Latest / EGGS! The Podcast / Eggs 446: 2025 EGGY Awards - Annual Award Show
Transcript
- 0:12Everybody, welcome back to Eggs the podcast.
- 0:14But before we get started, I want to talk to you about our
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- 1:34Now, back to the show. Hey everybody, and welcome to a
- 1:37very special edition of Eggs. As we wrap up another incredible
- 1:41year, we're excited to bring you the 2025 Eggies, a celebration
- 1:44of the conversations, insights, wild ideas, and breakthrough
- 1:47moments that stood out on the show over the past 12 months.
- 1:51This episode features some of our favorite clips from guests
- 1:53who've pushed boundaries, shared meaningful lessons, and helped
- 1:56us all think a little bigger. And while we can only highlight
- 1:59a handful of moments here, make no mistake, this year's been
- 2:01packed with amazing episodes, and we're grateful for every
- 2:04single one of them. A huge thank you to our
- 2:07listeners, of course, for your continued support, your
- 2:09messages, your reviews, and showing up for us week after
- 2:12week. And of course, our deepest
- 2:14thanks to our guests. We obviously couldn't do this
- 2:16without your willingness to share your expertise, your
- 2:18stories, and your time. Think of today's show as the
- 2:21trailer or just a taste. If a clip grabs your attention,
- 2:24we hope you go back and dive into the full episode and enjoy
- 2:27the conversation in its entirety.
- 2:29So without further ado, please sit back and enjoy the 2025
- 2:32Eggies. A look back at some of the best
- 2:33and brightest moments from this year on.
- 2:35Eggs. I think there's a lot of
- 2:37well-intentioned information about mindset and belief and
- 2:39getting yourself right. And to be clear, like I believe
- 2:42all these things are true, but I wondered if you wouldn't talk a
- 2:45little bit about just sort of the difference between faith and
- 2:47belief. And, and what I mean is that it
- 2:49seems to me that faith for people, especially if they have
- 2:52maybe a religious tradition or something like that, faith could
- 2:55be something that you don't even think about, right?
- 2:57It's just implicitly true. It's built in.
- 2:59There's no two ways about it. But to frame it sort of in the
- 3:02in the realm of the millions within and the type of actions
- 3:06and activities that you talk about in your own life, setting
- 3:08your mind to something or believing that something is
- 3:10possible is really kind of the key to everything else.
- 3:13Like nothing else can happen without belief.
- 3:15And so I wondered if you'd talk a little bit about belief just
- 3:18as being AI guess something active, you know, something that
- 3:21we're we're proactively getting involved with versus, you know,
- 3:24just having a faith that things will be there for us.
- 3:27Yeah, absolutely. So when it comes to believe, we
- 3:30have to understand something. Just because we agree on
- 3:33something doesn't mean that I believe it.
- 3:36It means I have an intellectual understanding of it.
- 3:38I might believe in your belief, I might agree with your belief,
- 3:41but it doesn't mean that I actually believe it.
- 3:43Because when I was when I was studying, I was also starting
- 3:46studying religions. Now, I was raised Catholic, but
- 3:49I was not all that impressed with the education that I got
- 3:53from the the Catholic religion. But I would read in the Bible
- 3:56and it would say if you could believe, basically you could do
- 4:00anything. Like it's mentioned so many
- 4:02times. And I thought, well, I believe
- 4:05I've always believed something different, but that's not what
- 4:08showed up in my life. What is the difference in the
- 4:12word? So I then started looking at
- 4:14books that were written, you know, in the day, in the 90s or
- 4:17whatever. And the way they used belief was
- 4:22more of an agreeable thing. Like, I believe this.
- 4:25You could tell me something that I have no experience with, and I
- 4:28could go, I believe that. Yeah, I believe that's true,
- 4:30right? But that's not really a belief.
- 4:33A belief is when energetically you've got it in your thinking,
- 4:37your emotions, and in your physical actions.
- 4:40They're all in integrity with each other and you're not
- 4:43fighting it every day, right? So I might say I'm going to be
- 4:47successful. I have to get up and I have to
- 4:49make sales calls in the morning and I get up and I'm thinking,
- 4:52oh man, I really don't want to make sales calls.
- 4:54So they just don't feel like it. If you've got a real belief,
- 4:57you're going to get up and you're going to do it.
- 4:59You're not going to have that battle in your mind, and that
- 5:03belief doesn't waver, no matter how difficult it gets.
- 5:06Does that make sense? Yeah.
- 5:07I think it makes sense and I think it may maybe leads me into
- 5:09kind of where I wanted to go with this, which is sort of I
- 5:12guess the stickiness component, right.
- 5:14So, I mean, I think it's easy to have belief, like you say, it's
- 5:17easy to degree in something. And, and I'll just use my own
- 5:20anecdote. When I read think and Grow rich,
- 5:22I, I stuck a piece of paper on my wall with my mantra, you
- 5:25know, that Napoleon told me I had to put together that this
- 5:27was my income goal and this was my business goal.
- 5:30And I tried to, you know, and I, I came into the, the office
- 5:32every morning and I, I read my little piece of paper and, you
- 5:35know, tried to commit that thing.
- 5:36Well, Needless to say, I'm still not a multimillionaire.
- 5:38I'm still not doing the things I should have been, you know, that
- 5:41all the things on that paper did not work out.
- 5:43And so, but you know, to your point about having sort of this
- 5:46internal alignment, I think for me, I had written down this
- 5:50stuff and therefore I believed it.
- 5:52Yeah. But but I think that there was
- 5:55still of this component that maybe I was leaning to into the
- 5:58woo woo and not enough into the, you know, just cuz you're saying
- 6:02this out loud doesn't mean that you're actually doing anything.
- 6:04Well, I don't think that it's a person's leaning to into the woo
- 6:07woo. I don't think they understand
- 6:09how the woo woo works. So the idea is that if you
- 6:12believe something, if you set an intention, the universe is going
- 6:15to respond to that all the time. Your then participation is to
- 6:20recognize that response and then take action on it immediately.
- 6:24And it goes back and forth like that to the to the achievement
- 6:27of whatever goal that you want. The faith part is interesting
- 6:31because right there's a really great book on faith.
- 6:33It's called God works through Faith by Robert Russell.
- 6:36If you don't have it, you should get it and read it.
- 6:38I really think you'd like it, but they use Christian
- 6:41principles in that book to point out, number one, God's already
- 6:46created everything. It's already done, It's already
- 6:48here. That's a promise to God, to
- 6:52human beings #2 you have to act with that belief, with faith
- 6:58that whatever it is you're going to do is going to show up like
- 7:02a, forgive me, for instance, with money, because I work with
- 7:04people on this all the time. All the money is already here,
- 7:08right? But most people say I can't do
- 7:11things because I can't afford them.
- 7:13So they have the problem. The process reversed.
- 7:16The idea is when you make the decision, the money will show
- 7:19up. There's no reason for extra
- 7:21money if you're not making the decision.
- 7:24But most people won't do that. They're like, well, that's
- 7:26irresponsible. How am I, you know, I can't just
- 7:28spend money like that. If you're willing to follow
- 7:31through on it, you absolutely can't because the money will
- 7:35always be there. The problem is where a person
- 7:37stops in their own belief system that if they stop short, you
- 7:42know it's Napoleon Hill's 3 feet from gold.
- 7:45If they stop short, they're so close they but they don't know
- 7:48it cuz they don't have the experience and then they don't
- 7:51get it. That was that was the, the huge
- 7:54awareness, the aha that I had when I tripled my income.
- 7:57I could not see something that was around me for two years
- 8:01because my attitude was so bad. And when I changed my attitude
- 8:06and I started running it like a machine every day, it changed my
- 8:09perception. And when my perception changed,
- 8:12I saw the opportunity that was right there with me every week.
- 8:16And I said yes to it and my income tripled.
- 8:19And I was like, you got to be freaking kidding me.
- 8:34I wonder if we couldn't talk briefly about what is authority,
- 8:37how do we develop it and you know that aspect of our
- 8:40business, if we truly want to maybe refine and grow beyond
- 8:43just improving our sales process, how could we actually
- 8:45start to develop authority? Yeah.
- 8:47I mean, the, the way I define the term is, is an authority.
- 8:52Like it's not enough to be an expert.
- 8:54Like probably everyone listening to this is an expert at the
- 8:57thing that they do. You've been doing it for 5 or 10
- 8:59years, whether it's design or architecture or software
- 9:01development, you've probably been doing it for a while and
- 9:05you're probably, you might not call yourself an expert, but you
- 9:08are. You're like way better at it
- 9:10than like your clients. Maybe you're way better at it
- 9:12than most of your peers, but that's not an authority.
- 9:14An authority is a recognized expert.
- 9:17An authority is the kind of person that would get called in
- 9:19to be an expert witness at a trial where for some reason
- 9:24people in a market, some group of people who are not your peers
- 9:28or it could be your peers. But I like it better when it's
- 9:30not your peers. I like it better when it's your
- 9:31buyers. They recognize you as an expert
- 9:36at this thing. And usually the way that that
- 9:38works, especially for for buyers, when they recognize you
- 9:42as an authority, it's based on some results.
- 9:46So like you might say, you might be like the best person in the
- 9:51world at, at like, well, what did I say before Corinthian
- 9:53pottery? Like you might know everything
- 9:55about Corinthian pottery, but it doesn't deliver results for
- 9:59anyone. Like no one cares so who maybe
- 10:03cares? This is going to be a tough one
- 10:04so who would care? Maybe you are the an expert for
- 10:12an auction house that deals in antiquities and they have a huge
- 10:19liability if they accidentally auction off something that
- 10:21turned out to be fake. And you have been doing this
- 10:25for, I don't know, the Louvre or something that has the biggest
- 10:29collection of Corinthian pottery.
- 10:30Totally in fantasyland here making this up.
- 10:33But but let's just say someone has a lot of money at stake and
- 10:38you have saved them, right? So like this, it's like it's not
- 10:44just that you wrote the book on it and you know more about it
- 10:46than anybody else. And all of your peers wish they
- 10:48were you because you're so smart about Corinthian pottery.
- 10:52It's that people who can give you money recognize that by
- 10:55giving you money, they save or make money.
- 10:59So if the auction house is like, you know, new auction house has
- 11:04this new piece that's come in, they don't know if it's real or
- 11:06fake. And they know that you've been
- 11:09working with a competing auction house for 10 years and you've
- 11:12discovered like 15 fakes. Now all of a sudden, if they're
- 11:16going to auction this thing off for $1,000,000, now all of a
- 11:19sudden it's worth a lot of money for them to call you and only
- 11:22you to verify the authenticity of it.
- 11:25Because then that will increase the amount of money they get at
- 11:27auction because it's BeenVerified by this person who
- 11:30everyone recognizes as the authority on Corinthian pottery.
- 11:35So it doesn't matter. This guy or gal might know that
- 11:40there's a bigger expert than they are, but not everyone
- 11:43trusts them. No one knows them.
- 11:46This first person is famous at delivering a result.
- 11:51It's not just a question of a of AI don't know some sort of
- 11:54litmus test of how much knowledge you have about
- 11:56Corinthian pottery. So that's probably a terrible
- 11:59example, but but. Or maybe it's a great example
- 12:01because it's such an abstract thing.
- 12:04Well, I was going to say you you evoked the Louvre and they got
- 12:06robbed this morning for missing. Yeah.
- 12:08So I. Think I thought of it so I.
- 12:09Guess they need a security guy, you know, so they're out there.
- 12:12That's might be a good time to anchor high with the Louvre.
- 12:16Yeah, whoever, whoever did the security for Louvre is now
- 12:19infamous, not famous. Detailed.
- 12:24Car from. The.
- 12:33Lot like they've been shined it and polished it up and it looks
- 12:38great to you. You take it to the mechanic and
- 12:40he looks underneath and he sees an oil leak out of your gearbox
- 12:44or something like that. He's going to see the stuff that
- 12:46you're not. And then?
- 12:48That's why you always have that second opinion.
- 12:49That's where you have the, you know, the person of authority,
- 12:53the person that knows what they're talking about.
- 12:56Look at it in professional and you know, whether it's a logo or
- 13:01whether it's a speaker, you know, it's it's all in a matter
- 13:06of who you know and how much they know and how much you know,
- 13:10accountability and reliability that you can put on that person.
- 13:13Yeah. And I think that know that.
- 13:17So it's like the size of the audience that knows that.
- 13:21Yeah, that's the nice point, right.
- 13:22I mean, so I mean, it's one thing if somebody comes to you
- 13:24to build a website for them or whatever, and you're the web
- 13:26design expert or you're the web design guy, I know.
- 13:29But if you're the authority, if you're like Mr. Website or
- 13:32you're Mr. Whatever your your genre of website is, then you
- 13:36know, you can fetch higher prices.
- 13:37You know, you're going to be able to do more with that
- 13:41engagement than you might if you're not.
- 13:43So I think that's where the power of authority can really
- 13:45start to come in is that you can start to elevate your brand or
- 13:48your business or, or whatever it is.
- 13:50There's this notion where everybody says that you should
- 13:52chase your passion, chase your dreams.
- 13:54You know, the things that you're doing, you should pursue or the
- 13:57interest that you have, you should pursue.
- 13:58But I think what ends up happening to a lot of people is
- 14:00we end up pursuing other people's hopes and dreams
- 14:03because we see it on on Instagram or we see it wherever,
- 14:05you know, on TV, movies, whatever.
- 14:07And so we actually end up chasing down other people's
- 14:10fantasy. And then I think that that's in
- 14:12large part why a lot of people, when they achieve success or
- 14:14whatever, they actually aren't that happy.
- 14:16And it's because they spent their their whole life chasing
- 14:19somebody else's thing. They weren't actually being
- 14:20offended. Yeah, that's the most dangerous
- 14:22thing, isn't it? When you think about it, it's
- 14:24it's one of the biggest wastes of a life.
- 14:28And, you know, I mean, I think more and more as people are
- 14:31aware of it, that's that is happening and is going to happen
- 14:34less and less. I think that was something that,
- 14:37you know, how how many people, you know, went to high school,
- 14:40went to college, studied maybe what their parents wanted them
- 14:43to study or what was expected of them to study.
- 14:45And they had a current 25 year career where outwardly, you
- 14:48know, it looked right and they just weren't happy.
- 14:51They were desperately unhappy. And you know what a horrible way
- 14:54to way to live, you know, And then there's also the the school
- 15:00of thought and that I know where they're coming from, yet I don't
- 15:04agree with it. That says, well, forget about
- 15:06your passion, just do the work and your passion will develop.
- 15:09Yeah, but that's really difficult.
- 15:13You know, if you if you, if you look at any really sustainably
- 15:16successful person, when I say success, yeah, financially, but
- 15:20also in the other ways, whether it's mentally, emotionally,
- 15:24relationally, and all the other ways that that success can be
- 15:27measured, including financial, which is also very important.
- 15:29If you look at those people who are sustainably successful, most
- 15:34of them did something they were passionate about.
- 15:37They did something that really brought them joy.
- 15:39And it didn't have to be curing cancer.
- 15:41It didn't have to be something that we look at as it could be
- 15:43anything that that person felt as though they were meant to do
- 15:48and they took joy in doing and they went to work and they,
- 15:52they, it was bigger than than themselves, right.
- 15:55Yeah. And, and so I think you know,
- 15:57and, and it's really, it's a lot easier to be successful doing
- 16:02something that you're passionate about.
- 16:04Yeah. Well, and I think maybe what
- 16:06we're tiptoeing around here or, or to sort of connect the dots
- 16:09is the, the authenticity is acting in a manner congruent
- 16:14with your values, but your passion is also congruent with
- 16:17your values. It's, it's doing a thing that
- 16:19you know it. It's not about, you know, or the
- 16:22reason we have passion about things, I guess is because it's
- 16:24totally in line with your values.
- 16:26Whatever it is you're pursuing is the thing that you you care
- 16:29about intrinsically. It does.
- 16:30It's not about, you know, whatever you see outwardly.
- 16:34I, I agree with you. And, and you know, and when
- 16:36people ask me about this and they, you know, they talk about
- 16:39doing what they, they love and following their passion, I also
- 16:42let them know, you know, there's a, a third part to it.
- 16:44So it's, it's, yeah, it's doing what you love, your passion,
- 16:47what you're good at. And a lot of times the way we're
- 16:51created, what we love is typically what we're good at,
- 16:54what we have an inclination to. But even if we're not naturally
- 16:58gifted at what we're passionate about, if we're passionate about
- 17:02it, we can usually learn it. OK, so so we take the first two
- 17:06doing what you love and what you're good at, and then you
- 17:10have to also find a marketplace for it.
- 17:14People who will pay you for the express you for expressing your
- 17:17passion, right, whether it's it's selling this or that,
- 17:20creating this or that, producing this or whatever it happens to
- 17:22be. Now that marketplace might
- 17:24already exist and you're certainly you're simply filling
- 17:27a need within that marketplace, or it might be something you
- 17:30need to create. I, you know, I, again, I, I
- 17:32don't know. And it might be something that
- 17:34you don't know if he can create and will be created, but you're
- 17:37so passionate about what you're doing, so committed to it, that
- 17:40you and you know, those are the people who often change things
- 17:44and it and it doesn't always work out that way.
- 17:47What I'm saying is that it, it's not a matter of just having the
- 17:50thought or the yeah, I really just, you know, it's also being
- 17:54practical and understanding that it's, it's very reasonable, it's
- 17:58very rational to follow your passion, develop the skills and
- 18:03understand that there needs to be a marketplace for you to.
- 18:07Provide that value to. I wonder too if you could talk a
- 18:09little bit just about having to execute at higher levels like
- 18:13this. You mentioned needing to to
- 18:145X10X50X your company. We haven't had a lot of people
- 18:18on with startups that are are big targeting that kind of
- 18:20growth like you're talking about.
- 18:22So I think it might be interesting to talk about what
- 18:24it's like in a rapidly scaling company like this from an
- 18:28execution standpoint. I think the key difference is
- 18:30that you have you expect to grow really fast.
- 18:33Like we grow 10 times in the last year and a half and we are
- 18:37expect to grow another 3X by early next year.
- 18:41And our goal is to make 200 million revenue in five years.
- 18:45And so for in order to achieve this means multiple thing #1
- 18:50means you need capital. So either you need to quickly
- 18:55get profitable, but also you need external capital.
- 19:00Most of the time it's not like one round of a funding is
- 19:03enough, which means that first of all you have to raise the
- 19:06first round, and that's already hard enough.
- 19:08And then you have to continue to show your attractions.
- 19:11And then you have to raise again and maybe again and again for
- 19:14multiple times. Are you someone who are willing
- 19:18and asking for investor, which you might have to talk to 200
- 19:22people and 198 was they know to you.
- 19:25Like are you someone who actually enjoying doing so?
- 19:28Or if not enjoying, at least you are capable and wanting to do
- 19:32so. And you might have to repeat the
- 19:33same thing 10 times per day and then get rejected when you and
- 19:37then you might have to also have to make really quick hiring, but
- 19:43also figure out if it's right fit and then have to probably
- 19:47make sure you make adjustment for the company.
- 19:49You're constantly are trying to see how you can grow really fast
- 19:54and versus organically. You need to have advertising in,
- 19:58but then the same time you want the optimizing really fast and
- 20:01you have need a lot of partner. We already have 300 brand.
- 20:04We're constantly looking for new partner.
- 20:06We are expanding into shoes, accessories.
- 20:09So I think it's a very different, different from a
- 20:12lifestyle business. Some people want to work on the
- 20:15business for 20 years, but it can be lifestyle.
- 20:18They do have a little bit of work life balance and they also
- 20:21can make 100% decision for the company.
- 20:24You don't have to report on investors and they don't have to
- 20:27do a lot of things on preparing for those board meetings
- 20:31etcetera. So I think it's just a very
- 20:34different and we, we started without knowing and we are.
- 20:38And I'm so far I'm still enjoying it, but I I'm sure it's
- 20:42not for everybody. So what is your end goal with
- 20:47Taylor? Are you trying to just generate
- 20:50a business that that you have the passive income coming later
- 20:53on down the line for you building it to sell?
- 20:57I think in it's a little bit less about what I want is now a
- 21:00little bit more about what kind of company you should be after
- 21:04VC back. Because for VC back company
- 21:07which we are also pretty open to.
- 21:09But for VC back company, the expectation is you as a within
- 21:13five to seven years and you get 10X to 50X return for them.
- 21:18So that's kind of the expectation.
- 21:21Of course not every startup need expectation and that's why we
- 21:25see back and sometimes they they are looking for like 10 company.
- 21:28As long as two company made it, they are okay because the other
- 21:32aim may not make it. But the, the, the moment they
- 21:35invest is because they believe you have a chance to be that
- 21:39kind of company. And the five to seven years
- 21:42asset you tend to be either you get bought, which is mostly
- 21:46common in the US, you get bought by others company like in our
- 21:49case maybe for Amazon who also have logistic capability, Uber
- 21:55who are share economy or company who owns inventory like gaps
- 21:59were closing companies, department stores and malls were
- 22:04or discount stores. The company who own inventory so
- 22:08they can operate a little bit cheaper than us or the company
- 22:11really good in operation, so they didn't have to pay better
- 22:14than us. Those are our potential buyer or
- 22:17company who really want AI styling technology like LVMH or
- 22:23Lululemon's or Nike. They may not want to do rental
- 22:27but they can use the AI styling element to improve their
- 22:30companies. So usually these once you are
- 22:33busy back they expect you to exit 5 to 7 years and most of
- 22:36people will end up so like sell the company small amount of them
- 22:40when public go publics but that's usually the expectation.
- 22:44But of course some people become just profitable business and
- 22:47continue running. They share the the bonus to the
- 22:50investors, but most of people end up so sell the company in a
- 22:55period of time. I know that you have a lot of
- 22:56experience in starting up companies too and working with
- 22:59startup companies started outside of you, but also
- 23:01involved in the construction of new businesses.
- 23:05Let's talk a little bit about team development or building a
- 23:07team. When you're small and you don't
- 23:08have any money and you're just trying to figure stuff out like
- 23:10being scrappy. How do you start from, from
- 23:14ground 0 or maybe from the, the place of, you know, a young
- 23:18healthcare startup, you know, how do you start to build the
- 23:20right people, the right teams? What kinds of things are we
- 23:23looking for in sort of, I guess trying to ensure our success as
- 23:27a start? I always, I always tell people,
- 23:34don't collect things, collect relationships.
- 23:36Work on building your network. If you want to be a great
- 23:39leader, the ability to pick up the phone and call somebody
- 23:43that's really good at what they do and ask them for advice or to
- 23:48help you work through how to define a problem or solve a
- 23:51problem. You don't have to pay people to
- 23:54do that if they're in your network.
- 23:56And when you're early on, even when you're a mature company, I
- 24:01always tell CE OS develop a bigger network of being a CE OS,
- 24:05a lonely place. You can't tell your employees
- 24:08everything you know. You can't tell your bankers
- 24:10everything you know. You can't tell your customers
- 24:13everything you know. It's a very lonely place because
- 24:17you live with all this knowledge about the inner workings of your
- 24:21companies and the frailty of your company and the things that
- 24:24don't work right. You know all of that, but you
- 24:27can't freely share it with the world around you.
- 24:30So knowing a group of people that have those same challenges
- 24:35and understanding how they navigate that is extremely
- 24:38valuable #1 develop that network of people around you that can be
- 24:43contributors to your understanding of what to do and
- 24:46when to do it and how to do it. I think the other thing too is
- 24:50that really understand what your purpose is as a company.
- 24:55You know, I was, I was in a big company, I won't name the
- 24:57company last week, and it's one of the recently very successful
- 25:03companies because of what's been going on in healthcare.
- 25:07And I was looking at all their, you know, we stand for this and
- 25:11that they have it all flashing up on the walls, right?
- 25:14And I sat in the lobby waiting for my host to to come get me
- 25:19for the better part of 1/2 an hour.
- 25:21And every person that entered the front door of that company,
- 25:24which had to be hundreds, had to walk past me.
- 25:27Do you know how many of them made eye contact with me?
- 25:30I'm guessing very few. 0 Not one person.
- 25:35They had to swipe their card twice, they had to go through a
- 25:37metal detector, they had to do facial recognition and they had
- 25:40to swipe their card 1/3 time and they were so consumed with that
- 25:45process. Not one person noticed me
- 25:48standing between 10 or 20 feet from me.
- 25:52What what has happened that you walk past the person trying to
- 25:57make eye contact? I was trying to make eye
- 26:00contact, right? So here's a company that
- 26:04supposedly is very successful. I would contend that that
- 26:08success is fleeting because the people don't even see what's
- 26:13going on around them. And I think that's something
- 26:15that we have to address. So, you know, there are so many
- 26:22things that are pretty simple that we could get, right, Ryan.
- 26:26And I think it starts at home and I think it starts with what
- 26:30are we developing our kids to become?
- 26:33What is it that we want for them?
- 26:34If I said to you, do you want your kids to be more successful
- 26:37than you? Yeah, of course.
- 26:38OK, what is success? How would you define what that
- 26:41is? Yeah.
- 26:43Well, and that's where it gets really tricky, right?
- 26:44Because like I might be able to say, oh, well, you know, I need
- 26:46them to make a ton of money so they could put me in a good home
- 26:48one day. And, you know, but what they,
- 26:51you know, but what's success for them?
- 26:52I mean, I don't know, maybe they don't want to do, you know,
- 26:54maybe they money isn't a big thing.
- 26:56Maybe they want to be really philanthropic or maybe they want
- 26:58to, you know, be volunteers or, you know, whatever it is.
- 27:01And so so for me to impose subject or you for me to impose
- 27:06what level of success is to them, you know, really isn't
- 27:09fair to them for one. But it also, you know, goes back
- 27:13to, I guess more my motivations or whatever, you know, what are
- 27:15my things And and it I guess sort of deprives them of the
- 27:18ability to choose what is their success.
- 27:20What are the most common challenges or the questions that
- 27:22you're seeing from companies now as they're trying to shape
- 27:24strategy for the future? For my clients that are more
- 27:32entry level, it's like what channel do I focus on is usually
- 27:36what like what two or three things should I do?
- 27:40Because most people come and they're trying to do 15 things
- 27:42and they do all of them poorly for my more mature clients,
- 27:46right? So like, you know, north of $20
- 27:49million a year, it's usually around penetration into, deeper
- 27:54into the clients that they already have.
- 27:56And that's less about which channel, that's more about data,
- 28:00right? Like which data should I pay
- 28:02attention to? And you know, CRMS are, are
- 28:06confused. They don't know what to do with
- 28:08SEO today. They don't know what to do with
- 28:10ads. They don't know it's, it's a
- 28:13difference between data at the high end and at the bottom.
- 28:16It's which decision? Yeah, and which in it's
- 28:19interesting too, because I guess fundamentally it's kind of the
- 28:21same problem, right? And you know, it has to do maybe
- 28:23with scale and the amount of resources you can throw at a
- 28:25thing, you know, So maybe at the beginning it's do I need to be
- 28:28on all 5 social channels or can I just be on Instagram, you
- 28:32know? But maybe for somebody who's
- 28:33bigger or maybe a little more sophisticated in their
- 28:35marketing, you know, then, you know, ultimately it's the same
- 28:37question though. It's like, where do we, you
- 28:39know, what channels do we chase, you know, what data is valuable
- 28:41and what data isn't? And right now, and you mentioned
- 28:43right now too, and I, I think you're right, there's this
- 28:46transition happening and there's kind of this gold rush that I'm,
- 28:50I'm experiencing. And I don't know if you can back
- 28:52this up or if you've seen this too, but there was a period when
- 28:55the social network started rising and I was working in
- 28:58agency at that time. And so there was like, you know,
- 29:00Twitter started getting popular and some of these other
- 29:02platforms started gaining popularity.
- 29:04And there was this like gold rush in the agencies where
- 29:06everybody was like running out and hiring some 14 year old that
- 29:09knew how to run Twitter. They weren't marketers or
- 29:12strategic thinkers or any of that kind of thing.
- 29:14It was just we need somebody that can run the platform.
- 29:15So they were making wild hiring decisions to bring in people who
- 29:19really didn't have any knowledge or any skill.
- 29:21They just knew how to run this tool.
- 29:23And so people just started throwing a lot of bad money at
- 29:25social media. And, you know, I think over time
- 29:27that's become more sophisticated.
- 29:29Obviously there are people who make whole careers out of this
- 29:31now, but but I kind of see that with AI too.
- 29:34And so I feel like we're maybe starting to get over the hump a
- 29:37little bit, but for a little while there, every piece of
- 29:39software is bolting on AI. And really all that all I was
- 29:42doing was speeding up how quickly you could enter data or,
- 29:44you know, whatever. It's kind of not doing anything.
- 29:46It was just kind of like, but I need it to say AI on the
- 29:49platform. And so as we're starting to, you
- 29:53know, hopefully, I think you'll, you'll start to see some of
- 29:55these big AI companies will start to emerge to the top and
- 29:59they'll become the Twitters and the Instagrams and the whatever
- 30:01of the future. But there's going to be a lot of
- 30:04them that are going away. So like, are you, as you're
- 30:06starting to help people? I guess the, the point I'm I'm
- 30:10trying to make, I guess is like, I feel like there's room for a
- 30:12lot of bad data because we can quickly make data.
- 30:15And so, but there's a lot of hallucination, there's a lot of
- 30:18flaws and problems in AI still. And so if people just take that
- 30:22and run with it, you know, it could, maybe it would workout
- 30:24great, but it seems like there's a lot of room for error.
- 30:26So are you experiencing just sort of because of the pace at
- 30:30at which things are moving? There's this burgeoning
- 30:32technology, it's revolutionary game changing technology, but
- 30:36everybody's just kind of crow barring it into what they're
- 30:38doing. Like are you saying that it's
- 30:39actually impactful? Like are you saying a real
- 30:41increase where you're going, man, AI is really where it's at?
- 30:44Or is it still, like you said before, kind of the
- 30:46fundamentals, like, you know, I mean, are you providing value?
- 30:49Is your messaging good? You know, maybe you can come up
- 30:51with 10X of creatives, but you know, the strategy behind it is
- 30:55still sort of done the old fashioned way.
- 30:57I see. I've never had this
- 30:59conversation, so some of these things might come out a little
- 31:02bit. It's.
- 31:03OK, we won't hold you to it either because everything's
- 31:05moving so fast. How could you?
- 31:06Yes. But what I see going on is that
- 31:11something similar that I'm doing internally.
- 31:14So I may have used AI six months ago or a year at every stage of
- 31:22my strategy all the way to execution, to part of it.
- 31:25Not not entirely, but I used it for idiation, I used it for
- 31:30execution and then I used it for analyzing data.
- 31:34Today, I would say that the majority of how I'm using AI is
- 31:39after I've idiated myself or with a strategist on my team.
- 31:45And then, and then I use AI for the development of this strategy
- 31:54into what the content is. And then a human comes back in
- 31:59and then the human is used along with AI when it's interpretation
- 32:03of data. So if I was going to translate
- 32:04that into, you know, into American football, it's like
- 32:08I'm, you know, I'm calling the play.
- 32:11We might UA use AI to determine, you know, should I be going in
- 32:15the A slot or the B slot.