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In this episode of SALTovation, Meredith Smith and Judy Vorndran speak with Masha Yevzelman, Litigator at Fredrikson & Byron, P.A. She shares her journey into the field of law and discusses the various areas of law she practices, including tax disputes and litigation, and the increasing trend of audits and enforcement in state and local tax. Masha talks about her experiences with audits and trends in the field, including the increase in Nexus audits and residency audits. She also provides insights on remote employee compliance and the impact of marketplace laws.Topics discussed in this episode:The increasing trend of audits and enforcement in state and local taxLicensure issues when practicing in multiple statesThe potential impact of new legislation in MinnesotaThe challenges and compliance issues related to remote employeesThe Wayfair decision and marketplace lawsQuotables:“I'm seeing marketplace audits, because of the proliferation of the marketplace laws across the country, faster than anything has ever happened in the history of state and local tax, in two years.” -Masha Yevzelman [06:14]"I think in terms of audit trends, I think they're going to be going after 86 to 72 really hard, and that is getting litigated, and it's going to be litigated more and more.” -Masha Yevzelman [08:33]"I tell some of my clients it's three thousand a year in compliance costs to hire a remote employee. I'm sorry that you didn't realize your agnostic hiring policy was going to create all this compliance. You're there and you may not make any money, but you still have all these compliance duties.” -Masha Yevzelman [19:40]“I think remote work is a really big space right now in the advice side because I think the taxpayers and clients are kind of trying to figure out what do we do with all these remote workers. I think that will transition to the states doing something about it, too.” -Masha Yevzelman [20:34]Subscribe on your favorite podcast app:https://saltovation.captivate.fm/listenhttps://linktr.ee/taxops Follow Us on Socialshttps://www.linkedin.com/company/taxops-llchttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMB1ZQNGXM_F777SIEl8Vjw Talk To A Tax Advocate TodayTaxOps Website: https://taxops.com/contact/Production SupportThis episode was produced with support from Truth Work Media. www.truthworkmedia.com

Diversity, equity and inclusion with Vivian Greentree In this episode of the CrossLead podcast, host David Silverman speaks with Vivian Greentree. Vivian is the Senior Vice President of the Head of Global Corporate Citizenship at Fiserv. Resources Vivian Greentreehttps://bluestarfam.org/https://www.fiserv.com/en.htmlWant to discuss some of these topics directly with Dave? Join the CrossLead LinkedIn Group. Episode Transcript DaveWelcome to the CrossLead Podcast. I’m your host, Dave Silverman. At CrossLead we exist to help teams, individuals achieve and sustain optimum performance. In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Vivian Greentree. Vivian is a senior vice president at Fiserv, where she’s the head of global corporate citizenship, as well as the Care Foundation.Prior role at Fiserv Vivian had the same role at first data, and prior to that, she was a co-founder and ran research and policy for Blue Star families. Blue Star Families is a phenomenal nonprofit that strengthens military families and connects America to the military.Vivian has a Ph.D. in public administration and urban policy. She’s a passionate Navy veteran where she served for eight years as a supply chain officer, and she is also a proud military spouse and mother and her nearly two decades of leadership experience across public, nonprofit and private sectors.She has been a constant champion of community and employee engagement. Vivian was one of the first leaders that I met who had the passion, skill and mandate to operationalize DNI initiatives at scale inside of a large organization. Her ability to connect these efforts to business value was the inspiration to have her on today’s podcast.In our conversation, we discussed diversity, inclusion, future of work, gender pay gaps, how you measure the effectiveness of such initiatives, and so much more. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoy the conversation with my guest and friend Vivian Greentree. Welcome to the CrossLead podcast. I’m your host, Dave Silverman at CrossLead. We exist to help teams, individuals achieve and sustain optimum performance. So I’m super honored to have Vivian as our guest today. She comes to us with a massive amount of amazing experience.Vivian, welcome to the show. I’d love for you to spend a little bit of time educating the audience here on yourself. You know, give us a little background who you are, where you’re from, what sort of shaped and made and informs the way you think about leadership going forward.VivianSure. And I think I’m a big believer that kind of hard work and luck. Hard work increases your surface area for luck. And because I do feel very lucky to be where I am doing what I do now for a living, but I also know that a lot of that, even if it was hard work, but also it was a lot of luck. It was a lot of other people helping me. And so I think that definitely informs my view of, of leadership.And teamwork, and I feel a level of responsibility commiserate with how much I do think I’ve been given or how much people have helped me to get where I am based on that. And so my position right now is I’m the head of global corporate citizenship at Pfizer, which is one of the world’s largest fintechs. And we’d like to think one of the best in my position with global corporate citizenship really looks at how we align or create a culture around diversity and inclusion, associate and community engagement, philanthropy, sustainability because we know that those areas of diversity and inclusion, associate and community engagement, philanthropy, you know where we invest time treasure talent, whether it’s for business or community, when those areas are coordinated and aligned, that’s really where you create high performing teams where everyone can say I am a valued member of a winning team doing meaningful work in an environment of trust. And that’s a good place to be right now because we need we need trust more than anything to to sustain high performing teams through. The unprecedented times, hopefully back to precedented times.DaveYeah, we do. We absolutely do. So where did you grow up originally?VivianSo as a Georgia fan, Georgia. And went to The University of Georgia. On the Hope Scholarship, which again, I think, you know, just thinking of early things that that informed my my outlook. You know, the Hope Scholarship was created to allow students who couldn’t have afforded it otherwise to attend state preeminent state schools in the in the state of Georgia.DaveSo I don’t think I knew about the Hope scholarship. So is that for every every resident of Florida, that that’s qualifies academically for the school, they are eligible too.VivianEligible, right? So the state of Georgia pays the tuition for qualifying students to any state university, which really, you know, when you think of meritocracy, expanded the opportunity for people like me to go to Tier one research institutions like the University of Georgia, which I think is right and which I think it just continues on because I knew that I was going to school based on taxpayer money. The same, you know, being in the Navy you know, being paid by taxpayers, you want to really earn that. And then when you have a good experience somewhere or you know to whom much is given, much is expected, you want to turn around and do that for others.DaveWhat did you major in at Georgia?VivianOh gosh, that was so long ago political science and journalism.DaveOK, and then and then you joined the Navy after after college that we did or.VivianI did, ironically, to get out of the state of Georgia.DaveI’m Georgia to my core, but I want a little break.VivianI I really it was like Dorothy after the Navy took us around for 20 years. There is no place I wanted to be more. But then then the back in Georgia.DaveSo you joined the Navy. What year to join the Navy?VivianSo right after I graduated 2000, 2001.DaveTo right before 9:11?VivianYes, I’m a pre pre-nine eleven.DaveWow, OK. And what did you do in the Navy Supply Corps?VivianAnd so I saw the supply for school, funnily enough, was actually in Athens at the time, though I didn’t know it. That’s not why I chose this course, but my husband was aviation and Pensacola. And now both of those schools are up in Rhode Island. I think so. I served on active dDuty in and in the reserves and the supply corps. Mike, my husband, was aviation. He did his his 20 years. So I was lucky when I transitioned out that, you know, I had things like my health care was, had continuity. I had a my spouse was still earning a paycheck. I use my G.I. bill to go back to school for public administration and really focused on that. That public service aspect, why? Why people want to go into public service in the first place, how we can increase the antecedents towards that and then support them when they do.DaveAnd you got a Ph.D., is that right?VivianI did, like many transitioning service members, use my G.I. bill but also at like military spouses. When you’re moving around, you have small kids, your your spouse is constantly deployed. It’s hard to find. It’s hard to go to. Employers and really sell that. So I put my eggs in the basket of if I can show that I have. This forward trajectory that I have been doing continuous learning. And then started. I did help to found blue star families during that time. But really it was around, you know, several military spouses getting together with these backgrounds in policy or research to say, if we can present a cohesive view of the impact of service on military families to political leaders, military leaders, we can make the all-volunteer force sustainable because we’re supporting the families who choose to serve.DaveYou got out of the Navy in what year in 2013 or something in 2014.VivianSo I I got off active duty around two, I think 2005 and then did the reserves well, because at the same time, Mike, my husband, was taking different orders and so we moved around.DaveOK, sorry. So you got out in 2005. When did you start your Ph.D. program? 2007 2007. OK, and you were doing that while moving around?VivianWell, by then we had. We had moved back to Norfolk. So Old Dominion University is where I received my Ph.D. They actually at the time were sixth in the nation for students utilizing their G.I. bill, which isn’t surprising. I think given that Norfolk’s the largest naval base in the world is right right there, but they had a part time program which I think, you know, just force for service members that are using their GI Bill or military spouses using the transferability of the GI Bill. Universities that do have that flexibility in, they’re recognizing that more and more students are nontraditional are the ones that are going to attract that you know, that talent?DaveAwesome. And then how long it takes to get your see, I know for a lot of people, it takes a long time.VivianIt seems like that, right? It’s an endless. But I think it took me about five years for the coursework and for my dissertation. So when I was pursuing my Ph.D., it was the same time. Around 2007 2008 when military families were really being impacted by the post-9-11.DaveYeah, by then it’s real, right? I mean, it’s go through multiple cycles, right?VivianAnd so it was. Really it was impacting military families, the likes of which had never been seen before. At the same time, there was little research, little data to actually back up. If you went to your congressmen or you went to your military leadership to talk about the workouts, the deployment cycles, the time between deployments, the impact on military kids, things like that. So I was able to structure my research within my Ph.D. program to align with the founding BlueStar Families, which is the country’s largest nonprofit designed to support, you know, connect and empower military families. And so my kind of piece of the puzzle was to create a national survey of military families that went through kind of the wellness, military, spouse, employment, mental health, military children and the impacts of service so that we could create a global. Network of military families, regardless of branch or rank or active or reserve components, so that in totality there was recognition that there is an impact to service on the service member and our families past the immediate deployment cycles. Sure.DaveThat’s amazing. So Blue Star families, you started, you know what year was that.VivianRight? And we, you know, it was again right when President Obama was elected and really made military families. You know, our research was a precursor to their joining forces.DaveForces.VivianEmphasis on wellness and and employment.DaveYeah. And it still endures today, right? Blue Star families are still endures.VivianIt does. And so it is joining forces under the Biden administration.DaveDid it take a sabbatical during the Trump administration? Probably not, right. But a lot of certainly Blue Star families did. So that’s good. Awesome. That’s that’s amazing. Thank you for that. By the way, I know I know a lot of people that have been very positively impacted by some of the work that you that you helped start and found back in 2009. And that’s a remarkable service and the country owes you debt for that. So then after blue star families, because you were kind of running that I first met you, I think you were just being hired by by first data right at the time. Is that right?VivianRight, right?DaveI can’t remember.VivianNo, it was because we which is which was funny, because you said, you know, talk about a little bit when you grew up know, I always thought, you know to me, was Southeastern Conference. Now it’s the Securities Exchange Commission.DaveYeah, it’s a it’s a governing body that regulates our banks.VivianAnd they’re both governing bodies.DaveConference of Presidents, football and basketball and swimming and soccer and everything else. Yeah.VivianRight. So it shows, you know, kind of perspective. Where are you, where you come from it and then just even your own bias, you know, since I know we’re talking about. Diversity and inclusion today, we all have. These unconscious biases. You know, mine was the first time. I heard when I was at a New York meeting, I thought, Why do they care about.DaveGeorgia football?VivianAnd I thought, Wow, we really are right. And I thought, Why do they care so much? I mean, I think. Are important, but I don’t know that that has have.DaveThe stereo. Gone? Yeah, awesome. OK, so so what year was that? I try to remind me when.VivianIt was 20. So 2014, which you know, at the time, a lot of companies based on the impacts and recognition of just huge amounts of service members that were transitioning out. We’re looking to start military programs but had never really before, you know, thought or looked at that community as anything, really. Maybe then other than if they had a guard or reservists who had activated and how to calculate that leave or turn out turn or pay on or off, but really hadn’t considered that that talent pool. And then. You know, as we built that program, it really taught us how to relook. At human capital management because, you know, when you’re recruiting, when you want to show up holistically in the military community to recruit transitioning.VivianService members and their spouses, you have to have done. That’s kind of like the tip of the iceberg. You have to be military ready to to show up in a way that’s authentic and really can speak to you. Why would a service member or veteran pick your company over other companies, you know, based on the benefits, policies, culture of your company?DaveYeah, that’s amazing. So you first data was really at the time leading, in my opinion, the P.A.C. on progressive ideas and around, you know, some of these these these different diversity groups and veterans, obviously, having been of that and going to New York and seeing some of the work that you guys are doing, I was always really impressed. You guys sort of seemed at the forefront of a veteran friendly organization that saw the value reach maybe talk about, you know, I feel like a lot of people do it because it feels it feels right, right?DaveIt feels like morally and patriotic. We just decided we’re right. But I think what amazed me about what I saw the work that you guys were doing for and now five serve is that you really saw it as like a differentiator in how you approach business. And I thought that to me, that makes it more enduring love for you to talk a bit about that.VivianWell, I mean, even you know how quickly we met when I came to first, first data and we reached out to CrossLead to be our leadership development partner. It just shows how integrated the thinking is and really wanting, you know, our C.E.O. Frank Bisignani, wanted look to the military.VivianFor leadership. You know, the benefits of the lessons learned from the military community in a way that, like you said, many other companies want to. Get involved. They want to do the right thing, but they don’t really see it at the very basis as a value add. And I think that’s the that’s the difference because, you know, just expanding on that view. When we started recruiting veterans. And military spouses, we brought in more women, more minorities. And then it’s not just about what is your guard and reserve leave policy, but it’s what your family forming benefits policies. Where is your representation? Do you have employee resource groups that allow them outlets for expression and kind of aligning their purpose with your profit? Because we do know that diversity is a fact, but that inclusion piece is the choice and that. If the systems that a company. Has are set up that create obstacles or challenges for anyone to show up kind of at work desk ready discretionary effort at the ready, then that’s on that’s on the company. And we know that talent is just distributed equally. But what’s not is that opportunity, access and exposure. And again. If it’s the systems that are set up that are reducing your. Space in place in the. In the mind view of the generations that are coming out of school or coming out of the military.They just won’t see you because they don’t see themselves represented in your leadership or in your products or in your services or, you know, and your in your community investments.DaveSo, so yeah, that’s that’s it feels exactly right to me. Can you talk about how you guys have sort of, you know, mobilize these groups to drive your purpose and ultimately, you know, value for the firm? My assumption is to address the issue you just talked about, which is like, how do you get people showing up every day, get being their best selves, right? So you’re unlocking that latent potential that exists across the workforce? I think that’s phenomenal. You’re talking about how you guys structure and think about it and incorporate it into into to Pfizer’s operating model.VivianYeah, I mean, I love that you. Operating model, because it really D.N.I. has to be in the D.N.A. of the organization, and as much as we talk about diversity of thought and experience. You really can’t have diversity of thought and experience until you have physical representation of diversity at the table. And when you’re operating and governance structures, those are essential when you’re thinking about how you set up your systems for recruiting internal mobility leadership, inclusive leadership models, even product development and innovation. And that’s where those employee resource groups come in. They’re not the only lever, but I would say arguably one of the most. Vital, because again. It’s it’s your human capital management, it’s your talent. It’s allowing them and creating space for them to have opportunities for meaningful engagement in a way that meets them where they’re at. And if you channel and target that towards. Whatever that thing is. That your company or organization’s mission is like for us, small businesses is what we do every day. You know, start scale, grow from Main Street to Wall Street, and our employee resource groups are right, and they’re coming up with ideas for how to engage small, diverse businesses, how to support small, diverse businesses or social innovators within large businesses. How can we help our large scale enterprise clients support small, diverse businesses, whether it’s through their supply chain or whether it’s through their products or services? And that’s really it’s. That, you know, the systems view.DaveYeah, no, I think I think that’s that makes a ton of sense. So as we think about, you know, just some of the questions that typically come to mind around that diversity inclusion topic, a lot of companies are putting a lot of effort into how they recruit, specifically trying to create a more diverse workforce. Everything from that senior executives like you were talking about earlier down to, you know, entry level talent. But they they’re struggling. And it’s it’s not just to find those people, but it’s also to retain them once they get them because it’s become a very competitive love for you to talk about about that. Why does that happen? Why is it so hard?VivianI mean, that’s like the. Crux I think of where we are, because in the past companies have said they’re military friendly. But are they military ready? And I would I would evolve that conversation now to say companies want to be diversity friendly. But are they. Really diversity ready and addressing.DaveWhat do you mean by by ready?VivianRight. So in the same way, when you show up, it’s I’m showing up at a, let’s say, a women in tech recruiting event. Is it all males that are with me? Do I know the open positions? Do I know our family forming policies? Do I know our benefits? Do I know if we have pay equity or we’ve had a pay equity review in the past three years? It’s because that’s what women graduating from colleges with their coming out of the military with choosing between companies. That’s what they’re going to be asking for because they’re it’s, you know, it’s a hot labor market right now. And to differentiate yourself when you show up in an organ in. The same way that we expect potential hires to come. With a general knowledge about our company when we show up in our recruiting, we need people, you know, our recruiters to have a general working knowledge. About. Diversity and inclusion and what our culture is, what our our employee resource groups, what community partners do we invest in? What have we done? What’s our representation on the board? And I’ll tell you too. That comes up not just with talent, but with clients and several, you know. Several meetings over the past year that has. Been the crux of the, you know, the questions are have you had a pay equity review? What is your representation on the board? What are what are your sustainability policies and how or how are you responding to social justice? It’s really it goes back to if you’re looking at the recruiting process, the opposite side of that coin is retention, and it’s looking at not just tracking new hires, but engagement, performance, internal mobility, satisfaction and your pipeline. And that’s where, again, the benefits in the culture are huge. Do you have guard and reserve leave policy, paid parental leave, domestic partner coverage, anything that shows your employees that you are investing in who they are as a person outside of work so that they can show up at work as their best self? And it’s. You know, publicly. Facing statements but that are backed up with substance. That’s why so many peer groups or Criterion Nasdaq Stock Exchange Business Roundtable are requiring publicly facing statements that link to documents around human rights or around social justice around your board diversity.DaveYeah, you’re talking about the larger sort of E.S.G. movement. We’re seeing this. Even with access to capital, right, there’s some of these institutional investors and obviously large family offices that are allocating capital to these various funds that then make it available through various instruments are saying, Look, there needs to be an E.S.G. bent here, and if there isn’t, then we don’t want to support or basically have our money be loaned or leveraged for for these organizations. So it’s actually to me having driving a massive sort of movement positively, you know, towards some of these these issues, which which are no longer sort of niche, they’re becoming more mainstream. Can you go back, though, to on the diversity side? I’m running a business, small business or large, but it doesn’t matter, and I take a self on it and I go, OK, my pay, my pay is is equal. Hopefully, if not, I sort of fix that, but I don’t have the numbers I want, right? Like the composition makeup still feels, feels up to me, whatever that whatever right looks like, but it’s not there. OK, where we’re underrepresented and we don’t look like maybe the communities that we operate in the services that people would provide. How do you fix that? How would you advise that that leadership group to really try to address that? Would you do almost like like like a quota system or or how do you think about that?VivianSo, you know, it’s a marathon and. A sprint. Because it really for most companies. It’s it’s it’s not an and or but it’s a both or it’s multiple. Because it’s there’s. Lack of representation at the top for sure. And you can’t you can’t hire at L1 and expect in the next 20, 20 years that something is going to be different on the L10 level. And so you really need a you need a strategy for both.DaveAnd then it’s that and right. You’re saying you’re saying yes, let’s make sure our hiring practices at the entry level are obviously unfair. But there’s but that we’ve got to do something to address the mid and senior levels at simultaneously.VivianRight. And that’s where it’s, you know, it’s percent of new hires, but it is percent of retention. And it’s also it’s it’s comparing. Groups and having enough representation that you can compare between groups to say, you know, is there something significant, you know, statistically significantly different in the way that women are voluntarily attracting from the from the labor force? Because we know that right, that that did happen over COVID. So within a particular company, you can look at that and say voluntary versus involuntary attrition to.DaveGive some of those stats. I don’t know that anybody’s aware of that. I mean, when I heard this stat a while ago, I was actually pretty surprised. It made sense once I thought about it. But like initially I was like, well covered. If anything is helped drive adoption around like things around work flexibility that previously were sort of we’re sort of relatively small time or niche like, you know, now I think it’s much more widely accepted that, you know, you don’t have to physically be in a space from a certain amount of time like that. We’ve got we’ve demonstrated the ability to be productive still and in a more flexible environment. Flexibility should lead to more inclusive work. Opportunities should, should do.VivianAnd yeah, because there you know, there’s a lot of there’s several, I think themes that that did emerge. You know, going through COVID one was that more women are traded from the from the labor force. So even though we were learning lessons during that time and even now on. Just the effects of, you know, your life external to your job, affecting your ability to show up, whether it’s in the office physically or virtually in your in your home, but that it did disproportionately affect women. But even, you know, we serve small businesses and we had. Numbers coming out of COVID that. Survive COVID for another variety of reasons. one Just all small businesses were affected the ability to go. Go out physically, but they also were less likely to be able to access capital through traditional means or even the P.P.P. loans that were designed to. Help small businesses. But they didn’t have accounts large enough with large enough banks to take advantage of it or couldn’t. Dedicate. The full time person towards filling out all the paperwork. And so there were these themes where, you know, we all go through the Same life events, but they are affecting as an impacting us in different ways based on, you know, our individual circumstances. And if there’s enough of a population that is marginalized or unrepresented that is not able to, then, you know, experience and come out at the same pace and we have systems set up that are promulgating that, that that is kind of the the crux of where we are right now. So we don’t want to lose women from the labor force. We don’t want to lose small minority owned businesses and if you have your time treasure. Talent of what your company does can is at this inflection point can make a difference because of your benefits, because of your policies, because of. Even a focus on. Mental health, which again, you know, I think the military drove that way earlier based on, you know, combat experience. But now. I’ve heard mental health and wellness mentioned more times over the past year than I have in the past ten years.DaveI know it’s a it’s really everybody now, right? I mean, everybody, everybody’s going through. I mean, this has been this has been emotionally draining COVID for sure. And so I think people are much more acutely aware of the impacts of Saddam. Go back to the women, if you would, because I mean, I think this is this is concerning. I feel like to the extent that we’ve made progress on these fronts, it feels like Kobe was a massive setback on gender equality and representation in the workforce. If what you’re saying is that disproportionately the people that left their jobs were where were or female? And is it getting better now or how do we address that? I mean, how do we how do we make up for that?DaveBecause to me, that’s I mean one. That’s awful. I’ve seen some stats that says, Hey, the effects of this downstream are going to are significant, like ten or 15 years from now. It’s going to be even worse, like the fact that we had this major setback.DaveI’m curious to see your thoughts on what you’re seeing people do and try to to counterbalance that. Knowing that Pfizer particularly mission is to help small businesses thrive and address some of these. These these challenges. I’m curious to see you know how you’re thinking about this?VivianWell, I mean, we know so the gender gap existed pre-COVID. Any you know, anything else equally did did nothing but kind of enlarge that gap.DaveSo one thing that got made it worse.VivianIt may, right? It made it worse. And you’re right, there’s like that. It’s a lagging indicator and it will take years to to catch up to it. But then I also at the same time have great hope because of COVID did make as I think, more vulnerable. We were certainly, you know, we’re in each other’s homes in ways that we had never been before or hurt people’s dog bark or their children come in. Some people didn’t even know or. Acted like people didn’t have children before COVID, and. The reality is that that impacts our ability to show up. And so just recognition that people are whole beings, they want to pursue purpose and profit and. Don’t necessarily see it with millennials. And younger generations. Don’t even really see a delineation between that. They actually think that they actually think. But I mean, they think that they. Should be able to pursue purpose within their profit seeking job. So you see these because coming up, I certainly think CrossLead is one of those where you’re providing value more than. You know, leadership training. It’s also opening. The door to. Discuss things like, you know, how integrity and and shared consciousness and trust, you know, so that you can have psychological safety on teams, which again, the military has done for years because you know that that does show up. In your every day. It does show up in how you, you treat your team members. But I don’t think that the corporate sector had that recognition. And certainly that. Benefits everyone, right? Whether you are a parent or a caregiver. For for your for your parent, you know that sandwich generation that is caregiving children, but also their own parents and. And that again, you know, it shows up in in your productivity and your satisfaction and your engagement. And ultimately, whether you choose to stay to work at a company that helps you be the best you Lacob.DaveIt’s been been really hard on a lot of a lot of businesses. I know it’s disproportionately affected small businesses and and from the employee standpoint, it’s disproportionately affected, affected women. Could you could you maybe talk about what you’re seeing, both working at a large global, you know, 500 company as well as the small business you serve and how executive group should think about tackling this near-term problem and solving the more the more systemic problem of of diverse and inclusive workforces?VivianYeah, because there are thematically lots of lots of trends. That are emerging. Some, you know, like you mentioned, negatively disproportionately affecting certain populations. But I want to also put a pen and I do think that’s an every challenge is an opportunity. But first, looking at the negative or populations that have been disproportionately affected by COVID, I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics just put out that there were 2.2 million less women in the labor force in October of 2020 than there were of 2019. Which which definitely tracks. Within themes within the Great Exodus. The disproportionate effect of women. Probably for things that Have always been there around caregiving for children, but also parents or just the, you know, the second shift that’s talked. About about additional work at home. And we know that COVID as you mentioned the effects on small business that it also disproportionately affect minority owned businesses. So while everyone experienced the same inability to have in-person physical gatherings or shop in person, some of the some of the small businesses that were least able to react as quickly because they didn’t have larger lines of credit or didn’t have online or e-commerce options, which we happened to know about because those are our clients. So when we started to see the numbers and heard that up to 40% of minority owned businesses might not make it through COVID. In addition to the client services that we already had, that’s when we. Actually came up with our back to business grant to be the inflection point to connect those small, diverse businesses with access to capital lines of credit e commerce order delivery to pick up setting up online shopping carts, anything that we could do to to be there. And that’s where when I said there is a positive coming out of COVID, I do think that there is an opportunity for companies to look at work life balance. So if you’re looking at your employee base, looking at work life balance, understanding that people do have lives outside of work that do affect their ability to show up at their best. And then design operating. Models that are more inclusive and holistic so that you can unlock. The whole idea is that high performing teams, right whenever you draw the line of why does any of this matter at the very base? It’s to make money to sustain your business operations. But to do that, you really have to take a long term view of not just output, but outcome.VivianWhen you talk about succession planning, recruiting market share, investor relations, all of that really depends on your employer value proposition. And so I’m hoping that we come out of COVID as a culture, but also globally. Where we’re more progressive thinking creative about how we create opportunities for people to meaningfully engage while pursuing. Both purpose and profit. And I think that that’s exciting there. There’s a huge upside there with know unlocking productivity. You know, there’s a lot of. Money to be made there. If we do it right. But there’s also some very significant problems short term that we have to deal with because companies are losing people every day.DaveYou know, I just find it fascinating. This is obviously something that we obsess over at cross. I mean, our whole goal is is to make organizations more effective, you know, help them sort of unlock latent potential. And the exciting thing about about COVID. The upside is executive teams are able to reimagine the way they work. They’ve had to just to survive. And so they’ve built muscles that they didn’t previously have. They discovered technology and tools that they previously were weren’t leveraging, and those tools themselves have gotten significantly more effective. So I’m optimistic that, you know, the executive teams that are meeting in the boardroom as they try and discuss how they’re going to to establish an operating model that continues to drive value is now much greater than it was even even two years ago. And so my hope, my hope in all this is that with those added tools, with those added that capabilities, it’s going to create a more flexible and inclusive work environment which potentially could start to take on those more systemic historical issues of of misrepresentation by gender or disenfranchize minority populations in the workforce. Because flexibility should be should be a key tool in helping, helping keep some of those groups engaged for longer periods of time and continuing at the ladder, which I think will net just benefit our society and our individual companies tremendously. an you? Let’s switch now to how you basically assess an organization’s effectiveness when it comes or die programs. I mean, if we take the actual the composition aside, how else what other metrics do you use to look at D.N.I. programs and see if they’re actually working or not?VivianYou know, there’s a lot of different. KPIs, and we’ve hit on some of them. And certainly representation is is a is a base. But there’s also. It shows up in your products, it shows up in your tracking, it shows up. You know, not just tracking.VivianThough, for employees, but suppliers and vendors, clients, community investment partners. It shows up in publicly facing statements. You know, going through just doing a catalog of of a company’s website is their diversity and their marketing materials. What conferences are they showing up at and who’s speaking at the conferences that they’re showing up at? And then you mentioned definitely. On the investor side, what indices are they showing up on? Because it definitely you can draw a direct. Line for financial impact or you. Can have the one or two kind of removed because engaged employees are more productive employees, they delight clients and then you have client retention and maybe client gain. That’s market share increase of market share, which then increases and delights your shareholders and so there is this virtuous cycle. That that is created between that return on investment, that return on inclusion for employee engagement, client engagement, which makes more money so that you can pay your associates and increase your share price. And so I think those areas, it’s everything in between. It’s it’s your it’s your leadership programs. I too am excited about some things that are coming out of COVID one because leadership. Trainings and leadership courses like, you know, in an organization. Like Crossley, you’re focusing on inherently an inclusive leadership model, and I don’t think we’ve always talked about inclusive leadership, more leadership. And it’s it’s really baked into the, you know, to have empowered execution to have shared consciousness and trust. There’s those things you have to attain first, and one of them is is diversity. And then to me, you’re inclusive leadership model is what drives the inclusivity where everyone feels like they have an equitable chance to join, belong, contribute and progress. And we need that now more than ever, because people are feeling dissociative with what they do for a living versus how they exist outside of what they do for a living. And they do need to build trust through geographic spacing because we’re not physically together. We do need to address and talk about mental health and wellness and keeping ourselves and our bodies functioning so that we we can show up at work. And I think.DaveYou’re looking at performance more holistically, which, you know, it’s something in special operations we’ve done for a long time and we still got a long way to go. But the idea that like how you physically show up and mentally show up has a massive impact in those mission critical situations.VivianRight? And not every leadership program really talks about that. And I know, you know CrossLead does, and that’s something that, again, the corporate sector can. Benefit from learning from the military on that.DaveWhat’s interesting for me personally in this journey is, you know, in the military, probably it’s because I was overseas so much. I was sort of desensitized to some of these, like larger social movements that were going on. I mean, it’s just take, for instance, like social media, like, I wasn’t allowed that U.S. access to social media when I was in the Philippines, right? So like, I come back and everybody’s on Facebook and Twitter and and like LinkedIn and all these applications, I’m like, Yeah, I would never put any stuff on that stuff, just given what I was doing and where I was operating. In fact, I was always being monitored by good guys and bad guys. I just didn’t. I just didn’t do it right. And so I was always desensitized to these themes. And then, you’re right, when we got into the foundations of how you create high-performing teams and things like shared consciousness and trust and common purpose and empowerment. You know, they and then how we think about operationalize it became obvious to me that like we had a massive premium on things like inclusive work environments. The fact that we have after action reviews, after every op where everybody, regardless of rank, title background, whatever is obligated to give people their honest perspective. What happened on that op so we could figure out to learn and then move forward. And we, you know, and then like, there’s fancy words like psychological safety that says this is what’s happening there. I don’t know what that stuff for me, it was just, that’s how you operate, because that’s what high-performing teams did. Right. That’s how that’s how you behave. And so it’s been interesting to see like, you know, D.N.I. is a social movement. I think a lot of times where leaders struggle to figure out like where it fits into their into their business models, they go, Wow, this feels like something I’m being forced to do because it’s larger social movement that I may or may not be be, you know, sort of attuned to. And for me, the way we came out, it was like, No, if you’re if you come back from something or you’re about to go on something, you want to make sure you’ve got all the best possible information perspective possible. Because if you don’t and something goes wrong, then how do you how do you, you know, how do you reconcile that? How do you rationalize that? How do you explain it? Some kids, mother or father, why their son or daughter is at home? Because, you know, we didn’t do our part and making sure we had the best possible plan that had the best collective of experiences sort of sort of yielded. So to me, I think just rethinking that in terms of that, I think goes a long way in saying, Hey, you know, wherever you fall in the social spectrum like discount for a second. This has real value to your to your business and it’s upside, and you should probably do it for all of social reasons. But like the value, you have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders who do not like you find a way to to make that happen. So if you think about like the leverage that that you guys currently pull in Pfizer specifically to around your E.S.G. programs to basically sort of address some of these changes, what are those? Maybe talk about some of the unique levers that you’ve seen that are, like, you know, pretty effective both for measuring it and sort of driving, you know, improvements around around those areas.VivianRight? I mean, the KPIs, just. Like like any other parlor or any other operating model, it has to be integrated into and baked in to the very performance. And I think so one, having a culture of continuous learning. And really focus on leadership because when times, you know, progress. Does move at the speed of trust to everything you just said and you really can’t build trust. And in these inflection. Points of confusion and ambiguity and challenge, that’s when you rely on the trust so that it kind of greases the skids for, you know, when people don’t know what’s going to happen, but they trust that your company, your manager, your team has your best interest and has the best interests of the company and you’re kind of commiserate. With the level of service that you’re giving that you’re getting that back and so you see that show up. And I always said before, you know, the levers are within every single aspect of the organization and you can look at it as clients and external learning and development, certainly talent management. And that hits on a lot of that retention piece and an employee resource groups, internal mobility, professional development, your vendors and supplier diversity. There’s a reason again, why we met so early because we want it to benefit from the lessons learned from the military community when we were building our own leadership and talent development program and then ensure community engagement. Your strategic philanthropy.What are you doing volunteering your time, treasure and talent? And it’s always best when those are aligned because it’s the first best use of whatever the company or organization’s purposes. Don’t divorce that from the profit or the ability to have meaningful engagements for four employees and then it’s your those easy things like code of conduct, your total rewards, your benefits packages. And it’s it’s less about. Although I’m, you know, I’m jealous of companies where they can bring dogs to work or they have beer on tap. But I think more substantial investments in pay parity, family forming policy benefits, guard and reserve leave policies. Because what they’re really saying. When you invest in those high value things is that you’re saying that I’m not as an employer forcing you to choose between serving your country and coming to work. I’m not forcing you that.DaveYou’re saying, you’re saying we say guard and reserve. You mean National Guard.VivianNational Guard and Reserve Military Service.DaveThe policies are the company let you go and you keep your job and that you can go serve your country and then you.VivianAnd pay them. And of course, I have to say, because I serve as one of I always like to say the most expansive, I would love for a company to come back. And say, actually, our policy. Is more expansive. You know, we pay full, full salary. That’s amazing. For a while there, while our guard and reservists are on their orders. And so again, it’s saying that we’re not making you choose between serving your country and working here. But it’s the same with starting families. And there’s many ways to start a family and there. And it could be, you know, either parent or caregiver could stay home or so it’s a it’s just a more, if, like you said, progressive, expansive way to look at.DaveI love that. Yeah. And how we can expand that. Like if military is not your thing, you can expand that into any type of community or national service, right where you’re serving and making a difference in the community. And you’re saying this aligns with the values of principle.VivianAnd then. Well, and I have to make you know, when you said levers or ways to measure, I have to also mention because CrossLead helped us so much with our with our culture building and the way we looked at the pillars of where we time treasure talent. But looking at employee engagement surveys and having questions that have to do and directly ask your employees, do they think they’re treated fairly with respect? Do they think that they have a path to career – professional mobility? Those are very important to ask on those employee engagement because that’s, you know, asking the people of the population that you’re you’re trying to reach. So even if you do have the policies, process governance, whatever it is, but you’re not seeing that reflected. Then there’s still a disconnect there.DaveYeah, no, that makes total sense. So, so last question on this and I have some fun questions for us. So you’re the C.E.O. of a net new global conglomerate that’s a top five, top ten country in the world. What position are you creating on your executive team for to, to basically address these issues holistically? What are you calling it in like? And how would you describe the role and the responsibilities of that executive?VivianYou can call me anything,  don’t call me late for dinner is, is how I look at this question because it is such a topical question that comes up. Across regions, across companies, across industries. I think the important thing is to have a seat at the table and the idea that there’s going to be.DaveA seat at your table for an executive, there’s there’s going to be executive on your team. That has this as their core mission.VivianCertainly, and it would look across dimensions of, you know, the entire enterprise H.R. product operations, marketing, procurement, strategic sourcing because depending on what industry you’re and or what market, you might be driven more by sustainability or environment, like with the energy, with energy companies or gas. Whereas in financial services, financial inclusion, financial literacy is, is really what we do best. And so we know that part of diversity of inclusion is ensuring that everyone has equitable access to financial literacy. And so whether it’s and it could be driven out of our D.N.I., it for for talent acquisition or it could be driven out of marketing as a brand or philanthropy, a foundation for social innovation or social impact. The important thing to me is that there is that seat at the table and someone looking strategically across the enterprise looking at how to have impact past economic outcomes and you know. Larry, Fink if you think, you know, that’s kind of a bright-eyed way of looking at it. Larry Fink and issues that letter every every year for BlackRock and and has led the charge at saying there is economic impact, past immediate outcomes and that companies when you’re talking about sustainability, whether it’s environmental or workforce sustainability, you have to include this triple bottom line valuation to a company. And again, that’s where it’s coming from. Investors, it’s coming to be included in the stock exchange or Nasdaq, or to be listed on the S&P different indices. I think more and more these these multinational. Companies that we’re coming up with top five. They are creating a seat at the table on their executive management committee for it.DaveYeah, I think that’s right. I mean, ultimately, everybody’s in competition for talent. And increasingly, the talent that’s that’s both, you know, new talent coming into the workforce and or talent that’s decided to make a shift. And what they’re going to focus on and do is increasingly more aware of these issues. And they’re going to see organizations that take this seriously as a differentiation and where they want to go, spend their time, their energy and their efforts. And that’s going to be a massive differentiator. So it’s something that people have to get at. All right. So so I want to wrap this up. So given that I’ve done previous ones, I want to ask, I’ll say two words. They are things are they are people and you have to say you have to pick the name that that is right. So if I said olive oil and butter, which one would you pick.VivianSunflower seed oil?DaveSome fancy? OK, that wasn't one of the options now. If you’re if you’re if you’re a chef and you got a choice between an olive oil or butter, what are you picking?VivianNo, I mean, I sunflower seed oil because I saw it on a tick tock. I mean, I don’t have to choose.DaveOK, so you’re going to pick oil then over butter, but you’re just going, not olive oil. You’re kicking. Some of us, OK, got oil. We’re about. OK. Michael Jordan or LeBron James?VivianLeBron James? No, I’m kidding.DaveThat’s what I said. We’re sticking with the Lebron James.VivianThat’s true. That’s from the office because I was going to say Michael. Michael Jordan, because my son is MJ. So everyone assumes. That it’s Michael Jordan. but, it’s Mike Junior. But LeBron James.DaveLeBron James, OK, good, Messi or Ronaldo.VivianIs it bad? I’m not even sure who that is. Is that that’s.DaveOK, that’s OK. Just it messier another. No, I mean, these are football players, soccer players.VivianWell, I think that tells you my unconscious bias.DaveNeither. OK, I did my Louie, Louie Hamilton or Max Verstappen.VivianSo this is another hard one, and I know you want one answer. Louis Hamilton, for sure. Except that when I first heard Max Verstappen’s name, I actually thought that. Matthew Stafford, who is a prior University of Georgia bulldog, had taken up Formula one racing and that he was in competition with with Louis Hamilton and. The last that came out of my husband from that. But so I like them both. I love Lewis Hamilton, though he’s going to win.DaveThe national title on on Monday. Is it going to be Georgia?VivianAlabama Bulldogs hand down, hands down? It’s our year.DaveBulldogs. all right. We’ll hold you to that. Vivian, thank you so much for joining our program. I. This is one that’s a timely conversation, but two, it’s just so critical to how people and leaders need to think about about some of the today’s toughest challenges and how we address them. Can’t thank you enough for coming on board. It means a lot to you. Thank you.VivianThanks, Dave.Daveone more thing before we finish the episode, the CrossLead podcast is produced by the team at Truth Work Media. I want to make this the best leadership podcast available, so I would love to get your feedback. Our goal this season is to have authentic conversations with special operators, business leaders and thought leaders in the topics of leadership and agility. If you have any feedback, suggested topics or leaders that you want to hear from these, email me at contact@crosslead.com. If you found this episode interesting. Please share it with a friend and drop us a rating until next time. Thank you for joining.

Customer Obsession with Charlie Herrin In this episode of the CrossLead podcast, host David Silverman speaks with Charlie Herrin, President of the Technology, Product, Xperience organization within Comcast Cable. They focus on the leader's role in creating a compelling vision and building a narrative in support of it. Charlie talks about his obsession with the customer and how technology can meaningfully improve a customer's life. He also discusses his personal routines and leadership development philosophy as well as his approach to leading change at scale and how you measure progress.“For me, innovation is not feature matching. Innovation is making someone's life better.” – Charlie Herrin [14:26]“People need to have purpose in what they're doing and it's not just a job. It's not just working on technology. It's not just writing code or creating a design. You're doing it for an end goal.” – Charlie Herrin [18:59]“The role of the leader is to lead and to model the behavior they want to see.” – Charlie Herrin [22:47] Resources A Walk Across America by Peter JenkinsCenter For Creative LeadershipTeam of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman and Chris FussellThe Outsiders : Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike Want to discuss some of these topics directly with Dave? Join the CrossLead LinkedIn Group. Episode Transcript DaveWelcome to the CrossLead podcast. I’m your host, Dave Silverman at CrossLead. We exist to help teams, individuals achieve and sustain optimum performance. In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Charlie Herrin. Charlie serves as the president of the Technology Product Experience Organization within Comcast Cable.When I first met Charlie in 2015, he had just transitioned to the role of leading the customer experience division. He knew the team tasked with the largest NPS implementation in North America at the time. In today’s episode, we focus on the leader’s role in creating a compelling vision and building a narrative in support of it. We talk about his obsession with a customer and how technology can meaningfully improve a customer’s life. Charlie discusses his personal routines and leadership development philosophy. We talk about his approach to leading change at scale and how you measure progress. A proud father, husband, outdoorsman, an amateur photographer. Charlie’s humility and empathetic leadership style makes him a truly world class leader. Thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoy the conversation that I have with my friend and mentor Charlie Herrin.Good morning, good afternoon, welcome to the CrossLead podcast. Today, we’re joined with Charlie Herrin, who serves as the president of technology product experience for Comcast Cable. Today we’re going to talk about leadership and we’re going to go back and talk about the leadership development from Charlie’s perspective over his career. So, Charlie, thanks for joining us today. I really appreciate you being here now.CharlieThank you. David, it’s good to be here and appreciate it.DaveSo let’s, let’s go through your life journey and example of leadership, but take me back to where you grew up in, and some of those are formative early experiences in your life.CharlieI grew up in a town called Ponca City, Oklahoma. My dad was a chemist and Conoco had their big R&D facility there. So it was a good town to grow up in a lot of opportunities for kids. Oklahoma was, you know, like most kids, I was sort of bored of where I grew up. I was really, really focused on backpacking and camping.I had read a book called Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, and it really, I just woke me up to the idea of outdoors because my dad is not an outdoorsman.DaveHow old were you when you read that book?CharlieI was 13 and 13. It’s actually I read the National Geographic articles. That he wrote first and then. And then read the book. But you know, that got me into scouting, which I joined largely because they were going backpacking. In New Mexico, and I wanted to do that. And my other passion was soccer. I play a lot of soccer. I was I’m old enough to remember it was actually the first time they had. Started in my city. So I was like on the first team.But I spent a lot of time doing that. And so I was always outside. And when I went to college, which was at the University of Washington, it was largely to go to the Pacific Northwest again. I had this kind of bug for being in the outdoors, and I just wanted to to be someplace where I could experience a lot of adventure that way. Toyed with soccer at the University of Washington, but they’re far better than I am. So I did not go down that path.DaveSo when you got to when you got to Washington University. Talk about, you know, what was your major? I know you were an economics major, but talk about how that sort of shaped you from a from a leadership perspective.CharlieYeah, I went in to college thinking I’d be a history major and kind of pre-law kind of thing and was a pretty good writer. And that’s sort of what I was drawn to. But I ended up taking some economics classes and microeconomics classes. And I was just fascinated by the idea of. Evaluating how consumers make decisions, which is essentially what the, you know, that’s essentially what microeconomics is. Again, I just loved it. And so I kind of really leaned in. But I think from an early point in my life, I was fascinated with the idea of what consumers wanted and how they evaluated their options. And and I think that has served me well. I actually think as I got into the product game. And and consumer experience game and things like that. Is give me a lens that I think a lot of people just don’t use or maybe think about as a first lens. And that’s always my first lens is, you know, how would this benefit me as. A consumer and how would this benefit my family as a consumer? How would this benefit, you know, consumers in my community? And so it was a really formative for me.DaveYeah, it’s amazing that your college major actually was relevant to your job. So I was an oceanography major in college and other than the fact that I like to surf and I was a navy seal. There wasn’t a lot of overlap there.So the fact that you actually took core lessons from that and were able to apply it to to your to your world is pretty remarkable. You come out of university. And what was your first job out of college?CharlieWell, my first job, actually, I thought I was still going to do pre-law. I had taken the LSAT and done extremely well and kind of was off to going to go to law school. Just on a whim I interviewed at Andersen within was Andersen Consulting, its Accenture now. I remember that I took the interview because I was really tired of eating 19 cent boxes of macaroni. I was really, really living on the edge in terms of finances, and I thought, Well, you know, my assets are good for five years and I’ll just go to this interview. But I didn’t really care because I’ve been accepted to law school. And so I just. Sort of answered. However, I wanted to answer.It was a little bit like that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza sort of says the opposite of everything he thinks he should say. And it works for him, and it worked for me. They call me back and said, You hired the guy we hired. And so I went into Accenture Anderson at the time as a developer because that’s how they started everyone.You know, it’s interesting to me, but I found out pretty. Quickly I was in a great developer, but when I was really good. At was requirements and interfacing with with the clients. And again, I think that sensitivity to what they really wanted and needed and being able to add value there. That’s really what drove me. And so I was there for the typical two years and then hired on at McCaw Cellular. Which was the client I was working at. It was exciting. It was an exciting time.DaveAnd when was this, roughly?CharlieWell, this would have been about 94, I heard. OK. Yeah, yeah. What I loved about it was, I don’t know if you guys remember, but you know, in the early, early days of mobile. It was seen as a huge luxury and car phones and the big Motorola brick phones and the average consumer was sort of on to it yet.But I remember in employee orientation there, they showed a video where they told the story about what people really want. And how important communication is and how how important mobility is. Sort of the nomad. They kind of pinned it into, you. Know, we love travel, we love kind of moving around. It got me to really think about an inspiring vision about what you’re doing and how you’re sort of aligning to Age-Old truths about what people have always wanted. It opened up for me the idea of narratives. I mean, I could keep going. I mean, AT&T ended up buying us that I again was able to start to craft why that was good for them, how that can bring mobility really to the mainstream and got to work on some really interesting projects to to do that.It also showed me some things I didn’t. Want to ever do, which is like gigantic meetings. I remember going with b four of us and like 50 others. At the end of the introduction, the introductions alone would take half an hour. But but that got me to really start to understand teamwork and bringing together lots of different disciplines.And I was there for a few years and then I then I came to Comcast.DaveThen you came to Comcast. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Why did you come to Comcast? What brought you there?CharlieWell, I mean, like, like a lot of people that have been fortunate in their career, I had some great mentors. And one of the mentors I had was a guy named David, and he had come from a McCaw cellular at AT&T and had come over to what at the time was Comcast Cellular business. They ended up selling part of that off. And he went to had the broadband business, and he called me up and he said, You know, you should come over here. It’s just like mobile. You know, mobile was in the beginning seen as a luxury, but.I really think this can can impact people’s lives. And so that’s that’s what really. Got me over again. Just this notion of technology. Improving people’s lives. It’s really been a constant theme in my career.DaveYeah, you’ve been at sort of the vanguard for that in some massive spaces, so what year was it that you went over to Comcast that like late nineties, early 2000?CharlieYeah, it was a 96.DaveAnd so broadband internet was it was just sort of appearing on the yeah, on the landscape.CharlieYeah, it really was. And, you know, we didn’t have it at the time. There was no self install option we had was one of the people on the team that were that were driving that project. It was early, early days. No retail to speak of certainly wasn’t mainstream. So again, a lot of that playbook that we had in mobile could be applied to to to this technology and this value proposition for customers.DaveSo you get to Comcast, what’s your first job when you, once you’re there?CharlieBut my first job was business development, I think director of business development you know, at the time, the cable companies had a venture with together. With this group called. At Home, and it was in the heyday of the internet. The first heyday of the. Internet, I should say. And so it was a lot about you know, establishing relationships and things like that but when at home faced financial difficulties and ultimately disbanded.I was given the task of trying to figure out what our portal was going to be. Email, all of that because I’d had some coding background at Accenture, you know, as a business development that you do a lot of those kinds of things. So we decided to go it alone and stood up our own portal and email, and it was really hard. But that’s ultimately what became. The seed for what became a lot of our interactive properties and and ultimately our product development teams and approach was that interactive group.DaveAwesome. So who is your competition then when you were going to what was it? That was it the Microsoft and Google of the world?CharlieOr, you know, it was AOL, you know, they were huge.I remember, I remember, you know. You know, why are we trying to do this? Let’s just do a deal with AOL and be done and I’m like, you know, look, we’re installing this stuff. It’s a great touchpoint for our customers. Let’s, let’s hold on to it and see what we can do, and sure enough. You know, we could compete there and we won by focusing on what we were trying to do, which was connect up homes and connect people to a vastly bigger world through broadband internet. And it was a little less about, you know, being the portal. It was, it was, you know.Sure, we had one, and we made money on it and things like that. But the real focus. Was just connecting this home, and then we started to put services on top of our portal like. Video and flash players and things like that that were really exciting. That gave us a lot of confidence to go kind of further into the interactive space.DaveAnd then from Biz Dev, what was your next stop in your career?CharlieLet me think. Well, I mean, it became product, essentially. You know, I was running the product. Yeah, it was, you know, running Comcast portal and interactive properties. And, you know, the features that went along with them, which at that time were things like email and personal web pages and stuff like that. And then that evolved into. You know, are you working on the TV products and working on the Infinity Home products and things like that? But it was it was definitely start to run product teams and user experience teams.DaveI think when I met you, you just come out of having run the Xfinity program, which at the time was the most successful product that Comcast had launched, both from an experience standpoint and just from a technology innovation standpoint. Maybe maybe talk about that experience and how that sort of shaped everything you’ve done since.CharlieYeah, I think, you know, when we decided to redefine television and really put the experience and delivery up in the cloud, which we call our X1 experience.I did not start that. That was already started by some really smart folks. But what I did do as I was brought in, we put a new UI on it and we spent a lot of time trying to solve, you know, the discovery and content and put that in quotes that customers have, which is there’s so much on how do I really kind of get to it quickly? How do we make it really welcome and an advanced sort of experience versus what existed before? And so I did run that product team and to your point, that was really successful. You know, I still think it’s one of the better UIs out there, and we really did it by focusing on the content itself and our Mission. Our mission was, A: to put a TV in every pocket, so we focused a lot on the streaming and, and mobile pieces.It was B: to get you to your content that you want faster. And so we spent time on search and discovery and different ways to do that. Whether it’s, you know, rotten tomato listings or whether it’s we had some really cool ways of searching, and then adding things like the voice remote ultimately was sort of the last thing that I was I was involved with.And also looking at that screen as kind of more than what’s on TV like, you can use that screen to, you know, see your security cameras, you can use that screen to interact with customer care, and that’s still something I believe strongly in. We’ll keep, we’ll keep doing that.But the focus and the mission that I gave the team was literally and we headed it at the beginning of every meeting. This slide was like, we’re here to change people’s lives and we’re here to to implement our version of innovation. And for me, innovation is not feature matching. Innovation is making someone’s life better. It can be complex technology that does that. Or it could be something as simple as, you know, sticky coats. But the focus is, you know, making life better and that the job of a good product person.I used to tell this story. My youngest bet you’ve met, Mave.She was four or five and she was opening this present, you know, excited like a kid always is. And she said, I never knew I always wanted this. And I thought it was proof that that’s exactly what a good product person should be doing. And so this idea that we’re constantly trying to figure out ways of making someone excited about what they’re using and have them to start to think like. I can’t imagine my life without this, like, what did I do before? It’s just such a… it was such a, It still gets me super excited just thinking about it. And so and so that is my passion and spent a lot of time there and, nd based on that success. They said, Hey, we have another problem for you, which is the customer experience piece that we’ve been trying to turn around for a while. Could you come in and and Focus on that? And I remember when I first got that gig, lots of things. First of all, that’s where I met CrossLead and you. But I remember getting a lot of questions like, Well, look, you’re not the customer care guy. Like, you don’t have customer service experience. Why are you in this role, right? And my point of view was. Well, customer service is what happens when the experience breaks. So we’re going to go fix the experience which is in the product. It’s in the sales journey, it’s in all of those things. And how do we make those things better so that customer service is reserved for this truly important times when you need it?And look, we’ve got a lot. We’ve got a lot to go for sure. But we made good progress. And what attracted me to that opportunity with Neil Smith, who brought it to me was it was really the chance to change our influencer culture. I wouldn’t say change because I think that the Comcast has always been really focused on customers and wanting to to do right by them. But it was a chance to influence a culture so that you could put some of the metrics around customer experience a little more, you know, in the decision making, in the business. And so that was really, I view that as sort of my experience with sort of culture and bringing people along together, like how do you bring, you know, tens of thousands of people along on this journey and get them to think about it similarly and value the same things? And then recently, I’ve been back in the product world looking back in the product.DaveYeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a remarkable story I remember. I remember the first time I came downstairs on a weekend when I told my kids they could go watch a show and I just sort of marveled at how they navigate it to a show and I’m like, My son can’t read into that voice remote. Was like, I think I was hacking the system by just talking into it. And he was like, Yep, that got me to the the picture. I wanted and then was able to click and much to my horror. I was like, Wow, you know, he’s now fully exposed to the whole world pretty quickly. So to the extent that you want your product to work for a five year old like mission accomplished, that was pretty, pretty remarkable.Go back to the vision statement. I think that’s really I think that’s a really interesting point to dig out on a lot of times, you know? You know, part of the role of the leader is to inspire people towards a new vision. The fact I’d love to hear more how you think about the repetitiveness, how often you to do that, to sort of actually unlock that capability set for an organization?CharlieYeah, I think what I learned was a lot of us, I think, make the mistake we put. We we put effort into these mission statements. Maybe you see them once or twice a year. You know, you couldn’t walk around the halls of those companies and ask them with what the mission statement is, what they’re there to do. Why are they there? And here’s similar things you’d hear very, very different things. I don’t know if you always hear the exact same thing. But I learned that pretty early on, Jim Barksdale was the president at McCaw Cellular, and he brought a lot of things from his time at FedEx. In terms of how you shape culture. And I just remember being struck by how everyone embraced it because they used it all the time because they saw it was in front of them all the time.And so when I was really trying to build out a product culture at Comcast. The idea that people need to have purpose in what they’re doing and it’s not just a job, it’s not just working on technology, it’s not just writing code or creating a design. You’re doing it for an end goal, and having an inspirational end goal is A: important so that everyone’s excited about what they’re doing. And B: is something I learned from from you guys. Having a common mission. And a common understanding allows you to make better decisions down in the trenches and within the teams. And so that to me, was was was really important. And what I found is you just can’t do it once in a while. You literally have to repeat it all the time, which is like all my own hands. Yeah, all the time. You can’t say it enough. And so I’ve taken that to heart and really think if you’re going to try to build a different culture, really get people to live up to your mission, they have to see it constantly. It can’t just be at the budget time or on a poster in the break room. You really need to sort of reinforce it and show that you’re living it and show that you’re excited about it.DaveYeah, no. 100%. If you think about the probably the most influential leadership lesson from from these last couple of experiences at Comcast, maybe tell a story around it that really helps, helps, helps the audience personalize it. If you could.CharlieI probably should have thought about this a little more. I mean, there’s so many. I’m the kind of person that thinks about these moments, and I just dwell on them all the time. I will say one thing I learned about what two things one is I was in my early forties because before I really am in my early fifties now, before I really realized that leadership was a discipline, you could practice and try different hats on. I assumed prior to that the people were either natural leaders or they weren’t.And yeah, and so I went through some leadership courses and Center for Creative Leadership was one. And I realized, you know, it’s. It’s it’s a lot about what you’re saying to the team, how you’re listening to the team. It’s a lot about communications and you should try some things.And so I forced myself in these all hands to try to be a better speaker to try to, you know, I tried a lot of different things. And so that’s one: one is that, you know, I came to realize that leadership was something that you could practice and you should look to others, read books about it and etc. I just it wasn’t in my sort of DNA at that time. It is now. And one of the there’ve been so many great leaders that I’ve worked for, but one that stuck with me because he was very different was Neil Smith, and what I remember from him was sort of just an unwavering courage and optimism about the mission and just extreme focus.But done in a way that was very friendly and collegial and collaborative. I remember when he offered me this role. He said, I think this is going to be a lot of fun. It’s also going to be really hard. And so, you know, I’m thinking to myself, OK, Neal. He’s a seal, former seal. So if he says something’s going to be hard, it’s going to be really hard. But that got me excited. And I remember that.DaveWhat do you mean by hard Neal? I wonder if we have the same scale for what that means.CharlieExactly. But I remember the look in his eyes that he’s genuinely jazzed about it, and that was the moment I flipped as like, OK, I’m all it. And so.DaveThat’s great.CharlieLeadership vision or leadership principle, I learned from that and, there were others, obviously great, great mentors. I’ve had the fortune to work for. But I just took that to heart and said you know what? The role of a leader is to lead and to model the behavior they want to see. And I think he did that really well. And so it doesn’t serve a leader. Well to sort of get down or get exasperated or, you know, they really got to show that. They are excited about what they’re doing and confident that it can be done. And so that’s one lesson I’ve definitely taken, I take it to heart.DaveTalk to me about your personal habits, like how you sort of set yourself up for your day, for a week, for your month, for your for your year. Are there specific things that you do that are so unique to you that may be perceived as quirky?CharlieNo, I would say, yeah, I do have a bit of a habit of it’s quirky now, but it’s it’s what I don’t have is, I think, what I aspire or aspire to.Which is sort of you probably wake up early and work out really hard and get your day going. I do that in spurts. And actually during this pandemic, I’ve been pretty good. So my day typically starts at five or earlier. I sleep less as I get older. But and I’m not a kind of guy that can get up right away at work. I’m just not. And so the one habit that I do have, which my wife teases me about, she calls it puttering around. But you know, I get my coffee. I read some email and I always I always read the news or watch the news, BBC or something like that or NBC.For me, it’s just having an hour and a half of quiet time to kind of think about the day. And actually a lot of the stuff I think about. I process emails and stuff like that but a lot of this stuff I think about is what we’ve talked about a little here today, which is like, how am I going to sort of. You know, support the narrative I’m telling in the meetings that I have today? You know, where where are there opportunities to influence, you know, towards the mission of what we’re trying to do?It’s a bit of a reminder of really what I’m all about and what I’m here to do I love that. And then, you know, it’s awesome. And then, you know, I have during, especially during Kovner, because I’m not an early morning workout person. I did start blocking seven to eight to work out, and so I’ve been pretty good about that, but other than that, I do have a lot of like quirky habits or. I find a lot of quirky habits, but not on a daily basis But now and then, I’m a big fan. Like, I’ve got four kids and in the evening, you know, try to get as much done. During the day so that I can have some time with them. You know, we’re big, big family dinner, people.DaveOh, that’s great. That’s great. If you go back to your early days as a as a scout and I know, I know you’re very successful, you went on to to to get your Eagle Eagle Scout badge. Maybe talk about what was like one of the core takeaways that you still live today from from those experiences is as a child.CharlieYou know, I would think, well, first of all, I was again very focused on the camping aspects of being a scout. So to me, it was it was about getting a bunch of skills that I wasn’t going to be able to get from from my dad. And know I would say. And I went on. My son is an Eagle Scout. I went on to help with his troop. I would say what I took from it was a notion of civic responsibility and just just the idea of. You know, doing things for your community I did not. And we’ve talked a lot about it. I did not go on to serve in the forces or anything like that, which has been a minor regret of mine but I do. Feel like as a, as a person in society, we we owe something to the community.And I think that scouting experience fostered that and then I would say as an adult leader in the scouts when my son was in it, when I was amazed by is just how accomplished and. Thoughtful these young men and women can be. And the potential is so much greater than I. Think we give kids credit for. And so I was I was.Truly inspired by the accomplishments of some of these, you know, 16, 17, 15 year olds in terms of what they knew about.DaveYou know.CharlieEverything you know, they just attacked it and with such a curious mind. And so that was that was really inspiring to me.DaveYeah, it’s awesome. I mean, obviously, the hope he prepared peace plays and it sounds like he’d do that every morning. I love the fact that you connect. You take the time to be thoughtful about your day in looking at the various interactions you’re going to have and saying, All right, how do I take that, that vision and weave that into these meetings? That’s that’s that’s that’s extremely thoughtful, makes a ton of sense and probably a practice that everybody could probably apply.CharlieI think you can take that into sort of your your your goals, too. Again, I’m a big believer in keeping track and keeping score. And so every quarter when it I say my goals were how my grading myself and I, you know, send that to my boss. And one, it helps the scope creep. It helps to remind your boss. What you said you were going to do. And two, it keeps you honest and it makes you a person of your word and transparency. Look, I’m not. I’m not getting this a goal done.CharlieAnd for these reasons, but I think it’s important to constantly revisit what you’re where you’re trying to do.DaveYou talked earlier or we’ve talked earlier about, you know, the importance of teams and sort of your your sort of development around those concepts specifically in this role because I think it was it was interesting. I think to be good for the audience to hear kind of unique is that position because you weren’t really in charge of anything, right? But you had influence over sort of everything. And so you really had to work in that distributed almost team of teams and time. Maybe maybe talk a bit more about, you know, some of the key things you took away from trying to drive a transformation from a centralized resource with a very strong incumbency in that, you know, and the respective silos and disciplines of the organization?CharlieYeah. And to me, that was a really fun moment, actually. And I’m not. Saying that’s just because I’m on a CrossLead podcast. But as you know, the story was you guys had given me the. Galleys of team of teams to read, and I was always away on a vacation and so I had this role and I had some ideas of things I wanted to do the piece that I hadn’t figured out as like, how am I really going to get all of these different disciplines to to chase the same vision and figure out how to do that?And in reading that book. I was so excited, like I wanted to leave vacation right away because for me, it unlocked the idea. That you can create a shared consciousness in greater context around a mission with some pretty simple communication tools.Some simple sort of team decision making tools and so that was an, you know, you were there. As we launched. You know what we called the forum, which was our sort of our company once a week meeting where we invited everyone to participate. And what it taught me was the context is so critical to the teams making decisions and it can turn things from adversarial. Into sort of pure alignment with just understanding a little more context and that’s that’s something I’m really driving.As I focus on teamwork now. Very smart folks on the team are very focused on their area of the business, not coming together regularly to understand other people’s parts of the business. This notion of a quarterly business reviews where everyone sits in and again, I pull those lessons from from CSX that. If you really want to give people the license to do what you want them to ultimately do, you need to give them full context and a very clear mission that we all agree on. And once that happens, magic because, you know, it just starts running itself. That’s what I learned. You know, one of the things that I chose, why I chose. The NPS system to implement was not sure. The score is important and the question is important. But to me, there were two. Factors that were the most important that I wanted to kind of get into the culture one was the idea of.Following up with customers calling them, you know, getting more feedback from them and using that rich, rich data to wine solve their problems, but then start to really look at it at a.DaveIt initiated their own priorities.CharlieYeah, I mean, I think it’s really easy to to look at machine data and believe your own data. You can’t argue. People’s perception because that’s what they have, you know, and so that’s important to have their perception is as a measure or marker of where they are with your brand. The other component and the most. Exciting component was this notion of Ian, the employee NPS about what you’re doing. And what you do in that process. You use. Surface, you have them surface at a very local level issues that are keeping. Them from accomplishing the mission. When you address them. And what I liked about NPS is it put everyone at a senior leadership team. On notice and accountable for solving those problems.They have to to, you know, because we elevate them, we track them we make sure everyone knows them.And it’s basically an insurance policy to make sure you’re listening to your to your employees because they know what to do. They want to do right and they know how to solve the problem, and you’ve got to sort of listen to them. Yeah.And so that was that was really important. And I think the whole stakes. Journey also taught me just the importance of, you know, your frontline workers in terms of listening to their ideas and trying to make their job easier so they can do the job that you want them to do, which is take care of the customer. And that, to me, is. More important than any kind of score is. That we have a system now and when I walk I guess I haven’t walked through the halls in a while, but when I used to walk through the halls. The things that made me the most proud about that. Whole period of my career was hearing. People in meetings talking about in peace as part of their decision making or product feature or whatever, and it’s in every single meeting, in every single function, you know, legal, finance. Billing and that to me was OK. It’s part of our DNA, is part of our culture. That’s the most proud thing I have of that whole period.DaveYeah, that’s a great example of culture change right there. You know, being on a sort of management and it’s hard to quantify culture, oftentimes it’s sort of like oxygen. You don’t really notice it until it’s missing, right? When you get that, when you get those insights just by walking around. We used to call it troop in the line, right? You go out and they’re in their foxholes, in the front lines and just sort of hear what the men and women are talking about. And and when you hear them repeating back narratives that you’re trying to push at the top, you feel you feel great.CharlieYeah.DaveWho say it’s not important who I am and what you’re saying. And that’s great. It’s awesome. OK? As you think about. So I mean, that’s a good segue way into the last year and a half have been incredibly challenging for a lot of people. And I know, you know, specifically the work environment I’d love to hear, you know, specifically how you guys have sort of dealt with the pandemic and and how you’re thinking about your team and Asia as it sort of return to work opportunities, startups and how you’re thinking about best practice coming out of that?CharlieWell, the first thing is we’ve always placed. Employee safety as a as a super high priority. So that is guided everything for us. And so early on, you know, it was like, All right, how do we keep our employees. Safe and. Still try to. Accomplish the things we want to do as a business and get customers hooked up to, you know, because now they’re even more focused on on staying connected. So one of the things I’m really proud of is we moved, you know. Tens of thousands of employees to work from home within 60 days. And we did it in a secure way with a scalable VPN and a lot of creative technologists and just hard elbow grease to get that done. And with with the idea that we can make them productive and happy at home.And not place them in harm’s way by having them come in to sort of open floor plan call centers and things like that. So that I think going in, we didn’t know how easy or hard. Well, we knew it’s gonna be hard. We didn’t know how successful we were going to be, but we were very successful. And I think the employees reflected. That terms. We love that you’re focused on us, that you’re focused on our safety and health. And then talking about doing.Doing a good job and as a as an employee. And I just think that that was. Such a proud moment for us to be able to do that. The other the other one was, you know, again, some the network performed really well amidst a huge surge in traffic, and we were able to deploy some really smart technology and AI into our network to to make sure that it continued to do that.And so I think it showed us that preparing your core. Assets and applying technology in a smart way, you know, for these unexpected moments is just so critical. So we learned that about ourselves as we think about. Coming back to the office. You know, first of all, working remotely. And using the software we use as Microsoft Teams. Just I think it surprised everyone. We how good it was in terms of being able to. Accomplish our goals, launch products remotely, you know, gather as a team to to make decisions, and it’s just really positive experience.And so as we come back into the office because we do feel like, you know. The collaboration and co-location and things like that are very important will be. Will understand how to be more flexible. But I think what it’s. Taught us is the importance of distributed locations. How do you include, you know, your, your development centers. In. India or Israel or Denver and really bring the teams together? That’s been a lesson we’ve learned. But I think as we go back, we are looking forward to getting. Back and being together and driving those that teamwork. But we’ll have some tools, some extra tools. To be even more connected and even more flexible, and we need to be.DaveAwesome. Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. I was having this conversation with some, some other executives recently as they think about navigating this. And I think a lot of a lot of people, specifically, they’re in a position to make decisions around this are sort of wrestling with, is it back to five days or is it only going to be a hybrid or whatever else? And you know, my my thought is once people learn a new skill and learn new muscle like they’re never going to go back to exactly the way it was just going to have an expanded toolkit to do stuff. And I still think the most effective form of communication is in person face to face. Yeah. So for those you know, those really, you know, high, impactful sessions that are needed, just they’re still going to be a requirement to do that. But I think we’ve all learned that there’s the ability to sort of operate, like you said, in a distributed manner, be effective going back to, you know, the team, a team story for a second. You know, we we set up our physical infrastructure around the globe realizing that the majority of the people that need to be involved in the night’s operation. We’re not going to be physically present, not because of some pandemic, just because of. Right, right. The laws of physics and distribute. So we actually designed our spaces with that in mind, meaning like we knew that most of our conversation was going to be have to be in a virtual setting and the people in the room were important, but you know, it was trying to. Index to make sure they were inclusive was what I love about what I love about how teams and when you go to fully virtual is not everybody has the same experience because they’re through a common platform coming back to some hybrid model where you’re going to, you’re probably going to have a scenario where. You got some people in the room and other people out of the room, but you still got to get the same thing done. It’ll be interesting to see how people people sort of navigate that, but that was like, you know, a critical insight because it was just a constraint that existed for us. So it wasn’t an option to get it the other way.CharlieYeah, I think two things. one is we’re also sort of retooling our rooms for this notion of a more inclusive environment with remote workers, whether they’re individually promoting or. Or, as I mentioned, one of our dev locations that. The key one of the things that we’re doing, which. Is the key thing that I think everyone feels like they really missed was especially on engineering side, it was this kind of whiteboarding. I think that virtual whiteboard. Is just as hard. As you get your whiteboard there. So one of the things we’re doing is. Setting up cameras on the whiteboards and we’ll see. How we’re going to how that goes. And we’re going to we’re going to start going In some of us just to test it out here and a little bit.But I do think I think the second thing is, I think all of. The participants of a meeting are going to be a lot more in tune with the fact that there are remote folks. Prior to COVID, we had have all these sort. Of we try to have these rules of, Hey. If you’ve got someone remote, don’t forget to ask them their opinion. You know, we had these, you know, don’t close that meeting without asking anyone on the phone, you know, their thoughts. That kind of thing, because we were trying to reinforce this notion of, don’t forget. And I think. That will be a problem anymore. So I’m looking forward to.That better, better team cohesion. But it is going to be, you know, we don’t know yet. We’re going to learn. Our way through it. Like, think most like most of your companies?DaveAwesome. So to last question. first of all, what are you guys working on now? Like, what are your top, you know, key priorities and you know, on your own leadership development, like what do you what do you kind of like focusing on are finding the time to read or think about now?CharlieWell, as I as I set up the structure, it’s really trying to figure out how do I drive more contextual, better alignment with the teams, including some of our stakeholder partners? That’s like not a new problem, but it’s I’m sure that we are persistent or that you’ve always got to work on and you can always get better at. And I think it doesn’t get better without a very. sIntentional way of doing it. So I’m looking at some training to help with that.You know, I think, you know, a lot of that. We did a lot. Of listening sessions with our DNI efforts. Listening sessions are actually part of NPS. We call them huddles. So some of the training I’m looking at. Is how to have conversations. How do you have really honest, hard conversations, but not in an adversarial way? And there’s. There’s some good. Material out there, so I’m going to be kind of focused on that. And then the second thing we’re focused on is how do we really set our. Ourselves up for the future of what the home is going to be and spending a lot of time really looking at really, really where customers are going to want home? How are they going to?What kinds of entertainment are they going to want and getting. Back to some some strategies? One of the things I’m interested in doing.Is is driving sort of a ten year strategy cycle within the group. A lot of companies will do five year plans or three year plans. And how do you sort of have a rolling ten year kind of plan on on again?Less about the finances, but more about where.Consumer trends are going to be and how do we really make sure that we’re applying our innovation and our resources in a smart way to make sure that those are seen and worked into our products in a real way?So those are sort of the two big.Sort of new cultural things I’m working on.And then other than that, we’re going to keep driving.Connecting homes, you know, and people, whether it’s some of the mobile products we’re launching now.Or.We’re going all broadband and some of our new forms of entertainment, you know, it’s just it’s a busy, busy world as you as, you know, lots of product changes. But it’s.Exciting. And so, you know, continuing.To focus on what we want to do and not kind of chasing what others are doing is always about.Also making sure that you’re staying true to what you think you can build as is key to me.DaveThat’s great. That’s great. What’s the most recent like book you’ve read or the movie you’ve seen or show you’ve watched or something? That’s that you found interesting that maybe the audience could benefit from?CharlieYou know, I was trying to look at I was trying to look up the title of this book I read, I will get it to you. But it was really about.Successful leaders and CEOs.And how they thought about.Capital allocation.Again, I apologize. I can’t think of the title I need to look at because.DaveThe main theme in a couple of months. The main thing was, look here eight CEOs. And they were some of the most successful CEOs in history. And they may not have been the high flying ones you’ve heard of. But they really return shareholder value because they thought constantly about how they were allocating capital and just sort of the thought process that they went through and I think that is increasingly. Something that I’m certainly spending more time thinking about as well because you do, you have to shut down. Some things to start new with new things, and that’s hard. But you know, the people that either through instinct or. In this case, you know, just really good studying of where things are going. They’ve been able to make those those choices. So I apologize. I don’t have the name of the book, but all I know.Is we’ll make sure we capture it in there and in the of notes. That’s awesome, though. It’s awesome, and I think it makes a ton of sense, you know, thinking about prioritization and how you make some decisions about, you know, at the local level.But then at the more strategic level where you’re at, it really comes down to where are you going to make that capital wise and in bringing out the right process that’s actually driving that ten year vision you’re talking about is is. Really important. Try. Thanks so much for taking time with us today. We really appreciate it was awesome having you on the CrossLead podcast. Any final thoughts or comments?CharlieNo. Again, I appreciate and honored that you asked me to participate. I’ve learned so much from listening to others. Talk about their experiences. Certainly learned a lot from you.Just how hopeful can be helpful to someone again. The notion of high performing teams and how you organize that is is, to your point, it’s a persistent problem. So I think you’re doing good work and it’s critical.DaveIf the listeners want to learn more about you or follow you. Is there even a way to do that given your own position? Yeah, people are going to love this question.CharlieYeah. And honestly, you know, I’m not active on the social media platforms, so I think you probably just need to look for. I know that, you know, I’ve got some some of my keynotes out there. You can watch them. And, you know, once COVID kind of gets better and we’re traveling more, I’m sure I’ll be. I’ll be doing some conferences and things like that.DaveAwesome. All right. Well, thank you, Charli.e. I really appreciate you spending time with us today.CharlieLikewise. Thank you.Daveone more thing before we finish the episode, the CrossLead podcast is produced by the team at Truth Work Media. I want to make this the best leadership podcast available, so I would love to get your feedback. Our goal this season is to have authentic conversations with special operators, business leaders and thought leaders on the topics of leadership and agility. If you have any feedback, suggested topics or leaders that you want to hear from these, email me at contact@crosslead.com. If you found this episode interesting. Please share it with a friend and drop us a rating until next time. Thank you for joining.

Role of the leader with Peter Chung In this episode of the CrossLead podcast, host David Silverman speaks with Peter Chung, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Summit Partners. They focus on what defines cultures of excellence in teams and portfolio companies he looks to invest in, the leadership traits that differentiate the best from the rest, what he looks for in leaders  — from their motivations, how they respond to adversity, willingness to build teams, and tell great stories. Finally, they discuss the evolution of private equity investing and the latest trends in business — such as investment fundamentals in the “meme stock” environment.“You can't confuse a bull market for brains” – Peter Chung Resources Want to discuss some of these topics directly with Dave? Join the CrossLead LinkedIn Group. The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown Episode Transcript DaveWelcome to the CrossLead podcast. I’m your host, Dave Silverman at CrossLead, we exist to help teams, individuals achieve and sustain optimum performance. In today’s episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Peter Chung. Peter is the managing director and chief executive officer of Summit Partners.When I first met Peter seven years ago, he was already an incredibly successful private equity investor, but was about to become the firm’s first CEO over 30 plus year career. He has been in the Forbes Midas less multiple times, having invested in more than 30 companies, including 18 current or formerly publicly traded companies.Today we talk about what defines a culture of excellence and teams, leadership traits that differentiate the best from the rest, and what he looks for in leaders that he invests in. We talk about the evolution of private equity investing in the latest trends in business.Thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed the conversation with my friend and mentor Peter Chung. But Peter, thanks for joining us today, I really appreciate it. I’d love to just to get a chance to get to know you better today. Maybe start take us back to where you’re from and talk a little bit about your upbringing, if you would.PeterYeah, sure. Well, it’s a pleasure to be here and really, really looking forward to this conversation. But I’m the child of immigrants. I guess that’s sort of the first the genesis story of my life. My parents are came here from Korea and in the mid-sixties, like a lot of immigrants at that time, my father came here.He had just left the Air Force in Korea and he came over to pursue a graduate degree. He was going to go to Carnegie Mellon, but he got off the plane in Chicago and was waiting for my mom to come over.And so instead of just how he had to what, he had to pay his bills. So he took a job as a draftsman at an engineering firm and in the loop in Chicago and just never left.DaveSo did he have like a background in an art, in drafting?PeterOr he was. He studied engineering in college. He had a he was a pilot and then an engineer in the air in the Korean Air Force. And he he he loved America because at the time, you probably familiar with the state, but they had officer exchange programs. And so, you know, he knows every Air Force base in America because he has been to most of them anyway. So he came he came to the U.S. to study to get his PHD in engineering instead of going to Carnegie Mellon. He decided to study at the University of Illinois and and I was born and raised in Chicago.In the Chicago area, grew up in a town called Hinsdale, which is which was a wonderful place to grow up in the seventies and eighties. Because of my father’s history, and my grandfather was also a pilot. I was fascinated with aviation.You know, again, I was a little kid. I’d had a dream of going to the Air Force Academy and becoming a fighter pilot.DaveOh, wow.PeterAnd that was that. It was like layers in life, you know, not necessarily stages, but that was like this foundational layer. And I still have a lot of that in my makeup. You know, I still love aviation. I have deep reverence for the military, not uncommon among children of parents who were, you know, my parents were refugees during the Korean War. So it was sort of a reverence for MacArthur and the Marine Corps. And you know what, the 50,000 young American boys who who were killed or wounded in Korea?DaveYeah, I don’t think I appreciated that until I spent time over in Asia as a young officer in the Navy, and you and you go over there, you would just see the appreciation that people had for, you know, what the U.S. had done all the way from Australia up to, you know, Japan. I mean, it was it was pretty remarkable. And like you, my my father was a pilot, so I know what it’s like to want to be a pilot growing up. And so I found out my eyesight wasn’t that great and then there was like, All right, well, I guess you figured out the alternative.PeterWell, he’s almost exactly the same thing happened to me. I think is, you know this, Dave. But you know, I guess if you’re thinking about the next layer of life like you, it was it was as a student athlete that began probably in middle school, you know, growing up in a town like Hinsdale, where sports are really important, get pulled into sports at an early age and did the Midwestern sports. I played football. I was a wrestler. I played baseball. Over time, I probably midway through high school, dropped baseball and stuck with football and wrestling. But, you know, I just had the opportunity to compete with guys who remained to this day, some of my best friends. You know, I still I really wanted to be a college athlete, but I was still had this dream of going to the Air Force Academy and flying an F16 and that that ended suddenly. I think in like January of my senior year when I didn’t get a vision waiver. I got an appointment getting recruited to play football, but didn’t didn’t get the vision waiver. So wow, that kind of ended suddenly. But you know, when one door closes, another opens oftentimes that. Tough to tell that to a 16 or 17 year old boy who’s been dreaming of this for, you know, on the doorstep of his childhood dream, but the door that opened don’t mean this kind of a funny way to say this as sort of a fallback consolation prize was Harvard. Yes.Very fortunate to have the chance to go to Harvard and play football, and that was a terrific experience. You know, it was a humbling experience and it was a transitional one because I wasn’t as as I wasn’t as good as I thought. I was put it that way when it’s when I went there and.DaveWhat position were you playing in?PeterFootball was running back.DaveBut, you know, back.PeterThen you played both ways as a running back and a defensive back in high school and. But I like I loved carrying football and went off to Harvard and was was probably in over my head in terms of talent.Even back then in the eighties, but that kind of it, it was a period of tremendous personal growth and I’m in so many different ways. There’s sort of this story of a boy becoming a man and that that’s that doesn’t come easily or smoothly.And the same was true for me during my college days. But that that I guess the student athlete, the at least the active participant, the competitive athlete part of it started to change and kind of came to an end.After my senior year, I actually went on a athletes in action wrestling tour of Central America. For some reason, they just they I don’t know why, but they took me on this team because I was a decent high school wrestler.But these guys were really good wrestlers. So we were.DaveYou wrestling at Harvard as well?PeterNow, now you know, it’s wrestling. It’s kind of like water polo. It’s a pretty miserable sport.DaveOh, it’s for a slight weight.PeterYeah, a lot of life lessons, a lot of life lessons. But you know, I fractured my collarbone before my senior season, so I didn’t miss my whole senior season and sort of felt unfulfilled. So I did this. Athletes in action tour as a way to close the book on that sort, a competitive part of my student athletelayer of my life. Now that continues out, you know, it kind of manifested itself in different ways. Can’t play football or wrestle when you get in your thirties and forties. So, you know, I took up mountaineering and rock and ice climbing and surfing and a big fly fisherman.Do you know I like to hunt with you and and all your buddies? And then I saw pass it on to coaching my three boys in a variety of sports.DaveYeah, you’re very active, right? As a coach in the in your local community?PeterI was. Yeah.DaveYeah, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. You know, I find it going from a student athlete. That’s sort of all, you know, you know, all the way through college in your whole life sort of revolves around that. When you when you finally made that, maybe talk a bit more about that transition. You know, when you start to realize, right, what’s the next phase of my life going to look like, you know, I’ve got a friend who actually coaches former Olympians and she’s, you know, these people, these people deal with depression. Their entire life was focused on ten, 15, 20 seconds worth of glory. And then they come home and they’re like, All right. Well, now what?PeterYeah, you know, it’s your identity is wrapped around whatever it is, you’re doing, right? So if you’re a good athlete, you’re you see yourself as an athlete. And I think I was probably a little bit more well-rounded. I was obviously a fairly good student and had other interests and hobbies. But I would say by and large, my identity was as a student athlete. And when that comes to an end, it’s you have to almost redefine yourself and that that can be a challenge at any stage in life. But for me, frankly, I was let down slowly, as I said, I wasn’t that great an athlete in college, and so that let me begin a relatively gradual transition into becoming the next thing. And for me, that was becoming a finance professional.You know, I didn’t know anything about Wall Street or investing or the financial world when I went to college. My father was an entrepreneur. Would he had started a steel fabrication business and built pressure vessels and storage tanks, sort of his the practical application of his engineering education. But you know, when I was a junior and senior in college, but at the time this was late eighties, all the smart guys that I knew were going down to Wall Street.PeterSo I thought, Well, you know, sounds like a pretty interesting thing to do.DaveWhat did you study? What did you study at Harvard was or was your major on economics? OK, so that’s a nice that’s a nice Segway into financing.PeterYeah, yeah. So I went went to work at Goldman Sachs in New York in what was then the merger department, the M&A Advisory Group. I just picked that firm in that group because I like the people the best. There wasn’t any scientific reason for doing it other than I really like. The people thought they were terrific. What I didn’t realize that I hated in New York, so moved to New York, had a great first few months. You know, for the first time in your life, you have money in your pocket, but you’re you’re working, you know, are just brutal hours.DaveYeah, the investment banking world is known for that, right? It’s like almost like a crucible for, yeah, college graduates.PeterYeah, some recent blowback, which I find amusing back then.DaveYes, the softer generation these days.PeterYeah, they’re less sympathetic to the plight of the young analysts, but the extraordinary learning experience. But again, I didn’t like New York, so I was looking to make a change. I volunteered to transfer to the Los Angeles office, which was again a pivotal and transformational decision in the arc of my career. I spent two years in L.A. working primarily with a partner named Gene Sykes, who is still a very active partner at Goldman Sachs, from whom I learned a tremendous amount about how to think about businesses, how to conduct yourself in a meeting, how to negotiate, how to value businesses really, really important.DaveCan you maybe share some of those key like takeaways or key lessons from that you learned?Peterone of the biggest lessons I learned from Gene was to be don’t shortcut your preparation for meetings, especially when you’re young. I was 22 or 23 years old. We were advising boards and executive teams of publicly traded companies on the biggest decision they could ever make, right, which was potentially to sell their company. And it I learned early that it didn’t necessarily matter how old you were. It mattered a lot. How well prepared, how thoughtful, how articulate, how intelligent you were. Just matter how good you were. And I thought that that was different than my impression of what work was like. And I think some of that I attribute to Gene, he just put me in positions where, you know, sort of sent me to meetings alone and figure it out, you know, and I just learned a tremendous amount from him in terms of that way of thinking about rendering advice, giving your opinion, thinking about strategy and then communicating all that in a compelling way.DaveYeah, great. Great. And if you if you go back for a second and Peter to like you know, your childhood and even college, is there a key takeaway or lesson from you about being a part of teams that you know you still sort of carry on today or think about or try to instill in your into your into your boys?PeterYou know, Dave, there’s perhaps a common denominator under a lot of very, very successful organizations is that that is that they have a culture of excellence in their organizations, comprised of people who have very high standards. They have tremendously high expectations of themselves, and that translates into a group of people who can perform.In a relatively selfless way and produced extraordinary results over a long period of time, I think the, you know, the the opposite what I’ve seen in many places is the opposite of a culture of excellence is a culture of entitlement and that can be very difficult to reverse.It also leads to hierarchy, bureaucracy, all the things that you point at and say that that’s the root cause of inefficiency or poor performance in an organization. So, you know, it’s it’s easy to sit to to to talk about in a relatively small organization like our firm.I can understand how it’s difficult in a much, much larger organization, global organization. But it’s one of the things that we look for when we hire people. You know, if they have very high expectations of themselves higher than I might have of them, that’s probably going to work out pretty well.But if my expectations for somebody are low are higher than their expectations of themselves, it’s just a matter of time before it does work.DaveNow I’m looking forward to the day that that flips over for my children where I have higher. They have higher expectations themselves than I do of them. We’re not. We’re not quite there yet at seven and ten, but we’re working on it.PeterYeah. Well, it’s another one of, you know, I’m currently in the 20 years into it now, husband and father stage. But you know, I think I’ve got to be careful about applying those professional lessons to my personal life.DaveYeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Got to figure out that balance. Yeah, no, I’ve been I’ve been pretty reflective myself around my time as an athlete, mainly because my coach, my my high school coach just passed away sort of suddenly a couple of weeks ago. And a lot of us have been we’re sort of taken aback and surprised, and I was sort of surprised it. So the outpouring of emotion and and the reconnection you had with old teammates and even people that were familiar with the program over years, just because the guy was, you know, pretty legendary coach.DaveBut I look back and say, you know, there’s a lot of lessons there that really helped me navigate through it. You know, I would say adversity, a life that really I can tie back to that pulled back in high school where, yeah, you know, to your point, he sets a very high standard. And the other thing I liked about it was it was a meritocracy to one extent, and he didn’t care who you are, didn’t care, you know, if your parents had means or not, or you know what, your background, if you showed up and and you put out every day, you could be on the team, and if you didn’t, you know you were gone.PeterYeah, if I think there’s something about this in our in our nature right there, obviously in sports, there’s all the tried and true learnings that that apply to participating in team sport. You learn the value of hard work, you learn how to handle adversity, you learn how to handle success and failure so and so forth.But you know, it’s funny they talk about millennials now want having a lot of motivations, one of which is to be a part of something bigger than themselves, part of a cause. All that stuff. Well, that was no different than playing on a team is right in your right for you and I, when you know, 20 or And yeah, I don’t I don’t. I think what we’re talking about today with millennials and Gen Z and Gen Z is not that much different. You know? Yeah. Manifests itself, perhaps in a different way.DaveAll right. So take me back to L.A. You’re in L.A., you’re learning from this legendary partner at Goldman Sachs. You learning as you’re being thrown into meetings at a very young age where you’re advising, you know, probably pretty senior executives on their most important decisions around whether to sell their business or not.And then what’s next? Where do you where do you go? How long you in L.A. and where do you go next to Stanford next?PeterYeah, it was, you know, again, I love New York, but to be clear, I didn’t want to live there. So I been offered the chance to skip business school and continue on career track at Goldman. But it required a move back to New York.And so, you know, I was 24 years old at the time living in Manhattan Beach, and I just couldn’t bring myself to to do that. I really did enjoy California, so almost I applied to business school and decided to go to Stanford there again.Somewhat of a I would have never predicted that I would go to Stanford Business School when I graduated from college. Why? Well, you know, I’d grown up in the Midwest and had been educated on the East Coast and lived in New York at a very eastern half of the U.S. centric point of view.But moving and moving around and beach and then, you know, doing business in Northern California, Silicon Valley, I really like the area like people. I like the innovation, the energy. And so I decided to go to the GSB.And again, just an extraordinary piece of good fortune, not just to be in the class in which I’m from which I graduated. Just a terrific group of people with whom I’m very close today, but also had the opportunity to study investing under the legendary Jack McDonnell.Jack taught investing in Stanford Business School for five. Years, undoubtedly, the best teacher I ever had. But more importantly, because he’d been such a legendary figure already by the time I became one of his students. You know, he he had this larger than life aura, although he was an extraordinarily humble and low key, thoughtful person.He would pick two or three students to work for him as case writers every year, and for some reason he decided he picked me. And as I sort of progressed through that second year business school, I realized that, gosh, you know, if Jack picked me as one of his case writers, you must think I could be apretty good investor. And that that started my exploration of a career in investing. And you know, that’s that was again, one of the more influential experiences. Clearly, the most, the most impactful person in my thinking about my, my not just my career, but also my life and and how to conduct yourself in a personal professional situation.Just an extraordinary person. In so many ways that would have happened if if I hadn’t decided to go to Stanford Business School.DaveThis low key comment keeps coming back. I mean, maybe, maybe talk a little about it because I know you’re a student of it now, like leadership. Like, you know, what are your takeaways that sort of differentiates leaders in the environment?I know, I know you’re you sort of referenced in previous conversations. We’ve had Jim Collins and some of the work he had done. I’d love to hear more on some of your thoughts. Well.PeterAgain, I’ll confess that oftentimes, you know, you tend to gravitate to theories which probably reinforce your own point of view or reinforce your own strengths and weaknesses, right?DaveSure, of course.PeterBut well, there’s a perhaps somewhat of a difference between being an entrepreneur and being a leader. Many of the best entrepreneurs again, I’m saying this from the perspective of someone who lives in Silicon Valley and well known for having a certain entrepreneurial culture.But a lot of entrepreneurs became entrepreneurs as a response to some trauma or some difficulty in their in their earlier lives. I think.DaveThat’s interesting. Is that true? I didn’t realize that, well.PeterIt’s the Steve Jobs phenomenon. You know, we we see this all. And I heard a saying that about about bad fathers in Silicon Valley said, thank goodness for bad fathers because without them, there wouldn’t be so many entrepreneurs.DaveOh wow.PeterI think that’s a little extreme, but there is a common thread in many entrepreneurs that they become somewhat nonconformist because because of some past history. That’s that’s again, a gross stereotype. But there is there is some commonality among that personality type.They tend not to do well in big companies that want to do something different, unique. They see the world differently, and that can create an extraordinary vision, a different differentiated vision on opportunities. Again, many of those entrepreneurs that can be great leaders, but not necessarily because of again, what makes them a great entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily make thema great leader of a company. There are always exceptions to that rule, but that’s not an uncommon pattern to see here. I think when you talk to leaders again, leaders who can sustain great performance over some period of time, there is also another, you know, simple aphorism that a people hire other people and B people hire C  people.So what’s a great characteristic of a leader? They can attract outstanding people to come work with them, not for them, but with them. They want to be a part of again going back to this concept of teams. They want to be a part of an extraordinary organization that does great things.I think one of the commonalities of some of these great leaders who can attract extraordinary people is they’re relatively selfless right there. They’re driven by what’s best for the team, what’s best for the company and not neces. Of course, everybody to some extent, they’re capitalists right there.They’re motivated by, you know, they embrace the profit motive, but it’s more than that. And it’s not at the expense of a of of the success of their teams.DaveYeah, yeah. And that’s the definitely reconciles with some of my thoughts, for sure and some of my own experiences. And it’s interesting you say you say that about entrepreneurs because you’re right. You know, I think I grew up my high school years in the Bay Area, and you would see a lot of these companies and you look at the leaders, you know, like, why not? I don’t know why those are people are considering what to follow, but they do have a compelling idea or product. You know, they’re going. But there’s now, but at some point that has to transition.I mean, as organization gets some degree of scale and, you know, leadership management starts to take a more critical role and that the the sustainability success in it and at summit, you guys tend to invest a little later stage when you’re not dealing, you know, typically with like brand new start ups or you’re doing something has aDavelittle journey.PeterWe are growth equity investors, but much of what we’ve done for almost 40 years is invest in companies that are still owned by the founder, CEO and founder.DaveOf.PeterThe farm family or a close group of non-institutional shareholders.DaveOK. And out the time those event was that it was like roughly the percentage of the time that the founders had to stay on and and keep kind of driving the business versus, you know, they’re looking at this is their opportunity to sort of make a material change in their in their career progression.PeterYou know, Dave we’ve looked at our data recently on on realizations over the last six or seven years and what we’ve discovered is that about 70% of the time we back the same CEO leader from start to finish of our whole of our investment during our holding period.DaveOut, it’s impressive.PeterAnd when we do, our realized results are significantly better than when we don’t. If we have a CEO, if we have a CEO change for any reason, it tends to extend your holding period because that new CEO typically rebuilds the team. And there’s a new CEO, oftentimes because there was a performance issue, right? So that it takes time to rebuild the executive team. They will, on occasion, reset strategy or just strategy.DaveAnd make sense.PeterOf that. That extends your holding period, which has an impact on IRR.DaveSo my imagine then when you’re when you’re going through the process of trying to determine whether you want to invest in one of these companies, you must spend a lot of time on the diligence of the actual leader themselves. Considering that the stats you just you just articulated.PeterThat’s become one of our primary emphases in recent years is to really go deep on the human capital underwriting component of this. It’s a that that is significantly more art and science.DaveRight? Right.PeterBut part of it is, again, to sort of go back to Polonius, speaking to Laertes, to that on be self, be true. Just be objective, be intellectually honest. Don’t hear what you want to hear. And that’s a challenge, right? That’s difficult. That’s it’s not easy in human nature, but really step back and try to be as objective as possible about what you see and hear about the person you’re about to back.DaveShakespeare so relevant 500 years later. Very impressive. So you graduate Stanford, you moved to summit. Maybe take take us through the arc of your career as an investor. You know, what was it like in the early stages and how has that evolved over the years?PeterYeah. When I joined some in 1994, the investing business, private equity and venture capital or growth equity, as we call it today in our part of the market was a fraction, a tiny fraction of the size it is today, and the firms were by and large, artisanal in nature.It was a bit of an apprenticeship business. They were partnerships, true partnerships, and it was now again, it was more of a craft as opposed to an industry. That’s all changed today, the industry. But the business has become much more industrialized and and institutionalized.And I think generally that’s been a positive evolution with all of the capital in the growth in the industry. The businesses that had to mature and that’s that’s been the case both at our firm as well as across the industry.But we were, I think, around 800 million of assets under management. Today, we’re almost 30 billion and we had probably grown from four fold five fold in that period of time.DaveNow in your entire time you’ve been you, you’ve always you’ve always lived in the Bay Area and have you been focused predominately in the technology space? Is that was the discipline that you followed up?PeterAnd yep. And again, sort of talking about layers of your life that built on top of each other, you know, going all the way back to my my origin story. You know, this latest layers as a tech investor at some and I still am responsible for subject matter expertise and thought leadership in a subset of of the technology sector in which I’ve been investing for most of my career. But over time, I’ve added additional responsibilities. I was a member of our executive committee for nine years and that was a group of partners that ran the firm.And then even though I was never really a proponent of moving to the CEO model 2014, my my partners asked me to become a CEO. And that became my role beginning in January first, 2015.DaveTalk about that. That’s interesting. So you’re in a partnership model. What was the impetus to change, to transition to having a CEO?PeterYou know, I think we’re going to first observation I always make is that being the CEO of partnership is very different than being CEO of a company. You’re still a partner, right? I’m I’m a managing director of the firm and although I’m invested with certain additional responsibilities and authority, but I’m still a partner.And so that requires, to some extent building some consensus. And again, I think to some extent, everybody has a boss, right? I think that’s one of my … Another leadership lesson I would add it’s good to have a boss. It’s good to be accountable to somebody. So I’m accountable to everybody at the firm. I view my role as not just being a leader, but also working for everybody in the firm. And of course, we all work for our investors, our limited partners, are the group of people to whom we are ultimately accountable.But I think that’s the first observation I’d make, Dave. But the impetus to move to a partnership, to move to a CEO model, I think, was fairly straightforward. Any multi-person decision making apparatus is inefficient by definition, right? It can sometimes lead to the right outcomes.But our I think our our experience was that the cost in terms of inefficiency outweighed the benefit in terms of consensus building. So we took the decision to consolidate the leadership group of the firm to have a single voice speaking for strategy and sort of establish the lexicon of the firm and all the norms and processes and all the things that are necessary to run a business, but to do so in a more efficient way, right, as opposed to four or five or up to seven people making that decision, it’s now one or two.DaveGot it. Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. If we go back to, you know, kind of what you look for in a leader and you said it’s more art and science. I’d be curious, what is your what is like your internal sort of pattern recognitions and process you go to to sort of like suss out whether a leader is somebody that you think is somebody want to partner with versus not.PeterI think the first thing, Dave, is to really understand their motivation, what’s causing them to engage in a conversation, what would allow them to build the company? How will they respond to challenges? How will they respond adversity? Right? And I think to some extent, it goes back to their willingness to really build teams and and and attract and empower outstanding people. Some leaders are uncomfortable with that delegating authority. I think in order to build companies again talked about being CEO of a company.That’s that’s necessary. It’s a it’s a risk management consideration for investors as well. Key man risk has been a risk that you know that we’ve considered deeply over my time at the firm. And it remains something that we consider in every in every investment. one way to control invest in key man risk is to key person risk is to broaden the group of key people again to to have a larger group of people on whom we were depending as opposed to just one key person.DaveSure. Yeah.PeterThat’s that’s that’s one thing. I think the other thing Davis, you know, having having a vision and a passion for what they’re doing. And so again, over time, if you’re successful, everybody is motivated by money at some level. But over time, the motivational effect of additional wealth reaches a point of diminishing returns. So in order to keep going at that at that stage of one’s career, you have to be motivated by something different. And it’s one of the things that we look for when we hire people. We’re looking for people who want to be the best. They want to be the absolute best of what they do and they want to play on the best team. And if we can, if we can continue to do those things that you know, you saw for a lot of your problems.But that’s that’s another marker of long term success in great leaders vision, passion, motivation, all those things are really important. And then, you know, I think CEOs also have to be very good salesmen. That doesn’t mean they have to be the the pitch person or the the used car salesman or what have you.But they’ve got to be able to to tell the story of their company in a very, very compelling way that gets in. That message has to be compelling both internally and externally. You have to be able to convince the people inside your company that what you’re doing is really important is going to be great.And likewise, you have to convince your customers and or your partners or whomever that your entity, your organization is uniquely capable of creating value for and for everyone in the in the in the partnership.DaveYeah, I love that. I love that idea. You know, if you can inspire people, it’s amazing. You know, the additional gears you can get out of that and then how they can really make the team. Be productive as a reminder, this recently, this weekend, I was with a company who was just starting up and we were running sort of a strategy session for them. They were talking about their mission, which honestly, this isn’t a joke was like to cure cancer. And you’re like, Well, that’s compelling. And then they started talking about their approach to it.And you know, you wanted it. You want to take the helm at the end of the document. You’re like, All right, I’m in like, I don’t even know we’re doing, but I’m doing it. Yes, it is really compelling, and it was fun to be just in a room of really smart people all sort of like, you know, didn’t need to be there that were sort of aligning around this common goal. I mean, you had like molecular biologist from from Harvard who, you know, basically won the equivalent Nobel Peace Prize of like 16 names in there go, Wow, I’m really out of my league here, in this room.But now it was it was really, really compelling. As you think about how things have evolved, especially, you know, we just, you know, oftentimes when I when I’ve dealt with people in finance, they don’t they tend to like look at like events to be like these things that sort of drive, you know, dislocation or opportunity in the marketplace. And obviously, we’ve just been through a pretty, pretty significant event with, you know with COVID and the effects. I’d love to hear how you’re seeing the current trends and what are you seeing as far as what’s next?PeterYou know, Dave, we’ve been I’ve been using this analogy again. I just tend to borrow liberally from great teachers from my past. But when I was in college, I took a class taught by the famous scientist, Stephen Jay Gould.He taught one of his famous theories was punctuated equilibrium. It was his own theory of evolution which said, Hey, listen, instead of the gradualist, the traditional view of Darwinian evolution. What I see in the fossil record is that we see periods of very, very rapid evolution in species in response to sudden environmental change.So things are very, very, very stable for a long time. Then you have a big environmental change and you see rapid evolution in species. The natural selection process occurs in a compressed timeframe, and what comes out as the environment settles down looks very different than it than the world when it entered.And I think that’s a useful analogy to think about what’s going, what’s going on, right? So again, we we’re seeing a lot of that in some of the industries in which we invest. And I think COVID has served to accelerate a lot of the secular trends that were emerging before the pandemic, and those trends could have been upwards or downwards. Right. So in some cases, it’s accelerating the sunsetting or demise of certain secular themes, and it’s accelerating the emergence of others. And those are the things that we spent a lot of time last year really trying to understand.We had lots of conversations about what’s the shape of the curve? How much of this is just pulling forward demand, which will then go through some period or mean reversion in the sinusoidal pattern around the long term trend?And how much of this is a pulling forward and then continued acceleration from that point forward?DaveAnd what is your analysis? Leave you on that? I’m curious, what are those trends that you think are going to revert back to the mean? And what do you think those things that are established a new sort of plateau owner can occur?PeterYeah, I think I think, you know, you can you can. The answer to that is just in a simple examination of your own behavior over the course of the last year. Are you consuming as much streaming video or are you ordering as much delivery?Are you writing your Peloton as much as or going to the gym? I mean, all those things that that were were moments in time where we really change behavior. We’re forced to change behavior in a very sudden sudden manner or how much of those changes in your personal behavior are continuing on now that you’re vaccinated and traveling again and going back to work? Right. Those are just some simple analogies that I use. I, you know, I’m I. The answer to all of those questions in my own personal observation is that I’m doing less of all those things than I did in June of 2020. Because, you know, we’re we are in some ways going back to work and getting back to normal.DaveAnd you talk. This is interesting because I’ve been sort of trying to figure this out like just my own self of travel. And you know, you know, probably like you, I spent most of my life on the road, whether I was in the military, I was just deployed or, you know, and then back home, even when we’re home, we were training really with very little training actually in San Diego is usually some other facilities around around the country. And then when I got out and, you know, started working, I’m in, I’m naturally in the services business. And so I was always sort of out trying to service clients somewhere. But, you know, the last year and a half, you’ve been home a lot and that’s different. But the thing I like about it is I like the extra time with my children, like, I sort of, you know, I think I think my son is going to look at this period of his life because he was, you know, seven, eight years old and say, Wow, your mom and dad are around a lot. And that was cool. Like, he loved the fact that he had to go to school.It’s like, this is great. Now, I don’t think he learned anything in a year and a half, but but it was great. And so I’m sort of. I know I’m going to start traveling again, to your point more about.I am trying to recalibrate how much and like, you know, are there things that I can do virtual that you know, there are ROI from just a time standpoint, you know, make sense and then one of those things that are really impactful.I mean, how are you thinking about that just because I know you have lots of different? Constituencies that you’ve got to keep happy, you know, between LP’s and probably team that you work with and probably the companies that you partner with.PeterYeah, there’s a I think there’s a tradeoff, perhaps or at least a consideration between efficiency and and competitive excellence. I had this conversation with a friend of mine who runs tech investment banking at a major Wall Street firm, said, Listen, the conversation he’s having with his senior colleagues is that they’ve just had a record year in termsof fee generation and transaction volume. While most of their senior guys are sitting in their Hamptons homes now, he’s asking them to commute back to Midtown Manhattan and get on airplanes and basic, right? Well, while that the statement may indeed be true that they’ve never been more productive than they were sitting in the Hamptons, if their competitors are going to see clients in person, they will eventually lose that that productivity right the world will force them to. That’s a great point. Back to some semblance of normal. Now that’s not to say that there is not there aren’t opportunities for efficiency, but for us.I think like many organizations, the relationships you build, which are the foundation of trust and confidence and all the things that are necessary for well-functioning teams, those things can’t really be built purely virtually. Eventually, you have to spend money together.DaveAnd I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. How have you thought about that with your own team? You know, bringing them back together, you know? You know, now that, you know, conditions have sort of materially improved how you think about reinvesting a culture?PeterYeah, we had hours of conversation about this, but we eventually just said and we said this in April, actually that on August second, we’ll all be back in the office. And again, it was it was a consistent statement that we cannot and will not be a virtual firm. In my view. That’s not, at least for us, that’s not the it the way to run our business in large part because, you know, if you go back to what our culture and our values are, one of our guiding principles is teamwork, and I think teamwork is difficult to to optimize when you’re just interacting with each other in 2D. You know, and I see you on a flat screen, that’s one thing. But sure, I can spend a lot of time with you in this format. But you know, when you and I go hunting every year, our our relationship gets deeper, right? And that’s just that’s for sure. It’s a simple analogy, and it’s since we’ve made that announcement, I think there’s quite a bit of enthusiasm for going back the office. I think people are ready to interact with each other. We’ve onboarded sort of like 50 people virtually. And I’m very interested in just meeting all of them in person. Right.DaveSo have you got any pushback from that from some of the employees?PeterYeah, I think some people enjoy the flexibility, I think. Listen, I lived in San Francisco for seven years and drove to Palo Alto, so I understand that then this was before cell phones and Teslas, but I understand the personal cost of time to commute. But the office was never in San Francisco, was always in Menlo Park when we hired folks or was always in the back bay in Boston or in Mayfair in London, so the office hasn’t moved. So we again, we think that the benefit, the long term benefit in terms of mentorship, development, trust, relationships, culture, all those things really outweigh, I think, the friction of of making the commute. And yeah, the same is true for me. I drive to the office and it’s not always, not always easy or fun, but I think some of that will be all of it will be outweighed by the benefit of being together in person.DaveSo going back to your own self-reflection, Peter, is you look at those those maybe those habits or those those that you think will be enduring coming out of this, like, you know, like you said, you’re not running as much, Peloton, you’re not as home as you were as much before, but not worrying as much take.What are some? What are some new patterns or new muscles that you’ve built that you think you’re going to be leveraging now, you know, coming out of this pandemic?PeterYou know, those really good question, Dave, I think the friction of having meetings is has just gone down so much in a virtual setting, you know, you can have 15 meetings in a in a twelve hour day if you want. Right. I think we’ve all learned to to increase the the pace at which we can work now. I think that’s to some extent sustainable. We trained our brains to process information very, very quickly to digest it and consume it and actually to produce it in formats that are more than have by necessity have become more efficient. You can you can’t work 25 hours in a day. So, you know, if you if there’s a natural time constraint on how much you can work, your your work product will. But by definition, has become more efficiently produced.So I think there’s been some added benefit in that context. I think we’ve learned to make decisions more efficiently and more deliberately. Right. There will be pattern recognition. It’s not just pattern recognition, because that can get a little dangerous if you rely too much on pattern recognition.But I think it as an organization, we’ve learned to filter all the information you receive and distill it into four or five or six key threads which allow us to make a decision. And I think our internal processes to drive that decision making have improved because of the pace and the frequency that’s been forced by a virtual work environment.DaveYeah, it sounds like you’re describing like the equivalent of like a baseball player just getting more reps, write more pitches, you see that you’re seeing more. And so you know your ability to sort of, you know, consistently hit at a higher levels, you know, improve that.Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. That makes sense. I had this belief, sort of. I’m not nearly as eloquent as you in talking about your professor at Stanford, but I have a similar thesis that you know, you go through these moments of dislocation and you build new muscle and you know, or add new tools to your toolkit. And then, you know, there’ll be there’ll be that you’ll be able to apply those kind of going forward consistently and will make you sort of reimagine how you can solve problems. And you know, if you’re committed to continuous improvement and how you do your point like constantly perform at a high level, you have some additional tools now that you can leverage. And so I’m trying to figure out ascertain what those are exactly. But certainly, as I’ve talked to other leaders, but even especially in finance, they what they like about the… To your point, they can do 20 meetings in a day, and that’s something that would’ve been really hard to do when they weren’t spending a lot of time on a plane or whatever else. And so they’re like, Look, that that’s great. But you’re right. You know, to the extent that you know, relationships, is the fund foundational part of your business, you can’t really develop those virtually.You just can’t. And especially if you’re if your competition is doing an in-person right. So that’s going to yeah, it’s going to require you make it, you know, a reinvestment in that that makes a ton of sense. Well, awesome. So maybe as we start to wrap up here, Peter, maybe talk a little bit about, you know, some books or or some things that you’re you’re personally doing to, you know, getting your own development as a leader. Like, what are those things that you invest time in or make time for?PeterWell, I think again, it’s there’s a sort of a is like to try to keep things simple because there’s just less to remember. But all the things that I say to our people, I apply to myself. So how am I improving continuously and am I? Am I better today than I was yesterday or a year ago? Am I innovating? Am I? Am I introducing new ideas without, you know, going off, you know, 50 million directions? Am I finding ways to do certain things differently or better and more efficiently?Or am I spurring the organization to think about our business in a in a different way while remaining? It’s it’s, you know, of course, that innovation is an important thing in everything we do. It’s kind of sounds funny to talk about innovation in a in a private equity firm, but it’s incredibly important, and I think having an innovation mindset is really the the key to this thinking. How do we think constantly about doing things differently or better? And then finally, a culture of excellence, am I upholding that standard? You know, my pushing myself to be better? Am I encouraging everyone to achieve to their potential? And are we recognizing opportunities to help people improve if they’re not doing that? And, you know, I think the other thing this is specific to our business, but it’s always just it’s just really important to remember that you can’t, as the saying goes, you can’t confuse a bull market for brains. Right. We’ve had a tailwind. There has been a tailwind in the investing business and that’s been in place since 2008 or nine, right since the GFC. It’s the longest, broadest, deepest asset bubble in the history of organized commerce, and it’s very different than the tech bubble. Very different than other periods of time. I think I, you know, given up trying to predict when, when and how it will, it will change. But. I think it’s one of the things I worry about is there are a lot of people in the business, including in our own firm, who’ve never really lived through a period of time, like the GFC where nothing is working right, where everything you even great decisions make you look like an idiot. Right? Because of exigent circumstances, we will probably see that environment at some point in the in in the future. Well, there will be a correction at some point, but, you know, hasn’t been one for a very long time. And the investing business is not this easy. It’s just not, right to produce the kinds of returns that that a lot of investors have produced. I think we have to appreciate that there’s a tremendous amount of macro tailwind behind that, those that performance. Yes, people have made great decisions. Yes, there are a lot of really, really smart people. But eventually we in the industry will be tested when there’s another seismic shock to the system.DaveHow do you get that message across to some of those newer investment professionals at your firm, you know, who have never really seen a cycle because this is a common this is a common thing I hear from more experienced investors when they’re talking about trying to relate to maybe the people that haven’t been through one of these cycles. What do you do to sort of mentally prepare them or get them to be at least have some contingency in place to think through this?PeterYeah. So we talk constantly about investing fundamentals. I think there are periods of time where you can illustrate the fact that investing fundamentals remain timeless, right? So in our strategy meeting in March, this was right after there had been a spike in the ten year Treasury. And as sure as night follows day, all the highest multiple names have traded off 20 or 30%. Why? Fairly simple interest rates. Are there a price to the price of time? So if the price of time goes up, you’re less willing to wait for future cash flows that has an impact on valuations.All these things are, you know. Graham and Dodd type stuff, right? These are these are teachings that are. A century old. But they remain fairly timeless lessons and eventually investing fundamentals will have their say. But in the meantime, you know, I think you’ve got to relate the lessons that we’ve learned as an organization and imbue the organization with those lessons as soon as you can, because there’s a great temptation to chase things. Just extraordinary. Right? Remaining disciplined remaining focused. Those are the things that make any investment firm or any organization great or any.DaveYou know, one of the other things I’ve heard a lot of debate around is like, it’s hard for me to tell because you’d probably be better for finances. But this modern day retail investment trend, commercial trend, that’s like causing massive disruption to markets. How much of that you think is is truly just like a fad and how much do you think this is just like a new way of working a new reality the business has to be factored in. You know, do people need to be monitoring Reddit boards in the future?PeterYou know, I have a lot of my hedge fund friends say that they’ve got to be very careful with their short book because if one of them shows up on in that Reddit forum.DaveIt’s going to be a bad couple of days.PeterYes, it’s going to be a bad day. You know, it’s I think that’s just another form of external influence, right? There were corporate raiders. There were activist investors. Now there’s these, you know, meme stocks. I mean, all that stuff is just that’s that’s reality. And I think that that has to go into your into your calculus of in your assessment of risk when you when you make an investment of short of stock or what have you. Yeah, I don’t know if the SEC may have something to say about this, right?Because there’s some sure there’ll be some investigation of it. But you know, if you look at some of these, these trading apps, I mean, they’re they look like games, right? It’s, you know, if people are making money doing it, then you can expect there will be more of it. But it’s not investing, right? It’s not investing. It really looks like entertainment, which can be a very expensive form of entertainment if you get it wrong.DaveYeah, I know it’s what’s fascinating for me. Just taking it back to my military experience is when you go overseas and you’re you’re in combat and you’re you see some adaptation in the battlefield about how the enemy is reacting and you try to understand like, OK, well, this is fundamentally different than. You know of what we were trained for, what we expected. It seems it might even seem irrational. You know, one of the things is, would you just stick to the base fundamentals or do you have to actually evolve or adapt? You know how you’re approaching this situation based on this, you know, this is something you to be more pervasive. And you know, the end of the day, it’s about winning, right? And so you have to adapt to win. And you know, if you know, if you don’t, then you you’re going to lose. And, you know, in sports analogies that that sort of the person that can anticipate having the fastest first half step has a huge advantage, right? And so always trying to stay at that cutting edge is, you know, sort of fundamental of how we operate as I think about this and in terms of like some people that I’ve, you know, I’ve spoken to recently on the portfolio management side is, you know, they’re sort of struggling with this idea that the fundamentals don’t matter right now. Like, you can know what’s going to happen or predict what’s going to happen perfectly. And yet you’d still, you know, lose money on the trade or fail and egos goes. That seems disorienting. And then you couple that with what’s causing this.And they said, Well, it’s it’s something that’s like to you. It’s feels like more like a game that you know, people made than our professionals are playing. They go, Well, do I want to be doing this anymore? So it’s, you know, it’s interesting is is a sort of Russell through this.I didn’t know if you had any thoughts.PeterWell, you don’t get if you’re if your performance is assessed on an hourly or a daily or weekly basis. I think you can’t ignore what’s going on with point the the fractional high velocity share trading in the meme stocks and so forth.You know, fortunately, our businesses evaluated more and over longer periods of time. And so, you know, the vintages, if you will, of funds, the 2016 vintage of the 2018 vintage of the 2012 vintage, the performance of those funds takes time to develop and the test of your strategies.How can that how does your strategy produce over much longer period of time? In our case, 38 years. Right. That’s I think that’s a subtle but important difference in our business versus the hedge fund or public equities business.DaveHence, why you you’re always stressing the fundamentals to lead your team. Yeah. So over time, your confidence will play out. Well, Peter, look, I really appreciate you spend the time today. Before you go, is there any books you’re reading now that you’re finding, you know, particularly compelling and they don’t need to be about this, they could just be something of interest. You know, people listening to this always. We’re trying to figure out how to hide how to be better. So I’d be curious if there’s anything right now that you’re watching or listening to or reading that is, you know, sort of pique your interest.PeterIt’s called the indifferent stars above just a fascinating and gripping tale of the story of the Donner Party. So I’ve been recommending that book recently.DaveWhich and why why so fascinating to you?PeterIt’s a real object lesson in handling adversity and what the compromises many people had to make in that party in order to survive. And then what the aftermath of some of those decisions were in the years and decades following that, that extraordinarily traumatic story. But it’s also an interesting lesson in leadership. Some of the decisions that were made that led the donor party into this very, very unfortunate and frankly unnecessary trial. And I thought, I thought it was. It’s an extraordinary, well-written, a fascinating story. But there are some leadership lessons to be drawn from that as well.DaveVery cool. Awesome. Peter, thanks so much for your time today. We really appreciate you joining us. My great pleasure, Dave. one more thing before we finish the episode, the CrossLead podcast is produced by the team at Truth Work Media. I want to make this the best leadership podcast available, so I would love to get your feedback. Our goal this season is to have authentic conversations with special operators, business leaders and thought leaders on the topics of leadership and agility. If you have any feedback, suggested topics or leaders that you want to hear from, please email me at contact@crosslead.com. If you found this episode interesting. Please share it with a friend and drop us a rating until next time. Thank you for joining.

Embracing peak suffering with William England In this episode of the CrossLead podcast, host David Silverman speaks with William England, Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Walleye Capital Partners, and world-champion rower who raced for Princeton, Oxford, and the US national team.They focus on lessons Will learned in crew teams and how those lessons translate to managing a high-growth investment firm. William talks about Walleye Capital's operating model, structure, and culture and how they have managed through the last 18 months. He also discusses personal leadership philosophies, his weaknesses, and thoughts on personal development as a senior executive.“Greatest enlightenment comes after peak suffering.” Resources Want to discuss some of these topics directly with Dave? Join the CrossLead LinkedIn Group. Episode Transcript Welcome to the CrossLead podcast. I’m your host, Dave Silverman at CrossLead, we exist to help teams, individuals achieve and sustain optimal performance. In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Will England, who was a partner and the chief investment officer of Walleye Capital as chief investment officer, Will England oversees internal and external strategy allocations and is responsible for risk management. He earned a Bachelor of Science and Operations Research and Financial Engineering from Princeton and a master’s degree in mathematics and computational finance from Oxford. Throughout his time at Princeton, Oxford Will England was an accomplished rower appearing in multiple world championships for the United States national team and winning the Oxford, Cambridge poses  Today we talk about lessons we’ll learn as a world and collegiate champion rower and how he’s applied those lessons to life in business. We talk about why capitals operating model and why decentralization is critical for their success. We talk about the impact of meme stocks encoded on their investment fundamentals and how they’ve adapted in the face of change. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoy the conversation about. All right, well, thanks so much for making time today. I’d love to introduce you to the audience and maybe just have you talk about your background a little bit if you’d be comfortable  Sure  Like starting from the beginning  Yeah, yeah, take take us back, you know, through your life, sort of where you’re from and how you got to the position you’re at today  So I like to say I grew up in a town that time forgot a little town called. Marblehead, Massachusetts, north of Boston, and it was the 10th largest town in the first census in 1790, and I don’t think it’s changed very much since then  It’s kind of one of those places where if you don’t wear boat shoes, you’re kind of shunned. So, like, not in the normal world at all. But yeah  That’s where I started. And I sort of break my life down into four stages and not all of which are necessarily obviously connected, but there is a sort of a logic to it and a flow in hindsight  So as I said, I grew up in this little town where. It’s very sheltered upbringing. I wasn’t like flying around on jets, but you know, I had pretty much an idealistic way to grow up, frankly  And sort of the first part of my life, which I’d say up until the end of eighth grade, I  I wouldn’t describe myself as employed as it was now. Frankly, I I didn’t work very hard  I was fairly lazy, a little bit fat. I had a lot of raw talent  Unrealistically, realistically  Both in regards to academics and athletics, but just really didn’t ever have to work that hard because of, you know, that sort of situation  And that sort of seemed fine. And something happened in eighth grade. It wasn’t like  This one died. It wasn’t any terrible like that, but for me, very formative time in my life. So in that, in my world, in that frankly part of the part of the country and how I grew up, everyone, you know, it goes to turn not everyone, but a lot of people will go to boarding school and that’s sort of what my whole family died. My sister, you know, it’s very much like playing college is a very difficult school to get into and you just sort of apply. And it just sort of what I what I assume would happen  And what happened in eighth grade is because  I never really worked hard and frankly, wasn’t that special  I actually didn’t like the first time  When I didn’t achieve a goal that I had, and it was really embarrassing and it sucked. And in hindsight, it’s like, Okay, it’s not the end of the world, but for me, being in eighth grade, it was just sort of terrible  And so something in me kind of really snapped, and I never wanted to feel that way again. And that was really  When I said, OK, I’m never going to not be absolutely dedicated to what I’m trying to achieve, as you know, a 14 year old kid. And so the rest that year and next year, I got basically an AA or an A-plus in every single class I took  I started to work out and learn about fitness and sort of develop some of the core traits that still define me today and everything sort of  Worked out. And the next year I applied and come to exactly where we wanted to go and  See NF going there as as a sophomore instead of as a freshman .Yeah, yeah, exactly. And again, there’s sort of everything else that I went to Andover  Which is a, you know, very, very old elite status school  Yeah  But really interesting too, because it is very difficult  To get into and or there are exceptions to this. Generally speaking, it is really just around very smart people and pushed very, very, very hard and then actually end over from an academic sense is much more challenging there  I went to college or grad school  But yeah, I went there as a sophomore and sort of went a little bit of  My shoulder because I hadn’t gone in the previous year. And it’s not typical for somebody on as a sophomore. And I was just  Like, You know, that next phase of my life, I’d say  Was, you know, when I went from south in your nice gold’s all the way through the grad school or sort of transition from I was in my growing up had been this sort of lazy, not cool. Like I said, Well, the fat kid, you know, like this was very successful growing  I did super well in school. It’s kind of this combination of like a, you know, a jock and a super nerd and was just really successful in all sorts of various different things, probably  To my  Detriment at certain points, because I was probably a bit of a dick after  Some things. But that’s sort of the very formative time in my life  I did start rowing in high school  What drew you to rowing? What brought you to rowing? Just like to suffer?Yeah, no. So actually, I resisted doing it for a while  Because my sister wrote, as well as just a couple years older, me or very competitive with each other, among other things, and I was like, I don’t I’m not doing the stupid fucking sport. You just said  That’s just really dumb. I finally was like, Well, you might actually be really good at it, so why don’t  You just sit down?So I actually didn’t start  Until my junior year  In high school, which is, you know, relatively late  For any sport because I was six years old by then. Yeah. And there’s  This thing called the ERG  Which is like this stationary torture device where you sit. Down and you just pull on something until you pass out. I mean  That’s basically if you’re super  Good at that with a little bit of coaching over the years, you’re just going to be really good at rowing. And then as you get higher and higher like genetics matter and all sorts of things like that  But rowing is this amazing sport because probably more so than any other sport that I can think of, how well you do is directly correlated to what  You put into it. You know, maybe weightlifting is like that to some extent  Yeah, but but very much correlated. So I just fell in love with it immediately, and I went from never having tried the sport  To three or four months later, had the best scores on the team and made the top boat and and really just kind of got obsessed. So I don’t know, I had a natural affinity for for rowing. I still wasn’t that good because it does take a little bit of time to to be very, you know, competitive on that level  But when I got  To college, especially my freshman year of the summer before my freshman year, I spent some time and really thinking about how to how to train on my own, which is a huge part of being successful as sort of a sport is that, you know, a lot of people could sit down over coaches yelling at you and saying, you know, just pulling the fucking handles hard as you can do that, but actually being able to do it by yourself and be intelligent about how to design your own training program. That’s, you know, at some point really separates people  Oh, interesting. Yeah, it’s very thoughtful  Yeah. So I I spent some time doing that  Before I went to college. And then, you know, my freshman year, I got a lot better, you know, and that wasn’t just one better than the guys. Most of the guys around me on my team, but it sort of, you know, very competitive on a national level  You had gotten a lot better  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again, just very good for learning about work ethic. And I mean, there’s all I  Could talk for a long time about rowing. I talked to the people at work now, but all my stories and rowing  But it’s certainly not the only thing that provides sailing lessons for  Life, but, you know, very sort of obvious and transferable images from from rowing that apply to a lot of what we do. So  So anyway, so I it does go back to  What I saying before as far as figuring out just the benefits, frankly, of of. I would say extreme discipline, but being as disciplined as possible. That’s definitely true in academics as I’ve went through in rowing. So I was fortunate to be able to find and then have the opportunity to to really focus on those activities and wassuccessful to hang out and had a great time. Just really identifying and sort of both of those domains. So when I was  And it was somewhat  Extreme when I say it was like the super nerdy jock or like in in college, I was an engineering major as a particular major to where we went sort of combining engineering, mathematics, economics. But, you know, pretty, pretty intense academically, very different group of people than those that I was sort of spending their time on the riverwith. And then when I went to grad school, I went to Oxford for grad school and originally to do a Ph.D. in math, which is like, really weird for someone that like sports, but very true to me at the same time  one of the reasons why I also went there and was around this thing called the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race, which is one of the oldest  Legendary race right in the world  Yeah, and  It attracts people that, like me, had wrote for their national teams and went to the Olympics and World Championships and all that. So it’s very, very elite level, which is just amazing experience. The first thing worked out well, so  You know, through that basically  So you represented Oxford in that in that match?Yeah, I was  I rode for Oxford. I was the start of of of our trip and we were we won by a lot  Which was just  That  This was an amazing experience in all the ways  I mean, maybe I’ll come back to that as I can  But that’s sort of how to define that, that chapter of my life. And then after grad school and when I said, I’m going to  Stop rowing at that point, I’d I’d done everything except go to the Olympics. I didn’t want to just row and sort of timelines. And as far as when I was in the Olympic cycle, it wasn’t very conducive. Obviously, I just four years is doing that, which is not resistant  There was wasn’t something  I want to do. So I went out to the real world and got my ass kicked. And that’s sort of  You know, what I’d say is the third sort of wilderness phase of my life. Frankly  I don’t know how to  Explain to, you know, people in their early twenties when they’re finishing college or grad school or whatever it is, when they’re coming out of the cocoon  If you know what I mean, the like you’re 20 fucking suck. Like you’re at the bottom again. You really don’t know shit, no matter how smart you  Are, like, you just don’t have the experience and the judgment  And there’s all sorts of  Examples of this sort of in the business world, someone from from your background where  Basically you do just  Need to be humbled  I certainly did  It was very useful in hindsight. And so the story there is, you know, I work for a big firm and in finance, you know, my background as a mathematician academically. So work for, you know, big. Hedge fund  Which is interesting intellectually  But frankly, pretty fucking boring. And then I also worked in a private equity venture capital for for a period of time and just to get some sort of broad experience. And you know, that was super interesting, but I was like, Oh my God, I’m like, I have a lot to learn, basically  And then also in those periods, you know, there was sort of the process of sort of iterating towards my career, my current life and as far as, you know, figuring out exactly what I wanted to do in my career, throwing out what I thought that I was necessarily uniquely qualified to do  But so where some of my relative strengths lie, which is super important? And I just sort of other aspects of life, like being my wife and figure out where going you live. You know, for me, that was effectively in my my late twenties  That’s sort of what I sort of define as the third phase of my life  And the fourth is where I am now  I’m only 36 and so not not super old by any means, although my, my parents and my wife basically say that I’ve been like a 50 year old trapped in a younger man’s life  You know? And so now, you know  I’m sort various different labels that I think are appropriate. You know, whether it’s a husband, father of two kids, two little boys that you know, the most important thing in my life, you know, but also leading leading a company and investment company to which is slightly different than leading a quote unquote normal company  So, you know, you know, investor and and we’re very much in search of what we do about sort of the center of the hedge fund world and by design, we sort of even our business itself as a hub and spoke model  So I’m at the at the center of that. So  So those are  Kind of where I am now and all the experiences that have before that have sort of sort of coalesced into all the things that that make me me  So I want to go back to to one point on the the humbling experience. I think that’s interesting and relevant. And then and then spend a little time, if you would, talking about like, what is walleye capital, you know, you know, how are you different than other hedge funds?I’d be curious about. But before that, if you think about in your twenties, you’re coming out. You’ve been uber successful at this point. And I mean, you’ve gone to Andover and Princeton and now Oxford, and you’re rowing at the national level, competing, you know, world championships  And now you come into business when you say, kick your ass, go back at that and spend a little more time with that. If you what they work for civically was like the eye opening experience for you  Well, that’s a couple of points. Number one, no one gives a shit, and I think that’s really important. That’s great  It opens the door, right? It gets you to be realistic  Like, Yes, absolutely  Those experiences were  Helpful. And yes, I was  Sort of surrounded in a very  Very privileged way, which initially appeared at the time. You know, that initially, like, oh, saying  I have this brand association of being at those places, which is really what they are in a lot of ways. But, you know, also just having a network be exposed people, some of the most important people in my life were those that I met through through those experiences  But then you get out in the real world and you know, you start to say, OK, instead of people giving me credit for my potential abilities, they’re going to start to  Evaluate me on what I can do right now. So what’s the difference between kinetic and potential energy?And also in a way in which you don’t necessarily think of? Because if you’re in an academic environment, you’ve got teachers, you’ve got parents, which are very much your cheerleaders and they’re rooting for you to do well, literally  And so  Yeah, yeah  And then you get into the real world and people like, I fucking hate you do. Do you think you’re just like privilege asshole that went to all these good schools? Like, in a way, subconsciously they’re actually rooting for you to fail  So if you aren’t super good, if you aren’t  Super  Competent, in some ways, you get less leeway. That’s not to say it’s like this is negative by any means, but just actually being totally realistic. And that’s sort of a big part  Of who I am now. It’s just like  Being real and objective and really evaluating things for what they  Are and not telling yourself a story is a big part of that. And then so what I found, it’s like, OK  It’s not about what have you done  In your past? It’s about What can you do now? What can you do well for the environment? Yeah, sure. The fact that you might have been super successful in an athletic endeavor does speak to pride characteristics about discipline and work ethic and all that sort of stuff, but you still need to translate it into another area, whichcan actually be helpful  You know, I know lots of people with gold medals that frankly are pretty fucking useless  The rest of their life because knows it  And so does actually having a bit of an experience of doing that. You know, not fun. Not sort of painful, but like like anything like greatest enlightenment comes after peak suffering, and that’s true in sports. And so that’s why query, isn’t it?And I think  That’s, you know, it’s very much sort of true, true in life  So so did you have a mentor when he got there or just found it was really like, you know, doggy dog  So I do have a mentor  He’s actually my son’s godfather now, who? He was also a 20 years older me who’s basically like my big brother and has sort of been a guiding voice of influence of, you know  Basically saying all these things, which I didn’t even  I believe at the time it’s like, OK  Like you kind of need to go and get  Your ass kicked for a couple of years and then you’ll you’ll start to figure out some stuff. I remember hearing that and not believing that  But yeah, just having  Someone to sort of provide  Perspective on the way has been super helpful for me. And then over the years, I’ve  Had other other mentors, even in my current business. You know, others are senior partners who’s much older and I, you know, very much has aspects of, you know, wisdom which are helpful. And I do think that’s really important  I mean, one of the things that I’ve certainly found over the years going through various different phases of a business as far as the world is really hard to figure out on your own. Having partners or other people that you can talk to is really helpful, even if you are individually very impressive, very much more want todo, you know, have have partners line along for the ride and to be able to come in each other as opposed to doing your own  So that’s probably a good transition to a while. I may maybe spend some time talking about like what is while I capital, how are you different? And then what? I’d love you to use and tie those two themes together, which is, you know, you guys are in a high growth environment now you’re bringing on board  How do you think about taking some of that young potential talent and turning it into kinetic I for you guys?Yeah, sure. So, you know, I like to say a general like we’re a hedge fund, right?So people have a lot of connotations around what that might mean, like, oh, you guys are evil  I mean, first of all, I’d say we’re trying  To be the non evil hedge fund. I don’t think those those are the concepts are synonymous, but  It’s just structurally there’s only about TED  Hedge funds in the world that are structured the way we are for various different reasons. one is just that in order to have our structure, we need a lot of energy, extremely competent and have a lot of trust from your investor group because of, you know, effectively how how Costco sort of shared across the group  But our model is a distributed network  It’s not like we focus on one particular area. It’s sound like they’re saying, Oh, we’re really great at picking tech stocks long and short or biotechs or something like that. We have all these different strategy pods. There’s actually about 100  And almost anything that  You can do in public and in some cases, private markets. So we’ll have people that are, you know, focusing on one for equity and various different sectors all over the world. Well, I think doing quantitative strategies will have, you know, people doing, you know, various different forms of ops and strategies focused on trading all these weird dimensions early to fall and sort of higher or higher order characteristics and various different types of funding trends. As I said, there’s about 100 different across the group  And stitching them all together  Is extremely complex. But if done well, can, you know, can work extremely well. And there’s, as I said, there’s only about ten hedge funds that are structured like this, and they’re they’re the most successful hedge funds other  So my role is is basically  Sitting at the center of all that and very how to tie it together and have been a driving force, not the only running force, but if the driving force in sort of constructing that hub and spoke model over the past couple of years given given sort of the history of of of our firm  And so the way  You know, as I said, it’s it’s a distributed network we have  We’re not trying  To sit at the center and control what everyone is  Is doing. We hire very competent people and then  They largely run their own businesses and are given the freedom to to do that  But at the same time, like that  Center group as well, it needs to needs to think about stitching everything, everything together to make it work better  And this is you asked about  The analogies from from rolling to our business works. I mean, there’s  There’s a ton, I think the most, most salient line from from rowing is it  Sort of regards to creating a team and sort of stitching very complimentary people and and talents together is like  Just the process of making a  Boat in and of itself. So you know, the way what rowing works and every team that  You’ve been on, there’s  There’s a selection process  Where like you’re literally sitting  Down and it  Fit better than the next guy, even  Though he’s going to be on your team. Is that a very competitive in a productive way?And the thing that’s so great about rowing is  Not the only sport like this, but  There’s no like storytelling, right? Like in some other sport, someone can say like, Yeah, you know  I’m super good soccer player or basketball or in football like  I’m the best ever in rowing. It’s just like, OK, sit down both I can score like it’s either going to be better or not or, you know, getting a seat race and then the seat races literally pull two boats together  Is which two guys? And you see, if it went faster than in the  Previous race, and this is very objective  So there’s a whole process in  Rowing about like just making the boat  And and by that, you know, in  Order to sort of be on the boat, especially as you go to higher levels. There’s just this  This baseline  Level of competency involved and sort of this sort of shared  Shared desire and acceptance that, yeah, we’ve all been through suffering again, not not the only there in the world in which this applies, but what  Rowing is certainly one of them where, you know, in order to, you know, be at the highest levels, you know, each person individually has to be very good  At the same time  I mean, there’s a reason why people use the analogy of like making the boat roll faster  Like, you literally have to do that  You have, you know, various different people that sit in the boat and you can’t just be doing your own, your own. Saying and especially if you really want to optimize it, you know, it’s it’s about getting on the same page and  Very severe levels and also respecting that  It’s not just that everyone is the same  You can’t just take a  Bunch of guys that are six, ten and big dumb animals that are ridiculously strong, but maybe don’t have a good feel for rhythm or things like that and put them in a boat and expect that that’s going to do as well  The stroke, as I mentioned, that was sort of my seat as a slightly different role than the people in the middle of the boat at a slightly different role than people. Do you know about the boat? So just actually  Saying, OK, there’s a baseline level of confidence that you  Get into that type of organization, but then in the same  Time, once you’re there, there’s no additional  Selection. So then you really got to go back and be on the same page to to make it go faster. You know, there are there very much analogs to to that in our business, not necessarily  Perfect analogs  But sort of the concept of, you know, our business model, you know, we’re hiring senior people. We’re not really a training organization. We’re giving them a lot of trust. We start with an opening bit of trust. You know, I didn’t make it up that quote, but I think it’s a great quote where we trust that people are. That’s from Jim Collins, by the way. So don’t give it to me  But, you know, just say you’re going to run your  Business here and doing your own thing. But at the same time, there’s this notion of  Why we’ve been successful in growing  In our world in recent years is  We’re not going out and  Saying that the organization is is evil, right where we’re respected at the center for four, applying common sense of situations, not necessarily saying in order to be successful in the fight in the finance industry, you need to be in a time of time that is not respectful of people and developing people and sort of all the aspects that go into being, you know, having individuals that are very good at what  They do and not  Treating them like trading cards as well, which in our case and in some other businesses. one of the things that called the operators really don’t like is that for reasons that are outside of their control, all of a sudden there can be kind of arbitrary decisions about, you know, for whatever reason, they no longer have a job so that those are just some concepts that I  Apply that to do very much go back to kind of throwing ideas. And I think again, the most salient one is there’s  Baseline level of selection. And then  You know, once you’re there is figuring out how we’re all in the same team.Let’s just go really fucking fast  Yeah, super, super interesting. If you go to let’s let’s pivot, send yourself and make your own leadership thoughts, if we could. If you if you think about like, maybe some of these critical lessons that you’ve learned that shaped the current phase of your life you’re in, I mean, you sort of alluded to some of this, you know, based on some of the rowing analogies. But I’d be interested if there’s something you think that’s like really topical top of mind for you, better some you’ve read or so you’ve been thinking about, you know, as you guys, you’re leading as a chief investment officer for a while  I I guess sort of one of the things that I become more  Cognizant of this is not by design is that  To the extent I  Have  A superpower, it’s that I’m extremely disciplined without like trying to be disciplined. It just sort of seems natural to me  You know, I can get into my daily routine if you want, but like, I eat the same thing every day. Very structure and what I do. Big believer in routines, you know, physically, I’m somewhat imposing. I can lift lots of crazy heavy weights and that’s just what’s interesting to me  And I have lots of broad interests of our books. I mean, these are just things that I  Do, and what I’ve learned over time is  Like, that’s not necessarily normal  And there is going back to rowing. This sort of idea like to be super successful in anything. You have to  Trick yourself  That that’s possible. Like saying you’re going to be really good at a sport is statistically irrational  Saying that you’re going to be very successful. Business is statistically irrational or they’re going to have lots of money  It’s just like if you just run the numbers and I’m saying this is a data person, like you said, No, I’m not, I’m going to conclude, that’s just nonsense. And yeah. And so what I remember from from rowing and  What time was helpful, and I think there’s very much from a leadership perspective in  Business is just almost saying like, guys, yeah, we’re going to do this, you know, we’re going to train. And then in the analog of businesses, we’re going to think about strategy  We’re going to see better strategy, the tactics we’re going to, you know, think over the in the context of not just days or weeks, but months and sometimes year actually achieve what we  What we want and just having an underlying level of like belief that you can do that and enthusiasm and optimism for that is is very helpful. And so I guess one of the things  That I’ve just been thinking about recently, partly because I was that I devoured books and podcasts and heard lots of people talking about this is like, Oh yeah, that’s just something that  Is just the concept of of optimism. I’m not like going out and saying I’m going to be inspiring  Today, but just sort of a belief  Of, yeah, like I I think we’re going to achieve X, Y and  Z and optimistic about that. But it’s realistic because effectively, you know what you put  In the training. I mean, when you show up on the  Starting line and rowing, and I imagine that there’s  Probably lots of analogs like this for you. It’s like if you know that you’ve put in years and years  Of practice to get there  Like you just. There’s this calmness, it’s like, yeah, I’m just I’m going to win  The match, takes care of itself. It’s OK, you it  And I think that there’s absolutely an analog for that in our world, especially in investing. It’s like there’s a lot of a lot of things that we can’t control  In our world  There’s there is short  Term luck involved  But if you have a good process across all the various different  Areas of your business  And you’ve been very diligent in putting that place over the years  And  The first principles themselves make make sense and you believe in what you’re doing and can  Inspire other people to  You know, follow what you’re doing and why. Like, it’s going to work and just, you know, all those  Lessons together about, you know, being dedicated and being confident because of, you know, you know, that you put the work in. And for us, that’s been very helpful. And we, you know, a few years ago, five or six years ago, if you looked at where we were relative to where we are today, I don’t think it would have been a stretch to a lot of people to predict that. But you know, here we were. We very much thought that was that was possible. So I don’t know if that  You know, that’s super, super interesting. I mean, what what would I think about, you know, because you’re right, the parallel for me, like with combat experience, is pretty similar seal teams. You hammer the fundamentals over and over again  So when you get on the objective, you’ve got a lot of confidence that regardless of how the objective unfolds, you know, the basics of shooting me, communicate, communicate. You know, you’re going to be better than your adversary and that that Wednesday  The second thing is, if you’re assuming you’re operating in a chaotic or complex, you know, conditions where there are a lot of variables that are moving or changing. The fact that the fundamentals are in place lowers that overall cognitive load and allows you sort of space and time to sort of assess the other opportunities or threats  And and then be it’d be adaptive. Which to me was always the differentiator in a in a in a market. Because really, what equates to speed, right? If you’re faster than your adversary becomes? I’d be curious. Like, what does that parallel for you guys meeting about?Like, so what part of the process was like, Hey, make sure your fundamentals are sound? And then and then, as you know, various factors or conditions are changing rapidly. How do you sort of get into your team? Yeah, it is very much the right parallel  You know, our our business model is sort of predicated on the concept of dynamism being able to sort of pivot literally our exposures to areas that we think are going to be more profitable or interesting or really responding to the world  It’s like a homogeneous blob in a positive sense  And so, you know, the fundamentals that we have in place are, you know  Do we have someone specific to our world? Do we have, you know, infrastructure that’s appropriate to be able to do that from a technology standpoint, from operational standpoint? Do we have risk management systems in place?Do we have the right decision making process? We certainly  Spent time over the years actually  Moving away from  Anything that resembles  Management by committee because it’s just like slow and it  Doesn’t add a lot of value in sort of a cover your ass thing  So you know the reason I’m biased  But but I love her business one, and I do think that as I said, that the most successful groups in our world is structured as in this platform concept is  Have the fundamentals in place, literally have the  Platform in place and then being able to respond and pivot as like, I don’t know, the analog to like  Guys are shooting at you like you need to herd and fucking cannons because now guys are shooting at you from the right instead of the left. But you still need to have that, like, you know, grounded  On the platform. That’s very much the way we operate  So there are things that we do that we’re doing now that six months ago, I just I wouldn’t have thought  Of but intervals throughout our process of identifying opportunities  And it’s like, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Let’s let’s go and do that  And we don’t have to like retrain  Or pivot all  These various different, highly specialized people because there’s a there’s a generalist aspect to me also to go in that category  And so I do  That’s why is are very bullish on our type of approach. And again, this isn’t something we invented. And in general, I think our industry is sort of moving more towards towards this concept of having a fewer number of firms that are more generalist in nature that can respond and pivot as opportunity sees itself in sort of very structural advantage, advantageous ways  I know walleyes been you guys have been thinking a lot about culture recently and about values and principles, and I know I’d be curious, you know, if you want to share some of your your more recent thoughts about how you how you deliberately set a culture for your firm  We’ve just in terms of headcount, we’ve kind of crossed that  Tribal number that historically just  Empirically pops  Up as like, you know, past a certain point people units divide into into sub units. So, you know, we’re now about 170  People, not that huge by any means relative to the  Scope of organizations, but 170, you know, very high performing people. And because we’re geographically distributed  And give a sense where if you were two years ago, how big were you? About 100, about 100. So you almost doubled in in two years during a pandemic, no less  Yeah. So there’s a lot of people we’ve hired that I’ve never met  In-person one still feels feels weird to  Me, so what we’ve been thinking about is like the so our friends that are around since 2005. And one of  The sort of defining  That there was literally  Talked about when we started it  It’s like we’re not going to hire high maintenance people. Well, trust me, there’s a lot of  Hype is people in finance and  It’s just not the viewers. It’s just not worth hiring someone  Even if you know they might be able to make you a lot of money or a high performance if they’re if they’re high maintenance. And obviously, that’s somewhat subjective because I mean, it’s been from people, but you kind of know what you see it  So. So that was a defining characteristic. But as we’ve grown, we’ve just noticed that it’s  Sort of become harder for people to  Understand like, OK, what are what are these guys about? Who are these white people? It’s like  This  Not small hedge fund that’s based in Minnesota. Like, who the hell is based in Minnesota? All the sort of aspects. So we actually recently took the time to write down some phrases that resonate with  Us  And intentionally did it in a way it’s like literally the first thing says is we hate our documents. Unfortunately, this sounds  Like an H.R. document, but there’s  Some, some momentary forgiveness, all of which is very true. So I remember we talked about it. I’d be remiss if I didn’t have at least one  Thing in there about that involves Rawlings. one of them is like row in unison. Just kind of obvious thing, like being seen with your teammates if you want both to fly. But  But the first thing in is statement is  I asterix out certain parts of this, but  It’s lets be fucking real  And so you don’t attempt to fit  A preconceived notion of what someone says you should be. Yeah, this one is really important  That’s her first statement. And I do think in finance, it’s just the world  In general  Like just being objective  About seeing things for what they are and stop trying to  Put on a costume or tell a story. Again, just like in wrestling, you sit down and urge the number doesn’t lie. You win the race for you as a race that doesn’t lie and finance. The other day you make or lose money  And so, you know, fortunately, we’re we’re in an industry where  There is sort of an objective measuring stick. And what we’ve seen, what I’ve seen and you know, some of the other my other partners here seeing is just people  The better that someone is at doing that  They are, the more successful there there will be  You know, other things that  Just are important to us sort of around, though, like don’t  Don’t have how many people, you know, be  Real, you know, work together, you know, being able to  At times go very, very  Fast, but at times also just just have patience or that that balance, I think think is important. You talk a lot about the speed of iteration today, which is which is super important, but you can’t just be running around like anxious all the time and changing shit for for no reason  So kind of finding that balance between the two other things that are sort of relevant or is this or talking about general concepts of just being humble, like remembering something no  Matter what you do? There’s always someone better, whatever, whatever better might mean  And then also being able to take responsibility, step up to the plate when you need to know things that are super important to us  They are the last one that we sort of ended on. You know, this is a little bit more particular  To to our business and how we’re structured, but  Basically just longevity in our community  And investment community, no matter. I think what you’re doing, whether you’re guessing in sort of the hedge fund world’s economy or, you know, public markets or private markets or venture capital is, it’s just the notion of consistency. And that’s somewhat of a mental thing where, you know, people that are taking huge swings and betting the farm are really the ones that last. So we do just like to sort of remind people that and there’s sort of macroscopic areas of sort of how they can manifest itself, as well as microscopic areas to them or the notion of a long term thinking  Again, these are just. Concepts that resonate with us that I do think they  Transcend  Characteristics of individual people like we don’t want  Everyone to copy what what someone else is doing actually. By design, we very much want sort of different sorts of skill sets, but these are pretty uniform across. You know  When we intuitively have  Been screening people to try and walk away and fit into, quote unquote, the wall way over the years, is there just some some threads that have come up?So we’re very much thinking about how to  Inculcate that into our environment because because yes, we want to continue growing to the extent to which we can do so in an enormously honest fashion. We want people to sort of understands what really matters to the, you know, the leaders of the firm, even if they’re not interacting with us as much on a day to day basis, just as we’ve grown out of necessity, that that’s harder and harder to do  And thinking about to do that thoughtfully and in a genuine way, like just blasting out an email and saying, Hey, these are our values, you should read them and then it will be great. Like, that’s not  Going to work. Yeah  So, you know, that’s that’s certainly 11 area for a culture cultural development that I think is  It’s super important in general to get broad statements. But financial businesses, investing businesses  Obviously need to very much focus on  Investing  You know, how they effectively generate revenue for their, for their investors and for the firm  As far as how those businesses actually operate as businesses, you know how they do things like even think about culture in some ways can be secondary  Whereas in other industries, those are sort of the most important aspects. So we very much are trying to be more deliberate about thinking about both simultaneously  Yeah, no. I love that. I love that you guys have always struck me as different. I mean, the fact just the fact that you’re in Minnesota and you’re sort of approach to the type of people you hire just does seem a bit unique compared to what I’ve seen and the more traditional financial hubs and firms and approaches. So, you know, it’s pretty remarkable. And I think that sort of speaks in your guys retention and you  Know, when your growth over the years, which has been remarkable  As you think about, you know, like over the last year of COVID, I’d be curious to see like what if what it’s been while capital’s approach to the pandemic, but from just a human capital management standpoint and then also like anything you’ve seen from a, you know, fundamentals of of your investing strategy  I mean, I think it generally in like society, there are  Actually a lot of benefits from  COVID, not the  Experience in and of itself, because it was, you know, terrible and also sorts various different ways  But but arguably there could  Be this sort of long run  Benefit of people asking, like, why? Why don’t we do things this way? Like, Why do I sit in a car for two hours a day to commute into an office every day  As well as sort of other types of analogs there?And just the concept of what looks from a systems perspective, like a really high level systems perspective. I think a lot more people are thinking like, how are we structured, how we structured politically, you know, on a national level, on an international level, those types of conversations probably just did occur to people are in our world more of the Microscopic level in terms of, you know, our business because of this idea that we are distributed network, that we have a lot of people kind of doing their own things already and frankly are geographically dispersed  I mean, we’re headquartered in Minnesota, which it turns out is not the center  Of the hedge fund world  And always have good offices all over the  Place  Literally in pods. There really wasn’t that disruptive to us. So what we did and what we still do is we say and this works because of the sort of that concept of like, we have super competent  People that have already pre-qualified themselves to get into our boat, quote unquote  That we said, you guys are adults, just figure out what you want to do when you want to come in the office, the offices open if you don’t come to the office or ship you a computer and like 20 monitors  To your house  Just you’re an adult, let us know and we trust that you’re sensible in that and we obviously can monitor for productivity and in our role  Too, especially when you have people that are, you know, generating revenue, you can say like, OK, like how is that impacting what from what you’ve done historically  Which is a big machine, right? That that works for us because just where we were business comprised of largely senior people where we’re not an apprenticeship organization, so I can understand why, you know, other other types of businesses  You know, banks probably as most salient  Example that you know, they’re training huge  Portions of their workforce, and  That’s very  Difficult to do remotely  Like this. Just you can’t do that. So, you know, I guess where I feel that for us is it hasn’t  Really had an impact  Overall. All things being equal. I just personally like seeing people in person. I think  That’s helpful. I think that humans, you know, very much a wall to communicate  In person and get more  Out of an in-person meeting than the don’t. And so our offices across the country are sort of full to varying degrees, some very fulsome, not full at all. But certainly, I very much still enjoy seeing people, people in person  So I kind of end up as like, I think, complete work at home almost for any organization. And that sounds very intentional from the start. I think that’s just idiotic  I don’t think culture can be maintained long term, let alone develops through through Zoom. It just doesn’t make sense  To me at the same time again, just saying to someone you like, I used to live in Boston, sitting in traffic in Boston is like way worse than  Walking barefoot on glass at times  And so I do that every day. Does that make sense? I don’t know. So I think our companies, just going back to what you’re saying is like, let’s just evaluate some of the why and how some of these questions and they are all just figuring out what that looks  Like moving forward  Which is which is very healthy  I mean, is there a good match to what we talked about as far as, you know, being dynamic and doing things that that overall make sense and perhaps some of the artificial restraints that frankly existed because of industrial area society that was sort of developed long before some of the modern sort of technological age that we have came into being. So  Yeah, I know I love that. I love that. I think you’re right. I think the pandemic has been, you know, almost a forcing function for those types of questions usually leads to like significant leaps and creativity innovation, which is great  You’ve seen probably a number of cycles in your in your professional career at this point. You know, I’d be curious to get your perspective on what you consider to be the latest cycle or evolution and specifically what I hear a lot talking to people on that on the buy side, as is, you know, the retail investor and you know, these these Robinhood’s that they’re they’re fundamentally sort of altering the game. So my question is, is it is it it made? Is it a fundamental shift or do you think this is just sort of like a a fad?I don’t know and someone I don’t mean just able to keep it take a cop out answer, but  Partly know we don’t. We don’t know opine  I don’t know opine on sort of these these broad themes because  I could see it happening  You know, both ways  You know, the retail. This whole concept  Of democratization of access to the markets, I think, is is ludicrous  It hasn’t been that difficult in order to  For for individuals even going back to, you know, certainly the nineties to get access to trading stocks. And just sort of the hype and mania around the internet bubble in the late nineties  When it’s real to say that  People are sort of suffering from from access and  What some of the apps  Have done  Recently is they’ve just obviously hated  The costs of trading  I can tell you, just based on the bids for the  Order flow from these, these retail brokerages, that you’re  Still  Losing money, you’re just not not seeing  It. So there is this sense, a charlatan nature to the whole business model, but it’s really no different. I do think there are some some differences now  Than maybe in the past, you the biggest one just as relates to  Availability of capital  And just how some of the structures for you, particularly call options, are being positioned to individuals. And there’s effectively people are saying  You know, I’m going to because I don’t really care if I lose money and because it’s kind of fun  So it was like gamified  Well, yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely gamified. And there’s there’s just I don’t think that’s contentious at all. I think that’s actually one of the things that’s celebrated about  The whole business model. I mean, you have fucking confetti when you make a trade. OK. But I am not trying to be overly philosophical about it, but it’s like there’s a reason why like, you want bankers and doctors to be boring, like, this is just not an exciting part of the world  You want competency and consistency and you don’t want, you know, confetti. So, yeah, I but I don’t necessarily think this is a new phenomenon in society. To what extent  Is does it lead to structural change in the markets?I don’t know. I can’t say. The one thing that is definitely new is because of technology. I mean, you’ve talked about this in the book, but sort of the ability to network now because of  Tech, which is not it is to just directly to enable coordination  I mean, like humans, main thing in the animal kingdom is that we can coordinate, right? And so now you can have forums by which you can have mass coordination of of individuals. Now everyone that looks at that says, like, yeah, that’s that’s collusion  Of course, that’s collusion. Like, that’s not really saying it’s illegal. But but realistically, yeah, like you’ve got, you know, how many thousands or tens of thousands or 1,000,000 people all doing the same thing, coordinating our activities because of technology that will have an impact  That’s not to say it’s going to get out loud, but I just don’t think that’s even a contentious statement. And so I do think that  Professionals like us, like again  This is not saying this is good or bad  Or right or wrong or anything, but just being cognizant  That that can happen. And objectively, if I’m a retail investors  Or the hive mind or retail investors and I see a stock with high short interest and you have an understanding for  Essentially how the game works. Of course, they’re going to play that game and say, Yeah, I’m going to squeeze the hell out of some hedge fund. That’s not being cognizant of that. It’s kind of like, OK, if you didn’t lock your car in a bad part of the town and someone comes in and, you know, breaks breaks into it, like, whose fault is that obviously that, you know, that’s just the reality of the game that we’re in. So. So I do think, I guess to  Summarize, because of the technology and some of the mechanisms which are more readily accessible  That’s certainly different. Is that systemically different in terms of impact on the overall market? I’m not sure I’d go that far, but just the  General sort of driving force behind, you know, people wanting to participate and, you know, getting a thrill out of sort of, again, not just a negative or positive. They saw it as sort of the negative connotation, but to me, that was just sort of the the idea of  Gambling that that’s not new at all. Yeah  So yeah, if you think about, you know, some of your your notes today at the firm and the decisions they’re making, how do you coach somebody from the center who’s going through a draw in their own business? How do you help them get out of that chair?As I said, I’m a fortunately, unfortunately  A pretty big math nerd historically  And just the general. I just can’t even begin  To explain how much I encourage people to have baseline understanding of statistics  So what I do in those situations is  Say, OK  Why are we here? Why are you here? Is this because you did something really dumb? Or is it just  That this is a natural evolution of of the business that we’re in? It’s like the  You know, the quote from Godfather to like this is the business we’ve chosen in finance. If you are right, 55% of the time on a daily basis, you’re printing money over the long period, but that feels like you’re wrong half the time  Yeah, there’s a sort of a psychological toughness that you need to have. And so I I do think for whatever reason, I just it’s a being  Objective of being able to remind people that, yes, these things happen. You know, let’s let’s understand why. Let’s understand whether something’s changed  And really sort of assessing is that is the process  Itself broken? You know, our our business model and the way I think about where it is very, very process driven. I do have a bad process  Or is it just that basis, a randomness? This is this is not a good period for. For what  You’re doing, that’s not to say we’re  Patting people on the back and saying like, Oh, it’s OK, like, you’ll be fine because it sucks  But at the same time, just being objective about it again, going  Back to the notion of like what is real and removing some of the human psychological biases  And that’s more in the sense  Of people that run fundamental strategies where they have discretion than in what they’re doing. But that’s not to say that even for someone running a content strategy, which is very rules based, that the ones that have had some of those same psychological pressures because at the end of the day, humans are the ones that are designing quantitative algorithms  But just again, applying common sense being objective  You know, looking at sort of statistical distributions and having an appreciation for what can happen. You don’t freak out and when something inherently goes wrong because it is  And because I said that to sit at the center and because of our business model, I said, we have 100 strategies, you know, something always sucks  So it’s like I’m constantly in  That world where it’s like, Yeah, I’m telling you, like, there’s always something that’s not working and  Just having a bit of perspective there to to pass down to people that are kind of, you know, one that monitors points of thing  We’ll going back to you just as we sort of wrap this up here. These are we talked about your strengths. I love to know like, you know, what are some of those like, you know, you see perceived weaknesses for yourself and how you how do you approach how you approach those in life?Sure. Well, you know, I’ve I’ve got a bunch and I don’t. one of the things I don’t shy  Away from it. Sometimes people affectionately call me a cyborg because  Externally, it might seem that way. But I actually very much talk about  You know, hear your things and really sort of working  On a pretty salient example. That’s just it’s somewhat funny, but  But I very actively mention this to people to sort of humanize myself is I really pass out at the sight of blood or the discussion  Of blood. I mean, that’s it’s actually a medical thing. It’s hyperactive  Vagal nerve  You know, everyone has is to some extent, you know  They get a little  Queasy. In my case, it’s like really fucking embarrassing. So I passed out every single time I’ve ever given blood. You know, there’s there is one dinner, a work dinner, whereas actually, I hadn’t really eaten that much. And so my blood sugar was little low and I was actually telling it was  A potential investor and I was  Telling them about this. I was like, Oh my God. By explaining that I have this issue, I’ve actually caused this issue to manifest itself. So I actually passed out at dinner, hit my head in the floor as the ambulance came and people were like, What the hell is wrong with you?The next day I walked to the office and people are like, Are you OK? Like, what the hell? And that’s like, Yeah, you know, it happens. And the last one, again, is that it’s just funny. But again, it’s like, So I was sitting on a plane on pre-COVID  I travel a lot  And it was like one of those flights where I was rushing, you know, got like I moved when I just got a middle seat  It sucked, whatever. I hate sitting in aisle seats. I’m not. I’m a small dude  And I was like, This just sucks. I’m going to watch some mindless movie to get  Through the next two and a half hours, and then I’m going to be home and see my  Wife. So I turn on this movie and it was, is John Wick two, which I want to think about is like, OK, action movie, whatever. But my God, like within 30 seconds, they’re like stabbing people in the Vatican, just white everywhere  And I was like, Holy shit, I’m going to pass the bill. And the play’s about to take off. This is a serious problem  And I did actually it. It was a bit of a problem  But I tell people about it because I a it’s kind of funny, but also it’s just just important. Like humility is a strength and, you know, like making fun of yourself as a drank, particularly if in some other areas  It might seem like  Slightly abnormal. Like, I  Get up at 4:30 every day and do the same thing every day. Like I said, that’s just not normal being  Like, Yeah, well, the same time, like you can look at John Wick and not pass out and I can’t. So yeah  That’s that’s a good one  It’s really it’s really I love that those. If you were going to leave sort of the listeners today of like some something that sort of been focused on recently, is there something like leadership wise that’s really you found impactful?What would that be like? Where would you sort of point someone to if they’re looking for their own personal professional development? Yeah  So one of the things I’ve been thinking about recently and the sounds, I put it in context. So generally speaking, like my  Priorities are in no particular order, but in four main areas, there’s sort of myself from the intellectual and physical sense my family, my business and the world and the percentages that a time that I spent on all those those differ in their so obvious cases  In each one  The last category is the world at large, frankly, something I hadn’t spent  A lot of time thinking about until recently. Like our system in and of itself, policy in and of itself, and have been spending more time just to. King, about that. I mean, I do police have a pretty decent understanding of history  I was very it’s not a chore to go and read history books or first principle sources and have done that for years  And that is something that I  You know, encouraging within myself, encourage you in the sort of other people that are, you know, successful in achieving whatever it is they want to do have sort of achieved some level of influence and responsibility, especially at a younger age  To actually just think about ways to get involved in a  More impactful  Way in policy, not in sort of a superficial  I’m going to do some microscopic charity to make myself feel good enough not to judge any wrong with that  But actually thinking realistically about policy because I do  Think more people like me need to  Think about that and  Figure out ways to get involved. I don’t have an answer to that  But that is  one area  That I’m certainly thinking about and  And I encourage other other leaders to think about, as well as is not just in your own backyard, in your own world and for you on how to sort of optimize your business. But there’s some pretty serious issues in the world and in actually thinking about ways to ways to get involved  More broadly speaking, I do think is very important. And again, particularly at those that are have achieved success and are in their thirties, it’s sort of our generation that is going to be left with the really crazy shit house  So that that is one thing that I was just I was just think of it, I’ve been thinking about it how to apply. Some of the the principles that I have personally, you know, have had some success in developing a business context  How does that  Or to what extent  Is that relevant as much in an in a broader sense? Or what are what are some effective ways to think more about policy involvement?Other areas are like, Where are you? What are your sources of content for this? Like, is there civic books or like blogs?So yeah, I first of all, I don’t do social media at all. And when I say that, like I, I haven’t used Facebook  And Twitter in ten years, but really?And so it’s it’s the ways that I consume material  Ah, well, I I go  For a walk  For 45 minutes every single morning before I work out and I was not. He works on three X speed  So if you do that consistently every day you can read a lot of material  And so that’s it’s a combination of what I It’s just interesting to me from, you know  Audio  Books, typically biographies or descriptions, a certain area of history. I mean, the first principle sources like, you know  Go back and read Milton Friedman’s original  Stuff from the sixties  It’s super interesting as well as podcasts  I was kind of why  I did this. I do listen to a lot of podcast, very fairly eclectic. I like the interviews. You know, I like interviews with people  Just having them actually in long format,

In this episode of Delusional Optimism, Dr. B and Seth Creekmore speak with Jelani Memory, Co-Founder and CEO at A Kids Book About. Jelani talks about origins of the book series and the writing process of his book, A Book About Racism. He also gives a sneak peek of what's to come with A Kids Company About. Dr. B and Seth provide a brief preview of the podcast's season two which will focus on generational differences.   “I think you're so spot on and timely in that the littles are just chomping at the bit to have these conversations that adults have been scared to talk about.” -Dr. B [16:55]   “My thesis is really simple. It's that I think everyone has a story to tell, which then by virtue of that means everyone has a kids book inside them that can be written, because everyone's story truly is valuable and remarkable.” -Jelani Memory [20:48]   What You Will Learn: [00:00] Intro [02:14] Meet Jelani [04:??] Writing A Kids Book About Racism and starting the book series [10:18] Some of the hurdles from writing the book [13:29] Response from kids, parents and grandparents [20:22] About the book series [22:25] Who gifted Jelani his resilience [25:38] Seeking a father figure [30:44] Creating a company and what's to come [43:34] How to stay connected with A Kids Company About [45:40] Outro   Leave a lifeprint!   Resources: Email Dr. B: contact@drbconnections.com Visit her website: drbconnections.com Connect with her on Facebook: facebook.com/dr.bconnections Follow her on Instagram: instagram.com/dr.beasley Visit A Kids Company About: akidsco.com   Our partners: Truth Work Media: truthworkmedia.com

In the season two premiere of Delusional Optimism, Dr. B and Seth Creekmore speak with Jelani Memory, Co-Founder and CEO at A Kids Book About. Jelani talks about origins of the book series and the writing process of his book, A Book About Racism. He also gives a sneak peek of what's to come with A Kids Company About. Dr. B and Seth provide a brief preview of the podcast's season two which will focus on generational differences.   “I think you're so spot on and timely in that the littles are just chomping at the bit to have these conversations that adults have been scared to talk about.” -Dr. B [16:55]   “My thesis is really simple. It's that I think everyone has a story to tell, which then by virtue of that means everyone has a kids book inside them that can be written, because everyone's story truly is valuable and remarkable.” -Jelani Memory [20:48]   What You Will Learn: [00:00] Intro [02:14] Meet Jelani [04:??] Writing A Kids Book About Racism and starting the book series [10:18] Some of the hurdles from writing the book [13:29] Response from kids, parents and grandparents [20:22] About the book series [22:25] Who gifted Jelani his resilience [25:38] Seeking a father figure [30:44] Creating a company and what's to come [43:34] How to stay connected with A Kids Company About [45:40] Outro   Leave a lifeprint!   Resources: Email Dr. B: contact@drbconnections.com Visit her website: drbconnections.com Connect with her on Facebook: facebook.com/dr.bconnections Follow her on Instagram: instagram.com/dr.beasley Visit A Kids Company About: akidsco.com   Our partners: Truth Work Media: truthworkmedia.com

In this episode, Dr. Amber Selking speaks with Michael Yoder, founder and owner of Truth Work Media. Michael talks about his word for 2021 — awareness — and how he will focus it around creating, learning and resting. He discusses the power in writing things down and how it helps him not only flesh out ideas, but make them a reality. Listen as he shares how he’s learned to accept what he doesn’t know and also allow himself to be surrounded by people who do and can show him the way. About Building Championship Mindsets Welcome to “Building Championship Mindsets. | the Podcast!” From the LockerRoom to the BoardRoom, our purpose is to help individuals, teams, and organizations understand and leverage the power of Mindset and Leadership to drive results and achieve sustainable performance excellence.  Selking Performance Group serves as the Mental Performance Consultant for Head Coach Brian Kelly and the Notre Dame Football team, and does speaking and training for sports teams and business organizations around the globe. She is the Vice President of Leadership & Culture Development at Lippert Components, Inc., a publicly-traded manufacturing company whose corporate vision is to change the model of work, demonstrating that business can and should Be a Force for Good in our world. Dr. Selking has also served as an adjunct professor in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, where she taught Strategic Human Resource Management at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Selking received her PhD in Applied Sport Psychology from the University of Missouri under Dr. Rick McGuire, her master’s degree in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver, and her bachelor’s degree in Management Consulting from the University of Notre Dame. At ND, Amber played soccer for the Fighting Irish before injury ended her career, after which she founded Notre Dame Christian Athletes (NDCA) in the ND Athletic Department. She currently resides in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband, Aaron, and their Doberman Pinscher, Rockne. Championship Mindset Training | MidWeek Mental Rep Send out a self-awareness email to 10 to 15 people and ask them to share two or three things they think you can work on to become a better person. Have the awareness to do something about it. STANDOUT QUOTES “We aren’t our jobs. We aren’t our occupations, but what we do become is our habits. We do become our processes. We do become the people we surround ourselves with, and so the process of writing down goals that stretch you and make you into a better person that ultimately forms who you are as a human.” -Michael Yoder [08:45] “That is being self-aware enough, hopefully, that in 2021, I’m going to work less, because I didn’t start my own business to work all the time. I really didn’t. I didn’t start my business to make a ton of money. I started my business so I can live the life and the lifestyle that I want to live, and that involves resting.” -Michael Yoder [21:54] “But one of the things that I think that we forget as high performers, particularly in our society, is that recovery is part of the performance process.” -Dr. Amber Selking [22:29] Please get on iTunes to rate us and write a review for us! We are excited to complimentarily share this content with our audience, and your rates and reviews will enable us to continue sharing quality content. Also, please share the podcast on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and any other social media that you use, so we can continue Building Championship Mindsets around the world! If you are interested in being a sponsor of this podcast, please contact Dr. Selking directly. Additional Links: Email me to schedule a speaking engagement! amber@selkingperformance.com Check out our TWO E-BOOKS! "A Dream Come True: the Buzz on Greatness" “Winner's Circle"  Selking Performance Group (SPG) Website: www.selkingperformance.com Follow SPG on Twitter: @ChampMindsets Check us out on Instagram: @selkingperformance Like SPG on Facebook: Selking Performance Group Email me to become a podcast partner through sponsorship: amber@selkingperformance.com Check out Dr. Selking’s TEDxTalk entitled, “Think Like a Champion Today” to learn more about the power of your mind to drive excellence in all areas of your life! Check out Truth Work Media: truthworkmedia.com TIMESTAMPS [00:02] Intro [02:11] Today’s guest: Michael Yoder [04:53] Michael’s word for 2021: awareness [06:17] The goal planning process [13:09] Three subcomponents of awareness [25:28] This week’s Championship Mindset Training [28:34] How to contact Michael [30:03] Outro

In this episode of "Delusional Optimism," Dr. B explains the need to trace back earlier patterns of unresolved emotional conflict in our past, understand trauma in our present life  and work towards breaking the cycle of trauma transmission through generations.  Understand how unresolved reminiscence from the past affects your relationships in the present. “This is at the heart of how intergenerational trauma works, it's about the reminiscence of the past that impacts the relationships in the present.” - Dr. B  [10:39] What You Will Learn: [00:01] Intro [02:46] Intergenerational trauma: causes and prevention  [08:00] Ghosts from the past vs. trauma  [22:03] How can we still be resilient? [27:20] Some actionable takeaways: ask questions; be curious and learn your story; acknowledge and learn about different people’s experiences; see professional support with a trained infant mental health provider [32:38] Outro Wear a mask and find your calm! Resources: Email Dr. B: contact@drbconnections.com Visit her website: www.drbconnections.com  Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/dr.bconnections  Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/dr.beasley  This show is published and produced by the team at Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates podcasts and develops content for businesses and clients of all sizes. Truth Work Media helps tell your business's story, and brand your message in an engaging way. Check them out at www.truthworkmedia.com

In this episode of "Delusional Optimism," Dr. B explains the link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and substance misuse. She unravels how trauma can manifest in various forms of addiction, and calls for the need to have conversations about drugs that are centered on trauma. “People overcome addiction but it requires retraining and building a new set of neural pathways to rely on safety, stability, and security. ” - Dr. B  [24:04] What You Will Learn: [00:01] Intro [00:32] The correlation between adverse childhood experiences and drug addiction: how does trauma lead to drug misuse? [09:32] A personal experience with addiction [21:15] Some actionable takeaways: remember that addiction is a consequence of trauma; have early conversations on drug misuse with children and friends; recognize if someone in your family misused drugs or alcohol[27:22] Outro Wear a mask and find your calm! Resources: Email Dr. B: contact@drbconnections.com Visit her website: www.drbconnections.com  Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/dr.bconnections  Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/dr.beasley This show is published and produced by the team at Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates podcasts and develops content for businesses and clients of all sizes. Truth Work Media helps tell your business's story, and brand your message in an engaging way. Check them out at www.truthworkmedia.com

In this episode of “Delusional Optimism”, Dr. B talks about wiring the brain for wellness. She explains how our experiences in life, from infancy to adulthood, affect our physical and neurological health. Dr. B also opens a discussion on health inequity and advocates for fairer healthcare practices that will positively impact people’s long term health. Listen to how social determinants influence your health and the health of people around you.    “Loving relationships mediate trauma, mediate risk, and build resilience and the ability to overcome adversity.” - Dr. B [7:26] What You Will Learn: [0:37] Intro[1:43] Investing early in the wellness of young children as a means to create more resilient families and communities[4:31] Healthy brain development is intrinsically linked to favorable life experiences[7:47] The progression of brain development through life[13:01] A lesson on extreme poverty in Nairobi and its impact on health[18:30] How social and economic factors are significant determinants of health[21:22] The process of building resilience[27:11] Some actionable takeaways: become aware that health is a product of our environment more than our biology; know that building resilience is a choice; embrace your resilience and recognize your power to be a social determinant of health to others[29:39] Breathe deeply and find your calm, and don’t forget to be kind to yourself and others[30:35] Outro Wear a mask and find your calm! Resources: Email Dr. B: contact@drbconnections.com Visit her website: www.drbconnections.com Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/dr.bconnections Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/dr.beasleyThis show is published and produced by the team at Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates podcasts and develops content for businesses and clients of all sizes. Truth Work Media helps tell your business's story, and brand your message in an engaging way. Check them out at www.truthworkmedia.com

Michael Yoder of Truth Work Media joins host Ryan Zerfas in the studio to chat about all things podcasting. Yup. This is a podcast episode about podcasting. Whether you've never considered podcasting, are dabbling in the early stages, or feel like an expert, Michael reminds us podcasts cultivate accessible stories, brand influencers, and space for thought leadership. So friends, turn up the volume and get to listening.

On this episode of Thee CrazyFaceUno Podcast we welcome Michael Yoder. Michael graduated from Bethel University, IN majoring in Adolescent Studies in Youth Ministry. He then went on to receive a masters in Theology. Over the years he has grown discontent with the evangelical Christian church and the dogmas that come with it. This lead Michael to a new career, founding Truth Work Media (www.truthworkmedia.com). Truth Work Media is helping people create and produce their own podcasts from the ground up, offering a variety of services. It’s been three years now and they are soaring to new heights year after year. Listen in as Michael and I talk about his life growing up, our religious views, and life today. Enjoy!

It's been a year since Michael Yoder & Terry Linhart last produced a 37 THE PODCAST episode. They stop by the J2 Marketing studios to provide an update regarding Truth Work Media and Terry's new podcast, THIS BETTER WORK. You'll hear all that's been going on and what's coming up on this special surprise episode of 37 THE PODCAST.  Learn more about starting a podcast with Truth Work Media at TruthWorkMedia.com. Connect with Michael Yoder on Twitter and Instagram. Be sure to go to iTunes and subscribe to Terry's new podcast, This Better Work.  Connect with Terry Linhart on Twitter and Instagram. 

Join Allyson as she sits down with Michael Yoder, founder of Truth Work Media, as they talk everything from Podcasting to Jesus. You won't want to miss this first episode! 

Michael Yoder helps people share their stories. Plain and simple. Michael started his own company to help people do it. As the owner of Truth Work Media, Michael tells stories through speaking, creating websites and creating podcasts, including this one. Michael is one of the reasons I felt confident enough to finally launch. Michael describes this process as walking alongside people and encouraging them to live a story that is worth sharing. He helps others lean into what that looks like for them and he says he has found that most people have a story they are longing to create or be a part of, but often they need help getting there.   Michael, like most entrepreneurs, quit his day job to live a better story. A graduate of Bethel College’s Youth Ministry program, he worked in some form of relational ministry for nearly a decade before starting his first podcast with a friend that changed his life from that moment forward.   In just two years, Truth Work Media is producing nearly 50 podcasts and Michael has added to his team, making the bold decision to scale up his company. We talk entrepreneurship in this episode, but we also get into some “deep” and maybe some “controversial” topics around the realm of Christianity and faith and politics. We basically went wherever the discussion led us and I think it is a pretty powerful conversation about not just settling for the status quo or conforming to fit into some standard of how life is “supposed to be.”    Follow Michael on Twitter: @michaelyoder81    Visit Truth Work Media: https://www.truthworkmedia.com/

How does your story shape your present? Do you have a story you want to tell? Where have you felt a deep sense of welcome lately? When have you tried to join a group and clearly weren’t welcomed? Story and welcome shape our present in dramatic ways and this week’s podcast helps us think about them in fresh ways as we move and live in our communities. Terry’s guest this week is Michael Yoder (Twitter link), founder and creative director of Truth Work Media. Michael is the former co-host of the wildly successful 37 the Podcast. Michael helps people tell their stories through podcasts. His company produces podcasts like April Diaz’s The Global Fringe, Dr. Amber Selking’s Building Championship Mindsets, Brian Levenson’s Intentional Performers, and Dan Dietrich’s Future Obsession (a music discovery and review podcast co-hosted with Michael).  The TedX talk by Simon Sinek. Get Simon’s book START WITH WHY (Amazon link). You can pick up a copy of Terry’s latest book, THE SELF-AWARE LEADER (IVP, 2017).   Meta 12 “Man, I need this.” “Sign me up. Tell me how to get better.” “I’m in for Meta 12. I’ve got some goals I need to get.”  That is what we’ve heard as people have signed up for a fun summer challenge called Meta 12. It is a 90-day challenge to help you set and get some goals or to overcome some routines and ruts that have held you back. Join a diverse community of like-minded folks who want to make a change in their lives. You can learn more at Meta12.us. But sign up soon because registration closes June 1! If you’re interested in an online MBA or a MA in Ministry, check out the amazing programs at Bethel College (Indiana).  

Show Notes:  In this episode, Michael and Terry share some big news. Tune into the first 8 minutes to find out what's happening.  Also, they sit down with Erik and Hugh and talk about J2, marketing, and building a brand.    Matthew McConaughey Video Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media helps people realize their podcast dreams. You can be up and running with your very own podcast in just three months. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about their fast-growing ONLINE MBA, visit www.BethelCollege.edu/MBA.

Today we have on Kristi Porter who helps small nonprofits and for-profits with a social mission get noticed and grow through effective marketing and communications. She believes that cause-focused organizations are the future of business. They're proof that companies can both make money and do good. And she's here to make sure they focus and shine. When they succeed, we all win. Show links Website: www.signify.solutions Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/SignifySolutions Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/991897777605157/ Twitter: www.twitter.com/SignifySolution LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kporter9876 Personal Instagram: www.instagram.com/kporter9876 Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/wesignify Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without LIKING 37 the Podcast on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media helps people realize their podcast dreams. You can be up and running with your very own podcast in just three months. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about their fast-growing ONLINE MBA, visit www.BethelCollege.edu/MBA.

Today we have on Dave Barnes, who is an American musician, singer and Grammy Award nominated songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee. He has released nine albums including two Christmas albums. And in just a couple short days, Dave is releasing another album! This show was a lot of fun. Connect with Dave below. Show links Dave's Website Be sure to follow Dave on Twitter You can connect with Dave on Facebook.  My favorite, Dave on Instagram.  Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without LIKING 37 the Podcast on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media helps people realize their podcast dreams. You can be up and running with your very own podcast in just three months. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about their fast-growing ONLINE MBA, visit www.BethelCollege.edu/MBA. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

Episode 77 features a much-anticipated conversation with Ron Edmondson. Ron’s blog was cited as one of the top five Christian leadership blogs in 2017. And once you meet Ron, you’ll quickly find out why. Ron possesses years of wisdom from his past in business, church consulting, and church leadership. His story of how God led him from a career in business to success as a church planter and pastor is captivating. And his recent book, THE MYTHICAL LEADER (2017, Thomas Nelson) has been a huge success.   Ron stops by the show to talk about the book, about his story, and share rich insights from his over 20 years in helping Christian leaders. You’re gonna’ love this interview, especially the second half where Ron’s wisdom and insights will help you move from pedestrian to proficient in your life and leadership.   Show links Ron’s blog is a must-subscribe read for Christian leaders. Be sure to follow Ron on Twitter. You can connect with Ron on Facebook. His devotional site is www.mustardseedministry.com Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without LIKING 37 the Podcast on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media helps people realize their podcast dreams. You can be up and running with your very own podcast in just three months. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about their fast-growing ONLINE MBA, visit www.BethelCollege.edu/MBA. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.  

  We are SO stoked to have Paul Sohn as our guest on this episode. Paul is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of the best-selling book, QUARTER-LIFE CALLING: PURSUING YOUR GOD-GIVEN PURPOSE IN YOUR TWENTIES. Formerly employed by both a Fortune 50 company and a Top 100 Great Place to Work Company, Paul the founder and CEO of QARA, an organization committed to empower twenty-somethings to discover their God-given identity and calling. Paul’s blog at paulsohn.org was ranked #15 of the top 50 leadership blogs to follow. His website has over 100,000 monthly visitors. Recently, Christianity Today magazine named Paul as one of the Top 33 under 33 Christian Millennials to Watch.    You can personally connect with Paul at his Twitter, @PaulJSohn. Be sure to pick up a copy of his best-seller, Quarter-Life Calling and get a copy for a 20-something in your life. Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. Start off 2018 with be sure to LIKE our Facebook page - 37 the Podcast on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media helps people realize their podcast dreams. You can be up and running with your very own podcast in just three months. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about their fast-growing ONLINE MBA, visit www.BethelCollege.edu/MBA. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

Michael and Terry talk Christmas traditions, give each other gives, and part some parting advice for the New Year.  Cheers! We love you guys.    Show links Truth Work Media   If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group. Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality. Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.

Annie F. Downs is a best-selling author, speaker, and podcast host based in Nashville, TN. Annie F. Downs is an author, blogger, and speaker based in Nashville, Tennessee. Flawed but funny, she uses her writing to highlight the everyday goodness of a real and present God. An author of five books- 100 Days To Brave, Looking for Lovely, Let’s All Be Brave, Perfectly Unique, and Speak Love, Annie also loves traveling around the country speaking at churches, events, and conferences (and visiting as many local coffee shops as possible). Read more at anniefdowns.com. Resources 100 Days to Brave Looking for Lovely: Collecting the Moments that Matter Perfectly Unique: Praising God from Head to Foot Connect with Annie Web: http://www.anniefdowns.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anniefdowns Twitter: https://twitter.com/anniefdowns IG: https://www.instagram.com/anniefdowns/ Show links Truth Work Media   If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group. Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality. Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.

Welcome to “Building Championship Mindsets. | the Podcast!” From the LockerRoom to the BoardRoom, our purpose is to help you build mindsets that can drive results and achieve sustainable excellence on your team, in your organization, and in your life. Dr. Amber Selking is the Mental Performance Consultant for Head Coach Brian Kelly and the Notre Dame Football team, and does speaking and training for sports teams and business organizations around the globe. She is also an adjunct Professor in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, where she teaches Strategic Human Resource Management. She received her PhD in Applied Sport Psychology from the University of Missouri under Dr. Rick McGuire, her master’s degree in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver, and her bachelor’s degree in Management Consulting from the University of Notre Dame. At ND, Amber played soccer for the Fighting Irish before injury ended her career, after which she founded Notre Dame Christian Athletes (NDCA) in the ND Athletic Department. She currently resides in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband, Aaron, and their Doberman Pinscher, Rockne. Mindset Note | CHAMPIONS KNOW THEY MUST STRATEGIZE & ORGANIZE TO FINISH STRONG. Championship Mindset Training | Activate a Q1 initiative this week to "get the ball rolling" and generate momentum. "Early Activation Generates Momentum" is one of the five Mindset Markers of a Championship Mindset on 'The 4th Quarter' that were outlined in this episode. There's no better time to start than now, and small, simple steps on future projects help generate action and stimulate productivity.     Please get on iTunes to rate us and write a review for us! We are excited to complimentarily share this content with our audience, and your rates and reviews will enable us to continue sharing quality content. Also, please share the podcast on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and any other social media that you use, so we can continue Building Championship Mindsets around the world!   Referenced Links: Email me to schedule a speaking engagement!: amber@selkingperformance.com Check out our TWO NEW E-BOOKS! "A Dream Come True: the Buzz on Greatness" & "Winner's Circle" Selking Performance Group (SPG) Website: www.selkingperformance.com Check out all our social media platforms for more Mindset development! Follow SPG on Twitter: @DrSelking Check us out on Instagram: @selkingperformance Like SPG on Facebook: Selking Performance Group Email me to schedule a speaking engagement!: amber@selkingperformance.com Michael Yoder (my Producer) and his Production company, Truth Work Media: www.truthworkmedia.com Referenced Books: My future books coming in 2018!!!

Our 73rd episode features an interview with Len Morris, founder and owner of Viewrail and Stair Supplies. What started out as a website in 2002 run out of his home, Stair Supplies has become of America’s leading suppliers in the construction business. Len’s journey is one full of twists and turns after starting as a youth pastor, then a senior pastor, and now a business owner who leverages his work to grow and develop others. This interview is captivating and will be an encouragement to persevere through the difficult times when chasing a dream.   37 the Podcast on Patreon  We are not going to have a sponsor this year, but instead will be doing Patreon account.  As we prepare for Season 4, we're excited to establish a way for our faithful listeners to help support 37 the Podcast. We have monthly costs to keep the podcast rolling along.  SO, if you're getting benefits from listening to the show and can skip one Starbucks Frappuccino each month and support the show, we'd appreciate it. It will help us keep pressing forward with more great shows.  It's easy! Click Here! Thanks so much!  Terry & Michael Show links Truth Work Media If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group. Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality. Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.

I finally did it. I LAUNCHED A PODCAST! You can too, but more on that in just a second. In this first episode, I sat down with Michael Yoder to discuss trying crazy things, the art of flex scheduling, and the importance of sharing your story. Michael got his Masters degree in Ministry & Theological Studies, then realized he wasn't being challenged enough in his field, so HE started a podcast, which eventually turned into a podcast business.

Our guest on this episode is Scott Tuttle. Scott started out as an architecture major and dabbled in graphic design before graduating from Indiana University. He started out in marketing in the RV industry, but his entrepreneurial spirit and deep relationship with God played roles in helping him form two companies, Livin’ Lite and Heartland RV. Tuttle's commitment to Christ and to obedient giving saw him help launch the Life Center Project aimed at combating the effects of substance abuse and poverty among Elkhart County families. This is a powerful story that will encourage and challenge listeners to be givers and not just doers.     37 the Podcast on Patreon  We are not going to have a sponsor this year, but instead will be doing Patreon account.  As we prepare for Season 4, we're excited to establish a way for our faithful listeners to help support 37 the Podcast. We have monthly costs to keep the podcast rolling along.  SO, if you're getting benefits from listening to the show and can skip one Starbucks Frappuccino each month and support the show, we'd appreciate it. It will help us keep pressing forward with more great shows.  It's easy! Click Here! Thanks so much!  Terry & Michael Show links Truth Work Media If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group. Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality. Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.

Dr. Amber Selking is the Mental Performance Consultant for Head Coach Brian Kelly and the Notre Dame Football team, and does speaking and training for sports teams and business organizations around the globe. She is also an adjunct Professor in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, where she teaches Strategic Human Resource Management. She received her PhD in Applied Sport Psychology from the University of Missouri under Dr. Rick McGuire, her master’s degree in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver, and her bachelor’s degree in Management Consulting from the University of Notre Dame. At ND, Amber played soccer for the Fighting Irish before injury ended her career, after which she founded Notre Dame Christian Athletes (NDCA) in the ND Athletic Department. She currently resides in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband, Aaron, and their Doberman Pinscher, Rockne.     Connect with Amber on her website – Selking Performance Listen to her podcast: Building Championship Mindsets Follow Amber on: Twitter: @DrSelking Instagram: @Selkingperformance   “What fires together, wires together.” - Dr. Amber Selking   37 the Podcast on Patreon  We are not going to have a sponsor this year, but instead will be doing Patreon account.  As we prepare for Season 4, we're excited to establish a way for our faithful listeners to help support 37 the Podcast. We have monthly costs to keep the podcast rolling along.  SO, if you're getting benefits from listening to the show and can skip one Starbucks Frappuccino each month and support the show, we'd appreciate it. It will help us keep pressing forward with more great shows.  It's easy! Click Here! Thanks so much!  Terry & Michael Show links Truth Work Media If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group. Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality. Products Switch on Your Brain - Dr. Caroline Leaf The Talent Code Grit Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.

Dan Deitrich stops by the studio. Dan is an artist. Whether it's music, film, writing, or graphic design, he loves to create, to tell stories. He currently works at South Bend City Church…a church start up, in South Bend Indiana.  Dan is also a friend of Michaels. Michael thinks he's pretty neat.   Connect with Dan on his website – danieldeitrich.squarespace.com   37 the Podcast on Patreon  We are not going to have a sponsor this year, but instead will be doing Patreon account.  As we prepare for Season 4, we're excited to establish a way for our faithful listeners to help support 37 the Podcast. We have monthly costs to keep the podcast rolling along.  SO, if you're getting benefits from listening to the show and can skip one Starbucks Frappuccino each month and support the show, we'd appreciate it. It will help us keep pressing forward with more great shows.  It's easy! Click Here! Thanks so much!  Terry & Michael Show links Truth Work Media If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group. Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality. Product The War on Art A New Liturgy Seth Godin's Blog Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.

Kyle and Tina O’Connor of the Alpha Dog Agency are joined by Michael Yoder of Truth Work Media to discuss their new podcast, South Bend Beat.   Sponsors  Keep an ear out for sponsors starting Episode 4.   Show Links  South Bend Beat Alpha Dog Agency Truth Work Media   South Bend Cubs Giveaway   Screenshot your subscription and/or review for the South Bend Beat Podcast and send it to any of the below handles on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to be entered to win four South Bend Cubs tickets to Opening Day 2018. The winner will also receive a $50 gift card to the team store.   @alphadogagency @southbendbeat   Links   Follow Kyle on Twitter or Instagram Follow Alpha Dog Agency on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram Follow South Bend Beat on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram   Connect with Michael on his website - MichaelYoder.me Follow Truth Work Media on Facebook   This show is produced by Truth Work Media. 

Michael and Terry launch Season 4 of 37 the podcast. We are excited to pivot and improve on the show and encourage people as we go.   37 the Podcast on Patreon  We are not going to have a sponsor this year, but instead will be doing Patreon account.  As we prepare for Season 4, we're excited to establish a way for our faithful listeners to help support 37 the Podcast. We have monthly costs to keep the podcast rolling along.  SO, if you're getting benefits from listening to the show and can skip one Starbucks Frappuccino each month and support the show, we'd appreciate it. It will help us keep pressing forward with more great shows.  It's easy! Click Here! Thanks so much!  Terry & Michael Show links Truth Work Media If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group. Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality. Products Productivity Planner that Michael uses daily Journal that Michael writes in everyday. Super easy. Super useful. It's for people that don't write.    Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants. *Music  

Hi Everyone, This episode is a little different. It’s shorter and it’s just with Brian. The purpose is to give a “State of the Union” in order to update you on the podcast. The first update is that we are changing the name of the podcast to "Intentional Performers with Brian Levenson". We have discussed this for some time now and think it's time to make an intentional shift. We are really excited about the change and think it will serve you, the listener. We also are going to consciously sift each episode for great gems from guests where they share an intentional act that they did in their journey to help them get where they are today. The hope is that you can learn from these intentional performers and think about how you are, and how you can be, intentional with not just your performance, but your life. You will notice a lot of changes coming to the podcast. We have gotten terrific feedback from you and we want to make the show as helpful as possible. I also recently hired a producer (Michael Yoder with Truth Work Media), who is helping me design and develop the best podcast possible. I am truly grateful for all of you who are listening! It truly means a ton to me. As we continue to make the podcast as professional as possible, we need your help as well. If you could share episodes on social media and write us a review on itunes, it really helps us grow our community. Anything you can do is greatly appreciated. Thanks to all of the guests who have come on the show and thanks to all of you for listening! Look forward to hearing from you all as we continue to be intentional with the show! Talk soon, Brian Levenson  

Michael and Terry wrap up season 3. Check out the 5 things they both learned from this last year, plus a few bonuses.    Show links If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP   Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group.   Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality.   The group will work through the material from The Self-Aware Leader and related sources. Each person will personally walk with Terry through six prominent personality and work profiles. Each month there will be worksheets that focus on time management, goal-setting, the cycle of executive leadership, and more. Each participant will engage in two video conference calls monthly with the group that will provide a rich community of like-minded leaders who will help you process Each person will have two private one-on-one coaching phone calls with Terry each month. A private Facebook group will support members of the mastermind gorup throughout the entire four-month period.   This mastermind coaching group costs what many coaching experiences cost for a single month. The low cost allows leaders of all types in all situations to easily afford it.   Applications are open now, so visit Terry’s website to learn more and then apply ASAP because it will fill up since he’s only taking 6-10 people in this group. The goal is to give each participant the personal attention that they need to take their leadership and work to a higher level of effectiveness.     Sponsor   We are grateful for EXPERIENCE MISSION to be a sponsor for our ENTIRE Season 3. EM is one of the leading non-profit organizations for short-term mission trips and longer Immersion experiences throughout the U.S. and around the world. Right now, EM is offering some amazing cross-cultural training resources for FREE to listeners of 37 the Podcast. Check out their training sessions built around the ideas of Hope, Human Dignity, and Brokenness. EM believes that “living your mission” and serving others is incredibly important and these resources explore the importance of how we serve others in a cross-cultural setting. Don’t miss these and all of Experience Mission’s upcoming mission trip opportunities.   Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website – MichaelYoder.me Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.   The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.  

“Seeing Your Margins” Everyone says they’re busy. The reality is that we spend our greatest resource, our time, on what matters to us. Those of us who listen to podcasts are the type where we can let margins erode. This is an important topic for all of us. Terry and three prominent leadership coaches talk about the working with margins in leadership, based on his book, The Self-Aware Leader. April Diaz is 20-year youth ministry veteran who got her start at Willow Creek Community Church and then Newsong Church in southern California. She has authored the book, Redefining the Role of the Youth Worker. She is the director of coaching for The Youth Cartel and is a member of the advisory council for Fuller Youth Institute.   She is married to her high school sweetheart, Brian, and they have three children. You can connect with April on Twitter or at AprilDiaz.com. Joan McClendon is the project director at Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative at St. Mary’s College and co-author of Life on the Fringe: Testimonies of Women Moving Beyond Desperation to Faith. She is an executive-level coach to women who run large companies in the Midwest. Joan and her husband, Kary, are the proud parents of two adult children. Connect with Joan at joanmcclendon.com After 16 years as an executive pastor at two different large churches, Jon Swanson is a consultant with the Center for Congregations. He is also a senior consultant with The Arbor Research Group and a hospital chaplain at Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, IN. He has authored numerous books, including A Great Work: A Conversation with Nehemiah for People (Who Want to Be) Doing Great Work and Lent for Non-Lent People. He and his wife Nancy have two adult children. You can connect with Jon on Twitter or at 300 Words a Day.   Show links You can still take our survey for two more weeks (and maybe win a prize!). Visit http://www.terrylinhart.com/37survey Check out Kyle Johnson’s new podcast for business owners, THE MIDDLE. If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.   THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP   Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group.   Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality.     The group will work through the material from The Self-Aware Leader and related sources. Each person will personally walk with Terry through six prominent personality and work profiles. Each month there will be worksheets that focus on time management, goal-setting, the cycle of executive leadership, and more. Each participant will engage in two video conference calls monthly with the group that will provide a rich community of like-minded leaders who will help you process Each person will have two private one-on-one coaching phone calls with Terry each month. A private Facebook group will support members of the mastermind gorup throughout the entire four-month period.   This mastermind coaching group costs what many coaching experiences cost for a single month. The low cost allows leaders of all types in all situations to easily afford it.   Applications are open now, so visit Terry’s website to learn more and then apply ASAP because it will fill up since he’s only taking 6-10 people in this group. The goal is to give each participant the personal attention that they need to take their leadership and work to a higher level of effectiveness.       Sponsor   We are grateful for EXPERIENCE MISSION to be a sponsor for our ENTIRE Season 3. EM is one of the leading non-profit organizations for short-term mission trips and longer Immersion experiences throughout the U.S. and around the world. Right now, EM is offering some amazing cross-cultural training resources for FREE to listeners of 37 the Podcast. Check out their training sessions built around the ideas of Hope, Human Dignity, and Brokenness. EM believes that “living your mission” and serving others is incredibly important and these resources explore the importance of how we serve others in a cross-cultural setting. Don’t miss these and all of Experience Mission’s upcoming mission trip opportunities.   Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.       The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.

 The Self-Aware Leader, a Roundtable Discussion, Part 7   “Seeing Your Conflicts”   Everyone faces conflict, but most of us don’t handle it well. This episode takes on this necessary topic and provides experience insight and helps to navigate these tricky times. Terry and three prominent leadership coaches talk about the dealing with conflict in leadership, based on his book, The Self-Aware Leader.   April Diaz is 20-year youth ministry veteran who got her start at Willow Creek Community Church and then Newsong Church in southern California. She has authored the book, Redefining the Role of the Youth Worker. She is the director of coaching for The Youth Cartel and is a member of the advisory council for Fuller Youth Institute.   She is married to her high school sweetheart, Brian, and they have three children. You can connect with April on Twitter or at AprilDiaz.com.   Joan McClendon is the project director at Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative at St. Mary’s College and co-author of Life on the Fringe: Testimonies of Women Moving Beyond Desperation to Faith. She is an executive-level coach to women who run large companies in the Midwest. Joan and her husband, Kary, are the proud parents of two adult children. Connect with Joan at joanmcclendon.com   After 16 years as an executive pastor at two different large churches, Jon Swanson is a consultant with the Center for Congregations. He is also a senior consultant with The Arbor Research Group and a hospital chaplain at Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, IN. He has authored numerous books, including A Great Work: A Conversation with Nehemiah for People (Who Want to Be) Doing Great Work and Lent for Non-Lent People. He and his wife Nancy have two adult children. You can connect with Jon on Twitter or at 300 Words a Day.     Show links   You can still take our survey for two more weeks (and maybe win a prize!). Visit http://www.terrylinhart.com/37survey   Check out Kyle Johnson’s new podcast for business owners, THE MIDDLE.   If you want to have Michael speak at your event or church, or you want to have him help you develop and launch a killer podcast, you can connect with him at Truth Work Media.       Terry is making a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering you the opportunity to have a seat in The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group.     THE SELF-AWARE LEADER MASTERMIND COACHING GROUP   Terry made a big announcement here first on 37 the Podcast: He is offering the opportunity for you to have a seat in the next The Self-Aware Leader Mastermind Coaching Group.   Terry will take a group of 6-10 people who want to engage with him in a high-level mastermind coaching group for a four month period. Terry has packed it full of the best leadership material and beneficial exercises that will give you greater self-awareness, confidence, clarity, and spiritual vitality.    The group will work through the material from The Self-Aware Leader and related sources. Each person will personally walk with Terry through six prominent personality and work profiles. Each month there will be worksheets that focus on time management, goal-setting, the cycle of executive leadership, and more. Each participant will engage in two video conference calls monthly with the group that will provide a rich community of like-minded leaders who will help you process Each person will have two private one-on-one coaching phone calls with Terry each month. A private Facebook group will support members of the mastermind gorup throughout the entire four-month period.   This mastermind coaching group costs what many coaching experiences cost for a single month. The low cost allows leaders of all types in all situations to easily afford it.   Applications are open now, so visit Terry’s website to learn more and then apply ASAP because it will fill up since he’s only taking 6-10 people in this group. The goal is to give each participant the personal attention that they need to take their leadership and work to a higher level of effectiveness.      Sponsor   We are grateful for EXPERIENCE MISSION to be a sponsor for our ENTIRE Season 3. EM is one of the leading non-profit organizations for short-term mission trips and longer Immersion experiences throughout the U.S. and around the world. Right now, EM is offering some amazing cross-cultural training resources for FREE to listeners of 37 the Podcast. Check out their training sessions built around the ideas of Hope, Human Dignity, and Brokenness. EM believes that “living your mission” and serving others is incredibly important and these resources explore the importance of how we serve others in a cross-cultural setting. Don’t miss these and all of Experience Mission’s upcoming mission trip opportunities.   Links:             Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter             Connect with Terry on his website – TerryLinhart.com Connect with Michael on his website - MichaelYoder.me        Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter.       Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space.       Thanks to Bethel College for allowing us the time to record this episode.       The opinions expressed on this episode are exclusively those of podcast participants.  

Michael has Joel on the show and they talk about life, health, business startups, mindset, and what it means to be a digital nomad. Show links Check out Joel here --> His site will direct you to his instagram, twitter, business, and everything else he's doing.  Check out Pieter Levels, the guy that Joel talked about on the show, making 12 startups in one year.  Be sure to like our Facebook page. Terry has a new book coming out in October. If you’re a pastor or Christian leader who teaches young people, you’ll want to pre-order TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATIONS. It’s designed as a textbook but it will help anyone learn more about how teaching and learning “work.”    Another book that Terry has been devouring this summer is GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth. It’s one of those game-changer books that leaders in various lines of work are recommending. Part of the clarifying process is to eliminate some nonessentials. We like the book ESSENTIALISM by Greg McKeown.  If you want to start a blog or just relocate one to a better server, we can’t speak highly enough about our experience with Bluehost. 24/7 support and easy-to-get-started instructions make Bluehost the standard for folks with better things to do with their time. Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. If you want to start a podcast, we can help. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

Are you feeling restless in your job? Do you think there may be something different for you in the future? Then, this episode will help you take your next best step forward. Terry interviews youth worker Cheris Miller and takes her through a series of questions that help give clarity and direction for the restless ones. Show links Be sure to like our Facebook page. Terry has a new book coming out in October. If you’re a pastor or Christian leader who teaches young people, you’ll want to pre-order TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATIONS. It’s designed as a textbook but it will help anyone learn more about how teaching and learning “work.”    Another book that Terry has been devouring this summer is GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth. It’s one of those game-changer books that leaders in various lines of work are recommending. Part of the clarifying process is to eliminate some nonessentials. We like the book ESSENTIALISM by Greg McKeown.  If you want to start a blog or just relocate one to a better server, we can’t speak highly enough about our experience with Bluehost. 24/7 support and easy-to-get-started instructions make Bluehost the standard for folks with better things to do with their time. Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. If you want to start a podcast, we can help. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

37thePodcast Season 3, Episode 2  (Episode #34)  Summer Lessons! It’s week two and this episode finds Terry and Michael sharing lessons learned from the summer. Are you feeling restless and seeking clarity and direction? In this episode, Terry will share a method that will help you discern your next best steps and give you confidence and direction. And Email subscribers can download a free resource to help guide the process. Show links Be sure to like our Facebook page. Terry has a new book coming out in October. If you’re a pastor or Christian leader who teaches young people, you’ll want to pre-order TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATIONS. It’s designed as a textbook but it will help anyone learn more about how teaching and learning “work.” Another book that Terry has been devouring this summer is GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth. It’s one of those game-changer books that leaders in various lines of work are recommending. Part of the clarifying process is to eliminate some nonessentials. We like the book ESSENTIALISM by Greg McKeown. If you want to start a blog or just relocate one to a better server, we can’t speak highly enough about our experience with Bluehost. 24/7 support and easy-to-get-started instructions make Bluehost the standard for folks with better things to do with their time. Links: Follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. Follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. If you want to start a podcast, we can help. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.  

Welcome to Season 3 of 37 the Podcast! Terry and Michael talk about the new season and that the podcast is going to a weekly format. They also talk about the summer and offer some insights as to what is ahead. Show links Be sure to LIKE 37 the Podcast on Facebook.   Terry has a new book coming out in October. If you’re a pastor or Christian leader who teaches young people, you’ll want to pre-order TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATIONS. It’s designed as a textbook but it will help anyone learn more about how teaching and learning “work.”    Another book that Terry has been devouring this summer is GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth. It’s one of those game-changer books that leaders in various lines of work are recommending. Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. If you want to start a podcast, we can help. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.  

    THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR MAKING 37 THE PODCAST SUCH A SUCCESS! At the end of Season Two, we are so grateful for your support and for your help in launching this show. We’ve had many people discover us for the first time this Spring, so we’re looking forward to even better things this Fall!   Our guest for this special episode is Steve Huffman, one of our most popular guests from Season 1. Steve is now the Pastor of Leadership Development, Campus Development & Prayer at a Vineyard church, taking his executive leadership skills from the marketplace to the local church. Steve started in the informational technology world and worked himself through the ranks to become President of Beacon Health Systems and South Bend Memorial Hospital, a large network healthcare organization east of Chicago. A graduate of the highly competitive Executive MBA program at Notre Dame, Steve left that job to serve in a fast-growing local church to develop the next wave of church leaders and to help the church move to a multi-site format.   Steve has been married for 19 years and is the father of three boys. At one time, Steve was named by Huffington Post as one of the Top 50 CIO's to follow on Twitter.  He’s still a “Top 50” guy to follow on Twitter in our opinion!   Show links Don’t go to sleep tonight without liking 37 the Podcast on Facebook. You can connect with Steve Huffman on Twitter. Be sure to thank the “real” Cole Farlow for his 2 years of service to 37 the Podcast on his Facebook page (plus, he’s getting married soon). If you’re involved in youth ministry and you want to be a better teacher, be sure to pre-order Terry’s next book (due out in October 2016) so you’ll get it before anyone else. It’s designed as a textbook but it will help anyone learn more about how teaching and learning “work.”   Since this episode was a party, if you have a “kid” party to do this summer, don’t miss these cool LED things to make your party different. LED lights make any party better. Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast and Truth Work Media on Twitter. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.  

J.D. Collins is the NCAA National Coordinator of Men’s Basketball Officiating. Ever since college, JD has been an official while working in business. He has refereed in the Big Ten Conference, Big East Conference, ACC, Missouri Valley Conference, Mid-American Conference, and others. He officiated the NCAA Tournament the last 10 years of his career, including the Final Four Semi-Final in 2008, the Elite Eight in 2005, and four Sweet Sixteen appearances. He was the Commissioner of the NCCAA/NAIA Crossroads League from 2008 to 2015 before taking his current role with the NCAA. He now speaks all over the world to businesses, nonprofits, and athletic associations about leadership, faith, and teamwork. Show links You can connect with JD by Email: jdcollinsref@yahoo.com A referee needs a good whistle. If you’re curious about the world of a basketball referee, here’s a book, The Whistleblower, you might be interested in by Bob Katz. (Note: We’ve not read this book, so we aren’t recommending it as a good read) A Season on the Brink, the classic basketball book about IU basketball by John Feinstein. Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast and Truth Work Media on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without liking us on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

Josh has been the lead teacher of the Bridge since it’s launch in September, 2006. He served for six years as a youth pastor and three years on staff at Youth for Christ, all in his hometown of Muncie. Josh graduated from Taylor University in 2003 with a degree in Christian Education and Biblical Literature. Josh is married to his beautiful wife Jill and they are the proud parents of two Puggles: Reno and Vegas. In his free time, Josh enjoys most any sport and watching the NFL in unhealthy doses.   The story of Jill & Josh Cooper’s adoption funding. Connect with Josh on Twitter at @JoCo13 Books mentioned by Josh: A Farewell to Mars by Brian Zahnd Beauty will Save the World by Brian Zahnd Jesus for President - Shane Claiborne The Prophetic Imagination - Walter Brueggemann The King Jesus Gospel - Scot McKnight  Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast and Truth Work Media on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without liking us on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

Fred Oduyoye develops and connects leaders all across the country. As the Director of Networking for Youth Specialties, Fred has the broad perspective of what works and doesn’t work. We’re thrilled Fred stopped long enough to let us catch up with him and sit down to learn more about his story, about leadership, and about how we can have the conversations necessary to take our best next stp. Connect with Fred on Twitter at @FredOduyoye Visit Youth Specialties. Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast and Truth Work Media on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without liking us on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

Terry and Michael take a look back and then look forward on this episode. They talk about a range of topics from Chinese food to camping to politics to adding value in others’ lives. As always, the show is upbeat and full of encouragement for your week ahead. Mentions: The fellas spent a lot of time talking about camping. Here were some of the items they referenced: Gregory 50 Contour Backpack Eureka Taron 6 Basecamp Tent Thermacell portable mosquito repellant device Jet Boil personal cooking system Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast and Truth Work Media on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without liking us on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

This episode is about 45 minutes long, but the long-term benefit and value may last you a lifetime. Our incredible guest, Kary Oberbrunner left his day job to pursue his dream job of Igniting Souls. Through his writing, speaking, coaching, and the Igniting Souls Podcast, Kary helps individuals and organizations clarify who they are, why they are here, and where they should invest their time and energy. As a young man, he suffered from severe stuttering, depression, and self-injury. Today a transformed man, Kary invests his time helping others achieve their true potential. He and his wife Kelly are blessed with 3 amazing children and live in Columbus, Ohio. Imagine what could happen if that book you’ve been wanting to write really happened? Would that expertise and achievement lead to new opportunities? You bet! Kary coaches new authors through the daunting process of writing, helps them overcome what’s been holding them back, and walks with them all the way to realizing the dream of publishing a quality book that matters. Through the Author Academy Elite, Kary helps people share their message with the world and make a difference. You just may need to check it out and begin something new and amazing. Mentions: Kary Oberbrunner’s Website - Igniting Souls Author Academy Elite Igniting Souls Podcast Your Secret Name self-study curriculum. The Deeper Path Cohort Day Job to Dream Job Kary’s books: Day Job to Dream Job: Practical Steps for Turning your Passion into a Full-Time Gig Your Secret Name: Discovering Who God Created You To Be The Deeper Path: Five Steps that Let your Hurts Lead to Your Healing The Fine Line: Reinvisioning the Gap Between Christ and Culture Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast and Truth Work Media on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without liking us on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. We also create killer websites for churches who could use a new website. Visit their website to see our cost-effective packages. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of participants on the podcast.

Joan McClendon is the Associate Director for the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative at St. Mary’s College near Notre Dame University. She is actively involved in both the Downtown South Bend and YWCA board. She also is an author and speaker. She owned her own business for seven years and was an adjunct instructor for Bethel College for over three years. Joan has been married for 24 years and has two college-aged children. She holds a B.A. in Natural Science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a Masters of Ministry and Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Bethel College. She is the co-author of LIFE ON THE FRINGE and is married to her college sweetheart, Cary, and they have two children, Joshua and Moriah. Mentions: Here is a local TV interview with Joan. Joan mentioned that she benefits from her “happy” light. You can order Philly Cheesesteaks from Campo’s. Links: Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast and Truth Work Media on Twitter. Don’t go to sleep tonight without liking us on Facebook. You can follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. We also create killer websites for churches who could use a new website. Visit their website to see our cost-effective packages. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for providing studio space. Thanks to our partners at Bethe College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of those on the podcast.

Speaker, pastor, and author Jason Miller stopped by the 37 studios for this episode. Jason has great style, wisdom, and always has interesting things to share about the world, leadership, and communication. You can learn more about Jason via his website or on Twitter. Jason talked about The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. A classic, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri Nouwen. Comedian Mike Birbiglia’s website. Food Network’s Alton Brown. The book, Comedy Writing for Late Night TV by Joe Troplyn. Jason’s favorite bands for 2016, The Brilliance, Mute Math, and Hilsong United’s album, Empires. Jason's recent GCC message on the Beatitudes. Be sure to follow 37 the Podcast on Twitter and like us on Facebook. If you’re really bored, you can read the latest from Michael Yoder’s website. If you’re super bored still, you can visit Terry’s website too. Or just follow Terry Linhart on Twitter or Michael Yoder on Twitter. Our partners 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. We also create killer websites for churches who could use a new website. Visit ours to see our cost-effective packages. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space. Thanks to our partners at Bethe College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian liberal arts college, visit BethelCollege.edu. Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. When you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month.  The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of those on the podcast. Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. And it does.  

Our guest today is one of the funniest performers in America and his recent success off-Broadway proved that. “That Wonder Boy” starring Bob Stromberg and directed by Risa Brainin dominated United Solo Theatre Festival in New York by winning Best One-Man Show, Best Direction and the coveted Audience Favorite awards.  These were among the top six awards presented and we were the only show to win three. Bob Stromberg has been delighting audiences all across America. He co-authored and starred in the megahit theatrical phenomenon, Triple Espresso (a Highly Caffeinated Comedy) breaking box office records worldwide. The Los Angeles Times described it as “…a triple jolt of inspired craziness”. And The Chicago Sun Times called Bob “Mesmerizing!” Of his rousing standing ovation performance on America’s Got Talent, Howard Stern said, “You wowed us!” Howie Mandell said, “I liked your character! I liked your voice! I like you!” Show Notes Bob's Website Bob on Facebook Bob on Twitter Let's Be Social 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter   Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. Please visit www.audibletrial.com/37thePodcast and when you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month. But, we think you’re going to enjoy Audible and we recommend starting with Michael’s favorite, Who Moved My Cheese? or one of Terry’s favorite, Hacking Leadership. Or you can listen to a classic Agatha Christie mystery like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.   Our partners 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space. Thanks to our partners at Bethe College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of those on the podcast.  Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE

Merry Christmas from everyone at 37 the Podcast. Today we sit down with our producer Cole Farlow and exchange gifts and 3 things we learned this year.  Thanks for a great year together. It's been a blessing!  Show Notes Getting Naked - Patrick Lencioni League of Legends Anker PowerCore   Let's Be Social 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter Cole Farlow on Twitter    Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. Please visit www.audibletrial.com/37thePodcast and when you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month. But, we think you’re going to enjoy Audible and we recommend starting with Michael’s favorite, Who Moved My Cheese? or one of Terry’s favorite, Hacking Leadership. Or you can listen to a classic Agatha Christie mystery like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.   Our partners 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space. Thanks to our partners at Bethe College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of those on the podcast.  Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE

Tony Myles is the Lead Pastor of Connection Church in Medina, Ohio. Tony holds a Master's Degree from Indiana Wesleyan University, and writes the weekly newspaper column "Fully-Alive Living" for the Cleveland suburbs. He is a mentor and coach to others in ministry, a national conference speaker, and active author. He and the amazing love of his life, Katie, are blessed to do life with their awesome kids, Joshua, Daniel and Johanna.   Show notes & Links Tony Myles on Twitter Tony Myles on Facebook Tony’s Book, The Skinny on Service Tony’s Book, Transform: 31 Days to Finding Your Identity in Christ Tony’s Blog - http://tonymyles.blogspot.com/  Let's Be Social 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter   Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. Please visit www.audibletrial.com/37thePodcast and when you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month. But, we think you’re going to enjoy Audible and we recommend starting with Michael’s favorite, Who Moved My Cheese? or one of Terry’s favorite, Hacking Leadership. Or you can listen to a classic Agatha Christie mystery like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.   Our partners 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space. Thanks to our partners at Bethe College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of those on the podcast.  Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE

The author of dozens of books including Sifted, Rick Lawrence has been editor of Group Magazine for over twenty years and is the co-leader of the Simply Youth Ministry Conference. Lawrence is a consultant to national research organizations and a frequent conference and workshop speaker. He and his family live in Colorado.   Show notes & Links Rick Lawrence on Twitter Rick Lawrence on Facebook Rick’s Book, Shrewd: Daring to Live the Startling Command of Jesus Rick’s Latest Book, Skin in the Game: Living an Epic Jesus-Centered Live Rick’s latest project and currently the best-selling Bible - The Jesus-Centered Bible   Classic “must-have” Jazz: Miles Davis – A Kind of Blue (considered one of his best albums) Louis Armstrong – Hot Fives and Sevens (box set)   37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter   Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. Please visit www.audibletrial.com/37thePodcast.com and when you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month. But, we think you’re going to enjoy Audible and we recommend starting with Michael’s favorite, Who Moved My Cheese? or one of Terry’s favorite, Hacking Leadership. Or you can listen to a classic Agatha Christie mystery like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.   Our partners 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring our entire Season 2! Thanks to our marketing friends at J2 Marketing for sponsoring providing studio space. Thanks to our friends at Bethe College (Indiana). For more about this vibrant growing Christian college, visit edu.   The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of those on the podcast.    DISCLOSURE: Some of the links are “affiliate links.” If you click on the link and purchase the item, 37thePodcast will receive a small commission to help pay for the show’s monthly expenses.  

Award-winning journalist Valerie Lowe has been host of The Harvest Show since 2010. Before that she was an associate editor for Charisma magazine. Her work has taken her across the U.S. and abroad to Haiti, Israel, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Ukraine and Canada. On Saturday mornings, Valerie can be found at thrift stores in search of all things vintage. She enjoys watching basketball and would rather miss a meal than a re-run of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightly. Valerie is the mother of one daughter and her experiences as a single mom has opened the door for her to use television as a bullhorn to encourage other women.   Show notes & Links The Harvest Show on Twitter The Harvest Show on Facebook The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life – by Vincent E. Bacote (from Zondervan’s Ordinary Theology series) Destiny: Step Into Your Purpose – T.D. Jakes 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter   Special Offer from Audible.com: 37thePodcast listeners now enjoy an audiobook for FREE from Audible.com. Audible is offering a free trial of their service. Sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. If you like it, you can remain a subscriber (like Terry is) or you can cancel. Please visit www.audibletrial.com/37thePodcast.com and when you participate in this trial, you’ll be helping out the show, even if you cancel after the first month. But, we think you’re going to enjoy Audible and we recommend starting with Michael’s favorite, Who Moved My Cheese? or one of Terry’s favorite, Hacking Leadership. Or you can listen to the book Valerie is reading right now, T.D. Jake’s Destiny: Step into Your Purpose.   Our partners 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space. Thanks to our partners at Bethe College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on this episode, unless the sources are otherwise given, are exclusively of those on the podcast.  Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE

Terry Whalin is our guest today and for those in publishing world, he is well known as an editor, writer and publisher. A former book acquisitions editor for several publishers and a former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 books through traditional publishers in a wide range of topics from children’s books to biographies to co-authored books. Terry is known as a book proposal expert and has written a bestselling book, Book Proposals That Sell 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Terry Whalin Website –terrywhalin.com Email Terry – terry@terrywhalin.com Terry Whalin’s blog - a must-read for all who want to write/be published. Lets Be Social 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Terry Linhart’s website Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Show Notes Jack Canfield’s book – The Success Principles Terry Whalin’s online course – Write a Book Proposal: The Membership Course Terry’s free E-book – Straight Talk from an Editor: 18 keys to a Rejection-Proof Submission. Terry Whalin’s best-selling book, Book Proposals that Sell Terry Whalin’s biography, Billy Graham, A Biography of America’s Greatest Evangelist Terry is a Publisher/Editor with Morgan James Publishing  Do you love podcasts? You’ll love audiobooks. And Audible.com is offering 37thePodcast listeners a FREE trial. Visit this link, sign up, select a book and listen! We think you’ll love them. But, even if you don’t subscribe after your trial period, your participation will help Audible support our podcast. If you’re looking for a book, you can start with the audio version of the book Terry Whalin talked about, Jerry Canfield’s The Success Principles. 37thePodcast is brought to you due to the generous support of Experience Mission and J2 Marketing.   Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE

Smiley is the founding member and producer of WhiteHeart – selling over 3 million units, he has also helped discover, develop, produce, A&R, and write for such artists as: The Newsboys, Steven Curtis Chapman, The Insyderz, The Normals, Aaron Shust, Symphony in Red, Johnny Cash, Petra, Charity Von, Justifide, Sky Harbor, Margaret Becker, Twenty Twenty, Idle Cure, One Bad Pig, Rachel Rachel, and Randy Matthews, As a songwriter he has co-written 22 no. 1 songs, and over 50 top 10 songs.He has produced more than 100 albums, and 27 No. 1 songs. He has 5 Grammy Nominations, one producing the Grammy nominated song "Silent Night", recorded by BeBe & CeCe Winans, and co-produced the Grammy nominated albums, “WhiteHeart”, and “Tales of Wonder”.  Show notes: Youth Specialties – http://www.youthspecialties.com National Youth Workers Conference – http://www.nywc.com Billy Smiley Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Smiley Evian Water - http://www.evian.com/en_us/ Arrowhead water - http://www.arrowheadwater.com/ Rich Mullins 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Terry Linhart’s website Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. 3 Best Places for Music in Nashville Robert’s Western World in Nashville The Basement in Nashville The Listening Room in Nashville Billy’s son’s band – The Technicolors Tootsie’s in Nashville Billy’s Studio – Dark Horse Recording Studios Show Quotes  “Never accept mediocrity.” Our Partners: Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space for Season 2 on Grape Road, just around the corner from Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on the podcast, unless the sources are otherwise explicitly given, are exclusively of those on the podcast. Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE    

Leadership experts Doug and Angie Franklin sit down with Michael and Terry and talk leadership, life, and entrepreneurial advice LeaderTreks Soft Industry (Angie's Business) LY Etsy (Lindsay's Business) Doug Franklin on Twitter   37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Terry Linhart’s website Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Our Partners: Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space for Season 2 on Grape Road, just around the corner from Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on the podcast, unless the sources are otherwise explicitly given, are exclusively of those on the podcast. Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE

Doug Fields is the senior director of HomeWord Center for Youth and Family. Doug speaks to thousands of leaders, teenagers and parents each year. He’s also the author/co-author of 50+ books including: Fresh Start: An Invitation to a Loving God; and Refuel: An uncomplicated Guide to Connecting with God. In addition to Doug’s speaking and writing, he also writes a daily blog at DownloadYouthMinistry.com and consults for Youth Specialties—a global organization committed to training those who work with teenagers. Cathy Fields has been a ministry leader for 20+ years, and she’s served in every role from camp speaker to bus driver. She currently leads a small group of 11th grade girls, mentors young leaders, serves as a premarital counselor, and speaks on issues of marriage, family, and parenting. Doug & Cathy have been married for 28 years and together they have 3 young adult children.  Show Notes & Links Doug Fields’ Twitter Cathy Fields’ Twitter Doug Fields’ Facebook Page Doug’s book, 7 Ways to Be Her Hero: The One that Your Wife is Waiting For Doug and Cathy’s latest book, Intentional Parenting Workbook Doug wrote the two best-selling youth ministry books of all time, Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry and Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry. For mobile recording, we recommend Zoom H4N 4-Track Recorder. You will love it. 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Truth Work Media on Twitter Terry Linhart’s website Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter 37thePodcast is a production of Truth Work Media. Truth Work Media creates monsters called podcasts. Our Partners: Thanks to Experience Mission for sponsoring entire Season 2. They are amazing. Thanks to J2 Marketing for sponsoring this episode and for providing studio space for Season 2 on Grape Road, just around the corner from Bethel College (Indiana). For more about that vibrant growing Christian college, visit BethelCollege.edu. The opinions expressed on the podcast, unless the sources are otherwise explicitly given, are exclusively of those on the podcast. Our Gear: We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly. We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device. We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well. Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool. DISCLOSURE

Michael and Terry sit down after a long summer and share some insights and words of wisdom from their own personal journeys throughout the last several months.    Show Notes & Links 37 the Podcast on Twitter 37 the Podcast on Facebook Terry Linhart’s website Michael Yoder’s website Terry Linhart on Twitter Michael Yoder on Twitter   Our Sponsers Experience Mission. - Grow closer to God. See the world through His eyes. Live your mission. J2 Marketing – Design. Create. Brand. You have a story and it’s unique. We help tell stories. Truth Work Media - We Create Monsters Called Podcasts!   Our Gear:   We use and love the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are so comfortable especially for those road warriors who are flying regularly.  We mix our show on a Soundcraft EPM8 8-channel mixer. We record to a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, and we couldn’t be happier with this device.   We speak into the industry standard, a Shure 58 microphone and they’re sitting in suspension boom stands with a good windscreen on them as well.    Probably the coolest thing our guests comment on is the Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter. Not sure why they do, but they think it looks cool.      DISCLOSURE: Some of the links are “affiliate links.” If you click on the link and purchase the item, 37thePodcast will receive a small commission to help pay for the show’s monthly expenses.