You've come up with ideas through research, you end up making that a core part of your design process so that you're not making bad decisions that could potentially hurt your business and you're more carefully and scientifically vetting what could actually convert better. Keysmart's revenue has gone up. I forget the last calculation I had done. I think it's something like 75 percent as a direct result of my A/B testing over the past nine months. Nevermind the fact that they have also been growing significantly as a company. So that helps as a force multiplier, right? Like they're getting more traffic, they're getting more sales, and then people who come in are more likely to convert that last bit is because of my work. Kurt: 03:02 On Shopify Plus, they have a really cool custom theme. I've done a few few modifications to it for them. There's like a lot of brands you hear talked about on Shopify that are very popular and you don't hear Keysmart talked about that often, which I always find strange because it's a cool product, but it also is quantifiably one of the most successful stores on Shopify. Nick: 03:25 I even mentioned to Andy, who's one of the people there, that we should just say we have like thousands of happy customers. Then he said we have millions of happy customers. I'm like, great. Kurt: 03:37 I was talking to Andy, who has been on the show before to say, wow, your facebook campaigns and your marketing... Andy's the one who did this stuff and it's phenomenal. I've never seen anything this successful. And he said, yeah, we could scale it, but we can't ship fast enough. That's your problem?! Your bottleneck is because you literally can't get the product out the door quick enough. That's nuts. I've never heard anyone say that Nick: 04:05 That's a really good problem to have. I like when I can cause problems for my clients. Kurt: 04:13 That's what you did. How did that happen? What is the test you ran? How did you go about it? How did you know what tests to run? Cause I know with a/b testing, everyone thinks it'll help them pick the right button color. And it's not that at all. It's quite a bit more complicated than that. Nick: 04:32 Yeah, everybody wants to know where they should start with testing. When they ask me that, it's as if they want the one weird tip that causes the revenue to go up by 75 percent. That's not at all true. I'm so sorry. What I do is research what your customers are doing and then come up with informed guesses as to what these tests may be. Button colors generally don't work. Headlines work. If you have a clear idea of what kind of headline you should be writing, there is no such thing as just writing a headline for the sake of it being "more persuasive." So what I'm doing is going into Google Analytics and figuring out if mobile is converting dismally. OK, why? Well, the page time is taking really long time to load. Nick: 05:20 Well, that kind of sucks. Why is the page to taking a long time to load? Oh, you have a one megabyte product image on your page and you never bothered compressing it and it loads great on my comcast for business connection, but then I go into chrome and simulate a 3DG connection that's dropping occasionally and the page takes 38 seconds to load. You're not closing a sale. That was one example of research. What I did was go into one of the product pages and then extensively compress the product image and it ended up being like a 38K product image. It looked a little granular. Whatever. It's on your cell phone, you're on a train. You don't know what it actually looks like, and it's probably smaller than the actual product in person, but I ended up converting something like 11 percent higher because way more people were able to load the page effectively and make a purchasing decision. Nick: 06:17 They don't care how compressed your product image is or what CDN is serving it. That was the most basic mobile optimization thing. But I went in, said this isn't working, let's fix it. It's leaking money. That wasn't a headline, it wasn't a button color, it was something that should have probably happened at the beginning of this site being built out, but nobody caught it. So that's one thing. Another thing that I run is heat maps on your site. I determine where people are clicking, how long down the page people are scrolling, that sort of stuff. One thing that I find very frequently in Shopify is that they keep the same navigation on the same template from page to page. So you end up having like the full blown navigation and all these things all over every page of the site. And that includes your shopping cart and your checkout pages. Nick: 07:13 That sucks for a variety of reasons. This is a rare moment where I'm going to recommend something pretty fervently and say it will probably convert better. When I say probably, I mean it's likely to. Don't blame me if it doesn't. You have to test it, but try removing those links in your header navigation. When people get to the shopping cart page - Amazon does it, Ebay does it, and it works extremely well for keeping people focused on conversion. They're not just like, oh, shiny. And then go somewhere else when they're just about to pay you. The last thing people want to do at any point in the transaction is fill out a form, but you have to make them do it and you'll have to make them do it at the last step. So I strongly recommend doing that. Nick: 07:59 We have most importantly over the past nine months crafted a process and an internal culture around constantly checking our own beliefs around things. I think that's been the biggest outcome. We have a part time developer on staff right now who is constantly making changes to try and optimize stuff from a programming and technical debt perspective, which allow us to run tests considerably faster. Ideally, you always want a test to be running as much as humanly possible. You want there to be kind of consistent tempo around it so you want to be building the next test while a given test is running. So, we have a Trello board for vetting test ideas and researching them and we move things along on this Trello board and when we get to the point where we need to be building it, then I coordinate with the developer to build it. If you don't have a developer, one thing I would recommend installing as few plugins as humanly possible in your Shopify store, and I know that sounds so cringe worthy because plugins are a huge value add to Shopify, but they add a lot of code dependencies and craft that might actually bite you later on. I'm not saying this about Keysmart necessarily, but I have seen it enough. Kurt: 09:17 It's true of any store that installs into several plugins; even one could start adding these bizarre dependencies. And then to your earlier point about performance optimization, there are two things that generally cause those performance slowdowns. One is the giant image like you described. It's very common because people want their image to look the best. So they save it out in the highest possible size that causes these bloated load times. Plugins and Apps - each time you add one that starts adding code dependencies. You'll see sites that load jquery like four and five times because of these apps aren't paying attention to each other and you've installed something and installed it. But yeah, it's a little bit of a rabbit hole there. Nick: 09:56 Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, that's definitely something that can weigh down your site and keep you from being able to make changes and deploy. And it's so funny, it's this combination of like the full facebook move fast and break things mentality, but you're doing it in a way that isn't so fast. We need to research it. So you're making a lot of changes, but a lot of it is like almost infrastructural where you're figuring out, OK, well how am I creating a separate product so that I can make changes to that and shunt people there as a variant page. How can I create variations on Shopify's end using if/then logic. There's no in built framework for this. So you're running a test maybe on maybe one product page that has if/then logic, if you're particularly sophisticated, or you're just running two skews and hoping to God that the inventory works out. I've definitely encountered both of those situations. If you're in a position like Keysmart, you cannot afford to have two different skews and hope that the inventory works out for reasons you had just mentioned, Kurt, right? It can be really difficult there. Kurt: 11:10 So going back, you had mentioned heat maps. Two questions. What is good heat mapping software and what am I supposed to get out of heat mapping? Kurt: 11:24 I'm going to start with the second one first. You're supposed to understand where people are interacting with the page and where people aren't interacting with the page. Then you figure out how that squares up with your business goals. I've written a huge, huge, deep dive on heat maps recently that actually goes through a couple of example ones and then says, OK, well people aren't clicking on our primary call to action and why is that happening? Well this area is lighting up like a Christmas tree. Why are they going? And you just have to ask yourself, why are they going, how can I make them do something else? Because they're not going to be cajoled into actually doing the thing that you want. You have to investigate their motivations, right? Nick: 12:07 Why is the page persuading people to go to the things that I don't want them to go to? Then you start to come up with some speculations about it and you'd say, well, OK, well maybe they're not ready to buy. Maybe it's a high involvement product, maybe it's not our flagship product, but it's the cheapest product. Maybe a masthead - we've never bothered swapping out the masthead image. Maybe it's just the first place that people go after viewing a facebook ad. And so we haven't like actually segmented this sensibly enough. The thing you're trying to figure out about heat maps is like real world customer behavior, right? Good tools for it - for most of my Shopify clients, I already have heat maps that I get out of my a/b testing framework, which is visual website optimizer. Nick: 12:54 You could go to vwo.com. It's a little bit overkill if you're not actually running a/b tests yet. In that case, I would recommend hotjar.com. They're like $29 a month. It's just comically cheap and you get heat maps, scroll maps, you get to see people's cursor and finger as they go around the screen. It's amazing and always really compelling evidence for a client. Usually when you show heat maps to clients, they feel like they're staring directly into the matrix because they've never actually seen the real world behavior in that visual way before. They go a little feral over it, which is great. Right. But heat maps and Google analytics are only two of the things that I do. I also actually get paying customers on the phone and talk to them for an hour about why, what competitors they vetted in, why they chose to buy it at this point in time, what motivated them, whether they're using it now, and what their problems were beforehand. Nick: 14:03 I actually ran an annual survey for Keysmart in particular recently and it was asking about like other every day carry things. That's going to shape a lot of the other products that we're going to be putting out later. So there's a lot of like other strategic things that you can be doing; it's not just about vetting the impact of the design decisions, but you end up like drilling down to the business needs in a lot of ways and saying, OK, well what does this business stands for? Is it selling a bunch of this widget to people or is it providing a broader ecosystem around the thing that we care about? Neither bad answers, right? You just need to know what the answer is so you don't go down the wrong rabbit hole. Kurt: 14:39 This sounds a lot like a lot less like traditional a/b testing in more business and user research which are incredibly valuable things. But is it a/b testing? Nick: 14:59 Well I say it's research-driven a/b testing. A/b testing is a tool that you use in the service of optimization and it is usually the last step if you're getting a certain number of sales. If you're on Shopify Plus and you're listening to this, you probably get enough sales for a/b testing. If you get 500,000, that's probably the minimum, especially if you have one flagship product and all your traffic is going in there. You should not be stabbing in the dark on your design decisions. You should not be arguing internally about your design decisions and wheel spinning and then saying, well, a/b tests our way out of the hole. That is not a good strategy for making changes to your site. That is how you end up getting a 12.5 percent success rate on A/b tests industry wide. And that is true, right? But if you research stuff and just say people aren't clicking here; even something that basic ups the success rate to around 58-59% in Draft's case. That's tests that are generating revenue, not mailing list sign ups, not people are engaging with the page more. No, no, no. Screw those things. What matters is that you are increasing revenue, decreasing costs, or decreasing risks to the business. And in A/b testing, you're getting at least two of those things every single time. Nick: 16:32 You have to end up backing it up with research. It's absolutely essential. If people say, I want to cut the research and I just want you to run a/b tests for me, I'd probably nope out of the project. Kurt: 16:44 Knowing you, I can assure you that's what you would do at that point. You're just shooting in the dark. Nick: 16:55 Yeah, honestly I charge you. I have probably a moral obligation to not take the project at that point because I would take early five figures of your money, do a bunch of research via Marionette for you, not get good business results, and you would waste money on me. And then we would part ways and everyone would feel frustrated. And you would think that a/b testing writ large as a failure. My goal in my career is to make sure that people understand that design decisions have an economic impact. I'm doing a tremendously bad disservice to the cause of design if I would take a project that did not actually have research as a component for it. Kurt: 17:32 I don't have a good follow-up question. Kurt: 17:42 Give me a good next question. I've got nothing. Nick: 17:54 This is a big mindset thing. Like it's, it's something people are used to design decisions by debate, right? There used to be around ideas. Kurt: 18:06 You know, even getting hired as a designer, you go through this constant back and forth with clients and that's why you have to back up a lot of design decisions. Saying, I didn't just pick that because it looked pretty, here's the reasoning behind it. I've cited my sources. Even then you're going to get push-back. The person's going to say, well, my dog doesn't like blue. So you have to change those kinds of things. Nick: 18:28 Yeah. And I actually run into the study testing clients, like I've had one recently, a keysmart were lovely clients. They are insanely brilliant. They're a wonderful team and there is a forgivable foible at play here where we have the Trello board where we're suggesting different design decisions and all these things and we'll start batting it around. And in the critique process, most good designers, they have what's called the yes. No, yes. Other places called the Shit Sandwich. And uh, where you say, I love this idea, I think that we might need to change it in a little bit this way or what's your thinking on that? Or something like that. And then you end up with another yes. Like, uh, again, I think that this is really cool. I just wanted to know what's going on here. So that is classic critique, active listening technique, non-violent communication that allows people to not feel threatened or imposed upon when you're proposing something. Kurt: 19:20 Right. Um, which is great, right? Um, it's super useful and what they see is, that's a great idea. And they're like, great, I just shipped it and I'm like, well no, this is a board for testing ideas that have to be tested and researched and there's gotta be a process. And so I ended up having to like spell out, here's what happens when a t how, here's how test ideas get on fire, hose them on, here's what happens when they get on, they need to go through this process, not only to make me feel good about having this actually go the way we wanted to, but also to kind of expose it to the harsh light of day, right? Like we need to make sure that not only is it a good idea to us, but it's actually a revenue generating idea for the business. Kurt: 20:07 And that involves research that involves spending a little more time actually thinking about the ramifications of the decision that involves squaring it up against all the other decisions that we've put together in the past. Right? Like the more tests we run, the more likely it is we're going to continue coming up with decisions that don't work for us or that we've already tried. And some other form and we want to make sure we're not spinning our wheels on this. Um, so I had to go and sit down and say, you know, you want to do ab testing like you hired me. That seems obvious enough, but your still thinking in a way that is like the socratic inquiry design decisions that, that everybody does and I get why you do it. It's because you have like 10 years background in this industry and that's all you've known. Kurt: 20:57 And then I asked to come in and be the fun ruiner right? I'm really good at ruining people's fun. I'm really good at it. Um, and I don't like having to come in and be the fun ruiner I like it when people agree broadly with the concept of Ab testing and then figure out the execution behind it. Right? And there's a lot of like, psychological impact that too, you know, like when a test fails and you have to say, well we should keep testing. You don't look good politically by doing that as a consultant or as a worker or anything. If you're the champion of the project, you look terrible to your boss and the best clients are ones where we'll spend like three months planning a task and putting together this giant, ambitious reworking. It fails miserably and they're like, it's OK. Kurt: 21:47 I saved you from wasting more time on what would be a boondoggle of a project. But if you let, you know, if you get emotionally invested in it and you have people you know, fighting for, um, you know, they're, they're designed candidate for just to save face. It doesn't work. And that's where it split testing gives everyone this easy out. You know, when I argue with my children clear, like they just want an out, but they don't want to have to say, well, I was wrong. They'll always take the out if you give it to them. And I think that's um, as a tool for ending Itar internal debates, split testing is wonderful and you know, in your own language you say, well, it defines them. Kurt: 22:26 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it, it, if you have a process for considering design decisions, defangs them. And it also removes what in Ux parlance, it's called the hippo or the highest paid person's opinion. I love it. I relish it. Nothing more than when the like high school marketing intern comes up with a testable design decision that bumps revenue by 15 percent. And I just know about the CEO is design decisions. It's like one of my favorite things. It's so satisfying. I'm like, you know John over here, I'm actually about 15 percent more revenue for the business and we're paying him barely minimum wage credit. Kurt: 23:07 No one wants. No one's gonna argue with it because who doesn't? If you're, if you're the business owner, if you're the employee, you're goal is roy in Split testing gives you this beautiful framework to do that. Right? Kurt: 23:21 Roi Is also measurable in decreasing costs. Right? And I can come in. The most classic example for Ab testing is like this was a disastrous thing and it lost 11 percent revenue and now we're not rolling it out to everyone. So we avoided a bullet, right? That's the most classic one. But I tell you, I've run shopify Ab tests that pair to back the number of skews that we were offering and ended up decreasing overall like cost of goods and cost of manufacturing by like 25, 30 percent because it turned out nobody gave a crap about all the ancillary products that we were offering and offering it in one color, one size actually worked better for us. Kurt: 24:04 You're eliminating, um, in many cases you're eliminating choice paralysis. People don't have to consider the thing they probably don't want. And even if it was like one in five, you still have a Pareto's principle, the 80 20 rule. And you're exploiting that by offering fewer products. People like storage often act like I'm crazy when I suggest that. I'm like, have you considered offering fewer products? Here are fewer options. So they're like, what? No more products means more money and it isn't the case. Not always. Kurt: 24:33 Yeah. And then you can cite a bunch of consumer research around it, but like shopify store owners have printers in general, they have a habit of like they made a successful product and now let's make it green. Or let's make it slightly larger or let's put Swarovski crystals on it or something, you know, and, and they, they get antsy because there's this constant process of reinvention and it might juice the numbers temporarily because you're getting a little bit more engagement from like collectors or something like that. And that could work in the long-term if you're a brand like field notes and you've released something new every three months and you can run out of it really quickly, but most storefronts probably don't have that luxury or they're probably not creating goods that are amenable to doing that. And so I would, you know, removing products is one of those things and that's one where it's like maybe we are settling intubate, but like what's the monetary upside? And I asked them to like, you know, we got rid of these products. That's great. Like what's the upside for you? It was like, oh, probably we just produced manufacturing expenses by 25 percent. I'm like, peel jaw off the floor. Like, are you kidding me? Like oh, OK, fine. Kurt: 25:52 Yeah. If I want to hire nick D, if I want to hire you to do my split testing, I know you actually run a business that's small by design. Um, so you can take out of the limited number of clients at any one time so I can hire you or, Kurt: 26:12 or you can. Um, so there are, there are a few ways to, uh, enlist my services. So the easiest thing that you can do right now, if you go to ab testing manual [inaudible], I, uh, I'm writing a book and creating a video course around everything that you need to know about Ab testing for your store. Right? There are three different packages. One of them is just the book. If you just want to know tactics about how to run an ab test and research it. Another is the video that talks about all the strategy, like the things that we were just talking about around, like dealing with disappointment around Ab tests, dealing with the psychological impact of it, the mindset shift needed in an organization. And then the third thing, which is obviously my favorite, is I come in and do a giant tear down of your site and you get the video course and everything else and it's like a hour long video tear down, like I actually go through on screencasts and pick everything apart and offer a ton of testable ideas. Kurt: 27:11 I also run heat maps and fine tune your google analytics install for you. So that's the deluxe wash if you want the really big package where I come in and run a b tests for you and dictate your strategy, um, that is probably going to be accepting new clients shortly before the holidays. Knock on wood. Um, I don't know when this episode runs, but um, I'm hoping to open up like one slot for a store owner probably end of November, ish. That might give us enough time to start ab testing and Ernest for the holidays. Um, it might get us enough time to get a plan going, but timeline depends heavily on like where your sites at and what you've gotten stalled, what your team looks like, that sort of thing. Um, but if you go to draft a dot and you, I spelled it all out, I'm probably your best option is grab a copy of the Ab testing manual, read through it, see if it makes sense as something that you should be doing for your business. You should really only be working on ab testing. You could work on optimization. Anyone can do that. Anyone can fix browser bugs or compress the images on their mobile pages. Um, but if you're running ab testing, you should probably have around 500 to 1000 transactions a month minimum. Ah, and that's not everyone who's listening to this, but it could be you someday. And maybe you'll think of me then. Kurt: 28:35 So what's, we're coming to the riverside together. Want to see if you have any closing thoughts. What's one thing you wish every shopify store owner would do? Kurt: 28:43 God, your biggest enemy is yourself. Most of the time when you think about the way that people are engaging with your product, you may be wrong and that is scary. You're the one who is the most informed about your product. Um, you think about it every day. It's your job, it's your life's work, um, but that's exactly why you shouldn't trust yourself on it, and the most important thing that you can do is listen to your customers and do what you can do, research it, whether or not you ab test anything after is that's up to you, but take the time to like run a survey. You can put together something on type form in 15 minutes and blasts it out to your mailing list and put it as a call out on your homepage for a week and then analyze what the impact is and it might teach you a lot. Kurt: 29:29 What do you think about including a link? If you made a survey like that, it's easy to use type form [inaudible]. There's no reason you shouldn't have the data you get out of those things is unbelievably valuable. What do you think about including that in the, uh, order confirmation and the receipt? Kurt: 29:42 The thing that I actually love doing kind of like life cycle emails too. So you get an order confirmation but, and actually deliver the product yet the order confirmation might be like jobs to be done type stuff like Clayton Christensen type questions. Like what led you to do this? What was the last thing you had an objection about before you went and purchased? Um, who else did you consider that sort of stuff. That's really great to get right at the height of purchase because it's also the height of enthusiasm. I love also sending a survey or sending a survey separately. Um, maybe like two or three months after they received the product. Like are you still using it? How did you enjoy it? Do you have any issues with it? Um, were there any problems with like assembly or something like that? Those are amazing. Amazing for figuring out. Kurt: 30:29 Not just like how to actually talk about it on your website and get revenue generating changes, but maybe even for like how would you help with onboarding on the product, right? Like how you help with maintenance of the product or something like that. Like is it a leather wallet? Is it prone to cracking? Great. Sell a bottle of needs, foot oil on your site and get people to condition their wallets, pushed that a lot in a little card that you ship with the product, that sort of stuff. Um, it's, you know, optimization effects every part of the business. Kurt: 31:00 Absolutely. Those are all great tips. Um, so what's one piece of information you'd like to correct about Ab testing? Kurt: 31:07 Um, it is not a sack of money button. It is a tool, it is not a panacea for your job and it is a tool and it is one part of optimization and you have to be considering things more holistically than just this headline converts better. Kurt: 31:24 Very good. And lastly, where can people go to learn more about you? Kurt: 31:28 Draft Dot n u a n as in Nick, U as in the letter u university that um, and uh, yeah, if you want to learn more about the AB testing manual, ab testing manual, [inaudible] is your best option there. Kurt: 31:45 Nick. Thank you. It's been my honor and pleasure. Kurt: 31:48 A total honor. Thank you so much for having me back on. Kurt: 31:50 So however this audio made it until find out more about an unofficial shopify podcast.com, and if you'd like to be notified whenever a new episode goes live, subscribe in Itunes, join our facebook group, unofficial shopify podcast insiders, or set up for my newsletter. Speaker 5: 32:05 I'll shoot you an email whenever we post a new episode. Thanks everybody and we'll be back in. Our program was produced today by Paul Reeder. The unofficial shopify podcast is distributed by either cycle, LLC will be back next week with more value bombs for shopify store owners. If you're looking for more high quality and actionable advice on learning the business of e commerce, join thousands of other shopify store owners on our totally free newsletter at ecommerce bootcamp. That's e-commerce hyphen bootcamp.

Nick Cody met me in my flat in Edinburgh to explain to me what the hell a bogan is. I knew I didn't like them, but I couldn't properly express why. So Nick broke it down to me. If you don't know, a bogan is an Australian undesirable. Very specifically undesirable. And, yeah, I said flat instead of apartment. I'm UK to the mug now. 

Hi, I'm here with Nick Reed, He is an online coach who helps busy parents and professionals regain control of their health without sacrificing the things they love! also the founder of @ryzeupfitness. Ari Gronich 0:07 Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And I have with me, Nick Reed. And Nick is a conscious capitalism kind of guy. He's an author, speaker, entrepreneur and activist. Presently he works at the Americans for Prosperity foundation as a speaker and content creator. Previously, Nick holds degrees in psychology philosophy has worked in radio, politics, education, business, and nonprofit. So Nick, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you became Nick? Nick Reed 0:43 Oh, how I became Nick is where do I begin? But the short version is, I was growing up following the same path that everybody else did you know, you go to school to make the grades, make the grades to get into college, get into college, to get a degree, get a degree to get a job, get a job to make the money to then by the time to do the things that make life worth living, right? Well, in my story, I'm looking around at the adult community, it's say age 1415. And these are people who follow the traditional path much farther than I have, and they don't look like they're in any kind of place that I'm trying to get to, you know, they're still looking for that thing that I'm looking for. And so I'm wondering, well, is this a path for me, so me and some other really stupid friends kind of had this quarterlife crisis, and we decided we are like Peter Pan never going to grow up. We're just going to try and BASE jump and skydive and suck all the fun out of life that we possibly can recklessly probably die before we turn 18 and have any real responsibility. So you can see how much we appreciated our parents. Yeah, Unknown Speaker 1:57 yeah. And Nick Reed 1:59 so we live like this, but we didn't die, or at least I didn't die. And, but I did have an epiphany. And I was out surfing hurricane, I think it was Katrina, in Galveston. And I realized, I don't know if it was like the near death experience type inside or just a just an epiphany. But I said, this is a moment where I feel fully alive, where I feel truly free. And I can honestly say there's nowhere else in the world I would rather be than exactly where I am in this moment. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing than exactly what I'm doing right now. Ari Gronich 2:37 Nice. Yeah, you know, I got to the opportunity to see Peter Pan at the pantages theatre in Los Angeles with Sandy Duncan. And that song, I won't grow up, I won't grow up, you know, it just always has stuck in my head, I won't grow up. If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree. I won't grow up, right. And that's kind of the idea that that people tend to, you know, I hear this this word a lot. adulting. You know, this is a new word in the dictionary. It was just being a human being of age before that, right? I'm adulting. And, and it seems like, you know, the more we adult, the less fun we have. And the more serious life is and the more problems we get. Did you find that to be fairly accurate? Nick Reed 3:36 Somehow, we've come to Alan Watts. He's a philosopher that was popular in the 60s and had a radio show, I believe in California, he talks about how we have learned to do things that we don't enjoy doing. And then we teach our children to grow up to do things that they don't enjoy doing to teach their children. And it's all retching no vomit, we never get there. And I think that today we have this and people blame the educational system or the media or who knows, but without any blaming, we do have this idea that life is drudgery that you have to get through and and not this as he would say musical thing that you were supposed to sing or dance as the music was being played, you know, it's this real serious pilgrimage, we have to get to that thing at the end the success at the end of the road or, or heaven at the end of life, or whatever it is, you know, and we're all focused on that. And we're just flying by at the speed of light, not even looking out the window. And if we did, it would just be a blur anyway, because we're moving so fast. Ari Gronich 4:46 Yeah, so what is, you know, to me, like I look at the world, it's changed a bit. We're starting to develop this nomadic society because we're all in the digital age. We don't have to go to the building. For the job, so people are starting this process of becoming more nomadic, which is kind of like going backwards in time, to a place where, you know, the gypsies would travel freely around, and we would explore the world, right? How do you think that not exploring the world has damaged kind of a country's ideals, our country, other countries, but damage the the ideals and the the nature of how we act in our society? Nick Reed 5:39 Well, that's a really interesting question. I don't know, I would say that we're gonna have to find out, you know, people are locking themselves in their dungeon, for fear of going out. And, you know, maybe there's some real risk. But, I mean, I had Corona and made it through, and it was rough, it was pretty rough flu. And there's some, my grandmother's got it, and she's in the hospital with pneumonia. And, you know, it's a serious threat to people. But at the same time, there's risk every time you walk out your door, there's equal risk by getting in a car and driving on a freeway. And, you know, we're if you really calculate the risk and compare it to things that we do on a daily basis. There's some significant trade offs to not living your life and staying in the dungeon. You know, I mean, we're, we're growing up with our kids, you know, not being allowed to do things that we were allowed to do they, you know, kids don't climb trees anymore. Kids don't even go outside unsupervised for fear of the parents having CPS called on them. We're coddling our youth and coddling the American mind is a great book by Greg lukianov. And Jonathan Hyatt, who I had great conversation with about this. Not too long ago, you know, I don't really know how this is going to affect us. But I do know that people are getting on socialize. And people are and it's really easy to dehumanize and objectify people, and therefore treat people more like objects than humans, the more distance you get from them. Ari Gronich 7:18 Right. You know, one of the things I love about the, the Israeli government and this may be controversial to some but it this is a piece of the government that I like is there's 18 parties all with an equal say, and if you know any Jewish person, then you know that for every one Jewish person, there's kind of opinions, because we're always exploring the options, the possibilities, the thoughts, we're having discussions about what is possible, what's not possible, what's real, what's not real, what the interpretations are, of things. It's, it's an interesting culture in general. And, and so there's a diversity in conversation, even between two people, you could have two people having a conversation that goes into 20. tangents, right? So the question that I have, and it's a question I've had it for a while is, how do we remember how to listen? And listen, not with the response that we're about to give, but listen with the intention of learning, maybe the truth, maybe not the truth, but at least the perspective of the person and where they're coming from? Nick Reed 8:41 I think we really need to do a thought experiment. And that a thought experiment is what would life really be like, if everybody thought and walked and talked, and believes just like Ari Gronich 8:56 us, the conversations that I've been having lately, there's this big push against the freedom kind of and they don't call it that, but it's more about what's your civic responsibility? What's your duty to others? What's your, you know, what your actions do so much contribute to other people's lives, good or bad, that you have a civic duty to say, wear a mask or, you know, quarantine yourself in a hole in the ground where he can't see sunshine and you can't see people and you can't, you know, do the things that make life worth living? Because it's your civic duty, to not do the things that make life worth living, because you might possibly die otherwise, and see to me that's like, just death while I'm living while I'm breathing, so how do we balance this To Nick Reed 10:01 Well, the word responsibility is interesting because its meaning has literally been reversed to the opposite. Okay. So responsibility, I think it's sort of spun that it from Latin, it, it doesn't mean what it means today, responsibility today means your duty, your obligation, it's what you have to do, right? It used to mean your ability to respond. And your ability to respond is totally different. Right? responsibility, what you have to do, your ability to respond, is what you can do its possibilities, right? And obligations, reduces possibilities, down to one. Okay, so I want the personal responsibility is not an obligation and a duty and something that you owe to the world, you know, this is some kind of new drudgery, religion, in my opinion, you know, the opportunity here for people to take an active role. And to be a gift to the world is not about you, fulfilling your obligation and paying your debts. This is about you getting a sense of meaning and fulfillment out of life. And this is an opportunity, Ari Gronich 11:19 Rage, rage against the dying of the light. It's a Dylan Dylan Thomas, not Bob. But you know that, that saying to me is like, you must commit yourself to fully express life from within. Because life is light. And we don't want to extinguish that in people. And, you know, this whole world that we're living in right now is is an interesting kancil culture. It's this political correctness, it's this, this level of responsibility being what what what they're calling being woke, right. There's two people who are woke one side and the other side, there were I'm woke, because I'm politically correct. Or I'm woke because I can see the conspiracy or I'm woke because whatever it is, like, are you really have you come out of the dream, because I don't see the world shifting out of the dream of separation right now. I see this divisiveness because people don't know how to talk to get to each other without being in full on reaction and being in you know, I do it myself. What I love about doing these podcast interviews is that I'm forced to listen and listen clearly. So that I have what you're saying to me in the forefront of my response, rather than what I want to say to you because I got reacted to something you said, right. So I had a reaction to it. But so I love this format of interview because it forces me to learn more and more and more how to listen. I think that's a skill set that that we're lacking in, in society right now. nobody's really listening for the nuance for the common sense for the critical thinking for the, the, you know, the minutia, they're only responding to the generality and reacting to their own echo chamber, basically. Nick Reed 13:50 Which is a delusion. It's a total delusion that your image of other people is them. It's not it's a caricature. I mean, the mind, I don't think that this is a evil thing that you know, people on the left and the right or whatever the top and the bottom think that the other is always, you know, this greedy bastard trying to do everybody in i don't i don't think so. I think it's, like, maybe in our evolutionary development, it's, the mind likes to conserve calories. And so it's easier rather than looking at a person like you're looking at him for the first time, every single time you look at him, is this human, a tiger? Or is this, you know, a mouse? What is it, you know, to make a shortcut, you know, to take a little snapshot, but eventually, we built up this mental collage of mental images that I think can blind us to the truth. You know, it's like the map we're holding up in front of the territory. And when the territory changes and doesn't match the map, which happens like actual map like, you know, the landscape pushes up mountains and opens up canyons and rivers meander, and people change, buddy, you know, and so our maps need to be refreshed. Ari Gronich 15:12 Awesome. On that note, give a give the audience like three or four actionable tips on what they can do to create a new tomorrow today for themselves. Nick Reed 15:24 Talk to people you disagree with depolarize a conversation. Look for people, winning people over winning arguments. Think of the one thing that you would like to see change in this world more than anything else. And then outline the best plan that you can think of to actually walk out the door and make it happen. from the bottom up. You can think how can I? How can I create a product or a service that will advance this thing that I care about? You can think how can I create more awareness around this thing that I care about in a way that will advance it? You can think how could creating more healthy and strong communities advance this cause that I care about? or How could I reform or supplement or innovate within the existing institutions of business community education or government that could remove barriers to people who are facing this issue that I care about? You can go to Americans for Prosperity foundation.org. And you can find other nonprofits that can help you get connected to causes and join others in making a difference beyond just what you can do as an individual. But the biggest thing you can do is dispel the myth that personal action doesn't matter. We have this change the world ism, which is a psychosis that says nothing matters unless we're fixing global hunger, or, you know, world, something another. And I'm not going to do anything unless it's it's at a global macro economic scale. While nobody does anything. If everyone would do the thing, the one thing that if everybody else were to do that would lead to the whole world changing, you know what the whole world changes. Your personal action is the only thing that counts. And that'll inspire other people to do things. And it may not be joining you and doing what you're doing. But it may be the equivalent of that. And if everybody's doing the things that they wish everybody else would do. You get a whole lot of things getting done. Ari Gronich 17:44 That's awesome. How can people get ahold of you if they want to learn more and work with you? Nick Reed 17:50 They can check out Americans for Prosperity foundation.org you can look up our podcasts be the solution on Americans for Prosperity Foundation, YouTube and social media channels and pages. You can also check out our larger philanthropic community stand together.org Awesome. Ari Gronich 18:07 Thank you so much. This has been an amazing conversation. I know the audience has gotten a lot out of it. Hopefully they were taking some notes. Remember to like subscribe, rate, review and comment because we like to have your comments. We like to be able to start conversations with you and come up with more solutions for you. So anyway, thank you very much. This has been another episode of create a new tomorrow. I am your host, Ari Gronich and we'll see you next time.

Hi, I'm here with Nick Reed, He is an online coach who helps busy parents and professionals regain control of their health without sacrificing the things they love! also the founder of @ryzeupfitness. Ari Gronich 0:00 Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I do not get results, they do not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree, and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich. And this is create a new tomorrow podcast. Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari krzanich. And I have with me, Nick Reid. And Nick is a conscious capitalism kind of guy. He's an author, speaker, entrepreneur and activist. Presently he works at the Americans for Prosperity foundation as a speaker and content creator. Previously, Nick holds degrees in psychology philosophy has worked in radio, politics, education, business, and nonprofit. So Nick, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you became Nick. Nick Reed 1:41 Oh, how I became Nick is where do I begin? But the short version is I was growing up following the same path that everybody else did you know, you go to school to make the grades, make the grades to get into college, get into college, to get a degree, get a degree to get a job, get a job to make the money to then buy the time to do the things that make life worth living, right? Well. In my story, I'm looking around at the adult community, it's say age 1415. And these are people who follow the traditional path much farther than I have. And they don't look like they're in any kind of place that I'm trying to get to. You know, they're still looking for that thing that that I'm looking for. And so I'm wondering, well, is this a path for me, so me and some other really stupid friends kind of had this quarterlife crisis, and we decided we are like Peter Pan never going to grow up. We're just going to try and BASE jump and skydive and suck all the fun out of life that we possibly can recklessly probably die before we turn 18 and have any real responsibility. So you can see how much we appreciate it. Our parents. Yeah, Unknown Speaker 2:55 yeah. And Unknown Speaker 2:57 so we live like Nick Reed 2:58 this, but we didn't die, or at least I didn't die. And, but I did have an epiphany. And I was out surfing a hurricane. I think it was Katrina in Galveston. And I realized, I don't know if it was like the near death experience type inside or just a just an epiphany. But I said, this is a moment where I feel fully alive, where I feel truly free. And I can honestly say there's nowhere else in the world I would rather be than exactly where I am in this moment. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing than exactly what I'm doing right now. Well, I can't live in a hammock eating mangoes every single day surfing every day, if I want these moments to come more often than all the other ones. What is it seriously about surfing that, that I can't get from the rest of my life and education and a career in a family and a job and all the other things? What is it that I can't get? And so that question wasn't like a question you find in school, this was like a quest. And so I had to go on this quest for maybe a decade to figure out how to get that thing that makes life not just worth living for, but worth living fully for. And what I realized is I realized that it's not just me who's having a coming of age crisis, that in many ways, our society and our entire world is having a coming of age crisis. You know, we also are running from our responsibility and you know, using our freedom, really in irresponsible ways and you know, there's there's all the problems that you know, people complain about all the time that I don't have to list here but when people look out the window, see the world laying in ruins and past the point of no return and they say, Yep, never Neverland for me, buddy. Yeah, so I realized that, that there was a real opportunity there. Okay. An opportunity to play an active role to try and create the conditions that makes life more conducive to the kind of experiences that we think makes life worth living fully for and to inspire others to, to do the same. And so that's led me kind of to where I am today. Ari Gronich 5:18 Nice. Yeah, you know, I got to the opportunity to see Peter Pan at the pantages theatre in Los Angeles with Sandy Duncan. And that song, I won't grow up, I won't grow up, you know, it just always has stuck in my head, I won't grow up. If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree. I won't grow up, right. And that's kind of the idea that that people tend to, you know, I hear this this word a lot adulting. You know, this is a new word in the dictionary, it was just being a human being of age before that, right? I'm adulting. And, and it seems like, you know, the more we adult, the less fun we have. And the more serious life is, and the more problems we get. Did you find that to be fairly accurate? Nick Reed 6:18 Somehow, we've come to Alan Watts. He's a philosopher that was popular in the 60s and had a radio show, I believe in California, he talks about how we have learned to do things that we don't enjoy doing. And then we teach our children to grow up to do things that they don't enjoy doing to teach their children. And it's all retching, no vomit, we never get there. And I think that today, we have this. And people blame the educational system or the media or who knows, but without any blaming, we do have this idea that life is drudgery that you have to get through. And and not this, as he would say, musical thing that you were supposed to sing or dance as the music was being played, you know, it's this real serious pilgrimage, we have to get to that thing, at the end the success at the end of the road or heaven at the end of life, or whatever it is, you know, and we're all focused on that. And we're just flying by at the speed of light, not even looking out the window. And if we did, it would just be a blur anyway, because we're moving so fast. Ari Gronich 7:26 Yeah, so what is, you know, to me, like, I look at the world, it's changed a bit, we're starting to develop this nomadic society, because we're all in the digital age, we don't have to go to the building for the job. So people are starting this process of becoming more nomadic, which is kind of like going backwards in time, to a place where, you know, the gypsies would travel freely around, and we would explore the world, right? How do you think that not exploring the world has damaged kind of a country's ideals, our country, other countries, but damage the ideals and the the nature of how we act in our society? Nick Reed 8:20 Well, that's a really interesting question. I don't know, I would say that we're gonna have to find out, you know, people are locking themselves in their dungeon, for fear of going out, and, you know, maybe there's some real risk. But, I mean, I had Corona and made it through, and it was rough, it was pretty rough flu. And there's some my grandmother's got it and she's in the hospital with pneumonia. And, you know, it's it's a serious threat to people. But at the same time, there's risk every time you walk out your door, there's equal risk by getting in a car and driving on a freeway. And, you know, we're if you really calculate the risk and compare it to things that we do on a daily basis. There's some significant trade offs to not living your life and staying in the dungeon, you know, I mean, we're, we're growing up with our kids, you know, not being allowed to do things that we were allowed to do they, you know, kids don't climb trees anymore. Kids don't even go outside unsupervised for fear of the parents having CPS called on them. We're coddling our youth and coddling of the American mind is a great book by Greg lukianoff. And Jonathan Hyatt, who I had a great conversation with about this not too long ago. You know, I don't really know how this is going to affect us. But I do know that people are getting on socialize, and people are and it's really easy to dehumanize and objectify people, and therefore treat people more like objects than humans, the more distance you get from them, right? And especially you can, you know, I mean, like, let's say people on the other side of the world, let's say, you've never been to China, or you've never been to Peru, or Iceland, right? And you're talking about those Icelanders, okay? And their culture and all you know about them is what you've read in a, you know, Encyclopedia Britannica or something. It's all an abstract, like your your knowledge and relationship to those people is not direct, it's not firsthand, it's all abstract. And it's way easier for that relationship to degrade into something that's not good. The more distanced you get. And so here we are, we're all isolated, and quarantining and locking down and travels, you know, being restricted. And there's something about being able to be introduced to different ideas, different perspectives, different viewpoints that enriches and adds to our own, that I think is super valuable, especially today, if you look at where we're at. There are people who are more so divided politically, that they can't have a conversation with their family at Thanksgiving, people aren't even getting together for Thanksgiving, first of all, but if they did, they wouldn't be able to get along. And people dread it, because their uncle is going to go off about the president. And that's going to start a conversation with their sister. And before you know it, everybody's looking down at their dinner plate trying to avoid it or up in a fight depending on their their temperament, right. And people can't talk to each other, much less get along, much less work together to make a difference. And we need each other's perspectives in order to to grow in order to arrive more nearly to the truth. And in order to get anything done. You know. And so it's it's really going to, it could possibly damage our ability to even have a democracy, if people don't get that exposure to a diversity of ideas anymore. And we really just sit on Facebook with our echo chambers. Ari Gronich 12:05 Right. You know, one of the things I love about the, the Israeli government and this may be controversial to some but it this is a piece of the government that I like is there's 18 parties all with an equal say, and if you know any Jewish person, then you know that for every one Jewish person, there's kind of opinions, because we're always exploring the options, the possibilities, the thoughts, we're having discussions about what is possible, what's not possible, what's real, what's not real, what the interpretations are, of things. It's it's an interesting culture in general. And, and so there's a diversity in conversation, even between two people, you could have two people having a conversation that goes into 20. tangents, right? So the question that I have, and it's a question I've had for a while is, how do we remember how to listen? And listen, not with the response that we're about to give, but listen with the intention of learning, maybe the truth, maybe not the truth, but at least the perspective of the person and where they're coming from? Nick Reed 13:28 I think we really need to do a thought experiment. And that a thought experiment is what would life really be like, if everybody thought, and walked and talked and believes just like us, it's in order to actually be interested and curious about other people and their point of view and their ideas. You have to be able to think about what it would be like to lose that. Okay. Now, so you can imagine, let's say you're in a dream, everybody's had this kind of dream, a lucid dream, where you wake up and you realize you're dreaming? Well, let's say you have a lucid dream, okay. And you, you wake up, you go, Oh, my gosh, I'm dreaming. And you look around and you realize, I am dreaming. All of this. Everybody in this dream is actually a character in my dream. Wow. So so then play with it. Okay. So let's imagine, and I'm not sure this really happens. But let's imagine Nothing can happen that you don't dream is going to happen, right? No surprises. You are the creator, in your dream world. Alright. And you make everything up. Now. Let's play that out. Okay. Everybody who is going to say something? You already know what they're going to say. Everybody who thinks something, right? They can't think anything different than you because you're the dreamer of them. There is nobody there just a figment of you, okay. In this scenario played out for a day, what's that, like, played out for a year, what's that like, where you have total control, where you are all knowing and all powerful, was probably pretty cool for a day, right? played out for two days. Now three days, nothing can come, you can't get hurt, you can't die, you don't need to sleep, you don't need to eat, you don't need anything, you don't need any one played out for a lifetime. How about eternity, what a boring and lonely world this is going to be you're going to want to hit the surprise button, you know, you're going to want some risks and some mystery, some adventure, some unknown, some diversity, some others, some companies some companionship, but a boring and lonely world, it becomes in world full of just you, you know. And if you were to actually experience like the flip side of life, right, because we have this now we are in constant companionship and communion with others who are totally different and infinitely unique from us all the time, you would come to the conclusion that this is actually pretty good, this is great, you know, we are we have a sense of, of, or an opportunity to actually get to know others to grow, to share this experience of life in this journey to have a meaningful role in other's lives and in the in the, you know, in the way that this world unfolds. You know, this is an incredible opportunity, just being born a human without you having to do anything, you know, when a human being is born, where it's totally different than any other being when a bug is born. It can take off in the air and fly right away, right? There's nothing has to learn do all of its actions is going to take its entire life are present and fixed through its genetics and its heredity, it's right there at birth, when a deer is born, can take off on a spirit within minutes. Right, right. human being is born, we're the most helpless creature on the face of the earth. And that's because we are born fundamentally differently than any other being on this planet. And that is with magnitudes more degrees of freedom, that life for us can be an open ended book, we can choose to show up and be interested in people or just wait our turn to talk we can choose to be creative or to be destructive, to be nice to be mean to be accepting to be intolerant, we have the opportunity to be a gift to take an active role in this world. And that's totally different. And that right there is an incredible opportunity. You know, when we're sitting here, as human beings with with all this freedom that people use in so many ways that make people wish we were not so free. I don't think people understand the opportunity. Through freedom through you can receive things freedom, things become a gift. Okay, right. Ari Gronich 18:04 So hold on a second, go ahead. The conversations that I've been having lately, there's this big push against the freedom kind of it they don't call it that, but it's more about what's your civic responsibility, what's your duty to others, what's your, you know, what your actions do so much contribute to other people's lives, good or bad, that you have a civic duty to say, wear a mask or, you know, quarantine yourself and a hole in the ground where he can't see sunshine and you can't see people and you can't you know, do the things that make life worth living, because it's your civic duty, to not do the things that make life worth living, because you might possibly die otherwise, and see, to me that's like, just death while I'm living while I'm breathing. So how do we balance those two? Nick Reed 19:12 Well, the word responsibility is interesting because its meaning has literally been reversed to the opposite. Okay, so responsibility. I think it's sort of spun that out from Latin. It, it doesn't mean what it means today. Responsibility today means your duty, your obligation, it's what you have to do, right? It used to mean your ability to respond. And your ability to respond is totally different. Right responsibility, what you have to do your ability to respond, is what you can do. It's possibilities right? And obligations, reduces possibilities down to one. Okay, so I want the personal responsibility is Not an obligation and a duty and something that you owe to the world. You know, this is some kind of new drudgery, religion, in my opinion, you know, the opportunity here for people to take an active role. And to be a gift to the world is not about you, fulfilling your obligation and paying your debts. This is about you getting a sense of meaning and fulfillment out of life. And this is an opportunity, you know, when, for example, like we just interviewed a comedian the other day talking about jokes are a really interesting thing, when you share a joke with somebody. Jokes only have value after you've heard in the first time, when you give them to others, you enjoy jokes again, when other people laugh at them, it is by giving them up and sharing them and putting them in the other people's worlds that you get value out of it. Well, it's the same thing with life. When I'm sitting here and just thinking about myself and serving myself. Yeah, that can be fun. I surfed hurricanes and skydive and bass jumped, and it's a great adrenaline rush, but it doesn't contribute meaning to anybody else's life. And so to do with the waves in the ocean, and the mountains did for me, for other people, creates an endless opportunity to see that get that same Richmond through other people's eyes. There's science on this, this isn't woowoo mystical nonsense, you know this, there's science that shows that when a human being does an act of kindness, for example, for another person that's doing something without the expectation of getting anything in return, it creates a chemical cocktail in the brain of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, the love chemical that Bond's people together. I mean, we're talking about a high end people that's extremely pleasant and natural to, and it doesn't just happen in the person receiving the act of kindness, guess what? It happens in the giver of the act of kindness. And it happens in everybody who observes the act of kindness, and three degrees out. So if you want to talk about getting what I got from surfing from the rest of life, and everywhere else, this is it, buddy. This isn't an obligation. There's no obligation for anybody to do anything to be a non contributing zero in this world. All right, that's the baseline. You don't owe anybody anything. But the opportunity and the benefit, if you do is you get to experience what it's like to live a full life. This way. Henry Thoreau talked about to dig deep suck the marrow from life, you know, so that I will not when I come to die, discover that I had not lived. Right. When you're surrounded by gifts. That is to be rich. Yeah, that's the opportunity. That's it. There's no obligation, right? Ari Gronich 23:04 That's the other one, you know, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. It's a Dylan Unknown Speaker 23:12 Dylan Thomas, not Bob. Ari Gronich 23:15 But you know that, that saying to me is like, you must commit yourself to fully express life from within. Because life is light. And we don't want to extinguish that in people. And, you know, this whole world that we're living in right now is an interesting kancil culture. It's this political correctness. It's this, this level of responsibility being what what what they're calling being woke, right. There's two people who are woke one side and the other side, there were I'm woke because I'm politically correct. Or I'm woke because I can see the conspiracy or I'm woke because whatever it is, like, are you really have you come out of the dream, because I don't see the world shifting out of the dream of separation right now. I see this divisiveness because people don't know how to talk to get to each other without being in full on reaction and being in you know, I do it myself. What I love about doing these podcast interviews is that I'm forced to listen and listen clearly. So that I have what you're saying to me in the forefront of my response rather than what I want to say to you because I got reacted to something you said right? So I had a reaction to it. But so I love this format of interview because it forces me to learn more and more and more how to listen. I think that's a skill set that that we're lacking in. in society right now. nobody's really listening for the nuance for the common sense for the critical thinking for the, the, you know, the minutia, they're only responding to the generality and reacting to their own echo chamber, basically. Nick Reed 25:36 Which is a delusion. It's a total delusion that your image of other people is them. It's not. It's a caricature, I mean, the mind, I don't think that this is a evil thing that, you know, people on the left and the right or whatever the top and the bottom think that the other is always, you know, this greedy bastard trying to do everybody in? I don't I don't think so. I think it's, like, maybe in our evolutionary development, it's, the mind likes to conserve calories. And so it's easier rather than looking at a person, like you're looking at him for the first time, every single time you look at him, is this human, a tiger? Or is this, you know, a mouse? What is it, you know, to make a shortcut, you know, to take a little snapshot. But eventually, we built up this mental collage of mental images that I think can blind us to the truth. You know, it's like the map we're holding up in front of the territory. And when the territory changes and doesn't match the map, which happens like an actual map, like, you know, the landscape pushes up mountains and opens up canyons and rivers meander, and people change, buddy, you know, and so our maps need to be refreshed. We have to be able to listen to each other or else what we'll end up with a civil war or civil conflict. You know, we're going to have riots in the streets and what's going to happen when the other this is what happened in the park, the ad people became cockroaches. Right? This is what happened in the Holocaust. This is what happens in war, when people become enemy combatants, rather than people. We're, as soon as you can set up a caricature of another person you can say and do things to a caricature that you would never do to a human being. And so it's it's time for a refresh it's time to start listening to each other and overcome the polarization that I think and dehumanization that is alienating us. Ari Gronich 27:43 Right? So to me that's, that's because the labels like I would love it if we didn't have any of these labels. Red, blue, left, right, snowflake, Nick Reed 27:55 it's always red and blue, isn't it Bloods and Crips? I mean, yeah, exactly. Ari Gronich 28:02 I was actually looking at at the the red and blue map and the song from colors popped in my head. I don't know if anybody remembers colors. The movie was Sean Penn and Robert Duvall back in the 80s. But you know, there's a song colors and like, red and blue Crips and Bloods it just don't matter gonna fly for your life when my shotgun scatters, you know, this, this, this concept of if you live on this block, you're okay, because I live on this block. But if you live on that block, no longer are you okay? Because you're now on the opposite block. And and I'm not going to go to your block either. So don't come to mind because I'm not going there. Right? This tribalism kind of tribalism is interesting, because, and I'm writing a book actually called tribal living in a modern world, the corporate culture revolution, I'm going to do a series of these. And to me there, there's a massive benefit to going back to a tribe alized kind of a culture, meaning purpose driven culture, not not just living next to you know, people because they happen to live there. But like creating communities that are purpose driven, so like my, maybe one community, and this is for corporations. But let's say you know, you have a corporation and it's an engineering company. Well, you got engineers in one space, you got accountants in the other space, you got finance people in the other space, you got marketing people in the other space, and nobody is really connected, that are in the same projects. And so if you took those people put them in their projects. Now you have this tribe, this family, that is all going for the same goal, your productivity goes up Up, people flaking on you goes down because they're kind of accountable to their family, right? versus this individualized in your boxes in your cubicles in your, you know, corporate offices, that kind of thing. But in the other's respective of tribal, right, is that brutality of, well, if you don't perform, then you're out, you're ostracized, you're gone, right. So the meaning of tribal has has taken itself into several places, but I like those tribal cultures of like sitting around a campfire. And talking about the day, talking about what you guys are going to do tomorrow, talking about how you're feeling, you know, whatever it is, but that that circle around a campfires and always been in my head as the place it's like sitting around a dinner table, the place that we're missing, that that level of community connection, we don't have dinner with our families anymore, because everybody's working. So there's, you know, the family dinner time is kind of, you know, going by the wayside. And those kinds of things to me are tribal, but I'll let you continue with your definition and so forth of it. Nick Reed 31:25 No, no, no, I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, I think that there's aspects of it's interesting, I've never heard it framed as tribal life. But I would, but what I used to think of is, like smaller, more intimate community life, you know, has extreme benefits. You know, we live in large societies where you meet somebody on the street, you'll never see him again, you're basically on the internet, you know, and there's no natural social consequences. If you act like a jerk, or do things unfriendly, you don't lose friends, you know, there's no friends, they're strangers, they're all strangers. But in a community, if you act like unfriendly, you're gonna lose friends. You if you act like a jerk, you have to wake up, and you have to see that person tomorrow, and not just be in their company. But real communities often have a lot of inter reliance, you rely on these people. And so there's, there's, I think there's less need for artificial consequences. Like you don't need 35 million laws, all backed by felonies in jail time and and our bloated prison and criminal justice system, because you can replace it with natural social consequences. I also think that it humanizes things a bit, you actually know people beyond the surface, and it helps get past the caricature phenomenon. of objectifying people, you know, there's an interesting researchers named I think, Dunbar and he came up with, he researched people and chimpanzees and species, and he realized that there's like, there's a limit to the amount of relationships any individual person or chimpanzee can can hold, before it becomes really inefficient to act as a group, but just abstract, like, you can only have so many real friends before. It's no longer you can't maintain them. There's no they're no longer real friends. They're their acquaintances, right. And you don't really know those people. But at that line, right, is, is a real line where communities become, I guess, somewhat tribal, right? Like you can't be we can't be I don't even think we're a real country of 340 million people like, what, where our real sense of togetherness is maybe with a few people in our lives right now. You know, but the tribalism that we usually traditionally use this here that the term being used in is political. And it's weird because communities gone. People don't have community, they don't even know their neighbors, to a large degree, and politics or political identity or belonging has taken its place. So now people feel a sense of unity or togetherness, and identify with people who share the same political views, or political affiliations rather, it's really partisan tribalism. Not just like, we we have the same purpose. We have the same beliefs because it's not. There's actually if you if you really talk to people about the principles behind people certain policy positions. There's a huge discrepancy, everybody, even I'm guilty of it between our personal beliefs and our political ideologies. Because at that level, it just becomes so abstract when you're talking about supranational macro action. nomic policies, you know, you and I, we, I mean, nobody's got the whole picture. There's nobody who's all knowing and all powerful here and got it all figured out. And so when we go to school, and we see our kid in the lunch line, and, you know, you know, Brad is beating up Johnny for his lunch money, you know, we're like, Hey, stop that. You don't take people's things. He can give it to you, if he wants to? Well, then you talk about the IRS, and everybody's like, Oh, well, you gotta pay your taxes. You know, we have huge discrepancies between between the way that we actually believe that we should get along, and the way that we vote, and the policies, and the the party is that we think are okay, and so I think that that is really the lack the lack of community. And we've shifted this need for a sense of community and belonging to politics. Everything is politics. We're Homo politicus. The news has one perspective, if you know, you got ABC, and CNN and you got Fox News, and whatever else, and everyone's like, oh, they're so different. No, they're the same. Everything they talk about is through the lens of politics and government, there is no other dimension of human life that you get viewed through the media, it's all politics. And that is the exact same background, you know, and but there's so many other dimensions of human life, Ari Gronich 36:24 there's community, you know, I missed the voice. And that's the way it was. Because that period of time, it was a revolutionary period when TV was just coming out. And news was literally, fact telling. We just told the fact there was the the, the news channels were not allowed. Nick Reed 36:53 Walter Cronkite, Ari Gronich 36:54 they were they were not allowed to be profit builders. They weren't allowed to be things that made money. Government was telling them basically, the FCC said, you cannot make money off your news. And so it was news was fact, commentary was commentary. But news was fact. That's the way it was. And I think it was in the 70s or late 70s, early 80s, maybe when when Reagan was president that he started doing all of the the deregulation. And they deregulated things like pharmaceuticals being allowed to be advertised to people on TV, and billboards and stuff like that. It never was allowed to do that before. And then also, things like news was made to be allowed to be a for profit, which is why they started with that 24 hour news cycle eventually, because, oh, well, we can be a profit. Great. Let's see, the more we do, the more advertisement we get, the more money we make. And then the advertisement became who who's the big money companies, the pharmaceutical companies. So they're advertising on the news. If you watch news right now, who's the advertisers, the majority of the advertisers, the pharmaceutical companies, the agricultural companies, food companies that are processed food companies, pretty much I mean, you don't really see much about organic and healthy foods. So the the messaging that be that came out of that deregulation is, whatever we are doing is always good, because that's what we did before. And so now we can sell you on the stuff that we're doing. And it may or may not be good for you. And that is the intellectual property that you're sucking in your brain as well as the food that you're sucking in your mouth, the pill that you're taking the shot that you're having. I mean, it's all the same, on that same level, but that's the history of when that started to come. Come to, you know, to pass that that everything we started to hear. And it was a slow ramp up. But nowadays, it's like, always like the 10 seconds, seven seconds, soundbites. It was a slow ramp up to that, you know, back when I was a kid, it was a two minute commercial, not a 32nd commercial or a 10 second commercial, right. And so, that's where people I think, started to get programmed more into this idea that the things that they're seeing aren't correct aren't real news. And now there's this trepidation about everything that you see either we believe it fully or we don't believe it at all. Depending on who you are, right, so the messaging that we're getting is really confusing to people. Is it not? Nick Reed 40:10 Oh, absolutely. Our attention span is, well, according to Google seven seconds, we're almost, we've almost beat out the goldfish for the shortest attention span. And you know, what's crazy, is, it's it's a weird kind of feedback loop. Because, you know, people complain about the media and social media, creating echo chambers, right. But really, their algorithms were designed, we brought on Jason Pfeiffer of editor in chief Entrepreneur Magazine to talk about this social dilemma. He was telling us that I mean, their algorithms are designed to show us what we want, right. And so we're just always getting more and more or really even only, and exclusively what we want, or what the algorithms or at least we're showing the algorithms we want. And I think that there's a weird space here where like, whatever it is, that is gonna hold our attention ends up being shown to us by the algorithms. But even if it's a human, the news is showing us what sells, and I don't think people realize the power that we have in that to make a difference. I mean, it wasn't too long ago, there was no organic option. In food, there was no consumer label, to even let people know, what's GMO, what's not what's organic, and what's not what's anything and not what's got what's got in it, there was no nutrition label, I mean, it was literally nothing. And then all the sudden people advocated in one a consumer choice. And it was because there was a market for it. Now you have 94% of millennials who say they will switch which brand they buy a product or service from if they know that it is supporting a cause they believe in or something, we have a new consumer market that's transforming the whole institution of business for good. And it's happening because of the conscious consumers out there that's growing its value based decisions, it's no longer just going to make my buying choices based off convenience and, and price, people will sacrifice 60% of consumers say they will sacrifice price and convenience to support a brand that they they believe in. Right. And these are. And that's why you see every company website getting greenwashed with how carbon neutral they are and how many trees they planted this year. You know, it's because that's what people want. Now, what people want is shifting, and because of that the boss of business is making different decisions, because we are that boss, you know, and I think there's huge opportunity there. Like, why does Joe Rogan, and Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein have an audience in the first place? It's because, you know, the institution of mainstream media sucks is because people are going somewhere else. They're voting with their feet, and their dollars. And that's a strong signal to mainstream media, that what people want is different. And so if you want to exist, you've got to be able to provide meet meet the new needs of the market. And that's a huge power. You and I are having a podcast, in fact, because of this shift in the market, right. And I totally agree, I think that there's nothing preventing any media institution from being a nonprofit. In fact, there's nothing preventing any government department from being a nonprofit, everything in the government that's being done, could be funded voluntarily through through a nonprofit. In fact, the government usually duplicates a lot of services that nonprofits are already doing, and they just compete with them using your tax dollars. There's nothing preventing anybody from doing things in a nonprofit way. It costs you as an individual $150 to set up a nonprofit and get started. All right, and we have internet and technology and Kickstarters and start fun. There's all kinds of ways that you as an individual can get connected and get things going right Unknown Speaker 44:27 now. So Nick Reed 44:28 if anybody thinks this is a problem, I mean, there's never been a better time to be the solution. Ari Gronich 44:34 Yeah, absolutely. So how do we how do we, you know, people go from really focused on the problem to focused on the solution. And I'll give you just a quick example of what I'm talking about. So my buddy, AJ Ollie, is a film producer and media expert and things like that he's he did a movie called Wild While Black Love is the answer. And it's basically going through his story of walking down the street in his neighborhood in, in Maryland, I think it was in Baltimore, and getting harassed and guns pulled on him by police. And how he basically, you know, defended himself by calling his attorney and saying, if you want to talk to my attorney, he's right here. And so they ended up harassing him for almost a year stopping him for walking while black in the wrong neighborhood. And even though it was his neighborhood, and, but what he did with it wasn't just complained that I'm black, and I'm walking around and people are harassing me, right? He created a solution to it. Love is the answer, which I don't remember all the llv. But it's like, listen to people who are different than you understand them that the Oh was, is something I don't remember, though. The V is volunteer to be a part of the solution. You know, it's like, he created this whole program. Now this program has gone out to police station after police station after police station, the movie has been picked up by the NFL, and they're taking it into some of the police station, some of the players, he created a solution to the problem that he saw in front of him rather than just complaining about the issue as as it is. And he's an activist, he takes an active role, that's what activists means is you're taking an active role in the thing that you believe the most about. And so that's the question is, I want to spark through this show, through the things that we say here, I want to spark a mass of activism. And people taking action on whatever it is they believe in, because, frankly, I don't care what you believe in, you're not going to offend me, my roommate, who happens to be my co dad is, you know, kind of, like an interesting guy, because, you know, he hates everybody equally. And I, you know, and he says, I hate them all equally, especially my own people. And that's just because I love them as equally, right. He's, he's an interesting guy. But we don't agree on much of anything, when it comes to certain things that way. But we're like close friends, we, you know, we we have an affinity towards each other where we and we love having the debate. That's even the better thing because we'll start debating, and we'll argue and we'll fight, and then we'll come up with a solution and find out where we're same and where we're different. And what those differences are. It's an interesting dynamic, frankly. But the point is, is that activism for solution, rather than complain about a problem, and then connect with people who are diverse, from your thoughts, so that you can increase your perception of the world through other people's reality. Nick Reed 48:27 No, I think you nailed it. I think you absolutely nailed it. That's so interesting, that you guys are complete opposites. My wife and I two, she's from Sweden, you know, she grew up, you know, it's more more socialist culture. Actually, I think they are not quite socialist, according to their government. But anyway, people say, well, what's that, like, being married to a socialist being, you know, with your views? I said, Well, you know, she takes half my paycheck, but great benefits. But I'll tell you, so there's a difference between being. I mean, these people, you're talking about her, that that's an entrepreneur, but it's a different kind of entrepreneur. It's, it's like a social entrepreneur, and, you know, starting a nonprofit and trying to make a difference. It's, it's no different than entrepreneurship. You know, when people want, I mean, everything in this room, everything in your pocket, and everything that we're using to make this podcast right now was once the idea of somebody who said, How can I? What can I do to improve people's lives through a product or service? And that's how nonprofits dark too. It's usually somebody who sees something going on, and they think of a way to fix it or create value. And that's what they do. And people do this every single day in their lives as parents with their kids. You know, there's there's no way we're not doing it. And what's your buddy? What's your buddy did is very common is called public awareness campaign. Most problems are exacerbated by the degree to which they remain in the dark and so raise awareness around them and shedding light on them. And I don't mean like spotlight like, you know, kancil culture, we're going to try and shut this voice out solve a problem. But raising awareness about no one can fix a problem if they don't understand it. You know what I mean? And so why do people know what the purple, the pink ribbon means? Why do people know what the Ice Bucket Challenge is? These are really creative ways that people raised awareness around a cost that they cared about, and money to solve a problem. And there's nothing preventing anybody from doing the same thing and raising awareness around the issues that they care about the most. You can also start a business and be a real entrepreneur, their products and services that solve people's problems all day long. Everything in this room is you can also though most problems in one way or another are also exacerbated by the absence of strong community or toxic or unhealthy community. You know, and and the police relations that you're talking about is also exacerbated by that. Our community can strongly affect issues, especially social issues. You know, in California, police are afraid to go and arrest somebody for join, even though it's illegal, because, you know, millionaires are walking around looking like homeless people, you know, the community is totally different. They don't know who they're gonna arrest, they're gonna end up losing their job getting suspended, this guy's got some powerful lawyers, you know, we can change that, that culture and the community and build a stronger and healthier one. And that can really help a lot of the social issues that people care about. But you can also actually reform or supplement or innovate within the existing institutions. If there's a problem, too. There was a person, Melanie Armstrong, in Mississippi who she started a small business, she wanted to do African hair braiding. And she was told that she wasn't allowed to, and needed permission, she had to go and get a license to braid hair. And this was actually set up and lobbied by the brick and mortar cosmetology businesses who didn't want any competition in Mississippi. And so it was $10,000 to get this license, and an over like, 10,000 hours in school. I mean, it was more more training than you needed to be an EMT or a firefighter or policeman or anything. It was ridiculous. And hair braiding wasn't even in it. Yeah, go ahead. Old doctors. Ari Gronich 52:35 College is approximately 3800 hours that's in that's full through their internship. chiropractors, it's about 40 to 100 hours, but that's for a doctorate. That's, that's a seven year eight year committed degree with an internship. That's how many hours it is. And so yeah, 10,000 is quite a bit, especially for braiding hair. Is Nick Reed 53:00 that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah. I mean, don't quote me on that. It could be 2001. It could be seven. I don't actually remember the number. I can barely remember my kids birthdays. But it was a significant amount of hours. And ridiculous. Yeah. But people can supplement and fight that, you know, we fought some occupational licensing barriers in Texas to try and protect some complementary alternative medical innovators and oncologists in Houston, from a witch hunt by the Texas Medical Board, you know, and people, people can fight back and create more accountability, and try and remove some of these barriers to people improving other's lives and succeeding and doing so. And here. So we had an oncologist Dr. Brzezinski, who he had found out that some cancers have a genetic component to them. And through the epigenetic process, right. You can you can affect genes you can turn on and off their expression, using certain foods and pharmaceutical compositions. And so he would do this and he would treat cancer patients. And according to the definition of what a cure means, which is five years without returning, he cured many cancer patients who had cancers that were exacerbated by genetic conditions. And what he what he did at the time was an innovation. It had never been done. He was a medical innovator, right. But instead of being a hero, the Texas Medical Board tried to take his license and the FDA and they had been on a witch hunt for a decade. And this guy had spent millions 10s of millions of dollars just fighting to keep trying to save lives, and he's just improving people's lives. And he's a successful practice. You know, he's got a big building. And so what happened was the Texas Medical Board comprised of mostly traditional doctors And maybe I think they allowed one chiropractor on the board recently, and they had to fight for that. They didn't like competition. And so they really narrowly defined what's called the standard of care. And the standard of care is defined by whatever is the standard of the day is acceptable if you want to keep your license, so everybody's got a permission slip, and they can yank your permission slip, if you act outside of the status quo of treatment, and what's acceptable today. So here's this medical, so it makes all medical innovation, an act of civil disobedience. So this guy, and here's the crazy thing. At the time, they were trying to take his license and put him on trial. It had already become the standard of care, it was being done all over the place. Okay, but it wasn't the standard of care at the time that he invented it. And so they were threatening to take his license. So this is an example of a barrier that a lot of people face right now, when kids say, what do you want to be when you grow up, and they say I want to be x, whatever it is, they have a one in four chance that they're going to be told they don't have permission. And they're going to have to go through some of the barriers that this doctor and other complimentary alternative medical doctors, and Melanie Armstrong in Mississippi, go through called an occupational licensing, and much of it is not for your safety. It's anti competitive business practices, that our institution of business is still engaging in by going to their politicians and saying, you know what, there's a safety issue that you don't know about, because you're a politician, and you're not in my field. And you should create a law that blocks other people from engaging in this profession. until they've they've they can pay to play. Right. And it's a major issue. Yeah. So anyway, there's lots of ways people can engage in change. And that's, that's some of them, you can reform and innovate. Ari Gronich 57:01 Yeah, I know. I know, Dr. burzynski, or know of his him and his story. I had because I'm in the medical field, we had a functional medicine practitioner, she was a gynecologist, in Orlando. And she got her entire practice, like rated, because the AMA, which is pretty much the mob, the medical mob, didn't like the fact that that she on a regular basis, had patients that would show up for visits and not be prescribed something. So the standard of care as you were staying, saying, the standard of care is that within four visits, they either need a prescription or a procedure, if they don't get a prescription or a procedure meaning a pharmaceutical prescription, not not maybe a supplement, not maybe like, like exercise for you know, for a while and a lifestyle prescription but a pharmaceutical prescription or a procedure or a medical procedure, because she didn't do that. The ama and the Florida Department of Health decided that they wanted to investigate her and literally ripped apart her office took all her files, I mean, talk about breaking HIPAA law, just by by rating an office and taking the doctor files and why because standard of care. The standard of care sucks. The standard of care in medicine is absolutely horrific. It's, you know, seven minutes max in an office these days, according to the insurance companies. So, you know, you can't even get your story across, let alone get them to understand what's going on with your body, let enough for them to be able to, to treat you. And it's it's fairly ridiculous, you know, the system as a whole has. You know, this is a harsh word, but it's rape, the health of American, you know, public, I mean, and it has nothing to do with the doctors. It has nothing that the doctors are here trying to be of service, the system that they're in is bullying, and intimidating, threatening them every day with their livelihood. Because if you're out of school with a couple, you know, a quarter million to half a million dollar debt. And now you're being threatened because you're practicing, you know, without the standard of care. You could lose your license. Now all of a sudden that debt is completely unpaid hackable. And you can't even work in your in your profession. It's, I mean, if people knew, to the depths of their knowledge, what is really happening in the medical world and how much The monetary system is affecting, you know, what happens in people's health? I don't think that they would stand for it. Maybe they would. But I don't I think people know that it's broken. They just don't know why and how. Nick Reed 1:00:17 So, and we're doing it. Yeah, we It is, it is our fault, I have to say. And I mean, everybody that none of this machinery returns without the gears of each and every single one of our participation. We are the system. And I just, you know, when you were talking, I'm sitting here thinking about the the standard of care and the issue, it does suck this, this whole situation. But it's, and it's not the doctors, it's the one size fits all. approach that's top down, it doesn't work. It stifles creativity and innovation out because you're you're trying to micromanage from a distance. And it doesn't work in giant corporations. And it doesn't work in giant governments, and it doesn't work in the medical industry. It doesn't work in any practice, when you're trying to dictate what everybody should do. You have different people with different needs, every single person is a unique individual with different problems. And it's there is no one size fits all. It doesn't work in education. Any teacher who walks in a room and try it into a third grade classroom and tries to teach to the statistically average third grader misses every single person in that room. No one is the perfect statistical average, kids are all over the place. And they're all over the place in different areas of their learning. It's the same in the medical field, you can't prescribe a one size fits all for anything. And so the top down approach that we have is really the problem. And you know whose fault it is. It's the people who do top down thinking, who's going to become the decision makers who comprises the people making and enforcing the decisions we do. And you know what, who thinks top down? We do. Let me give an example. I used to do this workshop. Actually, I used to masquerade around as a substitute teacher, so that I could test out my social experiments and workshops on unsuspecting audiences. So I went into this classroom, and I did this experiment. And I said, Okay, today, guys, we're gonna change the world. So here's what I want you to do. I was in Sweden, was the international High School. And this was a conversational English class. So I can do whatever I want, as long as it's in English. So I say, Okay. Get into groups. identify what's one thing you want to see change in the world more than anything else? All right, then to what's best plan you can think of to make it happen. Three, do it in English, come up and present. Okay, so boom, get into groups. All right, five minutes has elapsed, and they're all done back in their seats. And I'm impressed. I'm like, Wow, you guys solve all the world's problems in five minutes? Come on up. Let's hear it. Bachelor number one. So they come on up. And here's kind of what it sounded like. Well, we think that poverty is a big issue. And what the Prime Minister should do is to the next person, well, we think that the criminal justice system is a big issue. And you know, what the man should do is that it did the DA. Well, we think that the environments that they issue and you know, what the UN should do is, and I realized something. They're all top down answers. Nobody had anything that they could walk out the door and actually do. And this is extremely disempowering. And I did this all across the United States, in schools as well. And you know, what is the exact same outcome? Everybody is thinking in terms of top down solutions, they're thinking in terms of what the president should do. And when everybody's doing that, you know, what everybody's not doing Ari Gronich 1:04:16 anything to solve any problems. Nick Reed 1:04:20 It's all somebody else. And the worst part about it is when you when you're thinking in terms of top down solutions, we are creating and supporting and acquiescing to a one size fits all solutions. Because you know, what, 500 people in Washington DC, cannot logistically, it's impossible solve all the problems of 340 million people across a continent that they've never met and don't know anything about. It is science. It is impossible to do. And this is a giant delusion that we have, that we're going to solve our problems through top down. Thank you. We are creating the problem, you know, the Einstein quote, you can't solve a problem and the same level of awareness that's creating it. This is us guys. Hello, you want to be woke? Wake up, we need to start stop thinking from the bottom up. And the medical industry is a perfect example of it. Ari Gronich 1:05:16 Yeah, absolutely. You know, people talk to me all the time about how bad big government is, and how bad government is, and how bad big businesses and how bad you know, these things are? And I'm like, so who's running the company? who's running the company? who's running the government? Is that person a person? Is it? Is it a? Is it like people the like, oh, the deep state, right? Are they people? Because if there are people, then we have those people, you know, through sex. And then we raised those people through our ideals. And then they started acting on our ideals when they got to those places of power. That sounds like the people to me. So why is it that? Why do you think that people want to separate themselves from the thing that that they created? And then hold it up to some highest, you know, position of authority that can overthrow or overtake or over? Well over the people, the people? because, to me, it's like, we are the people? Oh, that's the saying, Is it more? Nick Reed 1:06:42 somewhere? I heard that once maybe it was in a movie, I don't know. Why do we have this, this, this this obsessive stated in our minds Ari Gronich 1:06:53 of the entity versus the people running the entity because nothing is evil inherent of itself. Government is not evil, governmental systems are not evil. People are the people who do the things can be evil, or just the things that they're doing. Could be let's take it away from evil versus good, right? Lack of optimization versus optimized. Nick Reed 1:07:22 Or error or ignorance, right, we're all acting in ignorance, we don't have the full picture, that I think there's a lot more innocence to the picture than then than people think. And the systems that we have, they oftentimes do create barriers. But there are no systems without people, it all comes back to the we are people in this we are the gears in the machinery of it. And we give away our power way too easily. You know, the the scene from they live where the preacher standing up saying, they are our owners, they own us, we're controlled, we love to find a perpetrator and to play the victim. And there's a kind of virtuosity and righteousness about it. I don't think today that we know how to solve a problem without creating an enemy. We have this this war mentality that we have to find an enemy, polarize it, isolate them and attack them. You know, we that's our approach to Corona. That's our approach to everything. We have the war on drugs, the war on poverty, and the war on war on everything, you know, war on disease, we're going to war it all right. And the problem is, is when you go around looking for a perpetrator, you're always in the victim story, and you give away your power. And the power that people have is incredible. You know, when my kids were born, I'll give you a good example. My first kid was born Jessica, she's four years old now. They she was born, she didn't look like the name that we picked out. Right? Which was Olivia, I was like, I look like that She looks like a Jessica. So I was they said, Well, what do you want to name or we have to write something down. And I said, I don't know. I'm sorry. And so all the sudden this beautiful birth process because they got afraid they have requirements to fill out an application of live birth turned into like a bureaucratic proceeding. And anytime that somebody tries to turn one of the most meaningful experiences in my life into a bureaucratic legal proceeding, I'm going to push back so we didn't sign any paperwork. So we're driving away. They're literally stuffing paperwork in the window to sign as we're driving away. So she ended up with you know, no social security number no birth certificate. I think there is a birth certificate is priceless baby read somewhere, but we didn't have any of that. And then you know, okay, here we are a few months later and my wife's ready to go visit her family in Sweden so they can meet our first child. And she says, Okay, great, we need a passport. Nick, you've figured this out. So I sent in the application. And I sent in so much documentation to establish citizenship and identity. It was a, I mean, it was like a novel thicker than your book. And it had everything in it. And they didn't even look at it. I just got Johnny, you know, processor sent me this automated boilerplate letter said, Sorry, no social, no birth certificate, your application has been put on put on hold, right. So I'm, like raging against the system right now. Oh, bureaucracy, Oh, we got this is our life, you know. And I say Hold on a second. Every single part of the system I'm raging against is made up of and created by and run by human beings. So I call up the passport agency. And somebody answers and they say, Hello, this is so and so you know, it's a passport, blah, blah, blah, can I help you? And I say yes. Can I speak to your supervisor? And so I get a supervisor on the phone, and she says, Hello, this is so and so the supervisor? And I say yes, can I speak to your supervisor? Okay, sure. And I do this until there is no more supervisors. And then I say, Hi, look, I'm about to become a casualty and the bureaucratic process here. Please help me and let me explain what's going on. It would really make my day, if you could call this processor and tell him to actually look at the documentation that we sent, because we got a plane ticket to catch. And she's a citizen and all this. And you know, what this person did? This person said, Yeah, absolutely. And wrote up this nice long email and sent it to him, the whole was removed off of our, our passport application. The next day, the passport came in the mail with no birth certificate, no social security number, we flew on our way. And everybody got to meet the baby, and we lived happily ever after. And you know what, ever since then, I can't get myself to rage against an abstract system ever again. Because the humanity came through. And I've experienced it. I've tasted it. And I've tasted it over and over and over again, because I looked for it, because I was curious about it. And I found it, but you won't find it if you're not looking for it. But it is there. Everything is done by humans in the human world. Ari Gronich 1:12:37 Right? I definition. You are kind also, that's the thing that that eludes a lot of people is the art of it, where it's like, the kindness, got you the result? Had you had you approached her differently? That person that you spoke with, you might not have gotten the humanity, right. But you approached a human with humanity, and then you got the humanity. I find it fascinating. When I have to