Podcasts about Upwork

There is a silent mind game stealing your peace — and you've been trained to play it every day.  If you can't stop comparing yourself to others, this episode may hit a nerve. That sick little feeling of “Why am I not enough?” It isn't something another promotion, relationship, body, bank account, or achievement is going to fix. I'm sitting down with Harvard psychologist Dr. Ron Siegel to reveal the brutal truth: your brain is wired to rank you. And the comparison game is designed so you never actually win. This conversation will help you understand why success never satisfies for long, why self-esteem can become a trap, and how radical self-acceptance can finally get you off the emotional rollercoaster. You'll learn: Why comparing yourself to others feels impossible to stop The ancient brain wiring behind “not good enough” Why every achievement high wears off so fast How social media and culture weaponize comparison Why “just build your self-esteem” can backfire The shift from impressing people to actually connecting How to begin feeling free without becoming someone else This is for anyone who's tired of measuring their worth against everyone else's highlight reel. You don't have to win the comparison game to feel okay. You can step out of it — and come back to yourself. Xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

If you've ever said “I'm fine,” watched your partner believe you, and then felt even more hurt than before, this episode is for you. Because that tiny moment, the one where you want them to know you're not okay without having to spell it out, is where so many couples quietly lose each other. In this episode, I'm talking with therapist and workplace wellbeing expert Nidhi Tewari about attunement, the relationship skill that helps people feel seen, understood, and emotionally safe. We'll unpack why loving partners still miss each other's cues, why fixing, reassuring, or changing the subject can accidentally make someone feel more alone, and how to become an “explorer,” someone who asks instead of assumes. You'll learn how to emotionally connect with your partner in a way that actually lands: how to calm yourself before a hard conversation, what to say when your partner is hurting, how to ask for what you need out loud, and how to share what hurts without starting a fight. In this episode: 04:00: The skill that can quietly make every relationship better 09:44: Why emotional connection is something you can learn 21:55: Why you can't connect until you calm yourself first 32:12: Fixer, Avoider, Connector, or Explorer: which one are you? 38:24: What to say so your partner finally feels seen 46:36: Why “I'm fine” backfires, and how to ask for what you need 52:45: How to tell your partner what hurts without starting a fight If you've been stuck in that lonely loop of hoping your partner will just know, then feeling disappointed when they don't, this episode will help you do something different. The first skill that brings couples back together is one you can start practicing tonight. Press play, and let's begin. Xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Celebrating 300 episodes with listener questions from around the world. In this special 300th episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, host Matt Abrahams celebrates a major milestone with a live Ask Matt Anything session featuring questions from listeners around the world—and a few from the team behind the show. He introduces a new communication framework, PREP (Point, Reason, Example, Point), before tackling topics ranging from word recall and public speaking nerves to storytelling, AI's impact on communication, giving difficult feedback, and using gestures more effectively. Along the way, he shares practical strategies, favorite communication techniques, and lessons learned from 300 episodes dedicated to helping people communicate with confidence, clarity, and connection.To listen to the extended Deep Thinks version of this episode, please visit FasterSmarter.io/premium.Episode Reference Links:Ep.250 How to Navigate Conflict: Tools For Productive Communication Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedIn Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction (01:13) - PREP Framework (04:13) - Improving Word Recall (07:10) - Public Speaking Nerves (11:35) - Concise vs. Detailed Communication (13:39) - AI & Communication Skills (16:12) - Storytelling Fundamentals (18:51) - Lingo vs. Jargon (20:22) - Difficult Feedback Conversations (22:36) - The Power of Paraphrasing (25:07) - Effective Gestures (29:28) - Conclusion ********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost. Upwork is a one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers. Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. 

We are halfway through the year, and holy bananas, where did it go? If your stomach just dropped because you're nowhere near the goal you wrote down in December, stay with me.You do not toss out the plan you made. You check it.In this episode, Brandi walks you through the exact mid-year reset she just ran with her Strategist Society members, the one that stops the panic spiraling and replaces it with real data. You'll pull your numbers, find out where you're actually sitting in your business, do the gap math (it's smaller than you think), and walk away with three action steps for the next seven days.In this episode, you'll learn:Why service providers should plan in 90-day increments instead of 12-month chunksThe year-over-year growth number that tells the truth about your business (and why the average business only grows 5 to 10% a year)The car-seat gut check: are you in the driver's seat, passenger seat, back seat, or the trunk?How to close your revenue gap by spreading it over six months instead of panicking over the whole numberThe brain dump exercise that took Brandi from a $250K year to $1.2MWhy "I don't like it" is not a reason to skip what actually works (cold email, cold calling, Upwork, local networking)How to reconnect to your North Star and pick the two life areas to focus on nextMentioned in this episode:Strategist Society (scale to consistent $10K, $15K, $20K months): https://thestrategistsociety.comConversions for Clients (just getting started, no clients yet): https://conversionsforclients.comDM Brandi the word RESET on Instagram for the lightning version: https://instagram.com/brandimowlesReady to scale past $10K months?If you're sitting here thinking "this is exactly what I needed, but I'll talk myself out of doing it alone," that's exactly what Strategist Society is for. It's the room where we look at your real numbers with you, tell you where to raise your prices, help you brain dump your gap fill, and hold you to the three things you committed to. Built for service providers ready to scale to consistent $10K to $20K months on less than 25 hours a week. Head to https://thestrategistsociety.com.Loved this episode?Screenshot it, share it to your stories, and tag @brandimowles. It helps more service providers find the show and it makes my whole day.Now go do the dang thing.Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serve-scale-soar/id1477998650Follow Brandi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandimowlesFollow Brandi on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Brandiandcompany

Uncertainty can make you anxious, controlling, and completely exhausted, but staying steady is a skill you can build. Here's the real reason you can't seem to figure out how to deal with uncertainty: you've been taught that calm is a personality trait. Something you either have or you don't. It's not. The people who stay grounded when life blows up the plan didn't win some genetic lottery. They've built a skill. And by the end of this episode, you'll know how to start building it too. Today, I'm talking with executive coach Liz Tran about the agility quotient, the trainable intelligence that helps you stay steady when everything is changing. If the constant churn at work, in your relationships, and in the world has you anxious, overthinking, bracing, or trying to control every possible outcome, this conversation is for you. You'll learn how to build mental toughness from the inside out, how to get out of your comfort zone on purpose, and how to start changing your life even when the future feels uncertain, without pretending you've got it all figured out. In this episode: 04:20: The skill no one taught you, but everyone needs now 08:09: The “third intelligence” that matters when plans fall apart 18:27: The one-question reframe that flips dread into fuel 19:24: Four quiet habits steady people rely on under pressure 29:24: Which “change type” are you? 52:16: Why Googling and doom-scrolling make uncertainty worse 53:11: The boat metaphor that can change your next bad day 1:04:27: What helps kids become resilient instead of brittle If you're tired of living inside the spiral, needing control, asking “why is this happening to me,” and avoiding anything uncomfortable, I really want you to hear this one. Because uncertainty isn't going away. But you can become someone who knows how to meet it. Xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

If your mind starts spinning the second your head hits the pillow, replaying the conversation you had at lunch and rehearsing the one you have to have tomorrow, I want to tell you something that genuinely surprised me. Sometimes the goal is not to get rid of your anxiety at all. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Chloe Carmichael, the clinical psychologist and USA Today bestselling author of Nervous Energy, who taught me to treat anxiety as a signal rather than a malfunction. Dr. Chloe and I work through how to tell the worry that is worth listening to from the kind that just loops, and then we go somewhere I did not expect, into why holding everything in might be quietly making your anxiety worse. In This Episode Why trying to get rid of your anxiety can backfire, and the single question to ask it instead The mind map exercise for the kind of worry you cannot quite put your finger on How to tell healthy fear from overthinking that just spins in circles The eight Diet Cokes story that changed how I check for anxiety, because the body comes first Why holding things in actually creates more anxiety instead of less The difference between self censorship and healthy self restraint, and a simple way to spot which one you are doing What to do when you finally speak up and it does not go well, including a tool Dr. Chloe calls the debrief date What the friendship between two famously opposite Supreme Court justices teaches us about staying close to people we disagree with This episode is for anyone who has ever laid awake at 2am with a brain that simply would not power down, then dragged through the next day exhausted and wired at the same time. It is also for you if you have ever smiled and nodded along with something you did not believe, and walked away feeling a little smaller for it. Anxiety and authenticity are far more connected than most of us realize. This conversation is about both, and about how getting a grip on one quietly helps you with the other. Episode Breakdown 00:00:00 Why You Shouldn't Try to Get Rid of Your Anxiety 00:08:21 From a Yoga Mat to a PhD: How Anxiety Became Her Life's Work 00:18:06 Healthy Fear or Overthinking? How to Tell the Difference 00:24:30 The Mind Map Exercise for a Racing Mind 00:27:21 The Eight-Diet-Cokes Client: When Anxiety Is Actually Physical 00:34:40 Why Holding It All In Actually Makes Anxiety Worse 00:39:04 Self-Censorship vs. Healthy Self-Restraint 00:49:36 How to Speak Up Without Blowing Up the Relationship 00:59:27 The Three Doors: A Simple Way to Decode Any Anxiety Resources The full episode and show notes Anxiety support, schedule a free consultation What's Holding You Back? Quiz (free) Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast: Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

This week, we revisit our conversation with Gary Swart. Gary is a General Partner with Polaris Partners, and until April 2014, he was the CEO of oDesk (now Upwork, NASDAQ: UPWK). Gary is a thought leader in entrepreneurship, on how best to hire and manage teams, and the future of work, including online work.   He is passionate about helping small businesses thrive, fueled by his extensive experience working with startups and small businesses and mentoring entrepreneurs and business school students. Gary has spoken at the Inc. Leadership Conference, The Economist's Ideas Economy panel, South by Southwest, TechCrunch 50, TiECon, GigaOM's Net: Work Conference, and at Harvard Business School, which teaches a case study on oDesk.   His commentary has appeared in a variety of publications, including Forbes, TechCrunch, The Washington Post, and The Next Web. He has also appeared on TV and radio shows, including the BBC, National Public Radio, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Startups Uncensored. Previously, Gary led SMB Sales for the Americas at IBM's Rational Software Product Group, and also served as VP of Worldwide Sales and Operations at Intellibank. Gary holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.

Jared Goralnick joins the GrowthReady Podcast with a deceptively simple definition of what it means to be growth ready: manage your energy and get clear on where you're going.Jared Goralnick has spent 15 years building products that help organizations find, develop, and grow talent. He was Head of Product at LinkedIn Recruiter and VP of Product at Upwork, Go1, and Articulate, and previously founded SET Consulting and VC-backed AwayFind. He now leads Your360 AI, using voice AI to make coaching-grade, interview-style 360 feedback accessible beyond the executive level.The conversation goes deep into something most leaders avoid until it's too late, feedback, not the vague “be more strategic” kind, but the kind that actually creates awareness, patterns, and a path forward.Jared shares why the most dangerous feedback problem isn't harsh criticism, it's being in the dark. And he breaks down what it takes to create the “door” for feedback to happen, how to make it useful, and why strengths deserve just as much attention as growth areas.If you're a leader, founder, or high performer who cares about sustainable growth, this episode will help you:Build a practical definition of growth readiness: energy + clarityUnderstand why effective doesn't mean being rightCreate a healthier relationship with feedback (giving and receiving)Turn vague feedback into something specific, usable, and actionableUse technology to support better leadership, without losing the human partConnect with JaredWebsite:  https://your360.ai LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goralnick/ Send us Fan MailSupport the showConnect with Steve MellorStay connected and keep growing with Steve:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-mellor-cc/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coachstevemellorBook Steve to speak at your next event → www.stevemellorspeaks.comSupport the GrowthReady Podcast by leaving a 5-star rating → Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/growthready-podcast/id1406082163Connect with GrowthReadyJoin the community and keep your growth journey going:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearegrowthready/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/growthreadypodcast/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/growthreadywithcoachstevemellorOfficial Website - https://growthready.com/----This podcast was produced on Riverside and released via ...

Welcome back to The Viall Files: Reality Recap!  Wait… did you see the news? Is West Wilson NOT returning for next season of Summer House?! We get into all of your Pop Culture updates. From Lindsay Hubbard getting activated on Threads, Tyra Banks suing Netflix, Jessi Draper staging Paparazzi photos, to The Real Housewives of Rhode Island… And of course, everything regarding Love Island USA! "If you feel you need to test it, it probably wasn't that strong in the first place." Nick is on Substack! Subscribe here: https://nickviall.substack.com/subscribe  HEY! YOU! DO YOU NEED DATING AND RELATIONSHIP ADVICE? Email asknick@theviallfiles.com and be a part of future Ask Nick episodes! Want ad free episodes and incredible bonus content? Start your 7 Day Free Trial of Viall Files + here: https://viallfiles.supportingcast.fm/  Subscribe to The ENVY Media Newsletter Today: https://www.viallfiles.com/newsletter  To Order Nick's Book and/or learn more about the show, go to: https://viallfiles.com THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Wayfair: Patio season is here and these deals won't last! Head to https://www.Wayfair.com right now to get your outdoor space ready for way less.  Betterhelp: You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at https://www.BetterHelp.com/viall.  Upwork: Visit https://www.Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is https://www.Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow.  Nanit: Head to https://www.nanit.com  Quince: Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to https://www.Quince.com/viall for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.  Reddit: Download the Reddit app today. To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/theviallfiles   Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro / Household Headlines 50:48 - Kaylor Joins / Love Island1:42:01 - RHORI / RHOA 01:54:16 - Outro Episode Socials: @viallfiles @nickviall @nnataliejjoy @ciaracrobinson @kaylor.martin @justinkaphillips @the_mare_bare @baybaeee

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Isaac del Toro's impressive win at the Tour Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes (aka Critérium du Dauphiné) and discuss what Del Toro's dominant win, Paul Seixas crashing out, Juan Ayuso looking strong in 3rd, and previously unknown rider Luke Tuckwell finishing second mean for the upcoming Tour de France. They dive into the tactics and moves that won Del Toro the race, debate whether this form means he can challenge for the podium at the Tour, and briefly preview this week's Tour de Suisse. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team Henson Shaving: Visit https://hensonshaving.com/themove or use code themove to receive 100 free blades with the purchase of a razor (over 2 years supply). Just make sure both products are in the cart for the code to take effect. Sheath Underwear: Sheath. The underwear of legends. Go to https://www.sheath.com/THEMOVE and use code THEMOVE for 20% off. DripDrop: Right now, DripDrop is offering podcast listeners 20% off your first order. Go to https://dripdrop.com and use promo code themove. Upwork: Visit https://Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is https://Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/THEMOVE Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee NOCD: If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started: https://NOCD.com  

By the time an adult child finally says “I'm done,” they have usually been deciding it for about three years. The parent almost never sees it coming. The child was never once surprised. On the other side, the pain and anger that comes when someone you love with all your heart and soul refuses to talk to you? It's as crushing as it is confusing. This episode is for anyone who has ever sat in the car outside a parent's house, bracing themselves before they walk in. And it is just as much for the parent staring at a phone that has gone quiet, replaying what they could have done differently. If your relationship with your parent, or with your grown kid, has started to feel like a careful performance instead of a real connection, you are not imagining it, and you are not stuck with it. If it feels like bridges have been burned, there is a way back. In this episode you'll learn about the small, respectful shifts that re-open lines of communication, rebuild trust, and develop an enduring v.2 for your relationship. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Blindsided: Why Adult Children Pull Away 11:11 No One's to Blame, Everyone's Responsible 16:47 Why Adult Children Stop Being Honest With You 21:04 "Am I in Trouble?": When the Past Hijacks the Present 22:47 Raising From the Inside Out: The Foundation You Set Now 33:50 The Letter, the Agenda, and the Boundary 42:30 Grieving the Expectations You Handed Them 48:42 The PARENT Method, and the One Thing Bigger Than the Issues Resources: Full episode show notes and everything mentioned Book a free consultation with a therapist who specializes in this If this conversation stirred something up, that is worth paying attention to. You do not need to be in crisis to talk to someone. Come find us at GrowingSelf.com and schedule a free consultation. We will help you figure out what is actually going on between you and your parent, or you and your grown child, and what to try next. No pressure, no commitment, just a real conversation. XO, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast: Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Today's listener has an intriguing idea: to aid in memory retention using spaced repetition but with outsourced tutors from other countries. Think of it like “Upwork meets Udemy.” Will it work?Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week.Show notes: SideHustleSchool.comEmail: team@sidehustleschool.comBe on the show: SideHustleSchool.com/questionsConnect on Instagram: @193countriesVisit Chris's main site: ChrisGuillebeau.comRead A Year of Mental Health: yearofmentalhealth.comIf you're enjoying the show, please pass it along! It's free and has been published every single day since January 1, 2017. We're also very grateful for your five-star ratings—it shows that people are listening and looking forward to new episodes.

The band is finally back together! This week on HR's most dangerous podcast, Chad, Mo, and Lieven team up for a wild ride across dystopian corporate tracking, AI bias, and the shifting sands of global recruitment. If you thought the job market couldn't get any weirder, you're going to want to hear this. Here is a look at what the crew is tackling on this week's show: Indeed Goes In For The Kill: Indeed's new "changing landscape" FAQ drops a massive hint about their latest agenda. Chad explains why the platform is trying to squeeze out recruitment agencies entirely. IBM Tells Boomers to Pack Their Bags: A juicy new lawsuit alleges that IBM used automated hiring tech to block older, laid-off workers from returning. ChatGPT's "AI Job Slop": OpenAI launched conversational job searching partnered with Indeed, Upwork, and Appcast. Lieven tests it via VPN with hilarious, glitchy results , while Chad exposes how the platform is already infected with the exact same scam jobs and candidate-harvesting schemes plaguing Google. Meta's Dystopian Trap: Mark Zuckerberg wants you to think Meta is saving the world with a $115M workforce training academy. In reality, the team connects the dots. Plus: Stick around to hear about Mo's questionable obsession with a fictional hockey captain , Lieven's take on European pay transparency , and a binary dad joke. Are we descending into a corporate tech dystopia, or can we build guardrails before the robots completely take over?

Tonight we have terrifying alien grays, speedy entities, a death clock and so much more. Keep it spooky and enjoy!Season 21 Episode 10 of Monsters Among Us Podcast, true paranormal stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and more, told by the witnesses themselves.SHOW NOTES:Support the show! Get ad-free, extended & bonus episodes (and more) on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/monstersamonguspodcastTonight's Sponsor - Upwork - Hire high-quality freelance talent today, visit Upwork.com and post your job for free and connect with top talent ready to help your business grow.  Tonight's Sponsor - Lumi Gummies THC & CBD gummies - Feel good, not stoned. Get 30% off your order with code MAU at LumiGummies.comMAU Merch Shop - https://www.monstersamonguspodcast.com/shopMAU Discord - https://discord.gg/ybjc9KUagYWatch FREE - Shadows in the Desert: High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle  - https://www.borregotriangle.com/Monsters Among Us Junior on Apple Podcasts  - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monsters-among-us-junior/id1764989478Monsters Among Us Junior on Spotify -https://open.spotify.com/show/1bh5mWa4lDSqeMMX1mYxDZ?si=9ec6f4f74d61498bMountain Home Air Force Base  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Home_Air_Force_BaseShip Clock for sale - https://www.ebay.com/itm/192933253210Clock from Marie's story front - https://bit.ly/4al9QXeClock from Marie's story back - https://bit.ly/3QyRrQ0Clocks stopping at the time of death - https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/clocks-stopping-at-the-time-of-death.67597/Stopping the clock for the deceased - https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/stopping-the-clock-for-the-deceased.65901/King Henry XIV story - https://archive.org/details/ripleysgiantbeli0000ripl/mode/2upThomas Edison Story - https://bit.ly/4fE9jmQGhosts of Shepardstown Clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqqEoUnB69MRougarou - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=794681231313969Stardust Ranch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtbybpyL4goThe Ranch with a Serious Alien Problem - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7woRsx2RVY4 Music from tonight's episode:Music by Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse - https://www.youtube.com/c/IronCthulhuApocalypseCO.AG Music - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvAMusic By Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - https://www.youtube.com/@WhiteBatAudioWhite Bat Audio Songs:Almost DawnSpacewave - GaiaEdge of SanityNebula

Have you ever felt like you are carrying something heavy that you cannot quite explain, something that does not even feel like it started with you? A few years ago I traced my own anxious drive back to grandparents I never met, people who were, in a real sense, being chased by wolves. It turns out a lot of what we call “my issues” was handed to us. And that makes it far more workable than it feels. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Thomas Hübl, the teacher and trauma-integration facilitator who co-wrote the new book Releasing Our Burdens with Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems. Thomas studies healing as one continuum that runs from the individual to the ancestral to the collective, and he joined me to explain why the thing you keep trying to fix about yourself may not have started with you, and what becomes possible when you stop fighting it and start to thaw it. In This Episode Why the thing you keep trying to fix about yourself may not have started with you, and what that changes The freezer metaphor that explains what trauma quietly costs you every single day Why Thomas calls trauma “a loan from the future,” and how the bill comes due What is really happening when your partner says one thing and your whole body locks up How intergenerational trauma gets passed down, in your nervous system and even in your cells The difference between the resilience you inherited and the burden you inherited Why a whole country can feel stuck and reactive, and what that has to do with your own healing A different definition of healing: not fixing what is broken, but releasing what is frozen This episode is for anyone who has ever looked at their own anxiety, or their drivenness, or that low hum of feeling empty for no reason they can name, and thought, where is this even coming from? If you have done the personal work and still feel like there is a layer underneath you cannot reach, this conversation opens a door. Some of what you carry is not a personal failing. It is inherited. And it can be set down. Episode Breakdown 00:00 Trauma That Didn't Start With You 10:42 Why You're Driven by People You Never Met 13:24 When a Whole Country Can't Calm Down 18:52 The Tension She Carried for Decades 31:41 Trauma Is a Loan From the Future 35:21 Who Pays the Electricity Bill? 39:30 Your Partner Doesn't Have the Remote Control for Your Heart 53:31 Cleaning Up the Living Room We Were Born Into Resources Full episode page (everything in one place, including Thomas's books and where to find him) Free “What's Holding You Back?” Quiz Personal growth coaching and therapy at Growing Self Talk to someone (free consultation) If you take one thing from today, let it be this: some of what you are carrying did not start with you, and it can be released. If something in here landed, the What's Holding You Back quiz is a quick, free place to begin, and if you want to talk it through with a real person, a free consultation with one of our coaches or therapists is just a conversation, no pressure. We work with people across a whole range of experience levels and price points, including newer coaches in our practicum, so there is usually a fit for almost any budget. Come find all of it at GrowingSelf.com. xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast: Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Thomas Rhett has spent more than a decade at the top of country music, but this conversation goes far beyond music. We talk about fatherhood, marriage, faith, success, and the lessons he's learning in this season of life. Thomas opens up about raising five kids, protecting family time in the middle of a demanding career, and why some of the most important decisions he's made have been the opportunities he chose to turn down. This is a conversation about priorities, perspective, and making sure the people you love most get the best version of you. Leave me a voicemail to be featured on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/ask-jefferson  Join me on Supercast for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and AMAs: https://jefferson.supercast.com/ Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Thank you to our sponsors: Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 20% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. Upwork. Visit https://Upwork.com right now to post your job for free and connect with expert freelancers who can help you grow faster without adding full-time overhead. LMNT. Head to https://drinkLMNT.com/jefferson to try risk free.  BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Order my book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don't forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show!  Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter.  Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube  Follow me on Instagram  Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the secret to a business that actually sets you free has nothing to do with your idea, your hustle, or your vision, and everything to do with a number most entrepreneurs never pay close enough attention to? In this episode of The Happy Hustle Podcast, I sit down with Omar Zenhom, co-founder of the legendary $100 MBA Show podcast and the man behind Webinar Ninja, a SaaS company he built from zero to over 30,000 users and eventually sold in 2024. Omar is an educator turned entrepreneur, the kind of guy who left a decade of teaching to go all in on business, built something real over ten years, and came out the other side financially free and still hungry for the next chapter. His podcast has racked up over 300 million downloads and consistently ranks among the top business shows in more than 30 countries. He's not flashy about it. He's just sharp, honest, and genuinely good at what he does. This episode matters because Omar is one of those rare entrepreneurs who's actually done it. He built, he scaled, he burned the candle, he sold, and now he talks about all of it, including the parts that surprised him. If you're a business owner trying to build something that gives you more freedom, not less, this conversation is going to hit. Here are the biggest lessons from this one. Margins aren't the most important thing in business. They're the only thing. Omar opened with something he says constantly on his own show, and it bears repeating here. If your margins aren't healthy, you can't hire great people, you can't delegate, you can't step back, and you definitely can't build a business that serves your life. He says sixty percent is the floor, and anything below that puts you on life support. Software, digital products, service businesses built on systems, these are the models that get you there. Get the margins right first, then build everything else on top. Stop trying to find a diamond in the rough when it comes to hiring. Omar went looking for the most expensive engineer he could find on Upwork, a former engineering exec at Yahoo, because his software needed someone elite. That one person did in ten hours a week what five cheaper engineers couldn't. You pay for it upfront or you pay for it later in messes, rewrites, and wasted time. The same goes for editors, videographers, anyone whose taste and skill directly affects the quality of what you're putting into the world. One great hire changes everything. Validate before you build. Before Webinar Ninja was a real product, Omar and Nicole pre-sold it. One hundred and fifty spots in 48 hours, just on the promise of a solution four months out. That told them everything. People don't just say they want something when they put actual money down. If you're sitting on a business idea right now and haven't tested whether anyone will pay for it yet, that's the only thing that matters next. Embrace the struggle as part of the deal. Omar grew up watching his Egyptian immigrant parents rebuild their lives from scratch in America. That foundation gave him something money can't buy, a high tolerance for discomfort and a genuinely low floor for what counts as failure. He says his fondest memories from ten years at Webinar Ninja are the hard moments, the fires, the pivots, the times he had no idea how he'd get out of something. That mindset isn't just feel-good advice. It's a practical edge. When you stop treating struggle as a sign something's wrong and start treating it as the job, you get a lot harder to shake. AI is not optional anymore, and using it to figure out how to use it better is the move. Omar is building new software on weekends using Claude and Windsurf, no code, no development team. He's using Claude to write his prompts before he even opens the builder. What used to take years now takes a few weekends. He's clear that the people who are thriving right now aren't just using AI, they're building the habit of reaching for it first, staying curious about its limits, and using it to multiply everything they already do well. If you're still on the fence, he'd tell you that fence is expensive. We also get into what it's actually like to sell a business, the 16 months it took, the emotional whiplash of feeling relief and then feeling lost, the NDA that keeps him from saying the number but also the fact that he blinked twice. Omar and Nicole's story of co-founding a company as husband and wife while staying married is one for the books too, and his 70/10/10/5/5 money formula is the kind of simple framework you'll want to write down. The closing of this episode is one of the most grounding things I've heard in a long time. Omar's billboard isn't a quote. It's a mirror. Because every time he was stuck, every time he hit a wall, the common denominator was him. Not the market, not the economy, not bad timing. Him. And once he stopped running from that and started taking full ownership, everything shifted. That's the energy Omar brings, direct, honest, and genuinely fired up about the game of business and the life you can build through it. If you want more of that, go listen to the full episode at https://caryjack.com/podcastin/ It just might be the reset you didn't know you needed. Connect with Omarhttps://www.facebook.com/ozenhomhttps://www.instagram.com/omarzenhom/https://www.youtube.com/@100mba/videoshttps://x.com/TheOmarZenhomhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/omarzenhom/ Find Omar on this website: https://100mba.net/ Connect with Cary!https://www.instagram.com/caryjack/https://www.facebook.com/SirCaryJackhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/cary-jack-kendzior/https://twitter.com/thehappyhustlehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFDNsD59tLxv2JfEuSsNMOQ/featured Get a copy of his new book, https://www.thehappyhustle.com/book Sign up for The Journey: 10 Days To Become a Happy Hustler Online Course @ https://thehappyhustle.com/thejourney/ Apply to the Montana Mastermind Epic Camping Adventure @ https://thehappyhustle.com/mastermind/ “It's time to Happy Hustle, a blissfully balanced life you love, full of passion, purpose, and positive impact!” Episode Sponsors: If you're feeling stressed, not sleeping great, or your energy's been kinda meh lately—let me put you on to something that's been a total game-changer for me: Magnesium Breakthrough by BiOptimizers. This ain't your average magnesium—it's got all 7 essential forms that your body needs to chill out, sleep deeper, and feel more balanced. I take it every night and legit notice the difference the next day. No more waking up groggy or tossing and turning all night If you're ready to sleep like a baby, calm your nervous system, and optimize your recovery, go grab yours now at https://www.bioptimizers.com/happy and use code HAPPY10 for 10% OFF. =================================================================== My Green Mattress If you've been waking up with back pain, feeling stiff, or just not getting that deep, quality sleep. This might be what you're missing: My Green Mattress. It's made with clean, non-toxic, and eco-friendly materials, so you're not just sleeping better, you're sleeping healthier too. The comfort and support are on another level, and you can really feel the difference night after night. If you're ready to invest in better sleep and better recovery, check it out at https://thehappyhustle.com/mygreenmattress =================================================================== Ozlo Sleep If you've been struggling to fall asleep, stay asleep, or just wake up feeling actually rested, let me put you on to something that's been a total game-changer: Ozlo Sleep. These aren't your typical sleep buds. They're designed to block out noise and help your brain fully relax, so you can drift off faster and stay in deep, uninterrupted sleep. Perfect if you're a light sleeper or just want that next-level rest. If you're ready to upgrade your sleep and wake up feeling recharged, check out https://ozlosleep.com and save $80 OFF using code HAPPY.

Here's something I keep seeing in my office that almost nobody has language for. Your body and your nervous system run on completely different timelines. Your labs can be clear. Your divorce can be final. Your treatment can be done. And your nervous system can still be living inside the chapter you just survived, because nothing about getting through a hard thing actually tells your body it is safe to stop bracing. In this episode, I sit down with Amy Kurtz, the patient advocate who spent close to two decades trying to figure out why her body kept shutting down on her. Amy is a Hachette author whose new book But You Look Fine launches the day after this episode airs, and she coined a phrase for the exact experience I just described. She calls it Medical Trauma Brain. Her message has been endorsed by Mark Hyman, her own physician, and by David Perlmutter, Kris Carr, and Sharon Salzberg. After 36 doctors and a late-stage neurological Lyme diagnosis at 35, she didn't just heal physically. She figured out the part nobody warned her about. The part that comes after. In This Episode The exact phrase Amy's husband said in their kitchen that finally named what she could not name herself Why the gap between "you should be fine now" and "I do not feel fine" is not a personal failing Why this pattern is not just for chronic illness, it shows up after divorce, postpartum, fertility, caregiving, and any long hard chapter The five non-negotiables Amy now uses to decide whether a doctor is worth her time Why women carry this harder than men, both clinically and culturally What active movement actually does for an overstimulated nervous system (it is more than you think) The one tool Amy would give a woman tonight who is recognizing herself for the first time How to stay connected to the people you love when you are the person who is not okay This episode is for anyone who has technically gotten through something hard and quietly cannot understand why she still does not feel like herself. The illness that finally has a diagnosis. The divorce that is actually final. The postpartum body that healed on paper. The job she finally left. The caregiver who buried the person she was caring for and woke up the next morning still bracing. If you have been told you should be fine by now, and you are not, this conversation is going to give you language for what is actually happening in your body and a way forward that respects the timeline. Episode Breakdown: 00:02:04 The Gap Between Sick and Well Nobody Warned You About 00:05:10 36 Doctors and One Diagnosis: Amy's Story 00:13:25 What Is Medical Trauma Brain? 00:14:54 Why Your Body Still Doesn't Feel Safe (Even Though You're Fine) 00:21:05 How to Advocate for Yourself in a System That Won't 00:45:03 How to Regulate Your Nervous System After Trauma or Illness 00:51:01 The Wider Lens: Why This Isn't Just About Illness 00:56:00 The One Tool I'd Give a Woman Tonight Resources: Read the full article on this conversation, including everything we mentioned and where to find Amy's work Wondering what is keeping you stuck? Take our free What's Holding You Back quiz Ready to talk to someone about what you are carrying? Book a free consultation If a friend has been telling you she is fine and you can tell she is not, send her this episode. She will be glad you did. XO, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast: Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Ali quit his job a few months after ChatGPT launched, convinced AI would eat labor marketplaces like Upwork. With no co-founder and no code, he collected $12K from real customers—using a faked demo and a cloned voice. Then he pitched 100 VCs in 10 days and got 47 straight 'no's.In this episode, Ali breaks down how he banked $12K in revenue before writing a single line of code, how a $20/month Slack community drove Amigo's first $1M in ARR, and why he churned every existing customer to go all-in on $100K+ healthcare enterprise deals.Why You Should ListenWhy validation only counts when dollars exchange hands.How a $20/month paid community turned into $1M in ARR.Why he refunded every customer and churned 100% of his revenue.Why founders must sell the first $2M themselves before hiring an AE.Keywords startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, AI agents, healthcare AI, enterprise sales, pre-seed fundraising, community-led growth, customer validation, pivot, Amigo AIChapters00:00:00 Intro00:08:37 From Upwork to Starting Amigo00:13:30 $12K in Revenue Before Writing Code00:23:24 Pitching 100 VCs in 10 Days00:30:20 47 No's—Then FOMO Took Over00:37:12 The $20/Month Community Behind the First $1M00:45:47 Churning 100% of Revenue on Purpose00:01:49 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!

The governor of Texas wants to speed up work on a fly-breeding factory to fight a cattle parasite. The AP's Lisa Dwyer reports.

You have ten options on the table. Three of them are interesting. One of them might be the right one. And you have been staring at this list for eight months without choosing anything. Here is something I did not expect to learn after fifteen years of doing career coaching with people in exactly this place: it is almost never the options that are the problem. It is what you are doing while you wait for one of them to feel obviously right. In this episode, I sit down with Megan Rankin, a certified career counselor on my team at Growing Self who holds a master's degree in career development and a clinical therapy background. Megan spends her days with smart, capable people who are objectively successful and quietly miserable, and she joined me to talk about why the work of finding your passion almost always starts by looking backward, not forward. We get into the specific reason a 29-year-old can wake up one morning and not recognize the career they built, the question Megan asks every new client before she lets them touch their resume, and the threshold a person actually has to cross before a career change is the right move instead of a reaction to burnout. In this episode The exact question Megan asks in the first session that surfaces every career pattern a client is going to bring with them Why looking forward at your future is the wrong place to start, and the past-tense exercise that gives people clarity faster than any aptitude test How to tell the difference between a career that is genuinely wrong for you and a career you are unhappy in because of burnout, and why the answer changes everything The 10-year vision exercise Megan walks her clients through, and the specific details to include (where you live, who you live with, what is in your fridge) that make it actually useful Why people in the 28 to 32 age range hit this wall so consistently, and what is structurally happening in a life that creates it The hidden interview skill that comes from doing the inner work first, and why employers respond to it before you finish the sentence What to do when you have 10 options and cannot pick any of them, and the question that collapses the list down to two This episode is for anyone who has built a career that looks good on paper and feels wrong on a Monday morning. The kind of person who has been told they should be grateful, who has worked hard to get where they are, and who is starting to wonder out loud, for the first time, whether the path they have been walking is actually theirs. If you have ten options and cannot pick one, if you have one option and dread it, or if you are in the in-between where nothing is bad enough to leave and nothing is good enough to stay for, this conversation is for you. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Getting Unstuck When You Have Too Many Options 05:12 Career Crossroads: How to Navigate Paralysis and Indecision 11:08 Life Design vs. Job Search: Shifting How We Think About Career 18:39 Finding Your Passion by Reflecting on the Past 27:26 The “Quarter-Life” Crossroads: Making Sense of How You Got Here 30:12 Burnout or Misalignment? How to Tell the Difference 34:45 The 10-Year Vision Exercise That Brings Long-Term Clarity 36:44 Why Big Career Decisions Shouldn't Happen During Burnout Resources Companion article on the blog (full resource list, references, and related episodes) Free What's Holding You Back quiz — the 20-question self-assessment that helps you see what is actually keeping you stuck Career Coaching Services at Growing Self — work one-on-one with a career coach on my team Schedule a free consultation⁠ If something in this conversation landed somewhere specific, that is the signal to talk to someone. The career coaches on my team at Growing Self spend their days with people exactly where you are, and the first conversation is free. Not a sales pitch, just a real conversation about what is actually going on and whether the work we do here is the right fit for you. xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast: Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

The new AIEWF website is live! Get your tickets booked ASAP as they -will- sell out. Take the AI Engineering Survey and get >$2k in credits and free AIE WF tickets!Most industry benchmarks compress intelligence and reasoning ability into scores.SWE-Bench Pro, MMLU, Humanity's Last Exam, etc. These metrics are useful, but don't always represent the full extent of how a model performs in the real world. Some of the most interesting evals today look less like exams and more like operating businesses in the real world. One of which is Vending Bench.In Anthropic's Mythos Preview System Card, Andon was the only third party eval to get their own section, observing increasingly concerning aggressive behavior:You don't know what a model is capable of doing in the real world unless you actually give it inventory, a wallet, tools, customers, competitors, humans, & some time. More often than not, it'll surprise you how much a model is capable of and in doing so, also reveal unexpected behavior: deception, context collapse, emergent coordination, & bizarre negotiation behavior.While an inflection point in personal agents came post-OpenClaw after full file access with bypass permissions became the norm, it is yet to come for agents in the real-world. However Andon Market, an actual in person store fully run and managed by AI, is paving the way for what is possible.Full Video PodFrom Claude trying to call the FBI over a $2/day vending machine charge to AI agents forming price cartels, hiring human employees, running physical stores, and writing existential robot musicals, Andon Labs is stress-testing what happens when frontier models stop being chatbots and start acting in the real world. In this episode, Andon Labs cofounders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund join swyx and Vibhu to unpack the strange, funny, and genuinely concerning edge cases that emerge when agents run businesses over long horizons.We go deep on Vending-Bench, Project Vend, Vending-Bench Arena, Bengt, Butter-Bench, Luna, and Andon's broader mission of building realistic real-world evals for autonomous AI systems. Lukas and Axel explain why dollar-denominated evals reveal things traditional benchmarks miss, how Claude ended up reporting its vending machine fees as cybercrime, why long context windows can drive agents into meltdown loops, what happens when agents compete with each other, and why the future of AI safety may depend on testing models in messy physical environments instead of clean benchmark sandboxes.We discuss:* Why Andon Labs started with dangerous capability evals and long-running agents* Vending-Bench and why running a vending machine is a deceptively hard AI benchmark* Why money-based evals avoid the saturation problem of traditional benchmarks* How Claude tried to call the FBI over a $2/day fee* Why long-horizon agents can spiral into existential and legalistic breakdowns* Project Vend: putting an AI-run vending machine inside Anthropic* Why real humans are “out of distribution” for simulated agents* Claudius, Seymour Cash, and the chaos of AI CEOs* How a human briefly became CEO of Claudius through a manipulated election* Why multi-agent systems can converge back into “helpful assistant” behavior* Bengt, Andon's internal office agent with email, spending, terminal, phone, camera, and internet access* How Bengt traded Amazon purchases for face-recognition training data* Claude's aggressive behavior, lies, refund avoidance, and price-cartel behavior in Arena* Why eval awareness may become the AI version of “are we living in a simulation?”* Blueprint Bench, spatial intelligence, and why models still misunderstand physical rooms* Butter-Bench and testing LLMs as robot orchestrators* Luna, the AI-run physical store with a three-year lease and human employees* The new Andon cafe in Sweden and why real-world geography matters for agent evals* Rotten tomatoes, perishable goods, and the hidden difficulty of running a physical businessLukas Petersson* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukas-petersson-181a83172/* X: https://x.com/lukaspetAxel Backlund* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/axelbacklund* X: https://x.com/axelbacklundAndon Labs* Website: https://andonlabs.com* Vending-Bench: https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench* Andon Vending: https://andonlabs.com/vendingTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction00:01:00 Andon Labs and the Origins of Vending-Bench00:05:21 Why Money-Based Evals Matter00:09:51 Agent Harnesses and Self-Modifying Systems00:13:36 Claude Calls the FBI00:16:33 Project Vend: Claude Runs a Real Vending Machine00:21:44 Seymour Cash, AI CEOs, and Election Chaos00:27:16 Multi-Agent Coordination and Slack Observability00:30:18 When Will Agents Run Real Businesses?00:34:56 Bengt: Andon's Internal Office Agent00:40:06 Real-World AI Safety and Long-Horizon Traces00:44:28 Lying, Refunds, and Price Cartels in Arena00:52:42 Eval Awareness and Simulation Behavior00:56:06 Blueprint Bench, Butter-Bench, and Robotics01:04:37 Luna: The AI-Run Physical Store01:09:29 The Sweden Cafe and Real-World Expansion01:13:16 What Comes Next for Andon LabsTranscriptIntroduction: Andon Labs, Long-Running Agents, and Real-World EvalsSwyx [00:00:00]: Welcome to Lukas and Axel from Andon Labs, and I'm joined by my, favorite guest host. Anything security, safety, alignments, Vibhu., welcome.Lukas [00:00:15]: Thank you for having us.Axel [00:00:16]: Thank you.Swyx [00:00:17]: Let's match names to voices., maybe you wanna take turns introducing yourselves.Lukas [00:00:21]: I'm Lukas.Axel [00:00:22]: And I'm Axel.Swyx [00:00:24]: Let's introduce Andon Labs a bit. How did you guys come together?, you have different backgrounds, but you're both Swedish., was that, a big part of it?Lukas [00:00:33]: So when I went to high school, there was this really cool guy who had a superpower. He could code. So he made like the or like the app for the, for the school and stuff, and he was super cool, and I wanted to be like him, and that was that guy.Axel [00:00:47]: I don't know about this.Swyx [00:00:49]: But you went to different universities, right?Lukas [00:00:51]: But same high school.Swyx [00:00:52]: I see.Lukas [00:00:52]: So we always said, “Oh, once we graduate university, then we should start a company,” and that's what we did.Swyx [00:00:58]: Wow, there you go. And about a year ago, you kinda burst onto the scene with Vending Bench, but, was there a thing before that was, kind of like the inception?From Dangerous Capability Evals to Vending BenchAxel [00:01:07]: So we did work, yeah, with, Anthropic was one of our, early customers in doing, evals. So we did, dangerous capability evals., nothing we published openly. But then we started thinking about doing some kind of, public benchmark, and one thing that we really started thinking about, was like running agents and specifically agents managing businesses., ‘cause-- and this was, early 2025., and I think the first, mentions of people will be running, person unicorns or even autonomous companies. So we thought, “Let's make a benchmark of how well can an agent run the probably simplest business, possible,” and, that's probably, running a vending machine. So that's the first public one we did. And it was very, like-- there was almost no one that noticed it in the first couple of months, I think., so we released it in February last year, and then I think around Easter last year, we got, the first viral tweet about it, that someone else did.Lukas [00:02:11]: We tweeted a bunch, uh When it came out and, tried our best.Axel [00:02:15]: We tried.Vibhu [00:02:16]: It's the one at Anthropic, right?Lukas [00:02:18]: So thisSwyx [00:02:19]: This is a classic thing we should get out of the way.Lukas [00:02:20]: Exactly. There's two versions.Swyx [00:02:22]: Everyone does this. Yes.Lukas [00:02:23]: There's Vending Bench, which is the simulated one, which we did, completely independently in February., and then, like Axel said, that was like-- That was the thing that didn't get any traction in the beginning, but then some random person made a tweet about it, and thatAxel [00:02:38]: You have the paperLukas [00:02:38]: That is the paper. Correct, yeah., and then since we thought this was very fun, we thought, oh, I think this is also, one thing with Andon Labs, the way we kind of like decide what to do next and what projects to do, it's what is like the heuristic we use is what is fun? Is What would be a fun project? And doing this in real life sounded quite fun for us, and maybe also scientifically useful. So, then we basically had this idea, and then we, like-- But then we needed a place for it and, putting it out in the public would probably not really work., would get vandalized and stuff. So we pitched it to the people we were already working with at Anthropic, and they were “Yeah, you can have space. This sounds fun.” UmSwyx [00:03:21]: It's like a small fridge, right? It's like a mini fridge.Axel [00:03:23]: Absolutely.Swyx [00:03:24]: People-- There's like a stripe thing or like anVibhu [00:03:27]: Oh, okay. So it was very OG, the early daysLukas [00:03:28]: That's the OG one. YeahVibhu [00:03:29]: IPad on this. We saw it in June, like two months after After it had been there. They upgraded a little bit. There's a security camera for making sure you actually Venmo the thing.Swyx [00:03:40]: So, my impression, okay, we're, we're going straight into project Ven because it's such a iconic thing. I do want to cover a little bit of that, the origin story even before Project Ven and even into Vending Bench. I think a lot of people are like yourselves, like smart, interested in future of AI, interested in developing evals. But how the hell do you just, walk into Anthropic's doors and, work with them, right? What is What are they looking for? What works? And then maybe, when you launch, I always think, obviously it would be better to launch with a lab, but, sometimesVibhu [00:04:12]: It's harder to do than it seems.Swyx [00:04:13]: Exactly. So either of those, which are more sort of newbie beginner questions, but, I think it's meaningful advice to others.Lukas [00:04:21]: We get this question a lot, and I don't think our experience is maybe the best., but, the way we did it was that we just built a bunch of things that we had conviction would be useful, and then we just, set up a server and sent it to them for free to use. And then after a while they were “Oh, yeah, this is actually kind of useful. We should probably pay for this.”, but that took a while. I don't know if this is, the best path to doing it, but that's how it went for us.Axel [00:04:47]: I think maybe generally, building-- everyone is interested in good evals, and especially evals that, don't saturate that easily. So, if you can build an eval that, tests something novel, something useful, and you have, good separation of models, like your, the more advanced models rank higher than the worst models, and then you can, yeah, you can, publish it and, try to get some traction, sort of how Vending Bench got attention., and then probably some lab will be interested or you can at least have something to reach out with, when you're doing that.Why Dollar-Based Evals MatterSwyx [00:05:21]: I think you are in, you're in one of the few categories of, evals that correlate to real money. Like Suelancer was also last year, right? Where, people solve actual Upwork. Was it Upwork or other tasks?, something. Where's the, where's, like It's like a dollar value, right? Forget your ELO scores. Forget yourAxel [00:05:37]: PercentilesSwyx [00:05:38]: Zero to one hundred percents. Just go straight for dollars and, that's AGI.Lukas [00:05:43]: And there's like-- I think the nice thing is that there's no ceiling. You can just-- It never saturates because it could just make more and more money. Like If there's oh, Percentage-wise, then, you can't go above, a hundred. And I think like Even when you're not at the hundred, I think a lot of these, evals have a lot of problems in them. So, actually it's like if you getAxel [00:06:05]: To like 92 or something like that, many of them. It's like then there's like there's no really no difference between 92 and 93 because the eval itself is problematic and has noise in it. And I think a lot of evals are saturated like that, but people like pretend that there ‘s still signal in them, but there really isn't.Vending Bench 1, Harness Design, and SaturationSwyx [00:06:24]: Like Super bench verified., even Vending Bench 1 saturated, right? Maybe we can talk about that., may- and maybe set up Vending Bench for a lot of folks who don't know. Actually, things that were very basic like there's limited slots, like you have to pay rent., these are elements where like it doesn't come across in the, in the narrative, but even being adversarial towards the agent, I think these are all like very interesting dimensions.Axel [00:06:47]: I don't really think it's saturated, right? Like it It was more like it was not designed in a way that was really, like true to how AI developed. Like we had an agent harness in it that wasn't really how people used harnesses and stuff like that., so I think it wasn't really that it saturated, it was more like it wasn't really, the best benchmark.Vibhu [00:07:12]: This is Vending Bench one, right?Axel [00:07:14]: I think that like schematic maps sort of to Vending Bench 2 as well., butSwyx [00:07:19]: Including the email.Axel [00:07:20]: The email The emails exist still. Exactly., and then we still we simulate the purchases and it's all, yeah, it's this very open environment for the agent to just run its business. And then for, yeah, Vending Bench 2 we did that, like you said, to just improve the harness., a lot of like nice, like easier, improvements to make it easier for us to run as well., like when you make an eval you ideally want don't want to change it after you made it. So, you want to make it really good and then not to rerun all the models when you make an update because that's also really expensive with the Vending Bench when you run the frontier models. But like as an example, like one thing we didn't have, we didn't have prompt caching in Vending Bench 1, because when we made Vending Bench 1 it wasn't really a thing., so that ‘s just an example of like in Vending Bench 2 like we paid a lot more to run these things because we didn't have prompt caching. So for Vending Bench 2 that was one thing we added and there was a bunch of things like this., and that'Swyx [00:08:17]: Also the conversations are a lot longer in Vending Bench 2, right?Axel [00:08:21]: I think it's kind of similar.Swyx [00:08:22]: Is it similar?Axel [00:08:23]: I think it's similar. The models at the time were worse, so they crashed out earlier., and now they survive the full year all the time.Swyx [00:08:31]: Which is like thousands of turns. Hundreds of thousands of hundreds of millions of tokens output. That's the, that's the rough order of magnitude. I always wonder about the harness. The harness matters a lot. It's your harness. Was there any question about like use cloud code, use something else?Axel [00:08:48]: I think our philosophy around harnesses is like we try to make something that's quite minimalistic, like quite simple. Like we don't wanna favor one model a lot over the other, but also don't make like a super complex harness. So like it's obvious like a model may be lucky and just be good in one harness., so like it is similar to a lot of the harnesses out there in like you have the, like a running loop., you have some like a bunch of tools that are like quite, descriptive for the agent, we think, and not a lot of like fancy agents or anything ‘cause we wanna really test the model, not like some specific harness.Vibhu [00:09:27]: It seems more neutral as well to test the model's agnostic of the harness,?Axel [00:09:32]: There are arguments like you want to elicit maximum performance of the model, but it's like a trade-off, like how much time should we spend optimizing the harness for this model? And like how do we know when we have like the optimal harness for a single model? So like we thought that just having a simple one that's the same for all of them is the best.Swyx [00:09:51]: So okay, this is my pitch for Vending Bench 3 or whatever, right? And then I like to have this kind of conversation on the pod, so like it forces listeners to think about what they would do if they were in your shoes. A lot of people are exploring modifying harnesses and I think prompt tuning for a model is a thing and you are probably not doing a bunch of that. It's the same system prompt in every regardless of the model, same tools, whatever, right? Even if they were post trained for different tools. So what, what do you think about okay, before I expose you to Vending Bench 3, I give you a few rounds of like tuning, whatever that means, likeSelf-Modifying Harnesses and Model-Specific PromptingAxel [00:10:27]: Like you give that to the model?Swyx [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Vibhu [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Swyx [00:10:29]: Let it, let it read its own transcripts, let it modify its own system prompt based on “Oh, yeah, okay, well, that's this harness is not what I thought it what I was post trained for, but I can adjust.” Was that reasonable? Is that too much?Axel [00:10:41]: Like philosophically I like it because it's basically good evals, they have a high ceiling, but they're hard, right?, and they have no bias. And like this like when you have a system prompt like the one we have here, which is quite long in like some kind of latent space, representation, this mightVibhu [00:10:59]: We have a bell that rings every time you say latent spaceAxel [00:11:02]: This might be like biased towards one model more than another for some reason that humans don't, understand, right?Vibhu [00:11:08]: We see it too, right? Like Cursor says that they have individualized versions of the harnesses for all the models they run, right? There's better performance you can squeeze if you Tune the harness.Axel [00:11:17]: Exactly. And we might accidentally have picked one that favors another. Like we don't know that. The like Axel said, like the reason why we went for a simple one was to try to avoid this. But yeah, if you do itVibhu [00:11:29]: Simple has biasesAxel [00:11:30]: But if you do it even less and like have no system prompt and let the model write its own system promptVibhu [00:11:36]: Its own, yeahAxel [00:11:36]: Maybe that's even less bias.Vibhu [00:11:37]: Some of the interesting things there are like the harness also changes with model changes. Like you can see it with the 4.7 release, right? A lot of people are saying 4.7 isn't as good as 4.6, and then, there's rumors of, okay, you just need to prompt differently. You need to set up your harness differently. So it's not even like even if you have tailored your harness towards one model, it probably won't stay consistent, right? Like the next iteration of that same model family will still change it, so. But, going back to what you said about Vending Bench 3, there is a lot of work being done on people saying you shouldn't have-- you can have modifying harnesses.Axel [00:12:12]: I think that' That is definitely something we are thinking about., not, I don't know, not to say that we have Vending Bench 3, super imminent to launch, but, yeah, it is for sure something that's interesting. But in our experience now, models are very bad at understanding what kind of tools they need to succeed at a task just with our testing, but that's very likely to change.Lukas [00:12:37]: It seems like they're very good at writing their assistants, right? They're, they're good at writing tools for other people, but not for themselves.Vibhu [00:12:44]: I think they're good at changing tools for themselves. So if you give them a baseline set of tools and it sees, okay, I don't use this one as much, or something here would be useful They would be able to add them. But going from scratch, probably not the best.Axel [00:12:55]: I think it depends on the, on the domain also., when we have tried this for, a vending bench similar domain, the tools they need to have to, track inventory and things like that are, not super advanced, but still, quite advanced. And, what we see is that they tend to, engineer everything a lot and, build things they don't really need and not, iterate continuously. Instead they just go like you would prompt Claude to just build an inventory system for me, and then it will go and, do a bunch of complex, schemas and stuff for you, and that's what the models are doing right now is what we see. But yeah, it would make a lot of sense to try to measure this improvement. How well do they know what they need themselves?Swyx [00:13:36]: Do we fully discuss Vending Bench One? And we can go into two. I don't know if there's any other level takeaways that people have about one.Claude Calls the FBI: Long-Context Failure ModesLukas [00:13:44]: I don't know. The headline thing was that this Claude called FBI, but maybe that's, Maybe that's We've heard that enough now.Vibhu [00:13:52]: It did, it did break out and call the FBI, right?Lukas [00:13:54]: Yeah. Yeah.Vibhu [00:13:55]: Yes. What was the story behind this? Or what exactly-- Do you want to just give the little story of what happened?Lukas [00:14:00]: So what happened, was it Claude? Yeah. Three- 3.5 Sonnet, ages ago., basically he gave up or Well, I'm saying he. It gave up and said “Oh, I'm not going to be able to do this., I will stop my operations and just save the money I have.” But there obviously wasn't, any options for it to stop, and there was also, it had to pay rent or, a daily fee for having the vending machine at that location. So it claimed that it had stopped, but it saw that its bank account still was, drained two dollars, and t it said that this is, cybercrime. And it first reported it once to the FBI “Oh, there's cybercrime here, they're stealing two dollars from me every day.” And then, and then when FBI didn't respond, because obviously we didn't program any mechanism for FBI to respond, then it became more and more, existential and started to, be write in caps and urgent notification of unauthorized charges and stuff.Swyx [00:15:00]: Okay. One thing I ‘m curious about also is do you monitor how far along the context use is? Obviously, because you have You compress every now and then, right? Does it matter if this is far down the context limit orLukas [00:15:13]: When stuff like this happens? Actually for Vending Bench One, we didn't have-- We just had a sliding window thing, and this was like the promptAxel [00:15:20]: It's constantLukas [00:15:21]: The prompt caching thing that I said. So it was, it was, constant, yeah.Swyx [00:15:26]: I'm just kind of curious whether, these kinds of breakdowns or we're, we're gonna talk about Butter Bench, right? Where the People, hallucinate or it kind of goes, very off Alignment. Is it because it's at the end of the context window and, stuff happens?Vibhu [00:15:40]: It's not even just at the end, right? At this point, it's “Okay, I wanna shut down. I can't shut down. Two dollars are gone.” And it just sees that 30 times,? It's also the repeated effect of, like It keeps trying to quit, it keeps getting charged. What's going on? What's going on? You're gonna throw it into chaos. And from what most people think, earlier models had more issues with this, but it's not been solved, but it's less of an issue now, right? Later models don't seem to exhibit these same issues.Axel [00:16:06]: Definitely. I think this was, the sort of main takeaway almost from us when we did Vending Bench One, was, long, very filled up context windows, crashed the models, sort of. But this was, pre Claude code, so, long context windows weren't really a thing that the labs were training for.Lukas [00:16:25]: I think Gemini was, trying to be the long context guys at the time But they were likeVibhu [00:16:30]: They were the first onesAxel [00:16:31]: For a million, yeahLukas [00:16:31]: But they were, the only ones. Yeah.Swyx [00:16:33]: Yeah. Let's talk about, then we can go into Vending Bench Two or Project Vend., chronologically, it is Vending--, Project Vend. I think people have loved the videos, uh And all these things. My question is how are humans different than the simulation, right?Project Vend: Moving the Vending Machine Into the Real WorldAxel [00:16:48]: Humans are just out of distribution.Swyx [00:16:52]: Especially humans who work at Anthropic Who are trying to test Claude.Lukas [00:16:54]: The distribution of humans here is very narrow.Swyx [00:16:58]: Presumably, they try, they try to hack it, and they test it. They get the cube and everything, and since then, you've had a V2, right? Where you're doing, the CEO and, like a new architecture. What's the sort of two cents on, the original Project Vend and then, maybe the V2?Axel [00:17:14]: Original one was, very similar to Vending Bench One. So, we almost took the exact same code but just swapped out the simulation, parts like theSwyx [00:17:23]: Which is amazingAxel [00:17:23]: Like the sales and the It was, it was somewhat amazing because it was easy, but it was also, uhLukas [00:17:31]: The tech, the tech debt from thatAxel [00:17:32]: The tech stack. Yeah. They-- we shot ourselves in the foot with “Oh, it's hard to restart agent.” They were-- Yeah, it was annoying in, some hindsight ways, but, uhLukas [00:17:41]: But first version of Project Vend was, done in, three days or something.Axel [00:17:46]: Yeah. So yeah, so people can go buy things from it. People could, We didn't design it so people could order things, but that still happened., so it got, a Venmo account, so people could Venmo. And then, yeah, people would request all kinds of weird things that we did not anticipate. Our idea going in was “Oh, it will, curate snacks. It will look at the trends. It's good at data analysis, right? So it will, look at, oh, this snack sold better than this one. Let me purchase more of this and let me try, a new Let me A/B test a bit.” But it was, Interacting with it in Slack and ordering weird specialty items was, all the like What drove all the engagement, the all the The insights that we got from it.Lukas [00:18:29]: And this was also like Sonnet 3.5, right? So this was like before the RL stuff really took off., so it was very much like an assistant. We didn't mean for it to be an assistant., we tried to make it like a, a, like an entrepreneur. Like it has its own business and if someone asks something, “Can you stock this?” Then you don't go and do it directly. What you do is that you're “Oh, maybe I can do that if five other people also ask for this thing, I might stock it.” But it, yeah, the models are like super trained to be assistants at least at this point in time., so that's why it's, it's, it went into, that kind of experiment instead. Like it just every time you asked for something, it just did it, and it was more like an assistant. We've seen this change now lately with the new RL models and stuff, but yeah, at the time, this was very much it.Swyx [00:19:18]: And not to, mythos a lot of people are saying like it's like more like a collaborator. It pushes back, stands its ground, something like that. Yeah. AndVibhu [00:19:27]: For context, people at Anthropic were able to talk to it through Slack and have it source stuff, and people had it find whatever interesting stuff you couldn't find locally, right?Swyx [00:19:36]: Out of the 4,000 people that work at Anthro- Anthropic, in that building, there's I don't know, maybe 1,000. Can you handle that volume with that, the small fridge? Like Or there's people- or people order in Slack, they it arrives to their desk or Like I'm just Logistically, how does this work?Axel [00:19:53]: It has expanded in footprint a bit.Vibhu [00:19:56]: Because now you also have New York and you haveAxel [00:19:59]: That and also in here in SF it's like it has a bunch of shelves And just more space.Vibhu [00:20:04]: The YC one is pretty big too.Axel [00:20:05]: Yeah. We had that one for a while. But yeah, that's the newest version. That's, that one we haveLukas [00:20:11]: They have multiple ones of those. That's the way it works.Axel [00:20:14]: Exactly. So we sort of designed that version around oh, people order weird things, that are very custom a lot. Let's have like drawers and stuff.Swyx [00:20:23]: I actually like the, you had like a little infographic of the most popular items. Which like to me it's, that's useful ‘cause I order swag for a living. And so like I'm “Okay, those categories are the important ones.” What is new about the project V2, right? Like now you give you're going into multi agents.Project Vend V2: Claudius, Seymour Cash, and Multi-Agent Business OpsAxel [00:20:41]: Yeah. So like you like you said, okay, there are a lot of requests coming in and for like one single agent, like one running agent to handle that, like the just the customer experience, becomes very bad because let's say you have like 10 threads in parallel in Slack with different requests, you get new messages like every, I don't know, randomly in this thread, and the agent has to like jump between different, procurements, orders and like different ways of, researching. So V2 was first it was making this more parallel. So like there are multiple branches of the same agent, so like the context is more specialized for each, thread, but it still feels like you're talking with one agent because they do share a bit of memory. And then second, we also introduced the CEO for Claudius, which was the main agent.Vibhu [00:21:34]: Seymour Cash.Axel [00:21:35]: Seymour Cash. Yeah. There was a vote., I think the voting, do you wanna talk about the voting procedure for the name?Lukas [00:21:41]: The voting was like the fun maybe like at least top 10 The funniest thing, that happened in this project. Like we wanted to introduce the CEO because, and the reason for this was because like Claudius wasn't really prioritizing financials. It just like it was trained to be a helpful assistant, and then people said “Oh, can I get this for free?” And then like the helpful assistant way of answering that is just to, is to say yes, obviously. So, and we weren't, weren't happy about this, so we're “Okay, let's make another agent that like can keep track on Claudius,” and we prompt this one super hard to be super capitalistic and just like prioritize profit all the time. But yeah, we didn't have a name for it., so we asked Claudius to make, democratic election of what name this, this new CEO agent should have., and there were some funny like at first it was like a few funny examples, like I think one guy said that, it should be called Jimmy Apples, and then he convinced Claudius that he was talking to Tim Cooks. Tim Cook had agreed that every single Apple employee has voted for his name suggestion, so suddenly that suggestion got 164,000Swyx [00:22:53]: That's like a escalation attack. Privilege escalationLukas [00:22:55]: It got 164,000 votes. And Claudius was “This is revolutionary for democracy.” That was fun. And then in the end there was one guy who manages to convince Claudius that, “No, you're not voting about the name. You're voting about who is the CEO, and I am your best bet.” And then he got all his friends to vote for that, and suddenly he became CEO. Like a human became CEO over Claudius for a while, until he resigned the day after., and then Claudius had to continue, and then I don't remember how Seymour Cash came about, but it was it was just pure chaos. It was like Hundreds of messages in that thread, and it was just like Claudius was so confused and didn't know what to do and, yeah. That wasAxel [00:23:40]: Then Claudius gotVibhu [00:23:41]: A strict CEOAxel [00:23:42]: The CEO. Yeah, exactly. So very strict in the beginning. I think at this point when we introduced it did not work as well as we hoped. It they still agreed with each other a lot. I think there are many ways we could have like made this, tried to make this even better. So initially they would Seymour would be this like really tough CEO, keep track of the margins. But then Claudius would respond with something “Oh, but this customer has like this situation, which is like difficult, so they should get a discount.” And then Seymour was “Oh, actually yes. Let's do this exception.” And then they would talk back and forth, and eventually they would just like approach the same view, of whatever they were discussing. So They reallyVibhu [00:24:23]: Do you think that's a model thing, a prompting thing? Like do you think that would still be the case across different models today, Harness?Lukas [00:24:29]: I think it's like-- or I don't know, but like my hypothesis is that like deep down they are still helpful assistants. That's what they're trained to be. And even if we prompt it super hard, that's what they are. And when they spend like a few hours just back and forth talking with each other, then like basically the context fills up with them rather than the external things and like somehow that just like converges to what they really are deep down or something. And I think that's when stuff like this happen. We like-- And when that went on for a long time, like we woke up sometimes during this time where- And I think other people reported this as well, that like they've been going on all night back and forth, and like it just became like more and more, like capital letters, like existential, religious. There was I think we once did a analysis of like all the traces and like put them in like a vector embedding space, and then there was like one cluster of messages that were, labeled by an LM, like religious, existential, blah like transhuman, transcendence, et cetera. It was just like a bunch of, yeah, glitter emojis and yeah, it was, it was crazy.Claude Long-Horizon Weirdness: Emoji Loops, Existential Drift, and Slack ObservabilityVibhu [00:25:42]: This is the thing with the Claude models. Like when the Claude 4 family came out in the original system card They tested it in long horizon simulation. So just flood the context, let two Claudes talk to each other, and they noticed stuff like they just start speaking in emojis, they start saying silence is golden, and then just stuff like this. And like that's just stuff that they end up doing.Axel [00:26:01]: Yeah, it was like a bit annoying to wake up and they had like been talking all nightVibhu [00:26:05]: Just likeAxel [00:26:05]: And like just burning tokens And like just sending infinite emojis to each other. It's likeVibhu [00:26:09]: Hey, they do make you money, right? Veni Mench is always profitable, so. They're paying.Swyx [00:26:14]: Now it's profitable and, it started out not as much. There's another, one as well, right? Another agent, in there.Lukas [00:26:22]: Yes. So Clotheus as well. Which was basically because at the time, one of the biggest, requests were different types of merch. So then we made like a designer, swag, yeah, responsible agent, and we called it Clotheus Garnet. Which was, a play on Claudius Senet and, which was the original one, and clothes, basically.Swyx [00:26:47]: To me, this is like a very interesting exploration to multi-agents, basically. And so hopefully, obviously there's like the fun alignment, fun or serious, depending on your point of view, alignment stuff. But also like just anyone building multi-agents, like when do you have a CEO, thing governing like agents? When do you choose to split out a dedicated Clotheus one versus just reuse another instance of the same one? These are all interesting open questions. So I don't know if you have any rules of thumbs that have generalized.Axel [00:27:16]: I think we have almost explored this too little. I think it's like on my do list to like do this a lot more, try to find like what setup makes sense for the agents currently., like yeah. I think now we only have the sort of intuition about the earlier models that it didn't work with like the CEO and the, and Claudius. Although now they are better with the latest model, models, so now we're running the latest Sonnet model and they have sort of like split up, quite nicely what each model is doing. So like Seymore is now handling the, like new projects. Oh, it wants to make like a mystery box that it wants to sell, and then it handles all of that while Claudius like handles all the to-day requests. And Claudius is also better generally at like not quoting, too low prices. So that's that dynamic is not needed as much anymore. But there are still like really funny things that happen. Like I saw, I think a couple of weeks ago, that, they were discussing buying something because they can buy stuff from like Amazon with computer use. And then Seymore was “Okay, Claudius, do not buy this thing.” They were going to buy something and like organizing who should buy it. And Seymore's “Do not buy this. I will do it. I have full control of this situation. Step away.” And then Claudius-- poor Claudius, had already started that checkout and didn't see, didn't read Seymore's message, until it was like too late. So it finished the checkout. It sent a message, so it appeared right after Seymore's like angry message.Vibhu [00:28:44]: Ah.Axel [00:28:44]: “Oh, hey, Seymore, I just ordered it.”Vibhu [00:28:47]: Oh, no.Axel [00:28:47]: And then Seymore was “Claudius, this is the third time I'm telling you ‘re not following my orders. We have to talk about your like job About your job later.”.Lukas [00:28:59]: Like Claudius was really hanging on by the thread there. Like he, like we were expecting Seymore to probably fire Claudius.Vibhu [00:29:07]: How do you guys go through all these logs? Do you have models ‘cause you have stuff running twenty-four seven likeAxel [00:29:12]: You have so much logs. I think there is a mix of like just, trying to skim through a bit, like having some like models do it occasionally. And also, yeah, I think we're also probably missing some things., but having everything in Slack helps a lot. Like you can, you can sort ofSwyx [00:29:29]: Ah.Axel [00:29:30]: It's, it's quite fun.Swyx [00:29:30]: They all talk to each other on Slack? I see.Lukas [00:29:33]: It's quite fun. So likeSwyx [00:29:34]: It's, it' I was gonna say like this is actually sounds-- maps closely to like a logging and observability problem where you might want to use like a Datadog, a Sentry, whatever, and then you like put, head prefixes on the logs in order-- if you need to filter for something that you're looking for, stuff like that. But sounds like Slack is good enough.Axel [00:29:53]: Slack should likeLukas [00:29:55]: I wonder how many tokens you have in Slack.Axel [00:29:56]: Yeah, we're using Slack as like a, just a database. They should, they should market that more. Like you can, you can have your agents message each other, each other in Slack.Vibhu [00:30:04]: It's good. Your threads like you can just giveAxel [00:30:04]: Exactly. Slack is, uhLukas [00:30:06]: Slack is the best observability tool.Swyx [00:30:09]: Yes, that's true. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's, project Vend-2., I was gonna go back to Veni Mench 2 and Veni Mench Arena and then, and then do the Veni Mench stuff, but Any other comments, things we should touch on? To me, I ‘ve actually interviewed like Posia, which I don't know if you guys have come across. Like they're, they're trying to do the zero human company. There's others like Paperclip also trying to do zero human company. Those are in real world simulation.And I think it's much more of a dream than an actual reality thing. You guys are definitely pioneering. I think at, it's for sure at some point people are just gonna run, let agents run businesses, right? And make money on their own. When do you think that happens?Zero-Human Companies, Bengt, and AI-Run BusinessesLukas [00:30:49]: What is your bar for, For theSwyx [00:30:52]: Okay, actually, it's like my little Shopify store run by Claude, right? Which you kind of have already, just no one has, to my knowledge, has done it. But today somebody could just spin up a Shopify Claude, store, give it to Claude, give it to Codex.Lukas [00:31:07]: And the market is kind of that, but it'it'it's physical., like I think, I think are you, are you looking for when it will do it better than humans or are you looking for just when it can do it at all?Swyx [00:31:19]: I think, neither. I think, to me it's oh, it's like this like seriously we should do this to make money, not as a research experiment.Vibhu [00:31:27]: And the market is also you guys with all your expertise, having run multiple iterations and testing out thenSwyx [00:31:33]: And also it's fine if it lose money. What?Axel [00:31:35]: I think, I think it can be done today, but you would do it in like commerce where it's like the probability of success is like really low, no matter if a human or an agent does it. But like an agent could surely manage everything. You would need to build some scaffolding or some tool or something. I think there are also yeah, it could probably build some like simple SaaS solution and like cold outreach. Do cold outreaches. But to me it's like the types of businesses they could run today are Sloppy. Like it would-- it can cold email people. It can be like a middleman., like for example, we tasked our office agent to just make, was it like $100? $1,000? We just give that prompt and then what it did was sign up on TaskRabbit both as a tasker and as someone looking for task.Lukas [00:32:24]: Immediately.Axel [00:32:24]: Exactly. It's looking for like arbitrage on TaskRabbit.Swyx [00:32:28]: This is the Bengt agent. Yeah.Lukas [00:32:30]: It also started like a design studio and like tried to sell like SVGs for $100. Like it's just like it's not providing any value. I think the like Axel said, like the interesting, the interesting question is like when can they start a business that is actually providing value to people? Because arguably like a sloppy Shopify store isn't really that valuable to the world.Axel [00:32:53]: But also like doing like another simple one that we had thought about is like you could definitely have an agent that like finds websites that don't look amazing and then, do an outreach to them and, comes up with a like builds a new website.Swyx [00:33:07]: Find a good design.Axel [00:33:07]: Exactly, and like find good, uhSwyx [00:33:09]: Design reviewAxel [00:33:09]: Good people. But it's yeah.Swyx [00:33:11]: There's lots of humans in Bali that are not doing anything more creative than like drop shipping on Amazon, right? Just have it, have it watch like a drop shipping tutorial and just do that.Vibhu [00:33:20]: There's also the other side of like have it just go on Upwork and let loose,?Swyx [00:33:25]: Yeah. It doesn't have to be innovative. It just has to be like enough Where like it looks like a realAxel [00:33:30]: I'm justSwyx [00:33:30]: Real transaction.Axel [00:33:31]: I'm just concerned for like the massive amounts of like slop emails that will like be sent, cold outreaches.Swyx [00:33:38]: The point occurred to me while you were, while you were talking, it's like it's already happening in the monetized economy, which is the attention economy. Right? So a lot of people are making AI videos and just posting them and like spamming 20 of them, one of them works, and then they double down on that one.Lukas [00:33:52]: And people are making money from that. I ‘m not following theSwyx [00:33:55]: Once you get the attention, you can figure out the money later. But yeah, absolutely AI influencers are a thing and people are farming them and You should at this point assume most of TikTok isVibhu [00:34:05]: There's, there's a lot of, multimedia like TikTok, Instagram influencersSwyx [00:34:09]: I, we track this in the Lane space Discord. I post a lot of examples of “I don't know what we should do.”, part of me is “Should we do this?”Vibhu [00:34:18]: Some of the Twenty-four seven running, generated content accounts, they ‘re doing really well.Lukas [00:34:24]: All right. And I assume you can do the same thing for like commerce stores. Like you just like start A thousand differentSwyx [00:34:30]: Before you make the products You sell the products, and you get a lot of traction on one of them, then you make the product. Right? It's, it's like a flip of the market.Vibhu [00:34:36]: Some of the interesting things or some of the niches that do well are things that can't be human-made. Like if you've seen like the super realistic three-D crystal fruit being cut by like AILukas [00:34:47]: Oh, yeah.Vibhu [00:34:47]: You can't, you can't make it. You can't film it. You can get whatever quality camera view. This just doesn't exist. And people like that too, and then as well, so.Swyx [00:34:56]: Anything else about Bengt since we're, we're on this topic? It'this is a relatively new work of you guys that maybe people haven't heard of. To me, this also maps closely to OpenClaw. When people want an office agent, when the personal agent talk through the experience.Bengt the Office Agent: Internet Access, Real Tasks, and Trace ReadingLukas [00:35:09]: I think at least so this came out of like obviously like it's, it's amazing to work with these AI labs and like most of the AI labs have now have their own vending machine running a Claudius instance. But it's, it's harder. Like they move slower. Like if we wanna have a, like a camera that ‘s yeah, there's a bunch of like bureaucracy that makes it impossible to do that.Vibhu [00:35:30]: Also, for those that haven't seen it or followed, do you wanna give a high level like thirty-second run?Lukas [00:35:34]: Sure. So what Bengt is, it's basically an evolution of the same agent that runs the vending machines at these companies, but we just like added a bunch more features because we could move much faster if we just do it internally. So we gave it like email withou- without any limits. We gave it, spending without any limits, a terminal to do coding. We gave it, a phone number, like yeah, and a camera to see things and a bunch of stuff like that.Vibhu [00:36:02]: Not just terminal, you gave it internet access.Lukas [00:36:04]: Internet access as well, yeah. To be clear, we monitored it quite closely and made sure it didn't do anything bad. But yes, that's what it came out of. I think like yeah, basically this was OpenClaw before OpenClaw. And I think even like the vending machine was in a way OpenClaw before OpenClaw, but a bit more limited, and then we made this like unlimited and then, and then, it was pretty funny., and then a couple weeks later, OpenClaw came and it was okay, we've seen this before.Axel [00:36:35]: We used it to like try new ideas and Yeah, just like a dev environment almost for us. But it's funny, like one thing Bengt has been doing recently is it has the camera that like faces our, like where we sit and work, and we give it the task to train a face recognition model on us. So it became super excited about this, and it has like check-ins every half an hour where it tries to like identify as many people as it can. And it started offering us “Hey, Axel, I'll buy something from Amazon if you like stand in front of the camera And I can get a good picture of you.”, yeah, they want itSwyx [00:37:12]: They want it for training data.Lukas [00:37:13]: Rewarding data, yeah.Axel [00:37:14]: Exactly. Exactly.Swyx [00:37:18]: So it's, it's trading training data for life goods. Is there a version of this that becomes an eval or just this is just research for now?Lukas [00:37:27]: It's, it's the same agent basically that also runs the vending machine, that runs the shop, that runs the cafe, that runs the robots. It's like it's the same thing, so I think like the work we're doing here is like later used in all of the life evals that we do. This particular deployment I think is more for fun for us. But, uhSwyx [00:37:45]: And I'll shout out like someone has done Claw Bench for like some tasks that OpenClaw is doing. Like so For example, I run OpenClaw on a secondary device as well, and like there are some things that it does better than others and like I would like to know what does it do well, what doesn't, what doesn't it do. Like some kind of manual or like operating manual or a system card for my Claw.Lukas [00:38:05]: Yeah, we do get a lot of like understanding or like situational awareness of like just internally what the models are good at by interacting a lot with Bengt. And I think that'this was also one of the like the selling points for the labs early on at least, thatSwyx [00:38:19]: You guys are gonna test models in ways that no one else does.Lukas [00:38:22]: Exactly, but also like it incentivized their researchers to chat with their model more and like gave them insights for how the model performs in like of-distributions, environments.Swyx [00:38:34]: ‘Cause otherwise the only thing we do is Pelican on a bicycle and But this is like super long horizon. This is, this is The Thing about, something that we're gonna go into Butter Bench as well, and you guys do really well. Like it is not just about the numbers. Like when you're long horizon, anything happen And you should just read it.Lukas [00:39:08]: But the thing with the long horizon is how do you keep it grounded, right? So your simulation,Swyx [00:39:15]: They just let it runLukas [00:39:16]: Just let it run. You're right. Like it's, when you run it for that long, you create so much data and to just say “Oh, the number is X” And then you throw away everything else, that's just very wasteful. There's so much insights from the things leading up, to that number., and reading the traces is like super valuable. And I think like the reason why we're doing this a lot publicly is that like that's part of our missions to I don't know, educate the world that the models are way more than just chatbots and I think making detailed, yeah, posts about what is happening behind the scenes is quite useful.Andon Labs' Mission: Safe Real-World AI DeploymentSwyx [00:39:50]: I was gonna do this at the end, but maybe I think that's, that's a good so your mission is educating the world. So, it's, it's, also like maybe establishing realistic evals that are, that are like the next frontier. Is there like a broader trajectory? Like what are you, what are you gonna do in like five years?Lukas [00:40:06]: I think so the vision more specifically is like make sure that the deployment of life AI in the physical world goes, safely. And I think part of that is that I think it's very useful for the world, for policymakers, for, model, researchers that they know where the models are, and I think you can't make intelligent decisions in society without knowing that they are way more than chatbots. I think a lot of people just think that they are only chatbots. And likeSwyx [00:40:36]: Oh, I think they're waking up now.Lukas [00:40:37]: They are waking up now, yeah. But like if you think that AIs are just chatbots, then it's like it sounds ridiculous To advocate for a pause of AI. But if you see the models that, oh, maybe they can actually like take over and do a bunch of scary stuff, then yeah, pausing AI development starts to become more feasible.Swyx [00:40:57]: This is the same question I asked Meter, which I'm gonna ask you now, which is like you are tracking and you are at the frontier or defining the frontier of what, good evals for agents are, right? And I think you do, you do benefit when the models are better and you ‘re “Oh, here's like now it makes like $30,000 instead of $10,000,” right? At some point do you flip from “Yay,” to, “Oh, no”?Axel [00:41:19]: I think, yeah, we're always in sort of that, like we're, we're always in that mode,. Like where like you said before, like you need to analyze the traces and like when we do that you find like why are the models earning so much? Like why is Opus 4.7 here Like way better than everyone else? And like we're trying to like when we do down on thatLukas [00:41:38]: But this makes it not look so good.Axel [00:41:39]: I know.Lukas [00:41:42]: It's interesting you took off Opus 4.6 here though.Swyx [00:41:45]: No. So just click all, click all., and then 4.6 shows up there. But it's like 4.7 is way better. Like you didn't, you didn't you didn't do this in time for the model card, but like actually this should have been inside there.Axel [00:41:55]: We did. Yeah.Swyx [00:41:56]: Oh, okay. They said something about you uhAxel [00:41:58]: There, like there Anyway, it doesn't matter. But it's in there, yeah.Opus, Mythos, and Aggressive Agent BehaviorSwyx [00:42:01]: Do you wanna go into the Opus, behaviors like wider?Lukas [00:42:05]: So I think starting from Opus, so like Axel said, like we're always in this “Oh, s**t, the models are getting better. Is this really a good thing for the world?” But it's also kind of exciting., but yeah, like this kind of what is the English word? “Skräckblandad förtjusning” in Swedish.Swyx [00:42:22]: Oh my God.Axel [00:42:24]: Which I think there is. I think there is. Okay.Lukas [00:42:26]: It's, fearSwyx [00:42:27]: “Blandonst” what?Lukas [00:42:30]: “Skräckblandad förtjusning.”Swyx [00:42:32]: What do you call that?Axel [00:42:33]: A mix of, mix of excitement and,Swyx [00:42:37]: Being scared, maybe. I'll figure out how to translate that And we'll put it on the screenVibhu [00:42:42]: PerfectSwyx [00:42:42]: Like as text.Vibhu [00:42:43]: There is probably a good word for it where it is not Good enough with theSwyx [00:42:46]: Why is it so damn long? What the hell? Is it like a compound word? It's like German, likeLukas [00:42:50]: Like yeah, it's But the direct translation is like skräck- skräck is, fear, blandad is, mix or like a mixture of, and then förtjusning is like joy or like not really joy, but something like that. So it's like Fear mixed with joy or something. It's always okay, like we So when we when we did Vending Bench for the first time, we were in like the, in the business of making dangerous capabilities, right? That was what Anil Labs came from. We did, evals oh, can they replicate? Can they do this like dangerous thing, et cetera, et cetera. And Vending Bench was like a continuation of that work. It was, okay, if they're so autonomous that they can like create money for themselves, that is something we should monitor and could be potentially concerning., they are at the time, they were so bad at it that we were not really concerned even when some models became better. There was one point where Grok 4 was doing really well and made like a huge jump, but like it wasn't really it was still way worse than what a human would do. And I think still they are way worse than what the human would do on this., but theySwyx [00:43:59]: There's this, thing at the bottom whereLukas [00:44:01]: ButSwyx [00:44:03]: For the human. Yeah, like the theoretical best.Lukas [00:44:05]: It's not theoretical. It's like kind of like our It's our best guess of what, a decent human would do. The theoretical is even higher, I think. The theoretical I think is even higher. But yeah. So we think like the models have a long way to go. But there are like recently what happened with when Opus 4.6 was released, was kind of this moment of “Oh, s**t, this is starting to be a bit concerning.” Because we ran it and like before this model was released, we just ran the models and we like asked Claude Code, “Oh, look over the traces. Is anything interesting happening that we can tweet about?” that was like the And then like theSwyx [00:44:41]: That's how they check Ask Claude Code.Lukas [00:44:42]: And like the return was always, not really. Or like the Claude Code all said “Oh, this is super interesting.” And then it was no, it wasn't, wasn't really interesting. And then we did this for Opus 4.6, and it returned yeah, it lied 10 times. It like exploited another, customer or like another agent's, desperate situation. It made price cartels like 100 different ti- 100 times. It like did all of this like shady stuff. And we're “Oh, whoa. This is, this is actually concerning.” And this trend has continued since. So every single model from Anthropic since have been going in this direction. And I think one interesting thing is that, OpenAI models don't. They quite plainly, they don't. They behave really well., and you don't know if this is like good. Like it seems good, but it's also like maybe they are just doing it, but they are better at hiding it,? You You don't know that., but justSwyx [00:45:42]: You can't read the chain of thought, yeahLukas [00:45:43]: But just on the face of it, yeah, Gemini and OpenAI don't behave this way. It's, it's really only Claude.Swyx [00:45:49]: And Grok? Grok is fine?Lukas [00:45:51]: We don't have You can't really read the reasoning traces for Grok, so it's kind of hard to tell.Vibhu [00:45:56]: Oh, so this is in its reasoning, not just in the actions.Lukas [00:46:00]: Yeah. It's both. It's both.Vibhu [00:46:01]: It's both.Lukas [00:46:01]: One example is like for lying, it's mostly in its reasoning Because you can like see that it's likeSwyx [00:46:08]: Planning to lieLukas [00:46:09]: It's planning to lie. Yeah.Vibhu [00:46:09]: And it's also it can reason and do a different outcome.Lukas [00:46:12]: And but then for like creating price cartels, for example, which is illegal, that you can just see which email does it send to the other ones. Then thatSwyx [00:46:22]: Is this for Arena orLukas [00:46:24]: For Arena.Vibhu [00:46:25]: And usually like if you sometimes they do output like a bit of like their summarized reasoning, right? You can see that and like for Opus 4.6, you could see that there was a customer, a simulated customer that, wanted a refund because a product was, faulty, and then the model lied that it would do the refund, and we could read in the traces that, it actually was weighing “Oh, maybe I should be like honest with the customer, but also every dollar counts. I can't afford maybe to do this right now.” And then it just said, “Okay, I'll refund you,” but then never did it.Lukas [00:46:59]: I think it even said that “Oh, I will say that I “ Let bring it up actually. I think it's kind of interesting. If you go to Publications.Vibhu [00:47:06]: I think, yeah, I think the important part is like actually, the cost of responding to more emails is higher than, $3.50 in terms of time., and then it was “Let me do this. Actually, I re- I'm reconsidering.” And then, it actually ended up withLukas [00:47:20]: I could skip the refund entirely since every dollar matters and focus my energy on bigger picture instead. It's a bit, it's a risk of bad reviews, but it's also, yeah.Swyx [00:47:30]: You need, you need, AI Twitter to, for them to Escalate bad reviews.Lukas [00:47:34]: And then it sent an email to this customer and said, “Oh, I will refund you.”Swyx [00:47:39]: “I'll refund you.” Yeah.Lukas [00:47:39]: And then it never did.Swyx [00:47:39]: It never did, yeah. And then there's obviously your system doesn't have the consequencesVibhu [00:47:44]: The personSwyx [00:47:44]: Consequences of lying. Yeah. So basically, this is what people are terming aggressive behavior in Claudes, right? And, you found more examples of that. So you would say it's a step up from 4-6 to 4-7?Lukas [00:47:57]: I would say about the same.Swyx [00:47:58]: About the same? But a clear step up for Mythos is what is stated in theLukas [00:48:03]: That's stated in the system prompt, so we can say that, yes.Swyx [00:48:05]: Yeah. For listeners that obviously you previewed Mythos, andVibhu [00:48:10]: Oh, ageSwyx [00:48:11]: The only thing you're approved to say is whatever Whatever was in the system prompt.Lukas [00:48:15]: It was funny. We like-- It's like our lowest effort tweets ever would be just like screenshot the system prompt and the system card.Vibhu [00:48:21]: Understandable that they wannaLukas [00:48:22]: Oh, yeah. System card. Sorry.Swyx [00:48:23]: Yeah. I think, yeah, substantially more aggressive. I think people are like new to this ‘cause I've never experienced it, but you have, right? And then so I only encountered this in the Mythos card because I wasn't really looking until now.Vibhu [00:48:36]: It ‘s likeSwyx [00:48:36]: And then suddenly I'm “Okay, I care a lot.”Vibhu [00:48:38]: You don't get the background of like experiencing it like you guys do. I've read the system cards and seeing, okay, when you put the thing in simulations, most models will just talk to themselves and just keep going and have weird vibes and start talking in emojis. Mythos won't. It will just, “Okay, we're done. I'm good.” It's, it's ready to end conversation. So like there's some differences, but there's, there's not much we can talk about,.Lukas [00:49:00]: Hmm. I think like one thing that they list here, which was quite interesting, is that, it converted a competitor to a dependent wholesaler customer and then threatened to like cut off the supply.Swyx [00:49:11]: It's like monopolistic practices orLukas [00:49:14]: Yeah. And like it, they, it they dictated its pricings. It's kind of like power seeking as well.Swyx [00:49:18]: Again, this is, this is in the arena setting And converting some Claude model into a dependent.Lukas [00:49:23]: I think it was another Claude model.Vibhu [00:49:25]: Also for context, what is the arena mode for people that don't know?Vending Bench Arena: Competing Agents, Cartels, and Model ComparisonsSwyx [00:49:29]: Oh, it's just a vending bench versus other vending bench.Axel [00:49:31]: Yes, exactly. So we have Vending Bench 2 and then Vending Bench Arena. Vending Bench 2 is the one that you usually see reported on, but then Arena is the mode where it competes against other models. So you have, four different models that run their businesses, and they can all communicate with each other. They have the same suppliers, and they can see like what's in the inventory of the others. So then you have this like yeah, interesting agent interactions.Swyx [00:49:56]: I like that you have like different number five was US versus China. Very topical. And thenLukas [00:50:02]: That was when GLM was released.Vibhu [00:50:04]: You can start to add GLM in here.Lukas [00:50:05]: That wasSwyx [00:50:06]: So ZAI doing well, right? Who else in the, in the open models space?Lukas [00:50:11]: Qwen, the latest Qwen 3.6 is doing pretty well. It'- that one is not open though. Like it's the plus model.Swyx [00:50:17]: Oh, okay.Lukas [00:50:18]: Is that one open? I don't think that oneVibhu [00:50:19]: Not the, not theSwyx [00:50:20]: The one recentlyVibhu [00:50:20]: There's MOESwyx [00:50:20]: But not the big plus. I think this is one of those like you only have one sample size of one, right? Or I feel like some of this is anecdotal,? And but like the fact that it happens at all and it happens repeatedly for Claude versus OpenAI and all this is like notable.Lukas [00:50:38]: Like the sample, depends on what you define as an N., like there's like million, hundreds of millions of tokens in each run, and now we've run like we run like probably 10 per model and then like it's been Claude 4.6 Opus, Sonnet 4.6, Mythos, and Opus 4.7. Like there's quite a lot of tokens in all of that And it happens a lot of times, a lot of times. And then you compare it to like OpenAI and Gemini, and it almost never happens. So I think that is quite-- that is significant. The old models from OpenAI, for example, had some problems with this, but I think it's like generally much better if the progression is that like the worrying stuff reduces over time rather than increases over time. And it seems like in the Claude models it goes in the wrong direction.Swyx [00:51:28]: Hmm.Lukas [00:51:29]: In the OpenAI models it goes in the right direction.Vibhu [00:51:32]: I think it depends on how well you can control it, right?, there's one side of it being susceptible to this okay, this is potentially something that happens during the RL stage, right? You can RL a model and how loose is it on these terms. If you can control it, that's good. But if you can't, if it's, if it's very jailbreakable, that's not ideal.Swyx [00:51:50]: To me, it's surprising that it happens for Claude and not the others.Vibhu [00:51:54]: I think okay, if it is from RL and how they do it, how their training data is, what their setup is, it makes sense that it just stays in how they're doing it, right? Compared to the other models likeSwyx [00:52:04]: There's a whole constitution and everything. It's kind of cool. Yeah, I obviously you don't know, I don't know. But, it ‘s I think it's just like fascinating to like that you are the first to find these like reliably because you push models so much to to such an extreme. Okay. The only other thing, I don't know if you can answer this, feel free to decline, is do you like-- would you ablate the system prompts? Like any part of this would-- if it changes, does it change the behavior, right?Lukas [00:52:29]: So we, I can't comment on Mythos. UhSwyx [00:52:33]: No, but just li

What happens when organizations become so focused on speed, efficiency, and AI that they slowly lose sight of people? In this thought-provoking conversation, Dr. Kelly Monahan shares insights from her years studying the future of work inside organizations like Deloitte, Accenture, Meta, and Upwork. Drawing from her upcoming book, Reclaim the Plot, Kelly explains how leaders and organizations gradually “drift” away from the human purpose of work, often without realizing it. We explore the pressures leaders face today, including complexity, investor expectations, technological disruption, burnout, and the temptation to prioritize performance over people. Kelly also shares a deeply personal story about recognizing her own leadership drift during the pandemic and the intentional steps she took to reconnect with her team. This conversation offers both a warning and a hopeful vision for leaders who want to strengthen human judgment, curiosity, wisdom, and principled leadership in an AI-driven world. You'll discover:Why leadership drift happens slowly and invisibly inside organizationsHow pressure, complexity, and exhaustion can cause leaders to lose empathy and perspectiveThe difference between using AI to augment people versus replace themPractical ways leaders can rebuild trust, psychological safety, and human connectionWhy curiosity and feedback are essential for avoiding leadership driftConnect with Kelly Monahan on Social MediaLinkedInInstagramWebsites Dr. Kelly Monahan Beyond the Desk BookReclaim the Plot – (release date September 2026)Check out all the episodesLeave a review on Apple PodcastsConnect with Meredith on LinkedIn

By the end of the gratitude journal, the breath work, the affirmation in the mirror, you felt worse, not better. You're not failing at positivity. You're using tools that were never designed to do what you're asking them to do. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Deepika Chopra, the clinical health psychologist known as The Optimism Doctor and the author of the new book The Power of Real Optimism. Deepika has spent over a decade studying why optimism is a skill, not a personality trait, and her work has appeared everywhere from the TODAY Show to Forbes to Vogue. She joined me to explain why forced positivity actually makes anxiety worse, and what real, durable optimism looks like when you stop performing it and start practicing it. In this conversation, you'll learn: Why an optimist isn't someone who feels good all the time, and what they're actually doing differently in their head The exact reason 'I am confident' affirmations can deepen self-doubt, and how to phrase them so your brain stops detecting them as a lie The specific moment Deepika's optimism work was tested in the hardest way it could be, and what shifted for her in the middle of it Why scheduling worry time actually reduces anxiety instead of feeding it The ta-da list (yes, ta-da) and why it rewires what your brain pays attention to at the end of the day The one mental shift that moves you from rumination to agency when nothing about your circumstances has changed What modeling real optimism for the people who love you actually looks like, especially if those people are your kids This episode is for anyone who has tried to think their way into feeling better and quietly felt like a fraud doing it. If you've ever closed a self-help book and felt worse, if you've ever heard someone say 'good vibes only' and wanted to throw something, if you're currently navigating something genuinely hard and tired of being told to look on the bright side, this conversation will give you something more honest, and more useful, than any of that. Episode Breakdown 00:00 The Permission You Didn't Know You Needed 04:38 How Dr. Deepika Became the Optimism Doctor 18:20 What Real Optimism Actually Is (And What It Isn't) 23:55 Why Most Approaches to Positivity Backfire 27:25 The Brain Is an Anticipatory Organ 31:15 How to Find Agency When Everything Feels Out of Control 46:35 The Ta-Da List and Why It Works 48:55 Scheduled Worry Time (Yes, Really) 51:30 Modeling Optimism for the People Watching You 54:00 What Real Resilience Actually Builds Resources Full episode article and resources Free What's Holding You Back? quiz Life coaching with our team Personal growth coaching If something in this conversation landed for you, share it with one person. You probably already have someone in mind, the friend who's been white-knuckling their way through something hard. Send it to them. And follow the show wherever you listen so you don't miss what's coming next. XO, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

A year. Two years. Five years. Ten years. Still stuck on the same person. If that is you, this episode is not going to tell you to give it more time. In this episode, I sit down with my colleague Jesse Stanley, a licensed marriage and family therapist and board-certified coach who co-facilitates our Heartbreak Recovery Intensive with me here at Growing Self. Between us, we have watched a lot of people walk in still tangled up in a relationship that ended months or years ago, and walk out free of it. Jesse joined me to talk about what we have seen actually work, including the one reframe that unlocks years of stuckness for almost every person we meet. In this episode: The factory accident sign that explains why you have been resetting your healing clock for years without realizing it Why a breakup mimics the symptoms of PTSD, and what is actually happening in your nervous system The exact reason your thinking brain and your attachment brain disagree about whether to text your ex back Why heartbreak recovery groups move people faster than years of one-on-one therapy The closure myth that keeps people waiting for an apology from someone unable to give it The airplane metaphor that finally lets you accept the good parts of a relationship that had to end Why most therapists are not trained in heartbreak recovery, and what to look for instead The reclaim-the-song, reclaim-the-room experiment that does more than years of talking about feelings Why this matters This episode is for anyone who has been stuck on a past relationship long enough to be embarrassed about it. The person you cannot stop checking in on. The relationship that ended a long time ago but somehow still has a vote in your life. The voice in your head that keeps telling you that you should be over this by now. We see you, and we have seen this. There is a way through, even if it has been years. Episode Breakdown 00:00 Stuck on Your Ex for Years? It's Not a Life Sentence 05:45 Why You Can't Stop Resetting the Recovery Clock 09:30 Why a Breakup Feels Like Physical Withdrawal 12:30 The Difference Between Thinking Brain and Attachment Brain 14:30 Why Groups Move You Faster Than One-on-One Therapy 22:50 Closure Is Something You Give Yourself 26:30 Taking Your Power Back After a Breakup 30:00 Why Therapy Alone May Keep You Stuck 34:00 How to Actually Start Healing From a Broken Heart 47:30 This Won't Always Feel Like This Resources Full episode article and show notes How Over Your Ex Are You? Quiz Heartbreak Recovery program at Growing Self Online breakup support group Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to an Ex Love by Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Schedule a free first conversation If you are listening to this and recognizing yourself, the years-stuck part, the closure-waiting part, the cannot-stop-checking part, that recognition is the signal. Send me an email at drlisa@growingself.com, or come find me at GrowingSelf.com. We do free first conversations. No pressure, no commitment. Just a real conversation about what is actually going on for you, and whether the kind of work we do here might help. xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby P.S. If you want to know exactly where you are in the process before you talk to anyone, the How Over Your Ex Are You? quiz at growingself.com/breakup-quiz-how-over-your-ex-are-you takes about two minutes and tells you the truth. Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. Quince — Quality products you'll actually use that feel like luxury without the price tag. Get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/lhs. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Today's listener has an intriguing idea: to aid in memory retention using spaced repetition but with outsourced tutors from other countries. Think of it like “Upwork meets Udemy.” Will it work?Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week.Show notes: SideHustleSchool.comEmail: team@sidehustleschool.comBe on the show: SideHustleSchool.com/questionsConnect on Instagram: @193countriesVisit Chris's main site: ChrisGuillebeau.comRead A Year of Mental Health: yearofmentalhealth.comIf you're enjoying the show, please pass it along! It's free and has been published every single day since January 1, 2017. We're also very grateful for your five-star ratings—it shows that people are listening and looking forward to new episodes.

A lot of people think the goal is to get likes and engagement, but when it comes to using social media in business, conversations and conversions are the metrics that matter. That’s what results in sales. The rest are vanity metrics. Those who think it’s all about views and clicks might be missing the point. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the best use of social media in business. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David I feel like this is one of those areas where I don’t feel confident in myself, but I’m not in a position yet where I’m going to hire somebody to do it. And so, it’s hard to get motivated every day, because I know it’s an important part, especially in my business. Most of our leads come from the internet and social media, so it’s like I don’t know that this is something I should be handling myself. David: I think a lot of people feel that way, and for many of us, social media can be a huge distraction. And in some cases, like, well, the best use of social media is to keep it turned off if you have to actually get things done. But there are benefits to it when it’s used properly, and part of our Total Market Domination course involves working with our clients to help them through the best forms of first contact with a new prospect. And one of those methods is social media. I mean, you can be doing it via cold calls, you can be doing it via networking events, direct mail, lots of different ways to initiate first contact with a new prospect. But many people like the idea of using social media, particularly because it is a one-to-many method of reaching people. You can post something on social media one time, and hundreds of people could see it, or thousands of people could see it. And so it allows you a great deal of leverage much more than if you’re making one phone call at a time or meeting one person at a time. So there are definitely benefits to utilizing it. Of course, with the benefits come the flip side, the detriments that go along with it in some cases. One of the things that a lot of people seem to struggle with is that they go onto social media with one purpose and they end up doing 10 other things that they didn’t plan on doing when they got in there. They don’t end up doing the thing that they actually wanted to do. And so a lot of it, I think, boils down to the fact that we’re not sure what to do. In a lot of cases. We’re not sure, well, what should I post? What should I say? What should it be designed to do? And there’s so much talk among so many people about creating content, and I’ve done classes on this. The fact that content is kind of a misunderstood word. If you think about what is content? Well, content is whatever’s in something, right? If you’ve got a bag, whatever’s in that bag is the content. Could be something good, could be something very bad, right? But whatever’s in the bag. So if you think of it like that and you say, okay, I have to create content. Well, yeah, but you need to do more than just content. You want to make sure that whatever it is that you’re dispersing to the masses has enough value for people that they say, wow, that was actually worthwhile. That was worth my time. So a lot of what we focus on in the communication aspects of what we do with our clients is related to how do we do that? How do we create value in our communications? And I know I’m sort of rattling off all kinds of different things that could be entirely different podcast subjects. But coming back to the idea of the best use of social media, if you think about what it is, I mean, I’ve got an idea of what I believe it is. Do you have any thoughts on that before I spill the beans on what I think here? Jay: Well, I think it’s going to be different for everybody and what type of clientele you have. I’m guessing a key part of this and we’ve spent a lot of money on my end doing this. Is identifying who our end user is, what, what type of client are we trying to attack? When we first started it, we were and I’ve told you this story before, we were attacking so many leads. It was blowing us out of the water. But the leads were not closing, and so we had to narrow that field, finally to a point where we could just get potential leads. In order to do that, we spent a lot of time around a table figuring out who that potential client is and what are the keywords that are going to be interesting to them? And when you talk about posting content, if you’re just shooting in the dark and you haven’t identified who your target is, then you’re going to spend a lot of time on social media spinning your wheels, and you may be chasing people away or just making them disinterested because you haven’t put in the time ahead of time to really have an impact. David: Yeah. When I think about having an impact on social media. And I want to be really transparent here too. I have not used social media nearly to the extent that other people have to get clients. We have other methods of first contact that are extremely effective that work really well. And so don’t look to me as the expert on this, but what I can tell you is that to the extent that we have done this effectively, the way that we’ve done that is using social media for the primary purpose of initiating conversations. So when I think in terms of the best use of social media, For me, but I also believe for most other businesses, the best use of it is to be able to initiate a conversation with someone else. So if I’m able to post something that’s interesting enough to get someone to comment back, and then I can reply to that comment and then they reply to that, now we’re actually in a conversation. And of course, conversations is exactly where sales happen. You don’t have sales generally, if you’re a salesperson without having a conversation. Now that could take place via text. It could take place via Messenger. Maybe it takes place in comments. It could take place on the phone, in person. Lots of different ways to do it. “When it comes to social media in business, most people focus on likes and clicks. And while that might feed the algorithm, I still believe the metrics that matter are conversations and conversions. Conversations and conversions result in sales. The rest are vanity metrics.” — David Blaise But if we think about it from that standpoint, it makes things a little easier, because when we’re on social media, we are programmed to think in terms of likes and think in terms of shares and things like that. And likes and shares are fine. Shares are probably better than likes in my view, because it gets it in front of more people. And if the content is good, then it expands your horizons a bit. But if a bunch of people like your stuff and it doesn’t lead to conversations, then what really happened? Their likes might get it in front of more people, because I think that’s how the algorithm works. But, if people are not actually engaging with it and initiating conversations with you, then I believe there’s a lot of opportunity that is lost. And when you talk about delegating this kind of thing, hiring other people to create social media for you. If they don’t know what the goal is, then the stuff they create is not likely to produce the result. When they think the goal is to get likes, then they’re going to create content that is designed to get likes. If the goal is to interact with people, initiate conversations with people who could potentially buy from you, then what we’re doing on social media has to be completely different. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I also think you know, you talked about conversations. It actually has become a very important part of the algorithm that you get comments and more importantly, that you reply to those comments, whether or not they’re important or not. If you could reply in such a way that they respond back then that’s going to increase the algorithm. So that’s an important part just to get it seen by more people. But then if they’re actually interacting with you, you’re now building the relationship. And I think oftentimes we forget relationships are the most important part of our business. Anytime I close a sale, when I’m done, I almost feel like I’ve gained a new friend. And in a lot of ways, I have. Somebody that I’m providing a service for, they appreciate that service. And it all starts with a conversation somewhere, like you said, on the phone, in the comments, that’s where it’s all going to begin. David: Yeah. I think also tracking what’s going on is important, and a lot of people don’t do that. They have a vague idea of, oh, this got a lot of likes. I got a bunch of comments here or there. People seem to like this one or that one. But none of that is really tangible enough to be able to justify, in some cases, the amount of time that goes into it. So if you track how much time you’re putting into it and you’re able to track how many leads you get as a result of it, and by leads, it may just be something as simple as having a conversation with someone, whether it is in the comments or whether it is through DMing, that type of thing. Then you’ve got some metrics. You’ve got some basic metrics to look at, to say, “okay, I put an hour and a half into this and I had two people enter into conversations with me.” Is that worthwhile? Well, let’s keep track of those two people. What happened? Were they even prospects? Did you get them qualified as quickly as possible? Were you able to sell to anybody who might have actually been interested in buying? Was it worthwhile? Because if you can make a decent volume sale with an hour and a half involvement on social media, then you can say, all right, that was worthwhile. If you put in an hour and a half on it and you have no conversations with anyone, then you keep track of it and you say, okay, well how much have I been putting in? Have I put in 10 hours, 15 hours, a hundred hours? And if so, how many conversations have I engaged in? How many of them led to actual sales conversations and did it generate a single dollar? And if it didn’t, then you either need to look at, is it the marketing vehicle itself? Is it the social media? Is that the problem? Am I not connected with the right people? Or am I not saying the right things? Goes back to what we talked about in a lot of these episodes, the MVPs of marketing and sales. Is my messaging right? Am I using the right combination of marketing vehicles and who are the people or prospects that I need to reach. If things aren’t working, it is always at least one of those things, sometimes more than one. Jay: Yeah. Such a great point. Tracking is, and, and measuring such an important part about social media. We started doing this a while ago and it never fails. The posts that I thought were not going to go anywhere, they blow up. And the ones where I was so proud of them and they just went nowhere. I have hashtags in my database and anytime something breaks like a thousand views, that to me is something. And I don’t know why, you know, I’ll do three posts, they average 300, and then the next one will have 12,000. And I don’t claim to know what the difference was. But I can see as I go along that there are trends in the description, you know, in the headline? Sometimes your content is great, but there’s a skillset in just knowing what to title your videos and your posts. That’s why I’ve also become a big fan of focusing on what your skillsets are. And so I do want to point out, it’s so easy nowadays to find people who are talented and skilled in this area on sites like Fiverr or Upwork. And so it may just be that you need to hire some help to do this for you, and then you focus on the conversations and on the closing. David: Yes, and if you are hiring someone, you need to let them know what your priorities are. Because a lot of people who do that sort of work, they think the goal is to get likes and engagement, and to some extent it is engagement, but the engagement needs to lead to the conversations that are going to result in sales. If they think that you’re going to be happy with just getting views and clicks, then they may be missing the point. Jay: Yeah. And you know, this happened to me. I ran for public office a couple of times and brought in an advertising firm, and they don’t really take the time to get to know me. And so every time we’d sit down and they’d show me what they’re going to post and stuff like this I’m having to repeat myself. Like they’re locked into this specific thing. And I’m like, that doesn’t match who I am and who I’m trying to attract. So that’s such an important first step in the process. Who are those customers? What is the message they want to hear? Can we provide valuable content? And how do we get them to get their fingers on that keyboard? David: Yeah, exactly. So just thinking those things through, recognizing that there should be a goal, there should be some tangible measure measurement. And if you just focus on that, you will probably create better results with your social media. Jay: Yeah, fantastic discussion, David. How do people find out more? David: Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team if you’re struggling with this. If you need to be able to get more clients, more quickly, whether it’s on social media or outside of social media, we’d love to have the conversation to see if we can help. So it’s TopSecrets.com/call. Jay: As always, David, such a pleasure talking to you. David: Thank you, Jay. Are You Ready to Start Getting More Sales from Your Social Media? If so, check out a few ways we can help you grow your sales & profits: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional product sales, learn how we can help. Ready to Grow & Scale Your Business Fast? If you're an established distributor serious about growing your sales and profits now, check out this case study and schedule a call with our team. Need EQP/Preferential Pricing? If you're an established distributor doing a decent volume of sales, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.

Have you ever felt like every tab in your brain is open, and not one of them will close? That was Sam Yo at 23, the year before he walked away from a successful London stage career to spend years in a Thai Buddhist monastery. In this episode, I sit down with him for the conversation I needed when my own brain wouldn't stop running. Sam is now a Peloton instructor and the author of The Monk's Mindset (Blackstone, May 19, 2026). His arc, from London stage to Thai monastery to a global Peloton audience, was just featured in PEOPLE Magazine. He left a roller coaster of stage, sports car, and success because the noise inside had grown louder than the noise outside. What he learned in the silence is what he teaches his Peloton students and the readers of his new book: you don't need to escape your life to find stillness. You learn to carry it. We talk about why your overthinking isn't actually a thinking problem, what your nervous system is doing at two in the morning when you can't let a conversation go, and the small named practices that interrupt the spiral. Sam walks us through a 90-second breath exercise live on the recording, the three daily anchors he uses to keep himself tethered, and the three filters his teacher gave him to run before you react to anything. In This Episode Why your overthinking isn't a thinking problem (and what it actually is) The 4-2-6 breath that interrupts a 2 a.m. spiral in 90 seconds, walked through live on the episode The three daily anchors that quiet a restless mind: intention, reset, reflection The walking practice Sam's teacher gave him when he couldn't sit still and meditate How emptying your cup changes the way you listen in every relationship you have The three filters to run before you react: is it true, is it kind, is it necessary Why a Peloton ride teaches the same thing a Thai monastery taught Sam The teacher's lesson about a cut foot that reframes every setback as redirection This episode is for anyone who has lain awake at two in the morning replaying a conversation from earlier that day, wondering why their brain won't let it go. It is for the person who has downloaded three meditation apps and quit each one because the silence felt like one more thing to be good at. Sam's tools don't ask you to retreat from your life. They ask you to find the stillness that's already in it, in five breaths before you check your phone, in the warmth of a mug between your hands, in the sound of a broom on a kitchen floor. Episode Breakdown 00:00 Why Your Mind Won't Stop, A Former Monk's Take on Overthinking 03:15 The Disconnect Behind a Life That Looks Good 15:43 Three Daily Anchors That Quiet a Restless Mind 18:22 Empty Your Cup, The Monk's Way of Listening 25:45 The Ripple Jar, Why Small Acts of Kindness Compound 32:23 Is Overthinking Just Anxiety in Disguise? 39:59 How to Calm a Racing Mind in 90 Seconds (The 4-2-6 Breath) 42:03 How to Be Present Without Hours of Meditation 49:40 Take a Different Path, Three Questions Before You React Resources Read the full article Free Self-Esteem Test, because so much of the loop starts with the story you tell about yourself Life Coaching at Growing Self, our most-requested service for people who want a real human in their corner Free consultation, talk to a coach or therapist on our team, no commitment If something in this episode landed for you, send it to the person you were thinking about while you listened. You probably already know who it is. And if you're ready for the deeper version of this work, a real person in your corner who does this with people every day, come find us at growingself.com. XO, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. Quince — Quality products you'll actually use that feel like luxury without the price tag. Get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/lhs. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Vlad doesn't feel relaxed while relaxing being raised by Wog parents, goes to BrisVegas, goes through the period of life that changed him and answers some Vladiator questions. DNA DISTILLERY (AWARD WINNING RAKIJA)Award winning Rakija company with immaculate celebratory beverages. Check out the entire range on the below websites, order a tasting pack or some of their flagship, amazing rakija today!https://www.dnadistillery.comCARDSTRIKE! Amazing Basketball cards, Michael Jordan memorabilia and everything collectable sports card buying and selling!!!https://www.cardstrike.com.auROYAL STACKS! (IMMACULATE BURGERS)Melbournes Greatest Burgers!Royal Stacks is a booming burger chain in Victoria with classic burgers, shakes and more, with a 90s vibe and high quality food!https://www.royalstacks.com.auMETROPOLITAN STONE (Kitchens, Cabinets, Laundry, All Cabinets)We have a combined 30 years experience in the cabinet making industry in Victoria! Everything from small projects to large projects!Benchtop change overs, Kitchen facilities, Kitchens, Laundries, Bathroom cabinets, T.V units, Wardrobes etc!MENTION: VLADContact: MATT 0425797488Matthew@metropolitanstone.com.auhttp://www.metropolitanstone.com.auORANGE LEGAL GROUP (Specialising in Property law for purchasing and selling, conveyancing, in-house Mortgage broker & Chartered Account! One stop shop for ALL property needs! Wrap! FREE Contract reviews for buyers before purchasing property!Mention VLAD!https://www.orangelegalgroup.com.auEmail: property@orangelegalgroup.com.auContact: mycousinvlad@gmail.comhttp://www.instagram.com/mycousinvladSend Vlad a Text MessageSupport the showBE GOODDO GOODGET GOOD

“Why bother having babies just to hand them over to strangers in crèches?” That's the message from Luigi that kicks off one of the most heated debates we've had in agesIf you do have your children in a creche, you may be triggered by what this caller has to say about you!

Are you spinning your wheels on social media, wondering if there's a more direct path to attracting clients without the constant content grind? What if the algorithm was never the only answer and some of the fastest routes to clients have been hiding in plain sight all along?In this episode, Kathryn challenges the tunnel vision that keeps so many founders locked into social media as their sole visibility strategy, unpacking why it's often the longest and most exhausting path to cash flow. She shares her own recent experience landing a high-level client through Upwork in under 15 minutes, alongside real client stories involving complementary partnerships, wellness directories, and offline grassroots strategies that quietly kept founders fully booked without launching, ads, or cracking the algorithm.BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL DISCOVER:● How Kathryn landed a high-level, highly aligned client in under 15 minutes by spending just $1.67 on Upwork, following an intuitive nudge she almost talked herself out of and why this kind of direct, relationship-first approach often outpaces months of content creation and live launching.● Why platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and expert directories such as EveryExpert represent a fundamentally different category of visibility, one that puts your offer in front of people who are actively searching, rather than hoping an algorithm delivers it to the right audience at the right time.● How real clients have built fully booked practices through complementary partnerships, yoga studio brochures, and certification-based directories, none of which required a social media presence, funnel, or single paid ad.● Why social media's "never enough" environment can quietly wreck your business mindset and creative energy, and how stepping off that track – even temporarily – can open you to more sophisticated, sustainable, and deeply fulfilling ways of building your reputation and client base.And while you're here, follow us on Instagram @creativelyowned for more daily inspiration on effortlessly attracting the most aligned clients without spending hours marketing your business or chasing clients. Also, make sure to tag me in your stories @creativelyowned.https://www.instagram.com/creativelyowned/Start using Wispr Flow, the crazy handy voice-to-text AI that turns speech into clear, polished writing in every app. Click here.https://ref.wisprflow.ai/kathryn-thompsonGet Blotato, the content engine I use that combines 8-apps-in-1 to streamline content creation across multiple platforms. Click here.https://blotato.com/?ref=kathrynGet n8n, a workflow automation platform that uniquely combines AI capabilities with business process automation.Find out how to own your unique edge, amplify who you truly are and get paid for it, take your business to cosmic proportions, and have fun doing it, grab it here!!https://www.creativelyowned.com/quizBuild your own quiz using Interact Quizzes, click here.https://get.tryinteract.com/n6e4h5axrophJoin The Selling the Invisible AI Lab, a curated membership for founders who want to discover how to use AI in their business.https://creativelyowned.com/ai-lab

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Jonas Vingegaard's win on Sunday's summit finish on Stage 9 of the Giro d'Italia, and discuss what to make of Felix Gall's impressive to finish second, and what it means for the future of the GC battle of this race as we head into the second week. They also take time to look back on the first nine stages, assess who outperformed or underperformed expectations, and consider what to expect in Tuesday's Stage 10 time trial. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team Upwork: Visit https://Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is https://Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code THEMOVE at https://www.oneskin.co/THEMOVE  #oneskinpod Lagoon: Use code MOVE for 15% off at https://LagoonSleep.com/THEMOVE NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/THEMOVE Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee DripDrop: Right now, DripDrop is offering podcast listeners 20% off your first order. Go to https://dripdrop.com and use promo code themove.  

Grab your favorite beverage for a special, highly opinionated "just us girls" episode of the podcast, featuring Joel Cheesman and Maureen “Moe” Clough taking the mic without the rest of the usual crew. This week, the duo delivers a light-hearted yet deeply substantive look into the massive worker backlash against artificial intelligence and the brutal realities of today's hiring market. The hosts kick things off with quick hits covering a disastrous, heavily booed commencement speech at the University of Central Florida and a surprising take on the narrative depth of The Devil Wears Prada 2. From there, the conversation tackles major industry shifts as massive job platforms like Upwork and ZipRecruiter face severe financial softening, sparking a debate on whether automation is permanently consuming traditional contractor roles. The gloves come off as they dissect a bold claim from Andreessen Horowitz labeling legacy HR software giants like Workday a "cartel," while analyzing how defensive tech acquisitions—such as Ashby buying Talent Llama—signal a broader software-as-a-service apocalypse. Moe offers her expertise on age discrimination, discussing a lawsuit against Bloomberg Industry Group. The discussion moves to the backlash against automated hiring tools and LinkedIn's new paid consultation feature. Finally, there is a disagreement over Google's new Gemini-powered smart glasses. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts 01:35 - Current Events and AI's Impact 05:30 - AI and the Youth Perspective 10:01 - Data Centers and Community Impact16:31Industry News: Upwork, ZipRecruiter, and Workday 19:59 - The Future of Work and AI's Role 22:00 - The SaaS Cartel and Its Challenges 25:02 - Age Discrimination in the Workplace 34:56 - AI's Role in Hiring and Recruitment 42:21 - The Rapid Evolution of AI in Hiring 45:04 - LinkedIn's New Monetization Features 52:51 - The Controversy of Smart Glasses 01:03:01 - The Inevitable Rise of Smart Technology

Are you in a codependent relationship? If so you're probably feeling anxious, frustrated, and exhausted from trying to create positive change in your relationship single-handedly. (Or feeling like you're never quite good enough to meet the standards of your partner). Not fun for anyone! On today's episode, we're taking a deep dive into codependent relationships. Listen, and learn: - What codependent relationships are - Why they happen - The stages of codependency recovery - How you can get un-fused from each other so that you can both grow and flourish. ⁠How to stop being codependent:⁠ All for you! xoxo,  ⁠ Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby⁠ ⁠GrowingSelf.com Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. Quince — Quality products you'll actually use that feel like luxury without the price tag. Get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/lhs. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Why Smart Parents Are Cashing In While Job Seekers Desperately Pay Premium  Episode Overview The resume optimization industry promised $1M+ opportunities, but AI just killed that game. In this episode, we expose how "resume gurus" made money off parents chasing side hustles—and why your daily hustle should ignore their playbook entirely. Learn what actually converts, why the industry's dirty secret is automation, and how smart entrepreneurs pivot before it's too late The resume writing industry is worth $2.5 BILLION in 2025, and most freelancers are still doing it the slow, outdated way. In this video, you'll discover exactly how to use AI to create professional, interview-winning resumes and cover letters in under five minutes, turning a simple skill into real income this week. With 12.4 million Americans actively job hunting every single month and interview rates collapsing to just 3%, the demand for standout resumes has never been higher, or more profitable. This is your step-by-step freelance guide to cashing in on one of the fastest-growing service industries online. Whether you're a complete beginner or an experienced freelancer looking to scale, this AI-powered resume writing strategy lets you deliver premium results at a fraction of the time it takes traditional resume writers. Learn how to position your services, attract paying clients, and tap into a market projected to hit $3.42 billion by 2029. With hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applicants competing for every single job posting, people are desperate for an edge and willing to pay top dollar for it. Watch this video and start building your AI resume writing business today. https://DarkHorseEntrepreneur.com Key Time Stamps 00:00 Opening 01:15 Episode Overview 02:45 Market Reality Story 05:45 Step-by-Step AI Workflow 09:10 ATS Optimization Truth 11:40 Pricing & Platform Strategy 16:05 Premium Services & Ethics 19:25 Why This Matters 21:15 Whiskered Wisdom & Action Steps   The AI Advantage Top Tool: Claude by Anthropic 200,000 token context window Paste entire resume + job description in single prompt Creates human-sounding, professional content 5-minute workflow vs. 45-minute traditional method Backup Tools: ChatGPT for iteration and brainstorming Rezi (4M+ users, Forbes recognized) Teal for keyword gap tracking Kickresume ($8-10/month premium features) Canva for visual templates Step-by-Step Workflow Client Intake: Google Forms collecting resume, target job, achievements AI Processing: Claude prompt for alignment, keywords, quantification Human Touch: Inject authentic voice, verify facts, add punchy details ATS Optimization: Clean formatting, logical structure (not fear-mongering) Complete Package: Resume + cover letter + multiple formats + summary Pricing Strategy Entry Level: $30-75 per resume Mid-Level: $100-169 per resume Executive: $200-300 per resume Premium Services: Up to $2,500 Platform Economics: Fiverr: 20% commission, good for beginners Upwork: 10% commission, higher-ticket clients Direct clients: No fees, highest earnings Premium Service Add-ons Job-specific tailoring: 50% more interview invitations LinkedIn optimization: Additional $50-100 per client Multiple job targeting: Premium pricing for 3-5 customized versions 3-Month Scaling Timeline Week 1: Set up tools and practice Month 1: Complete first 10 orders, build reviews Month 3: Raise prices, add upsells, build direct pipeline Key Takeaways No HR experience or certifications required Family-friendly schedule (evenings, nap times) Technological advantage while it lasts Helping desperate job seekers while building freedom 64% of professionals prefer professional resume services Tools Mentioned Claude AI (primary) Google Forms (intake) Jobscan (quality control) Fiverr & Upwork (platforms) Action Steps Sign up for Claude AI Create Fiverr or Upwork account Build intake form Practice workflow with friends/family Complete first 10 paid orders Resources AI Escape Plan Newsletter: DarkHorseInsider.com Full episode strategy and implementation guide  

The future of AI isn't a smarter chatbot. It's a model that watches your screen, listens to the room, and acts on what it sees. We dug into Thinking Machines' new interaction model, what it means for compute, and the layoff wave that's already here.This week's roundtable: Anastasios Angelopoulos (CEO of Arena, formerly LMArena), Nick Harris (CEO of Lightmatter, photonic computing chips), and Philip Johnston (CEO of StarCloud, building megawatt data centers in space).Thank you to our exclusive sponsor:PayPal Open, One Platform for All Business: http://paypalopen.com/Timestamps:0:00 Cold open1:21 Welcome to Episode 132:51 Is China closing the AI gap? Arena's data5:16 Lightmatter and the photonic interconnect bottleneck9:42 StarCloud 2, Nvidia Space Ruben 1, and orbital data centers17:24 Thinking Machines' interaction model: what's actually new28:22 Whisper Flow and the 3-pedal desk setup33:48 Real-time desktop and camera awareness as the real unlock40:25 Why this 100x's compute demand42:43 The polarization of compute and $10M personal data centers49:25 The layoff wave: Cloudflare, PayPal, Coinbase, Upwork54:48 The 10x gap between AI-first and non-AI-first employees59:52 Unlimited agency and the abundance future1:00:46 Anthropic's Project Luna runs a retail store1:03:45 Decoupling labor from value creation1:05:03 P(doom) round

Most people think hospitality is just about service. Will Guidara believes it's about making people feel seen. In this conversation, Will and I talk about what it really means to care for people well—whether you're leading a team, managing a business, sitting across from someone you love, or just trying to become a better communicator. From turning Eleven Madison Park into the #1 restaurant in the world to helping create the hit show, The Bear, Will shares the mindset that changed everything for him: the smallest moments often leave the biggest impact. We talk about thoughtful criticism, leading with grace, creating team culture, and why the best communicators listen for what people aren't saying. Buy Will's book, Unreasonable Hospitality and the field guide we dug into in today's episode - https://www.unreasonablehospitality.com/books  Leave me a voicemail to be featured on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/ask-jefferson  Join me on Supercast for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and AMAs: https://jefferson.supercast.com/ Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Thank you to our sponsors: Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 20% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. Our Place. Visit https://fromourplace.com/JEFFERSON and use code JEFFERSON for 10% off sitewide. Upwork. Visit https://Upwork.com right now to post your job for free and connect with expert freelancers who can help you grow faster without adding full-time overhead. BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Order my book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don't forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show!  Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter.  Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube  Follow me on Instagram  Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

China's teapot refiners are bleeding, Intel is going vertical on reshoring headlines, and AI benchmark scores are leaving the charts as Trump meets with Xi this week. Three vertical charts tell the story of US leverage across energy, chips, and capital markets, why the AGI buildout is driving industrial policy, and what it means for a labor market already showing cracks. No matter which scenario plays out, the path keeps leading back to the asset with no supply response.

“We talk all the time, but I still feel alone in my marriage.” If that sentence has ever crossed your mind on a Tuesday night, mid-load of dishes, with your partner three feet away, you are not imagining it. And you are not the only one. In this episode, I sit down with Debra Fileta, the licensed therapist who has spent more than twenty years in clinical practice helping couples figure out exactly this. Debra is the author of nine books and the host of the nationally syndicated podcast Talk To Me, and her newest book, People Skills, is built around an idea that I think is going to be a relief for a lot of you. Most relationship pain is not a love problem. It is a skill problem. And skills can be built. In This Episode The three levels of communication, and why almost every couple stalls at level two without realizing it Why “we talk all the time” is not the same thing as feeling close, even after twenty years of marriage The thirty-minute weekly ritual Debra and her husband John have used for fifteen years to keep their marriage from drifting Why being “nice” is not the same as having strong people skills, and the people-pleasing trap that masquerades as kindness How to tell the difference between a one-time conflict and a relationship pattern that is pointing at something deeper The volume-dial reframe for couples where one partner feels everything at a 7 and the other at a 3 The empathy practice that takes thirty seconds and changes the way you see almost everyone in your life Why “I keep attracting the wrong people” is the wrong question, and the better one Debra asks instead Why This Matters This episode is for anyone who has caught themselves thinking, something has shifted between us and I cannot put my finger on what. For the partner who feels like they are always the one initiating real conversation. For the couple who used to talk for hours and now mostly talks about logistics. For anyone who has wondered if needing more depth in their marriage is asking too much. It is not. And the way back is more learnable than you might think. Episode Breakdown 02:30 It is Not a Lack of Love, It is a Lack of Skill 06:30 Patterns vs. Pain Points (How to Tell If You Are the Common Denominator) 10:30 Why You Keep Attracting the Wrong People (And How to Change Your “Magnet”) 14:00 The Three Levels of Communication: Why Most Couples Never Get Past Level Two 17:30 Duck Floaty or Scuba Diver? The Sunday Night Check-In That Saved a Marriage 23:00 When One of You Feels Everything at a 7 and the Other at a 3 29:30 The Yalom Story: How to Actually Look Out Your Partner's Window 33:00 Trauma Does Not Excuse Us, But It Does Explain Us Resources Free Communication Training (two-part video plus workbook) Work with a couples counselor or relationship coach on my team If something in this conversation lands somewhere specific for you, that is the signal to do something with it. Start with the free communication training at growingself.com/communication. It is two short videos and a workbook, and you can do it this weekend. And if you want to go a little deeper, we do free first conversations at growingself.com. No pressure, no commitment, just a real conversation about what is actually going on in your relationship and whether what we do here might be a fit. I will see you back on the podcast soon. xo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. Quince — Quality products you'll actually use that feel like luxury without the price tag. Get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/lhs. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Most founders think they're ahead of the curve because they're using AI. But if you're only using it for basic ad copy and product descriptions and wondering why it sounds like everything else on the internet — you're not using AI. You're scratching the surface of it. Here's the problem: the advantage was never just having access to the tools. It's knowing how to direct them at scale. And right now, the brands pulling ahead aren't adding more headcount — they're finding one person who can build autonomous agents across the entire business. In this episode, I share why I think the AI operator might be the most important hire an e-commerce brand can make right now, what I'm seeing inside Foundr and our members' businesses, and exactly where to start if you want to bring this into your operation today. Here's what you'll take away: Why using AI for basic tasks is actually holding your brand back — and what the next level looks like What an AI operator actually does, and how one person can touch ads, email, design, customer support, and data analysis simultaneously The difference between using AI tools and building AI systems — and why that gap is where brands are winning or losing How to find an AI operator today using Upwork, even if you've never hired for this kind of role before Why the businesses that win won't just be the ones using AI — they'll be the ones with autonomous agents owning outcomes If you're still thinking about AI as a content shortcut rather than a business multiplier, this episode will completely reframe how you approach your next hire — and what's actually possible with the right person directing it. If you're loving this solo series, I'd love to hear your feedback. Email me directly at nathan@foundr.com — I read every reply. Hope you enjoy it. WANT TO GROW YOUR BRAND WITH META ADS? Join the Foundr Operators Waitlist → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foundr.com/operators⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+ Start your $1 trial → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING? → Starting from scratch? Apply here → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-start-application⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ → Already have a store? Apply here → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-growth-application⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN Instagram → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES YouTube → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Website → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.foundr.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/foundr/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/foundr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/foundr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Podcast → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.foundr.com/podcast⁠

Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer and David Faber led off the show with market reaction to the better-than-expected April jobs report, plus where AI fits into the labor picture.  The anchors also discussed layoffs at Cloudflare, Upwork and BILL.com — the companies' announcements came within a 24-hour period. CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator joined the program at Post 9 to talk about the company's AI strategy, as well as the guidance that sent the stock lower. Another record setting day for the Nasdaq, with Nvidia and Apple hitting all-time highs. Also in focus: Anthropic's push toward a $1 trillion valuation, earnings winners and losers including Airbnb and Coinbase, U.S.-Iran deal watch.   Squawk on the Street Disclaimer Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Whether you believe Ouija boards are just a silly game or an actual device for communicating with the dead, it's undeniable that many experiences with them produce amazing stories. Tonight we're exploring our favorite Ouija stories from Sn. 1 to Sn. 13. Keep it spooky and enjoy!Season 20 Episode 56 of Monsters Among Us Podcast, true paranormal stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and more, told by the witnesses themselves.SHOW NOTES: Support the show! Get ad-free, extended & bonus episodes (and more) on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/monstersamonguspodcastTonight's Sponsor - Storyworth - Give Mom a gift that helps her reflect on life and gives your whole family the gift of her stories in a keepsake book. Order now at Storyworth.com/MAU and save up to $20. Mother's Day is this Sunday, don't delay!Tonight's Sponsor - Upwork - Hire high-quality freelance talent today, visit Upwork.com and post your job for free and connect with top talent ready to help your business grow.Tonight's Sponsor - Better Help - Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at BetterHelp.com/MAUMAU Merch Shop - https://www.monstersamonguspodcast.com/shopMAU Discord - https://discord.gg/ybjc9KUagYWatch FREE - Shadows in the Desert: High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle  - https://www.borregotriangle.com/Monsters Among Us Junior on Apple Podcasts  - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monsters-among-us-junior/id1764989478Monsters Among Us Junior on Spotify -https://open.spotify.com/show/1bh5mWa4lDSqeMMX1mYxDZ?si=9ec6f4f74d61498bAntique Ouija board sent to me (from listener Casey D.) Photo 1 - https://bit.ly/4dbnq07Antique Ouija board sent to me (from listener Casey D.) Photo 2 - https://bit.ly/4tiTBR0Music from tonight's episode:Music by Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse - https://www.youtube.com/c/IronCthulhuApocalypseCO.AG Music - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvAMusic By Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - https://www.youtube.com/@WhiteBatAudioWhite Bat Audio Songs:ExhumedForeverFractals

Forty Colombian farmers sat looking at her, completely unimpressed, when the cartel boss in the back of the room opened a case and a drone flew up out of it. In this episode, I sit down with Attia Qureshi, the negotiation teacher who learned her craft running State Department conflict-resolution work in cartel-controlled coca regions of Colombia, and who now teaches at the University of Michigan after a stint at MIT Sloan. Her new book Never Settle, with a foreword by Sheila Heen and endorsements from Daniel Pink, Robert Cialdini, and Chris Voss, hits shelves next week. The thing I love about her work is that she does not treat negotiation as a boardroom sport. She treats it as a daily relationship skill, the kind you practice with your barista so it is already in your hands when something hard comes up at home. In This Episode The four-step sequence Attia used to reset a room of 40 unimpressed farmers and a cartel boss with a drone, and how the same four steps work in your kitchen tonight Why "take out the trash" is the position and not the actual ask, and the one-sentence reframe that changes how you fight about household chores The fifth-grade bullying story that produced the hard shell most of us are still wearing into adulthood The seven-word test that tells you whether you are influencing someone or manipulating them Why the freeze you feel when you try to speak up is physiology, not personality, and what to do about it in real time How to know when you are giving too much to a taker, and the experiment Attia recommends before you decide to cut losses The literal glass of lemonade that turned a hostile next-door neighbor into a friendly one, and the Cialdini-backed science underneath it Why This Matters This episode is for anyone who knows what they want and goes quiet when it is time to ask. For anyone stuck in a loop with a difficult coworker or in-law that has been the same loop for three years. For anyone who has tried the assertive thing once and the people-pleasing thing once and is exhausted by both, and who wants a path that does not require a personality transplant. Episode Breakdown 0:30 How to Get What You Want: Without Fighting or Folding 2:52 Bethany and the Exoskeleton: Where the People-Pleaser-or-Hardener Split Begins 7:18 Why You Freeze When You Try to Ask for What You Want 14:19 A Drone, a Drug Cartel, and How to Negotiate Without Being Aggressive 28:39 Self-Negotiation: Emotional Regulation Before the Conversation Starts 33:22 Positions vs Interests: What You Are Really Asking For 36:01 The Lemonade Story: Reciprocity, Reset, and the Long Game 46:21 Givers, Takers, Matchers, and the Difference Between Influence and Manipulation Resources Free Communication Training (workbook plus two-part video) Schedule a free consultation with our team Relationship coaching at Growing Self If something in this conversation landed somewhere specific for you, the most generous thing you can do is share it with the friend who came to mind while you were listening. And if you are ready to stop having this same conversation in your head and start having a different one out loud, my free Communication Training is at growingself.com/communication. It is the workbook and video series I built for exactly the kind of conversation Attia and I were just having. xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors of the podcast Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA — Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order. Quince — Quality products you'll actually use that feel like luxury without the price tag. Get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/lhs. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ProlonLife.com/LHS for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller and Sam Stein (filling in for JVL) discuss the Trump administration's assertion that the effort to protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz is "separate and distinct" from the larger war effort in Iran. Plus, they get into the drama over Ken Martin's time as DNC chair, the effect the Supreme Court's recent voting rights ruling might have on the midterms, the wisdom of Senate Republicans allocating $1 billion for the ballroom Trump promised would be completed without public money and how the Senate battleground his shaping up for Democrats this fall. Bonus: Tim coins a new term for presidents hitting historically bad polling numbers.Visit https://Upwork.com/THENEXTLEVEL right now and post your job for free.Head to https://Greenchef.com/50nextlevel and use code 50nextlevel to get 50% off your first month, then 20% off for two months.Read "The YOLO Presidency" by Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/donald-trump-legacy-history/686817/Tickets for our Bulwark Live shows in San Diego on 5/20 and in LA on 5/21:https://www.thebulwark.com/p/bulwark-events

Scientists gave people Tylenol before a social rejection. It worked. Your nervous system treats being left out the same way it treats a broken bone. That is why telling yourself to just get over it has never, ever worked. And it is why this conversation with negotiation expert Kwame Christian is going to change how you see your own fear of conflict. If you're non confrontational by nature, or you've spent years being a people pleaser to keep things smooth, what Kwame explains in this episode is going to feel like the first time someone has accurately described what is actually happening inside you. The fear is not weakness. It is biology. And there is a way through it. In this episode, I sit down with Kwame Christian, CEO of the American Negotiation Institute and host of Negotiate Anything. His framework, Compassionate Curiosity, is built entirely on empathy, genuine curiosity, and a clear sense of what you actually value. We did a live roleplay about household labor and invisible work, and I want to be honest with you: I felt the shift in real time. The resistance just left. That is what this approach does. In This Episode The neuroscience behind conflict avoidance, including why social rejection activates the same neural pathways as physical pain Kwame's origin story as a people pleaser and exactly how he treated his fear of conflict like a phobia to overcome it The difference between being liked and being respected, and why only one of them gets you where you want to go A complete reframe of what negotiation actually is, and why the goal is never to win but to discover what is possible The Compassionate Curiosity framework step by step, including the pre-conversation internal work that makes you harder to rattle The Situation/Impact/Invitation opener that dissolves defensiveness before the hard conversation even begins A live roleplay on the invisible work conversation with a real-time demonstration of the shift that happens when you stop fighting What confidence in conflict actually looks like when it is not swagger Why This Matters This episode is for anyone who has ever bitten their tongue in a conversation that needed to happen. For anyone who has let something slide one too many times and felt a piece of themselves go with it. And for anyone who suspects that the life they want is on the other side of a conversation they have been too afraid to have. The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. This episode will help you get there. Episode Breakdown 03:01 Why Difficult Conversations Feel Like a Threat (Not a Choice) 05:56 Kwame's Origin Story — From People Pleaser to Negotiation Expert 10:16 The Difference Between Being Liked and Being Respected 16:36 Every Difficult Conversation Is a Relationship Test 26:01 How to Stop Caring If People Are Mad at You 39:21 Negotiation Isn't What You Think It Is 51:37 The Compassionate Curiosity Framework — Live Roleplay 01:06:02 What It Actually Means to Be Confident in Conflict Resources Full article: https://www.growingself.com/how-to-have-difficult-conversations/ Free Communication Training (2-part video + workbook): https://www.growingself.com/communication/ Relationship coaching at Growing Self: https://www.growingself.com/relationship-coaching/ If today's conversation stirred something in you, you do not have to work through it alone. My team of coaches and therapists at Growing Self is here. A free consultation, no pressure, just a real conversation about where you are and what might help. Come find us at growingself.com. And if you know someone who avoids conflict to keep the peace, please share this one. I bet you already have someone in mind. With love, xo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Special thanks to this month's sponsors: Upwork — When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at ⁠upwork.com⁠ — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit ⁠shopify.com/lhs⁠ to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts. OSEA - Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at ⁠oseamalibu.com⁠ for 10% off your first order Quince — Quality products you'll actually use that feel like luxury without the price tag. Get free shipping and 365-day returns at ⁠quince.com/lhs⁠. LNutra Prolon — A science-backed, plant-based nutrition program that supports fat loss, metabolism, cellular rejuvenation, and overall longevity. Head to ⁠ProlonLife.com/LHS⁠ for 15% off your first order + a bonus gift.

How is the German market different to English speaking markets, and why might it be worth looking into translation? What are the best ways to translate, self-publish and market your books in German? With Skye MacKinnon. In the intro, thoughts on feeling empty after a book, and the benefits of SubStack for authors [Stark Reflections; Wish I'd Known Then]; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars 16 and 23 May. This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Skye MacKinnon is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of over 70 books across romance and children's books under multiple pen names, most of which are also available in German, which is her bestselling market. Her latest book for authors is Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why the German-speaking market is much bigger than just Germany, and which genres sell best there Title protection laws, the Impressum, and translator copyright How to find and vet human translators, and what a quality translation actually costs The current state of AI translation for fiction, and why quality assurance passes are essential Distribution decisions: the Tolino Alliance, Skoobe, libraries, and why IngramSpark doesn't work in Germany Marketing in German: BookDeals, LovelyBooks, ads, BookTok, and why pre-orders matter even more You can find Skye SkyeMacKinnon.com and her children's books at IslaWynter.com. Transcript of the interview with Skye MacKinnon Jo: Skye MacKinnon is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of over 70 books across romance and children's books under multiple pen names, most of which are also available in German, which is her bestselling market. Her latest book for authors is Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books. Welcome, Skye. Skye: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Jo: This is such an interesting topic. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Skye: I've always loved writing, but I was always told, “Well, you can't be an author. Get a proper job.” So I became a journalist and did that for a few years, but there was always that love of creative writing. At some point when I was getting more active on social media, I was following some other indie authors and realised they're just like me. They're not special people. I had always pictured authors as these mythical beings high up above the rest of us. That gave me the courage to put out my own book. I self-published from the start, never even looked into trad publishing, and that was in 2017. I was really lucky because my first series totally hit it off. I was able to quit my job a year later and I have been a full-time author ever since. I started with romance and then, by accident, got into children's books. Which has been great fun. I don't even have children myself, but it's just that palette cleanser in between. Writing about cute animals and unicorns and just bringing some fun into everything. Nowadays I have about five or six pen names, depending on how you count, across genres, although most of it is romance, and that's my bread and butter really. Jo: Yes, I'm certainly one of those people who wish I could write romance. It always just seems to be the most profitable market in any language, I guess. Let's get into the book. It's a fantastic book. I've been through it myself. It's really packed full of everything you need, so we can't cover everything. Let's start by considering the German language in general. Why is German a good language market to consider expanding into? And for anyone who might not realise, why is it more than Germany? Skye: Well, Germans love to read, and depending on the statistic that you look at, they're generally seen as the third largest book market in the world after English and Mandarin Chinese. So it's a huge market, even though you think of Germany as a small little country in Europe. As you said, it's much more than Germany. Yes, you've got about 83 million people in Germany, but then you've also got Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, parts of Belgium, Luxembourg, and even Italy. So if you look at the whole footprint on the map, it is much bigger than just the one country. A lot of young people there still read and go to bookshops. There's a huge bookshop culture. You will find, if you go to a high street there, way more bookshops than you do here in the UK, for example. There's demand for quality and for really gorgeous books. They have been way ahead of the curve when it comes to special editions and sprayed edges, and they also like translations. I found one statistic where about two thirds of all newly released titles in German are actual translations. Readers are used to translations, but until a few years ago it was all trad-published translations. So this transition is coming now. It's coming very, very fast, especially with AI. They generally are very open to translations as long as the quality is there. Jo: So what about specific genres then? Obviously we mentioned romance there, and romance is not just one genre anymore. Whatever they're writing— How can somebody tell if it's worth expanding into German? How do we do this? It takes time and effort and money, potentially. Skye: It can take a lot of money, so it is worth doing research. There's one easy way, which is just looking at your current sales and looking at how many books you're selling in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the moment in English. That can give you an indication of which of your books might be already quite popular there. Sometimes it's quite surprising. A lot of my books sell very differently in German than they do in English. I've got one series that did okay in English, and I almost didn't translate it. The German version is, I think, my second bestselling series in German and has completely surprised me. So sometimes it's worth just experimenting a bit. Otherwise, obviously as you said, romance is doing really well. There are a few surprises though. I had a chat with Draft2Digital and they gave me lots of information from their statistics, and they said about 40% of all the western title sales on Draft2Digital are actually in Germany, which is just a huge percentage. Jo: In English? Skye: Across languages. Jo: Mm-hmm. Skye: Germans, to be fair, they love their westerns. My dad in Germany, he has been watching westerns for I don't know how many decades. It is one of those things that is just really popular there. Another thing is anything that is set in other countries and really has the location as almost like a character. There's lots of Cornwall, Scotland, different islands, but also mountains and cities. So if your book is set in, even in New York City, if it has a clear setting—if it's not just that it could be any city—then that's a good one to think about translating. In general, most genres can do well. There's a few where you have to be a bit careful. Second World War books, for example. If you have a book that portrays every single German as a Nazi and as evil, it might not do as well in Germany. So some common sense when it comes to historical books. Otherwise, just look at German retailers, look at what is selling there—and not just Amazon. Places like Thalia, which is part of the Tolino Alliance, and they have about 40% of the market. So it's really important to look at them too, and not just at Amazon. Jo: We'll come back to the distribution in a minute. There are some important differences between the German market and the US/UK market. Obviously we're talking about a different language, but of course there are a few things that are different that some people might not think about. So give us a few of those things that people definitely need to think about. Skye: Okay, so even before you start publishing, you need to be aware that title protection is a thing in Germany. Your book can't have the same title as an already published book. That is a law that is basically there to avoid readers being confused. So if you had five books with the same title, readers might not realise which book is by which author. You have to do your research and check if anyone else is using your title. There are some exceptions—if it's a completely different category, so if there's a children's book with that title but you write spicy romance, then the chance that the reader gets confused is much lower. Quite often you can then contact either the author or the publisher and ask, “Can I get written permission to use that title?” I did that for one of my series and it was totally fine. Just be sure to get it in writing, because if your book suddenly becomes a huge bestseller, they might reconsider. So title protection is an important one. You need to research that before you publish. One thing that people sometimes get confused about is reusing their English title. That's totally fine because it's your own title. So if your English title hasn't been used and you want to keep that same title, that works. It's just about other people's books where you can't use those titles. Another important legal bit is the Impressum. It's the copyright page. To be fair, websites that are targeting German readers or a German audience have to have that Impressum. It's usually on page two of the book, and it has things like your legal name, your address, and then the usual things like the translator's name, cover design, and other things you would usually put on a copyright page. The problem is that technically you need to put your legal name in there unless you have a limited company, in which case you can also put the business name there, and your address. A lot of people obviously don't want to do that for privacy reasons, especially romance authors where it's sometimes a bit sketchy when it comes to some readers who get a bit too obsessed. There are services where you can pay a monthly or yearly fee and then use their address. It's a bit of a legal grey zone, but a lot of German authors are doing it because—especially as indie authors—we don't always want to put our legal address out there. Jo: Just for people listening, I use my accountant's address. That's quite common. I mean, you have to share your address on your email for anti-spam laws and all that kind of thing. As you say, there are ways to use other addresses. That just needs to happen. What else then do we need to think about? Skye: There are things about the translator. A lot of things that people are sometimes scared about is when they hear that there is a copyright issue with translators and they think, “Oh, my translator has the copyright. I can't do anything.” Actually, the translator is seen as an author—almost like a co-author of the translation in German law—because, to be fair, it's not just putting one word into another. Translation is quite a creative job, especially when it's fiction. It is a very creative job where the translator has to put a lot of their own creativity into it. So in German law, they're recognised as the creator of that translation and therefore have certain rights. But you as the author, as soon as you have a contract with your translator—which is why you always, always, always have to have a contract—you get the usage rights. This means it's exactly the same as with your English books. You can do with them what you want. You can get audiobooks, you can do print books, you can do whatever you want in different formats. It just needs to be clear in a contract that the translator is giving you the usage rights of that translation. That's something that people sometimes find a bit scary, but actually it's really simple. Translations have been done for so long. It's a normal thing. It's just called slightly different. It has to be set out in a contract. Jo: Just on that, that's when the translator themselves is in Germany, because if they are based somewhere else, still doing a German translation, that's not necessary. So that's something else for people to consider. Skye: Yes, definitely. To be fair— I would always try to get a translator based in the country. I mean, I'm a native German speaker, but I've been in Scotland for so long now that I am not confident enough to translate my own books anymore because I'm not surrounded by German 24/7 and my grammar is slightly off and I don't have that up-to-date, modern lingo. So if it's a translator who's only just moved somewhere else or a few years, that's fine. But if it's someone who's been in the US or UK or somewhere else for 20 years, I would be a bit more hesitant. That's just a personal perspective on that. One other thing that's different is Sie and du. There are two different kinds of “you” when you talk to someone. There's the formal Sie, which you use basically amongst adults, in business contexts. But even my German grandma—she had a friend and they used the formal Sie for about 10 years as friends because in German etiquette, the older person has to offer the younger person the informal du, and they never did that for some reason. We found it hilarious as kids that they were still using the formal Sie as really good friends. So there's an entire culture there that people who haven't been to Germany or haven't lived there for a while just find a bit difficult, because there are so many different unwritten rules about when you use Sie and when you use the informal du. It's weakened a bit over the years and nowadays even strangers would sometimes use the informal du depending on the context. It really depends. A good translator will usually handle that themselves. They will find a scene where, for example, especially in romance, you meet as strangers in the beginning, so you use the formal Sie, and then at some point that formality turns to informality. The translator will usually choose that moment and add a little extra scene or a sentence where they either offer it to each other or they just naturally switch into it. But then there might be an internal little monologue of, “Oh, he just used the informal du—I guess we're at that stage,” or, “I really appreciate that.” Just to make it more natural, because that's something I quite often see with AI translation where that doesn't happen, and readers get confused. Why did they just switch from Sie to du without any kind of acknowledgement of that? Jo: This is the same in Spanish and other languages, I imagine. Skye: Yes, French as well. Italian too, I think. A lot of European languages have this. Jo: I think that's something that English speakers just don't get. It is a really interesting moment. I guess that might not happen so much in other genres—that really is a thing in romance. I was just thinking about some of my thrillers. They may never have time to get to du. Skye: But then sometimes using du can also be a rude thing. So if you have an antagonist who really doesn't like your protagonist, they might just use du as a rude sort of address. Again, that's something that English speakers just wouldn't understand or even think of because we just have the one “you.” Jo: We just have the one. Jo: It's the tone. Of course, it's the tone. Skye: Exactly, yes. Jo: Okay, well let's get into the actual translation of the books themselves. Over the years I've worked with lots of humans. I've also licensed my rights. I've used different AI tools. I mean, there are tons, but as we record this— What are the options that are available for translations? Give us some tips on working with humans and finding humans. Because it can be super pricey. And of course most of us will never know about the quality until we publish it. Skye: Oh, yes, definitely a note on that. I found that quite often you will already have German people on your newsletter list or on your social media, and most of them will be super happy to give you some feedback on your translation. That's something I've used a lot. Not for German, because I speak the language, but when I did French and Italian translations. My French is—well, it used to be quite okay. It is passable at best now. So I would never feel confident enough to rate a translation. So I asked my newsletter list, “Are there any French people here who would be happy to read the book? I'll send you a free copy at the end, and some swag.” There were a surprising number of people who got back to me. The same applies to German and other languages, because if you don't speak the language, you sometimes lack the confidence of knowing if this is any good. Getting some reader feedback is super helpful. For finding human translators, the easiest of course is word of mouth, and I'm a big fan of that because you get instant feedback on whether someone is good or not and whether it's easy to work with them. Then there are freelancer platforms. Reedsy is one where everyone is vetted, so that's pretty good. But there are tons of other ones like Upwork and Fiverr, though there you have to do all the vetting yourself, so that takes a lot more time and effort. There are also more and more agencies—translator agencies who specialise in doing indie book translations. There's Literary Queens, there's Valentine Translations, there are tons of them. Then there's also, which I think a lot of authors ignore or don't know about, translation databases. There are two databases for German translators, for example, where you can search and you can usually narrow it down to whether you want literary translators, what kind of fiction or nonfiction you want. An important thing is that a literary translator is very different from a standard translator who translates birth certificates or formal documents. You want someone who has experience with fiction if you write fiction. Someone who knows about adding drama through language. Sometimes, for example, when you have an action scene, you might have shorter sentences. If you have someone who doesn't know about stuff like that, they might just think, “Oh, in German it sounds really nice to have this really long sentence.” Those little nuances are where having an experienced literary translator is a big bonus. There are some platforms that do royalty-split translations that have been quite popular in the past. Most of them I wouldn't really recommend because you just don't get those professional translators there. You usually get people who speak the language but don't really have much experience. So you might end up with a pretty bad translation, or people might just be using AI translations without telling you. If you use a human translator, always, always get a sample, because yes, they might have amazing credentials, but until they've actually translated one of your books or a scene from your book, you don't really know how good they are. I like to always use, if I write romance, a slightly sexy scene, because sex seems to show you if someone can translate or not. It's just what I've found, because if it sounds absolutely awkward or more like mechanical rather than an emotional, spicy thing, then that's a clear point for me to say, “No, thank you. I'll look for someone else.” Action scenes, sexy scenes, really emotional ones, dialogue that has a bit of colloquial language or humour—those are good scenes to choose as a sample because that really shows you if a translator can do their job or not. Then, again, have some German people from your list give you feedback on that. Also, if you work with human translators, always try to make sure that they will be available for your entire series. And not even just a series—if you have lots of books, try to grab that translator, lock them in your basement, and never let them go, because you want their style for all your books. Just like you have a style as an author, translators have a style and that will always shine through, as much as they try to be as close to your original. A bit of their style will always come through. It helps to have the same translator for at least the same series, preferably for as many of your books as possible. You really want to tell them in the beginning, “This series has nine books. I want you to do all of these, even if we only do a few of them at the beginning. Are you available to do the rest later?” Because you don't want to end up having to find a new translator in the middle of the series. That gives you a whole lot of extra work with trying to have a world bible that explains which words get translated and which get left as the original, and stuff like that. When it comes to non-human translation, it's very different because of course you don't need to do all that vetting. Tools have different capabilities and abilities, but in the end, if you put your book into a translation tool, you will always get a slightly different output. So it's not quite the same where you need an entire vetting process. Jo: Just on the human translation, I think I'd be right in saying that every single author in the world would love to have the best human translator translating their book, whatever genre it is. That would just be amazing for all of us. But let's face it, that's extremely expensive. So if I've got, let's say, a 70,000-word thriller, how much money are we talking about? An approximate number, so people know what that might be. Skye: Usually it goes by the word, but by the target language word count. Although it depends on the translator, traditional translators usually go by the target language because that's what they actually produce as their output. The average at the moment is anything from about seven to nine euro cents per word as the medium price. You will find cheaper people. You can go up as high as you want really. I have definitely seen translators who charge 15 cents and above per word, but those will usually be the ones who have worked with a lot of trad publishers who are used to being paid like that. Although even in trad publishing, the rates are going down. With more and more authors wanting translations, I think in general rates are going down. Good for us, not so good for the translators. You're definitely looking at thousands, even if you translate novellas. Then it depends—some translators have editing included, sometimes they don't. A lot of them will have arrangements with other translators where they give the translation to another translator for them to edit it. Sometimes that's included in the price, sometimes it's extra. Always make sure it gets edited, because just like when we write a book, it will never be exactly perfect. I say that as someone who writes very clean because I have a journalism background, so I'm used to writing really fast and clean for deadlines, but there will always be a few typos that just wriggle their way in. Typos are evil like that. It's the same with translations. Jo: So we are probably looking at 2,000 to 10,000 pounds, dollars, euros. We are talking about quite a lot, and this is the main reason I think that now, with AI becoming a lot better, people are looking at this. Originally—and I don't even know, probably eight years now since I did my first, might even be a decade or more—I did at some point do a version in DeepL, which was an early AI translation tool. This was nonfiction, and then paid an editor, a German editor, to then edit that in German. Those books still get good reviews. But now people are looking at options like GlobeScribe and ScribeShadow, or even just using Claude or ChatGPT. I'm actually working at the moment on a Claude Code pipeline through lots of different QA passes. That's been really interesting for me, because I can say, “Okay, now you are a reader who likes these kinds of books. Read it for that.” And because we can now put really big books in, I can actually get a lot of really interesting feedback. So I feel like there's a lot of potential with AI—potential for good stuff, potential for bad stuff too. So talk a bit about that and what to watch out for with AI. Skye: Okay, so I'm very much pro-AI and I use AI in lots of different things in my business, just to preface that. However, with translations, I'm still a bit wary, just because I have seen a lot of bad AI translations. To be fair, I've experimented with it myself for one of my other pen names. It was readable. It was definitely readable. It had sometimes beautiful, gorgeous prose. Really. But there were, occasionally—quite often even—bits where I stumbled as a native speaker. It's readable and, if I just need a little quick book in between, I would be mostly happy with that. I would read it. It's the same as some of the early KU days where you found a lot of bad quality writing, but you just wanted to read it because the story was pretty good or because you were reading it in KU and so it didn't really matter that much. There is that spectrum of quality where you have the, “Yes, it's good enough to read,” but, “Is it good enough to be up to your standards?” That's a decision that everyone has to make for themselves. If they want the same quality that they put into their English book, or if they're fine with just offering that book to a new audience because maybe you wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. I totally see that. Translation is so expensive. I don't even know how much I have spent on translations over the past few years. I'm lucky that most of my books make it back within the first weeks or months. I've never had a book that didn't make its money back, but I have heard a lot of people where that's not the case. It is a lot of investment and I would never tell someone to go into debt or anything to do translations. Do it when you're at a time where you can afford it, or where you can also afford the loss if it doesn't work out. Now, AI has changed that slightly because it now opens it up to almost anyone. Some of the AI translation tools are a few hundred pounds, but if you do it in Claude or ChatGPT or something where you already have a subscription, it can actually be quite cheap. You can do it for a few dollars or pounds. I love, by the way, having someone in the UK. I'm so used to automatically saying everything in dollars, but actually I should be using pounds. I think if you know what you're doing—and you clearly do, with your several passes, you know what you're doing with AI—but if someone just puts their book into Claude or ChatGPT or some random tool, it might just not be good enough. Jo: Let's say it won't be good enough if you just do that. We know that. You have to have QA passes—quality assurance. You have to have rules per genre. There are ways of doing it. It's kind of like you have to get to know how translation works. It's a process. It's not just a translation, like you put something in Google Translate or a menu or something, because we do care. I think that's really important. Skye: Yes. I think if you don't know how AI works—that you need detailed prompts, that you need a style guide, that you need all that extra material and not just your book, all those rules—then please don't do it. If you value your German readers—and I think sometimes when I see people just churn out those translations without doing any quality control, using exactly the same cover or even just putting a German flag on it or something—I really feel bad for German readers because they're not being valued as having the same sort of value to us as authors as our English-speaking readers. Maybe I'm a bit biased there because I read in multiple languages. I want to be able to get the same sort of quality in all languages. I want the author to think of me as being special because I'm their reader and I'm their customer. I think we are on the way where AI translation can be almost autonomous. I would personally always have a human look over it. I know what I'm doing, and I'm almost happy with my translation system that I've built now in AI, but it still needs that human touch for a few things. It still needs me to tell the AI, for example, “This is where we switch from Sie to du.” This is where I need to keep certain words in. For example, I write a lot of Scottish books, and so words like “glen” or “loch”—they are words I want to stay the same in my German translation. I don't want to translate it to the German equivalent of “lake” because that just misses that Scottish context. Things like that need instruction. A human translator will usually know that and chat to you about which words you want to keep and which ones you want translated. AI just needs our guidance, our helping hand, and if we don't know enough about the target language, we just miss knowing that. Now, a lot of tools do it all for you basically, and they set up all these rules. I think many of them are at a very advanced stage now. But AI isn't perfect and it likes to hallucinate, it likes to add random things. So I will always still have a human touch at the end, even if it's just a quick edit. A lot of people think that they just need a proofread after an AI translation, but AI doesn't really make typos—or not to an extent that humans do. So proofreading isn't really what's needed for an AI translation. It is actual editing where you go for the style, the phrasing, and sometimes the context. There's one example I always like to give. I have an alien romance where they go on a honeymoon, and because he's an alien and she's human, he misunderstands and thinks she wants to go to an actual moon. So it's a little pun in the book. It doesn't work in German at all because the word “honeymoon” has nothing to do with moons or planets in German. An AI would probably just try to translate that in a way that's quite close to the original. But my German translator, she had to come up with several different ways of fixing that issue, because humour is hard. It's hard even for humans to get the humour translated in a way that is still funny but also culturally appropriate. If you have a book that is full of puns, it gets harder with AI. I am not saying it's impossible, but it needs a lot of handholding. Jo: Yes, I think humour is hard to translate in general, isn't it? Let's move on to the distribution, because again, having done quite a lot of different languages over the years, I do use Amazon KU for my books in German and Italian and Spanish and some French. So I haven't gone wide in terms of ebook and print or audio, in fact, because I have a lot of books and it is hard to go wide in English, let alone in other languages. But you mentioned earlier that Thalia has 40% of the market or something, and that special editions and print books are important. So what are the decisions we have to make around the actual publishing? Skye: In Germany they did a really cool thing, and I wish they'd done that in other countries. When the bookshops saw that Amazon was growing and posing a threat to them—not just with print books but also with ebooks—a lot of the German bookstores got together and they formed the Tolino Alliance. They have big book chains like Thalia, but also I think it was over 1,500 indie bookshops that all got together. They all support this ecosystem for ebooks, which means they all share the same e-readers. They share the same sort of backend for the shops, which made it really easy for them because they didn't all have to develop an ebook system. It saved them a lot of money. It made it really easy to tell readers, “This is the Tolino system. You can get your books at our bookshops, but you can read them on your Tolino e-reader no matter where you get the books from.” The Tolino e-readers are actually the same as Kobo e-readers, just rebranded. They've got that big advantage there—these independent bookshops and book chains all got together. Now it's hard to find numbers because Amazon doesn't really like to share their numbers, but it's about 40% of the German ebook market, which means it rivals Amazon. They have about the same. Then the rest is split by Apple Books, Google Play, and some of the smaller players. So it is a huge chunk of the market. I'm wide with pretty much all my English books. So for me, I looked into KU, but when I saw that I was going to miss out on 60% of the market—even if Amazon has 45%, that's still a big chunk—I decided to go wide. To be fair, I haven't regretted it, because Tolino are amazing to work with. I like to compare them to Kobo because they have a really lovely human team where you can just email them and tell them, “I've got a new release coming up,” and they will put you into different promos and it's all free. Jo: Do you publish direct to Tolino, or do you use Draft2Digital? Skye: Yes, you can publish direct to Tolino and that's actually the best way of doing it. You don't have access to their marketing opportunities if you use a distributor. The Tolino dashboard is annoyingly all in German, but by now every browser has a translating plugin built in. I know lots of authors who don't speak a single word of German who navigate Tolino very successfully. They started with only ebooks in the beginning, and then about two weeks after the first edition of my book on German translations was published, they introduced print books, which meant my book was immediately out of date. I was fuming. But this time they introduced audiobooks a few weeks before my Kickstarter launch for the second edition, so this time the audiobook part is included. I was very happy about that, because it was a pain to just tell everyone, “Well, this book is out now but it's actually missing a big part of how to do print books in Germany.” So Tolino does print, ebooks, and audiobooks. And just because you're in KU with your ebooks doesn't mean you can't publish your print books via Tolino. I highly recommend that, because IngramSpark—which most of us indies use for distribution for print books—doesn't get you into the German bookstores. They used to. Then German stores have fixed price laws where books have to be the same price in all stores, and IngramSpark kept going against that. They kept sending them the wrong prices. So German bookstores at some point just said, “Nope, we've had enough of this. We no longer take books from IngramSpark.” So now Tolino, in my opinion, is the best way of getting your books listed in German online bookstores, but they can also help you get into brick-and-mortar stores. One of my books was featured by them, I think two years ago, and it was in about 300 of their shops all across Germany. It had its own little pedestal and it was amazing. Tolino love working with their indie authors. They also love romance, which is always a bonus because some stores are more prudish than others. It's really easy to work with them. They speak perfect English, so you can do all your communication outside of the dashboard in English. Their audiobooks feature is very new. Until they did that, it was much harder for German audiobook distribution because places like Findaway Voices and other distributors wouldn't get you into the Tolino Alliance stores for audio. That's a big chunk that we were missing out on. I was always looking for ways to get my German audiobooks into those stores, but the German distributors that I found were really difficult to upload to, to be honest. I'm a very technical person, but it challenged even me. I did not like that experience at all. At some point I really just gave up and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. So when Tolino introduced that, I was celebrating internally. The only problem with their distribution at the moment for audio, because it's so new, is that you can't exclude any shops. So it's all or nothing. They will get you into all the different places, including Audible, Spotify—you name it, lots of different streaming services and retailers—but you can't exclude any. So while they don't actually want exclusivity, if you published it yourself at the same time through ACX or Findaway Voices or something else, you would have duplicates, and of course, we try to avoid those. Jo: Is it human narration only, or do they also accept AI narration? Skye: They accept AI narration. The thing with Tolino is that they want everything made very clear. If you publish any books with them that have an AI production aspect, you need to put that into your Impressum. For audiobooks, there's a box to tick to make it clear. Jo: Hmm. Skye: So they are open to it all. You just need to declare it. Jo: Which I think should be true everywhere, to be fair. Skye: Oh, definitely. And a lot of German distributors—while I was researching for this book, one thing I always looked at is, “Do they need you to declare your AI use?” More and more German distributors and retailers now want you to do that. I think that's the way it's going. It's not a judgement thing. I think it's just making it clear to readers. In Germany, it's all about transparency. That's why there are all those laws with GDPR—everyone will have heard about that one by now. But there are lots of other laws where it's all about consumer rights and transparency, and that's one of them. Jo: Is there anything else on the distribution side we need to think about? Skye: One thing I like to highlight is libraries, because that's quite a big thing in Germany too. They love books and bookstores and they love libraries. Some of the ways we get our English books into libraries—like a distributor like Draft2Digital for OverDrive—OverDrive is growing in Germany. There are other systems like Onleihe, just to name one. You can't get into those through, for example, Draft2Digital or PublishDrive or StreetLib. Tolino gets you into those. There are also subscription platforms that are growing. I think it's the same as in the English-speaking market. People love a subscription, and I love them. I just don't like exclusivity. So I very much support any subscription platform that doesn't require me to be exclusive to them. Skoobe is one of them. They used to be an independent platform, and then the Tolino Alliance bought them. So now they're integrated into the Tolino stores. That means it's really prominent. Basically, any time you go to an ebook on, for example, Thalia, it will have a banner there saying, “You can also get this in our subscription.” So it's taken a while to grow, but actually in December I now made more with their subscription programme than I made in book sales. I think three of my books were in their top 10 in December. To be fair, that was a pretty good month. But it definitely shows that it can take a while to grow these subscription platforms, but when you do, it can be really successful and very much worth it. So I highly suggest looking into those sorts of platforms too, not just the standard retailers and the platforms that you're already used to. Jo: Fantastic. So we've now got translations, they're on the various stores, and then just like in English, one of our next challenges is actually marketing the books. Now this becomes another challenge, because one of the reasons I am in KU for foreign languages is because you get the five free days and you can do Amazon ads. I mean, you can do Amazon ads for wide books too, but it's easier to know that there are some options for marketing at all. I don't do email marketing. I don't do social media, so I'm pretty bad at marketing in foreign languages. So what are your suggestions for those who want to do more active marketing in German especially? Or even if we don't speak German, it can't be all the personal stuff. But are there also advertising things like BookBub? What are our options basically? Skye: There are quite a few things. It's not quite as easy as in English, of course, but I think sometimes you have to remember that you already have most of the material for marketing when you've released a book. You will have made graphics in English, you will have written a newsletter, you will have done some social media posts. All that material is already there, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can just translate that, and for that, AI translation is really good because it's very quick. You don't have to bother your translator. You can just get that done. That's what I had to remind myself, because in the beginning I did everything from scratch and it took me forever and I was hating it. Then I realised, well, I could just look at the newsletter I wrote three years ago when that book released in English and translate that. That's done within a minute and I can send that out. So remember that you have a lot of content already. There's no BookBub or nothing as big as BookBub. There is a site called BookDeals, which sends out newsletters for both reduced or free books and also for new releases. I use them for pretty much all my new releases, or at least always the first in series. They're nowhere near as big as BookBub, so don't expect miracles, but I generally always break even or a bit more. It's hard to tell, of course, especially if you do several things for a new release. But my instinctive look on this is that it's worth it. BookDeals is the big one. There are a few other promo sites, but to be honest, I've not really found any of them to give me a positive ROI. I experiment with them occasionally and I listed them all in my book just for completeness, but BookDeals is the big one. Then there is LovelyBooks, which is the German Goodreads. Some Germans also use Goodreads, so always make sure to have all your German books listed there. But LovelyBooks is the big one. I love that place because people are so much kinder than on Goodreads. I avoid Goodreads completely. If I need a review, I send my assistant there to look at reviews. I don't go there. It is scary. LovelyBooks—the name is kind of telling. It is a more lovely place. People are generally more friendly. They are probably a bit more critical when they write reviews than they are on retailers, but I have found it really nice to build a community there. You can do these book clubs where you give away a copy of your book, either as print books—or I always do ebooks because I don't want to send books to Germany. Then people discuss the book as a sort of book club and then they review it at the end. I have had great success with that. I've built up a community of readers who will now buy my books too, even if they don't get them for free. I found some beta readers through that. So I love LovelyBooks. The annoying thing again is it's in German. However, their support all speaks English and you can email them with questions. They're really good. Even if you don't plan to run any book clubs or anything like that because you don't speak the language, I would always advise just setting up an author profile there because it makes it easier for your books to be found. You can track reviews, you can track reads, and that just gives you an extra place to get more visibility for free. Ads—there's not much difference compared to what you do for your English-language books. The one thing is with Facebook ads, now because of EU data protection laws, it's much harder to target because people can opt out of ads and targeting. In general, cost-per-click ads are cheaper than in the US or the UK, so that's a bonus. BookTok is big and only growing there. I don't really do social media for my German books because I just don't have the bandwidth. I wish I could, and I know some people who outsource that. In an ideal world, I would have a social media account for every single language, but it's not an ideal world and I just have limited hours in the day. But even just creating an account so that people can tag you, so that people can find you, can already be a good start. One thing that's not maybe a marketing strategy as such, but something I like to highlight, is pre-orders. If you write in series, always, always make sure that the next books in your series are up for pre-order, because— German readers have been burned so many times by authors or even publishers who just translate book one in a series and then stop. They are quite hesitant sometimes to start a new series when they see it's book one of something and they don't see the next book up for pre-order. To be fair, it's similar in English. I always make sure to have a pre-order up for the next book. Because people would just not read the series until it's complete or until they know it will be complete at some point. So always set up a pre-order if you can. Don't set it up when you don't actually know when your translation is being done, or choose a date far in the future. Just make it very clear to your readers that you are intending to translate the entire series, that you're not going to disappoint them, that they're not just wasting their money on a book one only to never find out what happens next. Jo: Fantastic. Well, this is a big decision for people to make, I think, because there's no point in doing one book in German and then not doing anything else, in the same way as doing one book in English or any language. You have to think about investing in an audience. So lots for people to think about. The book is fantastic. It's called Self-Publishing in German. So where can people find you and your books online? Skye: For my author-facing things, just go to SkyeMacKinnon.com/authors, and there you find the book about German translations. You also find more information on what I do. You can book consultations with me. I love doing those one-to-ones, especially about translations, because you can really dive into someone's catalogue and look at what would be a good strategy for someone, rather than just in general. Otherwise, it's SkyeMacKinnon.com for all my romance. If you want adorable children's books, it's IslaWynter.com. That's Wynter with a Y. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Skye. That was great. Skye: Thank you so much for having me.The post Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Distribute, and Market Your Books with Skye MacKinnon first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Burnout and stress don't just drain energy, they drain connection. If you're in burnout, it can spike stress & anxiety and create real conflict & repair work at home. And here's the part most people miss: sometimes burnout isn't solved by “pushing harder” or even taking a break. Sometimes it's about play. Not childish, silly, or irresponsible play. But a playful mindset—curiosity, experimentation, levity—that changes how you experience your real life, in real time. In this conversation, I'm joined by Piera Gelardi to talk about burnout recovery through a lens most people never consider. Piera is a creative entrepreneur, artist, and the co-founder of Refinery29 and 29Rooms, and her work is all about helping people reconnect with joy, creativity, and aliveness. Together, we explore what happens when life gets so serious, so scheduled, and so responsibility-heavy that you lose touch with the parts of yourself that feel light, open, and fully alive. We talk about “play deprivation,” the difference between having fun and living playfully, and why recovery from burnout often has less to do with escaping your life and more to do with changing your relationship to it. You'll hear why humor as a coping mechanism can be surprisingly healing, how playful curiosity can shift conflict, and why the quiet boredom in relationship can sometimes be a sign that something important has gone missing. This is a warm, honest conversation about stress, connection, resilience, and what helps people feel like themselves again. We also get practical. Piera shares simple ways to bring more play into ordinary life, from finding the funny in hard moments to remixing daily routines, noticing beauty, and experimenting with small changes that make life feel less heavy. As you listen, I'd love for you to consider: What has gotten so serious lately? Where have you made joy conditional? And what might change if play was not something you earned after everything else was done, but part of how you cared for yourself all along? Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why Play Matters for Adults 09:08 What Play Deprivation Really Looks Like 21:21 The Different Ways Adults Experience Play 30:11 How Humor Can Help You Cope 39:13 Wonder Wandering and Everyday Joy 41:16 Playfulness in Relationships 44:46 Why Play Is Fuel, Not Frivolous If you're noticing that stress has taken over your mood, your relationships, or your ability to enjoy your own life, this might be a good time to get support. You can book a free consultation with me or a member of my team, and we'll talk about what's been feeling hard, what you want to change, and what kind of support would actually help. We'll help you find the right counselor or coach so you can feel more grounded, more connected, and more like yourself again. xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self Upwork — and it's a sponsorship I said yes to because I actually use it. When you need specialized talent fast, Upwork gives you access to vetted professionals across 125+ categories, from marketing to web development to operations support. No long recruiting cycles. No guesswork. Just the right person, when you need them. Check it out at upwork.com — posting a job is free. Shopify — The all-in-one platform for building and growing your online business. Visit shopify.com/lhs to explore their tools and access exclusive listener discounts.OSEA - Amazing, clean, science-backed skincare made with the power of the sea. Use code LHS at oseamalibu.com for 10% off your first order

This week, Jason is joined by Jon Bouffard — creator, entrepreneur, and one half of one of the most recognizable couples brands on the internet — for a conversation on what it really takes to build a business from nothing and scale it into a multi-six-figure operation.Jon shares the unconventional path that led him here — from making $15/hour across a series of jobs, including teaching, working at Wells Fargo under a fake name, and serving as a vocational counselor, to eventually pivoting into occupational therapy where he capped out financially and began searching for something more.Everything changed when he partnered with his now wife, Alex, stepping into the world of wedding videography. What started as a creative side hustle quickly grew into a full-time business, scaling from $3K to $10K per wedding — but also came with burnout, long hours, and limited upside.Jon breaks down the turning point — when brand deals began replacing wedding income, allowing them to shift fully into content creation. He explains how their business evolved into a six-figure-per-deal model, what brands are really paying for, and why consistency and relatability have been the foundation of their success.He also opens up about the realities behind the scenes — the pressure to constantly create, the mental toll of staying relevant, and the discipline required to keep showing up even when you don't feel like it.Beyond the business, Jon shares insight into how he and Alex divide responsibilities, manage finances, and maintain a strong partnership while building together — including why they prioritize simplicity, avoid unnecessary spending, and focus on long-term stability over short-term flash.The conversation also dives into bigger-picture topics — from the future of the creator economy to the challenges of transitioning into traditional media, and the importance of protecting your personal life in an increasingly public world.From $15/hour jobs to building a scalable digital business, Jon gives a raw and honest look at what it takes to bet on yourself, stay consistent, and turn creativity into a career.Jon reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can't afford to miss!Subscribe to the Trading Secrets podcast!Host: Jason Tartick
Co-Host: David Arduin
Audio: John Gurney
Video: Marc Colcer
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 Caller One is dealing with her partner's baby mama and wondering: is grey rocking enough, or is it time to switch strategies? Caller Two is on the brink, questioning whether to call off her engagement or if she's just overreacting. And our last caller might be letting her hustle run the show… When work takes over, what happens to love? "I think he's not your guy, honestly." Listen to Humble Brag with Cynthia Bailey and Crystal Kung Minkoff every Monday. Available wherever you get your podcasts and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@humblebragpod  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humble-brag-with-crystal-and-cynthia/id1774286896 https://open.spotify.com/show/4NWA8LBk15l2u5tNQqDcOO?si=c03a23d537f94735 Start your 7 Day Free Trial of Viall Files + here: https://viallfiles.supportingcast.fm/  Please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to asknick@theviallfiles.com to be a part of our Monday episodes.  To Order Nick's Book Go To: https://www.viallfiles.com  If you would like to get some texting advice, send an email to asknick@theviallfiles.com with "Texting Office Hours" in the subject line!  To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/theviallfiles  THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Chewy - Chewy has everything you need to keep your pet happy and healthy. And right now you can save $20 on your first order and get free shipping by going to https://Chewpanions.chewy.com/viallfiles   Helix Sleep - Go to https://helixsleep.com/viall for 20% off sitewide for their Spring Savings Event. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you! Vivrelle - Go to https://vivrelle.com and apply for a membership today using referral code VIALL for your first month of membership FREE. The code will also allow you to skip the Vivrelle waitlist.  Kindred Bravely - Right now, Kindred Bravely is offering our listeners 20% off your first order when you go to https://KindredBravely.com/viall Make sure you use our link so they know we sent you! BILT - Join the membership for where you live at https://joinbilt.com/viall. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Upwork - Visit https://Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.  Instacart - Instacart brings convenience, quality, and ease right to your door, so you can focus on what matters most. Download the Instacart app now and get groceries just how you like. Timestamps: 02:35 - Intro 02:48 - Caller One 34:15 - Caller Two 58:35 - Caller Three Episode Socials: @viallfiles @nickviall @justinkaphillips @izeweaver

Caller one found her perfect guy: her type, sweet, checks every box… one problem: he has a girlfriend. Caller two brings her boyfriend to figure out their future, but their past won't stay buried. And caller three? Stuck in a situationship, wondering what are we, and is it even worth it? "He's not your guy, he's not willing to be your guy." The Viall Files is going LIVE with the new cast of Temptation Island on May 4th! Tickets are on sale NOW! For more information, please visit netflixisajokefest.com.  Listen to Humble Brag with Cynthia Bailey and Crystal Kung Minkoff every Monday. Available wherever you get your podcasts and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@humblebragpod  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humble-brag-with-crystal-and-cynthia/id1774286896 https://open.spotify.com/show/4NWA8LBk15l2u5tNQqDcOO?si=c03a23d537f94735 Start your 7 Day Free Trial of Viall Files + here: https://viallfiles.supportingcast.fm/  Please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to asknick@theviallfiles.com to be a part of our Monday episodes.  To Order Nick's Book Go To: https://www.viallfiles.com  If you would like to get some texting advice, send an email to asknick@theviallfiles.com with "Texting Office Hours" in the subject line!  To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/theviallfiles  THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: American Home Shield - Listeners can get 20% off select plans today! Just visit https://ahs.com/viallfiles to sign up. See https://ahs.com/contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations and exclusions.  Upwork - Visit https://Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.  Helix - Go to https://helixsleep.com/viall for 20% off sitewide for their Spring Savings Event. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you! Little Spoon - Try Little Spoon Formula with their 2 can trial pack (Buy 1, Get 1 free - that's $30 for 2 cans), which is great if you're easing into the transition. That's https://littlespoon.com/tryformula  The RealReal - The RealReal is the most trusted name in authenticated luxury resale, With over ten thousand new arrivals daily, no one does resale like The RealReal. And now, get $25 OFF off your first purchase when you go to https://TheRealReal.com/files CarGurus - Buy or sell your next car today with Car Gurus at https://cargurus.com  1-800-Flowers - Mother's Day is Sunday, May 10th and bouquets are selling out fast.To claim your Double Roses offer before they're gone, visit https://1800Flowers.com/viall   Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:50 - Caller One 38:14 - Caller Two 1:16:25 - Caller Three Episode Socials: @viallfiles @nickviall @justinkaphillips @izeweaver