#with every ep the podcast makes about these it becomes more clear why I have no memory of this place holy shit

[definitely-not-an-alb]

May I say tho, saying 'fuck an outline' and just having your editor go back and change shit in reprints of earlier series instalments to make them canon compliant is completely insane behaviour, BUT of every universe to do that too, the funniest might just be the Dark Tower.

[ptw30]

so I'm listening to a podcast talking about character agency and it's helping me realize what made vld steadily lose engagement after season 2, was the characters steadily lost their agency until they did nothing to affect the direction of the plot. The characters stopped informing the plot, and the plot started informing the characters.

Absolutely. Great observation!

But you’re doing something all professionals do - further their learning.

The EPs - and even DreamWorks - acted unprofessionally when creating/executing the plot of VLD. The EPs are amazing artists. There is no doubt that Voltron wasn’t visually compelling.

But there is also no indiction that either EP ever cracked open a book on plot, and even though I know someone did - a writer doesn’t switch character arc endings by accident— a simple reading of the first three “books” of The Screenwriter’s Bible would have helped the EPs avoid many of their plotting mistakes. (Honestly? It’s like they read the book and decided to do the exact opposite.)

But a lack of plotting expertise and knowledge in and of itself is not an issue - as long as the EPs rely heavily upon a competent head of story, which they didn’t.

Most writing books will tell you - storytelling is instinctive. Structure in the usual format - intro, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion - one can do just by watching/reading, but actual plot takes experience and continued learning (where you learn nuances, like plot twists, the art of dialogue, and character agency). That really separates the true storytellers from the amateurs. (Again, kudos to you for studying your craft!)

Voltron’s story was an absolute mess after Season 2 in every sense of the word, and it was clear how inexperienced the writers were. Whether the loss of May Chan was that great, Tim Hedrick wasn’t as skilled as he appeared or he got tired of fighting the EPs - leading to his ultimate departure from the series, along with some directors - or the EPs were really that incompetent - or maybe it was just the Perfect Storm - DreamWorks needed to act to save the story and their one-time good name.

LOUD SIGH. I mean, let’s go back to a basic principle in writing plot - the narrative question.

According to Jane K. Cleland in Mastering Plot Twists, “Much as a company’s brand represents a promise to a consumer, so too does a narrative question represent a promise to your readers. It sets out the primary conflict that supplies impetus for readers to read on. It provides enough information so that readers can make educated decisions about your story is to their their taste. If your readers’ interest is not captured, so be it. If it is, they’re likely to finish the story because they want to learn the answers implicit to the narrative question.”

At the beginning, Voltron raises the query, “They brought another one.”

That’s actually the series’ question, the one we wait to be answered. Shiro is the “other one.” So who is the first? You can make the assumption that there was someone else in the prison - whom we never meet but who was inferred in Season 5, Episode 1 when Matt was late to the shuttle after searching for his dad.

Ready for the mind-blowing part? The narrative answer to “They brought another one ” is actually Zarkon. He was the first Black Paladin. Shiro is “another one,” the new Black Paladin. But then the narrative breaks apart when Keith becomes a third - and isn’t a Black Paladin. The narrative makes that clear over and over again - going insofar as forming the Blazing Sword with Shiro or Zarkon only.

And if Shiro is actually “the other one,” then we needed see to be that as the narrative promised - wielding the Black Bayard and embracing his role fully as the Black Paladin - which is not what happened. It is what would have happened if the narrative question had been answered. Instead it was abandoned and forgotten by the EPs. And that’s one of the many reasons the lion swap didn’t work - cuz it isn’t true to the narrative question - and that’s also why so many disheartened fans watched to the end. They waited to see Shiro - who was established as the new Black Paladin in the very first sequence of the series - once more fly Black.

(It also would have fulfilled the narrative promise - that Shiro was the other one and no one else in the story.)

Instead, Shiro is killed and returns but not included in plot other than window dressing. In fact, Voltron itself doesn’t do better than the first Paladins - that “dark history.” The original Paladins lost their leader, Zarkon. And the new Paladins? Though Allura didn’t end the story as the “leader,” she was head of the coalition at one point. So the new Paladins didn’t save their leader, either. (Or Shiro, really. Or Kuron.)

So...why did we watch Voltron Legendary Defender - to see history repeat itself? We’re all doomed to fail...? Is that the answer to the narrative question? “There is another one - maybe - but he, too, will die, and so will his commander. And they won’t be able to save each other, either.”

Thus, ultimately, I feel Voltron was not so much a disaster in plotting, though it was. I feel it‘s true failure was in its humanity - or lack thereof. In a story that was to show and celebrate all races, genders, sexualities, and people with disabilities coming together to create the greatest weapon against evil - our trust and love in each other - Voltron Legendary Defender showed evil triumphing over good.

...and I’m running out of ways to express this point or my level of disgust. But I will say this - that ending was an epic reversal. Terrible messaging, terrible delivery and terrible implications - but you don’t get a more epic reversal than the most powerful weapon in the universe on the supposed side of good, being defeated by the forces of evil.

Of course, in a kids’ show where viewers expect the heroes to win - no level of reversal is going to satisfy viewers as they watch the strong-willed heroine walk off to her death, especially the WOC heroine.

[adrianalvas]

Podcast 188: Figure Section [aufnahme + wiedergabe] [ +Interview]

Figure Section arose from the meeting of Austrian-French musician and actress Olivia Carrère - aka Olive - and Belgian artist and producer Yannick Franck (RAUM, Orphan Swords, Mt Gemini), who first crossed paths on a theatre stage in Brussels.

Although founded on an acknowledgement of these styles, their execution is experimental, idiosyncratic and entirely modern in spirit, guided by an intent to revise their influences and an approach shaped by romanticism and a surreal, Dadaistic sense of humour. The recurrent themes of the project address friendship, love, loss, existential angst, survival, irony, degeneration, queer culture, non-conformity and ‘the expiation of tensions through modern day rituals’.

The duo’s first single ‘Teutonic Knights’ was hailed by The Brvtalist as an illustration of ”infectious wave [music] with an eerie atmosphere and frigid vocals”, a track that subsequently generated widespread acclaim. In October their debut EP was released on the cult Berlin based label run by Phillip Strobel, aufnahme + wiedergabe.

TF: What motivates you to create Figure Section?

O: My collaboration with Yannick is an intersection between a strong friendship and similar interests and tastes in music. What’s more, the collaboration between us is really complementary in the creative process and allows us to explore new musical playgrounds which neither of us would probably reach if we were working separately.

Y: There are certain musical realms I wanted to explore for a long time whilst doing very different projects (Orphan Swords, RAUM, Y.E.R.M.O.), and since we met and started to experiment together, we dreamed of having a proper duo. It took time but here we are, I am very glad the project exists and I couldn’t dream of a better companion to do it with.

TF: Tell us something about you. What’s your background? Where did you studied and who influenced you to explore musical processes?

O: My background is rather diverse, and it took me a long time to discover how intimate I was with music as a listener, but also as a composer. I come from a theatrical background. I trained as an actress, though I started my studies with a degree in communication – specifically in socio-cultural animation - knowing that I would change path after obtaining it. It’s quite funny to see how tortuous life can be before finding your way through and beyond all these experiences. When I started as an actress ten years ago, something was missing in my professional contribution. I was desperately looking for some creative language that I could develop on my own. I was already familiar with singing since my childhood, so I started learning the basics of music theory online, and quickly I realized that I wanted to compose songs, and to find the easiest way of recording them without any external help. I got my hands on a keyboard and software and started composing, singing and producing at home. It was more a secret process for a few years, until I created a solo piece in the National Theatre of Belgium, which involved performing some of my compositions. This was a fundamental step where I learned that, with the music, I could be really free in the writing and performing process.

Y: I studied painting, but it quickly became clear that music was a territory worth exploring and one that I had to invest my time and energy into. Since I was pretty disgusted by the blatant materialism and the general mindset of the art world; the galleries, and a lot of the attitudes adopted by other artists (competitiveness, individualism, tendency to follow an art world, scale version of the Star System), I found there would be more freedom making music. People attend a concert to have an experience. Anyhow I love art, all sorts of art and my friends are usually creative people. Also, there have never been any boundaries for me, you can build sonic sculptures or paint rhythms, you can conceive a concert as a performance, you can do whatever you want. I recently moderated a panel at BOZAR about the underground art scene in New York in the 80’s, in East Village in particular. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dany Johnson (she was a resident DJ at Club 57 and later at Paradise Garage), Leonard Abrams (he ran the fabulous magazine The East Village Eye) and Gil Vasquez (DJ and president of the Keith Haring Foundation) and what struck me was the fact that at that particular moment in that scene you had zero boundaries between visual art, music, dance, performance… Klaus Nomi shared the bill with Ann Magnuson and John Sex and Haring curated shows and painted almost 24/7 while listening to music. It was all about energy. It’s academicism and speculation (art as a luxury product) that kills such energies (and eventually did in that case) Two different problems, both normative and alien to any creative essence. I stumbled upon a Serge Daney quote lately: ‘Academicism is the aesthetics of nihilism.’ And I agree with that, once you “do things because that’s the way they’re done”, reproduce them in blind fidelity and separate, classify, and annihilate boundary breaking forces, you start producing numb, meaningless objects. In this case a painting has to go from a gallery to a living room or a collection where it belongs. Is it a nice base material for speculation or a good way to seem educated and exhibit your taste as a buyer, to impress others? Hell no…a painting is rather an expression of life itself, a celebration, an exhibition of the worlds revolting features, its horrors, its injustice, its sadness, qualities and themes such as these…in every case it is an essential, vital gesture. Otherwise why even take a look at it? Music should be just the same.

TF: Do you spend all your time for your musical activity or do you have another job?

O: Yes, I do now. The musical activity has taken the vast majority of my time even though I’m still performing as a theatre actress, but that part of my professional activity is becoming more and more scarce. I’ve been recently offered to create music for theatre. So, my work today is divided between Figure Section, and other emerging projects for which I compose and produce for other artists, and my work as a music composer for the theatre. Maybe one day I will come back to the stage with a performance in which I’ll be the actress as well as the musician. I do keep an eye on that prospect even though it’s not the priority for the moment.

Y: I teach sound in cinema. We analyze movies and their soundtracks most of the time. It is a very interesting way to make a living next to music making.

TF: How is your live set up going to be? Any particular equipment? What’s your favourite track to play live and why?

O: We are working on the simplest and most efficient way of touring. So, our set is based on live keyboard playing, voice mixing, and equalizing the tracks live. So, there’s no particular equipment at the moment.

Spectral Dance, is one of my favourites to play live. It’s a more nostalgic synthpop song that offers a vast sense of space for the vocals and the keyboard parts. I just love its simplicity, almost naïveté, contrasted by lyrics about pernicious ghosts from the past that try to keep us from moving forward.

Y: There is a lot of different processes and ideas colliding and merging in Figure Section. It is always quite challenging for us to write a new song and perform it on stage. I think my favourite live song is currently Disfigured Section. We both sing on that one and I love that. Lyrics and vibe wise it’s sort of a Neo Dada track, maybe a tad surrealistic too, from apparent nonsense a lot of sense can emerge from the lyrics. Also, it is nervous, rough, noisy, kind of pissed off. At the same time desperate and full of energy. A union of opposites.

TF: What new hardwares did you apply to make 'Spectre' LP? Do you have a particular method while working in the studio?

O: There’s no new hardware utilized, but we have a more precise choice of instruments these days as well as a particular approach in the production process. Yannick and I work just as well separately as together in the studio. It just helps us to be more efficient because of our very different schedules. We both share online a musical file filled with musical ideas, loops, drums and lyrics. We are both the composers and mixers of the songs, but Yannick is more the writer and the producer and I’m more the arranger and singer. I think that we have now reached the perfect balance in the creative process, which is almost symbiotic.

Y: Yes, it is super interesting because I never know where Olive is going to take a song to when she starts working on it with her great skills and sensibility. What I know is that great stuff will eventually happen, leading to things that will stimulate us and give us even more ideas.

TF: How do you compose this tracks? Do you treat them like musical narratives or more like sound sculptures or images?

O: It really depends on the material. Sometimes Yannick comes with a very complete composition and I add the keyboard and voice arrangements, sometimes I come with a proposition and he completes it. Our strongest asset as a duo is that we started music completely differently, Yannick as an electronic experimentalist and performer, and I as a pop songwriter and singer. So, what we do is bring these assets together in our songs. I think the first track of the Spectre release is the perfect example of that symbiosis. This is what we aim for.

Y: Yes, it is a creative adventure, we have no such thing as a clearly established routine, it’s more laboratory like. It is not “experimental music” but the way it is done is not conventional either.

TF: Any movie, documentary, album (not electronic music) that you would like to share with our readers?

O: We are big fans of horror, thrillers and sci-fi. The last movie that left me fascinated as well as horrified is Midsommar by Ari Aster. I loved that movie because its director knows how to subtly inject weird elements of comedy that make you feel uncomfortable, as well as conveying an ice-cold intrigue about ancient pagan practices and rituals. Loved it.

Y: +1 for Midsommar. I loved that the movie never seems to bring any judgment about the neo-pagan community it depicts, it is just utterly different from what we know but it seems to make sense no matter how shocking it can be. It gives us a break from the ethnocentric attitude of many North Americans and from the extreme arrogance of modern western civilizations, which seem to be absolutely convinced of their superiority to any previous or different civilizations. Also, the visual effects are amazing. Der Goldener Handschuh (The Golden Glove) was quite a great movie too. Being utterly disgusted by this ugly, messy, desperate serial killer’s gruesome murders without being able to restrain myself from laughing was for sure a wild experience. And it really triggers thoughts afterwards. Moral thoughts especially. I found it pretty strong. A non-electronic album: Lux perpetua by Ensemble Organum, which is a very particular version of the Requiem by Anthonius de Divitis. It is such a beautiful requiem and such an incredible interpretation; it even features throat singing which is very unusual in the context of European polyphonic reinterpretations. 15th century art tends to focus a lot on death and mortality. And as Regis Debray said in his 1992 book The Life and Death of Images: “Where there is death there’s hope, aesthetically speaking.”

TF: What are the forthcoming projects?

O: Wrapping up our debut LP.

Y: We are also planning tours, confirmed dates are in Israel and the US so far but more will be announced later on. It would be fabulous to come play in Mexico too!

source https://www.tforgotten.org/single-post/Podcast-188-Figure-Section-aufnahme-wiedergabe-Interview

[gothambatsnews]

[Podcast Ep 3: Haunted Hot Spots]

TW: Mentions of suicide. Please read at your own risk.

[“Spoiler Alert!” theme song plays, there’s some side conversation that fades in.]

[Stephanie:] “...So then what was I supposed to do, stand there? Come on, you and I both know that’s bullsh-”

[Dick:] [Clears his throat.] “Steph? We’re on.”

[Stephanie:] “Huh? Oh, right right, sorry. Hello Gotham High School! I'm your host, Stephanie Brown and you're listening to Spoiler Alert! I’m here today - well actually tonight, with my co-host Dick Grayson. Hey Dick!”

[Dick:] “Hi Steph!” [It sounds obvious he’s smiling.] “What do we have in store for our lovely listeners, babe?”

[Stephanie:] [Snorts.] “Are you flirting with me?”

[Dick:] “Wouldn’t you like that, huh?”

[Stephanie:] [Gagging noises] “Gross. Babs, do you hear him? Anyways, tonight, we actually have a special episode because we’ll be talking about the three most haunted spots here in our very own Gotham City as a little celebration for Halloween month.”

[Dick:] “Ah yes! Sit tight, grab your little teddy bears, drink your agua and we’ll get right on it. Steph, would you like to start us off?”

[Paper shuffling, screaming in the background.]

[Stephanie:] “Don’t mind that, that’s just Damian and Tim having fun. But I would gladly start us off. So the first one on our list is Sionis Steel Mill. By the way, in no way are we telling you guys to go to these places, they are dangerous.”

[Dick:] “And very off-limits. Please don’t break the law.”

[Stephanie:] “Also a trigger warning for you guys. There are gonna be mentions of suicide in this episode, so if you don’t wanna hear any of them, I’d advise you to stop. So the steel mill was a factory located in the South Bank of Gotham. Had loading docks, it was surrounded by water and you could get there by a bridge. It ran in 1879 and employed lots of people.”

[Dick:] “So you could say it was lively, it had plenty of employees to keep it running. Was it successful?”

[Stephanie:] “Yes, it was.”

[Dick:] “So then why was it shut down? I mean, yeah of course we all know why, it was a spooky story told from elementary school, but for those who don’t know the story? Could you say what happened?”

[Stephanie:] “Of course. So from 1879, it was up and running and it was doing well up until in 1986 when the infamous Sionis Incident occurred. On a fine Gotham sunny day- which honestly isn’t saying much- there was a school who had their field trip there. And while they were given the tour of the place, five students decided they wanted to sneak away from the group. They thought the place would be fun to explore, but it wasn’t until they snuck into the boiling room. One of the boys fell into the big tub with the melted metal, pretty sure there’s a name for that, and died. There were horrible screams, leading the others to panic as they couldn’t save him.”

[Dick:] “Jeez. So then what? Did they call for help or something?”

[Steph:] “Sources say they were trying to find their way back to the group, but then they got lost. At some point, they were found dead in the cooling systems of the mill. This tragic accident forced Sionis to shut down his steel mill, being sued by the parents. He lost all his money with that, and some say he committed suicide in his office.”

[Dick:] “Apparently he’s haunting the place too, like as a kind of protector? Trying to prevent more deaths, though, not really successful. There’s 37 or 38 disappearances reported since the mill had been closed, depending on the sources. But he’s not the dangerous one, obviously. It has been said that the group of teenagers appear to separate people.”

[Stephanie:] “Oooh right right. It’s said that they look really friendly, but all they do is to try to lure people to their inevitable deaths.”

[Dick:] “There shouldn’t be any worry, actually, as Sionis, before dying, nailed the boiling and cooling parts shut, but… well, up to 38 disappearances, like Dick said. It’s not something you can take lightly”

[Stephanie:] “But according to our sources, several people who made it out alive say that you can tell when it’s them. They’re way too friendly, and they usually appear at the same time as the engines start … Well, the sound of the engines starting.”

[Dick:] “And when the teenagers appear, they always appear as the boys who want to show you what they found or the girls needing help to move something. But it’s always the same, to death.”

[Stephanie:] “So this is a warning to you guys, we don’t know whether or not it’s true, but we advise against visiting the place. We don’t need anymore people disappearing. What’s next on the list, Dick?”

[Dick:] “The second most haunted spot in Gotham is…” [Drums his fingers near the mic] “... THE SUTHERLAND MANSION!”

[Stephanie:] [Whispers screams and lightly applauds] “Ahh, ooohhh, spooky. Tell me, what makes it so haunted?”

[Dick:] “Well, you know, it’s that colonial style house in Old Gotham. It’s quite far from the center, so you can’t take the trolley to go there, you either have to walk or take a taxi. But it’s 200 years old, and it has a history quite tragic.”

[Stephanie:] “Then again, all the haunted spots have a tragic history. I don’t think there’s anything you can think up of that has a happy ending, now is there?”

[Dick:] “...No. You’re right.. Wait, what about- Ah, no, nevermind. There was the kid and-”

[Stephanie:] [Snorts] “You thought about the house with the ghost dog, didn’t you?”

[Dick:] “I did, listen I have yet to encounter the ghost dog. I really wanna see a ghost good boy.”

[Stephanie:] [laughs] “Don’t we all. Anyways, Matthew, married his wife Emily and they were very well off. Matthew’s father owned a mining company that was passed down to him when his father died. The house was finished in 1803 and they moved in around the same time Emily gave birth to their first kid, Loraine. Must be nice.”

[Dick:] “What, having a kid?”

[Stephanie:] “No, being better off. I, too, would like something to be handed down and I would become instantly rich. That or I get a nice farm in a far off island.”

[Dick:] [Chuckles] “A surprise grandfather gifting it to you when he dies?”

[Stephanie:] “Exactly!”

[Dick:] “Heh. Anyway, two years later, she gave birth to John, their baby boy, but he dies two months later because of an illness and Emily, out of grief, later kills herself by hanging.”

[Stephanie:] “So much for a happy life” [There’s an obnoxious noise of a candy wrapper being opened]

[Dick:] “Steph, we’re on air!”

[Stephanie:] “And I’m hungry! The students can understand that, can’t they?”

[Dick:] “Okay but we’re in the middle of a sad, tragic story and is that really the appropriate time to eat M&Ms?”

[Stephanie:] “...No. Sorry.” [Candy wrapper noises.] “Okay, there, put away, please, continue. So then what happened to uhhh, what’s his name? Matthew? And Loraine?

[Dick:] “Well, Matthew turned to alcohol to cope. He hired two nannies to take care of Loraine. Apparently though, they abused her because, well, if your employer’s too busy to pay attention to whatever you do and you’re still getting paid, stuff’s gonna go down, right?” [Stephanie:] “Right. Sheesh, and they just abuse her? He didn’t know?”

[Dick:] “I would assume not. Because Loraine actually ends up killing them at age 13. And a few years later, she disappears entirely. And her father wouldn’t find her body until three months later in a well. Finding himself alone, with everyone he cared for and loved dead, Matthew shoots himself on the head with a gun.”

[Stephanie:] “Jeez… I got a question. How do we know about the nannies abusing Loraine?”

[Dick:] “We actually have several journals left both by Loraine, and by a friend of the family, talking about the nannies and the tragedies the family encountered. That and how the mining company failed when Matthew turned to alcohol.”

[Stephanie:] [Candy wrapping noises] “Hmm, ok. So I got the list of the most important phenomenons here… Let me check...” [paper shuffling noises] “Here. And don’t say anything, we’re not in the middle of death and stuff anymore, can I just have my M&Ms?”

[Dick:] “Yeah, yeah. Sharing is caring, Steph.” [More wrapper crinkly noises] “Thaaank you. What do we have today, chief?” [Sound of candy being bitten]

[Stephanie:] [Snorts] “What’s this, an ASMR now? But.. Yeah, right. Let’s start with Matthew. Last to leave, first to be discussed. Apparently harmless, he’s said to wander in the kitchen and the study, and he got the gunshot visible in the back of his head, thought the face apparently would be intact.”

[Dick:] “Harmless? Just wandering?”

[Stephanie:] “Like he’s lost. That or he’s welcoming. A bit sad. Next, sometimes you can see Emily’s corpse hanging where the chandelier would have been, in the main staircase. On the seventh step of the stairs, some people say they can feel something on their neck, maybe like the knot in the rope Emily used before jumping to her death.”

[Dick:] “While talking about harmless, it has been reported that the keys of the piano on the second floor can be seen playing without anyone being nearby to actually play. Emily liked to play, it has been confirmed by the letters. And John’s cries can be heard in the nursery.”

[Stephanie:] “Wasn’t he stillborn though?”

[Dick:] “No no, died of an illness. Not stillborn.”

[Stephanie:] “Can stillborn baby ghosts cry?”

[Dick:] “I don’t know. I’m not an expert, it’s more Tim’s thing.”

[Stephanie:] “Tim, who we would like to thank, he did most of the research for us with his Paranormal Investigation club. Thanks guys!”

[Dick:] “Yeah, thanks a lot!”

[Tim:] [Faint in the background] “You’re welcome!”

[Dick snorts.]

[Stephanie:] “But there aren’t only harmless manifestations. The nannies roam the halls in the second floor in search for Loraine, or pretty much anyone around 13 to kill. That being said, there’s an older Loraine that follows tall brown haired women that look like her nannies. There’s the usual voices and evil laughter every once in a while, but those the nannies are the most creepy ones, especially since they would sometimes run right through unfortunate trespassers.”

[Dick:] “Thaaaaaaat’s… Yeah. I don’t want to go there actually.”

[Stephanie:] “What? You don’t wanna hear Emily play some badass piano? So the last spot we’re gonna be talking about today is arguably the most haunted place in Gotham: Arkham Asylum.”

[Cliche organ music playing.]

[Dick:] “Is that why you had your phone nearby? You were getting ready to play that?”

[Stephanie:] “For effect! And yes, I was. It adds to the creepiness, okay?”

[Dick:] “Oh yes. I’m terrified.”

[Stephanie:] “Shut up. But yeah, Arkham Asylum. Can you feel my excitement, Dick?”

[Dick:] “Yeah, you’re shaking my hand, stop that. Folks, we’ve got a treat for you all because we’re actually broadcasting from inside the asylum! Don’t ask how we got in.”

[Stephanie:] “For that, we’d like to thank Jason. Without him, we wouldn’t be here.”

[Jason:] [In the background] “You make me sound like I’m your dad.”

[Stephanie:] “That’s cause you are, Da-”

[Jason:] [In the background] “Not another step closer, Steph.”

[Stephanie laughs.]

[Dick:] “Gross. But let’s get right on it, shall we? We don’t have much time left anyway.

[Stephanie:] “Right, yes. Let’s dive in.”

[Dick:] “The asylum was thought to be haunted since the big fire that happened in 1957.”

[Stephanie:] “A lot of inmates died, right?”

[Dick:] “Yeah, and-” [Loud shouting in the background.] “DAMIAN, STOP CHASING TIM” [Dick’s voice sounds like he’s turned away from the mic. Damian being vaguely heard in the background.] “I said no! You go back home right away if you keep doing that, let him chase ghosts.”

[A faint groan from Damian. Then, some silence]

[Stephanie:] “Yeaaaaaaaaah ok so, for the ones who don’t know about Arkham, it has four aisles, three floors and a basement. Right?”

[Dick:] “Hm? Ah, yeah, yes. Erm… The Northeast one, don’t go there. Not that it’s the most haunted or anything, but the floors are ready to collapse and we wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt. But despite our best advice to NOT go, some of you will… like how we’re here… We’re not the best role models. But just don’t go in the Northeast aisle, seriously.”

[Stephanie:] “The fire occurred in the Southeast aisle, where smoke can still be smelled. You can also often hear the screams of the trapped inmates.”

[Dick:] “There are several places in the asylum where an architect can be seen, angry and carrying an axe, he’s kinda hostile. And when it isn’t him, it’s the worker, beheaded by him, who tries to warn the visitors. The worker also doesn’t have his hands anymore, so that’s another characteristic. Those two are from the time the asylum was built, around 1900.”

[Stephanie:] “Amadeus Arkham built it for his mother, Elizabeth? That’s what Tim said. She’s thought to haunt the library, in the recreational area. According to some sources, Amadeus ends up killing her, while others say she died from an illness.”

[Dick:] “Arkham is said to be most haunted because unlike the last two we mentioned, this place actually spikes up in activity in the month of October. We’ve already got some audio recordings of screams you can hear here as well as footsteps.”

[Stephanie:] “Which we will post on our Twitter. Give us a follow, @spoileralert.”

[Dick:] “Continuing on. The recreational area is in the Northwest aisle with the kitchen and dining room. Not much to see there but it’s the fastest way to the Solarium” [There’s neon and glitter in his voice when he says ‘solarium’]

[Stephanie:] “YESS! That’s where we’ll go as soon as we’ll be done with this podcast because, let me tell you, lovely listeners, it’s been said that there’s a super secret room under the solarium.”

[Tim] [In the background:] “I could go with Jay and Damian while you finish and-”

[Dick:] “NO! We’re all in this together, Steph and I wanna be there for when it’ll be discovered!”

[Tim:] “Ok ok fine, sheeeeesh.”

[Dick:] “We have no real idea what’s in there, but several documents Tim found indicate a mysterious sect in the asylum, so maybe their headquarters?”

[Stephanie:] “Or a ritual chamber! Maybe they worshipped Outer Gods!”

[Dick:] “Steph, it isn’t Lovecraft, despite what Tim says, Cthulhu doesn’t exist.”

[Tim:] “Actually, Cthulhu isn’t an Outer God but a Great Old One. Just sayin’.”

[Dick:] “Not the point, Tim. But Steph, I highly doubt it’ll be that exciting.”

[Stephanie:] “Oh don’t be a party killer like your father.”

[Dick:] “I’M NOT LIKE-” [Deep breath to calm down.] “Erm. Sorry. Anyway. I think that’s all we had to say about Arkham Asylum for now?”

[Stephanie:] “Yep. We’re also gonna be doing a seance in the secret room if it ever turns out that I was right about the ritual chamber.”

[Dick:] “Oooor if it ever exists.”

[Stephanie:] “If it doesn’t, we’ll just do a seance somewhere else.”

[Damian behind:] “On Drake’s dead body.”

[Tim:] [On the side.] “I’m finally gonna die??”

[Dick:] “NO STOP THAT. No one’s gonna die!”

[Damian:] “Tt.”

[Stephanie:] “I guess that’s all we have for you today. Tonight. Whatever. Any last words?”

[There’s a bit of shuffling with the mic on Dick’s side.] [Jason:] “Yeah, go follow my instagram, my handle is @jaybirdtodd. Like my recent picture, fam.”

[Stephanie:] “Oh my god.”

[Dick:] “Is that the one of you shirtless?”

[Jason:] [At the back.] “Abso-fuckin-lutely.” [Sound of fingers snapping. Most likely finger guns.]

[Stephanie:] “Okay we’ll cut here. This has been Stephanie Brown.

[Dick:] “And Dick Grayson. Featuring Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, and Jason Todd. As always-”

[Stephanie:] “Love and sparkles.”

[End of Episode 3.]

[love-takes-work]

Steven Universe Podcast: Volume 2, Episode 7: Earth Gems

Season 2, Episode 7 of the Steven Universe Podcast, released March 8, 2018, is about the so-called Earth Gems, and it covers Jasper, Bismuth, and Rose Quartz. The official description:

Rose Quartz, Bismuth, and Jasper are the focus of this episode of the Steven Universe Podcast as take a closer look at Earth Gems! Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar, former EP, Ian Jones-Quartey, Director Joe Johnston, and Supervising Director Kat Morris detail Bismuth's origins (including how she came to be in Lion's mane), Jasper's personality development, and Steven's complicated view of his mother, Rose Quartz. Discover which characters have been around since the pilot days, who was added as the series developed, and how Rose's storyline gets factored into each episode's planning.

Since as usual my summary is long, I will provide a highlights list followed by a cut which you can follow for a more in-depth narrative. Enjoy!

Highlights:

Jasper's main root as a character is her identity as a decorated soldier from humble origins.

Jasper, a so-called "perfect" Quartz from a Kindergarten known to produce flawed Gems, won't accept help from others because she's so determined to prove she's capable. She may be the best Gem from Earth, but she's still from Earth.

Joe Johnston was the artist who drew Bismuth's Gem bubbled in Lion's mane, but at that point they did not yet have the story of who she was figured out, though they did know there would be a "lost Crystal Gem."

Steven Sugar's tendency to add Gem artifacts into the world, most notably weapons, gave rise to the writers' need to give the Crystal Gems a weaponsmith, so Bismuth as a character grew out of that hole needing to be filled.

Bismuth adored Rose Quartz and was never allowed to understand why her leader rejected her contribution, which Rebecca and Ian compare to the trope of a villain mistreating her subordinates. 

Bismuth, in Rebecca Sugar's words, was "screwed over" epically by Rose Quartz.

Rebecca and Ian specify that Rose was wrong to do what she did to Bismuth, and that it was significant because it's so clear for the first time that Rose could have made such a clear mistake.

Rebecca makes a lot of charts to help understand what story elements need to be doled out when.

Ian loves that Pearl tells us Rose has LOTS of secrets.

Rebecca loves that all of Steven's compassion actually comes from Greg. Steven is described as a compassionate warrior, with "compassionate" coming from Greg and "warrior" coming from Rose.

Jasper is a corny anime villain at first, and we can credit Paul Villeco's love of shonen anime and manga for this.

Joe Johnston finds it refreshing that Steven couldn't turn Jasper's alignment around, and says it's because Jasper held onto her anger and couldn't be forced to be someone else.

Jasper's tendency toward bullying is rooted in feeling heartbroken over the loss of Pink Diamond. She identified very strongly as a servant of her Diamond.

Joe and Kat are pretty sure that Lapis was Jasper's first fusion experience ever.

Joe Johnston often puts "breadcrumbs" in his episodes; he puts in stuff he doesn't have plans for and figures maybe it will be something later. Bismuth's Gem in Lion's Mane was not dictated by Rebecca Sugar like the tee shirt or Rose's flag; it was a Joe breadcrumb.

Twenty-two-minute episodes were the network's idea, not something the Crew specifically wanted to do.

Joe Johnston can't say enough good things about Uzo Aduba's voice acting as Bismuth; every read was "perfect," according to him.

Early character designs of Bismuth included black eyes (to indicate her Gem's inverted state) and some early designs had her with very skinny legs. She always had dreadlocks.

Kat emphasizes that Bismuth is not and was never intended to be "a bad guy." She has different ideology, and her episode shows a situation where the audience is meant to see the value of her point and nobody's 100% right.

Jasper and Bismuth are more different than similar, despite both being big and strong and partial to bludgeoning weapons. Jasper is highly respected and wants to preserve the order of the Diamonds, while Bismuth is a low-class blue-collar worker who has realized things don't have to be this way and dedicates herself to destroying that order.

You can read the detailed summary below!

[Archive of Steven Universe Podcast Summaries]

McKenzie Atwood opens the podcast by explaining this episode's title: "Earth Gems" refers to three very different characters who are connected through the Gem War on Earth.

Rebecca Sugar and Ian Jones-Quartey on Jasper:

McKenzie asks Rebecca and Ian what effect they intended Jasper's arc to have on the audience. Rebecca says she really wanted Jasper to SEEM one-dimensional even though she isn't; her behavior has a "root" and we at first only get the foliage. We don't realize at first that Jasper has become involved in this plot due to her connection to Rose Quartz, feeling that she has unfinished business on Earth. Obviously her connection is quite personal even though she really doesn't show anyone those feelings.

McKenzie mentions Jasper being described on a previous podcast as a decorated soldier with humble origins, and Rebecca claims that description is Jasper's "everything." She's from Earth, but very different from Amethyst--Amethyst was from a pretty successful Kindergarten, while Jasper is from the worst Kindergarten on this awful failure of a planet. Jasper burns to prove her worth because everyone around her knows she's from Earth's Beta Kindergarten and therefore must be flawed on some level. Jasper feels she can never escape being associated with Rose Quartz even though she was supposedly the best thing that came out of Earth.

Ian remarks that Jasper chooses her words to show off pride and bravado, with no hint of the emotions beneath--that she feels she's fundamentally wrong and that she doesn't deserve the reputation she has. She thinks she's horrible, but Rebecca and Ian say they love her. Ian says Jasper is an example of how the system on Homeworld can fail Gems who don't quite fit the mold; externally she is a model Gem, but she never internally feels she deserves her reputation.

Rebecca Sugar and Ian Jones-Quartey on Bismuth:

McKenzie asks her guests to discuss when they started talking about introducing Bismuth. She mentions seeing the bubbled Gem in Season 1 (in "Lion 3: Straight to Video") and how fans recall that first exposure. Joe Johnston was the one who drew that in, knowing later they'd do SOMETHING with it, and then also there were early talks about a lost Crystal Gem. An early idea included Bismuth being not fully conscious, but they decided not to use it. They did figure out Bismuth pretty early on. Ian says Steven Sugar was always dropping weapons around the backgrounds, and they figured they needed a weaponsmith to explain where these things came from. From there, Bismuth was easy to develop. She's described as a "gooey center of the team."

McKenzie wants to know why they decided to unbubble Bismuth in Season 3. Rebecca says everyone's feelings about Rose Quartz were being examined at that point, and a turning point included the perspective that Rose could be a "really awful person." Ian likes the trope about a villain mistreating their subordinates, and wanted to show Rose as the person who was bad to Bismuth. Rebecca says Rose did such wrong to Bismuth--that Bismuth would have done anything for Rose, and when she came up with a weapon that supposedly served her agenda, she rejected it and rejected Bismuth for reasons she never understood.

Unlike Jasper's history with Rose being built on their being enemies from the start, Bismuth IDOLIZED Rose and was, as Rebecca says, totally "screwed over" by her. It breaks Rebecca's heart that Bismuth still speaks of Rose with such love, still crediting her for changing her life in such a positive way. Rebecca loves giving Bismuth "little triangular eyelashes" during the scene when she talks about what a difference Rose made for her. 

Ian says Season 3 was the best time to include Bismuth's arc representing a break from the lore they've been establishing regarding the Crystal Gems' mission. From a writing standpoint, you have to build up the status quo for a while before you break from it. It would have had no meaning to reveal Bismuth earlier if you didn't already have an understanding of what it would mean to be a lost Crystal Gem and didn't already have some feelings about who Rose has been drawn up to be. Ian thinks of it as being one of the first "Rose wasn't perfect at all" stories. Rose was WRONG.

Rebecca also feels that this is a huge turning point for Steven because he is so confused and guilty over Bismuth, balanced against what he's been taught about his mother by his family. In "Mindful Education," he's shown to still be devastated by how he's failed Bismuth--he isn't afraid of her attacking him, he's disappointed in himself for being unable to help her. He knows he needs to carry baggage from a former life he didn't really live, but Bismuth was the first indication that he has inherited something "wrong with the Crystal Gems." McKenzie thinks it's interesting for a character who isn't present to have a character arc.

Rebecca Sugar and Ian Jones-Quartey on Rose Quartz:

When discussing pacing of all these story elements attached to who Rose Quartz was, Rebecca describes writing it like building a tower; they have to have given you all the pieces when they decide to reveal something so it will make sense when they tell that story, so they have to be very careful about the order in which they reveal the pieces. Rebecca makes a lot of charts. General ideas had to be developed into specific pieces of information they have to show us. The viewer doesn't get the story about Rose in order, either. Steven is told what he is "supposed to" think, but he slowly realizes how many revelations there are out there that revise his perceptions. This is complicated, Rebecca says, by the fact that half the people giving him information think he IS his mother.

Rebecca loves that everyone is SINCERE about how they talk to Steven about Rose, too; no one is actively trying to trick him, even though they may have incomplete information. Ian specifies that he loves that Pearl reveals Rose has a LOT of secrets. Rebecca specifies that Steven's compassion is all coming from GREG. Rose was interested in that; she knows she didn't understand it, but you see how she fails at compassion during "We Need to Talk." Steven is a compassionate warrior. The compassion is Greg's. The warrior is Rose.

Joe Johnston and Kat Morris on Jasper:

McKenzie was wondering about how animation is like acting with regards to writing dialogue or choosing expressions, and asks Joe and Kat to discuss this in relation to Jasper. Joe says they'd never had a traditional villain before Jasper, and despite that she is NOT really a traditional villain, she comes off as "menacing" and "corny" at the beginning. This is credited to Paul Villeco's love of shonen manga and anime--she's sort of a JoJo-inspired bad guy. (This refers to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.)

McKenzie thinks it's interesting that Jasper is the first antagonist who has not been traditionally redeemed and converted to the other side. Joe thinks it's refreshing to have someone Steven wasn't able to recruit in his traditional way, and suggests it's because Jasper wanted to hold onto her anger. She didn't want to change, and couldn't be forced. Jasper has been told since she emerged that she was perfect, and that's what she wants to be--not Steven's band of uplifted flawed Gems. McKenzie asks if it was impactful for Steven to see Jasper refuse to be reached, and Paul thinks he didn't really get to process that since he also had a Pink Diamond-related reveal to deal with. Joe points out that Lars also stubbornly resisted Steven's influence for a very long time, though at least Lars hasn't tried to kill Steven. (Yet! No, that was a joke.)

McKenzie brings up how Jasper gets a lot of love from fans because she has so much beneath the surface, even though she isn't onscreen often. Kat says that's done by treating her like a person; no one is 100% evil all the time, and Jasper isn't evil so much as having a set of values that are not shared by the protagonists. Jasper bullies others because of her pent-up feelings, and she expresses her heartbreak over Pink Diamond's shattering through acting aggressively toward others. It made her relationship with Lapis really complicated, too.

McKenzie brings up "Jailbreak" and asks Joe to discuss his first time drawing Jasper in action. Joe says he was really ready to do it; there had been no "main antagonist" until Jasper and he really looked forward to it. He thinks they started boarding "Jailbreak" before "The Return." Kat thinks Jasper had been written some before they began work on "Jailbreak," but since Rebecca had pretty clear ideas about who she was, it was possible to board out of order. Some work had been done on Jasper before Paul had to board her introduction in "The Return." Rebecca sometimes writes a sheet with some character points and drawings for each new character.

McKenzie then brings up "Alone at Sea," asking Kat to discuss how different that was from "Jailbreak" where Jasper was a physical threat versus how she presented more as an emotional threat to Lapis in this later episode. Kat says she consulted with Rebecca and Hilary a lot to push this story out. Jasper has had a lot of time to think since hanging out in the ocean after her Fusion broke up, and now she's concluded she has a different perspective than she used to about fusion. Jasper realized she could become more powerful through fusion and became "addicted to it." In "Jailbreak" they just needed her to present as an uncomplicated villain (and they didn't have room for much more), but in "Alone at Sea" they could show the why, the how, of her actions.

Kat boarded acts 1 and 3--"the boat stuff," she says. She says there were many versions of the episode. They initially called the episode "Boat Murderer." The boat was supposed to keep breaking down and eventually you find out Jasper was doing it. The episode kept shifting until it became what it finally was. Kat usually doesn't board--"Alone at Sea" was, as she describes it, her stepping in as a pinch hitter. McKenzie asks about whether she had any issues with drawing Jasper, and she says she draws on every episode so it wasn't really anything new for her, especially since she was in charge of the arc associated with Amethyst's season 3 arc. Kat felt that Amethyst was due for some development after they'd already tackled some Pearl and Garnet stuff in the Sardonyx arc. Jasper was a great opposite to Amethyst in that arc because Jasper was big, strong, and a soldier--what Amethyst was supposed to be. She thought she was okay with not being what she was made to be, but then she gets "annihilated" in "Crack the Whip" and realizes maybe she's not okay with any of it. Steven helps bring her through that rough personal place.

Joe Johnston and Kat Morris on Bismuth:

Everyone agrees that they loved Bismuth on first sight. Joe brings up throwing Bismuth's bubble into Lion's mane in "Lion 3: Straight to Video." He had no plan at that point. Kat says Joe LOVES to do stuff like that, and calls them "breadcrumbs." He initially thought maybe it would have been a Gem device or a portable warp. They agree he didn't need such a thing because Steven is pretty OP actually. Rebecca wanted "pieces of lore thrown about the living room," so this was part of it. Rebecca then developed who Bismuth would be. McKenzie loves how before Bismuth's reveal, fans would wonder about who Bismuth might be whenever they'd see her Gem in Lion.

When prompted to discuss what they love about Bismuth, Kat says she loves how much Bismuth loves the Crystal Gems, and Joe loves how Bismuth and Jasper are both "patriotic" for their side. Joe likes to play with how Jasper and Bismuth are both so dedicated to their cause. (It is agreed that a shouting match between them would be very loud and not end well.) McKenzie wonders how difficult it is to develop such a big character, and Joe describes having a chance to all have a pass at the character to finalize new characters. They credit Lamar with her humor and how her voice is delivered, and Kat thinks it's really cute when Bismuth was getting emotional.

McKenzie brings up "Bismuth" being the first 22-minute episode and the 99th/100th episode, and asks how that's different from the usual 11-minute episodes. Kat says there's more post to do. Joe thinks it's twice as hard. Kat says there are more board artists to "wrangle" and more picture to lock, sound effects to add, etc. Joe felt it was harder to adjust to the flow of 22 minutes after being used to squeezing for 11 minutes, and that sometimes it almost seemed like too much time, but Kat also likes that it could "breathe" a little and have some important quiet moments. They think the little bumpers were Joe's idea, but he says he won't take credit for the idea--just for drawing them.

McKenzie wants to know about the decision to do a 22-minute episode, and Joe and Kat said it was the network's idea; they wanted at least two half-hour specials, maybe three but they only got to do two. (The other was "Gem Harvest.") They then discuss having a special guest voice actor for an episode like this. Joe heaps praise on Bismuth's voice actor Uzo Aduba, saying every read she gave was perfect. Kat says it's disappointing when they can't meet great voice actors like her because their involvement is so brief.

Kat remembers Bismuth's initial character design having black eyes, intending to reflect the style of her inverted Gem, but they scrapped the design because it looked too suspicious. Joe says Bismuth was written to be very aggressive and gung-ho and got "put away" for how she expressed that. They recall Bismuth always having dreadlocks (they may not have always been rainbow), but some designs having very skinny legs early on. (Same with Smoky Quartz.) 

Kat wants to specify that Bismuth is NOT a bad guy whatsoever; she just has a different ideology. Her ideology is relatable, actually; she thinks half the audience probably agrees with Bismuth. Rose, being a "gray" character, punished Bismuth for not aligning with her own philosophy, but Kat and Joe think nobody was clearly right or wrong in the episode and that was the point of telling that story in the first place. Moral ambiguity is very important, and Rose isn't All Things Pure. Joe thinks Steven believed there was one "right" way to see the situation, but wasn't willing to fight Bismuth over it.

McKenzie asks Kat and Joe to say what is similar between Bismuth and Jasper. "Size," says Kat. Joe adds, "Muscles. Bludgeoning weapons." They're more different than the same; Bismuth is basically a blue-collar construction worker, in the dirt, while Jasper is a super-respected warrior. Bismuth rebelled when she found out she didn't have to be that way and wants anarchy, while Jasper wants the order to remain forever. Joe expresses that Bismuth's anarchist tendencies are cool, and Kat jokingly scolds him for inciting anarchy. But the Rule of Cool indicates that if something's cool, it's just cool, and it stays.

[Archive of Steven Universe Podcast Summaries]

[pmscenarios]

Notification - Sender unknown

I was sitting in the sofa, half-way watching the latest Jimquisition on the big screen, while checking up on the newest twitter controversy with my recently bought Lenovo Yoga 720 (got it half-price on the black Friday sale) when a notification popped up in the bottom right corner:

*plop*

I didn't murder anyone today

Heh, that's a pretty weird message to get out-of-context. I absentmindedly wondered who'd start a conversation with such an unique statement.

*plop*

gonna try harder next week

Okeey.. That was definitely a bit off. Which one of my friends could be messaging me about this, and why? Are they commenting on a video game? I moused down to open Discord when I realised it wasn't there.

Not that it wasn't open, there was no icon. I hadn't installed Discord on this pc yet.

So where was the messages coming from? I opened windows' action center, but the sidebar only displayed one sentence -

"no new notifications".

Maybe it's Skype? I didn't activate my Skype account, and I haven't used it in years, but it is a part of my windows id, and I had to log in when I set-up the Lenovo after all. I quickly opened the settings menu and uninstalled Skype. Can't stand that program anyway.

**

I didn't get any more notifications after that, so I assumed it had just been some random Skype spam. By the next week I'd almost forgotten it happened, only documented by my twitter feed - jokingly theorising I'd mistakenly intercepted a message from a serial killer.

Supergreatfriend was maneuvering in and out of some very selective elevators on the latest wild goose chase in Shenmue 2 when it popped up again.

killed my first one today, human

The same unknown sender, another ominous text. My nerves were instantly flaring, my hairs standing on end. This shouldn't be happening, I uninstalled Skype. I checked the Discord icon on my task bar, downloaded and installed during the last week. It was inactive. I started the app up to check, but there was no new notifications. I quickly clicked through my direct messages and then scrolled through the servers I followed. Nothing.

*plop*

he got up but I knocked him down with a rock

No. It has to be coming from somewhere. It must! I switched back to Chrome and quickly closed the Youtube tab. Maybe it had been a comment notification from that? Or maybe Twitter? Tumblr? I hastily closed every tab, and then Chrome for good measure. There was no more options. No more twisted, unknown messages.

*plop*

the fall didn't do it, but the spike did

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! It's not stopping, this is so freaky. I opened the start menu as fast as I could - shut down, shut down now!

Slamming the lid closed, I flung the netbook next to me in the sofa. Something had to be wrong with the win 10 install.

I should do a factory reset.

It's been 2 weeks since then. My twitter followers' suggestions ranged from a prank, faulty software, and just my own paranoia, to mistaken identity, refurbished pc still receiving spy messages or a malicious hack. I haven't really wanted to think about it. My Discord buddies suggested I report it to Microsoft, or maybe even the police, but what would I say? "I got these mysterious messages on my new laptop, without them having a sender or a connected program. No, I can't show them to you, they only appeared as live notifications."? They'll think I'm crazy.

I'm starting to think they would have a point. I've been really paranoid lately - seeing shadows were there are none - this weekend I was even convinced someone had broken into my apartment while I'd been out, just because I spent a few minutes searching for the new box of Nescafé medium roast capsules. Finding it, of all places, in the cup cupboard. I hadn't had a cup since. Heh. I shake my head at my own insanity. I really need a vacation.

*plop*

The small sound makes me almost jump out of my skin. The tell-tale soft sound of a windows notification, but it can't be! The Lenovo has been off since that day, secluded to a corner of the living room.

I glare at it there it sits, perched on the corner of the side table. The power button shining brightly, taunting me.

*plop*

Maybe if I just ignore it? Let it sit there on the side-table, plopping to itself until it runs out of power?

The coffee withdrawal is probably exhasperating my mental state.

I decide to make myself a cup of coffee and sit down with an episode of the Film Reroll. I'd found this podcast a few months back and was currently listening my way through their Wizard of Oz playthrough.

My Dolce Gusto coffee machine humms lowdly, slowly filling my cup with some medium roast black goodness. After about a minute, I pick up the freshly-made, piping hot cup of coffee and a nearby teaspoon, put in a few spoons of dairy-free creamer and a packet of sweetener, before stirring everything while heading for the couch.

I settle down in the sofa with my trusty Audio-Technica headphones and my old Sony Xperia tablet - which had ended up being used longer than planned with the recent events.

*plop*

The Lenovo was still asking for attention in the corner, but I block it out of my mind and focus my attention on the Podbean app, quickly starting up ep. 3.

As the group starts bantering about Gillikins and Gilligan's Island, I slowly start breathing normally again. I hadn't even realised I'd been holding my breath.

I give my cup a quick blow before sipping the newly-made coffee.

Sinking deep into the sofa I close my eyes and let the players transport me to their wonderous, weird world of Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy knows mind control and the Scarecrow does more to sabotage the group than help. *Du-du!* The Xperia notification sound deafens the podcast for a few seconds and shocks my eyes open. On the top of the screen is a new message:

I killed 5 yesterday, they cried a lot

I stare at the notification, not really taking in the words. It's like my whole world has frozen, time starting up as a crawl when the notification slowly withdraws. The podcast has just become meaningless noise, nothing reaching past my ears.

*du-du!*

I left the table for a minute and they tried to escape, so I caught the room on fire

This can't be real, this is a joke, a hoax from one of my twitter followers, or discord friends! I desperately run through all the options in my head, looking for an answer, any answer. The messages hadn't appeared on the tablet, only on the pc.

"You don't know that". A tiny little voice in the back of my mind whispered. "The tablet was in the bedroom while you were using your new computer, you saw the messages on the device you were using at that moment."

I desperately grab for the Len, the pc, to confirm to myself that it's a trick, that someone is messing with me, that it's not the same mystery messages I was getting before.

Pulling it open I place it on the sofa next to me and unlock it with my finger. I don't want to think about why it's on or how it's been able to keep a charge for over 2 weeks, I just need to check. To makre sure there's nothing there.

"no new notifications"

With a sharp breath of relief I feel like my terror recedes a bit. There's nothing there. Probably just someone remembering my recent freak-out and deciding to mess with me a bit. I take off the headphones and place them and the tablet on the table, before taking another sip of coffee.

"Heh!" I almost spook myself with my own snort, I'm really too paranoid. Somebody is probably sitting on the other side of the world congratluating themself for their little joke. I will have to thank them for the scare later.

*plop*

The tiny notification sound from the pc next to me is so loud I almost drop the cup, and I can see at the edge of my eye the tablet screen has also lit up with a new message.

fire and poison

"No.." My voice is barely a wisper and I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Why? Why is it there? There was nothing, no notifications, no.. i"that's what it said earlier too, when you checked after the first messages. There was never anything there."i/ I looked over at the tablet. windows might not keep the notices, but the tablet definately does! android doesn't hide thems until you clear them. I yank the tablet to me, causing the headphones to tumble onto the floor with a thud. Quickly swiping up, I pull down the notifications.

There's nothing there. No messages, no social media updates, nothing.

Gripping the tablet in my hands, my fear starts changing into rage. Fuck this whole thing, fuck this goddamn slimeball who's probably sitting behind a screen in a lowly lit place laughing to himself over his latest prank driving another completely insane.

Sending more and more bullshit messages.

What's the last one? "Fire and poison"? That doesn't even make any sense, it's just words..

"Yeah!" I shout out. "It's just fucking words on a, a screen! Whoever you are think you so clever for freaking me out like this, but I'm not scared anymore. You can't hurt me. You could never hurt me!

You, you're just, just words!

I can feel the stress letting go of my body, my mucles relaxing. The tablet slips out of my hands and falls on the headphones and floor.

"How do you feel now, huh?" I smirk, every word I speak into the empty room making my body go limp.

*plop*

I can barely turn my head to look at the pc beside me.

i am soo sleepy

Did Did it    No, it cant be. I try to reach out and grab the thing beside me, but my arms arent listening to me.

Its just a coinc  A co By chance. Friends. It never talked about things like that before. Just about.. Killing.

*plop*

I'd drink some coffee but I am immune

"ee-mmn-e?" My lips cant form my words. What a strange word to choos to talk cofeee. I get not effect from cofffee anymore, but immune? "- and poison" - it pop up in head like a bliking mesaage. Pull head around and stare half-had coffee. It not be+

try - stand, but body heavy. just sit.      Help

helo

her;[

trlkhdtmknlmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

after she found the corpse and the maggots got her

[arplis]

Arplis - News: Telling exceptional truths Ft. Katie Martell (Inbound Success, Ep. 146)

How can brands stand out and drive incredible customer loyalty?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Katie Martell talks about what it means to find your "exceptional truth" as a brand, and why that should be the guide for everything you do as a marketer.

As Katie says, "the only thing in the middle of the road, is roadkill," and brands that fail to speak their truth get lost in the crowd.

In our conversation, we wade into the controversial waters of whether and when brands should speak out and take a stand, and how to do it in a way that keeps you tightly aligned with your customers.

Highlights from my conversation with Katie include:

Katie says it is the job of the marketer to understand what is happening in the world.

Marketing controls brand perception, and brand perception influences whether someone will buy from you.

If you're in marketing, you have to understand where your brand fits in the world of your buyer's identity.

When you know what your buyers care about, you can align that with your brand values, and you have an opportunity to take a position that will strengthen your place in the market.

Katie says that brands that don't take a position get lost in a crowded marketplace and are not a part of the conversation.

By taking a stance about what you believe, you can change the conversation in your market and, in doing so, become a market leader.

Katie says brands need to find "exceptional truths" - little kernels of truth that get buyers to stop, pause, and rethink the way they see the world.

When you've created that seed of doubt, buyers are open. They're leaning in, they're listening to what else you have to say. And that is when marketing works at its best. That's when they're more receptive to your pitch.

This takes knowing buyers so well that you know where they're misinformed or what they don't know or what they don't understand so that you can challenge that.

This approach is based on the concepts outlined in the book The Challenger Sale, which is typically used in the sales world but has a lot of application to marketing.

Marketers need to be confident to convince the organizations they work for that this type of challenge is the right approach.

This can be hard because marketing is a "voyeuristic" profession - meaning that everyone can "see" marketing so they think they are an expert and know how it should be done.

As a marketer coming into a new company, its important to determine what your exceptional truth is and then find ways of rolling that out across your marketing in a way that makes your brand unique and different.

Resources from this episode:

Visit Katie's website

Follow Katie on Twitter

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn

Listen to the podcast to hear Katie's take on why it is so important for brands to find their exceptional truths, and how to use that in your marketing to gain a competitive edge.

Transcript

Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast.

I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Katie Martell, who is an on demand communications strategist based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Welcome Katie. Katie Martell (Guest): Hi Kathleen. Thank you so much for having me.

Katie and Kathleen recording this episode.

Kathleen: I am excited to have you here. For everyone listening, I heard Katie speak at Marketing Profs B2B Marketing Forum in, what was that? September or October? October of 2019.

Back in the days when we still went to conferences in person. And I was just so blown away. She gave such an amazing talk on Rabble Rousers and it really not only struck me for the content of the talk, but also, you were just an amazing speaker.

We can have a separate conversation about that. But anyway, that's why I wanted to have you on and share some of your amazing wisdom with everyone who's listening.

So I could go on and on about you. but before I go down too much of a tangent, I would love it if you would explain what an on-demand communication strategist is and what you do, and also a little bit of your background and how you wound up doing that.

About Katie Martell

Katie: I would love to, and I have to start by saying thank you for the kind words about that talk last year.

So the title of that talk was something like "Market Like a Rabble Rouser" and it came from this fascination I have with the world of politics and persuasion mixed with what I do as a marketer.

So I've been a marketer in the B2B realm for 11 years now. And what's been interesting is, I've been marketing to marketers for the majority of my career.

And that was first at a B2B data services company. We were an early sponsor of the Marketing Profs event. That was a startup that I grew up to acquisition. And then it was a PR firm, an analyst from my own MarTech startups.

So I've kind of lived multiple lives, worn many different hats, but always marketing in this world of B2B tech, and MarTech specifically.

So I've been a student of marketing in a time when it's completely changing from what was the kind of capital M marketing that we've known it to be.

And so this talk was just honestly, they had asked me what I wanted to talk about, which is a moment in time where you go, "Oh, that's a dangerous, that's a dangerous ask of me." And I was honest. I said, "Let's talk about what's happening in the world of misinformation, persuasion."

I'm talking Russian trolls, I'm talking campaign interference. I'm talking all the stuff that, you know, you read on the headlines, on whatever news outlet you choose to follow. And let's talk about what marketers can learn from it.

So I get up on stage. I give this talk. It went over a little bit of time because that's, hello, it's me. Well, people were absolutely polarized in the audience. We had half the room, a little more than half, I will say, who were like, "Yeah, we got the takeaway. This is great. Thanks so much."

And the other half that I just think, I don't know what, didn't go across as well for many, because I presented a lot of information about Russian trolls and some of the exact campaign ads they used and it was pretty incendiary stuff, but that was the point. I was trying to get people riled up and hey, achievement unlocked.

Kathleen: But I also think, isn't that polarized response just such a perfect reflection of why that talk was needed in the first place?

Katie: I hope so. I was encouraging folks to really, you know, rouse the rabble, you know,? Create emotional responses, shake things up, and that's kind of what I did on stage.

Kathleen: Well, and to be clear, just to interject, your talk was not an inherently political talk in the sense that you weren't taking sides, you were presenting facts, right? And people can take that and do with it what they want, but I just wanted to put that out there.

Marketers need to pay attention to what is happening in the world

Katie: Well, I appreciate it. And let the lesson and the takeaway here be that we need, as marketers, to pay attention to what's happening in the world.

I mean, the world around us, look at this past week and today's date. I don't know if you're going to give the date here. It's June 1st.

So we are coming off of a weekend of civil unrest, Black Lives Matter protests. It is a time where, if you check social media, you're bombarded with hashtag activism and names and everybody from brands to individuals getting involved in this current conversation.

We as marketers should be watching this and learning.

Kathleen: Yes. I mean, actually, it's interesting that we are having this conversation today because I literally, just this morning, was online on social media and I saw one person saying something about how you have to speak out and you have to make your positions known.

And another person's literally saying "I'm not going to support businesses that don't say anything."

It's interesting. There's so many different sides to what's happening right now, but it really doesn't matter what you believe about the current situation.

The fact is that the world around us is going to make judgments and make personal buying decisions. And they could be different ones, person to person, but they're going to be made based upon what you do and or do not say right now, right.

So if you're not paying attention as a marketer, you're not doing your job

Katie: Because this is our job. It is our job. Marketing controls brand perception, right? Brand perception is the reality for consumers. They make a decision about us before they engage with us by the way we act through marketing.

That's the kind of inherent "duh" that we know about our jobs, but what that means at a time like this and what it started to mean over the past, I would say, decade or so as the world of social movements, identity, and brands and corporate world they've started to intersect.

And so what that now means is, if you're in marketing, you have to understand where your brand fits in the world of your buyer's identity, whether they believe in the Black Lives Matter movements, right? These kinds of areas that were kind of gray areas before of, we don't want to get political.

It's not appropriate for every brand to have a comment on what's happening.

For example, we're talking about the treatment of African American individuals in the US, if your brand happens to live values that embrace diversity and inclusion and have large representation from that community and you take steps to make sure that their employee experience is great and yada, yada, yada, you might as well leverage that in marketing.

You might as well show the world that you're on the same side as the giant movement that's now building in States and cities around the world.

My God, this is a great opportunity for marketers, which I know sounds dirty to say out loud, but it's absolutely a time to take advantage of the global zeitgeist right now, and be part of the conversation, be part of the narrative, earn trust. It might help you differentiate.

It is a way of saying to the world, "This is where we play, this is what we believe, this is who we are as a brand" that may go well beyond what your product or your service does.

That is an opportunity.

Kathleen: I agree with you. This is such an interesting conversation. In the past year, I had a conversation about this with someone who I've always considered to be very much a professional mentor/idol/role model.

I've come to realize as I've gotten to know this person better that they feel very strongly about keeping all politics, all commentary on social issues, completely out of business. And that is their personal belief.

It has come into focus, I think, with this last election cycle, and we had a big debate where the person was saying companies should never post about politics. I personally don't believe that, nor do I think every company should post about politics.

People will disagree with me and that's fine, but I think that it all comes back to really understanding your brand. And in this case, especially for privately held companies, brands are very inextricably interwoven with the person that owns the company.

This is going to come right down to the owners of the company and what they personally believe in.

There are some companies where the person that owns it is never going to talk about politics because that person, as an individual, doesn't talk about politics even in social settings.

But then you have companies, and there's some examples I'd love to cite, like Penzeys Spices. They are a spice company out of the Midwest. I had discovered them years ago because I was looking for some really niche spices. I like to cook and I had followed them, and then I started seeing this stuff on Facebook and they come out really, really strongly.

This is a long story, but I got into a really big debate with this person. And the person was saying, you are going to lose customers and that's not good for your business. And you're going to alienate people and that's not good for your business.

And my feeling is, that might be fine.

If you're somebody who believes that you want to live your beliefs and you want your business to live those beliefs, you may lose customers, but you will probably have the ones you keep drive tremendous loyalty and you may gain as much, if not more, than you lose.

So, diatribe over. You're the guest, not me!

Katie: Oh, please! I love your point of view. I'm honored to be here because I think you are just brilliant and I love your work.

You hit on something really polarizing right now which works at multiple levels. It also kind of hearkens back to the fundamental truth that not all marketing advice is going to apply to every company. And I feel like that's an important disclaimer, because we tend in marketing to say, brands should do this, they shouldn't do that.

It's really, to your point, what is right for your business, your customers, and most importantly, your goals.

Now that spice company, I don't know them, but I guarantee their goal is not to be the spice for everyone.

It sounds like they know exactly who their buyer is and they know exactly what that buyer wants from them. They want a spice company that stands for more than spice. Great.

Not all car companies are going to be a car for everybody, right? Just like with Patagonia, right? If you're buying a jacket to go skiing and they have a set of brand values that they know aligns with the subset of the total market, but that subset will be inherently loyal to them because Patagonia is an example of a brand that's been consistent against their values.

For years, they've always been kind of counterintuitively anti consumption. They sell retail products. They need to drive consumption. Remember that famous ad that was like, "Don't buy this jacket"? You don't know it. You have to Google it.

And it's Patagonia saying "We cause too much waste in our industry. We build products that may cost you a little more, but they're sustainably made and we want you to wear them for longer.

We're going to help you repair them. We're going to give you some tools to make sure that you can make sure you get the most out of them. They're longer lasting."

These are brand values that the buyer can relate to because the buyer also shares those values.

So this really isn't a new marketing problem. We like to think it is because of social media and hashtag activism and all the propaganda that's happening. But this really isn't old school marketing best practice. Know your buyer, know where you fit in their world.

Bill Bernbach has a great quote that's like, "If you stand for nothing, you'll find some people for you and some people against you. And if you stand for nothing, you'll find nobody for you and nobody against you."

Which is worse for a marketer? To be completely out of the conversation or to be clear about where you sit and stand and who you're intended for?

I love old time radio. There's a great Sirius XM station about the radio shows from the era of when that was entertainment. Somebody had this quote in the old timey accent. They were like, "The only thing you find in the middle of the road is roadkill my dear."

Right now, today, brands do not have to have a comment on who should be president.

That is politics. That is up to the individual. We each have a right to vote. Stay out of it unless you're relating to the campaign or you're lobbying for a certain group.

Honestly, we need to have a say about issues that matter for our buyers. That's it. If it doesn't matter to your buyers, it shouldn't matter to you and your marketing.

If you're a founder, I'm going to kind of disagree with you on this, but if you're a founder trying to lever your organization for your own political, personal views, that's a mistake because not everyone in your company is going to agree with you. Just like not every one of your buyers is going to agree with you.

You have to find middle ground. That's what this is about.

When you canvas for a political campaign and you're going door to door for, I don't know, Bernie Sanders, you don't open the door and knock on the door and say, let me tell you why you're wrong about insert political candidate. You find common ground. You say, what do we share? What are we aligned on? And how do we then move forward together?

It's not about polarizing. It's about recruiting people to see the world the way you do. And those people likely bring the same set of values that you do.

Kathleen: To be clear, I should say because I probably didn't explain this, I'm not advocating that businesses come out and say "Vote for so and so."

I'm more coming out and saying that the context that came up when I talked about it with somebody, was that there were things happening politically that impacted other issues, whether that's the environment or social issues, et cetera, there was like a trickle down.

And there were businesses that at the time were coming out and standing for or against those environmental or social issues. That was what sparked the conversation.

It's very interesting to me because the things that swim in my brain when I get into this conversation are, there is an increasing amount of data that started to come out, particularly with younger generations, that they are actually much more likely to buy from businesses that are willing to say what they stand for.

Again, I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking broadly about things that you stand for. And I loved your statement about the only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill.

Because you know, you look at social activism and business today and you see companies like Tom's shoes, which stand for something, and Patagonia, which stands for something. These businesses are doing very, very well, particularly amongst a younger demographic.

And so I think part of it is knowing who you sell to, as you said. Part of it is also recognizing that over time, things are going to change as this younger demographic ages and people follow them, who knows?

I don't know what will happen with the next generation, but today's 20-year-olds are going to be the 30 and 40-year-olds of tomorrow and the next decade, et cetera.

And so as our customer populations age, their preferences come with them as they do.

It reminds me of the conversation that I've had with people about niching down as a business. I used to own a marketing agency and agencies talk about this all the time. Should we be the agency for everyone? Or should we declare that we are serving this one niche?

And the fear that everybody always has when you get into that conversation is the fear of having to say "no" and turn people away.

What most data shows, and most people find when they do it, is that when you niche down, you actually thrive. You make more money because you really find the right fit customer and they have a higher perception of you. They stick with you longer, et cetera.

And so, there's an echo of that going through my head as I listened to us talk about this.

Understanding your brand promise

Katie: Absolutely. And again, it comes back to branding basics.

You have to know the promise that you're going to make to anyone. That's what brand is. Brand is a promise. When they engage with you, they want to know that they're going to get something that you've promised them.

You don't have to take a stance around hot button issues. Stay away from hot button issues, unless you're ready for that, unless that's really core to your business and your values and live throughout the organization.

There are many examples, from our history, of B2B companies that stand for something in their industry. This is where this needs to be applied to B2B. B2B listeners might be thinking, this doesn't apply to me because I sell, I don't know, refrigeration.

And I'm here to tell you, there is, within the world of refrigeration, a company called Stirling Ultracold, that was kind of a smaller player within this world of refrigeration. They would sell to pharmaceutical companies, and we're talking commercial grade keeping stuff cold, right?

That's the extent of my knowledge, but they are ultra low temperature freezers that companies need. This is a great example of a company in a world that we would think, what is controversial about this space?

The way they were disrupting their own industry was just with this idea of sustainability and energy costs and carbon footprint -- these things that their product enabled companies to decrease. They saved something like 70% of energy costs.

Energy and sustainability and carbon footprint was never a consideration point for this buyer before. They just didn't look at it along that list of criteria that they're making their decision against. It didn't matter.

Suddenly, here's a company who comes forward with a great PR program, really strong thought leadership, a leader who says, "I believe we have a responsibility to have a smaller carbon footprint. And guess what? My products enable you to have it."

It suddenly changed the entire perimeter of an industry.

That is the exact same advice that you and I are preaching right now. Just take a stance in what you believe in your own market. That's how you're going to change the conversation in market.

That's how you're going to find buyers that are aligned with you around this value that now matters, and in a broader sense, you know, to the world, but really in this industry. And that's how you're going to differentiate and earn that trust, is when you declare "Here's what we're about."

And you do that with confidence, because that allows the buyer to look at you and say, "I know exactly what I'm signing up for."

Change the conversation in your industry

Kathleen: I love that. And it reminds me of a talk that I heard by April Dunford.

Katie: Love April Dunford, high five.

Kathleen: I heard it at HubSpot's Inbound conference. April Dunford is an expert on positioning and she gives this talk about the four different ways you can approach positioning for your business.

And I don't remember the nickname she has for it, but the example that she gives for one of the ways is about changing the conversation. And she talks about Tesla and how before Tesla, the leader in the electric car market was the Prius. And the whole conversation in electric cars was about battery life. How long could you drive before you needed to recharge?

You could substitute refrigeration, but the bottom line is that, as a new entrant, if you think about coming into an established market, you're not going to have the first mover advantage.

You're not creating a category per se. So how do you catapult yourself to the head of that market? You do it by changing the conversation.

And so she talks about how Tesla came in and totally changed the conversation by saying, "Yeah, whatever. Battery life. Of course, we all have battery life. It's really all about how sexy is the design and how fast does the car go?"

And now, you see a completely different dialogue happening in electric cars. You see Tesla as a front runner. And you see a lot more electric car manufacturers focusing on design and speed because they made it sexy.

And that's the new conversation. And it sounds like that's exactly the same thing this refrigeration company did.

Finding your "exceptional truth"

Katie: They had to. And this is really where I think, and I know I'm a little biased. I come from a communications background. I've seen the power of content marketing and PR and all of that working in tandem to lift up brands.

I mean, I'm a startup girl at heart. When you can't be the loudest voice in the room and you can't be the dominant player of which, by the way, there's only one in every industry. So the majority are not dominant players.

All of us need to figure out how to get more strategic with the way we leverage PR and content. I think we've fallen into a bit of a trap, and I'll use that word gingerly because of the rise of inbound marketing, because of the rise of the tools and tech that allow us to publish a lot of content.

What we've sacrificed are the kernels of little ideas that we're using to seed the market. We've become really good at publishing education tips and best practices, which are great and necessary. This podcast is a great example of one.

The issue is that we've lost sight of what creates movements, what creates change in people. It's that little kernel of truth.

I call them exceptional truths that get people to stop, you know, pump the brakes and go, "Wait a minute. I've been thinking about things all wrong."

And when you get a person, a human being to stop and kind of pause, you've got them, that's it.

When you've created that seed of doubt, the way that they saw the world may not be that capital T, truth, they're open. They're leaning in, they're listening to what else you have to say. And that is when marketing works at its best.

That's when they're more receptive to your pitch, to your ideas and your path forward, but it takes knowing the buyers so well that you know where they're misinformed or what they don't know or what they don't understand so that you can challenge that.

This is drawing from, everyone knows, The Challenger Sale.

Applying The Challenger Sale to marketing

Kathleen: I was just going to say, I used to be in sales and in the sales world, this is The Challenger Sale.

Katie: Yes. I don't know what happened. I mean, how can The Challenger Sale extend its way to marketing? Not to say that it hasn't, but you know, is that a puppy?

Kathleen: Yes. I have two who are laying at my feet and every now and then they lift their heads up and say, "Wait, there's a world out there!" They're getting excited about The Challenger Sale.

Katie: They probably are just as confused as I am as to why The Challenger Sale didn't work its way into the world of PR and content marketing. To me, we need to challenge the way the buyer sees the world. I think very few brands do that.

Kathleen: It's very true. I have worked in sales before and when I was in that job, I read The Challenger Sale. I used that approach in sales and it made me very successful.

And you're spot on. That has so much applicability in marketing.

I owned an agency for 11 years and I worked with a lot of different companies and there is, in marketing, this lemmings syndrome where we see the lemmings running ahead of us and we want to follow them off the cliff. If they're doing it, it must be the right thing to do.

And it extends from everything, from messaging and the way we talk about what we do, to things like brand colors. I used to do websites for attorneys and they all wanted forest green and maroon and these very stodgy, old attorney colors.

And I remember I had one client and I was like, "Let's just do something crazy." And they were like, "But nobody else did that." And I was like, "Precisely."

There's this inclination both amongst marketers and within the business world to play within the lines. And I think that does hurt us.

There's a sea of sameness out there and it's the content we create, it's the colors on our websites, it's the way we message. It's, you know, "Hey, you should or should not talk about this in our industry. We don't talk about that so I'm not going to" and I really think that that has tied our hands behind our backs,

Katie: I have a lot of empathy. I mean, I'm a Pisces. I'm gonna look at every situation from both sides. And it's empath to the Nth degree over here. But I do have a lot of empathy for the modern marketer.

And this comes from being one, but also selling and marketing to them for 10 years. I've been on the megaphone side of MarTech vendors back in the day when there was a hundred of us, marketing solutions in a world of digital marketing that was now starting to shift.

Don't forget, 10 years ago, we now had to be good at becoming top ranked on Google. We now had to start using social media to develop a two way dialogue. We then had to automate everything. Then we had to start measuring everything.

Now we're trying to leverage AI. It has moved at such a pace. It all happened in nine years.

It has moved at such a pace that the marketer, the poor beleaguered marketing ops person and lead gen new roles that are being created because of this ecosystem in MarTech have inherent uncertainty, an inherent doubt and inherent fear because thinking about it, you and I work, we do marketing for a living.

This is our income. How are we going to support our families? This is more than a job and an industry, buyers and marketing.

I always had this kind of point of view when I was marketing to marketers. The buyer is more than a director of marketing at an IT company. They are an individual who's just trying to figure it out.

And a brand like a HubSpot who comes out right at the turning point of an industry in flux to say, we have 10 ways that you can do this better. And five tips for this and seven strategies for success in that, that brand is going to win.

That fearful buyer who's like, I just need a job, and I need to keep ahead. The biggest fear for the marketing buyer is falling behind. If we fall behind, we're no longer relevant. If we're no longer relevant, guess what? There's some 23 year old who's going to come up and take our spot because they know Tik Tok.

I'm being hyperbolic, but that's constantly on our minds. And so we have to have empathy for that marketer who's like, we are going to do the things that work and copy the things that work because they work and we need a win.

It's really those organizations that can allow their marketing team to do what they do best. That means leave them alone. Let them understand the buyer and the market, the way that they're supposed to.

The challenge of being a marketer

Katie: Somebody else said to me that marketing is a very voyeuristic profession. Everyone can see it. Unlike finance, unlike R&D or engineering, or even sales, to an extent. Everyone can see marketing.

Everyone in a business thinks that they're an expert in marketing because they see marketing all day. They see billboards. They see ads. They feel like they know the science and the practice of marketing.

That creates a lot of pressure on the marketing team to kind of do whatever everyone else thinks they should be doing.

So we have a department that's not only fearful of falling behind, but also facing pressure from the business to do things that may be counterintuitive to what marketing should do.

To your point, the lawyers with the maroon versus doing something different.

The telling of exceptional truths, the disruption, the rabble rousing, it works on teams that allow marketers to operate with confidence and hire marketers that are allowing them the space to push back and say, "No, this is what marketing does.

Our job is to understand who the buyer is, what they need and why we're uniquely fit that market. And that may look different than what you expect, but that's why you hired me."

If you're listening to this and you're young and you love marketing, but you're unsure of the path ahead, that's the strongest thing I think you can do is to hone this sense of what marketing does for business and the sense of confidence that you need to bring to every meeting. You almost have to defend your job at every go, but the more you do it, the more resilient you get, the better you get at it.

Kathleen: Well, I think it also points to what you should look for in a place of work. I completely agree with everything you just said, and, and I don't often talk about where I work now, but I'm at this company Attila Security, which is in cybersecurity.

I knew I had landed in the right place and I had this sense when I interviewed.

When I got into the company and I met with the CEO and I presented him with my 90 day plan and strategy, this was about 30 days in, he said, "Yeah, just do it. I hired you because you know what you're doing", you know? "You don't need my permission." And I was like, "Wow, what a great feeling".

When you're interviewing, that's a thing to really watch for and to dig into and to see if that's a trait that you're going to find amongst the leadership team of the company that you go and work for.

Katie: I wonder how to ask that in an interview. I'm a startup girl who's just been at companies where inherently, there's no one to tell me what to do. What would you ask if you were interviewing?

Kathleen: As somebody who hires a lot, I've always been a big believer in behavioral based interview questions. Those are basically, you don't ask people "What would you do?", you ask, "What did you do?" And you ask people to talk about actual experiences.

So I would probably ask something along the lines of, you know and it depends on if it's a company that's had marketers before. I would say, "Tell me about a time when a prior head of marketing proposed something that you weren't sure about or didn't necessarily agree with, what did you do?"

And if they haven't had marketers before, if it's a startup, I would probably ask them something about being at a prior company. Or I would say, "Tell me about a time the head of sales proposed something," or somebody else in the company presuming that there are other leaders. Because I think past behavior speaks better than hypotheticals.

Everybody can come up with the right answer, hypothetically.

For what it's worth, that's kind of the approach that I've taken, but some of it is also just a feeling that you get from talking with people.

And I think that's something that you hone over time as you work in more places and you're exposed to more different types of people.

Standing out in a world saturated with marketing content

Kathleen: But one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking, you mentioned HubSpot and how they solve for something very specific at a time when it was a real need. And, it got me kind of circling back to a little bit of what we started with here, which is this need to tell exceptional truths and should companies go there? Should they not go there?

One of the things that I started thinking about as you were talking is that the interesting unique moment that we live in right now is that content marketing has become so commonplace. And there are so many companies creating content that there is this saturation.

There's just a lot out there. There's a lot of blogs. There's a lot of newsletters. There's a lot of video out there. We're all busy. Nobody has the time to read all of it. So how do you choose what you're going to consume?

And this applies to anybody, any buyer out there has this dilemma whether they're actively searching for something or not. And it seems to me that one of the factors that's really affecting what works now in marketing is that one of the most effective ways to stand out amongst a very saturated world of content is to have a point of view.

We've talked a lot about in the marketing world about authenticity, and a hot topic lately has been email newsletters and getting really real in your email newsletters and showing personality and individuality, even in company newsletters.

And the reason that that's working so well, I believe, is because it is different. Just the fact that it's different and just the fact that it doesn't sound like everybody else, people gravitate to that.

So I'd love to know kind of what you think about that.

Katie: I a hundred percent agree. Mic drop because you said it yourself.

This idea that everyone is a publisher, everyone can produce content - it makes it more important than ever to do what we were suggesting 20 minutes ago, which is to know exactly who you're talking to, what they value, the ways you share that value and just be confident that that is the niche that you have decided to own.

You cannot be all things to all people. I'm hearkening back to my marketing undergraduate. This was a long time ago now. It's the one thing I learned.

This is not new, right? We just have a proliferation of information now available to us. It makes it more important than ever to have not only a clear point of view, but first a very clear intended audience.

You cannot be the solution, in your case, for all CIOs. You're the solution for all CIOs that are extremely risk averse or something.

There's something about your buyers that you are really aligned to. Well, many companies fail to understand what that niche looks like and where that alignment happens.

I have a newsletter. I call it the "World's best newsletter." I started it when I started consulting, frankly, honestly, truthfully as a way of reminding the world that I wasn't gone.

I was leaving a startup at that time that I had co-founded and I was the public face of, and I needed a way to take that momentum and transfer it into my consulting, speaking, whatever it is that I do, practice.

So I started a newsletter. I had no intentions with it. I had no best practices around it. I probably break every rule in the book.

People love it. And what I do with it is what I've done from day one. I collect the things that hook my attention throughout the week, that I believe more people need to read, and I send it out weekly. And I say, "Here's what is important to me".

I am a human being with other other interests outside of marketing. I'm a fierce advocate for feminism, and I'm a fierce advocate for human rights.

And I have a documentary coming out about the intersection of marketing and social movements. And all of that is jam packed into this little newsletter, seven links and a quote of the week.

It makes no sense. If you were to tell me, as a marketing consultant, it wouldn't make any sense. There's a lot of marketing stuff in there, but sometimes there's a really important New York Times cover story about racism in America.

It works for me because people know what they want from me. It's neat.

I have been really reticent to do that. It feels wrong. It goes against everything I'm taught as an email marketer, but you know what? It performs.

It might be because it's real. I think it's because it's honestly what people want from me. I think that's really what matters. And they come back to it week after week because it serves that need and it's fresh. They don't get it from other people.

Finding your unique brand voice

Katie: If you're a business, trying to figure out what to send in your newsletter, think about that first. Just like a product and the way that you develop a product, look at the consideration set. What are you up against? What are the other emails looking like from your competitors or even others in the same general industry? Do something different.

Maybe it's just doing it shorter. Maybe it's coming at it from a totally different angle, right?

Content and thought leadership should be treated like product development. Not only is it something new and different, but it's like this muscle that you have to work on.

You've gotta be really good at coming up with the processes to uncover those insights from inside the business to say, "This is what we believe, what we know." And then really, really good at delivering that in a fresh and new way.

That's what makes the job of content fun and hard. But it's not what most people do. Most people opt for the easy ebook, the 10 tips, best practices. And then they wonder why isn't this performing?

How to find your exceptional truth

Kathleen: So true. So if somebody is listening and they're a marketer, who's come into a company and they're thinking about - and let's talk about startups because I think that's the best way to illustrate how this works.

If you come into a startup as the first head of marketing, it is a green field, right? You get to shape the clay. If you're coming into an established company, that's a different story, but it's still, the challenge is still there. It's just how you navigate. It might be different.

Putting on my hat as head of marketing at a startup, I'm coming in, it's the first time we're going to have a marketing strategy. If I wanted to come in and really mine the richness of what you talk about as exceptional truths, what is the playbook for doing that?

Katie: Well, good luck finding a playbook. The place to start, in my mind, is to ask yourself the question, just like you would if you were starting a movement and activism, "What is the change that you want to see in market?" What is that end result that you're hoping to get people to switch?

It could just be, you want them to choose you instead of a competitor. Great. So what does that mean? What belief do you need to shift? What misinformation do you have to correct? What new insight, to quote the Challenger model, do you have to bring to the table to get them to see the world a bit differently?

I'll give you an example from HubSpot again, because I think HubSpot did this so well. And it's an example that we can all relate to.

Your podcast. The name is a great example of the power of what they were able to do, how this came to market. I hate to say it, they were just a blogging, search engine optimization, social media, and eventually an email tool mixed into one.

They were not the only player doing this at the time. However, they thought about this brilliantly. They needed people to see the way they wanted things to change. They were advocating for us to use these tools instead of cold calling, billboards, et cetera.

The way that they got people to make that shift was to create a dichotomy or create an enemy. I actually presented on this at their conference two years ago, create an enemy. You can find it on their inbound library. And they saw the world in two ways.

There's inbound and outbound. There's the new way forward, Mrs. Beleaguered marketer, who doesn't want to lose her job, the way that you're not going to fall to irrelevancy. And there's the old way that you're going to fall behind if you keep using it.

They were extremely polarizing with this perspective. It was just one article that started all of this, right? They were like, "Here's the way forward. This inbound and outbound. One is good. One is bad. White, black, right? Devil, whatever it is." And 80% of the market was like, "Oh man, there's no way I'm going to go there."

They were pissed because HubSpot is over here, challenging the existing status quo, the way they sell. 20% saw that and went, "Oh, you're right. Let's opt into this." And so HubSpot now of course built an entire movement around inbound marketing.

It is a practice. It is a job title. It is a category in and of itself because they started with that kernel of what changes do we need to create. We need to figure out a way to get people to move from A to B, to go from what they think they know to what we want to advocate for.

And then they brilliantly built a movement around it.

And they did so with a ton of content ideas, a community of people that were proud to call themselves inbound marketers and this kind of repetitive, consistent muscle they use to push the movement forward, now extending years and a $125 million IPO and 19,000 people at their conference.

It just has ballooned because they were smart about this kernel of truth that they've never deviated from.

Are you going to be the next HubSpot? No. This is right place, right time, right conditions and market. But, you do have to find and be willing to provoke, with purpose, the existing beliefs of buyers, and then be consistent about that. If you can do that, your startup is going to make a lot of noise.

You're going to punch well above your weight. Even if you don't have the biggest budget, you're going to make waves and you have to be willing to do that or risk falling into irrelevance.

Kathleen: It's a really incredible story, that story of HubSpot and it's certainly not the only one.

You have Mark Benioff at Salesforce who famously picketed outside with a sign that had a big red X through the word software. And he similarly named the enemy and it was software and his solution was move to the cloud, software as a service.

That is an approach that absolutely works. I would say to go out and read The Challenger Sale. So many sales people read it, but so few marketers do, and I love that you brought it up in this conversation.

Kathleen's two questions

Kathleen: We are going to run out of time soon so I want to make sure I ask you my questions. I could talk to you forever.

My first question that I always ask my guests is of course, this podcast is all about inbound marketing, and is there a particular company or individual that you think is just a great example of how to do inbound marketing in today's world?

Katie: I think Rand Fishkin and his work with Moz and now with SparkToro which he actually details really well in a book called Lost and Founder. It's a great book. If you're thinking of starting a company read this first.

It may scare you away, but he always was the example for me of somebody who was again, challenging white hat versus black hat, giving away all the industry secrets to become a trusted industry resource, to ranked the highest, but it really builds trust in his company and him as an individual.

And I think it's just his consistency, Whiteboard Fridays, he was writing five days a week. That's still the best example of consistent inbound marketing.

Kathleen: You know, it's so funny because I could not agree with you more. He is somebody that I have followed really closely. I read his book. I read everything he does at SparkToro. I follow him religiously.

And I have been very surprised. I think you might be the first person that has mentioned his name. I ask this question of every single guest and that has baffled me because I think he's amazing. So I'm really happy that you said that.

Katie: He's also the world's nicest guy. We both spoke at the SpiceWorld conference in, I want to say, 2018. Both of us were speaking in the marketing track and I'm sitting here backstage fan girling because I love him. Who hasn't read his stuff?

He comes off stage with the mustache. He's the nicest guy. He's just, you know, very down to earth. And I think that's the secret. He wrote this content to truly help others. And I think that genuine purpose behind the content is really what sets him apart.

More people should have mentioned him.

Kathleen: Yes. I agree. And maybe they will now because we'll turn them on to his stuff.

All right. Second question. You mentioned earlier that the biggest fear of marketers is falling behind. And the second question I always ask everybody is exactly that.

It's like every marketer I talk to says, they feel like they're drinking from a fire hose. There's too much to keep up with. So how do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself educated?

Katie: 100% LinkedIn. I'm a huge advocate for using LinkedIn appropriately. I have a big following there, so I love it as a platform, but I also use it to consume a lot of best practices. I ask a lot of questions. I'm constantly looking through comments. It's become a resource that just, I find invaluable. It's a mess. Sometimes now people take advantage of LinkedIn to post some really nonsense stuff, but at the core of it, it's there.

Can I give two answers? There's a lot of Slack communities that are being built around specific topic areas. I'm not in marketing, but I'm part of a great marketing operations Slack group that keeps me knowing what's going on.

I work with a lot of MarTech vendors still as an amplifier now and a community evangelist. I need to know what's going on. And so even on that, in the practice, these Slack groups are hidden sources of insight.

So if there's not a Slack group for your world, your community, build it, invite people. They will come. This is not field of dreams. They're desperate to connect, one-On-one, sometimes outside of the loud world that is LinkedIn.

Kathleen: That group would not happen to be the MoPro's would it?

Katie: No, but now I want to join that one.

Kathleen: I'll send you a link. A guy I interviewed once for this podcast has a marketing operations Slack group that I am in.

But I agree with you. I have a ton of Slack groups and there's only like, let's say, two or three of them that I'm religious about checking every day. They're just insanely valuable.

But, love all of those suggestions. Again, I could talk to you all day long, but we're not going to do that because we both have other things we need to do. Great conversation.

I'm sure people will have opinions, both ways, about what we said here today, but that's okay. That's why these conversations are important to have. If you listened and you disagree, tweet me. I would love to hear your perspective. This is all about learning and listening and I'd love to hear what more folks think about this.

How to connect with Katie

Kathleen: But Katie, if somebody wants to learn more about you or connect with you online, what is the best way for them to do that?

Katie: They can Google me. I'm very, very, very Google-able. You can LinkedIn me. You can find my website. I'm just, I'm everywhere.

Kathleen, congratulations on over 150 episodes of this. This is a service to the community and we are grateful for it and it's a lot of work to put these together. So thank you for doing what you do and thank you for having me, really.

Kathleen: Well, I very much appreciate it. And I will put links to your personal website as well as your LinkedIn in the show notes. So head there if you want to connect with Katie, and she does produce some amazing stuff, so I highly recommend it.

You know what to do next...

Kathleen: If you're listening and you liked what you heard today, or you just felt like you learned something new, I would love it if you would leave the podcast a five star review on Apple podcasts, because that is how other people learn about the podcast.

And finally, if you know somebody else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, please tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Katie.

Katie: Thank you, Kathleen. Everyone take care.

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Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/telling-exceptional-truths-ft-katie-martell-inbound-success-ep-146

[silverlovesmadi]

My thoughts on ep XXXIV of Black Sails

THE BAD PARTS I’m annoyed, I have a major headache, I’m stressed, my heart hurts (beating a million miles a minute), I feel deflated/numb? I don’t know how to feel I guess? It’s a battle between emotional and rational me in my head. What can I say? The moment they kept going back to the British guard who stayed behind to protect Madi and Eleanor, I knew what time it was, I KNEW. I kept thinking “MOVE ON TO THE NEXT SCENE PLEAAAASE???!!!” And when the camera panned to the spanish soldier, I wanted to throw my fucking phone out the window. That scene was horrific, I was so fucking scared. When Eleanor received that cut, I KNEW it was over for her. And when that flame started spreading I wanted to die, because it was obvious how that was gonna end. As much as I didn’t like her, did she FIGHT for her life!!! And I really appreciate her trying to save Madi, but God did I paused that scene like a million times just to get through it. It was so surreal, I refuse to believe she’s dead. I just can’t. As predicted, Rogers is responsible for Eleanor’s death. I don’t know why they bothered to introduce that pregnancy storyline though? I guess to make her death more tragic? To show/remind us how men like Rogers have been ruining and destroying our world for centuries throughout history? Because of their EGO and lack of control over their emotions and paranoïa? I thought Flint left with Obi and one British soldier, but the men left behind were so few? I don’t know, I feel this could’ve actually be prevented. Or at they could’ve at least made sure everybody was DEAD.

I know what’s going through Silver’s head: “I fucked up, it’s all MY fault, I let her go with Flint.” I think that’s why he doesn’t blame Flint. He was just numb and quiet, absolutely stuck and lost in his own mind. His absolute biggest fear came out. His face just said: “What’s the point? What’s the fucking point?”. And more than that he couldn’t muster, my heart broke for him. And what did Silver say about Rackham? I thought they were all on the same ship? That kinda threw me off.

Also just seeing the people who were hit first by the Spanish, citizens of Nassau, ex-slaves who weren’t able to defend themselves, I cried, I cried. And are we ever gonna see Eme again? Because this show is sending, has been sending a very clear message all season. This preceded our current history, our current society. All this senseless violence for WHAAAT? Economy? Commerce? So the white elite can become and stay rich? This was all just business to them, don’t forget that. Fuck colonists/colonial powers, whatever the fuck you call them, I swear to God, be dead and stay dead!

About Billy. He was right when he told Silver to “Live with it”. That’s why Silver keeps trying to mend things, out of guilt, a type of guilt he doesn’t want to live with (something a true pirate wouldn’t do, but then again Silver never wanted to be a pirate, not really at least), but that time has past, you can’t come back from this. The biggest mistake Billy has made to cause all this mess, was his LACK OF COMMUNICATION. Excellent agitator? Yes! Excellent grassroots organizor? Absolutely! Considerate to his pirate brethren about about choosing life altering decisions FOR them without their knowledge? Not so much. Doesn’t that sound like somebody else we know? Silver did what he thought Billy wanted, what he thought would save the Walrus crew from Flint’s wrath. He went into the darkness with him to create that friendship so Flint would stop his abusive/murderous tendencies. I mean, Silver absolutely HATED Flint, but Billy told him to DEAL with him or else he would. So he did. Also, let’s not forget, nobody asked Silver if he wanted to become quartermaster, but I guess that’s the pirate way. Once you join a crew, better be ready to expect any and every task thrown at you. Not really a “democracy” ha? So yeah, add “bad timing” to Billy’s list of flaws. Let’s say he approached Silver about his plans for a coup before they shipwrecked at Maroon island, then perhaps he would’ve got what he wanted. But this is all in hindsight I guess.

THE GOOD PARTS That convo between Madi and Eleanor was just to good, I needed someone to finally call out Eleanor on her hypocrisy, someone calling her out on her inability to see things from the perspective of slaves. She REALLY needed to hear that, that colonial bubble finally bursted and I guess that in the last moments of her life she on some parts redeamed herself. Madi said YES y'all. Albeit to Eleanor. She had time to think about it, to let Silver’s question sink in. Ofcourse she couldn’t answer him right away, her mind was on the war. Madi was in rational mode. Even though we all knew she was gonna say yes, that doesn’t mean she would stop providing for her people. You can actually have both! Silver needs to realize that.

And whyyy was Madi’s mother so calm???? Why didn’t she ask for her daughter? Are they gonna tell her next episode? It was good seeing Kofi though. I know this Revolution was Flint’s idea, but somebody please tell me, isn’t this what Madi wanted too? I’m not defending Flint’s actions to get here at all, but I see this Revolution happening as much as a victory for Madi as well. This was her dream, on her own accord and for her own reasons, how idealistic it may be and yes we don’t know how it’s all gonna end, but stil, despite her presumed death, I was happy for HER that this Revolution is unraveling. Remember, in the Fathoms Deep podcast Zethu said Madi is not affraid to die/give her life for this dream, for progress.

It was good seeing Silver talk to Ruth, to see him doing everything he could to repare the alliance between the former slaves and the pirates. He’s a good leader, this is what Madi saw in him. There is still room for improvement though. As much as I feared a war between Julius and his men and the pirates, I knew they were gonna join the pirates against the Spanish from the moment I saw those ships approaching last episode. Working together with the enemy to fight an even greater enemy. I wonder if Julius and his men could’ve fased those number of Spanish by theirselves or did Julius realise Silver was right about him and his men joining the pirates because they needed each other??? Needless to say, JULIUS SAVED THE DAY🔥🔥🔥. I loved his scene with Silver and I can’t wait to see more of him!

Okay so Max and Anne understandably haven’t made up, still happy they got to see each other at least. And YES for Max and Rackham working together to get Rogers. You can hate Max all you want, but she is smart, strategic, tactical! War is never just about attacking from the outside, to adhance your chances for victory, you always need an INSIDE MAN or WOMAN in this case.

Anywho, I’m far from ready to think about what’s gonna happen in the next episode. I’m gonna be stubborn though and treat this as an “alive, until proven dead” situation, gotta get through this week somehow. Everything they showed happening to Madi was very ambiguous, they must’ve done that on purpose.

[ruinitpop]

2500+  mostly unedited words on why I love Simple Plan

Here we go, I’ll try not to ruin it:

Come with me back to my childhood. Far enough back that you might not remember when you first saw something that is extremely important to you, for me apparently that’s 2002. The live-action adaptation Scooby-Doo comes out that summer and it has what I like to call “kick ASS pop-punk soundtrack”. I remember liking the movie so much that my friends and I definitely tried to reenact the entire thing on the playground one day. Anyway, Simple Plan had a song on the soundtrack, It was Grow Up and it plays over an establishing shot of Spooky Island. Yes, I’ve seen the movie several times and I know the song by heart. 

Go forward a year and another movie comes out with a “kick-ass pop-punk soundtrack”. It was 2003...anyone have any guesses? Steve Martin fans in the room? It was Cheaper By the Dozen, a movie kind of about a book that I don’t know if anyone has actually read. But the movie is great, I love it. You may not think so but I reserve the right to life things that are objectively bad. (See my love of the live-action Scoo-Doo movies) Anyway, Simple Plan had a song on the soundtrack. It was I’m Just A Kid and it plays over the scene where all the kids have their first day at the new school and some preppy asshole shouts “MY LATTE!”. 

One more year passes and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed comes out and it, for a period of time, becomes MY FAVORITE movie. Like, I went on a trip for a kinda nerdy thing I did in 4th grade and we watched Scooby-Doo 2 easily 4 times over the course of that one week trip. AND I’m pretty sure this trip is the first time remember listening to No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls from beginning to end. Anyway, again, Simple Plan had a song written for the film on the soundtrack. It was Don’t Wanna Think About You and it’s seriously...just...so good! It’s emotional, and it like perfectly accents what’s happening in the movie! I cry when Shaggy says “They’re like totally having a montage in there without us Scoob” 

Now I’m just gonna rattle off a ranking of their soundtrack appearances as they appear in my brain: 

Don’t Wanna Think About You from Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

Because duh

 I’m Just A Kid from Cheaper by the Dozen. 

Kinda scandalous for this to beat Grow Up but I like the scene it plays over better

 Grow Up from Scooby-Doo. 

This could be purely nostalgia-driven but I just love the movie so much and it was basically where so many people first heard them and there is a huge significance to that in my head.

What’s New Scooby-Doo from the show of the same name.

 This song is awesome and I remember seeing them play it for what they claimed was the first time in over a decade in Santa Anna California in 2016 and I remember Pierre doing a little intro but not saying what song it was and I looked at my sister and said “holy shit they’re about to play What’s New Scooby-Doo!” so that’s why it’s on this list even though it’s TV and it’s my list I’ll do what I want. That memory warms my cold heart

Christmas List from the Unaccompanied Minors soundtrack

 Full Disclosure I still haven’t this movie (what kind of movie guy am I?) but the song is also a bonus track and also full of dated pop culture references like PlayStation2 and DVDs which I love to chuckle at to this day. When I got my first MacBook in early 2012 one of the first things I did was use garage band to split the bonus track off as it’s own track. 

Vacation from New York Minute

I had a weird interaction a little over a year ago where a Gen Z kid was randomly singing it and I was like “How do you know this song?” and he was like “oh some Mary-Kate and Ashley movie” and I said “So it is Vacation by Simple Plan. Accept I know it because I love Simple Plan. To this day I have never seen that movie but I know it’s from that movie and this little memory gives that song a special place.

Happy Together, a cover that was produced and on the soundtrack to Freaky Friday

This song it the top cover because it’s actually good AND the movie has grown in a significant tentpole of pop culture

Can’t Keep My Hands Off You from Disney’s Prom

This came out in 2011, I haven’t seen it. I imagine it’s not great but seeing as how the song is pretty good on its own and I have no other attached feelings it goes here on the list. But even this movie appearance isn’t as unsatisfying as...

Surrender from the Fantastic Four (2005)

We all remember this movie, people have mixed opinions. Mine are basically that the movie is fine, there are definitely better superhero movies now but this doesn’t necessarily deserve to be panned at trash or anything. It was 2005 and it’s at least as good and Sam Rami’s Spiderman.

Apparently there is a site for this but it doesn’t include New York Minute but it does include Clockstoppers. A movie I know I’ve seen but I don’t remember noticing there was a Simple Plan in it. There was a cool scene where they pause time next to a sprinkler and they push the droplets around and stuff. I just found this out after I typed my list. You can look at the link but it doesn’t have my opinions on it so why would you?

So, if you’ve read this blog before or maybe even know me in person you know I’m a big movie buff so it’s no surprise that I kinda discovered my love for them through movies. However, Simple Plans music nostalgia goes really deep.

I remember my first MP3 player. It was terrible, I’m going to date myself a little here but it only has physical buttons, it worked like a flash drive so if you didn’t organize your file folders properly it was basically impossible to navigate, and it only held like 100 songs. In comparison, my old sister had a Microsoft Zune. (You know Zune? The thing that Star Lord gets and the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 which was directed by James Gunn; the same guy who did the screenplays for both the live action Scooby-Doo movies that introduced me to Simple Plan in the first place! Which is part of why I’m writing this post!! If that dumb full-circle moment doesn’t give you warm and fuzzies you can stop reading) She had a pretty substantial library already and I had to carefully pick and choose what to put on it and I remember one the first songs was My Alien which isn’t a super popular track but it spoke to middle school me. There were definitely more of their songs from NPNHJB and Still Not Getting Any because self-titled Simple Plan didn’t come out until 2008. Eventually, I got an iPod nano with a whopping 16gb of storage and my life changed! I could hold basically all the music I wanted and that included all three of the Simple Plan albums that were out at the time. I have a very clear memory of making my mom listen to them a few times on the way to/from the orthodontist (which was a 40 minute drive because everything is far away in rural America) and she told me that I was just as good as a singer as Pierre. There’s no way, Pierre is an icon.

Over the course of the last decade, a few Simple Plan experiences have occurred around my birthday and I’m convinced they must know when my birthday is. The first time this happened was 2011 when they released Get Your Heart On! Which might be my favorite album if I was going to pick one but they’ve literally never written a bad song so why actually pick favorites? I remember a friend saying “This sounds like their old stuff and I love it” and I was offended. Like, how dare they slander Still Not Getting Any and Simple Plan like that?

As high school went on I started to have a very stressful Junior year. I bit off more than I could shew academically and one day I had a massive stress attack and I basically shut down but Untitled really got me through, I listened to so much Simple Plan that night but Untitled really helped me calm down and relax enough to get my head straight. While I’m talking about the song I’m gonna mention it was a charity track and the music video WILL make you cry but it’s super important and you should watch it.

Forward a couple more years and I’m in my first semester of college. I had chosen the wrong path at the time and I was in the process of fixing that by completely changing up my education including changing schools and giving up a rather big scholarship. I was feeling pretty good but uneasy about what I was doing at the time and what do you know? Right when I needed something comforting Simple Plan gave me an early Christmas present and released the EP Get Your Heart On - The Second Coming and every track on the EP reached into my soul and helped me process. I also started to GYHO again heavily and Gone Too Soon helped my deal with how much I was missing home and how much I missed a lot of my friends (I know the song isn’t really “about” that but it helped). 

At this point in my life, I’ve mostly given up hiding my fandom. I started following the band members on social media and I was VERY closely following the release of the next album. Which I was sure was going to be released by my birthday. (this is the second time a birthday coincidence happened) The band had another plan, which was to hype me up for an album drop and then only release a non-album single Saturday that wasn’t even on the album that came out later! I accepted their gift though because I wanted more songs so desperately! I was so thirsty for Simple Plan content that I also listened to an episode of the Lead Singer Syndrome podcast with Pierre and learned so much about the band and their careers together, it warmed my heart! The album Taking One For the Team wouldn’t drop for almost an entire year! But when it did they also announce their first tour in the US in years!

In early October 2016, I finally saw then live for the first time. I already talked about this, it’s when they played What’s New Scooby-Doo! The place where my sister and I chose to stand was near a stantioned-off area that looked VIP. Before the band went on their families came out escorted by security and watched the set right behind me! That trip was so fun! It was also my first concert ever, I had been to Warped Tour the previous summer but I choose to call that my first festival. 

The tour I saw them on kinda just morphed into the 15th-anniversary tour for NPNHJB. Remember when I went on about Scooby-Doo? Yeah reader, it’s been 15 years. I saw Simple Plan for the second time in April 2017 and I was able to convince a bunch of Set It Off (great band) fans to come with me because they were also playing. My roommate at the time said that seeing me at the concert was one of the times they’d seen me happiest. I thought that was very sweet and I’m glad I was able to have that experience with those people. Weirdly enough though, I had just started a new job and my new boss was also at the show. There isn’t much more to that particular story but I still think it’s funny. 

After this I closed a chapter of my life by leaving the fraternity I was a part of for most of my college experience. At the alumni ceremony, people often do personal things for those leaving, gifts, speeches, etc. For me, a few of my Brothers played Welcome To My Life. It was one of the sweetest things anyone could have done. 

The next time I saw them was on the final Warped Tour. I was so excited! I took time off so I could go and see them in San Diego because it was closer to (this is the 3rd coincidence) my birthday! I drove to San Diego alone and stayed in a hotel alone and had a couple of meals alone and saw a movie alone all so I could see Simple Plan. I did meet up with some friends at the festival on the day of and it was amazing! One of the people is very close to me and we shared a lot of music that day. I waited in line for over an hour at the SP merch tent and I was going to have sign some stuff with a happy birthday but they ended up having to leave the tent to get ready for their set and I nabbed a quick picture with Pierre. They closed their set with Perfect and everything felt melancholy but very “right” you know?

Most recently I saw Simple Plan alone in Phoenix. It was awesome! I was uneasy just seeing a show alone but being in that room with people who probably have a ton of stories just like this one (though probably not so many words) was exhilarating. They definitely had the best set and this time I noticed some of the things they kinda always do at shows. Like Chuck crowd surfing or the same call response to their most popular songs and another rendition of What’s New Scooby-Doo! 

This pretty much brings us to the present, thanks for taking this 2500+ word journey down memory lane with me. Currently, I’m feeling upset that the tour planned for this summer was called off because of the COVID-19 epidemic and I kinda have no idea when the album might drop. I am in no way diminishing anything that has happened to anyone else but for me, the current way of the world has taken a lot of what makes me happy away. My career is on hold, I can’t go to movies, and it even took away Simple Plan. Writing this has been mildly therapeutic and that was the point. If for some reason this post reaches the band I just want to thank them all. Pierre, Chuck, Seb, David, and Jeff. You guys are unbelievably amazing! Thank you for being somehow integrated into a lot of things that I really hold dear but most importantly thank you for the music! I can’t wait for more! Now, I’ll leave this train of thought before all this nostalgia makes me sick (get it?). 

I tried not to ruin it but this is almost 2600 words so I probably did.

[cryptodictation]

Richard Vaughan: “English is taught as if it were a dead language” | Economy

Richard Vaughan (Houston, Texas) first came to Spain in 1972, for an academic year, and after graduating in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Texas, he returned in 1974 to spend two years that ended up becoming 45 (of moment). Those classes that started as a means to pay for their stay have turned into 30,000 hours of teaching in the classroom, 10,000 hours of radio lectures and more than 2,000 on television sets; He has supervised more than 10 million hours through his teachers and his name, as President of Vaughan Systems, is automatically associated with the teaching of English in Spain. He has even had time to compose music: a hobby that has led him to play the piano, the electric guitar and the Spanish classical, coming to present his work at both the Madrid Monumental Theater and the National Music Auditorium. We talked to him about teaching English in Spanish, and about the best way to learn a language.

THE COUNTRY: Every time a report on the knowledge of English is published, the Spanish never stand up well. Is it an endemic disease?

Richard Vaughan: We must not forget something: Spain is a large market. Small countries (with smaller populations and / or extension, such as the Netherlands, Greece or Malta), which historically have depended on foreign trade for their prosperity and which have a multilingual mentality, should be set aside. Nations with large internal markets such as Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Russia and even the United Kingdom have been able to develop their economies thanks to these markets, and historically they have not needed languages ​​to generate wealth and ensure the well-being of their population; There has been no multilingual tradition. Spain had its overseas possessions in Latin America, the United Kingdom in India, France in Africa or Southeast Asia … Each used its own language.

EP: And where is the level of the Spanish, if we compare ourselves with countries of similar entity?

RV: If we place ourselves at the level of a supervisor or foreman, which is the bulk of the average business fabric, Spain can rub shoulders with France or Germany. In China, very few speak English. And the same thing happens in Japan … beware, the evil of many should not and cannot console anyone. Spain is wrong, but it is relative. There has been a lot of improvement; I would say that the level of English has doubled.

EP: What do you think of teaching English in the public or concerted school?

RV: The bilingual schools in Madrid, public and concerted, are experiencing an enormous improvement compared to 15 or 20 years ago. I did not agree with the way Esperanza Aguirre approached this change, but what I have found is that young people now understand much more and have lost their fear of speaking. They may not have a good command and still make mistakes, but they can get out of trouble.

Beyond these centers, and to the best of my knowledge, English continues to be poorly studied in both Primary and Secondary. It is studied as if it were a dead language, as if you were going to teach how to drive with a book and without getting into the car. This is so because in the classroom it is still taught theoretically. The kids have to memorize the irregular verbs but they don't hear native voices, and the tests are usually based on the theoretical reproduction of the grammar as if they were mathematical equations to reproduce on paper. And then two things happen: that they do not assimilate it and that they become fond of the language. Many boys “hate” English, they think it is a pain.

EP: And in the professional world?

RV: If I had to qualify the English level of the Spanish professionals when I came to Spain in 1974, I would say it was 1 or 2 out of 10, and now we can put it at 4. Spain still suffers, but also Italy, Germany … A prestigious doctor here goes to an international congress and cannot channel his knowledge in English; something similar happens with engineers, for example. At the managerial level, it is a problem with all companies in Spain, which can maintain brightness and confidence in English.

EP: When does English become essential?

RV: The child will not need English until the age of 23, which is the average age for entering the labor market. It is not necessary before, so you have all that time to acquire an excellent command of the language. Parents and educators have 23 years to fill this gap, and even then they do not succeed.

I tell parents to expose them to English from the moment they return with the baby from the hospital. An hour a day, to get used to the sound of the language and become familiar. Between the ages of three and 12, what you need to do is give them an ear and a decent pronunciation, exposing them to native voices. An hour a day is enough, but enjoy the language, which is part of your daily reality, without exams. How many school days are there per year? 160? Multiply that by 10 school years … That's already 1,600 teaching hours in which, in my opinion, they should not work with written materials, but with a curriculum of activities that include, for example, songs or poems for children.

EP: When are you in favor of introducing the written form?

RV: From the age of 13, when her mind begins to change and she is more analytical. Then they can start reading, but by then they already know how to speak perfectly. And you can also start teaching grammar: present, past, future, conditional … But they already have the most important part of the language, which is hearing.

EP: Why is it so important to expose babies to English, if they still lack the ability to understand what they hear?

Richard Vaughan, in the editorial staff of EL PAÍS. Jaime Villanueva

RV: From birth, a baby already receives six or seven hours a day “in class” in their mother tongue. When he begins to speak with that rag language, around the age of two, he already has 4,000 hours of exposure to his own language. If I give you 4,000 hours of German, and at the same time I take away your job, the mortgage and all the worries, you will have a great level.

EP: Is listening comprehension the most relevant thing then?

RV: You have to let the noise of the language caress your ear; You need to accumulate 1,000 hours of listening to understand a language well. I always recommend that, if you do not have much money, but you do have time, 70% of what you do is aimed at improving listening comprehension, with voices native to Scotland , United States, Australia, etc. Communication begins with the ear, with understanding the meanings and nuances. You will never speak perfect; I don't even do it. 29% is agility with basic grammar, and only the remaining 1% is vocabulary. This may sound surprising, but the vocabulary ends up being acquired. The lack of vocabulary has never been a decrease, but the lack of understanding and not being able to string together two thoughts are.

90% of everything we say in a language is basic, and it's in the first two books of a language. In terms of frequency of use, the verb to be is much more important than bother … We may use drink four times a day but to be it will be two or three times per minute. 30% of all the phrases we say in English contain some form of to be, which is like “the Sun King”. Then you have three prime ministers: to go, to have Y to want, and a council of ministers with verbs like to make, to get, to do, to take, to like, to meet…

EP: How does age affect the ability to learn a language?

RV: The best way to explain it is using the parable of the four trains: from zero to five years old, it is the AVE: if you go to the station with your child, you can take the AVE and assimilate English very easily. From 6 to 12, it is like the Talgo, which is also a very nice train. At these ages, the child still has a great advantage and can learn with some ease. But from 13 to 22 or 23, the train becomes an old locomotive from the 19th century.

After 23, if you have not been to the station, all you have to do is get off the track and start walking. You can get there, but obviously it costs you a lot more: it took me 3,000 hours to acquire my level of Spanish … At that age, with a job and even a mortgage, you don't have time, and there are very few who get to have a good command of starting from scratch or from very basic notions. Sometimes, people of 36 or 37 years come to me scared because they find professional doors closed because of English. They have distorted grammar and phonetics, so you have to go back and start from scratch.

We must make one thing clear: there are no magic formulas for learning a language. My sector attracts opportunists, because people want quick and painless solutions, without effort. People have to be disappointed: it takes a lot of effort, but it's worth it. So if you don't have an excellent teacher to act as a catalyst, inspirer and dazzler, to make the language “mole”, it is impossible to reach a good level in a language. It takes time, effort and many times money … And if you lack this, it will take more effort. But in the end you will come out not only with a second language, but with a sharper mind that will make you more master of your own destiny.

If we want to change the world, we must start with Infant and Primary, with teachers who dazzle children; gto tie the brain of the students passing through the heart.

EP: You do not recommend that your students watch series or movies in English. Why?

RV: Because hearing efficiency is very low. When someone with a medium level of English watches a movie of, say, 100 minutes, the conversational part may not be 15 minutes in total. The rest is action, etc.… I recommend radio or platforms like YouTube, where there are more than 10 million hours of spoken English, but also podcasts or any of the TED Talks talks.

Furthermore, movies and series are not a true reflection of the auditory reality of a language (nor is the teacher, for the opposite reason), and if you sit down to watch a movie and do not understand anything, you can become frustrated. . If understanding the teacher in the classroom has a difficulty factor of 10 out of 100, understanding the English of a real work meeting in London, New York or Melbourne will have a factor of 40 and the movies or series a factor of 100. When I came to Spain, it took me six months to understand 98%; but it took me three years to understand cinema well.

EP: So what advice can you offer to an adult who wants to learn English?

RV: First, find an excellent teacher; and if it is not, find another, even if it takes a year. When you have a teacher that you like, motivation is automatic, and it doesn't matter the subject that they teach you, because they are able to stimulate you and arouse your interest. The teacher is the central catalyst for learning; If everyone had the quality of the best educators you remember, imagine what you would be like today.

If we want to change the world, we have to start with Early Childhood and Primary Education, putting teachers who are able to dazzle children, to make them laugh and enjoy in the classroom. And then continue with the other levels. You have to win the brain of the students, and that is achieved by going through the heart. You have to approach teaching in an emotional way, and they will remember you.

Second, practice continuously. Ask Nadal what is the secret of his success… To master an art it is essential to master the foundations of that art; if you want good english, you have to work the foundations and have patience. People become obsessed with things like conditional, when we use it once every two days … In language, you have to focus on the simplest.

EP: Anything else?

RV: Yes. The third step is to gain ear and confidence, take the book and the teacher and throw them out the window. If you can, go live somewhere where no one speaks Spanish; panic and learn to stay afloat. Lose the fear of water, because the teacher is still the part of the pool where it does not cover, where there is no risk. It is a flight simulator, but it is not flying.

If you can't, there are alternatives such as our Vaughan Town program, where you spend six days in a context of total immersion, practicing English with one of the 1,200 foreign volunteers we bring each year. We rented rural hotels and cloistered a group of 15 or 16 Spaniards with as many English speakers to communicate in English.

In the end, it is about achieving results. The number 180 of the promotion at the Polytechnic can advance to number 1 if your level of English is much better; English blinds the reasoning of recruiters. I always say that I don't teach English; What we do is equip people with the ability to professionally maintain the type in English, that you can negotiate that contract and bring it under your arm with a medium spoken but aurally perfect English. That you understand the first time and that you are able to intervene effectively, speaking in English.

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[jeroldlockettus]

A Free-Trade Democrat in the Trump White House (Ep. 271)

Gary Cohn was leaving the number two position at Goldman Sachs when he met with Donald Trump. But was this Wall Street veteran ready for the challenges of Pennsylvania Avenue? (Photo: Pool/Getty)

For years, Gary Cohn thought he’d be the next C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs. Instead, he became the “adult in the room” in a chaotic administration. Cohn talks about the fights he won, the fights he lost, and the fights he was no longer willing to have. Also: why he and Trump are still on speaking terms even after he reportedly called the president “a professional liar.”

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

Stephen J. DUBNER: So your life story, I guess, is pretty remarkable.

Gary COHN: Thank you.

DUBNER: You were not destined for—

COHN: For Wall Street.

DUBNER: For Wall Street.

COHN: Any street.

Gary Cohn was born in 1960 in the suburbs of Cleveland. He had severe dyslexia and was a terrible student. As a consequence, he bounced from school to school. If there were an award for “least likely to succeed,” Cohn might have qualified. His parents were worried he wouldn’t make it through high school. His grandparents ran an electrical-contracting business, where Gary worked after school. He was a whiz with inventory and anything else numerical.

COHN: As the rest of the world was telling me, “You’re going to be a disaster, you’re a failure, maybe you’ll be lucky to drive a truck,” my grandparents — who I really admired, who’d built the family business — they kept saying, “You’re going to be fine.” And they were great people in my life, really influential.

Cohn did make it through high school, and college — at American University, where he programmed computers and became obsessed with the financial markets. But back home in Cleveland, the best he could do was a sales job in the home-products division of U.S. Steel. On a work trip to New York, he stopped in at the commodities exchange, hoping to somehow land a job there. He hitched a ride to the airport with a stranger — a guy who’d just been put in charge of the new options-trading desk at his brokerage firm. He admitted to Cohn he didn’t know anything about options. Cohn replied that he knew everything about them. Which was a lie. But it got Cohn an interview, several days later. By then, it was no longer a lie: Cohn had read the definitive book on options trading four times over — an act of extreme stamina for a dyslexic. He got the job. Several years later, in 1990, Cohn was hired by Goldman Sachs. He wound up working at Goldman for 27 years, the last 10 as president and C.O.O. But it was the job he took in early 2017 that would make Gary Cohn a household name: director of the National Economic Council under President Trump. How did a Wall Street rationalist deal with a Fifth Avenue hyperbolist?

COHN: I treated the President of the United States the way I would have liked to have been treated. That’s how I dealt with him.

*      *      *

I spoke with Gary Cohn the first week in March. It was starting to look like the trade war between the U.S. and China might be moving toward a peaceful conclusion — although, that hasn’t happened yet. Also: there’d been yet another report of behavior unbecoming the President of the United States — this time, a New Yorker piece alleging that in 2017, Donald Trump had instructed Gary Cohn to get the Justice Department to block a media deal that Trump disliked. Cohn reportedly told chief of staff John Kelly, “Don’t you f—ing dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way.”

DUBNER: Have you communicated with the President since you left the White House?

Gary COHN: Yes.

DUBNER: Can you tell us anything about that?

COHN: We have a very amicable relationship. We usually talk about the economy. Sometimes about personnel. We’ve talked about personnel, and when he’s had to fill a job or two, I’ve talked to him.

DUBNER: I’m a little surprised to hear that you’re on such good terms with the President still, mostly because I read Fear by Bob Woodward. And you’re kind of the star of that book, or one of the stars of that book. The most famous story concerns you removing a letter that somebody drafted for the President to sign, a letter to the President of South Korea that would have terminated KORUS, the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. So let’s hear your version of that. Is the reporting in Fear essentially true, and did you participate?

COHN: I’m not going to comment on that.

DUBNER: Do you want to comment on whether you participated in the writing of the book. Did you talk to Woodward or—

COHN: I’m not going to comment. I’ve said all I’m going to say on the Woodward book. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s sort of come and gone.

For the record, here’s what Cohn had to say when Fear was published: “This book does not accurately portray my experience at the White House. I am proud of my service in the Trump Administration, and I continue to support the President and his economic agenda.” But, also for the record: in Fear, Cohn calls Trump “a professional liar.” And in a meeting over steel tariffs, which Cohn vehemently opposed, here’s what he reportedly told Trump and Peter Navarro, the President’s favorite economist. “If you just shut the f— up and listen, you might learn something.” So how can it be that Cohn and the President are still on speaking terms?

COHN: I think the President is about results, and when he looks back at our time together, I was part of a team that got a lot done. We got tax reform done.

It also says something about the kind of businessman Cohn was: a team player, and not a backstabber; eager to debate the facts but quick to forget a fight; and a man who exercised substantial patience. At Goldman Sachs, he was heir apparent to the C.E.O., Lloyd Blankfein, for many years.

COHN: So the story is: when I was asked by Lloyd and the board to become president, chief operating officer, Lloyd called me and Jon Winkelried into a room. We were co-’s at the time and said, “Guys, will you give me two years? I got to know you’re committed for two years.” And I said, “Lloyd, I’ll give you two. Two’s not hard. But you’ve got to understand, I think these are seven-to-10-year jobs. I don’t think these are lifetime jobs.”

DUBNER: And you did it for 10, correct?

COHN: I did it for over 10. And literally at seven years, I started getting a little antsy. Lloyd, at that point, ended up getting sick. And I wasn’t going to rattle the boat or rock the boat at all in year seven or eight, or maybe it was eight, nine—

DUBNER: He was treated for cancer. I don’t know if you were technically acting C.E.O. but you were essentially—

COHN: I did whatever I did to protect the firm. I went when I needed to go, I did what I needed to go. And to me the most important thing for Lloyd was for him to get healthy. We had worked together our whole life. But at that point, I was letting the board know that I wasn’t going to be here forever. So I sat down, and I made it clear that I would be gone by the end of the year.

DUBNER: Oh, regardless?

COHN: Yeah, I was going. And the Trump thing was pure lucky coincidence.

We should note two things here. The first is that Gary Cohn is a registered Democrat — although, to be fair, a Goldman Sachs Democrat isn’t exactly an Elizabeth Warren Democrat. Cohn did make a lot of campaign contributions to Democrats over the years, but also to lots of Republicans, including a political action committee called Every Republican Is Crucial. The second thing to note is that Donald Trump was the sort of businessman, prone as he was to bankruptcy and hyperbole, that Goldman Sachs avoided doing business with. According to William Cohan, who’s written a definitive history of the firm, “Goldman determined never to do business with Trump and conveyed that message to its new recruits.” Keep in mind this is the same Goldman Sachs that until recently was happy to do bond deals with the government of Venezuela. In any case, by the fall of 2016, Trump had emerged as the Republicans’ nominee for President.

COHN: So if you remember, after the convention in Cleveland, the first debate in September at Hofstra was supposed to be an economic debate. And remember, the operative word there is “supposed to.”

That’s when Cohn got a phone call from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser.

COHN: And said, “Hey, we’re preparing the nominee for the economic debate at Hofstra. Can I come in and talk to you about what’s going on in the U.S. economy?” We had a mutual friend.

DUBNER: And what was your initial response to whatever the Trump economic ideas were at that point?

COHN: I clearly support deregulation. I clearly support lower taxes on corporate repatriation, redoing the tax system. So there were a lot of big, high-level things I supported on the economic side.

TRUMP: You are going to approve one of the biggest tax increases in history. You are going to drive business out. Your regulations are a disaster. And by the way, my tax cut is the biggest since Ronald Reagan.

DUBNER: Then on the other hand, there was trade and tariffs and immigration and so on.

TRUMP: NAFTA is the worst trade deal, maybe ever signed anywhere.

COHN: On the flip side there were things that I support on Hillary Clinton’s side, and things that I didn’t support on Hillary’s side. And it was interesting, when Jared called, I walked down three offices to the chief of staff of the executive office of Goldman, John Rogers, a political veteran, and I said, “Hey, John, should I meet with him?” And he’s like, “He’s the Republican nominee. If the Democratic nominee called you’d meet with her too right?” I go, “Yeah. Okay.” “So go meet with him.”

DUBNER: Were you not put off at all by the fact that he was considered by a lot of people to be, whatever adjective you want to use — I mean, the most anomalous major party candidate we’ve had probably ever.

COHN: But he was still the nominee.

DUBNER: Right.

COHN: He was still the Republican nominee for president.

DUBNER: But I’m asking you if you were put off as you — reputationally, for Gary Cohn or for Goldman — whether that was a consideration.

COHN: And that’s why I went, and I asked John Rogers who really is one the most astute political guys I knew — had been in and around Washington forever, been in the Treasury, been in the White House. I said “John, should I do this?” He goes, “What are you asking me? Of course you’re going to do this. If any nominee for president calls you from one of the major parties you’re going to meet with them.” And I didn’t meet with him. I met with his advisers.

Once Trump was elected, Cohn did meet with him. The meeting went very well — even though Cohn is what Trump calls a “globalist,” a believer in free, fair, and open trade. Trump had essentially run against that position. But Cohn’s views on deregulation and tax reform — especially lowering the corporate rate — they were exactly what Trump wanted to hear. Cohn also tried to pitch Trump on preparing for the huge disruption that automation will bring to labor markets; and the need to maintain a strong flow of immigrants.

According to the Woodward book Fear, Trump was so enthusiastic about Gary Cohn that he offered him a number of jobs then and there: deputy secretary of defense; director of national intelligence; secretary of energy; director of the Office of Management and Budget. “You know what?” Trump finally said. “I hired the wrong guy for treasury secretary. You would be the best treasury secretary.”

This must have been a bit awkward: as Woodward reports, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary was also in the room — Steve Mnuchin, another Goldman Sachs alum. Cohn didn’t accept any post at the meeting. But some time afterward, he was offered the role formally known as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council. By this time, remember, Cohn was already on the way out at Goldman Sachs.

COHN: The meeting with Donald Trump happened after I’d already made my decision. So I was in motion.

DUBNER: Did anyone say to you, however, “Gary, this president is anomalous, and he is a human third rail, and what are you thinking about?” Did anyone say that to you?

COHN: Of course.

DUBNER: And what did you say?

COHN: I said, “The President of the United States has asked me to work for him. I am going to go in and serve and do the best I can for my country.” Remember, I am taking an oath to the Constitution of the United States to protect and defend, not an oath to the President of the United States. And I am going to go serve the people of the United States.

The Trump White House turned out to be stranger than Cohn, or anyone, could have imagined.

COHN: The White House in itself is an amazing organization in many ways. It’s the craziest organization under any presidency, and it’s an amazing organization under any presidency.

Under Trump, workflow was unpredictable. Protocol was ignored. Turnover was endemic. People started calling Gary Cohn “the adult in the room”: disciplined, focused, and most of all dedicated to tax reform, a goal he shared with the President. Even if their numbers didn’t line up.

COHN: This is not a secret that at one point he wanted a 15 percent corporate tax rate. And I just told him a 15 percent corporate tax rate will not work.

DUBNER: Will not work — will not raise enough money, or politically?

COHN: It just a) politically and b) algebraic. I mean, when you start understanding the numbers of what a 15 percent tax rate means, we’d have to manipulate so many other things in the code. So, I personally would have settled for 25. The corporates would have settled for 25.

He then said, “Okay. I could live with 20. But if you —” and he was talking to Mnuchin and I at the time, he said, “If you guys start at 20, you’ll end up going higher. I know you. I know you can’t negotiate that well.” I said, “If we start at 20, we’ll end up at 20, we’ll hold it. We’ll hold it.” And we were holding 20. He was the one that kept willing — he was willing to go higher.

DUBNER: So what did it end up, 22?

COHN: Twenty-one. Yeah, 21.

Cohn also helped manage the political process, making sure the President’s habit of insulting people via Twitter didn’t undermine Congressional support for the tax plan.

COHN: When we were really working taxes hard, there was no way I could deal with the president going after any one of those Republican senators — I need every one of their votes. I don’t have a spare.

DUBNER: So did you steal his phone? What did you do?

COHN: No, no, no. We and Secretary Mnuchin and others, we kept reminding him. That was one of the reasons that we didn’t do anything in tariffs in the first year, is because a lot of our marginal voters are free-traders. And we didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to hold up a tax vote because they were going to retaliate on trade in the tax vote.

While putting together the tax plan, just eight months into Trump’s term, came a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

MARCHERS: Anti-white, anti-white, anti-white.

MARCHERS: Jews will not replace us. Jews will not replace us.

There were counter demonstrations as well, and violence. Trump’s response is now infamous.

TRUMP: You had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.

And it did nothing to ease the tension; Gary Cohn, by the way, is Jewish.

DUBNER: From what I’ve read, you were ready to resign then, and kind of had to be talked out of it. You were talked out of it.

COHN: Yeah, we had had two or three, I would say, very intense, very open, very honest discussions. And it boiled down to the president asking me, as his leader of tax reform in the White House and the person that he felt could help him get it done, to please stay on through tax reform.

DUBNER: All right.

COHN: And I did agree to that.

Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 on Dec. 22 of that year. It got through Congress without a single Democratic vote. In addition to lowering the corporate rate, it also incentivized U.S. firms to repatriate money they’d parked overseas, and to invest some of that money here. It also lowered personal tax rates across the board, including a dip at the highest income level. The Joint Committee on Taxation projects the new tax law will be very generous to the very wealthy. But Cohn — who is himself very, very wealthy — he argues with that perception. Indeed, some of the new provisions hurt high earners: a lower cap on the the mortgage-interest deduction and a new $10,000 cap on the State and Local Tax Deduction, or SALT, which is especially punitive to high earners living in high-tax states — states, by the way, that did not vote for Trump in 2016.

COHN: There was a very big tech company in California I was at two weeks ago, where all the senior management was bitching at me because how much their taxes are going up. I said, “Please tell Nancy Pelosi, because she was the first one that came out and said this was a tax cut for the rich.” Well, it was not a tax cut for the rich in San Francisco and it was not a tax cut for the rich in New York City or in Illinois. One of the ways that we made the tax tables work, and we pushed money down into lower-income brackets, is you have to find revenue. We found revenue in this deduction, which if you see who it affects, the vast majority of the people it affects are the high-income earners.

DUBNER: Big question: it’s been a while now, too early for big macro results, but how do you think your tax plan is working so far?

COHN: I’m glad you say that, that it’s too early, because it’s amazing how everyone wants to take a 10-year tax plan and judge it after one year. We talked about increasing economic growth by one percent. And I think in essence we did that in the first year. We went from sort of two to sub-two percent to three and just below three-percent growth. We finally have real wage growth, wage growth in excess of inflation in the United States. It’s still not as high as we’d like to see it. We’re seeing job creation. We’re seeing movement in the labor force. And I do think that we’ve seen that disposable income in the system.

So when you look at corporate earnings and you look at what’s going on in the stock market, a lot of that’s being driven by excess disposable income because of the tax rates. And I will be happy to be criticized if I’m wrong in the tax system, but we won’t know for five-plus years. We gave companies 100 percent of capital-expenditure expensing for the first five years, trying to get companies to make a long-term investment in the U.S. economy. And all we’re hearing right now is how U.S. companies aren’t paying taxes because they’re using that opportunity to invest in capital to manage their tax rate down. That is going to pay dividends for the next 20, 30 years.

*      *      *

Gary Cohn spent 27 years at Goldman Sachs, the massive investment bank and financial-services company. He never got the C.E.O. job he thought he’d get, but you probably shouldn’t feel too sorry for him. In 2007 alone, the first year of the financial crisis, Cohn’s compensation was $72.5 million. $72.5 million. In 2007. Goldman came through the crisis relatively well because of what came to be called “the big short,” a bet against the mortgage market whose collapse left so many other firms, and individuals, in big trouble.

DUBNER: Goldman hedged itself really well and really smartly. But for the average, let’s say, American voter, they look at Goldman and say “What are the goods and services that they provide? What value are they to me and why is a Gary Cohn, why is he making $72.5 million that year when the U.S. economy, the global economy, were starting to totally crater?” And many people really do think of Goldman as the giant vampire squid sucking the lifeblood out of anything that they can. So persuade me that the activities of a firm like Goldman are not essentially rent-seeking, and that the profits of such activities are not out of line with how we generally think of a society like ours, which creates opportunity for all.

COHN: I completely understand the question. I’m not offended. You can see — I get the question completely. The service we provide, and we are in the service industry, no different than other services that people pay for. And we are a service economy. We’re in the service of giving advice, intermediating, providing liquidity. And that’s what people were willing to pay for. And when we talk about that rent-seeking, it’s interesting because you even said it yourself in asking the question. The vast majority of the time we’re selling a bond. So on one hand, we’re representing Venezuela selling the bond, on the other hand, we’re finding buyers. So we literally have to do both sides of the transaction. And we are not taking a principal position in there. We are finding a buyer that will buy a Venezuelan bond at a certain interest rate. We’re talking to the Venezuelan Central Bank or the Treasury saying what rate will you issue at, and trying to find a meeting of the minds. And getting paid a fee in the middle which is fully disclosed to both the buyer and seller to do that.

DUBNER: We should say in that one case, Goldman may have been the last party to have been paid by the Nicolás Maduro government. Right? Isn’t that true. Probably.

COHN: I’ve been out there for a couple of years, but you may be—

DUBNER: I mean, it was a $90 million payment by Maduro. I think it was the last money that was made available for that kind of—

COHN: I’m not going to argue with you. You may be right.

To all the voters in 2016 captivated by Donald Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp,” a man like Gary Cohn was the swamp, at least its New York outpost: the ultimate insider, wealthy beyond belief — and worse yet, he did not even share Trump’s nationalism.

COHN: It’s no secret, I am known as the globalist in the White House. Thank you Breitbart for putting little globes next to my name every time you print my name. It’s one of my crowning successes in the White House that I’m now known as a globalist, not a nationalist.

DUBNER: I don’t think it was a compliment, by the way, when they put it next to you.

COHN: It wasn’t a compliment for Breitbart. It was a compliment for me, though! It was a compliment for me though. So the fact that I’m a globalist, also I — that’s a synonym for realist. Because I believe we live in a globalized world and we’re not putting that toothpaste back in the tube.

The president ran on coal and coal jobs. I remember vividly having a conversation with the president on coal jobs versus solar-panel installers. We ended up putting tariffs on solar panels, which I didn’t understand either. And I did turn to him one day and I said, “Mr. President, how many coal miners do we have in the United States and how many solar-panel installers do we have?” And I said, “I’m not here to trick you up — the answer’s — I’ll make it simple: less than 50,000 coal miners in the United States and more than 350,000 solar-panel installers. And by the way, 10 years ago we had no solar-panels installers. It’s a growth industry in the United States. In fact in California now, you cannot build a house without solar panels. It’s an industry that’s going to continue to grow. And we have to recognize where this country is going, not where this country has been.”

DUBNER: And was his connection to that, what most people would consider an outdated belief, was that political, was it intellectual, was it just kind of spiritual?

COHN: I think it was all the above. I think during his formative years growing up, coal might have been an integral part in thinking about the energy sectors, but clearly in states like West Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania, he understood, and he was a bit of a marketing genius on this. He understood in West Virginia, and southern Ohio and Pennsylvania, you better go talk about coal. And he understood in certain steel towns, when he looked at the empty steel mills, he should talk about bringing back steel jobs.

The Trump plan to bring back steel jobs included placing tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum — along with solar panels and washing machines and hundreds of other imported goods, especially those made in China.

COHN: And when you put tariffs on goods that people in the United States consume every day, it’s a consumption tax. So all the tariffs did is they made products that Americans were going to buy more expensive. And in fact we got the final trade data numbers this morning for what trade deficit looked like for last year in the United States. And lo and behold, we hit an all-time record-high trade deficit globally, and with China.

DUBNER: Despite the best efforts of the White House.

COHN: Tariffs don’t work. If anything, they hurt the economy because if you’re a typical American worker, you have a finite amount of income to spend. If you have to spend more on the necessity products that you need to live, you have less to spend on the services that you want to buy. And you definitely don’t have anything left over to save. So we should try and make the goods as cheap as possible. And we don’t produce the goods in the United States; we import the goods from other countries. And if we could produce the goods as cheaply as other countries do, we would produce them in the United States.

DUBNER: Now, every Ph.D. economist that I’ve ever come across would agree — I would say, probably 99.5 percent — with what you just said.

COHN: No, I think 99.99999.

DUBNER: But the one that doesn’t, is in the White House, which is Peter Navarro, is that right?

COHN: There’s only one in the world. That we know of.

Peter Navarro is director of the White House National Trade Council, a position and office that Trump seems to have created specifically for Navarro. According to Bob Woodward’s Fear, Navarro referred to Gary Cohn as a “Wall Street establishment idiot.” Navarro’s other ally on tariffs was Wilbur Ross, the investor Trump had chosen as Commerce Secretary.

COHN: I was losing the war on tariffs every day with the President. I knew I wasn’t convincing him I was right. I was not going to take a 74-year-old man who’s believed something since he was 30 and convince him that I was right. Believe me, I tried. Don’t think I didn’t try. Don’t think I didn’t use every example I could try and use, from windows and buildings, to steel and buildings, to the bike manufacturer in Detroit. I used every example I could come up with.

DUBNER: We know that Trump has his ways of thinking. He admits that he’s not that interested in changing. We’ve read a lot about how you and others tried to educate him on things, give him new options, but at the end of the day it didn’t work. So what does that say about, I guess, either the president or the ability of our political system to absorb the best information?

COHN: Well, it definitely makes a statement about the power of the Executive Office and the presidency. And ultimately, everyone in the White House works at the pleasure of the president. And I was more than happy, I was actually excited to go in and fight with Peter Navarro every day and I was happy to be on the 99.9999 percent of the equation and explain and use real-life examples to what would happen.

DUBNER: And what would his defense be? Because it’s hard to defend — and, to be fair, there have been people in history, Copernicus, who were outliers, but they were right. Okay. Maybe that’s Peter Navarro’s view. What would his defense be?

COHN: Well his defense would be that he was the Copernicus, that he would be right. I don’t think you or I will live long enough to ever see him right. And the data just came out for last year that proves that so far he’s completely wrong. So far he’s been unable to show anyone any facts that he’s right.

DUBNER: And when the president sees these data, why does he not have a change of mind?

COHN: I don’t know. I mean data is data. Data — numbers really don’t lie. Yes, you can manipulate numbers, but these are numbers put out by his own Commerce Department. These are not your numbers, these are not my numbers. These are his numbers. His Commerce Department put out a 2018 trade deficit of $891-point-something billion. That’s an all-time record high. And the China number in there was the biggest single number, at an all-time record.

DUBNER: That number, however, coincides with a newly, I guess, resurgent stock market you could call it. Really, that’s not even fair. It had a brief downfall.

COHN: Yeah.

DUBNER: It had a one-month decline.

COHN: We had a bad December.

DUBNER: It was a bad December.

COHN: Bad December.

DUBNER: We happen to be speaking now in early March, let’s just pretend for a minute that there’d been a bad January and bad February, too. And let’s say the market had fallen 25, 30 percent overall. Do you think that would have substantially changed the President’s view on tariffs and trade, particularly on China? Because I can see how it might be easy to not worry about the deficit numbers when the markets are doing well.

COHN: You’re asking a really good, fun question. Yeah, what are the benchmarks for success of the presidency? The stock market is the most obvious, most transparent, most talked-about-by-the-president benchmark of success. We can debate how much the president should be accountable for the stock market going up or going down. I mean that’s an interesting debate.

DUBNER: All right. How about on the count of three, we both say a number, one to ten, how influential we think the president is overall, stock market. All right. I’m going to think of my number. You got your number?

COHN: Yeah. I got my number.

DUBNER: Okay. One, two, three.

COHN: Four.

DUBNER: Three. All right. So you’re even more cynical than I am.

COHN: Okay.

DUBNER: So that said, this president really uses it.

COHN: He really uses it. And he uses it more when the stock market’s going up, by the way, than he does when it’s going down. By the way, everyone does that.

What led to the strong market recovery after that bad December? Cohn attributes it to a number of factors: the end of a month-long partial government shutdown; indications that the trade war with China was moving toward a détente; and a decision by the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates.

DUBNER: It’s interesting because usually the chair of the Fed is, as we know, wildly independent. But here was a case where the president pretty much came out and said to Jay Powell, the chair of the Fed Reserve, “I would really prefer that you stop doing what you’re doing, and stop talking about raising interest rates.” What’s your view of that? And let me ask a two-part question. I know there was — I’ve read at least, that you were interested in that position at one point. I don’t know whether you were under consideration or not. You’re shaking your head no.

COHN: I am totally not the person to be the chairman of the Fed. That would be the worst position you could give to Gary Cohn.

DUBNER: Because you’re too excitable, or why?

COHN: No it’s a real, real, real academic position sitting with Ph.D. economists all day long and debating the economic tilt/slant micro of the U.S. economy. It’s not my skill set. One of my successes in life is knowing what I’m good at, and more importantly knowing what I’m not good at. I would not have been good at that job.

DUBNER: Okay. I totally take you at your word there. That said, did you consider it — and I don’t mean to assail Jay Powell here, but was it essentially — a “cave” is a strong word, but was it a capitulation based on the President’s wishes, and should the Fed work that way?

COHN: I’m going to hope it wasn’t. I’m going hope it wasn’t. I’m going to hope that Jay Powell and the Fed governors in seeing all of the data they see — I mean, they’ve got more Ph.D. economists than anyone else. They talk to all the companies in the world and the United States, and the regional Fed system is designed to bring them real-time data from the local economies. I surely hope, and I almost pray, that what the Fed did was in reaction to what they were seeing in the data, that they felt that there was an actual slowing of the economy and they were in the wrong place.

After a year in the White House, with tax reform done, Gary Cohn decided he’d had enough.

COHN: The chronology goes something like this: We signed tax reform on Dec. 22, it was a Friday.

DUBNER: 2017.

COHN: 2017. President left for Mar-a-Lago for vacation. I left with my family for vacation. We all came back in early January. And I sat down and had a one-on-one lunch with the President. And I was at the point now where I was getting ready to move on. And I said “I want to work with you to make sure there’s a smooth transition, that you hire someone. I’m happy to work with you to transition that person and I’ll leave as soon as you need me to, or I’ll stay as long as you need me to.”

DUBNER: And was this with the understanding that you were essentially losing the war on the trade war?

COHN: No, no. It really wasn’t. It was with the understanding that my main mission of getting tax reform had been done.

Cohn’s replacement was named: Larry Kudlow. And Cohn received a pat on the back from the President.

TRUMP: This is Gary Cohn’s last meeting in the cabinet and of the cabinet. And he’s been terrific. He may be a globalist, but I still like him.

Just to be clear, Cohn was losing the war on the trade war. But he says the reason he left the White House was because of how he was losing.

COHN: The most important thing to me — and this is the way I’ve always lived my life, whether I was at Goldman Sachs or I was at the White House — is you have to have a set of policies and procedures to debate issues. And as long as you abide by the sets of policies and procedures to debate the issues, and everyone gets their ample opportunity to express their point of view in an open forum, that’s a perfectly legitimate environment to work in.

DUBNER: The best idea wins.

COHN: And you’re never going to win every argument. You’re never going to win every fight. But you’re part of a team. And when the team decides you’re going to do X versus Y even though you’re passionately think that Y is right and X is definitely wrong, you have to be a team player. When I worked at Goldman Sachs for 27 years, it is the most team-oriented place in the world. So I believe in that team-oriented approach. What happened in the White House is we got to a point, unfortunately, where one or two people decided that they were going to no longer be part of a process and a debate. And they were going to use a direct connection to the president to set up a meeting and call in C.E.O.’s of aluminum companies and steel companies to announce steel tariffs and aluminum tariffs without there being a process and a procedure to set up that meeting; without the chief of staff knowing there was a meeting; without the Office of Legal Counsel having written an executive order or a memo or anything to sign. And they created that meeting without anyone knowing it.

DUBNER: These were [Peter] Navarro and Wilbur Ross? Are those the two people?

COHN: Yes. Those are the two people. When the process breaks down, then you’re, sort of, in my mind, living in chaos. I don’t want to live in a chaotic organization. I’ll live in an organization where people vehemently disagree all day long, as long as there’s a policy to vehemently disagree. When people start end-running the process and start trying to take over, that’s not an organization that I wanted to be part of.

Since Cohn left the White House, a pattern has emerged: the Trump administration uses tariffs, or the threat thereof, to leverage trading partners to renegotiate an old deal, like NAFTA, or substantially reconfigure the trading dynamic, as is the case with China. When I spoke with Cohn, there was a lot of talk that a new Chinese deal was potentially close; that sentiment has since receded. Still, I asked him: is it possible that a better U.S.-China trade deal will come about, and that it wouldn’t have been possible without the tariffs he despises?

COHN: There’s absolutely a possibility that that happens. The one thing the president and I completely, 100 percent agree upon is the Chinese stealing of intellectual property, the forced technology transfer into China, the market access for businesses into China. That has been a huge issue for the United States for years. And the president and I completely agree on the biggest problem with China. I’m not here defending China and China policy and China tactics. I have been on the other side of the store Chinese issue for a long time, I just differ on how we get to a conclusion.

DUBNER: What would you have proposed that’s different? Again, nothing’s been resolved as we speak. But basically, tariffs were used as a threat, essentially. That may have—

COHN: Here’s my problem with this. So tariffs were used as the threat. Did it hurt the Chinese at all? We had record trade deficits.

DUBNER: So why do the Chinese seem to be, at least at this point, amenable? Or is that a smokescreen?

COHN: I think the U.S. is desperate right now for an agreement.

DUBNER: An agreement or headline?

COHN: The president needs a win. The only big open issue right now that he could claim as a big win that he’d hope would have a big impact on the stock market would be a Chinese resolution. Getting the trade deficit down I will never say is easy, but of the issues on the table, that’s relatively easier. Getting the intellectual property, the forced technology transfer and the market access — much more difficult. I think market access, the Chinese will give because they’ve been close to giving it for a while. But how are we going to stop the Chinese from stealing intellectual property or not paying for it? How are we going to stop them from copyright infringement? What is the enforcement mechanism and what are the punitive damages if they don’t stop?

On balance, however, Cohn remains essentially a fan of President Trump’s economic agenda.

COHN: The president has come in and looked at the tax system, and looked at the economy, and looked at the regulatory environment, and said, “Hey can we, can we as a federal government, can we help stimulate economic growth?” Something that the prior administration had tried for eight years and never really got. So the president did come in and say, “I do believe in creating a stronger America. I do believe in creating jobs at home. I do believe in wage growth. And I do believe in making America more competitive.” And so those are things that he has executed on. And you have to give him credit. We continue to have a pretty robust market, a pretty robust economy. There’s a couple things going on in the U.S. that don’t really get the attention they deserve. There’s one report that everyone in Washington, the geek world, sort of hangs on. It’s called the JOLTS report, it’s jobs open, jobs lost. We have 7.3 million job openings in the United States. These are like $50-, $60-, $70,000 jobs with benefits.

DUBNER: So this points to you — you’ve always been pro-immigration generally, anti-wall.

COHN: Yep.

DUBNER: Did you try hard on that fight with the President, or—

COHN: I tried a little bit, but honestly I tried to stay in my lane of the economy. If I had bullets to shoot, I want to shoot them on the economy.

DUBNER: I mean it’s pretty easy to argue that immigration is a major part of the economy.

COHN: So we have 7.3 million jobs openings in the United States. We have 6.3 million unemployed people. If all those people were capable of working, which they’re not, we still have a million more jobs than people to fill them. So we need a million immigrants today just to balance the equation. So this is pretty simple to me.

And then I think back — think about my grandparents. They’re all immigrants. They were the ones that helped build this country. This country was built by some natives, but we had a huge immigrant population that came in. And were really all the construction in this country. All the homes, all the bricklayers, the electricians, the plumbers, most of them were immigrant labor and were willing to work 60, 70, 80, 90 hours a week. And willing to get dirty and work and most of those people built good businesses and did very well for their families.

Cohn’s grandmother, he told me, recently died, at age 106.

COHN: If I live to my grandmother’s age, I’ve got 50 years left.

DUBNER: All right, so, do you have a plan for your remaining half-century?

COHN: I don’t know if I have a plan, but I’m doing lots of interesting things.

DUBNER: So you’re investing.

COHN: Yes.

DUBNER: You’ve always done a lot of philanthropy and you’re doing that now. You’re teaching some.

COHN: I’m teaching.

DUBNER: What about politics, per se?

COHN: I mean, I’m not an elected official and I never intend to be an elected official. Let’s make sure about that. I don’t think I would ever — I know I would never run for anything. If I could serve my country again, I would never rule that out. I think it’s one of the greatest honors that you can have is to serve your country.

DUBNER: Treasury Secretary, maybe?

COHN: I’m not gonna say yes, I’m not going to say no. But there’s lots of ways to serve your country.

DUBNER: You went in obviously with your eyes open, knowing that there would be substantial disagreements or differences. What — did your expectation—

COHN: Let me stop you there. Because you don’t know that, right?

DUBNER: Even on trade and tariffs you didn’t—

COHN: I knew we would fight. But again, I’m not sure I knew for sure that the Donald Trump that ran for office would be the Donald Trump I got when he got to the White House. I didn’t know. I didn’t know if he was going to moderate. I didn’t know if the pressure of McConnell and Ryan and McCarthy was going to be able to move him. I just didn’t know for sure what was going to happen.

DUBNER: Give yourself a grade.

COHN: Oh, that’s a good question. I never got an A in my life so I can’t give myself an A now. I got a lot of D’s. I think I’m moving out of the D category. I’ll give myself a B. That’s a good grade for Gary Cohn.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Harry Huggins, and Corinne Wallace. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Gary Cohn, former Director of the National Economic Council and former president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs

RESOURCES

Money and Power by William Cohan (Doubleday 2011).

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown 2013).

Fear by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster 2018).

EXTRA

“Why the Trump Tax Cuts Are Awesome/Terrible (Part 1)” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“Why the Trump Tax Cuts Are Terrible/Awesome (Part 2)” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

The post A Free-Trade Democrat in the Trump White House (Ep. 271) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/cohn/

[thegloober]

Here’s Why You’re Not an Elite Athlete (Ep. 351)

Shawn Johnson made the U.S. Olympic Team in 2008 and went on to win gold on balance beam in Beijing. One of her secrets: a ton of luck. (Photo: Nick Laham/Staff)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “Here’s Why You’re Not an Elite Athlete.” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. A variety of Olympic and professional athletes tell us how they made it and what they sacrificed to get there. And if you can identify the sport most likely to get a kid into a top college — well then, touché!

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

Maybe you’re an obsessive sports fan. Or maybe a more casual fan, and you follow just a couple sports or teams. Maybe you pay no attention to sports, and you only see it when the Olympics are on someone else’s TV. Whichever the case: when you do see those athletes, it’s easy to think of them as existing solely in that context. A full-grown adult. Wearing a uniform. Performing under extraordinary pressure. Focused on a highly specialized task that has zero to do with daily life, or at least your daily life. But is that who those people really are? And how did they get so good at this thing they do? When you see them on TV, all you’re seeing is the outcome. But what were the inputs? We understand that elite athletes represent some magical combination of talent and determination. But what about, say, luck?

Shawn JOHNSON: Oh my gosh. Yes, absolutely. I think a ton of luck is involved.

That’s Shawn Johnson, an American gymnast who’s won an Olympic gold medal and many other top honors.

JOHNSON: It’s like this miracle-math kind of equation that has to equal the perfect answer. I mean, you can’t get hurt. You have to be healthy. You can’t have the flu on the wrong day. You have to find the right coach in the right city. You have to be able to afford it. It’s all these random things and when you get all the people who fit that equation, you’re not left with many people. So I guess I was just the best of the very few who fit that equation.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: the third installment in a series we’re calling “The Hidden Side of Sports.” In the first episode, we looked at how sports have always mirrored society — from our historical penchant for war and colonizing to our more recent obsession with pushing the limits of human achievement:

NEWSREEL: Three minutes, 59.4 seconds, shattering the four-minute mile, the Everest of athletic achievement.

In episode two, we looked at the economics of a single NFL franchise, the San Francisco 49ers, and how they’ve begun to recover from a debilitating losing streak.

Kyle SHANAHAN: When you lose a game, a lot of noise happens. When you lose two, a ton happens. Usually three’s like Armageddon. Try nine.

In today’s episode: becoming an athlete. Time to step back and try to understand how these people rose to such heights. How scientific is the process; how predictable? We’ll look at a number of factors, including of course raw talent:

Kerri WALSH-JENNINGS: My parents are both super-studly athletes.

Mark TEIXEIRA: Yep, I think the gift is number one.

We’ll look at will and determination:

Domonique FOXWORTH I did a bunch of pushups and sit ups that night, until I was throwing up.

And the mental aspect of this most physical pursuit:

J.J. REDICK: Well, I think the mind is as big of a separator for professional athletes as any physical tools.

Stories of opportunities gained — and lost.

David CANTON: In 1981, there was 18.7 percent African-American players in the major leagues. As of 2018, 7.8 percent.

And we’ll hear one story that’s almost too good to be true:

Andre INGRAM: They said, “Hey, you are blowing up on Twitter, you’re blowing up on Instagram.” You’re everywhere and you just have no idea.

*      *      *

When you see an elite performer in any field — sports or music or surgery, whatever — it’s natural to ask yourself a question: how’d they get so good? How much of that ability were they born with? How much is attributable to hard work and practice? This is a debate that’s been going on probably forever: nature versus nurture; raw talent versus what’s called “deliberate practice.” We’ve had the debate on this program, most recently in an episode called “How to Become Great at Just About Anything.” Too often, this debate ends up obscuring what strikes me as a pretty obvious fact: to become great at anything, you need both: talent and practice. Lots of each. But even that fact seems pretty narrow, don’t you think? Because athletic success — like any success in life, or any failure — is what you might call multifactorial. A lot of inputs, a lot of variables. Imagine you’ve got two athletes with identical talent levels and identical training methods: do you really want to make a big bet that their athletic careers also end up identical? As much as we might want to turn the pursuit of success into science, into a recipe, real life is more nuanced than that. Also, more interesting.

FOXWORTH: I mean, Jay Z sold drugs, grew up in Marcy Projects to a single mother.

That’s Domonique Foxworth, who played six seasons in the NFL.

FOXWORTH Now he is a multi-multi-millionaire married to Beyoncé, the most amazing talent we have today. So why don’t we set it up so that all young men must sell drugs when they’re kids, and have only their mother, and grow up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, New York. I mean, he had a great talent and to be honest there’s probably a great deal of luck he happened to not be there when one of his friends got arrested, and his friend didn’t snitch on him — that is a lot of luck. And the same thing is true for me. I can go through the course of my life and look at all the things that happened that were just happenstance that led me to these positions, and I’m not going to say that it’s a model that should be followed. I understand that there are occasional outliers, but trying to build around that seems crazy.

So okay, we’re not going to arrive at some perfect model for turning an ordinary person into a world-class athlete. But we’ll do our best to describe some of the inputs that seem to be strong contributors. Let’s start with … physical ability. It may not surprise you to learn that a lot of elite athletes exhibited a pretty high baseline level of talent from an early age. Mark Teixeira, for instance, a three-time Major League Baseball All-Star.

Mark TEIXEIRA: Yes. And most kids grow up being — you know, if you’re an elite athlete, you’re going to be the best kid on your team. I played every sport as a kid.

DUBNER: Was baseball your best sport from the outset?

TEIXEIRA: It always was. And I actually enjoyed playing basketball more. I played backyard football. I played soccer, tennis, and — but I was always good at baseball. I knew baseball was going to be a sport for my future.

Athletic talent is considered one of the more heritable traits passed from parent to child. In SuperFreakonomics, one of the books I wrote with the economist Steve Levitt, we performed a rough calculation showing that if a Major League Baseball player has a son, that boy is about 800 times more likely than a random boy to also make the majors. So it may not surprise you that a lot of the athletes we’ve been interviewing for this series came from athletic families. Here’s Kerri Walsh-Jennings, who’s won three Olympic gold medals in beach volleyball:

WALSH-JENNINGS: Oh man. Well, my life has literally been family and sports like from day one, from birth. My parents are both super-studly athletes. They both come from very athletic families.

SHIFFRIN: My parents are both athletic.

And the alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, who’s won two Olympic gold medals.

SHIFFIN My mom is extremely athletic, and even now, she’s had knee surgeries and hand surgeries and neck surgeries and everything, but she’s still such an incredible athlete.

JOHNSON: Well, I mean my dad did every sport when he was growing up.

And the gold-medal gymnast Shawn Johnson.

JOHNSON: He was a hockey player, he wrestled, he did BMX, he raced Moto X. I mean, everything.

Just how powerful is the sports gene? David Epstein is a science journalist and author of a book called The Sports Gene. In it, he tells the story of a man named Donald Thomas.

David EPSTEIN: Donald is about six-foot-two, a lean Bahamian guy.

Thomas played basketball at a small college in Missouri, but he was far from an elite player, and the college program was far from elite. One day in the gym, he was bragging about how high he could jump.

EPSTEIN: And the best jumper on the track team, a guy named Carlos, overheard him and said, “You know, you’re talking all that trash. You wouldn’t even clear a bar of six-foot-six in a real competition.” And Donald says, “Yes, I would.”

So they go out to the track and Carlos sets the high jump bar at six-feet, six inches. Donald — still wearing his basketball sneakers — runs up, jumps, clears it easily. Carlos moves the bar higher, and higher. Donald keeps clearing it.

EPSTEIN: We’re talking about the first high jumps of his life. He’s going over the bar backward of course, which he’d never done before. And Carlos gets the bar to seven feet, and Donald clears seven feet, at which point Carlos is worried he’s going to hurt himself.

Donald Thomas soon moved on to Auburn University, on a track scholarship. And, not long after, he competed in the World Track Championships.

ANNOUNCER: And this is Donald Thomas, very much an unknown quantity really.

Thomas was jumping against much more experienced and accomplished athletes.

ANNOUNCER: And he goes clear! Donald Thomas goes clear at 2 meters, 35. The man that started high jump only two years ago. That is an incredible jump.

EPSTEIN: And not only does he win but he records the highest center of mass jump ever in history. He doesn’t set the world record because his form is so bad. He looks like he’s riding an invisible deck chair through the air.

It turned out that Donald Thomas had a physiological trait — an abnormally long Achilles tendon — that gave him a big advantage.

EPSTEIN: So there aren’t that many Donald Thomases in terms of winning the World Championships. But this happens at lower levels all the time where somebody will step in with no or very little background and win some kind of regional or state championship and then those are the people who end up training and going on to become champions.

David Epstein also writes about the success of “talent-transfer programs” in the U.K., Australia, China, and elsewhere …

EPSTEIN: Where they’ll take people who maybe aren’t making the national team or making it to the top in a certain sport and say, “Hey, why don’t you go try this other stuff?”

Some converted athletes have done remarkably well. The U.K. won several gold medals in rowing and skeleton with athletes who began in other sports. In the 2002 Winter Olympics, the Australian Alisa Camplin, a converted sailor, won gold in aerial skiing.

EPSTEIN: She wins the Olympic gold medal and was still so poor at skiing that when she was invited to ski down the mountain to the gold-medal winners’ press conference, she fell and rolled down the mountain on the winner’s flowers because she still didn’t know how to ski. I heard she learned how to ski later, like on vacation. But not by the time she’d won the Olympic gold medal.

TEIXEIRA: Yep, the gift is number one.

Mark Teixeira again.

TEIXEIRA: Because without the gift, you can’t take a kid that has zero athletic ability and just happens to be a hard worker and he goes to the big leagues. But talent on its own, as we all know: it only gets you only so far.

But talent on its own, as we all know: it only gets you only so far.

TEIXEIRA: At any given time there’s 1,000 big leaguers out there. But there’s probably 10,000 players, whether in college or amateur baseball or low professional ranks, that are good enough to someday make it.

DUBNER: Talent-wise you’re saying.

TEIXEIRA: Yes, there’s 10,000 talented players with a gift. Of those 10,000 players, which are the ones that work hard enough? Which are the ones that figure it out? Which are the ones that get it? That make the right decisions and you know, train the right way, and eat the right way and do preparation for games. Those are the ones that make it. The most talented player that I ever saw as an amateur was Corey Patterson. And he had a decent big-league career. But talent-wise, I would kill for his talent. Talent-wise, there were a ton of guys that I thought had more talent than me, but I thought I figured it out.

REDICK: My brother was inherently more talented than I was.

That’s J.J. Redick, who’s played in the NBA since 2006.

REDICK He could never shoot the basketball the way that I could, but he could hit a baseball a mile, he had a cannon for an arm. My best friend from high school was the same way certain kids are just — everything sort of comes easy to them, and it’s natural for them.

JOHNSON: I have seen some of the most physically gifted and talented gymnasts I think our sport has ever seen.

Shawn Johnson again. She now coaches young gymnasts.

JOHNSON: But they just do not have the mental capability to get themselves to that elite level. And it’s not a matter of training them or getting them to the right sports psychologist or getting the right people around them. It’s just, it’s not there. I think you have to be born with some sort of innate ability to push out all pain and emotion and push yourself past a boundary that 99 percent of the world kind of operates within.

FOXWORTH: I remember being in an apartment we lived in in Indianapolis …

Domonique Foxworth again.

FOXWORTH: … and I told my father I wanted to be a professional football player …

He was eight years old.

FOXWORTH: … and he told me, alright, well, you set a goal, you should do something to get you closer to that goal every day. And I took that to heart. So I did a bunch of pushups and situps that night, until I was throwing up — it’s ridiculous.

What was it that gave Foxworth such an intense drive for football

FOXWORTH: I was in love with the game, in part because of how violent it was. Honestly, whatever warped sense of masculinity I had at that age, that probably has not fully left me, was like, “Basketball is for the soft kids. Football is for the men. And I want to play football.”

ARMSTRONG: I just, I trained my ass off. I loved it. And then when I got in the race, I just didn’t want to lose.

That’s Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion who was stripped of his titles when it was proved that he — along with many cyclists of his era — had been doping. I’d asked Armstrong what drove him when he was a kid.

ARMSTRONG: As a 46-year-old and I look back on it, and really really far removed from that part of my life, there are probably things. I mean, I didn’t have — I didn’t grow up on the street, but I didn’t grow up behind a white picket fence with 2.3 brothers and sisters and an S.U.V. and a mom and a dad. My mom and I were scrappers, and I never met my biological father and I’m not making excuses here but I’m just trying to — you know, there wasn’t — the only father figures in my life were my coaches.

DUBNER: Did you — I was going to ask; did you ride angry? I don’t mean quite angry, but you were really cocky and confident.

ARMSTRONG: You can say “angry.”

DUBNER: All right. Angry, yeah.

ARMSTRONG: I didn’t walk around angry I just — I felt it, it served me best to be angry. The anger part, and I also know that this happens in every locker room of every sport. So, let’s just say, right, let’s just use Texas football and Oklahoma football as the biggest rivalry you have. The week leading up to the game, those coaches, every single day, guess what is posted on the board, in the University of Texas Longhorns locker room, meeting room, it is articles and quotes from the other team. “We’re going to kick their ass.” “That so-and-so player, he’s mediocre” And the coaches, they love that. “Hey Joey, did you see what number 82 said about you?” And so we — if I didn’t have that, if I didn’t have a rival speaking out in the press saying, “Oh I saw Armstrong last week, he looked average, he looked like he’s past his best.” If I didn’t have that, which I did plenty of times, then I’d make it up. I’d go read some article. And I’d say “That motherfucker. Can you believe that he said that?” And the next day I’d go out and train and I mean, it would be the only thing on my mind. Now, it sounds a little toxic, but it made me ride harder, made me train harder, made me hustle.

WALSH-JENNINGS: I think my insecurity drives me really really hard, you know?

Kerri Walsh-Jennings again:

WALSH-JENNINGS: At every kind of leveling up from eighth grade to high school, high school to college, college to the Olympic team — there was a moment, there were many moments of insecurity in the transition, many moments of, “Oh, S-H-I-T, can I do this? Am I good enough?” It’s exhausting. It’s really exhausting. I want to leave this sport being known as a bad motherfucker.

So yes, most of the athletes we’ve heard from were extraordinarily driven, and talented. But of course they’ve also had to work incredibly hard at perfecting their craft. Most of them, at least. Remember Donald Thomas, our high-jumping friend?

ANNOUNCER: And he goes clear! Donald Thomas goes clear at 2 meters, 35.

David Epstein interviewed Thomas’s college track coaches:

EPSTEIN: They said they would usually find him outside shooting free throws when he was supposed to be inside learning how to high jump.

Most athletes, however, do train incredibly hard. In part because they’re not allowed not to by their coaches, their teams, maybe their parents. But of course, they also push themselves.

Mike MCGLINCHEY: I think it’s about how much you want it, how much you love it, and how much you’re willing to sacrifice for it.

Mike McGlinchey is a rookie offensive lineman on the San Francisco 49ers; he was the ninth player chosen in this year’s draft.

McGLINCHEY: I was never the best athlete on my team. I was — I’m still not the best athlete on my on my team here. But I’ve always wanted it more, I’ve always worked harder than everybody else. And just attention to detail and the things that — you need to know how to self-correct, you need to know how to learn.

“Knowing how to learn” is particularly valuable when the skills you’re trying to learn are unusual.

MCGLINCHEY: Playing offensive line is one of the more unnatural human movements on earth, in sport. You’re required to move other large men out of the way and when you’re trying to stop them in pass protection, you’re completely moving backwards. It’s a really, really different thing to have to learn how to do, and until your body can feel it, until you can watch it on film and self-diagnose when things happen, that’s where the separation comes in.

MANUEL: Swimming is like pretty difficult.

That’s Simone Manuel, who won two gold and two silver medals at the 2016 Olympics.

MANUEL Because you’re in the water, which is totally defying gravity. You have to work out every day because if you’re out the water for one day even — when I take my day off on Sunday when I come back Monday morning, I feel terrible. And you have to kind of practice all of those aspects of the sport on a regular basis, or else you’re not going to improve.

There’s also the fact that the training opportunities in some sports are inherently constrained.

SHIFFRIN: Ski racing is a really unique sport in many ways. When you think about it, the actual time that I spend, or any racer spends, on the hill actually skiing during a day of training — let’s say you get, one course length is about 60 seconds long, and you get seven runs in one training session. And that takes about somewhere between three to five hours, depending on how long the chairlift takes. So you’re adding up about seven minutes total of practice in your sport for the entire training session, which is comparative to, say, three to five hours of somebody playing tennis in a single session. Which makes me feel like the deliberate practice component is that much more essential. There’s skiers out there, teammates of mine in the past, who spend their time from the top of the chairlift to the top of the race course, it could be half of a train length, that they’re skiing down and they’re just flailing about and doing whatever. And I was doing drills to the top of the course, trying to make use of every square inch of space on the mountain. Every time I’m deliberately practicing skiing and my technique and everything, I’m kind of getting a one-up on everybody else who’s not.

Because it’s so demanding to master the skill set that accompanies each sport, whether it’s skiing or swimming or football, you can imagine an aspiring athlete would want to spend as much time as possible on that skill set. And not waste time on, say, other sports. This has become a huge debate in youth sports: at what age should an athlete stop playing other sports and commit to “theirs”? And once they do commit, is it definitively better to spend most of your time in deliberate, structured practice. Or what about a more free-flowing, unstructured environment, what’s sometimes called “deliberate play”?

REDICK: I totally agree with this this notion that there’s something to be gained from less structure.

That again is the NBA veteran J.J. Redick. As an example, he brings up his former teammate Jamal Crawford.

REDICK: Jamal is one of the best ball handlers in N.B.A. history. He’s had a fantastic career. Jamal will tell you he’s really never done a drill. He’s never done a ball-handling drill but he has incredible ball-handling skills. And he’s done that through just playing pickup or taking a basketball around his neighborhood when he was growing up and literally putting moves on bystanders he as he passed them in the street.

Redick’s own view on unstructured versus structured practice is still evolving.

REDICK: I had a teammate in Orlando. His name was Anthony Johnson, I played with him for two years. He was much older. This was early in my career. And I met up with him for lunch and I was telling him about all the workouts I was doing that summer. And he said to me, “Dude, don’t worry about being the best workout guy. Worry about being the best player.” And it kind of annoyed me when he said that, but I’ve thought about him saying that probably 50 times over the last five years. For me, part of it is I want structure. I feel like I thrive in structure. I like having a plan. I like going to a gym and saying, “This is what I’m going to work on today.” But then the other part of it is, it’s sport, right? There’s something organic about it. There’s something that has to flow naturally. And if your point of reference is only structure — well, the game is not really structured, right? You’re constantly reacting to things as they happen. There’s nine other players, there’s one ball. I think that’s actually been incredible advice for me over last five years of my career.

J.J. Redick grew up in rural Virginia, and his practice environment then was pretty unstructured.

REDICK: My dad put up a hoop and it was just — for me being in that backyard and shooting a basketball and seeing it go through the net became just an obsession and it’s something that I wanted to do over and over again.

Lately, Redick has tried to reconnect with that unstructured practice environment.

REDICK: You get a safe place to work on your weaknesses and improve those weaknesses. Look, if I go into a gym and I’ve got 30 people in the gym watching — even at 34, I’m going into my 13th year in the N.B.A it’s a little nerve-wracking to work on your weaknesses in front of people in a structured setting. But alone, away from any lights it’s a more calming experience and you can gain confidence from doing that.

So what does the research say about the relative benefits of structured versus unstructured practice, or what you might call deliberate practice versus deliberate play? One study, of 22 young Brazilian basketball players, tried to answer this question. The researchers put half the players in organized games, with referees and coaches; the other half played in “unstructured” games. After 18 sessions, the researchers measured the change in the players’ tactical intelligence and creativity. The kids in the unstructured practice showed significant gains on both dimensions; the kids who played in the structured games showed no improvement. It’s just one small study, but it would seem to offer some evidence, at least on the youth level, that less structure can be beneficial. And how about specialization? A lot of young athletes — and especially their parents — seem to think the best move is to pick your sport early and focus solely on that sport.

WALSH-JENNINGS: Man, it drives me nutty. It’s such a flawed place to come from, specialization in anything let alone when you’re a child and you’re 8 years old. You do not need to pick your sport that you’re going to maybe get a college scholarship for and play 365/24/7, which is mentally and spiritually and physically, just — it’ll crush you. I have a major problem with the way things are right now. I absolutely know that I am a great athlete because of I did everything growing up and I wanted to be a great athlete.

JOHNSON: Yeah, I was never that child that turned 10 years old and said, “Oh my gosh, I need to give up everything and everyone and just commit my life to the Olympics.” I had this blue-collar family, all-American, Midwest, parents that wanted me to be normal. And they pushed me to be in so many sports and so many activities and tried the oboe and clarinet and piano practice and mock trial and all these things that distracted me from this Olympic dream. But it always gave me this perspective of I love everything, but I love gymnastics more. Whenever I was at gymnastics practice, I focused more than any other activity and gave more effort there because I knew that was my favorite.

There’s some research to back up these stories from Johnson and Walsh-Jennings.

EPSTEIN: For example, after the last World Cup, a group of German scientists published a study where they had tracked the development of soccer players in Germany …

That’s David Epstein, and he’s talking about the 2014 World Cup.

EPSTEIN … and found that the athletes who went on to the national team — which by the way won that World Cup — had played more different sports when they were younger, spent more time in self-structured or unstructured soccer play when they were younger, but not more time in deliberately structured soccer training. Only by age 22 did they start playing fewer sports and spending more time in structured soccer than athletes who plateaued at lower levels. So this sort of less-structured development and turns out to be completely characteristic of athletes that go on to become elite.

Okay, but what if you’re a young athlete, or the parent of one, and your ultimate goal isn’t to become an elite professional athlete, but rather to get into an elite university? Like one of the top 10 schools in the country?

LEVITT: I’ve actually been thinking about that exact problem.

That’s Steve Levitt, my Freakonomics friend and co-author; he’s an economist at the University of Chicago.

LEVITT: By my calculation, about .4 percent of kids, so about 1 in 250 kids, will make it to one of those top 10 schools. It’s a hard goal to do it. And I can’t say I thought about the universe of things you could do, but I thought about sports and I stumbled onto something that was pretty surprising to me. The answer I think is you want your kid to be a fencer. Okay, now you might say that sounds crazy college fencing even exists. And the answer is there turn out to be exactly 46 schools that have fencing. But the correlation between quality of school and having a fencing team is incredibly high. For instance, among the top 10-ranked schools in the country, 9 of those 10 have a fencing team. The only exception being my own university, University of Chicago.

And each fencing team has quite a few slots to fill:

LEVITT: There’s three different blades — there’s epee, there’s sabre, and there’s foil — and there’s male and there’s female fencing.

And, given that relatively few kids in the U.S. are serious youth fencers …

LEVITT: It’s something like six or seven percent of the kids who ever try to be fencers end up being college fencers. I’m not saying they get scholarships but they’re likely to be admitted to college based on their fencing.

Again, that’s a .4 percent chance of getting into the very top schools.

LEVITT: Fencing seems to raise that number holding everything else constant, something like 15-fold.

We should say here that, college admissions being what they are, fencing doesn’t necessarily increase your chances all that much. Your grades would still need to be very, very good to get into those top schools. That said, as an admissions sweetener, how does Levitt think fencing compare to other sports?

LEVITT: My God, if you want to go to an Ivy League school, forget about soccer and basketball and football. There’s something like 300,000 kids playing high school soccer. And presumably any of those kids would love to be college soccer players. But the chance of having soccer be your vehicle to get to college as opposed to fencing turns out to be about 75 or 80 times harder.

DUBNER: So how many of your kids have you turned into fencers, Levitt?

LEVITT: Exactly one. And so far so good. I couldn’t say I really turned him into a fencer. He strangely enough gravitated towards fencing when he was about nine years old and he fences at a really good club in Chicago and, I don’t know, his grades aren’t that good. He knows, and I know and everyone else knows, if he’s going to go to an Ivy League school, it’s going to be because of fencing.

*      *      *

As we’ve been hearing, there are a lot of inputs that go into the production of an elite athlete: talent, drive, the right kind of practice, maybe a parent or two to get you to the rink or the gym or the track at 5 a.m. And, as Shawn Johnson told us earlier, you might need some luck.

JOHNSON: I mean, you can’t get hurt. You can’t have the flu on the wrong day. You have to find the right coach in the right city. I was incredibly lucky to end up with my coaches.

So how’d that happen?

JOHNSON: It was this freak occurrence. My coach was Chinese, born and raised Chinese. When he was three years old, he was taken away from his family and raised to be an Olympic gymnast. This career that I would say almost traumatized him. He lost his childhood. He lost his family. This crazy career. So when he was 21 years old he actually left China, came to the United States, opened a gym in West Des Moines, Iowa, of all places. And had this dream, this American dream, to raise an Olympian or Olympians that were also children, and how to balance in life and were fun-loving and had a true childhood.

Johnson had started her training at a different gym.

JOHNSON: And I loved it. It was awesome. But Chow, my coach that took me to the Olympics, opened up a gym about five minutes from my parents’ house and my parents ended up switching because it saved gas money. And I was really, really blessed to fall under his guidance and his coaching. I mean, I was a very, very fortunate child within the gymnastics community to have very loving, very very protective people around me. And he, I mean, given today’s society, I can thankfully say that he kept me safe and I am forever grateful for that.

Shawn Johnson’s good luck created good opportunities, which she worked hard to parley into an Olympic gold medal. But what about the young athletes who don’t get the right opportunities, whether through bad luck — or through something much more concrete like lack of money? Over the past decade, the youth sports economy has doubled, to more than $15 billion a year. And a lot of youth sports involve some sort of pay-to-play model.

Brandon MCCARTHY: Pay-to-play is something that just — it just scares me because it’s become so much of a business in and of itself, and less about true, true, true development.

That’s Brandon McCarthy. He’s been a pitcher in Major League Baseball for 13 seasons.

MCCARTHY: It’s a tournament in California this weekend, the next weekend you go to Nevada, and after that it’s Texas, and I don’t understand how two working parents could ever afford to put their kids through that and take the time to travel with them.

DUBNER: The theme of economics the last 10 or 15 years has been income inequality and connected to that, the rich getting richer. It sounds like what you’re saying with youth sports is, that’s being mirrored all the way down the line, yes?

MCCARTHY: I would think so. I mean, there’s two players on your team and one player at the age-13 level can make all the tournaments in the summer, and one kid can only make two of the tournaments. Well, how much playing time is the player whose family can’t afford for him to go on those trips — and the coach doesn’t favor him and play him. I think there’s that trickle-down effect from there. There’s less access to top coaching, lessons, equipment, you name it. Over time, it’s starting to bear itself out as some income inequality just creates better baseball players and worse baseball players.

Or, in one noteworthy instance, a huge drop in baseball players.

David CANTON: In 1981, there was 18.7 percent black, African-American players in the major leagues. As of 2018, 7.8 percent. So the question is, why the decline?

David Canton is a history professor and director of the Africana Studies Program at Connecticut College. The huge drop of black players in baseball, he argues, has a number of historical causes — including the relative rise of black football and basketball players. But he puts most of the blame on deeper structural issues.

CANTON: I look at these factors: deindustrialisation, mass incarceration, and suburbanization. With deindustrialisation — lack of tax base — we know there’s no funds to what? Construct and maintain ball fields. You see the rapid decline of the physical space in the Bronx, in Chicago, in these other urban areas, which leads to what? Lack of participation.

Suburbanization, Canton says, had a similar effect, drawing resources away from cities with large African-American populations.

CANTON: What’s left in the cities: abandoned fields, lack of resources, decrease in tax base.

And then there’s incarceration, Canton says, which has a disproportionately high impact on African-Americans.

CANTON: I can imagine in 1980, if you were 18-year-old black man in L.A., Chicago, New York, all of a sudden, you’re getting locked up for nonviolent offenses. I’m going to assume that you played baseball. I’m arguing that those men — if you did a survey, and go to prison today, federal and state, I bet you a nice percentage of these guys played baseball. Now some were not old enough to have children. And the ones that did weren’t there to teach their son to play baseball, to volunteer in Little League because they were in jail for nonviolent offenses.

Add it all up, David Canton says, and this explains the huge decline of African-Americans in baseball — which, by the way, has been countered by a huge rise in players from Latin America. That said, Major League Baseball is well aware of, and concerned by, the drop-off in African-American players.

Kim NG: We have a league called the RBI League, which is reviving baseball in inner cities.

That’s Kim Ng, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of international baseball development.

NG: We’ve seen academies develop in Kansas City, in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Washington D.C. These academies are really providing opportunity for young kids, particularly of color, to come and train with us and really hone their skills. Free of charge, of course.

CANTON: The RBI program, people like C.C. Sabathia, the Yankees, he went through it. They do have some success stories, but most of those players are not successful. The reality is that baseball is for people with resources. Most major league players who are African-American come from middle-class backgrounds. They have the resources for travel baseball, which is expensive, personal training — and I think there’s a cultural thing. That if you’re middle-class African-American, you are comfortable being in predominantly white spaces. If you’re a black middle-class kid who grew up in the suburbs, you are comfortable being the only black in an all-white space all summer. They’re the ones that are more likely to be in the major leagues.

You could argue that sports are among the most meritocratic endeavors that humans do. After all, when you’re measuring outcomes with a stopwatch or a yardstick, by whether the ball goes in the net or doesn’t, you’d think an athlete’s background — where they come from, what they look like — that it wouldn’t matter much. But sometimes it does. Professional sports teams in particular often have a very conservative mindset; they tend to go looking for players who look a lot like their previous players. Which means they might overlook someone who absolutely shouldn’t have been overlooked.

ANNOUNCER: Jeremy Lin once again!

ANNOUNCER: Jeremy Lin knocks it down! Career high 15, and the Knicks take the lead!

In 2012, the New York Knicks went on a 9-and-3 winning streak, sparked by an obscure young point guard named Jeremy Lin.

ANNOUNCER: Pops it in, and a foul! Wow! Jeremy Lin does it again! Even it looks like his teammate done believe what they’re seeing!

During this twelve-game stretch, Lin averaged 22.5 points and 8.7 assists. If you don’t know basketball numbers — well, those are good ones. Lin’s success was so dramatic, so unpredicted, that it produced a movement.

DOCUMENTARY: Linsanity takes New York by storm!

Lin grew up in California to parents who’d immigrated from Taiwan. Even though he put up great numbers in high school, he received no athletic scholarship offers to college. He wound up playing at Harvard, while studying economics. Once again, he put up great basketball numbers. But when it came time for the NBA draft, Jeremy Lin’s name was not called. The Golden State Warriors signed him as an undrafted free agent, making him the first American of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play in the NBA. But he barely played, and three times that year, the Warriors sent him down to their minor-league club. During the NBA off-season, he played a few games in China; then the Knicks signed him, and Linsanity broke out.

ANNOUNCER: Beautiful pass from Lin! And Jeremy Lin continues to excite this crowd!

Lin is now in his 9th year in the NBA; he’s in the final season of a three-year deal worth $38.3 million. How could someone worth nearly $13 million a year have been assigned a value of, essentially, zero? Let’s ask one of the people who did take an early look at Lin.

Daryl MOREY: Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets.

The Rockets have been one of the winningest teams in basketball during Morey’s tenure, and he was just named NBA executive of the year. Morey was also one of the first executives in basketball to make extensive use of analytics to choose players. So I asked him why Jeremy Lin’s college numbers hadn’t lit up his model.

MOREY: Well, one thing that was tough about Jeremy — because he did actually, produce in college at a level that looked insanely well, meaning if he had played at say Kentucky or Duke or whatever for sure he would have been a top pick in the draft. I have no doubt of that. The problem was he played at Harvard, and actually most of the models that are used from an analytics perspective to forecast draft picks, they’re built on people who are drafted. And Jeremy didn’t look like anyone who was drafted. The number of Ivy League players that have become NBA players is extremely small. So one of the things you have to be careful about with analytics is when to not use things. And I incorrectly chose to not weight his time in the Ivy League high enough, and he ended up going undrafted.

Morey and the Rockets did, however, bring Lin into training camp as an undrafted rookie.

MOREY: And he actually did look quite good in our training camp but unfortunately at that time we had four point guards. So yeah, I then incorrectly let him go.

DUBNER: What about his being Asian? How much did that just the fact that he did not, quote, look like what most basketball people think a good basketball player looks like, and how much that may have actually obscured the real data?

MOREY: It’s sort of an unknowable question. But the founders of behavioral science a lot of their research was on, yeah how people mostly unconsciously, sometimes overtly put people into basically buckets or categories and use those for making decisions. And often those heuristics really serve you well in life — i.e., I’ve categorized that animal as dangerous and so I’m going to avoid them, so they don’t eat me. Right? But many times they don’t serve you well. And what you’re asking is a question that’s impossible to answer, it’s basically how did Jeremy’s heritage change how he was viewed by NBA talent evaluators. I don’t know — how much was it Ivy League, how much it was it — yeah, nobody knows. The reality was it happened to him not just in the NBA. It happened to him consistently. He was a top player in high school. He then got literally almost no interest from college head coaches. But he should have been recruited by the Dukes and the Kentuckys and then again he was overlooked in the NBA. No one can really know why, but there’s obviously a bunch of factors that probably played a role.

The more you talk to athletes and the people around them, the more you realize the path to elite status isn’t nearly as predictable as you might imagine. There are cognitive biases involved; there’s personality, and politics; and, remember, luck. Plainly, there’s no guarantee that a given athlete will get the right opportunity to make it to the top. But if you do — well, if you do get the opportunity, that’s when the real challenge begins. Now you’ve got to work even harder, devote yourself even more completely. And that comes with a cost — it’s the flipside of opportunity, and it’s what economists call, yes, opportunity cost. Meaning for every hour you spend on your sport, you surrender an hour of something else. For every opportunity the sport gives you, there’s another opportunity you have to sacrifice.

Lauren MURPHY: So fighting takes up a lot of time and fighters, they have to diet pretty hard.

Lauren Murphy is a professional mixed-martial arts fighter, in the flyweight division of the UFC.

MURPHY: They have to work out all the time and they also need to rest, a lot of us work. So there’s just not a lot of time in the day, and a lot of times the first thing that gets taken off the plate is time with family. I remember missing a couple Thanksgiving dinners, not being able to drive out to my sister’s house for Christmas. And I remember my family being like, “What the hell? Why are you suddenly neglecting us so much?” And I didn’t really have a good answer for them at the time. I just thought, this is something that I want to do and I want to be really good at it while I do it. I need to make these sacrifices now so I can have a good performance later.

TEIXEIRA: In high school, by the time I was a sophomore and I knew I had a chance, I started preparing.

The former baseball All-Star Marx Teixeira:

TEIXEIRA: I didn’t go to my high school homecoming for three straight years because I was playing full baseball. I didn’t do a lot of stuff in the summertime. I played 70 games every summer. My friends are going to concerts, my friends are having a good time at the beach and all these kinds of things.

FOXWORTH: For me, I sacrificed from the time I was, I don’t know, probably in high school, is when I started to forgo other opportunities to focus more on football.

That again is Domonique Foxworth, who overdid his pushups and sit-ups at age 8 in order to make the NFL.

FOXWORTH The in college I wanted to be a computer science major, at University of Maryland. And my academic adviser was like, though, that course load is going to make it very difficult for you to make our practices, there are labs and blah, blah, blah, blah. So I was like, no, not going to do that.

DUBNER: So instead, you did — was it American Studies?

FOXWORTH: Yeah, I did American Studies.

DUBNER: And journalism, right?

FOXWORTH: Right.

DUBNER: Which just shows how easy what I do is, that you could do it and another major while playing football.

FOXWORTH: No, I enjoyed those. And it was good, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. And in the summers when people were getting internships or whatever, I was working out and getting ready for football. And I say all that to say, once I got to the league, then I got drafted and I was in the third round, so that’s — it’s money, it’s good money, but it’s not life-changing money. It doesn’t make up for all the things that you have given up, through the course of your life.

You shouldn’t feel too sorry for Foxworth. He played long enough to enter free agency; his final NFL contract paid him about $27 million. But now, out of football for a few years, he’s still feeling the aftereffects of his single-mindedness.

FOXWORTH: My whole life since I was a kid, I had a very clear goal and I worked towards that goal. And I made lots of decisions that would get me closer to that goal. But get me further away from other important and interesting things, including friends, including family. And I was like, I’m done playing. So I will be in this state of transition.

His transition included getting an MBA from Harvard and working at the NBA players union; now he’s doing some writing and sportscasting.

FOXWORTH: I mean, I think it’s a feeling of loneliness, honestly, which — and it’s not like — I have three kids and my wife, and I’m not alone, obviously. And I love them and have fun with them. But throughout my life, I have been almost myopically focused on a goal, which, being focused on that goal gave me purpose. People I was close with in college, like, not really my friends anymore. And at 35, I’m in D.C., where my wife has a bunch of family and friends, friends that she’s been close with since they were in the second grade, and — and I’m like, I don’t really have that. And I was making these choices, which I thought were choices to get me —

DUBNER: What you wanted.

FOXWORTH: Right. And I didn’t realize at the time that I was foregoing long-lasting relationships. And while you’re a professional athlete, you walk around with this skepticism, frankly, of all new people in your life. So even if there was the potential of some great friendships, I wasn’t open to them. I’d go to these places, people like, “Oh, football player.” And I’d pretend and be nice to them because that’s what you do, and they pretend or whatever to be into me, because that’s what you do, and you move on. And you’re 35, and you’re like, “Hey, you haven’t talked to your best friend from high school in 10 years.” I mean, I’m in a perpetual state of transition, which is interesting and uncomfortable at the same time.

It’s one thing if all the sacrifices, all the opportunities foregone, translate into a successful athletic career, as it did for Domonique Foxworth, and Mark Teixeira and Lauren Murphy. But what about the athletes who make the sacrifices but don’t make the big time? Just look at the numbers: there are only about 1,700 players in the NFL; in Major League Baseball, fewer than 900; in the NBA, just about 500. In baseball, roughly 90 percent of the players drafted by major-league clubs don’t ever make it to the majors. One of those 90 percent was Justin Humphries.

Justin HUMPHRIES: You get a phone call that says, “How’s it feel to be the next member of the Houston Astros?” It’s a dream come true. So I ended up signing.

He started playing minor-league baseball at 18. Which meant skipping college — although he did start taking some courses later on. In 2009, he retired, at age 27, without ever making the majors. He enrolled at Columbia University, and took a sociology class with a professor named Sudhir Venkatesh.

HUMPHRIES: So, as I was sitting in his classroom, I started thinking about all the issues that I had seen in independent baseball and affiliated baseball: guys living check-to-check, struggling with whether they should go back to school, family life, issues at home. And I thought if I could use some of the things that we were learning in class, talk to some of these guys, and find out whether the stories and things that I was seeing, and hearing would be reflected in the numbers.

Sudhir VENKATESH: We followed a sample of the draft class of 2001. That’s about 10 years.

And that is Sudhir Venkatesh.

VENKATESH: And so we thought that would help us understand what happens to these folks. I think one of the most curious things that we find is how much ten years matter. If you take two people who grew up in the same circumstances, let’s say one played baseball and one didn’t, the person who plays baseball is making about forty percent less on average ten years after they enter the game than the person who decides not to play baseball and who just wanted a regular career.

DUBNER: All right, so what kind of background is typical for these players that you’re tracking?

VENKATESH: The average player probably looks like an upper-middle-class kid who comes out of college or comes out of high school. And when you follow an upper-middle-class kid for about seven to ten years, they’re probably going to make higher than the median average income. They’re probably going to live in a neighborhood that’s relatively safe. They’re going to have a career. Now, when you take the counterpart among the pool that was drafted, that median kid, that kid looks likes he’s making about twenty to twenty-four thousand dollars a year, which is not a lot of money. He’s working probably five to seven months playing baseball, and then struggling to find part-time work in the off-season. Might be coaching, might be doing some training, might be working on a construction site, might be working in fast food.

HUMPHRIES: “Well, when you’re 25, playing in independent ball, making less than $2,000 a month. Living off your parents because you can’t financially sustain yourself like that. At some point you have to say to yourself — look, with no degree, I had less than an associate degree at that point. So, at some point, you have to tell yourself, “I can’t do this to myself. I can’t do this to my parents. And I can’t continue when I know that there’s untapped potential to do other things.”

Knowing when to quit anything is hard. Especially if it means abandoning a lifelong dream. Quitting an athletic dream is especially hard, because baked into the ethos of sport is the idea you should never quit, never give up, never back down. But think about it: if you’d been playing in the minor leagues, or some equivalent, for a decade, would you really think your moment was ever going to come? Would you really think there was any chance at all? Before you answer, I’d like to introduce you to someone named Andre Ingram.

Andre INGRAM: Hey, Stephen. How are you doing, man? Sorry I’m late.

DUBNER: No no no, no worries, no worries. Let’s talk a little bit about your background. I believe you grew up in Richmond, Virginia, where you still live, is that right?

INGRAM: That’s correct.

DUBNER: I’m curious, is your family the same Ingram family of the gospel group, the Ingramettes?

INGRAM: That’s very good. Yeah, that’s exactly correct. That’s on my father’s side.

DUBNER: And tell me about you. Are you musical? Are you talented?

INGRAM: No. My brother and I are the athletes, and it’s funny because everyone else in our family is musically gifted in some way. My brother and I, we got none of that. So yeah we got the athletics.

Ingram was a good basketball player in high school and then played his college ball at American University — a solid basketball program, but hardly elite. It had produced only one NBA player in its history. Ingram was a three-point-shot specialist, and left American as its fifth-leading all-time scorer. But that wasn’t enough to get drafted into the NBA. So he entered the NBA’s minor league, which at that time was called the D-League, the D standing for “development.” It’s since changed its name, in a sponsorship deal, to the G-League, the “G” standing for “Gatorade.”Anyway, Andre Ingram entered the D-League with the hopes of being called up to the NBA. He wound up staying for 10 years. Almost nobody stays in the D-League for 10 years. It pays so poorly — roughly $25,000 a season — that most young players give it a year or two before going to play pro in Europe or elsewhere. Ingram tried Australia, briefly, didn’t like it. Plus he wanted to stay nearby, just in case the NBA finally came calling.

INGRAM: There were many times where I was ready just to turn the other way and do something else. Just you know, wife and kids, family. The D-League or G-League is not paying you much. You need to do something. I came to that point so many times and something kept me going every time.

Last year, he played for a team called the South Bay Lakers. They’re owned by the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, which you’ve probably heard of. Ingram led the G-League in 3-point shooting percentage. But still, he was 32 years old by now. And still in the G-League. For extra money, he tutored kids in math. At the end of the season, he was called in for his regular exit interview.

INGRAM: I’m thinking, all right, this is the same old thing. But then we get upstairs we get in this big conference room and not only is the GM and head coach there, our president is there and I’m like, “OK, this is a bit different. I’ve done this before.” Usually, our president’s not here.

The president he’s talking about is the president of basketball operations not for the South Bay Lakers but for the Los Angeles Lakers: Magic Johnson. You’ve probably heard of him too.

INGRAM: My heart is kind of racing at that moment and then they tell me the news.

The news was that the L.A. Lakers, with just two games left in their season, were calling Andre Ingram up to play. He’d make his NBA debut at age 32.

INGRAM: It’s just everything that I was feeling is exactly what you thought. Or would anybody would think knowing my story, knowing my situation. I just didn’t let it out like my wife did. And my mom did when I told them the news. They let it out. They just let it be raw and the real emotion that people love to see. I was a little bit more subdued but was feeling it all inside. And immediately after that though my first thought goes to, “Ok, who do we play again tomorrow?”

They were playing the Houston Rockets. Late in the first quarter, Ingram finally got his chance to play in the NBA.

ANNOUNCER: Eleven years, 384 games after his professional career begins, Andre Ingram getting called up by the Lakers.

INGRAM: I think before I got there in the night before was when all the emotions were running wild and I’m not sure how to feel that you’re so excited yet nervous and all these other things. But when it came time for the actual game it really turned into basketball very quickly for me and made things a whole lot easier.

How easy was it?

ANNOUNCER: Down it goes! Welcome to the NBA, Andre Ingram!

ANNOUNCER: Makes his first try! That is awesome!

Ingram scored 19 points that night, including four three-point shots. It was one of the best debuts in Lakers history. If was one of the most amazing debuts ever — the 32-year-old rookie.

ANNOUNCER: Ingram, on its way again!

The crowd began chanting “M-V-P, M-V-P!”

ANNOUNCER: Ingram, over Capella! And one. Count it!

INGRAM: We had no idea the reach of this until my brother and my niece called, told me, they said, “Hey, you are blowing up on Twitter, you’re blowing up on Instagram, you’re everywhere, and you just have no idea.”

DUBNER: So I know that you’re a great three-point shooter. Historically great. Forgive me for saying thi,s but your shot looks a little bit ugly. If I’m being honest with you, Andre. It’s a little off-balance and I know it works, but I’m really curious to ask you, I don’t mean to insult you. It’s an insult with a question. Do you think that maybe is part of what’s kept teams in the past from giving you a shot at the NBA? And I ask this thinking about the story about Jeremy Lin, who many teams overlooked. And they later admitted they overlooked him because he was an Asian guy and he didn’t fit the template of what an NBA player was. And I’m curious if whether you think that your untraditional shot may have hurt you in some way even if just like perception wise.

INGRAM: You know what, I mean it’s a good question. I don’t think so. I would say the gray hair probably has more to do with it but if I had to guess. Maybe the awkwardness of the shot or not so much the awkwardness of it but the release point of it, because it’s a bit lower than most guys. I’m already not the tallest guy. So maybe there is worry about, “Well hey, this shot is going to get blocked in our league. The guys are too athletic for him to get that off.” So maybe that was the thought. To be honest with you.

DUBNER: All right, so here’s the big question. What’s your future?

INGRAM: Yeah, so right now, my agent is in talks with different teams. We’re trying to get into a training camp right now. That’s the goal. And hopefully there will be some news soon of where I’ll be. But nowhere yet.

DUBNER: What happens if you don’t get in a training camp. You don’t get to play for an N.B.A. team. What do you do this coming season?

INGRAM: Yeah, it could definitely be the G-league again.

INGRAM: It could be another season of it, I mean the job for me is simple:  just stay ready. But the goal is we will be continuing to play, that much I can tell you.

DUBNER: It’s interesting. As a sports fan, I’ve been my whole life seeing people trying to squeeze meaning out of sports beyond the game itself and a lot of times it feels kind of forced. But it strikes me that your story is really different. What is the lesson that we maybe should take from your story?

INGRAM: What I would like for people to get out of it the most is that it wasn’t just that I stuck with it all the way through and was happy about it all the time. I definitely had doubts. I had disbelief, I had discouragement. You don’t get to something or any dream or anything worth having just scot-free. I think that part about it is is the realest part that.

Please join me in wishing Andre Ingram the best of luck, whatever happens next. To play us out today, here’s his family’s gospel group: Maggie Ingram and the Ingramettes. This song is called, appropriately enough, “Work Until I Die.”

Thanks to Ingram and all the athletes who spoke to us for today’s show. We’ll be back with more episodes from our “Hidden Side of Sports” series in a couple months.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Anders Kelto and Derek John, with help from Harry Huggins. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rosalsky, Greg Rippin, Alvin Melathe, Zack Lapinski, and Andy Meisenheimer. The music you hear throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Lance Armstrong, former cyclist and host of The Forward and The Move.

David Canton, associate professor of history at Connecticut College.

David Epstein, science journalist and author.

Domonique Foxworth, retired N.F.L. cornerback.

Justin Humphries, former M.L.B. player.

Andre Ingram, professional basketball player.

Shawn Johnson, professional gymnast and American Olympian.

Steve Levitt, economist at the University of Chicago.

Simone Manuel, professional swimmer and American Olympian.

Brandon McCarthy, pitcher for the Atlanta Braves.

Mike McGlinchey, offensive tackle for the San Fransisco 49ers.

Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets.

Lauren Murphy, professional mixed martial artist.

Kim Ng, senior vice-president of baseball operations for M.L.B.

J.J. Redick, professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers.

Mikaela Shiffrin, professional alpine ski racer and American Olympian.

Mark Teixeira, ESPN analyst, former professional baseball player.

Sudhir Venkatesh, research manager at Facebook, former professor of sociology at Columbia University.

Kerri Walsh-Jennings, professional beach volleyball player and American Olympian.

RESOURCES

SuperFreakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt (William Morrow, 2009).

The Sports Gene by David Epstein (Portfolio, 2014).

EXTRA

“How Sports Became Us” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“How to Stop Being a Loser” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“How to Become Great at Just About Anything” Freakonomics Radio (2016).

The post Here’s Why You’re Not an Elite Athlete (Ep. 351) appeared first on Freakonomics.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/heres-why-youre-not-an-elite-athlete-ep-351/

[supportmeetpositives]

Relationship Disasters – What Not to Do: EP 22

Questions to Ask Before Starting to Date

In This Episode:

Even before you begin to date, there are some questions you need to ask yourself and then answer which could save you from a lot of pain, heartache and relationship disasters. In this episode, I talk with Dustin about his unrealistic expectations with dating. Then I talk with Blake, who jumped into dating and a physical relationship way too quickly. Lastly, Jessica and I have a conversation about her dating over 150 guys in one year and how she’s needs to ask herself, “Have I become obsessive and out of control in my search to find the right one?”

Unrealistic Expectations

Dustin met a girl on a dating website. Dustin soon realized he has too much going on to date a girl who lives 2 hours away. Plus, he’s not attracted to her but he’s still dating her.

In my conversation with Dustin, it became clear he had unrealistic expectations about what dating could do for him.

Dustin should have asked himself am I genuinely attracted to this girl or am I settling for less, just so I can be in a relationship?

If you are dating and realize this person is not the one you want to keep dating then don’t drag it out. Sometimes we attempt to keep the relationship going when we should have ended it. Dustin went into the relationship with high expectations, even though she didn’t meet them, he kept dating her anyway. What a mistake! Dustin is settling for a girl he’s not attracted to, just to be in a relationship.

Dustin should also have asked himself, “Do I have enough time and emotional energy to give to the relationship?”

Dustin isn’t in a good place to start a relationship. Why is he even looking for someone right now? He has too much on his plate already. It should be a clue he’s not ready to seriously date. Successful dating relationships take time and can’t be pushed, manipulated, or made into something it’s not. Dustin was trying to force a relationship with her even though she wasn’t the right girl and it wasn’t the right time.

Dustin should have asked himself a very direct question: “Am I looking to this girl to make me feel complete?”

Spiritual and Emotional Completeness

No woman is going to make Dustin feel whole for very long. A true spiritual and emotional completeness comes only from a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. His love never fails us. His wisdom is beyond our wildest imagination. His plans for us are always the best. King David, a great king in the Bible said, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you.” Psalm 7: 4-5

God knows our desires and knows what we need, who else can helps us like God? We are easily fooled but God is never. If we seek Him with all of our heart, all our other desires will take care of themselves.

If you the person is not the one you want to keep dating then don’t drag it out. #realtionships Click To Tweet

Jumped into Dating Way Too Quickly

Blake and his girlfriend jumped into dating way too quickly. It became physical even though neither of them intended it to be.

Blake should have asked himself, “Is this relationship spinning out of control?”

Don’t let the powerful feelings of false intimacy, stirred up by the misuse of sex, fool you into thinking you have an awesome relationship. In reality, you don’t! It’s just a matter of time until the whole thing will fall apart. That’s what happened to Blake. They weren’t even friends and didn’t know how to fix it. Sex was a cloud over their relationship that kept it from growing and led it to be out of control. Don’t let that happen to you!

Don’t let false intimacy, stirred up by sex, fool you into thinking you have a great relationship. Click To Tweet

Epitome of a Relationship Disaster

Jessica blew my mind. Here is a young woman who has dated over 150 guys in one year. She said she’s the epitome of a relationship disaster.

Jessica needed to ask herself, “Have I become obsessive and out of control in my search to find the right one?”

She has developed a full-blown addiction to guys. She keeps going with a different guy nearly every night but it doesn’t work. She always comes up empty and yet craving for more. She’s turned guys into a god. There’s no way these guys could ever meet her needs. She’s looking to them to do for her what only God can do.

Carousel of Heartbreak

Don’t ever let someone you are dating turn into a god. Only God can be God. Only God can fill your emptiness. One could date a million guys, still come up empty and still trapped on a carousel of heartbreak. Only Jesus Christ can rescue Jessica from the blinding, cruel carousel. The last thing she needs to do is go after one more guy. She needs a whole new personal healing. She needs to put first things first and get her life out of reverse. Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33

Don’t let who you’re dating turn into a god. Only God can be God. Only God can fill your emptiness. Click To Tweet

Did Today’s Episode Get You Thinking?

My hope is you will continually ask yourself important questions and be honest with the answers. Be very careful before starting to date because you could end up with scars God never intended you to have. With God’s help, you can develop a healthy, happy dating experience and that is my hope for you.

Resources for Relationships:

Check out my eBooks: Understanding Dating, Getting Over a Broken Heart, Relationship Advice for Girls, and Relationship Advice for Guys.

Check out my blogs: 8 Signs Your Dating Relationship is Unhealthy, Stop the Heartache – 4 Things to Avoid, and It Felt So Right.

Check out these stories of hope from people who have struggled in their relationship: Relationship Issues, and My Relationship, Depression and Then Hope

Need to talk about your issues? Sign up for an Email Mentor, an online coach who will email you and come along beside you to offer support.

Need prayer? I believe God wants to change your life and mine, through prayer. If you need prayer and would like to have someone pray for you, go to the ThePrayerZone.com and check it out.

With God’s help, you can develop a healthy, happy dating experience. @dawsonradio #RelationshipGoals Click To Tweet

Would you consider doing something for me?

If you like this episode and think someone else might too, please share it on Facebook and Twitter.

One last thing,

My podcast, our website, everything we do is entirely listener supported. If you’d like to help us to continue our work, please make a gift right now at our Give Now page.

Join me for my next episode on how to deal with anger. Everybody struggles with it, you, me and the guy down the street and that’s why God speaks about it so much in the Bible. I had a chance to talk with 3 people: Evie, Donald and Matthew about their anger. I think you will be moved by their honesty but also the serious traps they could fall into if they don’t deal with it.

Remember, whatever you do, Never Lose Hope! Dawson

  The post Relationship Disasters – What Not to Do: EP 22 appeared first on TheHopeLine.

[hepatitismeetpositives]

Relationship Disasters – What Not to Do: EP 22

Questions to Ask Before Starting to Date

In This Episode:

Even before you begin to date, there are some questions you need to ask yourself and then answer which could save you from a lot of pain, heartache and relationship disasters. In this episode, I talk with Dustin about his unrealistic expectations with dating. Then I talk with Blake, who jumped into dating and a physical relationship way too quickly. Lastly, Jessica and I have a conversation about her dating over 150 guys in one year and how she’s needs to ask herself, “Have I become obsessive and out of control in my search to find the right one?”

Unrealistic Expectations

Dustin met a girl on a dating website. Dustin soon realized he has too much going on to date a girl who lives 2 hours away. Plus, he’s not attracted to her but he’s still dating her.

In my conversation with Dustin, it became clear he had unrealistic expectations about what dating could do for him.

Dustin should have asked himself am I genuinely attracted to this girl or am I settling for less, just so I can be in a relationship?

If you are dating and realize this person is not the one you want to keep dating then don’t drag it out. Sometimes we attempt to keep the relationship going when we should have ended it. Dustin went into the relationship with high expectations, even though she didn’t meet them, he kept dating her anyway. What a mistake! Dustin is settling for a girl he’s not attracted to, just to be in a relationship.

Dustin should also have asked himself, “Do I have enough time and emotional energy to give to the relationship?”

Dustin isn’t in a good place to start a relationship. Why is he even looking for someone right now? He has too much on his plate already. It should be a clue he’s not ready to seriously date. Successful dating relationships take time and can’t be pushed, manipulated, or made into something it’s not. Dustin was trying to force a relationship with her even though she wasn’t the right girl and it wasn’t the right time.

Dustin should have asked himself a very direct question: “Am I looking to this girl to make me feel complete?”

Spiritual and Emotional Completeness

No woman is going to make Dustin feel whole for very long. A true spiritual and emotional completeness comes only from a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. His love never fails us. His wisdom is beyond our wildest imagination. His plans for us are always the best. King David, a great king in the Bible said, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you.” Psalm 7: 4-5

God knows our desires and knows what we need, who else can helps us like God? We are easily fooled but God is never. If we seek Him with all of our heart, all our other desires will take care of themselves.

If you the person is not the one you want to keep dating then don’t drag it out. #realtionships Click To Tweet

Jumped into Dating Way Too Quickly

Blake and his girlfriend jumped into dating way too quickly. It became physical even though neither of them intended it to be.

Blake should have asked himself, “Is this relationship spinning out of control?”

Don’t let the powerful feelings of false intimacy, stirred up by the misuse of sex, fool you into thinking you have an awesome relationship. In reality, you don’t! It’s just a matter of time until the whole thing will fall apart. That’s what happened to Blake. They weren’t even friends and didn’t know how to fix it. Sex was a cloud over their relationship that kept it from growing and led it to be out of control. Don’t let that happen to you!

Don’t let false intimacy, stirred up by sex, fool you into thinking you have a great relationship. Click To Tweet

Epitome of a Relationship Disaster

Jessica blew my mind. Here is a young woman who has dated over 150 guys in one year. She said she’s the epitome of a relationship disaster.

Jessica needed to ask herself, “Have I become obsessive and out of control in my search to find the right one?”

She has developed a full-blown addiction to guys. She keeps going with a different guy nearly every night but it doesn’t work. She always comes up empty and yet craving for more. She’s turned guys into a god. There’s no way these guys could ever meet her needs. She’s looking to them to do for her what only God can do.

Carousel of Heartbreak

Don’t ever let someone you are dating turn into a god. Only God can be God. Only God can fill your emptiness. One could date a million guys, still come up empty and still trapped on a carousel of heartbreak. Only Jesus Christ can rescue Jessica from the blinding, cruel carousel. The last thing she needs to do is go after one more guy. She needs a whole new personal healing. She needs to put first things first and get her life out of reverse. Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33

Don’t let who you’re dating turn into a god. Only God can be God. Only God can fill your emptiness. Click To Tweet

Did Today’s Episode Get You Thinking?

My hope is you will continually ask yourself important questions and be honest with the answers. Be very careful before starting to date because you could end up with scars God never intended you to have. With God’s help, you can develop a healthy, happy dating experience and that is my hope for you.

Resources for Relationships:

Check out my eBooks: Understanding Dating, Getting Over a Broken Heart, Relationship Advice for Girls, and Relationship Advice for Guys.

Check out my blogs: 8 Signs Your Dating Relationship is Unhealthy, Stop the Heartache – 4 Things to Avoid, and It Felt So Right.

Check out these stories of hope from people who have struggled in their relationship: Relationship Issues, and My Relationship, Depression and Then Hope

Need to talk about your issues? Sign up for an Email Mentor, an online coach who will email you and come along beside you to offer support.

Need prayer? I believe God wants to change your life and mine, through prayer. If you need prayer and would like to have someone pray for you, go to the ThePrayerZone.com and check it out.

With God’s help, you can develop a healthy, happy dating experience. @dawsonradio #RelationshipGoals Click To Tweet

Would you consider doing something for me?

If you like this episode and think someone else might too, please share it on Facebook and Twitter.

One last thing,

My podcast, our website, everything we do is entirely listener supported. If you’d like to help us to continue our work, please make a gift right now at our Give Now page.

Join me for my next episode on how to deal with anger. Everybody struggles with it, you, me and the guy down the street and that’s why God speaks about it so much in the Bible. I had a chance to talk with 3 people: Evie, Donald and Matthew about their anger. I think you will be moved by their honesty but also the serious traps they could fall into if they don’t deal with it.

Remember, whatever you do, Never Lose Hope! Dawson

  The post Relationship Disasters – What Not to Do: EP 22 appeared first on TheHopeLine.

[andrewmrudd79]

How To Make Passive Income Online (3 Business Models)

The internet is an amazing place, folks. I probably don’t need to tell you there’s more than one way to make money online. And today, I’m going to give you the lowdown on three strategies you can use to do just that!

I’ve built several businesses since 2008 using one or more of these models. I’ve been featured in magazines and articles across the globe, and since I started my journey I’ve generated over $5M in earnings from these businesses. All of my income and expenses for those businesses dating back to October 2008 have been tracked publicly on SPI.com.

But you don’t have to read all of my income reports to learn how I’ve made these three strategies work for me—or how they can work for you.

In this post, I’ll distill what I’ve learned into three business models you can choose from to decide which path you want to go down.

Those three models are the FP, AA, and EP models.

“But those are just acronyms, Pat! Tell me what they meeeeeaan!”

Fear not. I’ll explain them all, and help you figure out which one suits you best.

A Quick Primer on Passive Income

But first, let’s about talk passive income! What is passive income? There are many different definitions out there, but mine goes something like this: Passive income is all about building online businesses that can work for you, that allow you to generate income, and grow and scale, without a real-time presence. In other words, you don’t trade time for money. You build something up front that can continue to work for you over time.

“But Pat,” you might be asking, “is this really possible?” It’s definitely possible. And you don’t need a huge investment, either. Unlike investments such as real estate or stocks, you don’t need a ton of money to start to build something.

But there’s one thing you need to be super clear on. It’s definitely not easy to do. Some people may tell you there’s a magic button or blueprint you can use to get rich, all by doing nothing. Don’t get me started on people who say you can make it happen overnight. No way, no how. It takes a lot of hard work. You’ve got to put in the hours.

You have to work hard now to build assets that will continue to work for you later. But once you start to build that passive income stream, you start to gain a little flexibility and freedom. You have a little more time to do more things, build even more passive income streams—or do fewer things, if that’s what you prefer!

So as I introduce these three business models to you, realize that yes, they all take time, but that time will also be very much worth it.

Cool? Okay, let’s get started.

The FP Model: Starting with Active Income

FP is the Freelance to Product model. In this model, you start by freelancing, then you find a problem that can be solved with a product.

Yes, we’re talking about passive income. And yes, freelancing is active income. So what’s the deal? To be perfectly honest, I believe freelancing is the #1 way to get started a building business of your own. You’ll learn a lot of skills, and you’ll get paid a lot quicker, too. You need some active income first!

But the biggest reason I recommend starting with freelancing is you’ll get to know the industry you’re in really well. You’ll learn it so well, that you’ll be able to find the holes, the opportunities, that allow you to create a successful product-based business.

Let me tell you about my friend Brian Casel. He was a freelance web designer who used to bill all his work by the project and sometimes by the hour; it was all tied to his time. He could only fit in a certain number of projects, and he was basically living project to project. It was not an ideal situation.

Brian had found a huge need for web design in the restaurant and food truck space. After getting tired of working with client after client, he decided to turn his service-based business into a product-based one. He made his services more standardized and productized. He eliminated all his client work and created templates and products to serve that market instead. And it’s been going great for him.

You can check out my interview with Brian in the Smart Passive Income Podcast #158.

All active businesses can be turned into more passive businesses by using products you’ve already made, by using software to do a lot of the legwork, and even having other humans do some of the work, too.

The AA Model: Advertising Your Way to Income

Next up, I’ll tell you how I made my first bit of passive income in 2008 with business model #2: the AA Model.

AA stands for the Audience and Advertising Model. It’s one of the most-used models for building passive income online—but it does come with a fair number of warnings, which I’ll share with you in a minute.

If you’re a YouTube personality, this is how you generate your income. If you’re a blogger who gets a lot of traffic to your site and uses advertising or sponsorships, then you’re also following the AA Model. Got a podcast with sponsorships? Same deal. You have an audience, and you have advertisers that want to get in front of that audience, so you marry the two and get paid for it.

When I started building my architecture-related business in 2008, I made my first dollar through advertising. I’d spent a lot of time and money building the site and getting traffic. Then one day I threw an ad on the site one day, and I made $1.18. Sure, I could find that much under my couch cushions—but that’s not the point! The point is that I was able to build something online, put an ad up, and make money without having to do anything. I learned it was possible, and it motivated me to move forward.

Eventually, I put more ads on the site. Traffic continued to grow, and I started earning between $30 and $50 a day just from advertising.

Then I built a brand-new site, got even more traffic, put ads on it, and . . . didn’t make more than $50 after six months of advertising. And therein lies one of the downsides of the AA Model. Ads are not super-predictable, especially auto-generated ones like those through Google AdSense.

There’s a second downside to this model. Although I’ve done advertising and sponsorships in the past, and have made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so, the truth is it takes a lot of time for this business model to start to generate income for you, because you need to build that audience first. In addition, what happens when you build your audience on a platform that ends up changing its algorithm, affecting how often you actually get seen by the audience you’ve built?

In order to build an audience, you need to have a platform. You need to have something worth following and sharing; something that’s valuable to others. And that, of course, takes time. That’s not to say you can’t build a huge audience in a short amount of time. But as much as we hear about the people who’ve succeeding at doing this, we don’t hear about the millions of others who are struggling every day to get just a few more fans and followers.

Long story short: the AA Model, while it can work for you, should be approached with care.

The EP Model: Making Money by Being Expert Enough

But the great thing is, you don’t need a huge audience to generate passive income and make money online!

That’s why if I had the choice, I’d go with the EP Model.

This is the Expert to Product Model. Now, don’t let the term “expert” scare you away—because it’s probably not what you think it is. Most people think an expert is someone who’s a master at something. Someone with a special degree or training, who’s put in those 10,000 hours, who is just great at what they do.

That’s not the kind of expert I’m talking about here.

What I mean is that you can be an expert in the eyes of someone else just by knowing a little more than they do. Because guess what? You have experiences, ideas, and opinions that are all unique to you. The goal is to become expert enough to earn the trust of others so that they’ll want to learn even more from you.

Quick story: Remember that $1.18 I found in the couch? Even when that increased to $30 to $50 a day, it still wasn’t enough to live on. So I looked for other options. In August 2008, after people started to know who I was and how I could help them pass the LEED certification exam through my blog, I wrote an ebook. It included all the information I knew about passing this exam, and I sold it on my blog for $19.95.

On October 2, 2008, when I finally put the book online, I sold my first copy, which was an amazing feeling. Fast-forward through October 2008, and I ended up making $7,126.91 just from ebook sales!

The craziest part of this was I’d wake up in the morning and there would be more money in my bank account, from people who had bought my book overnight. When you think about it, an online store that sells something that’s digital is something that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Using tools, software and systems, you can automate the delivery process so you literally don’t have to do anything to serve that audience. That’s super powerful.

What’s also really important to realize here is that when I took the exam I was teaching people to study for, I didn’t get a perfect score. In fact, I didn’t even get close to a perfect score. I passed. But I also knew a lot about this exam—way more than somebody who was just getting started diving into studying for it. And it was because of that, because I was just a few steps ahead of them, that they trusted me to help them with that information. To support this, I provided a lot of great free value to help them along the way. I engaged in conversations and interacted in comments sections and on forums. Most of all, I just really cared about those people, because I struggled big-time with that exam myself.

Here’s the truth: a successful business is something that successfully solves a problem. And that business can make more money in two ways: solving more people’s problems, or solving bigger problems. The cool thing about the EP Model is that sometimes these products don’t even have to be yours. You can generate income by recommending other people’s or companies’ services or products. This is called affiliate marketing. It’s actually how I’ve made most of my money since I started in 2008.

The first time I did affiliate marketing was way back in the day on my architecture exam website. I connected with a company that sold practice exams, which gave me $22 for every person who bought one of their exams via my site. Since then, I’ve generated over $250,000 simply by recommending that product alone. Again, this is a product that was not mine, but one that has still been helpful to my audience. This was all done with thousands of visitors a month. Not millions, or even hundreds of thousands.

So how do you get started with the EP Model? First, you need to be an expert in the eyes of those you’re looking to serve. And again, you don’t need all those qualifications and credentials. A lot of people gain expertise and credibility just by sharing their experience learning something, which is something I’ve done on SPI.com. If you think about it, many people in the personal finance or fitness space establish their authority by sharing their journey and their process. They do it by sharing their experiences—and you can do the same thing, too.

Another great way to get started is to identify an area of interest you have. Then, go out and start talking to people. Ask them, “What are you struggling with right now? What are your biggest pains? What’s something you wish existed that doesn’t?” That’ll give you some ideas about where to get started.

Active Problem Solving + Automation = Passive Income Success

Remember, a successful business solves people’s problems. At first, you’re going to have to do the legwork and put in the time. But it’s about building something now so you can reap the benefits later, with the help of software, tools, automation, and people you hire. In this way, you can then turn this business that solves people’s problems into something that generates passive income for you!

What model resonates with you most? Leave a comment below with your pick!

How To Make Passive Income Online (3 Business Models) originally posted at Homer’s Blog

[judithghernandez87]

How To Make Passive Income Online (3 Business Models)

The internet is an amazing place, folks. I probably don’t need to tell you there’s more than one way to make money online. And today, I’m going to give you the lowdown on three strategies you can use to do just that!

I’ve built several businesses since 2008 using one or more of these models. I’ve been featured in magazines and articles across the globe, and since I started my journey I’ve generated over $5M in earnings from these businesses. All of my income and expenses for those businesses dating back to October 2008 have been tracked publicly on SPI.com.

But you don’t have to read all of my income reports to learn how I’ve made these three strategies work for me—or how they can work for you.

In this post, I’ll distill what I’ve learned into three business models you can choose from to decide which path you want to go down.

Those three models are the FP, AA, and EP models.

“But those are just acronyms, Pat! Tell me what they meeeeeaan!”

Fear not. I’ll explain them all, and help you figure out which one suits you best.

A Quick Primer on Passive Income

But first, let’s about talk passive income! What is passive income? There are many different definitions out there, but mine goes something like this: Passive income is all about building online businesses that can work for you, that allow you to generate income, and grow and scale, without a real-time presence. In other words, you don’t trade time for money. You build something up front that can continue to work for you over time.

“But Pat,” you might be asking, “is this really possible?” It’s definitely possible. And you don’t need a huge investment, either. Unlike investments such as real estate or stocks, you don’t need a ton of money to start to build something.

But there’s one thing you need to be super clear on. It’s definitely not easy to do. Some people may tell you there’s a magic button or blueprint you can use to get rich, all by doing nothing. Don’t get me started on people who say you can make it happen overnight. No way, no how. It takes a lot of hard work. You’ve got to put in the hours.

You have to work hard now to build assets that will continue to work for you later. But once you start to build that passive income stream, you start to gain a little flexibility and freedom. You have a little more time to do more things, build even more passive income streams—or do fewer things, if that’s what you prefer!

So as I introduce these three business models to you, realize that yes, they all take time, but that time will also be very much worth it.

Cool? Okay, let’s get started.

The FP Model: Starting with Active Income

FP is the Freelance to Product model. In this model, you start by freelancing, then you find a problem that can be solved with a product.

Yes, we’re talking about passive income. And yes, freelancing is active income. So what’s the deal? To be perfectly honest, I believe freelancing is the #1 way to get started a building business of your own. You’ll learn a lot of skills, and you’ll get paid a lot quicker, too. You need some active income first!

But the biggest reason I recommend starting with freelancing is you’ll get to know the industry you’re in really well. You’ll learn it so well, that you’ll be able to find the holes, the opportunities, that allow you to create a successful product-based business.

Let me tell you about my friend Brian Casel. He was a freelance web designer who used to bill all his work by the project and sometimes by the hour; it was all tied to his time. He could only fit in a certain number of projects, and he was basically living project to project. It was not an ideal situation.

Brian had found a huge need for web design in the restaurant and food truck space. After getting tired of working with client after client, he decided to turn his service-based business into a product-based one. He made his services more standardized and productized. He eliminated all his client work and created templates and products to serve that market instead. And it’s been going great for him.

You can check out my interview with Brian in the Smart Passive Income Podcast #158.

All active businesses can be turned into more passive businesses by using products you’ve already made, by using software to do a lot of the legwork, and even having other humans do some of the work, too.

The AA Model: Advertising Your Way to Income

Next up, I’ll tell you how I made my first bit of passive income in 2008 with business model #2: the AA Model.

AA stands for the Audience and Advertising Model. It’s one of the most-used models for building passive income online—but it does come with a fair number of warnings, which I’ll share with you in a minute.

If you’re a YouTube personality, this is how you generate your income. If you’re a blogger who gets a lot of traffic to your site and uses advertising or sponsorships, then you’re also following the AA Model. Got a podcast with sponsorships? Same deal. You have an audience, and you have advertisers that want to get in front of that audience, so you marry the two and get paid for it.

When I started building my architecture-related business in 2008, I made my first dollar through advertising. I’d spent a lot of time and money building the site and getting traffic. Then one day I threw an ad on the site one day, and I made $1.18. Sure, I could find that much under my couch cushions—but that’s not the point! The point is that I was able to build something online, put an ad up, and make money without having to do anything. I learned it was possible, and it motivated me to move forward.

Eventually, I put more ads on the site. Traffic continued to grow, and I started earning between $30 and $50 a day just from advertising.

Then I built a brand-new site, got even more traffic, put ads on it, and . . . didn’t make more than $50 after six months of advertising. And therein lies one of the downsides of the AA Model. Ads are not super-predictable, especially auto-generated ones like those through Google AdSense.

There’s a second downside to this model. Although I’ve done advertising and sponsorships in the past, and have made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so, the truth is it takes a lot of time for this business model to start to generate income for you, because you need to build that audience first. In addition, what happens when you build your audience on a platform that ends up changing its algorithm, affecting how often you actually get seen by the audience you’ve built?

In order to build an audience, you need to have a platform. You need to have something worth following and sharing; something that’s valuable to others. And that, of course, takes time. That’s not to say you can’t build a huge audience in a short amount of time. But as much as we hear about the people who’ve succeeding at doing this, we don’t hear about the millions of others who are struggling every day to get just a few more fans and followers.

Long story short: the AA Model, while it can work for you, should be approached with care.

The EP Model: Making Money by Being Expert Enough

But the great thing is, you don’t need a huge audience to generate passive income and make money online!

That’s why if I had the choice, I’d go with the EP Model.

This is the Expert to Product Model. Now, don’t let the term “expert” scare you away—because it’s probably not what you think it is. Most people think an expert is someone who’s a master at something. Someone with a special degree or training, who’s put in those 10,000 hours, who is just great at what they do.

That’s not the kind of expert I’m talking about here.

What I mean is that you can be an expert in the eyes of someone else just by knowing a little more than they do. Because guess what? You have experiences, ideas, and opinions that are all unique to you. The goal is to become expert enough to earn the trust of others so that they’ll want to learn even more from you.

Quick story: Remember that $1.18 I found in the couch? Even when that increased to $30 to $50 a day, it still wasn’t enough to live on. So I looked for other options. In August 2008, after people started to know who I was and how I could help them pass the LEED certification exam through my blog, I wrote an ebook. It included all the information I knew about passing this exam, and I sold it on my blog for $19.95.

On October 2, 2008, when I finally put the book online, I sold my first copy, which was an amazing feeling. Fast-forward through October 2008, and I ended up making $7,126.91 just from ebook sales!

The craziest part of this was I’d wake up in the morning and there would be more money in my bank account, from people who had bought my book overnight. When you think about it, an online store that sells something that’s digital is something that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Using tools, software and systems, you can automate the delivery process so you literally don’t have to do anything to serve that audience. That’s super powerful.

What’s also really important to realize here is that when I took the exam I was teaching people to study for, I didn’t get a perfect score. In fact, I didn’t even get close to a perfect score. I passed. But I also knew a lot about this exam—way more than somebody who was just getting started diving into studying for it. And it was because of that, because I was just a few steps ahead of them, that they trusted me to help them with that information. To support this, I provided a lot of great free value to help them along the way. I engaged in conversations and interacted in comments sections and on forums. Most of all, I just really cared about those people, because I struggled big-time with that exam myself.

Here’s the truth: a successful business is something that successfully solves a problem. And that business can make more money in two ways: solving more people’s problems, or solving bigger problems. The cool thing about the EP Model is that sometimes these products don’t even have to be yours. You can generate income by recommending other people’s or companies’ services or products. This is called affiliate marketing. It’s actually how I’ve made most of my money since I started in 2008.

The first time I did affiliate marketing was way back in the day on my architecture exam website. I connected with a company that sold practice exams, which gave me $22 for every person who bought one of their exams via my site. Since then, I’ve generated over $250,000 simply by recommending that product alone. Again, this is a product that was not mine, but one that has still been helpful to my audience. This was all done with thousands of visitors a month. Not millions, or even hundreds of thousands.

So how do you get started with the EP Model? First, you need to be an expert in the eyes of those you’re looking to serve. And again, you don’t need all those qualifications and credentials. A lot of people gain expertise and credibility just by sharing their experience learning something, which is something I’ve done on SPI.com. If you think about it, many people in the personal finance or fitness space establish their authority by sharing their journey and their process. They do it by sharing their experiences—and you can do the same thing, too.

Another great way to get started is to identify an area of interest you have. Then, go out and start talking to people. Ask them, “What are you struggling with right now? What are your biggest pains? What’s something you wish existed that doesn’t?” That’ll give you some ideas about where to get started.

Active Problem Solving + Automation = Passive Income Success

Remember, a successful business solves people’s problems. At first, you’re going to have to do the legwork and put in the time. But it’s about building something now so you can reap the benefits later, with the help of software, tools, automation, and people you hire. In this way, you can then turn this business that solves people’s problems into something that generates passive income for you!

What model resonates with you most? Leave a comment below with your pick!

How To Make Passive Income Online (3 Business Models) originally posted at Dave’s Blog