Podcast appearances and mentions of zack arnold

Join us for a fascinating conversation with Zac Arnold, award-winning Hollywood film & television editor and creator of the Optimize Yourself program. In this episode, Zac shares his expertise on how to edit your life and optimize yourself. Discover his unique approach to help creatives and entrepreneurs do better and be better in all aspects of life. Subscribe for ad-free interviews and bonus episodes https://plus.acast.com/s/the-unmistakable-creative-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

GUESTS:  Zack Arnold, CEO of Optimize Yourself, a company that's helping those in Hollywood who are affected by the SAG/AFTRA strike re-shape their careers; Emmy Award winning director Don Argott chats about his new film KELCE, streaming on PRIME,  a documentary about NFL football player Jason Kelce(Philadelphia Eagles) and his brother Travis Kelce (KC Chiefs); and Chris Woolsey, Senior Director of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, shares what are some of the best streaming films and TV  viewing for September for the Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment network. KELCE trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0ld-xuh898

Saul Rodriguez and Anthony Pizana have a conversation with Zack Arnold (Producer on Burn Notice, Cobra Kai & founder of Optimize Yourself) regarding the actors/writers strike, artificial intelligence, his company Optimize Yourself, and more. Optimize Yourself WEBSITE: https://optimizeyourself.me/ PODCAST: https://optimizeyourself.me/subscribe/ We are also on Facebook and Substack! Subscribe to WARR on Anchor and on YouTube and follow WARR for all the latest on our movement and stay tuned for upcoming episodes and specials from your guys. WARR Media provides the best independent coverage of sports and culture -- feel free to share our content and rate us well here or wherever you find our podcasts. Thanks for watching. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/warrmedia/message

Zack Arnold, film & TV editor as well as a career strategist, coach, and the founder of Optimize Yourself, sits down with Bridget for a conversation about being in the trenches in Hollywood for over 20 years, the writers' and actors' strikes, and the piece nobody is talking about - the fact that our entire culture is going through a major identity crisis because our collective sense of self is intertwined with what we do for a living. They discuss how we're conditioned to believe that our identity is associated with our level of productivity, whether content creation is still a viable way to make a living, the rise of the generalists and how we need to diversify, how everything feels broken, the one thing AI cannot replicate, the value of authenticity, and why if authenticity is a strategy it's not authentic. They also cover the burden of being a provider, protecting your sense of self and sense of authenticity at all costs, the mental exercise of reframing the fear and being able to confront and control that fear, redefining success and failure, changing your systems to achieve small goals, and why his willingness to fail faster than everyone else is the secret to his success.Bridget Phetasy admires grit and authenticity. On Walk-Ins Welcome, she talks about the beautiful failures and frightening successes of her own life and the lives of her guests. She doesn't conduct interviews—she has conversations. Conversations with real people about the real struggle and will remind you that we can laugh in pain and cry in joy but there's no greater mistake than hiding from it all. By embracing it all, and celebrating it with the stories she'll bring listeners, she believes that our lowest moments can be the building blocks for our eventual fulfillment.Beyond Parody with Bridget Phetasy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.phetasy.com/subscribe

Zack Arnold, film & TV editor as well as a career strategist, coach, and the founder of Optimize Yourself , sits down with Bridget for a conversation about being in the trenches in Hollywood for over 20 years, the writers' and actors' strikes, and the piece nobody is talking about - the fact that our entire culture is going through a major identity crisis because our collective sense of self is intertwined with what we do for a living. They discuss how we're conditioned to believe that our identity is associated with our level of productivity, whether content creation is still a viable way to make a living, the rise of the generalists and how we need to diversify, how everything feels broken, the one thing AI cannot replicate, the value of authenticity, and why if authenticity is a strategy it's not authentic. They also cover the burden of being a provider, protecting your sense of self and sense of authenticity at all costs, the mental exercise of reframing the fear and being able to confront and control that fear, redefining success and failure, changing your systems to achieve small goals, and why his willingness to fail faster than everyone else is the secret to his success. Sponsor Links: Patriot Gold - Call 888-614-9238 AG1 - https://bit.ly/AG1-WiW The Dr. Drew Podcast - https://bit.ly/DrDrew-WiW Progressive Insurance - https://pgrs.in/3Dp5ZIW

 With the Hollywood writers strike showing no signs of slowing down, many creative professionals have been forced to look for alternative sources of work. Zack Arnold is an award-winning Hollywood film & television editor and producer(Cobra Kai, Burn Notice, Empire, Shooter, Glee) and others. He is also the CEO of the Optimize Yourself podcast and program, which helps individuals directly affected by the strike, adjust to the situation by offering his insight and guidance to them and their careers. His interviews with outlets such as the Washington Post, The Hollywood Times, Evening Standard and Variety have enabled him to share his expertise with a wider audience.  The overwhelming response to his message has seen Zack field hundreds of calls over the past three months from creative professionals looking for new opportunities. Through his company, Optimize Yourself, he has been able to help these people find more balanced, sustainable and fulfilling careers. Visit ---  https://optimizeyourself.me/  

Before we get into the episode, I wanted to let you know about an interview I did on the Optimize Yourself podcast, hosted by my friend Zack Arnold.  He's actually doing a three part series on chronic pain specifically related to how it affects creative professionals — so I highly recommend that you check it out!     The series will consist of three experts talking about chronic pain from different perspectives. Zack interviewed a bodyworker and Somatic Movement Instructor (Julie Fahrbach) who explains how to release emotions from the body and get your system out of fight or flight. He also spoke with a medical doctor and mindfulness meditation teacher (Christiane Wolf) who uses mindfulness-based practices to change our relationship to pain.   And in my interview with Zack, you'll hear an extended conversation about my personal journey with chronic pain from my days as a reality tv editor to how I ended up where I am today as a chronic pain therapist.  You'll hear parts of my story that you probably haven't heard before and you'll hear me coach Zack through some of his own pain story while also learning some of the tools and techniques that I use to unwind tension in stress from my body.   My episode of the Optimize Yourself podcast aired on Tuesday July 11 and you can find it by going to optimizeyourself.me/podcast or searching Optimize Yourself on your podcast app of choice!   •••   And now for today's episode! A short while back, I received a message from someone whose work I was familiar with, but we'd never spoken before. And she shared a story with me that I thought was just perfect for this podcast. It's a story about her journey from chronic pain to passion. And that person is Fleur Chambers.   Fleur is a multi-award-winning meditation teacher, Creator of The Happy Habit app, author of the book Ten Pathways and her second book Wholehearted Confidence and she's also a philanthropist.  Using her experience of living with chronic pain, Fleur is helping others to see that happiness isn't an imaginary place free of disappointment, regret, insecurity or any other uncomfortable emotion. In contrast, real happiness is the ability to live wholeheartedly alongside our challenges and to learn from them.   With proceeds from The Happy Habit funding charitable grassroots projects around the world, Fleur is using meditation as a tool for social change. She believes that we meditate not only to alleviate our own suffering, but also to improve the lives of others.   The personal story that Fleur shared with me is all about the fears that come up and create symptoms just as we're about to share our creative gifts with the world. And I hope that hearing her talk about how she navigates those experiences will inspire you with the courage to share your creative gifts as well. You can find Fleur at: website: www.thehappyhabit.com.au IG: @thehappyhabitwithfleurchambers App: The Happy Habit app Book: The Ten Pathways And you can find me at: Instagram: ⁠@anna_holtzman⁠ Website: ⁠www.annaholtzman.com

Second July 2023 episode--and second of three episodes on consecutive days--of the program all about TV. Our guests: Ross Fineman, executive producer of The Lincoln Lawyer, starting season two on Netflix today; Zack Arnold, Cobra Kai associate producer/Optimize Yourself chief executive, discussing the writers' strike and its TV consequences, and Sheri Elwood, creator and executive producer of Moonshine, the dysfunctional family saga coming to The CW tomorrow night.

Are you ready to take your career to the next level? In this episode, we sit down with Zack Arnold, the "Godfather of Cold Outreach" and editor of Cobra Kai, to uncover the most valuable lesson for career progression. Zack shares his secrets to successful networking and building genuine relationships in the industry. He emphasizes the importance of being clear about your goals, leading with value, and telling your story effectively. Don't miss out on Zack's tips for effective cold outreach and debunking the myth that certain individuals are unreachable. Get ready to break free from pigeonholing and embrace new opportunities. Join us as we learn how to be ready to not be ready and take action towards your dreams. For help with your networking head to https://www.optimizeyourself.me/emailguide For help with your editing head to https://www.unsplice.com/pro Thank you so much for listening. Shiny --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-video-editing-podcast/messageSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-video-editing-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

If are someone who's creative or passionate about your career, have you ever had an experience where, right as you were about to make a big career move or achieve some symbol of success, you were hit by a wave of symptoms like chronic pain or fatigue or burnout? If so, you're not alone — and today we're gonna explore why that is and how to navigate this with my guest Zack Arnold. Zack is an award-winning Hollywood editor & producer whose credits include Cobra Kai, Empire, Burn Notice, and Glee.  He's also a career coach, a two-time American Ninja Warrior, and the creator of the Optimize Yourself program & podcast. Zack strongly believes that it's possible for all creative professionals to love what they do for a living...but not at the expense of their health, their relationships, or their sanity. That's why via his Optimize Yourself program he provides them with the strategies, resources, mindsets, and supportive community to help them confidently discover their own unique clear path towards the more balanced, productive, and fulfilling life that they deserve. In a nutshell, Zack is Tim Ferriss meets Ted Lasso...minus the mustache. Zack has spoken across the country at numerous events and conventions about optimizing creativity and work-life balance as well as the craft of editing. His work has been featured in publications such as National Public Radio, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Variety, The Telegraph, and I Will Teach You to Be Rich as well as numerous podcasts. I became a fan of Zack's way before I became a therapist, back when I was a video editor working in reality TV and a friend turned me onto his first podcast, Fitness in Post, which was about a topic that nobody else was really talking about then — a radical idea of maintaining your wellbeing while working in the brutal field of film and TV post-production. I'm delighted to share our conversation about mind-body burnout and career rebirth. ••• You can find Zack at: website: https://optimizeyourself.me/ podcast: Optimize Yourself Zack mentioned two of his blog posts in this episode: 7 Red Flags That You Might Be Burned Out (or You're Headed There) https://optimizeyourself.me/7-red-flags-that-you-might-be-burned-out/   So You're Burned Out... Now What? [7 Ways to Climb Out of the Hole] https://optimizeyourself.me/burned-out-7-ways-to-climb-out/ ••• And you can find me at: Instagram: @anna_holtzman Website: www.annaholtzman.com

Zack Arnold is an award-winning Hollywood editor & producer (notable credits include Cobra Kai, Empire, Burn Notice, and Glee), a documentary director (GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story), a career coach, a two-time American Ninja Warrior, and the creator of the Optimize Yourself program & podcast.___Get your copy of Personal Socrates: Better Questions, Better Life  Connect with Marc >>>  Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter Drop a review and let me know what resonates with you about the show!Thanks as always for listening and have the best day yet!*Behind the Human is proudly recorded in a Canadian made Loop Phone Booth*Special props

This week I was incredibly excited to welcome Zack Arnold to the show for a great conversation about optimizing your life, avoiding burnout and learning to set the right goals. Zack is an award-winning Hollywood film & television editor known for his work on favorites of mine such as, Cobra Kai, Burn Notice, Empire, Shooter, and Glee. Zac is a member of the American Cinema Editors, an American Ninja Warrior, and creator of the Optimize Yourself program.  Zack uses his experience as a creative professional to produce the Optimize Yourself Podcast which aims to give creative professionals insight into how to love what they do for a living without having to sacrifice their health, relationships, or sanity in the process. The podcast also addresses the specifics of creative burnout and ways to avoid it. Previous Episodes Mentioned in This Installment: Marc Champagne on The Importance of Asking The Right Questions Gretchen Rubin on Expectations, Habits and Happiness James Clear on Building Good Habits and Breaking Bad Ones Support the show by checking out our sponsors! Make sure to grab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist. A Shortcast is a 7-10 min version of the podcast where you get all the core takeaways.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Zack Arnold, an award-winning editor, director, and founder of Optimize Yourself. He's also a father of two and a two-time American Ninja Warrior, which is pretty cool if you ask me. We had a productive conversation about how to pursue fulfilling careers without sacrificing our health, relationships, or sanity. Zack's work has been featured in various publications, and he's known for his expertise in productivity and entrepreneurship. One thing that stood out to me was how Zack optimized his podcast process, which he shared with us. He also talked about how he's learned to prioritize his health and relationships while pursuing his career goals.  Overall, it was a fantastic conversation, and I highly recommend giving it a listen. If you're new to the podcast, this is a great episode to start with. I feel like I found a kindred spirit in Zack, and I hope you will too. Links Worth Exploring Connect with Zack: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn Listen to Optimize Yourself with Mike Vardy Laura Vanderkam talks about Tranquility by Tuesday Are you Productive or Just Busy? Take the quiz! Related Conversation: Off the Clock with Laura Vanderkam Related Blog Post: 4 Tips to Make the Most of Your Working Day Thanks to all of the sponsors of this episode. You can find all of the sponsors you heard me mention on this episode on our Podcast Sponsors page. Want to support the podcast? Beyond checking out our sponsors, you can subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Click on any of the links below to make that happen. Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher You can also click on this link to paste the podcast feed into your podcast app of choice. Thanks again for listening to A Productive Conversation. See you later.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Zack Arnold, an award-winning editor, director, and founder of Optimize Yourself. He's also a father of two and a two-time American Ninja Warrior, which is pretty cool if you ask me. We had a productive conversation about how to pursue fulfilling careers without sacrificing our health, relationships, or sanity. Zack's work has been featured in various publications, and he's known for his expertise in productivity and entrepreneurship.One thing that stood out to me was how Zack optimized his podcast process, which he shared with us. He also talked about how he's learned to prioritize his health and relationships while pursuing his career goals. Overall, it was a fantastic conversation, and I highly recommend giving it a listen. If you're new to the podcast, this is a great episode to start with. I feel like I found a kindred spirit in Zack, and I hope you will too.Links Worth Exploring Connect with Zack: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn Listen to Optimize Yourself with Mike Vardy Laura Vanderkam talks about Tranquility by Tuesday Are you Productive or Just Busy? Take the quiz! Related Conversation: Off the Clock with Laura Vanderkam Related Blog Post: 4 Tips to Make the Most of Your Working Day Thanks to all of the sponsors of this episode. You can find all of the sponsors you heard me mention on this episode on our Podcast Sponsors page.Want to support the podcast? Beyond checking out our sponsors, you can subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Click on any of the links below to make that happen.Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | StitcherYou can also click on this link to paste the podcast feed into your podcast app of choice.Thanks again for listening to A Productive Conversation. See you later.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Credit yourself with Stir: https://www.usestir.com/credits On The Editing Podcast we've learned how to edit a Ryan trahan vlog, how to edit a Michelle Khare challenge video, and with Zack Arnold, how to edit a Netflix show. But…have you ever wondered how to edit like our host Hayden Hillier-Smith? So today the tables turn – literally. Instead of being on the host side of the table, Hayden is on the guest side of the table. And on this episode we learn how to edit like Hayden Hillier-Smith --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-editing-podcast/support

Credit yourself with Stir: https://www.usestir.com/credits Can a YouTube video be number one on Netflix? Netflix took a gamble on a YouTube Show, Cobra Kai, and it became the #1 streaming show, with Season 5 outpacing The House of the Dragon, The Rings of Power, and She-Hulk. And there's a reason for this, its storytelling and editing. Zack Arnold has edited the most iconic episodes of Cobra Kai, and became its lead editor in season 5, mostly due to his storytelling philosophies. We sat down with Zack and explored the language of editing on Netflix and if traditional editors care about Netflix's Algorithm. Follow Hayden Hilllier-Smith YouTube Instagram Twitter Follow Jordan Orme YouTube Instagram Twitter Business Inquiries: TheEditingPodcast@gmail.com https://www.theeditingpodcast.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-editing-podcast/support

As the main Geektown Radio podcast is on a little break whilst I'm away, we bring you a new episode of the Geektown Behind The Scenes podcast, in which I chat to Hollywood editor & producer, Zack Arnold, editor on the brilliant 'Cobra Kai', and founder of Optimize Yourself.Zack is an editor on Netflix's smash hit series, 'Cobra Kai'... However, he is also the Founder of 'Optimize Yourself', a brilliant podcast series and coaching programme to help creative professionals get through their working lives without having to sacrifice their health, relationships, or sanity in the process.Zack's story is an interesting one. He was a massive fan of the 'Karate Kid' films, and actively pursued the editing job on 'Cobra Kai' after watching the first season. In the interview, he discusses how his love and encyclopaedic knowledge of the movies have helped him in editing the hit Netflix drama.Outside of 'Cobra Kai', Zack's other notable credits include 'Empire', 'Burn Notice', and 'Glee'. We also chat about the documentary film, 'GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story', which he directed. You can see the entire movie for free here.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ricky and Piotr talk with ACE editor Zack Arnold about landing this dream job cutting Cobra Kai, why he says it's his side-hustle and how Myagi-do lessons apply to our work as editors. Plus, the respectful power of the word, "No," the keys to optimizing yourself as an editor and more! Below are the articles and websites we mendtion in the episode:Zack's article "Tired of Life Kicking Your Ass? Learn to Fight Back Like a True ‘Cobra Kai'": https://optimizeyourself.me/cobra-kai-review-netflix/Zack's Optimize Yourself program: https://optimizeyourself.me/Interview Zack did with Walter Murch: https://optimizeyourself.me/walter-murch-podcast-interview/--We'd love to hear from you!Perhaps you have questions or comments on how to improve the podcast or episode ideas:Shoot us a message at podcast@cuttothepoint.comOr you can send us a voice message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/CTRWe're Ambassadors of Soundly. The best SFX platform for filmmakers: https://geni.us/cttp-soundlySponsored by the Editing Chef program: https://cuttothepoint.thinkific.com/coursesAlso, the music we use is from Artlist!Check them out here: https://cuttothepoint.com/artlist--Cut To Reveal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cuttoreveal/Cut To Reveal website: https://podcast.cuttothepoint.com/Cut to the Point YT channel: https://youtube.com/cuttothepoint

What happens when you've reached what everyone else would consider success, and you're miserable? What happens next?Zack Arnold, ACE, is an award-winning film and television editor, documentary director, and founder of the Optimize Yourself program. Throughout his career in Hollywood, he found himself editing the biggest show on cable tv, then the biggest show on broadcast TV, and even the biggest show in the WORLD on the internet.But the toll those achievements took on his family, his physical health, and his mental well-being forced Zack to rethink his life. In this second of a two-part conversation, we'll hear what Zack did next – including his four year journey to become an American Ninja Warrior – and what the lessons he's learned mean for all of us.

As creatives, so many voices tell us that having the biggest audience is the ultimate goal. But when you talk to people who are there, we find that it's not that simple.Zack Arnold, ACE, is an award-winning film and television editor, documentary director, and founder of the Optimize Yourself program. Throughout his career in Hollywood, he found himself editing the biggest show on cable tv, then the biggest show on broadcast TV, and even the biggest show in the WORLD on the internet.But the toll those achievements took on his family, his physical health, and his mental well-being forced Zack to rethink his life. In this first of a 2-part conversation, we'll hear how it all went down, what Zack learned, and what those lessons mean for all of us.

In this episode, we listen to Zack Arnold, award-winning Hollywood film and television editor, American Ninja Warrior, and creator of the Optimize Yourself program and podcast. He discusses his experiences with Tough Mudder and Spartan, what optimizing yourself truly means, the power of mindset, and so much more.Connect with Zack on Social:-Website: optimizeyourself.me-Podcast: The Optimize Yourself Podcast-Instagram: @optimizeyourslf*Find your next Tough Mudder event here: http://bit.ly/35q39iH Can't get enough of Mudder Nation? Check out our blog: http://bit.ly/3iTuG4cDiscover the 2022 Tough Mudder Training Guides: http://bit.ly/3iP4pUGDon't forget to subscribe to the 'No Excuses' Podcast and follow Tough Mudder on social media:Instagram: @tough_mudderFacebook: @toughmudderTwitter: @toughmudderSubscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple*Welcome to the ‘No Excuses' Podcast by Tough Mudder. A place where Mudder Nation can come together to hear deep-dive conversations with fitness + health experts, everyday athletes and community members. Join us every Wednesday as we uncover the stories and inspiration that make this community so great. Hosted by Sean Corvelle.*Host: Sean CorvelleProducer: Lake Watters, Gillian GeorgeSenior Producer: Marion Abrams© 2022 Spartan

Hello to all of my Optimizer readers & listeners. Today's episode is gonna be a little different in that I'm not the host, I'm the guest. This is a recent interview I did with Michael Bauman on the Success Engineering podcast. You will hear me talk very candidly about the identity crisis I suffered several years ago while seemingly at the height of my career editing Empire when I was spending months on end putting my kids to bed via Facetime and realized I didn't want to live that way anymore. You'll learn how I slowly chipped away at the incredible case of Imposter syndrome that I had around building the Optimize Yourself program as well as some deeply emotional stories about why I do what I do. I highly recommend you check out Michael's work on the Success Engineering website where you will find blog posts, book summaries from the 4 books that Michael used to help him optimize his own life, and of course his podcast episodes at successengineering.org. So now without further adieu my interview with Michael Bauman over at Success Engineering. → Click here to go to the full interview page at the Success Engineering podcast → Click here to go to Success Engineering home page

Zack Arnold is an award-winning Hollywood film and television editor having done work on Glee, Empire, Burn Notice, and most recently Cobra Kai. He is the creator of the Optimize Yourself program and host of the Optimize Yourself podcast which is about intentionally prioritizing work-life balance while optimizing creativity and productivity. When he is not doing that he is running Tough Mudders, Spartan Races, and training to be a contestant on America Ninja Warrior on top of being a loving dad and husband!This episode is a perfect demonstration of the emptiness behind the appearance of success. He was editing work that was seen by over 25million people but his son asked "Why doesn't daddy love us and want to put us to bed?" He completely changed his life after that point and he talks about how you can too, one small step at a time!Website:Optimize YourselfPodcast:Optimize Yourself podcastI would love it if you left a review for the show! Simply write, either your favorite episode or the top insights that you have gained.Write a reviewIf you're interested in joining the SPI Pro community for an amazing group of entrepreneurs to help grow your business, check out the link below...SPI Pro Community

Hello to all of my Optimizer readers & listeners. Today's episode is gonna be a little different in that I'm not the host, I'm the guest. This is a special interview I did on super short notice with Erica Wernick over at the Hollywood Success Podcast where we discuss what's at stake with the pending IATSE strike authorization vote. Like me, Erica is also both an entrepreneur and creative professional in Hollywood working as both a coach and a graphic designer as part of the Art Director's Guild. And in this discussion we dive deep into the many stories being shared at the IA_Stories Instagram account as well as our own personal anecdotes about our careers in Hollywood. And most importantly we also break down the strike vote, why it's important to all creative professionals (whether you are a union member or not), and what's at stake if we lose. After listening I highly encourage you to check out the amazing work Erica is doing over at hollywoodsuccesscoach.com. And now without further adieu, my interview on the Hollywood Success Podcast with Erica Wernick. → Click here to go to the full interview page at The Hollywood Success podcast → Click here to go to The Hollywood Success home page

Today I'm talking with editor extraordinaire Zack Arnold (Cobra Kai, Burn Notice, Empire). Zack shares his insights about the culture in Hollywood and how this YES strike authorization vote will be just the beginning of much needed change (and the consequences of voting NO).

This week we feature Ken Hooper of Hooper Guitars.  Our September 2021 issue features an article about Zack Arnold, Rhonda Vincent's new guitar player, and Zack is just one of the guitar players in bluegrass who plays a Hooper guitar.  You will hear Ken talk about all aspects of his guitar building process as well as the models and custom features that he offers.

Zack Arnold, host of the Optimize Yourself Podcast, shares an episode from his podcast in this week's episode. Zack is interviewed by Austin Coburn, a recent college grad, on how you can find a healthy work-life balance in the industry. In this episode Zack highlights the importance of setting boundaries, working with good people not good projects, and how you can overcome procrastination. Listen to Zack to learn how you can start creating a healthy work-life balance. Key Points:2:51 - About Today's Show7:40 - All-nighters Get Worse After Collegea9:40 - Learn the Skills of Creating a Healthy Balance17:53 - Building Habits21:10 - Overcome Procrastination31:52 - Enhancing Your Workstation42:09 - Getting People To Take Walking Breaks48:25 - Red Flags at Potential Jobs54:33 - Qualities to look for in People63:33 - Choosing Projects to Work On68:25 - Investing in Your Health72:04 - Combat Bad Work HabitsLinks:Zack Arnold Interview with TanyaPart 1 with Zack Arnold & Austin Coburn Dear Hollywood Connect with Austin on Instagram ErgoDriven DeskErgoDriven Topo MatMogo SeatOptimize Yourself

In case you missed the announcement, the Optimize Yourself podcast is currently on summer hiatus, but that doesn't mean we plan to leave you high and dry without engaging conversations that educate, motivate, and inspire you. We'll be back this fall with some significant changes and improvements to the show, but in the meantime… ...this week I'd like to share a fairly recent interview I did with Steve Hulfish on his Art of the Cut podcast which is now a part of the Frame.io world. In this interview Steve and I do a deep dive into my work as an editor on Cobra Kai, both creatively and how I strategically landed my dream job, we talk about my larger career, what really drives me, and of course we talk at least a little bit about staying active at the office with a bit of bonus talk about my training for American Ninja Warrior. I can't recommend Art of the Cut highly enough if you want to listen to the top editors in the world talk about their craft. You can find it via your podcast app of choice or by visiting Frame.io Insider at blog.frame.io. And now without further adieu my interview with Art of the Cut and Steve Hullfish. → Click here to go to the full interview page at Art of the Cut podcast → Click here to go to Frame.io Insider home page

In case you missed the announcement, the Optimize Yourself podcast is currently on summer hiatus, but that doesn't mean we plan to leave you high and dry without engaging conversations that educate, motivate, and inspire you. We'll be back this fall with some significant changes and improvements to the show, but in the meantime… ...this week I'd like to share with you an interview I did last year with Erica Wernick, the host of Hollywood Success Coach, who reached out to me to discuss my article that went viral: Dear Hollywood - We Don't Want to Go Back to Normal. Normal Wasn't Working. We talk about what isn't working about how Hollywood does business and treats its creative professionals and below-the-line workers. I have no doubt this will be a very interesting listen one year out with a lot more perspective about how things have changed (or haven't) since the pandemic began. I highly recommend Erica's show and her work as a coach. She and her podcast can be found at hollywoodsuccesscoach.com. And now without further adieu my Hollywood Success Podcast interview with Erica Wernick. → Click here to go to the full interview page at The Hollywood Success podcast → Click here to go to The Hollywood Success home page

In case you missed the announcement, the Optimize Yourself podcast is currently on summer hiatus, but that doesn't mean we plan to leave you high and dry without engaging conversations that educate, motivate, and inspire you. We'll be back this fall with some significant changes and improvements to the show, but in the meantime… ...this week I'd like to share with you a recent interview I did with Alex Ferrari for his Indie Film Hustle podcast. We talk about a variety of topics including my work on Cobra Kai, how to maintain optimal health despite the challenges that come with being a very sedentary creative professional, and how I balance being a semi-retired editor with being an online entrepreneur, podcaster, and online coach. I highly recommend Alex's podcast Indie Film Hustle as well as his other shows Bulletproof Screenwriting, and Filmtrepreneur, all of which can be found at indiefilmhustle.com. And now without further adieu my Indie Film Hustle interview with Alex Ferrari. → Click here to go to the full interview page at Indie Film Hustle → Click here to go to Indie Film Hustle home page

In Part 1 of my conversation with college student (and now graduate) Austin Coburn we discussed the many pitfalls that so many young, ambitious creatives fall into when they enter the working world hoping to “make it.” Today's conversation is part 2 of our conversation, and in today's episode we flip the script and Austin interviews me from the perspective of a college student who is interested in creating better habits for both a successful career and a healthy lifestyle at the same time (Spoiler alert: The two do not have to be mutually exclusive). We talk about habits and strategies for working better and living healthier both in college and after graduation. And we discuss the important life skills that aren't taught in film school but are necessary to survive & thrive in the entertainment industry. This conversation will not only benefit recent graduates but anyone looking to improve their decision making skills and enhance their well being and creativity through the development of proper habits and systems. One quick caveat: This interview was recorded a few years ago back in the Fitness in Post days. Austin has since graduated and you can find links to his most recent work on Instagram. Want to Hear More Episodes Like This One? » Click here to subscribe and never miss another episode Here's What You'll Learn: How to manage the transition from being a student to taking your first career opportunity job. How to redefine and create balance between career, family/social life, and rest. The habits I learned in college that were no longer serving me and how I corrected them. Why you need to learn to turn the creativity switch off once in a while. Tricks I use to focus, increase creativity and reduce procrastination. How I use mindsets and environments to get the most out my productivity and creativity. What is the triangle of quality and why you can only have two of the three. The three pieces of equipment that I take with me to any office to facilitate movement throughout the day. How to manage the workaholic culture and the stigma around taking movement breaks. Finding strength in community.to create healthier work environments and cultures. Red flags to look for in job postings that indicate a poor work environment. Two core questions to ask yourself when considering a job. What positive qualities to look for in potential employers and what negative qualities to avoid. Learning the skills of what to say no to and what to say yes to. How students can start investing in their health for a long and successful future. The one skill that students can implement to set themselves up for good working habits in the future. Useful Resources Mentioned: Spark Foldable Standing Desk Topo Mat CAP Barbell 15 Pounds Kettlebell Tribe Resistance Band Set Ep11: Making It In Hollywood as a "Creative" (What They Don't Teach You In Film School) | with Norman Hollyn Continue to Listen & Learn How to Become a Production Assistant (and Keep Getting Hired) | with Aaron Schmidt (optimizeyourself.me) Ep115: How to Be So Thorough You Can't Be Denied | with James Wilcox, ACE Ep76: Transitioning to Scripted Television (Without Becoming an AE) | with Phil Habeger & Toni Ann Carabello How to Stay Productive (and Stop Procrastinating) During Your Next Hiatus | with Debby Germino (optimizeyourself.me) Ep129: How to Cultivate a “Service-Centric” Mindset (and Why It Will Make You More Successful) | with Agustin Rexach Ep127: Chasing After the Next Gig vs. Building Your Career | with Kabir Ahktar, ACE How Total Burnout Led to the Most Productive Year of My Life How to Overcome Post-Production Burnout Ep132: How to Pursue Fulfilling Work and Find Your ‘Calling' | with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar Ep136: Promoting Mindfulness, Well-Being, and Sanity In the Edit Bay | with Kevin Tent, ACE Tired of Holding it Together All the Time? Here are Five Basic Needs to Get You Back On Track Ep118: Legendary Editor Walter Murch On Optimizing Creativity, Productivity, and Well-Being In Hollywood For 50+ Years Ep113: The Importance of Setting Boundaries, Advocating For Yourself, and Asking For Help | with Janace Tashjian Dear Hollywood...We Create Entertainment For a Living. We're Not Curing Cancer. Dear Hollywood: We Don't Want to “Go Back to Normal." Normal Wasn't Working. Ep128: How to Have a Successful Career Without Sacrificing Family | with Farrel Levy Our Generous Sponsors: Struggling With Real-Time Remote Collaboration? Meet Evercast As work begins to slowly trickle in again, perhaps the most pressing challenge we as creative professionals face in our post-pandemic reality is real-time collaboration. Zoom is great for meetings, but it sure doesn't work for streaming video. Luckily this problem has now been solved for all of us. If you haven't heard of Evercast, it's time to become acquainted. Because Evercast's real-time remote collaboration technology is CHANGING. THE. GAME. → Click here to see a free demo of Evercast in action! This episode was brought to you by Ergodriven, the makers of the Topo Mat (my #1 recommendation for anyone who stands at their workstation) and now their latest product. New Standard Whole Protein is a blend of both whey and collagen, sourced from the highest quality ingredients without any of the unnecessary filler or garbage. Not only will you get more energy and focus from this protein powder, you will notice improvements in your skin, hair, nails, joints and muscles. And because they don't spend a lot on excessive marketing and advertising expenses, the savings gets passed on to you. Guest Bio: Austin Coburn is a filmmaker and animator who graduated from George Fox University near Portland, Oregon. His latest works can be found in his Instagram & Vimeo accounts. Show Credits: This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel. The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).

Zack Arnold is one of the founders of The Perfect Jean. You may recognize the product from You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes or their hilarious ads on Instagram and Snapchat. Today, Zack and I talk intergenerational debates on style, and the penises you have "grown" to love in TV and film.  You can find Zack and The Perfect Jean on Instagram @theperfectjean or buy a pair from theperfectjean.nyc You can find me on Instagram @openpremise or @ethanyeshaya --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/openpremise/support

On today's episode of Art of the Cut, Steve talks with Editor Zack Arnold, ACE. If you're looking for a "typical" editor, Zack doesn't fit the sedentary backroom stereotype. When he's not cutting primetime TV like Empire, Glee, and Cobra Kai, he's training for American Ninja Warrior, and helping creative professionals stay healthy, motivated, and productive. Thanks to Frame.io for their support of Art of the Cut and their pledge to keep this content coming your way. Read this interview and many others at blog.frame.io, where you'll also find expert guides, tutorials, and insights from veteran filmmakers across the film and TV industry.

Happy New Year IFH Tribe! We are starting 2021 with a bang. Today on the show with have Zack Arnold, an award-winning Hollywood film & television editor (Cobra Kai, Burn Notice, Empire, Shooter, Glee), member of the American Cinema Editors, a documentary director GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story, narrated by Mark Hamill), and creator of the Optimize Yourself program and podcast.Zach has been working on the #1 Netflix show Cobra Kai since season 2. If you haven't heard of Cobra Kai here's the skinny.Thirty-four years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, a down-and-out Johnny Lawrence seeks redemption by reopening the infamous Cobra Kai dojo, reigniting his rivalry with a now-successful Daniel LaRusso.Zack and I talk about Cobra Kai, how he became a healthy editor, what it was like working on some of the top shows on television, and how he retired early from editing, except Cobra Kai, of course, to run his own lucrative online business helping creatives optimize themselves.Enjoy my conversation with Zack Arnold.

We don’t know yet how the entertainment industry will adapt and respond to the traumas of 2020 when production resumes full time. But from an Oscar winning director to gig workers behind the scenes, there’s broad agreement that not everything in Hollywood should return to the “good old days.” Hollywood, The Sequel sponsors include: Korea Tourism: Visit Korea and experience delicious food, vibrant cities, and natural beauty. Please visit https://www.visitkorea.com.my/ Caltech: Cal Tech Science Exchange provides trustworthy answers, clear explanations, and fact-driven conversation on critical topics in science and technology. Please visit scienceexchange.caltech.edu

We don’t know yet how the entertainment industry will adapt and respond to the traumas of 2020 when production resumes full time. But from an Oscar winning director to gig workers behind the scenes, there’s broad agreement that not everything in Hollywood should return to the “good old days.”   Hollywood, The Sequel sponsors include: Korea Tourism: Visit Korea and experience delicious food, vibrant cities, and natural beauty. Please visit https://www.visitkorea.com.my/ Caltech: Cal Tech Science Exchange provides trustworthy answers, clear explanations, and fact-driven conversation on critical topics in science and technology. Please visit scienceexchange.caltech.edu 

As the Frame is on hiatus, we are sharing the new show by John Horn, "Hollywood, The Sequel." The limited-run podcast series asks some of the entertainment industry's most influential artists and executives how Hollywood could and should reinvent itself. We don't know yet how the entertainment industry will adapt and respond to the traumas of 2020 when production resumes full time. But from an Oscar winning director to gig workers behind the scenes, there's broad agreement that not everything in Hollywood should return to the “good old days.”   Hollywood, The Sequel sponsors include: Korea Tourism: Visit Korea and experience delicious food, vibrant cities, and natural beauty. Please visit https://www.visitkorea.com.my/ Caltech: Cal Tech Science Exchange provides trustworthy answers, clear explanations, and fact-driven conversation on critical topics in science and technology. Please visit scienceexchange.caltech.edu 

Today’s interview is a little bit different than you might be used to where I’d like to introduce you to the newest sponsor of the Optimize Yourself podcast: Evercast. If you’re a content creator or someone who works in the entertainment industry and you’ve never heard of Evercast, you need to because this technology has the potential to change the way you work and live in our post-pandemic reality. In the following conversation I chat with Roger Barton and Brad Thomas, the co-founders of Evercast. As Brad & Roger will talk about in our interview, Evercast is essentially the “Zoom for creatives,” a live streaming & video conferencing platform combined with blink-of-an-eye low latency that empowers you to collaborate from your workstation to anyone’s device worldwide. You can stream anything to anyone anywhere, but unlike Zoom, when it comes to live streaming video content, it actually works! The first time I was introduced to Evercast all I could think to myself was GAME. CHANGER. I cannot stress this enough, Evercast is changing the way we collaborate as creative professionals, whether you’re an editor like me or a director, producer, cinematographer, location scout, or just about any other job in the filmmaking industry. If you value your craft, your well-being, and spending quality time with the ones you love, Evercast now makes that possible for you and me. » Click here for a live demo to see Evercast in action Show Credits: This episode was edited by Chris Orsi, and the show notes were prepared by Zack Arnold and published by Glen McNiel. The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).

Zack Arnold posted an article that went viral in the Hollywood community, titled: Dear Hollywood: We Don't Want To "Go Back To Normal." Normal Wasn't Working. In this episode we talk about what needs to change in Hollywood, post COVID, and how it's totally possible AND profitable to cut back hours. His follow up article proposes well-thought-out solutions which you can read here.

It can be hard to set work-life boundaries when you know someone else could easily replace you.This week Zack Arnold, award-winning editor (Cobra Kai, Empire, Glee) talks of the article he wrote Dear Hollywood: We Don't Want to “Go Back to Normal.” Normal Wasn't Working, and shares how he learned to set boundaries to create a healthy work-life balance in the industry.Listen to Zack tell Tanya how reduced set hours saves production money, when to say no, and how his company, Optimize Yourself teaches how to overcome burnout.Show notes:Optimize YourselfOptimize Yourself PodcastSetting Boundaries in the Industry – Kory PollardDear Hollywood: It's Time For An Intervention About The Hours We WorkParkinson's LawZack's Guides  Key points:1:17- How he got started as an editor7:04- Experience during COVID9:33- About Optimize Yourself12:33- How to monetize his passion16:46- How have people responded to your article Dear Hollywood: We Don't Want to “Go Back to Normal.” Normal Wasn't Working20:47- Changes to help reduce hours22:56- Clock-in/clock-out old way of thinking25:16- Parkinson's Law27:57- How to overcome someone taking advantage of your time29:40- When to say no31:49- Indicator of being taken advantage of35:35- The word Lucky41:10- How much creative control he has as an editor45:05- Having to use bad takes48:37- The questions you ask determine the quality of your lifeGet the latest the There To Here: Film & Media Podcast sent to youFind more podcasts from CoLab INC Film & MediaFollow us on:FacebookInstagramLinkedInTwitterYouTube

With work in the entertainment industry slowly beginning to trickle in and productions ramping up over the coming weeks and months, you’d think we could all just “go back to normal,” right? WRONG. The new version of post-pandemic work is going to be anything but normal (and frankly Normal. Wasn’t. Working), and for one very specific group, this is uncharted (and terrifying) territory: Parents. In the latest ‘Optimizer’ community Q&A, our community welcomes four hardworking moms in various stages of their careers in the entertainment industry. Editor Yvette Amirian (ACE), Editor Natalie Boschan, Editor/AE Monica Daniel, and Assistant Editor Bari Winter have all been simultaneously juggling busy careers while also doing their best to raise children during a global pandemic. We talk about how we can balance the vast needs of Hollywood production while still doing our best to be present parents. We discuss tips and strategies for handling this delicate balancing act. My guests also share their fears and hopes about navigating pre-pandemic expectations in a post-pandemic working world. In this very candid conversation, we cover many topics including: How can we balance the vast needs of Hollywood production and post-production when we’re still homeschooling our kids, daycare isn’t open, or we can’t afford a nanny anymore? Will working from home mean that we NEVER get any time away from the office to be a parent because of endless emails and texts where people need things 24/7? Will people be less likely to hire me again if I’m a parent working from home? Whether you are a parent or not, this conversation will address the issues of managing and sustaining Want to Hear More Episodes Like This One? » Click here to subscribe and never miss another episode Here’s What You’ll Learn: “Real-life” insight into balancing parenting and work obligations when it feels impossible How to tackle the question of getting a nanny during a pandemic and the importance of separating work and child care duties when working from home The best ways to make sure your kids are actively engaged in learning while you work from home (so that they don’t get left behind academically) How to keep yourself healthy and avoid burnout from trying to be “supermom” (or dad) Why normal wasn’t working for parents and how we will literally kill ourselves if we try to resume the status quo The real reasons moms tend to put themselves last and feel obligated to take care of everyone else first What the “theatre of work” is and how we need to teach producers to let us manage our own time How to set boundaries when working from home by communicating clearly and confidently Productivity tips on creating effective workflows so everyone is on the same page with boundaries and communication The different standards between being a mom in the workplace versus being a dad (and how moms have to navigate that) FACT: It’s harder for moms to get hired. When women reveal they have children, are they being explicitly discriminated against? Managing the dynamics of juggling family activities, finances, career advancement, and job obligations Why “time is the great equalizer” (everyone has the same amount of it) and how to use that to your advantage when setting expectations Detailed strategies for dealing with guilt about missing bedtimes or activities How to communicate with your kids the importance of taking time for yourself The valuable mindset shift of “work/life presence” vs. “work/life balance” Useful Resources Mentioned: EP 99: How to Provide Value and Get Paid What You’re Worth with Monica Daniel Fitness in Post Q&A with Natalie Boschan: Career Vs. Family Dear Hollywood: We Don’t Want to “Go Back to Normal.” Normal Wasn’t Working. Guest Bios: NATALIE BOSCHAN Natalie is an editor working in scripted television. She started her career editing short form content including trailers, DVD content and marketing videos for major motion picture releases. She made the move to scripted television as an assistant editor on season 7 of Burn Notice. After working on several series as an AE including Once Upon A Time, Empire, Shooter and Punisher she made the leap to Editor on season 2 of Shooter. Since then her editing credits have included Stargirl, LA’s Finest and Star. In between all that editing, Natalie has found time to become a mom to a lovely 2 year old boy. She’s done her best to balance family and work, but there are always challenges and she hopes to be apart of the solution to help parents working in post overcome some of those challenges. BARI WINTER Bari Winter is an accomplished television assistant editor. She started in news, sports and reality tv eventually moving into scripted television. Her credits include The Middle (ABC), Bluff City Law (ABC), and most recently season 2 of Doom Patrol (HBO Max). Bari is currently taking Zack Arnold’s Focus Yourself course with the goal of moving into the editors chair in the near future. Bari has a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. YVETTE AMIRIAN Yvette M. Amirian, ACE is an award-nominated film and television editor. After graduating from USC’s School of Cinema-Television, she built a successful career, and has been transitioning seamlessly between cutting scripted and documentary content for the better part of two decades. In 2011, she and her team received an Eddie Award nomination from the American Cinema Editors for their work on Animal Planet’s Whale Wars. In 2017, she edited and produced John Singleton’s L.A. Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later for A&E, which was nominated for a Primetime Emmy (Outstanding Documentary Special). Yvette is a proud member of the Motion Picture Editor’s Guild, the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences, and the American Cinema Editors (ACE). She also teaches editing at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and loves educating future generations of aspiring filmmakers. Yvette lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. MONICA DANIEL Monica Daniel has edited various genres of television that have been broadcast worldwide over the last decade. She is known for her “sh*tting sparkles” slogan from her award show red carpet work. She recently transitioned from editing reality television into a high level scripted network show, and our conversation today breaks down her journey and how you can walk away with actionable steps to make the same transition, regardless of your situation. Show Credits: This episode was edited by Chris Orsi, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel. The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).

If you’re listening to this now, my hope is that you’ve already listened to part 1 of this conversation with my dad. If you haven’t yet it’s available on your Podcast app of choice or CLICK HERE. As I mentioned in part 1… For a long time now I’ve wanted to sit down and do an interview with my father to ask him the big questions about life that we seldom (if ever) really discuss. So for this Father’s Day, I decided it was time to prioritize this conversation, even if it meant having to suffer through the perils of recording on Zoom as opposed to chatting face-to-face. This episode is a very special and personal one that I recorded for me, not for social media shares, not for search engine optimization, and not to grow an email list. This one is for me. But my hope is that listening to today’s conversation inspires you to reach out to your parents (if you’re fortunate enough they are still alive), or your siblings, or those who helped shape the person you are today so you can have an honest conversation just like this one. This is secon of my two part interview where I’ve created a series of 20 specific questions I’m calling “20 Questions to Ask Your Father On Father’s Day” (which can of course be repurposed to suit your needs). These questions were inspired by a similar exercise from high performance coach Brendon Burchard in this Facebook post. If you’d like to use the same 10 questions I asked in this second part of this interview, here they are: YOUR FAMILY How did you meet your spouse, when, and how did you know they were the one? Were you scared to become a parent? What is your proudest memory of being a parent? What three words would best describe your approach to being a parent? In regards to both their careers and life choices, what is the most important thing my children should focus on? YOUR LIFE What three words would you say best describe who you tried to be in life and how you want to be remembered? What were the three best decisions you’ve ever made? What are you most proud of in life? What message do you have for your spouse that you want her/him to always keep in mind about you and your relationship together? What are you most thankful for? Want to Hear More Episodes Like This One? » Click here to subscribe and never miss another episode Useful Resources Mentioned: [Podcast] Ep44: Kicking Cancer’s A*s, with Jane Arnold (i.e. my Mom) Guest Bio: Al Arnold has been working with struggling readers for fifty years as an elementary classroom teacher, elementary principal, and instructor at the university graduate level in a program for certifying reading teachers and reading specialists. He has always been engaged in studying the science of reading and struggling readers and applying it in his work. The elementary school where he was the principal received an award from the Education Trust in Washington D.C. for improvement in reading achievement. In 2007 he established a reading clinic to implement and further refine the techniques and curriculum he has learned and developed to remediate struggling readers. Arnold Reading Clinic Arnold Reading Magic iPad App Show Credits: This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Zack Arnold and published by Glen McNiel. The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).

It’s amazing how global pandemics, worldwide protesting and riots, and the general upheaval of society as we know it can make you think. It certainly helps to lend perspective on what’s really important in life and the choices we’ve made that led us to where we are right now at this moment. One of the most important realizations I’ve had is that because of travel restrictions and both of my parents being in the highest risk category for the COVID virus, I have no way of seeing them in person again until there’s either a reliable vaccine or we reach herd immunity. At this point that could be months or even years. For a long time now I’ve wanted to sit down and do an interview with my father to ask him the big questions about life that we seldom (if ever) really discuss. So for this Father’s Day, I decided it was time to prioritize this conversation, even if it meant having to suffer through the perils of recording on Zoom as opposed to chatting face-to-face. This episode is a very special and personal one that I recorded for me, not for social media shares, not for search engine optimization, and not to grow an email list. This one is for me. But my hope is that listening to today’s conversation inspires you to reach out to your parents (if you’re fortunate enough they are still alive), or your siblings, or those who helped shape the person you are today so you can have an honest conversation just like this one. This is the first of a 2 part interview where I’ve created a series of 20 specific questions I’m calling “20 Questions to Ask Your Father On Father’s Day” (which can of course be repurposed to suit your needs). These questions were inspired by a similar exercise from high performance coach Brendon Burchard in this Facebook post. If you’d like to use the same 10 questions I asked in the first part of this interview, here they are: YOUR BACKGROUND When were you born, where, and what memories come to mind when you think about growing up as a young child? What are the most formative memories or experiences you had as a child or dteenager that led you to the person you have become today? What is the most important lesson you learned from your mom? What is the most important lesson you learned from your dad? If your parents were still alive today and could talk to my kids (their great-grandchildren), what would they want to share with them? YOUR CAREER What path did you begin on in life when you first became an adult and why? What career path (or paths) have you followed since then and why? What do (did) you love the most about your career? What makes you successful at what you do? What do you believe about yourself that has help you endure difficult times, and what is the most difficult experience you remember teaching you this lesson? Check out Part 2 of my interview with my dad, Al Arnold here → Want to Hear More Episodes Like This One? » Click here to subscribe and never miss another episode Useful Resources Mentioned: Ep48: Feeling Lost? It’s Time to ‘Find Your Why’ | with David Mead Arnold Reading Clinic Guest Bio: Al Arnold has been working with struggling readers for fifty years as an elementary classroom teacher, elementary principal, and instructor at the university graduate level in a program for certifying reading teachers and reading specialists. He has always been engaged in studying the science of reading and struggling readers and applying it in his work. The elementary school where he was the principal received an award from the Education Trust in Washington D.C. for improvement in reading achievement. In 2007 he established a reading clinic to implement and further refine the techniques and curriculum he has learned and developed to remediate struggling readers. Arnold Reading Clinic Arnold Reading Magic iPad App Show Credits: This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Zack Arnold and published by Glen McNiel. The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).

Some of the highlights of the show include The diplomacy that's required between software engineers and management, and why influence is needed to move projects forward to completion. Driving factors behind Ygrene's Kubernetes migration, which included an infrastructure bottleneck, a need to streamline deployment, and a desire to leverage their internal team of cloud experts. Management's request to ship code faster, and why it was important to the organization.  How the company's engineers responded to the request to ship code faster, and overcame disconnects with management. How the team obtained executive buy-in for a Kubernetes migration. Key cultural changes that were required to make the migration to Kubernetes successful. How unexpected challenges forced the team to learn the “depths of Kubernetes,” and how it helped with root cause analysis. Why the transition to Kubernetes was a success, enabling the team to ship code faster, deliver more value, secure more customers, and drive more revenue.  Links: HerdX: https://www.herdx.com/ Ygrene: https://ygrene.com/ Austin Twitter: https://twitter.com/_austbot Austin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austbot/ Arnold's book on publisher site: https://www.packtpub.com/cloud-networking/the-kubernetes-workshop  Arnold's book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kubernetes-Workshop-Interactive-Approach-Learning/dp/1838820752/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Welcome to The Business of Cloud Native podcast where we explore how end users talk and think about the transition to Kubernetes and cloud-native architectures.Emily: Welcome to The Business of Cloud Native. My name is Emily Omier, and I am here with Austin Adams and Zack Arnold, and we are here to talk about why companies go cloud-native.Austin: So, I'm currently the CTO of a small Agrotech startup called HerdX. And that means I spend my days designing software, designing architecture for how distributed systems talk, and also leading teams of engineers to build proof-of-concepts and then production systems as they take over the projects that I've designed. Emily: And then, what did you do at Ygrene? Austin: I did the exact same thing, except for without the CTO title. And I also had other higher-level engineers working with me at Ygrene. So, we made a lot of technical decisions together. We all migrated to Kubernetes together, and Zack was a chief proponent of that, especially with the culture change. So, I focused on the designing software that teams of implementation engineers could take over and actually build out for the long run. And I think Zack really focused on—oh, I'll let Zack say what he focused on. [laughs].Emily: Go for it, Zach.Zach: Hello. I'm Zack. I also no longer work for Ygrene, although I have a lot of admiration and respect for the people who do. It was a fantastic company. So, Austin called me up a while back and asked me to think about participating in a DevOps engineering role at Ygrene. And he sort of said at the outset, we don't really know what it looks like, and we're pretty sure that we just created a position out of a culture, but would you be willing to embody it? And up until this point, I'd had cloud experience, and I had had software engineering experience, but I didn't really spend a ton of time focused on the actual movement of software from developer's laptops to production with as few hiccups, and as many tests, and as much safety as possible in between. So, I always told people the role felt like it was three parts. It was part IT automation expert, part software engineer, and then part diplomat. And the diplomacy was mostly in between people who are more operations focused. So, support engineers, project managers, and people who were on-call day in and day out, and being a go-between higher levels of management and software engineers themselves because there's this awkward, coordinated motion that has to really happen at a fine-grained level in order to get DevOps to really work at a company. What I mean by that is, essentially, Dev and Ops seem to on the surface have opposing goals, the operation staff, it's job is to maintain stability, and the development side's job is to introduce change, which invariably introduces instability. So, that dichotomy means that being able to simultaneously satisfy both desires is really a goal of DevOps, but it's difficult to achieve at an organizational level without dealing with some pretty critical cultural components. So, what do I spend my day on? The answer to that question is, yes. It really depends on the day. Sometimes it's cloud engineers. Sometimes it's QA folks, sometimes it's management. Sometimes I'm heads-down writing software for integrations in between tools. And every now and again, I get to contribute to open-source. So, a lot of different actual daily tasks take place in my position.Emily: Tell me a little bit more about this diplomacy between software engineers and management.Zach: [laughs]. Well, I'm not sure who's going to be listening in this amazing audience of ours, but I assume, because people are human, that they have capital O-pinions about how things should work, especially as it pertains to either software development lifecycle, the ITIL process of introducing change into a datacenter, into a cloud environment, compliance, security. There's lots of, I'll call them thought frameworks that have a very narrow focus on how we should be doing something with respect to software. So, diplomacy is the—well, I guess in true statecraft, it's being able to work in between countries. But in this particular case, diplomacy is using relational equity or influence, to be able to have every group achieve a common and shared purpose. At the end of the day, in most companies the goal is actually to be able to produce a product that people would want to pay for, and we can do so as quickly and as efficiently as possible. To do that, though, it again requires a lot of people with differing goals to work together towards that shared purpose. So, the diplomacy looks like, aside from just having way too many meetings, it actually looks like being able to communicate other thought frameworks to different stakeholders and being able to synthesize all of the different narrow-focused frameworks into a common shared, overarching process. So, I'll give you a concrete example because it feels like I just spewed a bunch of buzzwords. A concrete example would be, let's say in the common feature that's being delivered for ABC Company, for this feature it requires X number of hours of software development; X number of hours of testing; X number of hours of preparing, either capacity planning, or fleet size recommendations, or some form of operational pre-work; and then the actual deployment, and running, and monitoring. So, in the company that I currently work for, we just described roughly 20 different teams that would have to work together in order to achieve the delivery of this feature as rapidly as possible. So, the process of DevOps and the diplomacy of DevOps, for me looks like—aside from trying to automate as much as humanly possible and to provide what I call interface guarantees, which are basically shared agreements of functionality between two teams. So, the way that the developers will speak to the QA engineers is through Git. They develop new software, and they push it into shared code repositories, the way that the QA engineers will speak to people who are going to be handling the deployments—or at management in this particular case—is going to be through a well-formatted XML test file. So, providing automation around those particular interfaces and then ensuring that everyone's shared goals are met at the particular period of time where they're going to be invoked over the course of the delivery of that feature, is the “subtle art,”—air quotes, you can't see but—to me of DevOps diplomacy. That kind of help?Emily: Yeah, absolutely. Let's take, actually, just a little bit of a step back. Can you talk about what some of the business goals were behind moving to Kubernetes for Ygrene? Who was the champion of this move? Was it business stakeholders saying, “Hey, we really need this to change,” or engineering going to business stakeholders? Who needed a change. I believe that the desire for Kubernetes came from a bottleneck of infrastructure. Not so much around performance, such as the applications weren't performing due to scale. We had projected scale that we were coming to where it would cause a problem potentially, but it was also in the ease of deployment. It had a very operations mindset as Zack was saying, our infrastructure was almost entirely managed—of the core applications set—by outsourcing. And so, we depended on them to innovate, we depended on them to spin up new environments and services. But we also have this internal competing team that always had this cloud background. And so, what we were trying to do was lessen the time between idea to deployment by utilizing platforms that were more scalable, more flexible, and all the things that Docker gives with the Dev/Prod Parity, the ease of packaging your environment together so that small team can ship an entire application. And so, I think our main goal with that was to take that team that already had a lot of cloud experience, and give them more power to drive the innovation and not be bottlenecked just by what the outsourcing team could do. Which, by the way, just for the record, the outsourcing team was an amazing team, but they didn't have the Kubernetes or cloud experience, either. So, in terms of a hero or champion of it, it just started as an idea between me and the new CTO, or CIO that came in, talking about how can we ship code faster? So, one of the things that happened in my career was the desire for a rapid response team which, that sounds like a buzzword or something, but it was this idea that Ygrene was shipping software fairly slow, and we wanted to get faster. So, really the CIO, and one of the development managers, they were the really big champions of, “Hey, let's deliver value to the business faster.” And they had the experience to ask their engineers how to make that happen, and then trust Zack and I through this process of delivering Kubernetes, and Istio, and container security, and all these different things that eventually got implemented.Emily: Why do you think shipping code faster matters?Austin: I think, for this company, why it mattered was the PACE financing industry is relatively new. And while financing has some old established patterns, I feel like there's still always room for innovation. If you hear the early days of the Bridgewater Financial Hedge Fund, they were a source of innovation and they used technology to deliver new types of assets and things like that. And so, our team at Ygrene was excellent because they wanted to try new things. They wanted to try new patterns of PACE financing, or ways of getting in front of the customer, or connections with different analytics so they could understand their customer better. So, it was important to be able to try things, experiment to see what was going to be successful. To get things out into the real world to know, okay, this is actually going to work, or no, this isn't going to work. And then, also, one of the things within financing is—especially newer financing—is there's a lot of speed bumps along the way. Compliance laws can come into effect, as well as working with cities and governments that have specialized rules and specialized things that they need—because everyone's an expert when it comes to legislation, apparently—they decide that they need X, and they give us a time when we have to get it done. And so, we actually have another customer out there, which is the legislative bodies. So, they have to get the software—their features that are needed within the financing system out by certain dates, or we're no longer eligible to operate in those counties. So, one of it was a core business risk, so we needed to be able to deliver faster. The other was how can we grow the business?Emily: Zach, this might be a question for you. Was there anything that was lost in translation as you were explaining what engineering was going to do in order to meet this goal of shipping code faster, of being more agile, when you were talking to C level management? How did they understand, and did anything get lost in translation?Zach: One of the largest disconnects, both on a technical and from a high level speaking to management issue I had was explaining how we were no longer going to be managing application servers as though they were pets. When you come from an on-premise setup, and you've got your VMware ESXi, and you're managing virtual machines, the most important thing that you have is backups because you want to keep those machines exactly as they are, and you install new software on those machines. When Kubernetes says, I'm going to put your pods wherever they fit on the cluster, assuming it conforms with the scheduling pattern, and if a node dies, it's totally fine, I'm going to spin a new one up for you, and move pods around and ensure that the application is exactly as you had stated—as in, it's in its desired state—that kind of thinking from switching from infrastructure as pets to infrastructure as cattle, is difficult to explain to people who have spent their careers in building and maintaining datacenters. And I think a lot—well, it's not guaranteed that this is across the board, but if you want to talk about a generational divide, people that usually occupy the C level office chairs are familiar with—in their heyday of their career—a datacenter-based setup. In a cloud-based consumption model where it really doesn't matter—I can just spin up anything anywhere—when you talk about moving from reasoning about your application as the servers it comprises and instead talking about your application as the workload it comprises, it becomes a place where you have to really, really concretely explain to people exactly how it's going to work that the entire earth will not come crashing down if you lose a server, or if you lose a pod, or if a container hiccups and gets restarted by Kubernetes on that node. I think that was the real key one. And the reason why that actually became incredibly beneficial for us is because once we actually had that executive buy-off when it came to, while I still may not understand, I trust that you know what you're doing and that this infrastructure really is replaceable, it allowed us to get a little bit more aggressive with how we managed our resources. So, now using Horizontal Pod Autoscaling, using the Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler, and leveraging Amazon EC2 Spot Fleets, we were only ever paying for the exact amount of infrastructure that was required to run our business. And I think that is usually the thing that translates the best to management and non-technical leadership. Because when it comes down to if I'm aware that using this tool, and using a cloud-native approach to running my application, I am only ever going to be paying for the computational resource that I need in that exact minute to run my business, then the budget discussions become a lot easier, because everyone is aware that this is your exact run-rate when it comes to technology. Does that make sense? Emily: Absolutely. How important was having that executive buy-in? My understanding is that a lot of companies, they think that they're going to get all these savings from Kubernetes, and it doesn't always materialize. So, I'm just curious, it sounds like it really did for Ygrene.Zach: There was two things that really worked well for us when this transformation was taking place. The first was, Ygrene was still growing, so if the budget grew alongside of the growth of the company, nobody noticed. So, that was one really incredible thing that happened that, I think, now having had different positions in the industry, I don't know if I appreciated that enough because if you're attempting to make a cost-neutral migration to the Cloud, or to adopt cloud-native management principles, you're going to probably move too little, too late. And when that happens, you run the risk of really doing a poor job of adopting cloud-native, and then scrapping that project, because it never materialized the benefit, as you just described, that some people didn't experience. And the other benefit that we had, I think was the fact that because there were enough incredibly senior technical people—and again, I learned everything from these people—working with us, and because we were all, for the most part, on the same page when it came to this migration, it was easy to have a unified front with our management because every engineer saw the value of this new way of running our infrastructure and running our application. In one non—and this obviously helps with our engineers—one non-monetary benefit that helped really get the buy-in was the fact that, with Kubernetes, our on-call SEV-1 pages went down, I want to say, by over 40 percent which was insane because Kubernetes was automatically intervening in the case where servers went down. JVMs run out of memory, exceptions cause strange things, but a simple restart usually fixes the vast majority of them. Well, now Kubernetes was doing this and we didn't need to wake somebody up in order to keep the machine running.Emily: From when you started this transition to when you, I should say, when you probably left the company, but what were some of the surprises, either surprises for you, or surprises for other people in the organization?Austin: The initial surprise was the yes that we got. So, initially I pitched it and started talking about it, and then the culture started changing to where we realized we really needed to change, and bringing Zack on and then getting the yes from management was the initial surprise. And—Emily: Why was that a surprise?Austin: It was just surprising because, when you work as an engineer—I mean, none of us were C suite, or Dev managers, or anything. We were just highly respected engineers working in the HQ. So, it was just a surprise that what we felt was a semi-crazy idea at the time—because Kubernetes was a little bit earlier. I mean, EKS wasn't even a thing from Amazon. We ran our Kubernetes clusters from the hip, which is using kops, which is—kops is a great tool, but obviously it wasn't managed. It was managed by us, mainly by Zach and his team, to be honest. So, that was a surprise that they would trust a billion-dollar financing engine to run on the proposal of two engineers. And then, the next ones were just how much the single-server, vertical scaling, and depending on running on the same server was into our applications. So, as we started to look at the core applications and moving them into a containerized environment, but also into an environment that can be spun up and spun down, looking at the assumptions the application was making around being on the same server; having specific IP addresses, or hostnames; and things like that, where we had to take those assumptions out and make things more flexible. So, we had to remove some stateful assumptions in the applications, that was a surprise. We also had to enforce more of the idea of idempotency, especially when introducing Istio, and [00:21:44 retryable] connections and retryable logic around circuit breaking and service-to-service communication. So, some of those were the bigger surprises, is the paradigm shift between, “Okay, we've got this service that's always going to run on the same machine, and it's always going to have local access to its files,” to, “Now we're on a pod that's got a volume mounted, and there's 50 of them.” And it's just different. So, that was a big—[laughs], that was a big surprise for us.Emily: Was there anything that you'd call a pleasant surprise? Things that went well that you anticipated to be really difficult?Zach: Oh, my gosh, yes. When you read through Kubernetes for the first time, you tend to have this—especially if somebody else told you, “Hey, we're going to do this,” this sinking feeling of, “Oh my god, I don't even know nothing,” because it's so immense in its complexity. It requires a retooling of how you think, but there have been lots of open-source community efforts to improve the cluster lifecycle management of Kubernetes, and one such project that really helped us get going—do you remember this Austin?—was kops.Austin: Yep. Yep, kops is great.Zach: I want to say Justin Santa Barbara was the original creator of that project, and it's still open source, and I think he still maintains it. But to have a production-ready, and we really mean production-ready: it was private, everything was isolated, the CNI was provisioned correctly, everything was in the right place, to have a fully production-ready Kubernetes cluster ready to go within a few hours of us being able to learn about this tool in AWS was huge because then we could start to focus on what we didn't even understand inside of the cluster. Because there were lots of—Kubernetes is—there's two sides of it, and both of them are confusing. There's the infrastructure that participates in the cluster, and there's the actual components inside of the cluster which get orchestrated to make your application possible. So, not having to initially focus on the infrastructure that made up the cluster, so we could just figure out the difference between our butt and the hole in the ground, when it came to our application inside of Kubernetes was immensely helpful to us. I mean, there are a lot of tools these days that do that now: GKE, EKS, AKS, but we got into Kubernetes right after it went GA, and this was huge to help with that.Emily: Can you tell me also a little bit about the cultural changes that had to happen? And what were these cultural changes, and then how did it go?Zach: As Austin said, the notion of—I think a lot—and I don't want to offer this as a sweeping statement—but I think the vast majority of the engineers that we had in Seattle, in San Jose, and in Petaluma where the company was headquartered, I think, even if they didn't understand what the word idempotent meant, they understood more or less how that was going to work. The larger challenge for us was actually in helping our contractors, who actually made up the vast majority of our labor force towards the end of my tenure there, how a lot of these principles worked in software. So, take a perfect example: part of the application is written in Ruby on Rails, and in Ruby on Rails, there's a concept of one-off tasks called rake tasks. When you are running a single server, and you're sending lots of emails that have attachments, those attachments have to be on the file system. And this is the phrase I always said to people, as we refactor the code together, I repeated the statement, “You have to pretend this request is going to start on one server and finish on a different one, and you don't know what either of them are, ahead of time.” And I think using just that simple nugget really helped, culturally, start to reshape this skill of people because when you can't use or depend on something like the file system, or you can't depend on that I'm still on the same server, you begin to break your task into components, and you begin to store those components in either a central database or a central file system like Amazon S3. And adopting those parts of, I would call, cloud-native engineering were critical to the cultural adoption of this tool. I think the other thing was, obviously, lots of training had to take place. And I think a lot of operational handoff had to take place. I remember for, basically, a fairly long stretch of time, I was on-call along with whoever was also on-call because I had the vast majority of the operational knowledge of Kubernetes for that particular team. So, I think there was a good bit of rescaling and mindset shift from the technical side of being able to adopt a cloud-native approach to software building. Does that make sense?Emily: Absolutely. What do you think actually were some of the biggest challenges or the biggest pain points? Zach: So, challenges of cultural shift, or challenges of specifically Kubernetes adoption?Emily: I was thinking challenges of Kubernetes adoption, but I'm also curious about the cultural shift if that's one of the biggest pain points.Zach: It really was for us. I think—because now it wouldn't—if you wanted to take out Kubernetes and replace it with Nomad there? All of the engineers would know what you're talking about. It wouldn't take but whatever the amount of time it would to migrate your Kubernetes manifests to Nomad HCL files. So, I do think the rescaling and the mindset shift, culturally speaking, was probably the thing that helped solidify it from an engineering level. But Kubernetes adoption—or at least problems in Kubernetes adoption, there was a lot of migration horror stories that we encountered. A lot of cluster instability in earlier versions of Kubernetes prevented any form of smooth upgrades. I had to leave—it was with my brother's—it was his wedding, what was it—oh, rehearsal dinner, that's what it was. I had to leave his rehearsal dinner because the production cluster for Ygrene went down, and we needed to get it back up. So, lots of funny stories like that. Or Nordstrom did a really fantastic talk on this in KubeCon in Austin in 2017. But the [00:28:57 unintelligible] split-brain problem where suddenly the consensus in between all of the Kubernetes master nodes began to fail for one reason or another. And because they were serving incorrect information to the controller managers, then the controller managers were acting on incorrect information and causing the schedulers to do really crazy things, like delete entire deployments, or move pods, or kill nodes, or lots of interesting things. I think we unnecessarily bit off a little bit too much when it came to trying to do tricky stuff when it came to infrastructure. We introduced a good bit of instability when it came to Amazon EC2 Spot that I think, all things considered, I would have revised the decision on that. Because we faced a lot of node instability, which translated into application instability, which would cause really, really interesting edge cases to show up basically only in production.Austin: One of the more notable ones—and I think this is the symptom of one of the larger challenges was during testing, one of our project managers that also helped out in the testing side—technical project managers—which we nicknamed the Edge Case Factory, because she was just, anointed, or somehow had this superpower to find the most interesting edge cases, and things that never went wrong for anyone else always went wrong for her, and it really helped us build more robust software for sure, but there's some people out there with mutant powers to catch bugs, and she was one of them. We had two clusters, we had lower environment clusters, and then we had production cluster. The production cluster hosted two namespaces: the staging namespace, which is supposed to be an exact copy of production; and then the production namespace, so that you can smoke-test legitimate production resources, and blah blah blah. So, one time, we started to get some calls that, all of a sudden, people were getting the staging environment underneath the production URL. Zach: Yeah.Austin: And we were like, “Uh… excuse me?” It comes down to—we eventually figured it out. It was something within the networking layer. But it was this thing, as we rolled along, the deeper understanding of, okay, how does this—to use a term that Zack Arnold coined—this benevolent botnet, how does this thing even work, at the most fundamental and most detailed levels? And so, as problems and issues would occur, pre-production or even in production, we had to really learn the depths of Kubernetes. And I think the reason we had to learn it at that stage was because of how new Kubernetes was, all things considered. But I think now with a lot more of the managed systems, I would say it's not necessary, but it's definitely helpful to really know how Kubernetes works down in the depths. So, that was one of the big challenges was, to put it succinctly, when an issue comes up, knowing really what's going on under the hood, really, really helped us as we discovered and learned things about Kubernetes.Zach: And what you're saying, Austin, was really illuminated by the fact that the telemetry that we had in production was not sufficient, in our minds, at least until very recently, to be able to adequately capture all the data necessary to accurately do root cause analyses on particular issues. In early days, there was far too much root cause analysis by, “It was probably this,” and then we moved on. Now having actually taken the time to instrument tracing, to instrument metrics, to instrument logs with correlation, we used, eventually, Datadog, but working our way through the various telemetry tools to achieve this, we really struggled being able to give accurate information to stakeholders about what was really going wrong in production. And I think Austin was probably the first person in the headquarters side of the company—I'm not entirely certain about some of our satellite dev offices—but to really champion a data-driven way of actually running software. Which, it seems trivial now because obviously that's how a lot of these tools work out of the box. But for us, it was really like, “Oh, I guess we really do need to think about the HTTP error rate.” [laughs].Emily: So, taking another step back here, do you think that Ygrene got everything that it expected, or that it wanted out of moving to Kubernetes?Austin: I think we're obviously playing up some of the challenges that we had because it was our day-to-day, but I do believe that trust in the dev team grew, we were able to deploy code during the day, which we could have done that in the beginning, even with vertically scaled infrastructure, we would have done it with downtime, but it really was that as we started to show that Kubernetes and these cloud-native tools like Fluentd, Prometheus, Istio, and other things like that when you set them up properly, they do take a lot of the risk out. It added trust in the development team. It gave more responsibility to the developers to manage their own code in production, which is the DevOps culture, the DevOps mindset. And I think in the end, we were able to ship code faster, we were able to deliver more value, we were able to go into new jurisdictions and markets quicker, to get more customers, and to ultimately increase the amount of revenue that Ygrene had. So, it built a bridge between the data science side of things, the development side of things, the project management side of things, and the compliance side of things. So, I definitely think they got a lot out of trusting us with this migration. I think that were we to continue, probably Zack and I even to this day, we would have been able to implement more, and more, and more. Obviously, I left the company, Zach left the company to pursue other opportunities, but I do believe we left them in a good spot to take this ecosystem that was put in place and run with it. To continue to innovate and do experiments to get more business.Zach: Emily, I'd characterize it with an anecdote. After our Chief Information Officer left the company, our Chief Operating Officer actually took over the management of the Technology Group, and aside from basically giving dev management carte blanche authority to do as they needed to, I think there was so much trust there that we didn't have at the beginning of our journey with technology and Ygrene. And it was characterized in, we had monthly calls with all of the regional account managers, which are basically our out-of-office sales staff. And generally, the project managers from our group would have to sit in those meetings and hear just about how terrible our technology was relative to the competition, either lacking in features, lacking in stability, lacking in design quality, lacking in user interface design, or way overdoing the amount of compliance we had to have. And towards the end of my tenure, those complaints dropped to zero, which I think was really a testament to the fact that we were running things stably, the amount of on-call pages went down tremendously, the amount of user-impacting production outages was dramatically reduced, and I think the overall quality of software increased with every release. And to be able to say that, as a finance company, we were able to deploy 10 times during the day if we needed to, and not because it was an emergency, but because it was genuinely a value-added feature for customers. I think that that really demonstrated that we reached a level of success adopting Kubernetes and cloud-native, that really helped our business win. And we positioned them, basically, now to make experiments that they thought would work from a business sense we implement the technology behind it, and then we find out whether or not we were right.Emily: Let's go ahead and wrap up. We're nearing the top of the hour, but just two questions for both of you. One is, where could listeners find you or connect with you? And the second one is, do you have a can't-live-without engineering tool?Austin: Yeah, so I'll go first. Listeners can find me on Twitter @_austbot, or on LinkedIn. Those are really the only tools I use. And I can't really live without Prometheus and Grafana. I really love being able to see everything that's happening in my applications. I love instrumentation. I'm very data-driven on what's happening inside. So, obviously Kubernetes is there, but it's almost become that Kubernetes is the Cloud. I don't even think about it anymore. It's these other tools that help us monitor and create active monitoring paradigms in our application so we can deploy fast, and know if we broke something. Zach: And if you want to stay in contact with me, I would recommend not using Twitter, I lost my password and I'm not entirely certain how to get it back. I don't have a blue checkmark, so I can't talk to Twitter about that. I probably am on LinkedIn… you know what, you can find me in my house. I'm currently working. The engineering tool that I really can't live without, I think my IDE. I use IntelliJ by JetBrains, and—Austin: Yeah, it's good stuff.Zach: —I think I wouldn't be able to program without it. I fear for my next coding interview because I'll be pretending that there's type ahead completion in a Google Doc, and it just won't work. So, yeah, I think that would be the tool I'd keep forever.Austin: And if any of Zach's managers are listening, he's not planning on doing any coding interviews anytime soon.Zach: [laughs]. Yes, obviously.Emily: Well, thank you so much. Zach: Emily Omier, thank you so much for your time.Austin: Right, thanks.Austin: And don't forget Zack is an author. He and his team worked very hard on that book.Emily: Zack, do you want to give a plug to your book?Zach: Oh, yeah. Some really intelligent people that, for some reason, dragged me along, worked on a book. Basically it started as an introduction to Kubernetes, and it turned into a Master's Course on Kubernetes. It's from Packt Publishing and yeah, you can find it there, amazon.com or steal it on the internet. If you're looking to get started with Kubernetes I cannot recommend the team that worked on this book enough. It was a real honor to be able to work with people I consider to be heavyweights in the industry. It was really fun.Emily: Thank you so much.Announcer: Thank you for listening to The Business of Cloud Native podcast. Keep up with the latest on the podcast at thebusinessofcloudnative.com and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever fine podcasts are distributed. We'll see you next time.This has been HumblePod production. Stay humble.

We have been thinking about our fellow editors from around the world in this unique time. In this episode we hear from our past guests and editors down south from ACE about how life is for them. We hope these messages bring you hope in these uncertain times. Thank you to the editors who contributed to this episode! Cathy Gulkin, CCE, Kevin Tent, ACE, Nicole Ratcliffe, CCE, Justin Lachance, CCE, Liza Cardinale, ACE, Daria Ellerman, CCE, Zack Arnold, ACE, Stephen Philipson, CCE, Jesse Averna, ACE, Jonathan Dowler, Lesley MacKay Hunter, Paul Hunter, Stephen Rivkin, ACE, Pauline Decroix, Scott Parker, Jane MacRae, Ron Sanders, CCE, Jillian Moul, ACE, D. Gillian Truster, CCE, Paul Winestock, CCE, Sarah Hedar, Mike Munn, CCE, Michele Hozer, CCE, Paul Day, CCE and Krystal Moss. What do you want to hear on The Editors Cut! Please send along any topics you would like us to cover or editors you would love to hear from! You can reach us at podcast@cceditors.ca. A special thanks goes Jane MacRae, Jenni McCormick from ACE, Stephen Philipson, CCE and Heather Urness. Hosted, Produced and Edited by Sarah Taylor Episode graphic designed by Jane MacRae Mixed and Mastered by Tony Bao Music from Soundstripe

Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Optimize Yourself podcast where I provide my written articles in audio form so you have the opportunity to listen instead of read if that’s your preference. My hope is that you’ll use this opportunity to get up and step away from your desk to build the habit of moving more throughout your workday. Today’s reading is for an article I wrote for Frame.io that’s all about building a workflow so you can summon your creativity on demand. » Click here to read the article at Frame.io   FREE 'DEEP WORK' MASTERCLASS If your livelihood as a creative professional depends on your ability to stay focused and consistently make good creative decisions, especially for long hours, then the ability to focus is quite possibly the most important skill you have to master if you want a long and successful career. And luckily I have just the training for you. This week only beginning September 3rd through September 10th I’m offering you free access to my 4-part online Masterclass ‘How to Build the Habit of Deep Work.  In this 100% FREE Online Masterclass You'll Learn: How to better manage your creativity and train your focus like a marathon runner instead of a sprinter The #1 tool to master to skyrocket your creativity and productivity (Hint: It's not Trello or any other fancy productivity app on the planet...it's much simpler than you think) How to rearrange your work environment and daily work habits to summon creativity at the snap of a finger (without constantly waiting for super-tight deadlines so you can avoid procrastinating) Strategies to design your 'soundscape' and your work area to minimize distractions and interruptions The 'Back to One Technique' which will make it virtually impossible for you to get stuck staring at the dreaded 'Blank Timeline' ever again  Every tool and strategy I recommend to master the art of 'Time Blocking' You can join this masterclass anytime between Sep 3rd and 10th by visiting optimizeyourself.me/focus. I look forward to seeing you there! Be well. Zack Arnold

Zack Arnold shares his experiences with burnout, how to recognize the signs, and how to pull yourself out.

In this episode we are taking some time to focus on the mental and overall health of editors. Laura Di Vilioa registered psychotherapist and Zack Arnold, ACE offer us a wealth of information on how we can live happier and more productive lives both in and out of the edit suite. Laura has been working as a psychotherapist for over 25 years and her experience has taught her how best to help clients gain insight, healing and inspiration. She uses a relational approach to depth-oriented psychotherapy which facilitates deep, lasting change. Laura is based in Toronto, Ontario. Zack Arnold, ACE is an award-winning Hollywood film and television editor based in LA. You can see his work on ​Cobra Kai, Empire, Burn Notice, Shooter and Glee, just to name a few​. He is also a documentary director, and creator of the ​Optimize Yourself program and podcast. He helps editors work smarter and not harder so they can do the best creative work they're capable of...without sacrificing their sanity in the process. Resources from Laura: Apps to help with depression and anxiety SuperBetter & SuperBetter at Work were developed by a game designer Jane McGonigal to help with her concussion symptoms. She uses games to improve psychological well- being. See her Ted Talk. She also has a book by the same name. Headspace meditation app that makes meditating easy. They provide really good meditation instructions as well as meditations that are as short as 1 minute. Happify claims that its games can help increase your happiness and reduce stress while teaching you life-changing habits.  Sanvello provides space for you to track your moods, health, and habits, offering relaxation techniques and mindfulness exercises tailored to your specific needs. It also offers curated audio exercises to deploy if you are having a panic attack. Worry Watch helps you track your mental state over time by asking you first to write down the cause of your stress, and later asks you to return to the app to reflect on the worry and note whether the ultimate outcome was good or bad. TalkSpace matches users with licensed therapists in their area almost instantly. Brain.fm In its own words, the goal of Brain.fm, an app developed in consultation with neuroscientists, is “unlocking music's potential to influence cognitive states.” Books for dealing with anxiety and depression Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns Mind Over Mood, Second Edition: Change How you feel by changing the way you think. by Dennis Greenberger Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety Paperback – Jul 7 2015 by Robert Duff Ph.D.  Books for dealing with Work Drama: The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun The No A**hole Rule by Robert l. Sutton Bossypants by Tina Fey Websites School of Life. The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. A resource for helping people understand themselves, for improving relationships, careers and social lives. They do this through films, workshops, books and gifts - as well as through a warm and supportive community which you can connect to on their app. Resources from Zack: Ultimate Guide to Optimizing Your Creativity (And Avoiding Burnout) Optimixe Yourself Podcast A special thanks goes to Bryan Atkinson, James Vandewater, Katie Chipperfield, Krysia Szyszlo, Alison Dowler and Jane MacRae. Hosted, Produced and Edited by Sarah Taylor Main Title Sound Design by Jane Tattersall ADR Recording by Andrea Rusch Mixed and Mastered by Tony Bao Original Music by Chad Blain Sponsor Narration by Paul Winestock

I sit down with documentary director, Hollywood film & television editor, productivity nerd, and the creator of the Optimize Yourself program, Zack Arnold. We take a look at how he blended his knowledge of athletics and creative performance to build a business he’s crazy about and deep-dive into ways to optimize yourself and your business using productivity tools. What You’ll Discover In This Episode: ✔️ Why You Should Strive For Work-Life Presence Over Balance ✔️ The Worst Thing You Can Do To Generate Ideas ✔️ Clever Ways To Problem Solve Differently ✔️ The 3 Things To Nail In Order To Accomplish Anything ✔️ How To Attain The Sweet Spot Of Staying Focused ✔️ Strategies To Pace Yourself And Your Energy ✔️ The Best Way To Reach Default Mode Where Your Creativity Is The Highest ✔️ So Much More! This was an awesome discussion with Zack I hope you enjoy. Now let’s jump right in and get to the straight talk!   Show Notes Schedule Your Discovery Call with me to find out how we can work together to accelerate your success.

After having a conversation with Zack Arnold, I can personally say that he has changed my perspective on how efficiently I should approach all aspects of my work. We cover topics like giving yourself permission to fail, removing the word "problem" from your vocabulary, asking yourself why/what is your purpose for what you do? This is a podcast that you do not want to skip. Zack Arnold's Optimize Yourself: https://optimizeyourself.me/ Javier Mercedes: https://JavierMercedes.com Join My Newsletter: https://javiermercedes.gr8.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/javiermercedesx/

In episode 25 I’ve got award-winning Hollywood film and television editor, dad, fitness enthusiast, and American Ninja Warrior trainee, Zack Arnold, on the podcast to talk about his side hustle that teaches you how to optimize yourself and use the G.O.F.A.R. framework to achieve everything you’ve ever wanted. You can find Zack over at OptimizeYourself.me and you can also pick up a copy of The Ultimate Guide To Optimizing Your Creativity and Avoiding Burnout for FREE. Want to learn from a Trello master? Check out Zack's courses here. Zack shares a few tools: Trello Zapier The One Thing by Gary Keller You can pick up your copy of The Side Hustle Journal over at www.gritandhustle.co If you have an awesome side hustle that you would like to share with the world, I'd love to have you on my podcast. You can schedule a podcast interview by going to: https://calendly.com/gritandhustleco/guest

Interested in joining my brand new Design Yourself program (with a 50% discount) when enrollment opens next week? Visit optimizeyourself.me/design to learn more. Let’s be honest... “A proven 5-step framework to help you overcome the procrastination, anxiety, and fear that keep you from following through with your goals”  ...just doesn’t sound sexy.  You know what DOES sound sexy? ✓ Losing 25 pounds. ✓ Landing your dream job. ✓ Finishing that screenplay. ✓ Paying off your student loans. ✓ Celebrating a new promotion. ✓ Speaking on industry panels.   And people constantly asking you, “How do you do it all?”  If you’re ready to start taking action, I’m ready to open my playbook to show you how to Get. Sh*t. Done. If you’re listening to this, I already know that you’re a high achiever because rather than wasting your time scrolling social media or binge-watching another four hours of The Office on Netflix, you’re here listening to me, and I greatly appreciate that. I want to apologize in advance because there not be a new episode this week because I’m just about to launch my first new online program in two years - Design Yourself. As a regular listener, you know that my mission is to provide you with the best content and interviews that help design the optimized version of you, and that’s exactly what this program does. Design Yourself is an 8-module online learning course to help you organize your priorities, get important things done (note: important is very different from urgent), and (finally) follow through with your goals...without sacrificing your sanity in the process. This program provides you with a simple step-by-step framework to break down seemingly insurmountable goals into simple and actionable tasks that will make your success look almost too easy. No longer will you procrastinate because you have no idea if the next task on your to-do list is going to change your life...or completely waste your time. Instead you will effortlessly and consistently take the right actions that will lead you down the unique roadmap to success that you design for yourself, no matter the obstacles in your way.  You might think “high achievers” have access to super-secret information you don’t: They use the most cutting-edge daily planners and productivity journals They consume the world’s most potent “superfoods” They know advanced automation tactics in Trello & Omnifocus They have the perfect 67-step morning ritual to “eat their frog” by 6am They have a secret “Success Playbook” leading them down the perfect path to their desired career They have unlimited access to the world's best coaches Here’s the good news...none of this crap matters. Want to know the secret that most productivity experts never talk about? Most people procrastinate on taking action or downright give up on their goals because they lack just one thing: CONFIDENCE You have lost the productivity game if you ever have to ask yourself the following question: “So...what am I supposed to be doing now?” Imagine for a second: You wake up in the morning (without hitting the snooze button twelve times) having intentionally designed your day in such a way that you have 100% clarity about the goals you hope to achieve not only today but in the next week, as well as over the next 3 months, 1 year, or even the next 5 years. Think about what it might feel like to have the utmost confidence that the next items on your daily to-do list are the right actions that will lead you to your destination (and ANY productivity app will work...including post-it notes). Picture yourself confidently taking the right actions with consistency and without struggling to summon willpower you can’t find, motivation you just don’t have, and discipline you’d rather not develop. If you’re interested in learning more about my brand new Design Yourself program, enrollment is opening the week of May 14th and it will only be open for 7 days, and the only way to sign up is if you’re a member of my email newsletter. I won’t be advertising on Facebook, you won’t see Google Ads, and there’s no link to join anywhere on my website. And only those on my email newsletter are getting 50% off enrollment as members of my very first class. If you’d like to learn more about the program and be notified the second enrollment opens and get your 50% discount, just visit optimizeyourself.me/design and provide me with your best email. It’s that simple, I’ll do the rest. Just visit optimizeyourself.me/design and I’ll see you when enrollment opens so we can design the optimized version of you together.  Thank you for being such a loyal listener and reader. Be well. Zack Arnold

Do you find yourself dreading doing something that you’re supposed to love, something that you originally got into because of passion that’s now faded? As Zack Arnold explains on today’s episode, there’s more to leading a successful life, putting out great, original work, and just plain feeling good than the work itself. Today he’s going to share with us how to optimize our lives and cultivate our creativity. Zack is an award-winning Hollywood film editor, working on shows such as Empire, Burn Notice and Glee, and has also created Optimize Yourself, a program to help people maximize their creativity, output and well-being. He shows us how by examining our current behaviors, and pinpointing the habits in our lives that lead to destructive thoughts which can inhibit our ability to maximize our creativity, we can start to turn the ship around. Things we as creatives often don’t consider, or think of as non-important like diet, exercise and sleep can have a drastic impact on the quality of the work we’re putting out, and ultimately our ability to put out any work at all. By analyzing your habits and tendencies, Zack believes that you can have a life measured by your own version of success. Zack has a ton of energy, great stories, as well as tips and tricks of ways to develop your creativity and positively impact your business and your life. Have you ever struggled with burnout, creative fatigue, unhealthy lifestyle, or any of the other symptoms Zack mentioned? If you got through them, what did it take to turn it around? If you’re there now, what resonated most with you from this episode? Let us know in the comments yo!   In This Episode: The importance of moving and staying in motion to increase your creativity How to ignore the toxic culture of deprivation-praising in the film industry The disease of multitasking and how it is killing your productivity and focus Learn the magic formula to help you time block   Quotes: “The first warning sign is, are you still enjoying what you are doing? For me, there is nothing more magical than sitting in front of an empty timeline and having a bunch of random stuff that I have to put together with colored blocks. I essentially get to play a game of Tetris all day with people’s emotions.” (17:40)  “The key is to define your version of success. People say, ‘success for me is high profile stuff and making a lot of money’ and that’s great. But do you realize the process you have to go through every single day to get to that point and are you willing to adjust your lifestyle to that?” (21:01) “Success isn’t a destination, success is a series of habitual actions every single day. Success is a habit.” (26:12) “Think about how you can optimize your creativity. Because my creativity is the number one investment I have in myself.” (35:15)   Links: Optimize Yourself Follow Optimize Yourself on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn   Check out the full show notes page Stay up to date with everything we're doing at Studio Sherpas Tune into our weekly Facebook Lives   Find out how Video Blocks can save you thousands on your productions!  

Welcome to Optimize Yourself! If you’re a first-time listener, I’m grateful to have you with me and I appreciate you taking a little bit of time out of your crazy day to focus on finding a little balance and sanity amidst the chaos of 21st century living. And if you’re a longtime listener of my previous podcast Fitness In Post, welcome back. If you enjoy this introductory episode and you’re excited to learn more, I invite you to subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or whatever app you listen with because I have a ton of interviews and free content coming your way. » Click here to subscribe and never miss another episode This introductory episode is a reading of my blog post titled 'The Beginner's Guide to Optimizing Yourself.' I provide these blog readings for you because they give you a great excuse to step away from your workstation for 15 minutes and take a walking break to recover from the craziness of your job while also enriching your mind. If you’d like to learn more about how to effortlessly develop the habit of being more active during your busy day without needing extra time, download my FREE 'Ultimate Guide to Optimizing Your Creativity' and I'll also send you 6 free training and activity videos to keep you energized, focused, and pain-free at your desk all day long. I'm so happy you found me today. Now let's start designing the optimized version of you. Be well. Zack Arnold  

Want more awesome stuff (podcasts, Q&A videos, articles and more) to supercharge your people skills? Click here! --------- Between the hours of 8-5, are you typically sitting? If you are, then you need to (stand up) and listen to this episode of Become More Compelling Radio. Most of us intuitively know sitting is bad for us. But just how bad it really is may shock you. My guest is Zack Arnold (@EmpireEditor) he's the founder of Optimize Yourself and this is a podcast episode that could literally add years to your life. You're probably familiar with Zack's work if you've ever watched shows like Burn Notice, Glee, and Empire. He's an editor by trade, so he knows all about grueling 12+ hour days sitting in front of a computer. About 10 years ago, Zack decided that he would stop treating his body like a Ford Pinto, and start treating it like a Ferrari. This journey led him to spend over $75,000 and a decade optimizing his health so that he can constantly perform at a high level in his career and produce amazing work on demand.ack Most of our jobs require us to be creative problem solvers. Zack will teach us how to protect our creativity like it's our number one asset. 03:45: Zack’s preferred coffee: Bulletproof coffee 06:45: Zack’s journey: Learn, Experiment, Share 11:55: The slow death of being sedentary 16:55: Systems over goals 22:47: Why Zack always takes stairs (GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story) 25:00: Think of your body like a swamp 30:00: Find your “deeper why” to trigger intrinsic motivation 32:20: Meditation 34:26: Being radically present with people 42:00: Zack’s counterintuitive approach to smartphones 44:02: Eat to feed your brain 53:00: Zack’s global text message: “You are so much closer to achieving your goals than you think you are.” 1:01:22: Learn more about Zack at Optimize Yourself

My guest today is an award-winning Hollywood film editor, a former sufferer of ADD, and an entrepreneur. Being an editor is hard on the body, both mentally and physically — with long hours, high stress, with long bouts of sitting in a dark room. At the age of 25, my guest was overcome with anxiety, ADD, and suicidal depression. This started him on a journey experimenting with blending high-performance and sedentary work — think sitting at a computer all day. This was the birth of Optimize Yourself, and the mission to help creative professional to move more, eat and sleep better, and become productivity masters. Now, let’s hack… Zack Arnold.

The following is a reading of my blog post Fitness In Post Is Becoming 'Optimize Yourself' As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break. Useful Links: Optimize Yourself Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post

In this episode you'll learn: How to overcome afternoon brain fog. Why movement is necessary for creativity. Simple ways to add movement into the day. What are telomeres and why you don't want short ones. How staying in the “zone” too long will cause burn out. When making your office less efficient is a good thing. Zack's Quotables: "I was treating my body like a Ford Pinto. Now I treat it like a Ferrari." "8 hours is a half day in my industry. I needed quick ways to get fitness in." "Look at your health as a game of chess." Links and resources mention: GO FAR: Goals, Obstacles, Focus, Act, Review  P90x Break time tracker app Life skills that matter Zack Sexton's favorite FIP podcasts episodes: David Allen https://fitnessinpost.com/101/ Greg McKeown https://fitnessinpost.com/81/ Mark Sissons https://fitnessinpost.com/36/ Tony Horton https://fitnessinpost.com/17/ Atlantic time blocking article 52 mins on 17 mins off Shawn Stevenson “How to Sleep Smarter” Connect with Zack Arnold: Twitter: https://twitter.com/FitnessInPost Website: https://fitnessinpost.com/ https://optimizeyourself.me Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, PocketCast or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure. The shownotes can be found at zacharysexton.com/7

The following is a reading of my blog post 'I Was Tired of Putting My Kids to Bed via FaceTime Every Night. Here’s What I Did About It.' As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break. Useful Links:  Dealing With Creative Burnout Optimize Yourself '5X Challenge' The Freelancer's Guide To A Dynamic Workstation On The Go Working In Time Blocks GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story New Year's Resolution Statistics FiP Ep95: Deskbound - Standing Up To A Sitting World with Kelly Starrett Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post

The following is a reading of my blog post The Freelancer's Guide to Building a Dynamic Workstation On the Go. As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break. Useful Links: Optimize Yourself "5X Challenge" Blog Post: Ready to Blow Your Paycheck on the Perfect Chair? Read This First. Sitting Is Killing You, But Standing Isn't The Answer How To Protect Your Number One Asset: Creativity Fip Ep71: How Movement Makes You Smarter with John Ratey FiP Ep83: How being Sedentary Is Killing You with Joan Vernikos Pivot Seat Stamina 55-1610 InMotion E1000 Elliptical Trainer Solid Cast Iron Kettlebell (15 LB) Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post

**Guests ** [Zack Arnold](https://www.linkedin.com/in/zackarnold) **Summary ** In this episode of the Less Doing Podcast, Ari talks to Zack Arnold, creator of [Fitness in Post](http://fitnessinpost.com/) and [Optimize Yourself](http://optimizeyourself.me/). Listen as Zack shares with us how his transition went from being an active kid to becoming a 60-hour work week person in the film industry and his struggles of blending the two paths together that lead him to where he is now. **Key Quote ** “I've lived a life for the last 15 years in a small dark room in front of a computer for 12-16 hours a day…after a long day at work, I said, I just do not want to live like this anymore and I need to find a better way.” **What You'll Learn ** - Zack's background as a film and television editor - Why Zack's brain and body fought back - Blending intense creative work with high performance athletics - The biomechanics of your body - How Zack uses [Trello](https://trello.com/) for his day-to-day activities - The activity video vault - Changing your daily habits - Using [Zapier](https://zapier.com/) and IFTTT for Zack's personal automations - The Optimize Yourself Program's system - Understand how ineffective you are when you're sedentary **Less Doing Podcast Resources: ** Trello Board - [https://trello.com/b/jtqdNTp3/leverage-podcast-resources](https://trello.com/b/jtqdNTp3/leverage-podcast-resources%20) ------- [Get the FREE Optimize, Automate, Outsource Blueprint here.](%20https:/go.lessdoing.com/blueprint?utm_campaign=blueprint-ari&utm_medium=link&utm_source=podcast) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lessdoing/message

The following is a reading of my guest blog post Essential Tools For The Ultimate Post-Production Workflow written for Wipster.com. As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break. Useful Links:  Trello Lynda Trello Tutorial Post-Production with Trello The Checklist Manifesto Google Drive Slack Optimize Yourself Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post  

Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control there is no new episode this week, but to keep you moving until the show returns next week, I have provided links to two brand new podcast interviews I did for other shows with over 90 minutes of free content to help you become more active, energized, and creative at your workstations. I hope you find these interviews helpful and inspirational, and I appreciate your patience and understanding. I'll see you next week. » Click here to listen to my interview with 'The Cutting Room' » Click here to listen to my interview with 'Terence and Philip'   Be well. Zack Arnold

Terence and Philip welcome Zack Arnold to The Terence and Philip Show to talk about his passion for Fitness in Post and Optimal performance. The conversation covers a wide range of topics and is one of our longest shows yet.

The following is a reading of my blog post Your Creativity Is Your Number One Asset. Here’s How to Protect It. As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break! -----> Click here to attend my upcoming FREE Live Workshop   Useful Links: Sitting is Killing You Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor FiP Ep71: How Movement Makes You Smarter with John Ratey Ready To Blow Your Paycheck On the Perfect Office Chair? Read This First Sitting Kills, Moving Heals My Experience with Post Production Burnout   Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post

Gordon sits down with Zack Arnold, founder of FitnessinPost.com, about his new project, Optimize Yourself. This new program is designed to get post-production professionals up and moving with short videos that are full of information. Learn more and get 25% off at fitnessinpost.com/aotg.

The following is a reading of my blog post Building Your Post-Production Workflow With Trello As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break! Click here to download your FREE Trello Template Boards Useful Links: Move Yourself Program Blog Part 1: Editing in Time Blocks Blog Part 2: Contextual Editing "Behind The Seen" Click here to listen to my podcast with Walter Murch GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story Trello Slack Google Drive Zapier The Checklist Manifesto The Zeigarnik Effect   Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post

Movement energizes us and makes us more productive and efficient, and yet most knowledge workers spend eight hours or more sitting at a desk every day. Zack Arnold sits at a desk too, but he’s become an expert in building habits of movement into his daily life. On this episode, we talk about little tweaks […]

Movement energizes us and makes us more productive and efficient, and yet most knowledge workers spend eight hours or more sitting at a desk every day. Zack Arnold sits at a desk too, but he's become an expert in building habits of movement into his daily life. On this episode, we talk about little tweaks […]

The following is a reading of my blog post Saving Your Sanity In the Edit Bay (pt 2): Contextual Editing As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break. Click here if you prefer to download the article as a PDF and read it later Useful Links: Blog Pt.1: Time Blocking Getting Things Done; By: David Allen FiP ep87: The Art of Less Doing (And More Living) Trello Optimize Yourself Program Less Doing Peak Time App Click here to download this article as a PDF   Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post

The following is a reading of my blog post Saving Your Sanity In the Edit Bay (pt 1): Editing in Time Blocks As a reminder, these blog readings are the perfect excuse to step outside and take a 15 minute walking break! Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post Useful Links:  Burnout Sleep Blog Optimize Yourself The Science of Multitasking The Information Age How Often Do You Look At Your Phone? Are We All Becoming Pavlov’s Dogs? You Can't Multitask As Well As You Think You Can The Cost of Multitasking The Pomodoro Technique RescueTime Freedom BreakTime App Focus Time App Toggl   PS Have questions about this episode or anything else? Click here to submit a question for an upcoming podcast Q&A episode.

The following is a reading of my blog post Why Taking Supplements Is Worth The Investment (And The Ones You Can Trust). If you're not already, I highly suggest taking a quick 15 minute walking break while listening to this episode because movement is the key to lasting creativity.  Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post   PS Have questions about this episode or anything else? Click here to submit a question for an upcoming podcast Q&A episode.  

The Fitness In Post podcast is back! In this special mini episode I detail the changes and improvements coming your way in year 3 of the Fitness In Post program. Thank you for being such loyal listeners! Be well. Zack Arnold, Creator Fitness In Post

Zack Arnold is a film and TV editor (Burn Notice, Empire) and the host of the Fitness in Post podcast (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2094093/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1). The podcast focuses on how to make healthier changes to your lifestyle while setting yourself up for success as an editor. It's a great resource for finding ways to keep good upkeep on your body and mind so that you can stay creative and do your best work. Zack started the Fitness in Post podcast once he recognized that the work environment of the editor can be detrimental, especially when taking into account long stretches of hours spent sitting at a desk and not getting proper rest or nutrition. Nick has been a listener of this podcast for some time and credits it with helping make healthier lifestyle changes in his own life, including not feeling guilty about taking the time you need to take care of yourself (admit it, you've felt this way before, too). We talk about the origin story of Fitness in Post, why editors seem more prone to neglecting their own health than other trades and what can you do to fix this for yourself. AND THAT'S NOT ALL... Zack talks about a new program he's rolling out called Optimize Yourself (http://optimizeyourself.me/) where you can learn all about how to do what he's talking about in this episode. Be more active at work, eliminate procrastination and manage your time better so you can have a life outside of work. It's in beta right now and he's looking for more editors JUST LIKE YOU to sign up for it and chime in with your thoughts on it. As a Command+Edit listener you can use the link fitnessinpost.com/commandedit to get started with a discount of 25% of the current price. So go check it out and give him your feedback.   LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE DeskCycle Exercise Pedal Exerciser (https://www.amazon.com/DeskCycle-Exercise-Pedal-Exerciser-White/dp/B00B1VDNQA) Geekdesk Standing Desks (https://www.geekdesk.com/) Transform Your Edit Suite Into a Gym (https://library.creativecow.net/arnold_zack/Fitness-Post_Edit-Suite/1) Optimize Yourself (get 25% off the program by using fitnessinpost.com/commandedit to sign up)   Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CommandEdit Join our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CommandEdit/ Get more of the podcast at http://www.CommandEditPodcast.com

Zack Arnold is no ordinary person.  A fitness guru who's passion is to help post professionals get healthy while delivering media to worldwide audiences.  Zack is the editor on the runaway it television show on FOX called EMPIRE.  Starring Terence Howard EMPIRE follows the life of a hip hop dynasty and its struggle to survive with no immediate successor to the throne.   Zack talks to us candidly on how he landed such a big gig in Hollywood, his passion for fitness and helping others and we touch on his new film!  

Last time we had Zack Arnold on (in episode 17) we were focusing his passion for greater health. This time we will be talking about his wonderful documentary that has been in the making for the last 7 years. The name of the film is GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story. GO FAR chronicles the inspirational […]

In this episode, Zachary talks to Hollywood editor Zack Arnold about supplements, his fitness habits, and their shared obsession with Bulletproof Coffee. Zack also talks about his definition of fitness, which to him is more like a three legged stool that requires: Exercise + Nutrition + Wellness (Sleep, Stress Management, Feeling Better) to function properly. […]

Zack Arnold joins Gordon to discuss editing Trailers and moving from Trailers to the TV Show Burn Notice. Since Burn Notice wrapped up, he moved over to Glee and is currently editing Empire. Zack was also started Fitness in Post. A Blog that shares ideas, tips, and tricks, for staying fit in a post production career.

Zack Arnold joins Gordon via skype to discuss his blog Fitness in Post and how to stay fit while working in an industry that demands long hours of sitting. Zack tackles how to get past that first hurdle, that first step, and start working towards a healthier you and the importance of community in reaching success.

It was one of those things in my life that just clicked...boom. This is where I'm supposed to be, and I've been doing it ever since.- Sean CorvelleSean Corvelle has played a variety of different roles in his career as an actor, a comedian, and a television host. But for the last eleven years he has been inspiring and motivating athletes and weekend warriors across the world at the Tough Mudder starting line. He is also the host of Tough Mudder's No Excuses podcast of which I was recently a guest on (you can hear my interview with Sean here.)Like most of us, Sean came to Hollywood with stars in his eyes hoping to build a career that would bring out the best in him - a career that fulfilled him while also allowing him to be creative, to perform, and to ultimately be successful. Similar to my own path, Sean discovered that the more success he attained in Hollywood, the further away he got from himself and his core values. The higher he climbed the ladder, the more it burned him out, and the less he wanted to be on the ladder at all. Tough Mudder became the unexpected calling that Sean never imagined.In today's conversation Sean shares his advice, experience, and stories about what it took to listen to his soul in order to leave behind a career in Hollywood. If you have ever felt stuck or you're unsure of the right path for you, get ready to be inspired and motivated to take just one small step towards forward progress today. Whether you have run an obstacle course race or not (or if you could honestly care less about mud runs), the lessons Sean shares in this conversation apply to every aspect of life.Want to Hear More Episodes Like This One?» Click here to subscribe and never miss another episode Here's What You'll Learn:How does Sean answer the question, "what do you do for a living?"How he got the job as Tough Mudder's starting line inspirational speaker.What Sean's first ever Tough Mudder starting line speech was like and how it evolved.Sean discusses the audition process in Hollywood from his perspective.Why it's important to not let success define you.How he became known as "The Mirror Man".Instrumental quotes from Tough Mudder and what Sean learned from the requests for them.Lessons learned from Hollywood.Why Sean believes our souls don't change, instead they just expand.How Tough Mudder is designed to be done together and what people learn from that experience.The two common excuses people use to avoid signing up for a race.How to overcome your hesitations to race.The lessons learned in Tough Mudder apply to every aspect of life even if you just show up to volunteer and not race.Inspiring stories of Tough Mudder runners never quitting.Sean's advice to his younger self in his darkest moment.Useful Resources Mentioned:No Excuses Episode 61: Zack Arnold on How to Optimize Yourself - Tough MudderCarlos Alazraqui - Comedian/Actor/ProducerContinue to Listen & LearnEp165: How to Overcome Doubting Yourself When You Know You're Meant For More | with Sandy Zimmerman, ANWEp122: 'Superfood Hunter' Darin Olien On How To Be Healthy, Fit, and Eternally AwesomeEp120: The Ninja Warrior Mother-Daughter Dynamic Duo, Part 1 | with Ginny MacColl, ANWEp121: The Ninja Warrior Mother-Daughter Dynamic Duo, Part 2 | with Jessie Graff, ANWEp06: Defining Your Purpose and Living Large | with Tony HortonEp68: How to Go From Couch to the (Spartan) Course | with Rose Wetzel, ANWEp60: Getting 1% Better Every Single Day | with Westley Silvestri, ANWEp49: Mastering The Mental Game of Focus | with Kevin Bull, ANWEp67: How to Be 'Better Than Yesterday' | With Jimmy Choi, ANWGuest Bio: Sean Corvelle Born in Annapolis MD, Sean Corvelle grew up partly in Baltimore and the other half of his childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was soon after high school when he began his professional journey in the field of entertainment as a stand-up comedian. With his instant likability and fresh enthusiasm on stage he quickly became a favorite act in clubs across the country and eventually moved to Los Angeles where he also enjoyed success acting in commercials, hosting and guest starring in TV shows. The three highlights in his professional career that stood out for him are: hosting a travel show, guest starring in an episode of “Friends,” and now working with Tough Mudder.Show Credits:This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).