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E172 David Gerard: Wonder Is a Business Strategy · Second Nature

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: How elaborate is the pre-stage reform routine?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Similar.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's that, but then it also has a lot of like, um so I mean, in my show, I don't know, you know, I've got like props on me, right?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: My suit is custom made for all these things.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I forget one little thing, it's a problem.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Literal check.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a literal checklist?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like post-it notes on my door.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But like, uh, yeah, so the the pre-stage is like running through the whole show and being like, Do I have every single item?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did because like, you know, once a year I get on stage and I'm like, oh shh, I don't have that rule, you know, that thing.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, imagine if to do this podcast, you needed like, I don't know, this like two-inch piece of silver that no one will ever see.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's needed.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So how many items are on that list for your show's two hours?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it depends.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my normal corporate set is 45 minutes, but um, my my full length evening show, like West End style, is two hours.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, it's a lot.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's 40, 50 items.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: How long does it take to design and curate a two-hour West End show?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the the obvious answer is a lifetime.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's interesting.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it gets easier because you have these tools and you have these, um you just have this Rolodex.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you told me if you had a dream, like I can build the dream pretty fast.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like Darren Brown, right?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and Dynamo and these guys like can do touring shows every two years because their lexicon is just so deep and they have a team who's constantly looking for new things, you know.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is it is it frustrated frustrating not being able to use the ideas quickly?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because if I get a new idea or concept, I can put out an article or a podcast or a vlog that day that an hour can ring Penny and go, I want to do this to camera now.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have to sit on it, right?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, most times.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, actually, that you bring up this thing, which now all my gigs are so high, they're just really important, right?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: People are paying a lot of money.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's 300 people out there or whatever.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a lot of places to be bad anymore.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, I have to find the places to be bad.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you practice?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you fail?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's a magic club here where we do stuff for each other.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay, but it's kind of like doing jokes to comedians.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna laugh at different things.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then um, I mean, look, I'll try to find 10-minute open spots and stuff.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But when I lived in London, it was easier because the pub culture above the pub, 10-minute variety shows is so much more a thing than here.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not a thing here.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I'm getting really decadent and just diving into questions about you because super fun.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Let's dance.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um I should probably tell people who you are.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Shoot.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So my name's David Girard.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, phase one was uh marketer in the valley at Google and startups.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Phase two was moving into my childhood passion of magic and performing on stage and working on TV shows like America's Got Talent, shows in Vegas, et cetera.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then phase three now is really a beautiful blend of all of that to really help people on their communication skills, how they garner attention in this new crazy AI world that we're in.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's me in a nutshell.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, talk to us about falling in love with magic.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sweet.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, six years old, FAO Schwartz, New York City with my dad, you know, just watching this incredible, beautiful illusion, both of us at the same time, kind of falling in love with like this thing we didn't know.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad in that moment reacted in this beautiful way.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, what is this?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is this thing?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Where him and I both don't have the answers and can kind of fall into wonder.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Distinctly different if he had chosen to like pull it apart or been kind of an engineer around the thing.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that started it, got a magic set, and then over the last 30 years have developed it into now like my my real vocation, which is kind of even wild to say in this moment that it turned into that, you know.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: First, we were just in an audience.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: What does wonder look and feel like when you see it on a person?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll borrow the words of one of my uh favorite magicians, Nate Stanaforth, who said, magic makes you forget to be cool.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Nate is incredible.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that idea really resonates because when I look out at an audience who's experiencing wonder or awe, even for just two seconds, they forget to be cool, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like something short circuits and the ego collapses, and it's so real for them to be in that moment.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I find doing that, especially in corporate audiences, can be really cool to see, like, oh wow, like that's Rich at his pure essence.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's Sarah flipping out these new vibrational states that are not normally at the office.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And now the visual cues you can see, or is it very much a fail thing?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, everyone reacts in kind of a different way.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have the folks who are kind of the yellers, right, that we've seen on TV.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we have the people who go way more inward.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny you say that because I've worked with a lot of magicians who are like, that trick didn't get a huge response.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: People didn't flip out.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in the audience as the director watching, and I'm like, the following makes no noise.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's all visual.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, right, everyone's kind of leaking out their wonder in different ways.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had to learn that, you know, I thought it was all flipping out.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Deep mystery hits you like in a really crazy place, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: If if the world you know starts to fall apart, like you might react inwardly first.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: When um when you started to explore magic, how readily available was information and ideas and the ability to actually learn and understand?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so right.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting into this in 1994.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Super For context for our younger people out there, YouTube was 2006, I think, when that was launched.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't as if now you can find out anything about anything, right?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Just straight on the internet, deep dive.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't available.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what is cool is there are magic secrets that are still unavailable to the normal people, which is really special, I think.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, in 1994, it was like you go to the library and you you do a decimal system and you're looking under magic, and you you either get lucky or you don't.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's funny, you'll hear from these magicians who ended up really good where they're like, yeah, some amazing magician donated a bunch of books to the local library, and they were exposed to gems.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas, you know, for me, like, yeah, the initial books were just not, they were fine, right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it was basic.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until probably when I was like really 16 or 17 that I got access with things like YouTube, with the launch of some magic websites.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, now I can get these books that I didn't even know how to get, you know.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: What was the what was the first trick you learned that made you really proud that you had mastered?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's a beautiful trick called Out of This World, which is done with a deck of playing cards.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's hundreds of variations.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: That was probably the first, like, real like amazing thing I learned, where someone shuffles a deck and deals it and they deal it into red and black, and it's just a beautiful effect.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was probably the first thing where like my parents were like, wait a second, like this is good.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that came early, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Nine, 10, learned it in a in a book.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the cool thing.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Magic can give you um kind of unlock something really powerful pretty quickly, which is why I think people get really into it as performers, because they're like, whoa, let's keep going.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what balance is learning the methodology, and what balance is practice?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, depends on the technique.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's some tricks where I could teach you right now and you could perform it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's pure methodology and just remembering the steps.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are techniques that, like, there's moves I'm still working on 30 years later, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's moves that I would never show an audience yet, because I'm like, it needs a few more years.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're really sanding this stuff down to be flawless.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and a lot of magicians, unfortunately, go out and perform things too early because it's like, yeah, you do want to go show people and see if it fools them, see if it flies.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then you sometimes the audiences are quite honest.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how early?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: So you're picking up this six, seven, eight onwards in sort of childhood.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: What are the tools, techniques, and things that people might not immediately assume that you were able to apply to your wider life outside of magic?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think for me, it was like my parents would have these dinner parties and I would do one or two tricks, and I was like communicating with adults, doing magic.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then I found that when I got into the real world with my teachers or with my, you know, first boss when I was 16 at a grocery store or whatever, it was like, oh, this is a real skill set.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like being able to cross generational divides and think about what are people seeing.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think from a very early age, I was fortunately able to practice my inner experience and what your experience is, right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: What are you viewing the world as?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: What am I viewing the world as?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas when you have hobbies that are just more performance-oriented, you're like, you know, in your state.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that led into marketing and stuff.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what are people thinking?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: How are they interpreting this?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why can like I see this, but you can't?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like perception is such a fascinating thing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And was that conscious realization at the time, or have you gained the language over the years to articulate that?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it came later.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: It came later for me to realize like I was magic forced me to attune to people in a way that most people were not forced to attune.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um talk to us about education and when you thought about a career.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like early on, was the idea of magic as a career even possible?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, I had no.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: This speaks to the idea of like templates and role models that allow you to create potential boxes for your future.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no one in my family was a professional artist, no one was performing.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't meet a professional magician until, you know, really like maybe 17, and that was like not even real.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, no, I had no frame for that.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a hobby that I really loved, and now it was time to get serious.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: When you when you started meeting professional magicians, were you inspired or disappointed?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think both.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think in a way I was inspired that someone could take a hobby and turn it into their full-time craft and give that experience to audiences.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Period.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think if I'm being real, I was a little disappointed sometimes by like maybe what I felt magic was being presented as.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I knew that there was Copperfield, and I knew that there was Darren Brown, and I knew that there was David Blaine, but then the people who were like, you know, living off it day to day, I was like, oh, like, could this be deeper artistically or technically or whatever?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started to meet more as it expanded and I went to magic conventions, I was like, oh, people are doing really beautiful work.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just think I had to find that and and what beautiful meant to me in those moments.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also, right, like there are a lot of people who at that time and still like trying to make a living.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that scared me because I was like, uh, like, yes, living off the art is beautiful, but man, this doesn't feel like that safe financially, you know.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like being a performing artist is hard.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like any genre, any medium.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think um, in a bizarre kind of way, I think about the Barack Obama quote that he he sort of kept waiting for the professionals to turn up.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in every chapter of his life, he you always assume the people are doing the thing you want to get to or are really good or are different.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then you get there and you realize, oh, there's levels to all of this.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, each level you go up, the the gap is tiny, but also massive to go to that next level.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: So you articulating those big names there, I imagine they are so much better than everybody else, but that it's taken years and years to develop that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the analogy would be you look at an Olympic sprinter, they work four years for a hundredth of a second.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: But it takes so much to progress up that pyramid.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's true.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And what comes up to mind is like one of the key revelations was realizing that one of my uh friends was on tour with Darren when we were, we were in our early uh 20s.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was a group of young guys who worked with Copperfield when I was in my early 20s.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: We used to in the US at this point.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are you in the UK?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the US.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And but Darren Brown, for for US listeners, Darren Brown is like just one of the best magicians mentalists in all of Europe.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And his footage kind of made its way over in the early 2010s and really one of very few people getting mainstream TV coverage during that period in the UK.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and really changed my life because he was putting it in this artistic lens and wrote a book for magicians called Absolute Magic that was really like this is a serious art form that can really move people, realize the power.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the revelation, though, was watching these guys build teams was like, oh, like the local magician in my town isn't building a team.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're not treating this like a business.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas Darren's got seven guys, you know, and he's able to then really go deep artistically and performance-wise.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: And was the realization of team and business concurrent, or was it a recognition of you need a team to do this, and that's how you get to a business?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think that kind of happened at the same time, you know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think at that point, right, I'm in my early 20s, I'm working at Google, I'm building marketing teams, and I'm like, wow, what would happen in my magic business if I had a director, if I had a marketer, if someone thought about comms, if someone handled the ticket sales?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then I could focus on my tricks even more, you know?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that like that was a period where me and my friends started getting directors and and taking it just more seriously.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what is it about the Darren Browns and the David Gulfield that make them better?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is, and this is something anyone can benefit from, is like they have a unique point of view, they have a unique brand, and they feel uniquely them.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some N of one thing happening where they just don't feel like anybody else.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Copperfield in the 80s was the first magician, as far as I know, who brought in like Broadway choreographers and Broadway directors.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, oh, that's what we're gonna do, you know?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then Darren was doing these mixes of magic and mentalism and hypnosis and storytelling in ways that were not elegant and uh uh almost a minimalist presentation to it rather than the flamboyance that had existed in the 80s and 90s.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really David Blaine, right, who was going against the flamboyance and saying, let's go on the street.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it was David Blaine and Michael Weber, these folks who worked on that show who said, no, no, no, the camera doesn't point at David, the camera points on the audience.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So my understanding is when they went into ABC in 1996 with this footage of people flipping out on the street, it was like, oh, that's now it's about the audience.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you viewers at home could react cathartically through them.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a very different.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So back to high level, it's like those famous people are finding new ground that is their unique expression flowing through, which is what I've tried to do in my own work.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: No one wants to wants to watch the second David Blaine or the second David Copperfield.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: That that finding that authenticity.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Did that did that take an element of bravery to step away from the things that you'd seen?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because we talked about role models and there's a uh a path to do things.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And in so many careers, there's like, especially the corporate world, follow these steps, go up through this hierarchy.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to us about how that felt.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's it's really scary.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like um it's so much easier to take a template that works, to take a recipe that you know is going to deliver, always knowing though that it'll be 10% not you or 50% not you.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: So when I had a show The recipe is a beautiful analogy because literally, do X get Y?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're only ever getting Y, I I have a no one crosses the road for vanilla ice cream.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's just fine.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: When I recruit, when we engage in in any fun business, I'm not looking for fine.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, if someone in recruitment, if someone says, Oh, they're really nice, I just stop.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, brilliant.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: If that's the most important thing you want to tell me about this person, that's irrelevant.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: They should be really nice as well.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: But you should be telling me they're insane.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: The hard work is amazing, the creativity, the innovation, the excitement is just off the chart.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's funny, right?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Off camera, right?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: What are we talking about?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Vegan sushi, right?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Penny in the back of the room.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about like what is the 10x thing that breaks through that is Seth Godin's word, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Remarkable.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: What would we remark on?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're remarking on the San Francisco Hills.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's different.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Vegan sushi, et cetera.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So in my work, right, it was around, yeah, what will be remarkable and what is authentically me?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the the honest truth is the more that I discovered myself outside of magic, off stage, then I could come back and I could bring these things to life and say, wow, I'm the only magician I know who's doing darkness retreats up in Oregon and doing silent meditation, but also was in tech and also loves this.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's where you're going to get some unique recipe.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the recipe we talk about.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it is, yes, it is scary and vulnerable, and you have to diffuse from your ego.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And one tool which comes from a pressman who wrote The War of Art is like, think of yourself as, you know, David Inc., not David.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is my, this is my business on stage.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an artist on stage, right?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't not all of the pokes have to hit you so deeply.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: That has helped.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: How do you make that a reality?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: How do you, how do you practice that?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first is you just log every single idea that comes, and then you're like, how do I find a safe place where I can try these ideas?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have a text thread with two of the best magicians in the world, and we are constantly throwing in bits, like comedians, being like, Hey, I heard this quote.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do a routine on it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Punch this up, so on and so forth.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very much the writer's room, right, that comedians would have.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then being like, okay, I'm going to try this tonight, you know?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's that that goes back to that ladder again.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: So if you'd have had that same conversation with the first magicians you met in a local town, the quality of the conversation is not the same.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: The ideas, the pace, the things that you're colliding.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now you're able to surround yourself with the best of the best.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: The quality of what you produce and the speed and everything increases as well.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like, you know, you're the product of the five people you hang out with, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like the bar that Ben and Colin have is like, I want to impress my mates, you know, like I want to create beautiful things.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And now, of course, I've seen so much that like the bar has also raised, and I'm being called into creating something really deep and worthy versus just, hey, I bought this trick off the sky and let me do it, which is fine.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's where we all start.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's kind of like an inner craving, you know, like nature wants to be expressed in its own way.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what that's what I feel now.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it's hard.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like you mentioned the analogy with the comedians.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of my favorite sort of philosophers of our time is Jimmy Carr the comedian.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm yes.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, most people when I say that are like, what are you talking about?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: But Jimmy Carr, the person, as opposed to the performing comedian, incredibly thoughtful and articulate.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I did quite like his lines.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, look, I work for two hours a night, there's a lot of time to read, which I quite I I like.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: What I the reality of that though is the very best comedians have an intellectual horsepower that allows them to perform at a speed and a level of intersection that others don't have.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: Is the same true of the best magicians.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: The best magicians are intellectually on a different plane.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are on a different plane on some vector.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some intellectually, but some with heart and presence, and some with improbability, and some with creativity.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's many roads to Rome.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess some physical traits with certain performers.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, totally.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: There are people who are so technically gifted, you know.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Shinlim in Las Vegas, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't really talk on stage.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we've just put out anything about verbal, but like, yeah, the things he's created.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, his brain works in a fascinating way.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this is around like it's very like strength finders, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Find your key point of leverage and develop that to a crazy 10x level and go from there.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: That goes to authenticity as well, though, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're busy trying to be a generalist in every regard, you'll be a master of none of those traits.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the market rewards 10x, right?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: The market just rewards strong point of view.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like the market rewards deep, deep resonance.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And like for me, what I tell young magicians.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is I have a career doing a hundred events a year.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a hundred people who need to think David Gerard's awesome.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now they expose me to thousands of people, but a hundred's not much, you know?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the encouragement of like, if I was a generalist, I wouldn't get noticed.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: But people are always booking me, being like, oh, we wanted like the Silicon Valley magician, right?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then we saw that the podcast, and then we saw this, and like that's going to work for our people.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Distinctly different than we want the guy who's, you know, whatever.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Insert magician name dot dot dot generic offering.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or a different brand.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like you want people to talk about, you know, if you want someone to come and do something more theatrical and big and make a helicopter appear, like I'm not the guy.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you mentioned the Silicon Valley part of it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Give us a quick tour through how you ended up there and looking back now, the sort of lessons you took from that chapter.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: In a in a in a broad sweep, it was like, I'm 21, I'm graduating.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you go to school?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Penn State in Pennsylvania.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the companies that came into Penn State were kind of more like, let's just say, Middle America, your free delays, like consumer products, target, whatever.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And like, yeah, and consulting companies and stuff.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, ah, this just doesn't feel like a match.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like none of these places feel like a match.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd been to California when I was um, I guess I was 18.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I came, I used to be a world-ranked hacky sack player.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2010, I was first in the world at playing this game, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I had come out here for the Western regionals of Hacky Sack and I'd wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: How on earth do we end up being the number one hacky sack player in the world?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: How does that happen?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: You get addicted and you go really hardcore.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: So addictive personality is a trait throughout, is it?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Addictive.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I learned very early how to get really good at things.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that's like this repetitive task that has like kind of a physical element, but can also be like refined.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like magic is like that, right?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: All these moves.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Footback was like that, hacky sack was like that, with kicking this small object.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a soccer coach, like a football coach who was like, hey, like you guys can play this at the bus stop to get better.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: But then I saw online that there were these tricks, and I was like, oh, wait a second.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that was like hardcore.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Magic was second to that for a long time.
• 24:30
  unknown: Interesting.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: What were the crossover attributes from hacky sack to magic?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: The repetitive movement refinement thing of just like, yeah, do this a hundred times.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: Where's your mind when you're doing that?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is it meditative?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is your mind wandering off?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Are you focused on that?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty focused.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:50
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the idea is like I've always been really good at the kind of, you know, the marshmallow test, Stanford marshmallow test.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's really good to put in this conversation where they have these kids and they do something to this effect where they're like, hey, there's a marshmallow you can eat right now.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you wait 10 minutes, we'll give you a second marshmallow.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then the kid makes a decision.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that the kids who wait are able to delay the gratification and get the two marshmallows.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like they track these kids for 40 years, right?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh, they're able to delay.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: They and they they raise the fund and wait two years or whatever, right?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: They have longer time apertures.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was, I just realized, like, oh, put in the 100 reps now and then later, like it will come.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where that came from, but that was very different than people who are like, this is hard, I'm out.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And like a lot of people are just like, This is hard, I'm out, you know?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um I can't remember who the quote it was maybe an Alex Harmosy quote, and he's like, Did you expect this not to be difficult?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so many people do in they say they want something.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I want to run a marathon for avoidance of that.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to run a marathon.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I want to run a marathon.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, are you are you training?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, it's awfully hard.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Did you expect this thing you wanted to achieve not to be difficult?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that just goes into this like, I think social media and and culture kind of messes up our idea of like what actually is the exchange rate of time to value, you know?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Back to the other point, which was the career in tech.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially, right, I had been to California.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I say to myself, I would like to live there.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then I just did this weird thing.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Someone, I think it was a mentor who was like, okay, you have a marketing degree.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: If what is your dream product to market?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, it's Google Docs.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was running this 500-person club at Penn State on Google Docs, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: This was early, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: On Drive and stuff and pushing people to collaborate, right?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't use Microsoft, use this.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so through the HackySack world, there was an engineer who worked at Google.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, hey man, can you I like just put my resume in, please?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, this is real.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, no.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like we hired from heart, we hired from Harvard and Yale and Stanford, dude.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like Penn State, like state school, cool, but like not gonna happen.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, just like there's this sales role, not even marketing, a sales role.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think I would be great at it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, he was like, okay.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then like I got a phone screen.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember like it was yesterday.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm, you know, 21 in the middle of Pennsylvania on the phone, and I was just talking about magic and I was talking about Google Docs.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was unique, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: It stood out because what one of the reasons that Penn State was great was it was like there were 500-person marketing clubs because it was 40,000 kids.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't really happening at other schools, or I would have had to compete in crazy ways.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that was a unique story.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that's again, that's bravery again to be open and authentically you on that call, whereas so many people would have been formulaic with I've got this GPA, I've done this and this and this.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think what's funny is I was like, there's no way I'm getting this job.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I might as well hail Mary.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Freedom.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's no limitation.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll just throw I'll just throw it, you know?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's um that's literally how I met.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'm now happily married to my wife.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I just broke up with a previous relationship, and I was like, I have no interest in relationships of any kind again.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: I was at uni at the time.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, right, I'm gonna be so overtly honest about everything.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Evidently that works.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe it stripped you down to your authentic self.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, that wasn't great at the time.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was quite an angry 23-year-old.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: But my wife's done a lot of work to make me plausible.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, right, she got a job at Google and sales, that came through, which is beautiful, and then moved into marketing and did marketing on Google products.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was my dream, you know, to really be on the marketing side, even though I think I learned more in sales anyway.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Say more.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: We were working with huge companies externally, you know, GoPro and Hallmark and Walgreens, and like how well shaped were um sort of go-to-market product lines and revenue streams at that point?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because early on, it was trying to figure out how this would even be monetized.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, I definitely came in in like the third or fourth chapter where it was pretty solid.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that was still like really new was it was kind of like they were given 22-year-olds books of business of millions and millions of dollars.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was kind of hilarious, but beautiful.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was that time where it was like, I remember meeting with the CMO of Hallmark.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was like 23 or 24.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what do I know about the digital strategy of Hallmark, which in the States is a huge brand, and was going through this transition as like digital cards were online and stuff.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, what's gonna happen here?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, or GoPro was one of my clients and they were exploding.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: This was when like the Hero 2 and Hero 3 were coming out, and they were like, Do we buy the YouTube homepage or do we buy ads on ESPN?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like real million-dollar conversations.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was crazy to be in those rooms, but the product line was pretty solid.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: But attribution online was like that was the thing that everyone talked about.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we track this stuff?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do we know?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it was anyway, I could go on for days about that.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: But um was that the first time a real focus on data and analytics had entered your world?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my world, yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which is actually a really interesting point because I feel like I sailed by for a long time on just the presentation skills be and and just pure leadership, like being the person in the room being like, all right, guys, let's rally.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was just always me.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't stand 20 seconds of people being like, who's gonna handle this?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: I got it, you know?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: But then yeah, at Google, it was like it was so data backed and so data driven.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: You just on the presentation bit you mentioned there, I think people would immediately assume that the presentation only relates to the external expression of what you're doing.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's what you're listening and seeing.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And this comes back to your dinner table performance with your parents' friends, right?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: You were also able to put into the world, but you're getting that constant feedback from others as well.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, totally, totally.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I saw so many magicians who were really the only person being fooled was themselves because they weren't hearing from the audience and weren't listening.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I was running mini focus groups when I was nine to be like, mom, can you see the card in my hand?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can you see the coin in my hand?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know how that worked?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, yeah, it was cringy when people figured it out, but it was like, I don't want to walk around blind.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: The same way when I worked with CEOs who had these grand assumptions about what users thought.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd be like, that's not true.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard the train analogy for this?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Two people climb aboard a train, one of them realizes it's going to the wrong station straight away, the other doesn't until it gets there.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: Which person do you want to be?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'd want to know straight away.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this happens all the time.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and it's tough because you bring in ego and you're like, I've been doing this this way for five years, and so on and so forth, and it's like, okay, sorry.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: Did you recognize the threat of ego early in life?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that like yeah, I feel like I was not maybe early, but I mean, definitely in college.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I was just watching people who had a lot of ego and weren't open to hearing from people.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like those backroom chats about them did not feel good.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I was like, I don't want that.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and then I over-rotated to like feedback from everyone, which can be way, way overwhelming, you know.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then you lose your leadership vision because you're just vanilla.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really a spectrum.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you got to find the middle where you're like, cool, Sarah doesn't like me, and I know what's true for the organization.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I mean, literally, we were in Vegas directing the show that I directed, and we're in the lobby afterwards, just talking to everyone.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: At one point, we had a QR code up and people could do like a Google form.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is not normal, but it was in magic.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have to know.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think that worked?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because if they think they know, they think they know.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's almost an inversion on the feedback as well, though, isn't there?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because in any form of professional life, the feedback you want is from the best of the best.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, that's you said it before, you you show tricks to fellow magicians.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: They react in different ways, they see different things and they know it.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: So actually, you you can't have warped.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: You you can't apply the, oh, I wouldn't ask this person for advice, so I'm not taking feedback because they are the client, the customer, the audience member, the participant.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's so interesting.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Jimmy Carr back in the mix, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Every night he tries new jokes on stage and he says the audience will tell me.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: So he's not running that by Jerry Seinfeld.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's like, what do the the punters think?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's real.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I will also just invite us into like, yes, we want feedback as leaders from the best of the best, but on our teams, we know we have A players, B players, C players.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: We did an acquisition, and it turns out Jeff's a D or whatever.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, he's here right now.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like, when I was more into coaching with executives, you know, we do a 360, and it's like, these are the people who we need to lead on the mountain.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not Simon Sinek and Brene Brown, it's Jeff and Sarah.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: They matter.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and so that's kind of like, yeah, there was a lot of that in the valley I felt when I worked there of this like a player thing.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, people are developing, people are gonna be here for 18 months.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: They matter in this moment.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: We need to listen.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Throughout your story, there's been examples of you pulling in inspiration and ideas from everywhere and that sort of changing you as a person.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: So in the Google chapter, and analytics and data started arriving.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: How did that impact you and and what you've done since then?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think the first the first thing is that I realized that there were some people who were not going to come on board with my ideas unless they had data, unless they had that in their brains.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it was this interesting blend in my meetings when we were moving through these ideas of how can I satisfy the left, the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain and fuse these together.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's a gap in my skill set, then I'm gonna need to build people around me who are great at this.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there were so many great analysts at Google, you know, who could slice through SQL and put together beautiful things.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I had great partnerships with them where we where we valued each other's skill sets, you know.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: A book that changed my life was Who Not How.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of this?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like, yeah, okay, I need Matt because he's a data analyst, and I'm gonna be the one who like closes the presentation.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, it was just it just had to come online.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: It had to, or else I'd just be like the showman, you know?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is that feature in um your shows and performance now in terms of the data side of things?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I feel like it's in a way that maybe I wouldn't well, actually, it's really alive for me right now because oh, this is great.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad I didn't think we'd get here.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like now, my normal format is I do my show and then I do a talk.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I do my show for like 30 or 40 minutes, and then I talk for 20 or 30.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the balance is different.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was at Stanford two nights ago for the MBA program, and I only did 20 minutes of material and then talked for like 30.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, the idea is that that talk right now is not very data backed.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: The data, well, forgive me, the data is from 30 years on stage and being in tech and all of these things and performing for hundreds of audiences.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm really craving like neuroscience data about presence, about eye contact, about the nervous system.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know there's people in the room who won't get on the train until they they hear that.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: Has anyone explored sort of um remote sensing as it relates to magic?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: So bear with me.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Across the landscapes we manage thousands of acres, we are constantly monitoring water quality, uh, temperature, uh, the estate itself, the number of trees that are there, the tree growth and things like this.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: In in a theatre setting, you could monitor temperature, you could monitor the audio response to the audience.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, you could set up various sensors that would literally capture what they're saying about the show.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: And with the with the absolute proliferation of large language models, you could process all of that and get genuinely immediate sentiment score from an audience.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, this is rich.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few things.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first is like there's famous stories of magicians hiding in the bathroom after their show.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: To hear it's the technological small language model, if you will, right?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then there just this morning, there's some new Facebook ad product where they can basically like um they hooked a bunch of people up, showed them a bunch of content to really understand like when are people swiping and not to get engagement instead of just guessing.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or instead of having to do a big launch and then be like, this is where people dropped, it's we can proactively know this.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: So then I guess phase three is like in a theater hooking up thing, people, things to people.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: The artist side of me kind of like rebels against that.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And because I think if we're just catering to the audience 100% and trying to like maximize the right line at the right time, it's just a different game.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna happen though.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: There will be the AI magician.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: That that person's about to, and and you will have a theater whereby the seat in front of you is gonna have a camera in the back of it and it's gonna observe your facial gestures and everything, and your temperature and your heart rate, and we'll get all that data and it'll be optimized.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, they'll roll that in sports stadiums as well, because you're seeing these really advanced seats now and interactive things and stuff.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, cool, I'm here for it, right?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, I think about presidential debates with like the thumb up, thumb down, thumb up, thumb down, and we can track sentiment and see where that goes.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: And like although that assumes that people know what they feel and are expressing it in the right way.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, great, right?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: That the conscious up down, and then there's like the the underneath.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I'm doing this in my own way, watching the audience.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Even a few nights ago, they were like, Where do you want the lights?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, bring them up.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to see these people.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want I want the feedback live to know who's engaged and who's not.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the LLM.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I would just need to come more to the light of like, but I'm the guy doing surveys after shows.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: But even some art like people I've talked to are like, that's that's weird.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: So Rick.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like Rick Rubin, you know who Rick Rubin is.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like most of you know, the um, what is it called?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: The creative act is like, this is your diary.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: You put it out there, and then like that's it.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's the act, not the like this feedback mechanism.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got Jimmy Carr, Rick Rubin, us.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: We all get to decide.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I was I was gonna come on to and ask actually, in terms of has there been examples where there's been a strong signal from multiple audience, and you've gone, that's just not the performer I want to be.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to go that way.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: I like doing this this way.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is for me ultimately.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think about there are tricks that I have that get bigger reactions and screams, and they're just not like interesting to me.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or I feel like other people kind of do similar things.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've really like gone away from some of those things.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I like purposely read books from the 30s and 40s to find material that people aren't doing now.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just I don't want someone in the audience being like, oh, I kind of see I've kind of seen this, you know.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: It hurts.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: That that yeah, that really hurts.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: What's more valuable thinking about the past or the future?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I don't know if I can choose a side on that.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think people tend to.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think some people take their inspiration from history and tend to look back, whereas others who uh adopt a more a more tech, a more futuristic approach tend to be so wedded to that way.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: What I think is unique about your perspective is you're like, nope, I want to see 360.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: I want inspiration from everywhere.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just like I don't, it's funny.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: So many people set up these like false binaries and just like hate spectrums.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they hate nuance.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: And like smart people have said like the internet is not built for nuance, you know.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love long form stuff, but that's not the jam for a lot of folks.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're just craving these big headlines.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like yellow journalism, right?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, but wait a second, like, real point of view is nuanced and real dialogue.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason this isn't three minutes.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, with the past-future thing, I think there are seasons.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, right now, for my audiences, I am thinking a lot about the future because I'm on stage for people who are really trying to figure out what is coming next and how do they present, because that's my topic in that new world.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when I'm writing a theater show, oh, it's about the past for me.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have such a deep um connection with the lineage of magic and the past masters.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm all about it, right?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there's gems that have not been exposed.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: I did a trick the other night on stage from 1924, and it's like still killing, you know?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like I have such pride that that's alive.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then the other thing is my meditation, you know, background like I mean, I'm reading things that are 2,000 years old, you know.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Diamond Sutra, right, is 2,000 years old.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you read fiction as well?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: I thought you were gonna say yes.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't at all.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: We should.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that yes, we probably should, shouldn't we?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Especially you, because um especially you do it first, then I'll follow.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um especially you because magic and imagination.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is my thing where it's like for sure.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what's funny is I haven't seen a lot of movies.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't like, yeah, I just in the stack of stuff, I just haven't, yeah, I haven't carved it and I've tried.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it would be helpful because I don't have a good grasp on narrative technique.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm really good at kind of in-person story development, present these like slides or this idea.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the re the show in Vegas that Colin and I worked on so deeply that is thankfully the highest rated show in Vegas right now, which is nuts.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is an experience, right?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not as grounded in story.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think I could work on Darren's show because he's doing these long narratives.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that is my craving.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Read more fiction, read the classics, watch the a hundred great movies.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: How do you make sure to be additive to what's you and not end up making it a vanilla?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh I mean, I think it's like what comes up for me is having my friends and creators.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Partners say, yeah, that's that's David.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's uniquely you.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Good example.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: I did this workshop in January for 50 magicians in Ohio.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was an hour long.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like, one of my buddies was like, 20 minutes of that was like, I think, N of one.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the other stuff kind of felt generic.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's that 20 minutes?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe all the movies and whatever turn into 60 minutes and then we find the 20.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just like this constant harnessing and finding of the unique platform.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: Those those buddies that will be that honest with you, that understand you and the art to a level.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: How long have they been in your life?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: 15 years.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: I've got two of them as well.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's so important, right?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I think I feel like they've seen us in these different scenarios to be able to pause and be like, they're they're able to reference like the speech you gave at my wedding, the way that I saw you with this ex-partner, the way that I saw you when we were on mile seven.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're there, it's so much wider.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of like, you know, AI companions and stuff, for sure, go for it.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's like 15-year friendships where like you were, you know, crying outside a Vegas nightclub.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no robots saw that.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's context, isn't it?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: So they can say there's more here, there's something more rich here.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like my friend just did a beautiful show in the city about the passing of his father.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: And afterwards, when we had chats, I was like, hey, there's things you've told me about your dad that weren't in the show.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: When um in your Silicon Valley phase, was David the magician and the professional the same person?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, slightly no different.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and actually it's funny because I don't the performer David, so for context, in my in that period, I was probably doing like 60, 70, 80 shows a year and doing the marketing at the same time.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: And did both parts of your world know that?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh not fully.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like my teams, I don't think realized how many nights a week I was going out doing magic.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, cause I was scared that they would be like, you're not all in on the company, which was kind of true.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and there were benefits to not being so in, but then there were people I couldn't compete with because they were just, it was their only thing, you know?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're only and I'm like, I'm building this other thing.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm flying down to LA for America's Got Talent, you know.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is hard.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on my laptop trying to send off an email campaign before I direct something.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hardcore, a weird time.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, who you are in your corporate world is a 50-hour a week adventure on stage is an hour.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, it's just not um, I can't be David Girard all day in the office.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not sustainable.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I it seems perhaps funny that um you spend so much of your life performing now, but my sense is you get to be one person more now than you ever did then.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: Which is super cool.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: How does how does that uh feel different in terms of energy and emotionally?
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it's it's it's just like um taking off the costumes, taking off the masks, taking off the kind of like box, and then you can just like be like, oh, this is just me without an edit, without director's notes, without being this way for this investor at this moment.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a blessing, right?
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this whole conversation is based in wild privilege, right?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: That this is even a thing, and just luck of the magic set at six.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, like the scalable way is to be yourself.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I don't know.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's why I was burned out and to a crisp because of the constriction.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I did um nine years working in government, and it by the sounds of it, the two parts of your world certainly had an overlap.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: They were different, but there was an overlap.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: Me as a human and what I was was so different.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: I ended up having migraines every month because just the pressure to just be this other person all the time.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: And also in that environment, you're being dishonest all the time as well.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that that weighed on me so heavy.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: I hated it.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not natural.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, the word is natural.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is natural?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: What feels natural?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I was lucky enough to get in startups then, which felt even more natural than Google, where it was fast and it was fun, and we were on the whiteboard and we were moving quickly.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just can't be in unnatural environments for that long.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Other people are really good at it.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you meet people for 15 years who have been miserable.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: They find a protection in it almost, like a company.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's safe.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's safe and and uh yeah, you know, you you take your friction in different ways.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: During the the sort of valley phase, was there always a view that if there's a way, I'm I'm building towards exiting to the performance world?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, it was either the performance world or I'll just start my own company.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, what are the skills and knowledge that I want before I do that?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: And would that have been in the marketing space?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not sure what it would have been.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh, you know, it's like every entrepreneur, you have this list of ideas and stuff, but none of them ever grab me enough.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the unfortunate thing now is that I'm so addicted to my lifestyle and the flex and flow that to jump into a 60-hour a week grind game.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'd have to really figure out how to do it.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm very interested in like AI therapy, AI coaching, AI like presentation feedback.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like how could I mean look, I see CEOs present every week and like the presentations are I don't know, C pluses, like B minuses.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what if they could film themselves practicing and you know how you know they're doing this for sales calls now in crazy ways, and it's really helpful.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd I'd be interested in building something like that.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so bring us extras from the valley and sort of bring us through the little steps that have got us to where we are today.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, basically it was like I was doing like a hundred shows a year, you know, after COVID for like a year or two.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was at this lovely Sequoia back company called Alto.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was turning down work in Florida and turning down work in New York, and I was like, wow, this is now like I'm like losing a lot of money.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like a big physical, emotional, mental load doing that, just that volume you were dealing with.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a reason I'm 37 and single.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you can only take so much.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know who could ride this, this I can barely ride the train.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, you know, doing it with a crew is is hard.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, which is fine, like this is where we are.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: But so, yeah, after COVID, I was like, this is way too much, and I'm turning down so much money on the road.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: And really, you know, it was actually I this was the frame.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, there are probably a thousand marketers or more in the valley who are as good or better than me, and like much better.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, in the magic game, man, like I it's kind of like I don't even know the number because I'm I feel like I'm unique and have this interesting fusion.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's a hundred or fifty.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let me chase that.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was my VP of design at Alto who saw my show and the next morning came into the office and was like, I don't know why you work here.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, What I saw last night, I think that needs to be shared and spread.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: And what would it look like?
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think these were my words, but maybe his.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: What would it look like if that was your focus?
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: What would it look like if this wasn't some Skunk Works project on Thursday night?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, he was like, right, like, what would it look like?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: And what was the time gap between that conversation and you stepping full-time?
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: Six months.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it it wasn't pure stage performance at that point.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: So or was it?
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: When did you start blending the coaching and the almost consultancy as well alongside that?
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so once I left tech, then I was performing, let's say that was 90% of my energy.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: Some old startup relationships wanted consulting.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: So like I did things like that for a little bit, eventually kind of dropped all that.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like all whiteboard with people, but that's about it.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, with the AI tools in marketing rising, I was like, I'm my edge is not here.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is not my sharp edge.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that if I was juggling four balls, I would drop some and not do great work for clients.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, but then yeah, the coaching came online because I just got I just wanted to talk to people about their truth and what does it look like for their truth to expand?
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: And where are they, what's their edge?
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm I'm just so interested in these conversations.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was blessed that like executives would see my show and then I would just mention, hey, happy to work with people.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: And people were like, hey, like, you know, one of my clients was like, I just know my all hands can be better.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know it.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, it's hard.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have people at my company who can see those gaps.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're not professional performers.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but then we come in and it's like, oh, it's really interesting.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you make no eye contact.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's really interesting.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's no personal stories in this at all.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Basics.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess your teams are kind of virtually formed at the moment in terms of um you said about almost, you know, David Inc.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: and you articulated earlier about the sort of higher profile magicians putting those teams around them.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: Are these more virtual teams for you that will come together for a show or an event and you'll work across?
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I'm not doing runs in theaters.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: People who do runs in theaters can kind of have more local, you know, kind of masses.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, since I'm in a hundred different cities a year, it's just different.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be more kind of liquid and have a great operations manager and have people who kind of come into different projects.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the coaching is really solo.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then some of the group facilitation I'll do with other facilitators based on what their background is or where they're special.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or like the Stanford thing was with, you know, professors who specialize in business.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's super cool.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: I love, I love the range of the stuff you get to work across.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks, man.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, that means a lot.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I just follow what seems interesting and fun.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even though there's a range of medium, like the core thing is still the same.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: The core thing is always attention, presence, and just how do you connect with people?
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Magic, whatever, men's work, meditation, coaching, etc.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just nothing like it's kind of like what keeps you up at night.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what keeps me up at night is people trying to move forward their ideas and hitting friction because of low-hanging fruit.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: What does the um what does the next chapter look like?
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we're um we're visiting San Francisco for Climate Week.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: Good to have you.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Every every single billboard is AI related.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: Every bus, every train, every conversation, every Waymo.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this city is all AI, which I was super, super.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I have a PhD in data analytics.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is like my dream scenario that this has presented itself at this time.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I I couldn't I couldn't be happier about this.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I came to San Fran hoping to feel and see that energy, and it's everywhere, right?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: AI's taken over a city.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: How um what does it feel like living here right now?
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh wait, what how did it feel?
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: You had this dream.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: This dream is is is is here.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like what what is the what what is the dream, and then what are the nightmare elements?
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I first came to the West Coast in 2006.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: So um half of this story is half of it's I felt authentically at the time, the other half has presented itself retrospectively over the years.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: So flew across with the Great Britain American football team at the time.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: We stayed on UCLA's campus and we played against like Div two and three colleges up and down the West Coast.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: So uh always loved everything data, and you know, American football is such a data-rich sport, you know, the plays are described in numbers, they monitor and track everything.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I arrived, I'm doing a PhD in half environmental stuff, half big data.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I threw tiny little GPSs in rivers, recorded ones and zeros, and they modeled how water moved.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: So the sensors I was putting in the environment are the ones we talked about you could put in theatres and things like that.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: So Google had just IPO'd, um, YouTube had launched, Facebook was at Harvard, but nowhere else.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm the first person in my family to finish high school, never mind go to college.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: Weren't allowed to talk about money, had no concept of business.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: There were no role models.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_02: I come from Northeast in the UK, but in the uninteresting bit where, you know, I playfully say it's where ambition went to die.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: No one did anything interesting.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: My dad was a builder, my mum was a cleaner.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_02: It was just aspiration and inspiration was not a thing.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: All of a sudden, I'm this data geek guy on the West Coast going, oh my God, I could have a business, I could do things, data's coming.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: So minds opened about that.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: Fast forward 20 years, I've been through the government, I've been through commercial stuff, finished the.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I came out of the PhD within six months of the financial crisis.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: So nowhere was recruiting.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I went to work for the government, but ended up exploring the environment.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: We we come, sustainability becomes more aware, people understand climate change a bit more and the nature crisis we're all facing.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, the environment, tech, data, all the things that had been passionate about my child and background suddenly converge.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: Got it.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: And everyone at the moment is arguing that AI is an existential threat to the environment and to nature.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's the exact opposite.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: So if you go back, and again, it's why I asked you the question about it's funny you're pulling out why I asked certain questions.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I talked about how some people look to history and others look to the future.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: The reality is if we look to the industrialists that changed the world in the past, the railroads, the factories, they became the philanthropists, the benefactors that built the incredible architecture in buildings.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: I honestly believe the more digital the world becomes, the more reliant upon it is of nature.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: So all everyone talks about cloud computing and things.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: These clouds are massive physical data centers that need space and a huge amount of water and a huge amount of energy and have a huge carbon footprint.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: All those things can only be provided by the environment and nature.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the anthropics, the open AIs, the Googles, the XAI, they are going to be the benefactors for the environment sector.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: Not in a philanthropic way.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're going to invest in this part of the world because if you want to anthropic were 30 billion uh revenues, right?
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to diversify the amount of cash they have on hand, they can't put it anywhere that won't be disrupted by AI, that won't be disrupted by AI, that isn't a real asset.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they're going to have to put it into land and physical infrastructure and things.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I literally feel like the entire world has pivoted and come to our business model.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: Got it.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I arrive here and every billboard is going, no, no, no.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: It should be data-based, it should be AI-based.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I have the only company in the UK that brings together environment and data at the same time.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, beautiful.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that word of convergence makes total sense now of kind of all these trains coming together for you.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you land and see these on billboards, it's like the time is now and you're welcome to.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_03: This feels like it's a simulation for us.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_03: It it seems so surreal.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because that presence of it is not in the UK.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: So like 10% of people are playing with it.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's still at that.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: You've spent time in living.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: How long were you in the UK for?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've spent a lot of time there over the years, but like living there only a quarter for Google.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_02: Fine.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_02: So there isn't the audacity, there isn't the ambition, there isn't the ideas or the momentum or the entrepreneurial spirit.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's not there.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: And if someone comes with a new tool or technique, the answer is, yeah, we probably shouldn't do that.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: We don't need it.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas here it's like, cool, let's look at that.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let's explore it.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do part of the trip across here was I hear a lot.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think we talked about it when we first spoke.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: In many ways, I'm a bit like a cliche Silicon Valley founder.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: I have a PhD in data analytics.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: I played sport at a high level.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a British accent and I throw weights around.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like the bingo card for what they'd want to back as a startup founder.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we constantly get told, why are you doing this in the UK?
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: It would be so much easier in the US.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: You would have billions thrown at you because you're so unique as a business.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we thought, well, we'll come across and see what I think about San Francisco.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's really helpful, man.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I didn't know that that chapter is obviously critical to answer your question of what it feels like to live here.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess it feels like living on the edge.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it feels like living on the kind of like it's almost overwhelming for me.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not seeing the roller coaster.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: And like I don't even have a full-time job in tech, you know, but my friends work at these places, open AI and stuff, right?
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, but then it what's so weird is I spend, you know, I'm probably here half the time, and then I'm on the road the other half.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is like my gigs are in Dallas and Nashville and Chicago and Seattle and Florida.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like that infusion is so valuable to be like, yeah, what's real?
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: AI is not on these billboards.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just speak this lexicon.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's fascinating to me.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think it's, yeah, it's it's nature put me here at this moment, right?
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: To kind of feel into that and and feel this moment.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have much more there.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: So um talk to us about the you choose.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: You can go optimistic or pessimistic first.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to us about the impact you think AI is gonna have on the world.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I almost don't even know if that's my lane.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um But the impact inside of my lane, right, is like I think about my old days where the moat was around technology and the moat was around funding, and the moat was around these resources, right?
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very basic idea.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: And now when I talk to people I used to work with and I say, hey, I think my marketing team now would be three people, not 30.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's this really interesting invitation into like, okay, well, yeah, what do we work on next?
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, or as as humans, right?
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's uniquely ours?
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone has like a view on this.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's a surprise that people have landed on storytelling and presence and authenticity, because that seems like the moat.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: Duh.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when people like Scott Galloway, you know, MBA professor Ed Stern is talking about teaching his kids storytelling and not data analysis, it's like, yeah, it makes sense, and not coding.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's um but you love it when you get an idea that it's so obvious, but you you haven't considered it before.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like someone's like poking you in the head with it.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: So yesterday we were at this incredible Salesforce event, and this this guy got on stage as part of a panel.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, that the panel was a uh 30-person uh tech startup that had really accelerated, they'd got a huge amount of notoriety, and um LinkedIn and Salesforce had come and stolen like half their team, had poached them, and they went, hmm, and they pivoted to exclusively replacing those people with agents, and they've now quadrupled their revenues, they're flying, they're now on stage explaining how these big companies should and that was a necessity.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: They needed to do that because they could no longer compete for the salaries that the big companies were facing.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was so, so fascinating to see how that necessity had created an opportunity for that.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, drives the innovation.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, that's what's happening now with people needing to figure out what they're gonna do, what we're gonna do, right?
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everyone needs to think about this.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: The the other that panel extended on and it talked about how um a law professor had spoken.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: So in the UK, the narrative is the law profession is done because almost lending itself to repetition rules and principles across a huge amount of information, it's almost like LLMs were designed to disrupt lawyers and marketers and accountants and accountants.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: And um, what's the hot take?
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: Help me learn.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: In innovative new areas, the rules are still being written.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess I mean my tax return.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's just like here it is.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um so this this panel went on and said, actually, this law professor now thinks you will need more lawyers than ever before, because everyone thinks they can write a contract now because, but it's going to need to be checked and reviewed.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the data sets that these models were trained on don't have reference to these new hobbyist contracts.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that's genius.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: The potential is there that what I love about each of these changes, and I can't remember the reference book that it came from, but I remember reading that the first ever picketed protest in New York was when they replaced humans pulling fire engines with horses.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then fast forward, there was another protest when they replaced the horses with engines.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: But each time more businesses and more ideas were created on the back of that change.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you talked about being in the valley early on, as like marketing trends were changing and how exciting that was.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, um, Penny comes from a TV background, which doesn't exist as an industry in the UK anymore, it's falling apart.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_02: But there's more people involved in podcasts now than there were in TV previously.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we will see more jobs.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: They will be completely different, but we will see so many new roles that we haven't even considered before.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not sure.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not an economist.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't really know.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know there's these like four prevailing theories, right?
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: About more jobs, less jobs, kind of human renaissance and flourishing, and then like UBI.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, yeah, there'll be winners and losers in all of this.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can't get my head around UBI.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know nothing.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I think where I'm passionate and what I'm interested in is really around like when time is created, whether we like it or not, to ask these deeper questions about why are we here.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is fascinating.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like this is maybe my hottest take that like we have a group of people who don't have their jobs anymore who have to figure out what to do, and those people are retired.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: My dad and mom had to search for purpose and meaning in a world where like Deloitte didn't want him anymore, or he didn't want to be at Deloitte anymore.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he found lacrosse and he reconnected with old friends and he coaches these kids and helps them get into college and mentors them.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it is beautiful, right?
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom refines her love of sewing or whatever it is.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then we all know people who retirement is the worst time of their lives because they find nothing, you know, and there's not these structures, you know.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just interested in that.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm interested in like talk about past and future.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, in the past, like that deep, I've had the blessing of time to do meditation retreats and go inward and be like, what is this anyway?
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: But like I'm I'm interested in being with people during that conversation because I'm not an expert at any of those other things, you know?
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm interested in people who are like, hey, my team is now 10 people, not a hundred.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: But those 10 people still need to wake up every day and feel motivated and driven to accomplish this vision and mission.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_00: And consumers need to understand you.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, still relevant.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's gonna be a chapter, and I don't think it's now because you're too busy and all over the US and beyond.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be a chapter where you could easily adapt the coaching side of things to helping people with those transitions.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: The same execs and CEOs you're coaching now, you're gonna be coaching them when they're not doing that anymore.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because that identity being ripped from them is gonna be so challenging.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_00: Full stop.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is really challenging.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, when I was at cocktail parties introducing myself now as a magician and not a marketer, I mean, that was like a huge identity, like collapse.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: Did it immediately feel cool and special?
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, oh, same all.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, I used to open with like, well, I used to work in tech.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and you apologized first.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or I was like, find me legitimate first, and then I have this weird thing.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's taken years to really embrace that.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_00: And now the new thing is maybe introducing myself now as like a speaker or a coach or a consultant again.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a second, I just got used to being a magician.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just got used to being an entertainer, but it's this constant, you know, the soil turns over, you know?
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_02: I love having how how wonderful is it that we have the flexibility to choose the hat you introduce yourself as.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I guess we all do.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I just am honoring that like a lot of people are limited and boxed and like these, the the systems are really, dude.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let me just land this.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I had a hobby that could be monetized, which allowed me to escape.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: Most not escape, but leave one thing and do the other.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: But like, I have friends who are amazing at ceramics, and I have poured, I've tried to figure out their business model, and I can't, you know?
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like that makes me really sad because I want everyone to be able to do this wave, but it is like the system is not set up for us to all explore that.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I fundamentally disagree.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_02: Bring me back, man.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um I so I adore YouTube.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna put it out there.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I always I always it there's always the clips that would run through your mind, like things you saw as a kid.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'd love to see that again.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it gives you it the ability to explore anything quickly, and it also means things don't go away.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_02: But um, for whatever reason, I I've never been to Texas, right?
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a cowboy.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm scared of horses, they're just massive, and my kids ride them, and I'm not not a huge fan.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_02: YouTube has started giving me this amazing guy who makes cowboy hats.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, right?
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And this guy, it just gives me these shorts, and I'm like, oh my god, this guy's such an incredible artist.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And for 90 seconds, he presents and shows his work, and he makes as much out of social media as he does selling cowboy hats now.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_02: I just think if you are exceptional at something, there's now a route with social media that you've got a chance.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: You don't necessarily nail it, you need to put in the hours and the repetitions that you did with the hacky sack and the cards and everything.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: But I think there's a chance, whereas 10-15 years ago, there wasn't.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I agree that there is a chance.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I will also, as we play pickleball here, like survivor's bias.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_00: This guy is like the the thing, right?
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know so many starving artists.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And even so are we.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're the we're the bullet points as well.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: You you made a a hobby into a career.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_02: I made an asset class that didn't exist.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I'm just trying to put into the the conversation that like a lot of people don't have the three hours at night to like study magic books.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm very interested in like the societal factors that are limiting people from even asking these questions or having two hours to watch this.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's why I'm so interested in meditation, because that is the back pocket free tool that literally anyone has a chance at to become more regulated so they don't flip out to the barista or don't, or can, yeah, or can have a little more energy at the end of the day to read the thing that turns into the cowboy book.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is so real.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the the downside of living here is that it's so easy to just be pie in the sky future oriented and not actually like present-oriented around like yeah, millions of people are not doing well.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_02: We've we talked about longevity and sort of um, I love the phrase you, and I don't know if we caught this when we started rolling, the your recognition that you were an athlete.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Can you remember when that came?
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, I mean, it came when I was doing like I was on flights all the time, and then I was doing shows where I was tired, and I was like, these people paid a lot of money to have me here, and I'm tired.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Something's busted here, and I'm living my dream job, and it feels like a nightmare.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Something is wrong.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, you know, Stephen Bartlett, right, diary CEO, said, like, you know, your health is the tectonic plate that everything sits on.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that struck me where I was like, maybe my health's off, you know, and I had to really take a look and reduce the number of gigs and fly in the night before instead of the day of and all these things.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I think I'm just an athlete now.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I realized was that on people buy things that they want access to that they don't have.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are people buying when I do my show?
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, mystery and wonder, but this energy and vitality, and that would come from an athlete.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, yeah, LeBron doesn't play year-round.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, duh.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It just coming from Silicon Valley, where that's not even an idea, like rest is still like a kind of a novel concept, right?
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had to readjust to athlete mindset because it just like wasn't available to me.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't make sense.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_02: And where did you start pulling inspiration and learning and ideas from to craft your system and routine now?
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just started taking down content of people who I thought were grounded and balanced and seemed like they had the vitality that I wanted.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I got very much into this guy named John Weineland, who's like a somatic teacher around breath work and meditation and dealing with things.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And him and his one of his main uh fellow collaborators, Ted Ryder, became my coach.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Ted, this guy is, you know, I don't know, in his late 50s and just has the vitality of someone in their 30s.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what are you doing?
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's here?
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was introduced to, you know, what I did before the podcast, the qi gong, the basic movements, the breathwork, the meditation.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like before that was kind of a Brian Johnson meme about how to live forever.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then it became a like, no, this is how I serve my audiences.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I will do a better job and be here if XYZ.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_02: That service of the audience is really fascinating.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: So um I I speak a lot and do a lot of events, very different to yours.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um maybe.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I I'm nowhere near as theatrical and the stage presence, I'm sure, is very different.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um but when I come off, the only question I ask, so I'll often have team members in the audience as well, and we'll try.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_02: I want to know what they thought.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because in my mind, I am serving them specifically rather than the audience, because people aren't paying to come and see me.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, however, I am representing the business when I do that.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not me in that as much as I am like the CEO of the business.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_02: So checking in with our team, you know, were you happy with that?
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Did you like that?
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_02: We what did you think?
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_02: And if they're happy, I love that.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's the best affirmation.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it seems like you've surrounded yourself with people you trust.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And and will tell you when it's off.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the key bit.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And as a CEO, that can be quite difficult because people, it's harder the bigger the business get, and the further people are away from you.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we're 50 odd people now.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_02: The first sort of 30, I would work with all of them very closely.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_02: So they would know they could say, That's that's bullshit, Rich.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas we're now in those chapters where people they're working, there's like four or five people between me and someone who's on an estate, and I get treated as the CEO, not rich.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you can try and push that back, but ultimately it they're having so little interaction with me, I am going to make a judgment on their performance or their ability.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it isn't the same as the people I spend all the time with.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I just try and be really conscious about that and try and keep the inflow information as much as possible.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think this is where this is where external people can be quite helpful around the like consultants, coaches, whatever.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I benefit from often they will have other keynote speakers at events, those people will watch my show, and that's who I want feedback from.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know me, there's no reason for them to fall in love with me, and they specialize in this.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is hard to see.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_00: The things that I see in magic shows are impossible for layman to see.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I just know the language and the yeah, I just know it more.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Are there any are there any things from the stage that you would routinely use in everyday life?
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_00: The number one, there's a few.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is breathing.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the more that I'm breathing and can feel my breath, like right now, and the more that I'm breathing here instead of here, I believe, and there's probably studies to back this up, that everything becomes more grounded.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think it's calmer and it's just more present, and people can feel the liquid presence that is now flowing between us.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that is number one.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: The more that I moved my breath and became conscious of it on stage, the better everything got.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was one.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I just know a lot of people who aren't even conscious of their breathing.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'll do three deep breaths with an audience, and it's like people went on vacation, you know?
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's a reason this is thousands of years old.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I have not even begun to look at what that could bring to me.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that would be a complete area of performance improvement for me to explore.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that's going on my list of learnings from.
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just saw a method, it's in a TED talk.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_00: He had the science of three deep breaths, and it was just like fascinating.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like the decision making, the stuff that comes online, the nervous system lowering.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's huge.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and so for me, that's just oh, so much more is available in that moment.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Two is really studying eye contact and feeling the way that eye contact changes my audience.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so the tip that I give most executives on stage comes from one of my mentors, this guy Juan Tomariz in Spain.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it is to imagine that you have uh threads connecting your eyes to everyone in the audience, and that there is basically these threads drop over the course of a presentation.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And every time you look at someone again, or just a general area, not always possible with hundreds of people, yeah, then the threads come back up.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of people talk about scanning the audience, but this is a visual you can remember, which is that there's this quilt with these threads, and I'm constantly picking up the threads, my whole show changed because people are like, he's here, you know?
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_00: These are a few of the things.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Gorgeous.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of the things I do differently for most of the speakers in my sector is uh I recognize there's an audience there.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_02: So everyone else turns up, and the amount of people who present like this are monotone lecturers, we've all had bad lecturers.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so that type of approach.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas actually I want that interaction.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't as um sort of purposeful as which you've just described in terms of the the quilt and picking up those threads, but I am looking and scanning, and I'm trying to find ways to bring people in the audience into what I do.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I I'll do audience participation.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I went and uh taught at Gothenburg, I taught a hundred MBA students at Gothenburg Uni in Sweden.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I started with right, let's let's test this.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Who in here wants to be an entrepreneur when they uh when they finish?
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_02: What who's going where career-wise?
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_02: And also, um, who thinks carbon markets are gonna go up massively in about I love this story, um, massively in value over time.
• 1:19:38
  SPEAKER_02: So the price of carbon.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_02: 99 out of 100 hands went up.
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, dude, I've got to ask, you're the only hand that's down.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_02: How come he's like, oh no, I think they will.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_02: I just like being contrarian.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I love that answer.
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it just makes it a richer experience.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_02: When I try and stay, when I try and work off a script or or something that's really structured, I feel as if I lose my authenticity and my energy and my ability.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_02: How do you balance having a show, a routine, but also keeping that alive and that energy?
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of the way that I think about it is what is the layer that always needs to work and always has to be here from a scripting perspective?
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_00: There is a vision that I have for the audience, and there is a there are things I want them to see.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your key points, if you will.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're not improving those.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So now how can I bring that into a deep subconscious level?
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So all my resources are available.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I've realized in magic was the more I practice something, it's this is like in sport.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's just muscle memory now.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we bring all of this into muscle memory?
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's like system resources on a computer.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have 98% available GPU.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_00: I work with speakers who have like 3% GPU available, like almost nothing.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So to them to even feel their feet or breathe in this moment, they're dead before you start.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_02: The analogy I've heard is uh Formula One car drivers.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, tell me.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_02: So they say um there's two drivers, or three actually, Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstaffen, and Fernando Alonso, who can drive the car with like 50% of their cognitive ability.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll hear it.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_02: They'll be commenting on stuff that's on a screen or they're doing 200 miles an hour saying, Oh, I saw so-and-so in the big screen go around that corner.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is a whereas that's what I mean about those levels again.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_02: The people who aren't quite at that level, they need every ounce of con they've got no GPU left.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_02: They are on it, focused on a percent.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, when I work with a new magician and I can tell him struggling with a technique on stage, I say, Do you think you're good at that?
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how much are you focused on the move, the technique?
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh yeah, then get it out of your show.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I strip out and I can do some hardcore moves.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're not in my show because I can't be here with you.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that is presence is the hot commodity.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're not wearing Apple watches.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's no screens.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're not distracted.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hot commodity, right?
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_00: All I want you to say when I leave here is David was here for two hours and gave everything.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_00: He emptied the tank.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was here.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not distracted.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and if I am distracted, I can come back very quickly because of the meditation.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I come back because I feel my breath.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I reground and body scan.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_00: All these things help me.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a um a cue or a physical trick to allow you to get back present again?
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, what happens when you m meditate a lot is that your awareness actually just starts to um it just comes back because happens is there's in this one lineage called Mahamudra, which is from Tibet, there's all these different ways that you open to awareness.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let me explain.
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sound is one that's really helpful for me.
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I hear your voice and I'm back.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_00: For other people, it's physical sensation.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm back.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_02: When you're in a big, um, a busy coffee shop or restaurant, do you get stuck on certain voices in the room?
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I I find it really difficult if there'll be a voice somewhere, and I'll, for whatever reason, I'll get stuck on it.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and I find it difficult to break that chain to that one that I've heard.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Sound's always been a really strong thing for me.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_02: So some people have like uh photographic memory, visual recall.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Mine's always been audible.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_02: So from being a kid, I listened to a lot of audiobooks, and uh at college I realized if I went to lectures, I could verbatim tell them what they gave me.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So the reason I got a first was that I just went to the lectures the final year and played it all back to them.
• 1:23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so it's always been the verbal part of stuff that stuck with me more than the visual.
• 1:23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think everyone is wired differently.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I see people on retreats just go through very different experiences and what wakes them up back to awareness, it's all different.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's um a really famous rugby player called Dan Carter, who's a New Zealand rugby player, one of the best ever.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he he was so good.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_02: He used to get bored during international rugby games and his mind would wander.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_02: So his performance psychologist, Penny's a massive rugby fan, his performance psychologist, literally, uh Maori guy, would tell him to slap his own thigh as a trigger to break him back into his point of being, which is really interesting.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite comedians has a Pav Lock here and it buzzes every two minutes to remind him to smile on stage.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't smile on stage.
• 1:24:18
  unknown: Interesting.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Neil Brennan.
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like these are I'm fascinated by these habits and different uh systems we can put in place to develop what we want to develop.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Inside of my case on stage, it says breathe and smile.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I go and get a prop, I see that.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't ignore it.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a theater I perform at, and it's like comical because in the wings I put post-it notes.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like one night, it's like, have fun.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Remember your mentors, your your like, you know, I don't know, whatever.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, it's people I want to thank at the end of the show.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just don't forget, don't forget, you know?
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like Colin in Vegas, his thing before he goes on stage, he's like, um, and this comes from another magician, Joshua J, which is like it's someone's first time seeing magic, last time seeing magic, could be your last time seeing magic.
• 1:25:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, isn't it?
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So now we walk on with that.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you want to get like now we'll hit a new groove here because like intent.
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, someone's last time seeing this art.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, do you know the book How to Turn the Ship Around?
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a guy called David Marquet.
• 1:25:24
  SPEAKER_02: He literally came up with the concept of intent-based leadership.
• 1:25:27
  SPEAKER_02: He was the youngest submarine captain in the US military, and um, all submarines are custom built.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_02: So there isn't there isn't a standard form formula because they build so few of them.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, as a captain, you get a new one, you get two years to learn it with your crew, and then it off it goes.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_02: The guy got sacked on one and he had six months to learn this new boat.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like, and in the military, you're supposed to know everything about everything, and you tell everyone what to do.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he arrived and went, I've got six months.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't possible.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_02: What I have to do is say to everyone on the team, my intent is that you do this.
• 1:25:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you you make the decision, push the power down there.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_02: We had him on the podcast.
• 1:26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing, amazing question.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so back to we have so many great breadcrumbs as we moved through here.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_00: But like, um, yeah, I mean, we talked about breath, we talked about eye contact, now we're talking about intent.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just so much available to be better at this.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is what I wanted to say.
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that these conversations, I my dream is that they become more prevalent because AI is taking care of other things.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Space.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's creating that space, right?
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_00: So now we can have that conversation.
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And because here's the thing if someone can build your company, right, with with with bots and a team of three people, well, now you're actually competing on like a different vector.
• 1:26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's about like, well, how do you show up as a CEO for the news and for investors and this and this?
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I love that conversation.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Makes the humanity the point of differentiation again, doesn't it?
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I've seen in magic, right?
• 1:26:56
  SPEAKER_00: As secrets became more available and techniques became more available.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we need to practice.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_00: But also, like, I build my business not off my tricks, off of me.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm so fascinated by breath work and being an athlete, because I need to compete with not compete, he's a friend, Oz Proman.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oz Proman runs marathons.
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I literally said to myself, I'm like, how could he work a room?
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Probably better than me.
• 1:27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Guy runs marathons, he's not sweating.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I talk about business athletes.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we've um we've got sort of like 15 people in their early to mid-20s, like who are just redefining resilience and speed and capacity of work.
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_02: And they're doing it in a time when AI is a tool at their disposal as well.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_02: And we are the perfect size business in the I can afford to invest in these tools and techniques, but I also have the ability to give them the freedom of doing it.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we were with Anthropic yesterday, and they described how your big enterprises are spending uh six uh are spending six months figuring out how to use the tool that had previously come out, whereas your new businesses are it.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Getting ready for the thing that's coming in three.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the gap is just growing and growing and growing.
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've got dates in the diary for when the next open AI, when 6.0 is coming, when mythos is coming from Anthropic, because we just deep dive it and embed it in everything we do.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we can change it immediately and pivot.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's hard to do with 300 people.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and impossible at 100,000.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have these like Skunk Works teams and these skunk work projects, and that's then you gotta like clamp down on people as a CIO.
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been in rooms recently where like that is the topic.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's tough.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Just it infects the culture, doesn't it?
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because you end up being the people who say no as opposed to saying yes.
• 1:28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And someone wants to run fast and they've got this idea and so on and so forth.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, I don't know.
• 1:28:41
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a game I I'm I don't know how you play that game.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've literally written a I wonder if I'm either half making an excuse or reaching for a simile.
• 1:28:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I guess I find an element of what I assume meditation gives in writing.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the point to which I am still unfocused.
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_02: So um when um when I give you an idea or a concept, how does it move through your mind?
• 1:29:09
  SPEAKER_02: How do you visualize it, see it, process it?
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Let me give you some context while you ponder on that question.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we've got this board member, and he's the most suave, sophisticated guy.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's like James Bond.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_02: When he thinks about an idea, it is expressed as a perfectly formed sine wave.
• 1:29:26
  SPEAKER_02: He is going to share an idea, but he's thought about all of it, and it's balanced and it's it's perfect.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've got someone who works in our marketing team, and she says she thinks like an engineer, like a tube station map.
• 1:29:37
  SPEAKER_02: You give her a thought and she I'll go left or right, and it's very linear and blocky.
• 1:29:41
  SPEAKER_02: When you give me a word or an idea, my brain just goes, cool, bang.
• 1:29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Which of these 25 avenues should we go down and play with?
• 1:29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to try and grab onto which one that and each thing like knocks over another, like a synapse type thing, it flies out.
• 1:29:54
  SPEAKER_02: I write because that makes me stay in a quadrant or a zone.
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because otherwise, if you say to me, What do I think about something?
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_02: I can give you five different answers, and until I really focus, I don't know which of the five I believe or think.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_02: I've just got a range of options, range of cards I can play.
• 1:30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as I do it live.
• 1:30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean the first thing is that I think a lot of people, while they're listening to someone, they're forecasting their answer, right?
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and and why?
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_00: They want to look smart, they want to have it locked in, they want a quick response time so they appear intelligent or whatever makes sense.
• 1:30:37
  SPEAKER_00: But to me, what I find is like my USP or whatever, right?
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Unique is like, well, I just want to really listen to you.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And my meditation teachers and therapists and coaches, right, have uh installed in me a style of listening, which is let's just be here right now, and the answer will come.
• 1:30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I'm remembering what you asked, right?
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I can run two things at the same time, but I just find that a lot of people have not been deeply listened to.
• 1:31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I'm interested in playing.
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've worked with a lot of people, though, who are like they're baking while you're slicing your carrots, you know, or whatever.
• 1:31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's number one.
• 1:31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is I just now am in a state where there is the mind's first response, and then there is a response that can maybe come from like a deeper place.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And like when I have been on retreats with a guy named John Prendergast, he's a very talented meditation teacher and 40-year psychotherapist.
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he is talking about dropping questions down into your gut, not going with the mind's first response, but letting the question really kind of be there.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I'm trying to answer from.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to give you the programmed and conditioned response.
• 1:31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And look, of course I am, right?
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But like I'm trying to do something a little bit more deep.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to be like, what do I actually, like you said, five options.
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_00: What do I really believe?
• 1:31:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't go away for an hour and come back to you, but like I can do, hmm.
• 1:32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember to link it back to Google, someone gave me this advice.
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, when you interview, take three seconds, please.
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 1:32:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's perception game, because we don't perceive the time the same as the audience does.
• 1:32:17
  SPEAKER_02: So have you do you ever play much chess?
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a little bit.
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you play it with a clock, like a time chess game.
• 1:32:23
  SPEAKER_02: So um I I was pretty good, I I wasn't quite as good as you were at Hacky Sack, but I was pretty good as a kid.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um they teach you to hit your clock because you play like a five-minute game or a 20-minute game, and they ask you to think about how much time has actually passed and say when you think a minute's done.
• 1:32:40
  SPEAKER_02: When you're silent and sat looking at a chessboard, a minute is an hour.
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so interesting.
• 1:32:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I I love that that pause for three seconds because to you, the person, it probably feels like 30 when you first start doing it.
• 1:32:52
  SPEAKER_02: But your audience, they haven't even felt an uncomfortable pause.
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I've two parts about your delivery that are just a joy to interact with is the pause to really make me and I feel heard and I feel like you're considering it.
• 1:33:05
  SPEAKER_02: And also when I've got a good question, you close your eyes to focus on it and enjoy it.
• 1:33:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that is that is brilliant.
• 1:33:12
  SPEAKER_02: Very unique conversation style.
• 1:33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, this is I'm glad you brought this up because I need to cut out sensory data so I can listen to what's inside.
• 1:33:23
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe one day I won't need to close my eyes, but unfortunately, but not unfortunately, but like that is reality right now, and it's a direct contrast to my old style.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, if you knew me 10 years ago, man, like like the the it I think quite different because it was the startup energy, and it was like, okay, dude, so what?
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, like no reason, no wonder I was burnt to a crisp, right?
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_00: To me, I started hanging out with people who were slower and deeply listening and maybe closing their eyes more.
• 1:33:55
  SPEAKER_00: That made me feel good.
• 1:33:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, but it doesn't work for everybody, and I don't want to hang out with people who are like, Yeah, David doesn't answer fast enough.
• 1:34:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like okay, then this probably won't be our style.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Go hang out with like Formula One drivers.
• 1:34:13
  SPEAKER_03: What's next?
• 1:34:15
  SPEAKER_03: What's next for David?
• 1:34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um like it's funny because I run two things at the same time.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_00: The first is like this whole next thing is just like the antithesis of what I'm trying to do, which is to just enjoy this moment.
• 1:34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the whole game for me.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like I have two sides, right?
• 1:34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have the side which is like, what's next?
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea, and I don't really care.
• 1:34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And like I'm blessed to be able to have a business that will work, people will want my stuff, right?
• 1:34:50
  SPEAKER_00: It would be different.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maslow's hierarchy, right?
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I couldn't eat and if I didn't have clothing this morning, I wouldn't be here.
• 1:34:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be doing something different, right?
• 1:34:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of like that, the first answer.
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the second answer is like, what's next?
• 1:35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is like to keep on following the way that, as one of my mentors would say, Ernest Morrow, he would be like the way that nature wants to unfold, right?
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you like the nature word too.
• 1:35:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what wants to unfold and live through me?
• 1:35:16
  SPEAKER_00: What wants to be here for, as meditation would say, the benefit of all beings.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So like I am on a real hardcore clip now around like what is value with my skill set?
• 1:35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be the miserable data analyst in a nonprofit that no one's gonna win.
• 1:35:31
  SPEAKER_00: But with these gifts in a time horizon, which is let's say 10 to 20 years, not 10 days, I'll burn out.
• 1:35:38
  SPEAKER_00: What can be here?
• 1:35:39
  SPEAKER_00: So then I run experiments.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So someone at Stanford knows about my show and knows that I used to work in corporate.
• 1:35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I felt amazing with those students.
• 1:35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, my mom was a third grade teacher.
• 1:35:52
  SPEAKER_00: So then, okay, follow, pull that thread.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, are there other classes I could do?
• 1:35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Could I go into high schools and teach presentation?
• 1:35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Could I write a book that I could give everyone after the talk?
• 1:36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever, right?
• 1:36:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when you say what's next, it's this cool pyramid.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's this cool like, what's next in in 10 hours, 10 days, 10 years, 30 years if I'm still here.
• 1:36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'm just trying to hang out with people and have conversations that that lead me towards that.
• 1:36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um what comes up when I say that?
• 1:36:32
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I was I would have been very confident that your answer would have related to enjoying where you are, being present about it and creating opportunities to keep doing that and keep exploring.
• 1:36:44
  SPEAKER_02: So pretty much there.
• 1:36:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I would have um I wouldn't have focused as much in on the education chapter yet, but as soon as you kind of opened that thought, I thought, oh, that is interesting, you're at that point where you do want to uh to share that with other people and and and see them improve.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um didn't know the bit about mum beam teacher.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_02: You you mentioned about being single.
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think about the family side of things?
• 1:37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something you totally?
• 1:37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an interesting one because I never felt the like fatherhood desire until like 32.
• 1:37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that was distinctly for having a son.
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was recently I went out in the desert for a week and I felt my daughter for the first time, and that was like wild.
• 1:37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, okay, this is now more online.
• 1:37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it was around I wanted to feel capable as a father before I brought kids into the world.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that there were these skills and tools I needed to learn first to like create a better ecosystem.
• 1:37:45
  SPEAKER_00: And now I feel like, okay, five years ago, I would have flipped out if we were in the back of the car with the two kids, maybe still for sure.
• 1:37:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like it's a little more grounded and stable.
• 1:37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that also leads to partnership where, like in my early 30s, like I was just not a great person to be with, and I hadn't created the space.
• 1:38:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I look forward to like creating the space when it feels right, and then doing that.
• 1:38:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm blessed to say that, but yeah, on the horizon.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, my friends who are fathers and and husbands and stuff, I mean, it's it sounds dope.
• 1:38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um your awareness and observation in terms of what it takes in terms of time, energy, and capacity is right on though.
• 1:38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, that's because the men's groups being in all these men's groups with men who are 15 years older than me and hearing their struggles and wins and sorrows.
• 1:38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I mean, what a gift.
• 1:38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because you never got that deep.
• 1:38:41
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't get that deep in corporate and startups to know people's inner worlds.
• 1:38:45
  SPEAKER_00: But in the men's work through John Winland and and stuff, it's been like, oh, like you are spread too thin.
• 1:38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what edits can I make now?
• 1:38:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 1:38:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a whole series of metrics that help me balance stuff at home.
• 1:39:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I do not travel more than three days a week on average.
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's set nights of the week that are really important family-wise, that we're there.
• 1:39:08
  SPEAKER_02: And because the business is mine, I'm in the really fortunate position that I craft out when I am at home.
• 1:39:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'll take my wife out for lunch or for breakfast or whatever without the kids.
• 1:39:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we have some time together.
• 1:39:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it is, it's a uh it makes the game of chess three-dimensional rather than two.
• 1:39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you learn those habits over time, obviously, as did I.
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_00: My first year full-time was a mess.
• 1:39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was really, really hard.
• 1:39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, I have mentors who are like, Why'd you take that flight?
• 1:39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why did you do that?
• 1:39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't you ask the client for the thing?
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Can you find the mentors through like magic conventions and through just hearing people speak and then being really ballsy to just like DM people?
• 1:39:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, one of my best mentors is this guy named uh Andrew, who runs Woodruff Sawyer, which is an insurance company.
• 1:39:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he booked me for a show.
• 1:39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then after I just said, I need to get coffee with you every three months.
• 1:39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just need to.
• 1:39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he he's changed my life.
• 1:39:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a 58-year-old CEO who just, you know, like it's incredible.
• 1:40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, he was just like, Don't make these errors.
• 1:40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Doof, doof, doof, doof.
• 1:40:05
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think he saw in you that made him say yes to your request versus the other 20 people who ask him every week and he just hasn't got time for it?
• 1:40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a few things.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_00: One, I made it extremely easy for him to mentor me, which meant I will come to your office.
• 1:40:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you are delayed, I will sit outside your office, I will work with your admin.
• 1:40:23
  SPEAKER_00: This will be the easiest coffee you ever have.
• 1:40:26
  SPEAKER_00: One.
• 1:40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Two, I delivered for his team at two off sites up in Oregon.
• 1:40:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I I mean, I went above and beyond custom material, custom scripting about the insurance industry.
• 1:40:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just what's interesting is for me, it's like every time you get an opportunity, there's the opportunity that they asked for, and then there's the unreasonable hospitality.
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Have you read that?
• 1:40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
• 1:40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Unreasonable hospitality, that's the 10x above it.
• 1:40:50
  SPEAKER_00: So Andrew expects a solid show for his team and they laugh and clap.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can exceed those expectations.
• 1:40:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then we get in a level of like over-delivering mastery, right?
• 1:41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Where people are like, wow, that didn't feel like normal.
• 1:41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's why he was up for it.
• 1:41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he's based here and all these things, and and and we just hit it off.
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't always happen.
• 1:41:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I just make ass off the back of delivering first with this, right?
• 1:41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like Penny sends me some of these questions.
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm able to get a little bit up to speed, you know, and and be here with you.
• 1:41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, last night I went to bed at 8:30, so I could be right here.
• 1:41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Woke up at six, so I could be right here.
• 1:41:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what who is it?
• 1:41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Woody Allen.
• 1:41:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like half of life is just showing up.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the other half is like, you know.
• 1:41:36
  SPEAKER_02: Our rule on Climate Weeks is we turn up.
• 1:41:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll we'll have been jet lagged.
• 1:41:41
  SPEAKER_02: We'll have done a 14-hour day.
• 1:41:42
  SPEAKER_02: There'll be an event we say we're going to, we turn up.
• 1:41:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's that's the point of differentiation.
• 1:41:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it's now we do 30 events in a week, not three.
• 1:41:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then it's the real because the one that you yesterday afternoon we were exhausted.
• 1:41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Long event.
• 1:41:57
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, are we gonna go to the Salesforce thing?
• 1:41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Single best thing we did all week.
• 1:42:01
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_02: And get game changer.
• 1:42:03
  SPEAKER_02: And also, when we go to something like that, we write off the back of it so I can help, you know, celebrate the people who've done cool stuff, elevate it, tag them in it.
• 1:42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Penny will put out photography and videography so we can share back and hopefully help elevate those people as well.
• 1:42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the one thing that I want to pick up here is like when you asked what's next, maybe we can thread a few things here.
• 1:42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, just to presence it, I can feel myself now like it's been how long have we been dancing for?
• 1:42:31
  SPEAKER_00: 90 minutes?
• 1:42:33
  SPEAKER_03: A little bit longer.
• 1:42:36
  unknown: Almost two hours.
• 1:42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Almost two hours.
• 1:42:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, here's the funny thing.
• 1:42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I know my wall and I can feel it.
• 1:42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm regrounding.
• 1:42:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm constantly feeling my feet now back to my breath, and I'm using my last like 20% here, you know?
• 1:42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not Taylor Swift, like I can't do three hours, you know.
• 1:42:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what I'm putting here is like just yeah, even being honest about that, you know, is like so new for me.
• 1:42:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I think actually I could feel about five or ten minutes ago, uh I didn't feel as if you were getting tired.
• 1:43:05
  SPEAKER_02: I felt as if you were we're almost exploring a different realm of thought.
• 1:43:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it was less, less performative and storytelling.
• 1:43:13
  SPEAKER_02: It was more feel and flow.
• 1:43:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting.
• 1:43:16
  SPEAKER_02: It it um I've that too.
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_02: I've not been to a Taylor concert.
• 1:43:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I should.
• 1:43:20
  SPEAKER_02: Me either.
• 1:43:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I wonder does of you.
• 1:43:23
  SPEAKER_02: No, interesting.
• 1:43:24
  SPEAKER_02: It has arcs.
• 1:43:25
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 1:43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all these different archetypes that are brought forward, which is a whole different topic.
• 1:43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, but the thing I didn't want to lose was well, actually, now I'm really curious.
• 1:43:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you say performative in storytelling, I have a gut reaction that performative is a bad thing.
• 1:43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no, huge compliment.
• 1:43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, great.
• 1:43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes it's used in a disingenuous way.
• 1:43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like he was performative.
• 1:43:49
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for letting me check that.
• 1:43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh let me clarify my use of the word um uh energetic, expressive um excitement.
• 1:43:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny because I just have such baggage around that word.
• 1:44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um privilege.
• 1:44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Privilege makes me want to fucking scream.
• 1:44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a tough.
• 1:44:07
  SPEAKER_00: If someone uses the word privileged, it's so nuanced and means so many things to different people.
• 1:44:12
  SPEAKER_00: But so, okay, so back to this like the um the thing that uh what's next.
• 1:44:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just want want to solidify this that it's like someone recently said to me, it's like when you're thinking about where you should live, think about the predominant thing that's like in the culture and in the air.
• 1:44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Roll with me.
• 1:44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then someone said, Oh, Silicon Valley is about like asking questions and curiosity and ideas.
• 1:44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so at a cocktail party here, people are talking about ideas and the future and building, which is different.
• 1:44:44
  SPEAKER_00: I find that when I'm in LA at a cocktail party, maybe it's the people I hang out with, right?
• 1:44:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's the creative act.
• 1:44:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's the how are we gonna get this and the distribution and this and the followers or whatever.
• 1:44:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, so choose your city based on what people are talking about.
• 1:44:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_00: So then when I think about the future, for me, what's next?
• 1:44:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what ideas do I want to be nurturing?
• 1:45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because like you're a squirrel and I'm a panda, and you're doing your environmental stuff, which is like awesome squirrel work.
• 1:45:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm super passionate about this attention presence thing.
• 1:45:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm saying is like, I just like talking to people about like, yeah, what's your idea?
• 1:45:17
  SPEAKER_00: What idea is dope?
• 1:45:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting?
• 1:45:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, these guys want to run a podcast studio.
• 1:45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 1:45:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't.
• 1:45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, but thank God, you know?
• 1:45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I just don't think we allow ourselves any time to be like, yeah, what ideas?
• 1:45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 1:45:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope with AI that now the limitations in society that we're holding people back can be somehow kind of shifted so they could be like, now I can open my freaking bakery.
• 1:45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't have to worry about turbo tax anymore.
• 1:45:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to worry about inventory and supply chain.
• 1:45:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you know, that would be awesome.
• 1:45:51
  SPEAKER_02: You've been incredibly generous for your time.
• 1:45:53
  SPEAKER_02: I could talk to you for hours.
• 1:45:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think fascinating, my friend.
• 1:45:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I end every podcast in the same way.
• 1:46:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what's the one question I haven't asked you you wish I had?
• 1:46:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, great.
• 1:46:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the last thing that feels true right now is like I genuinely like helping people on this topic.
• 1:46:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've got your listeners, I've got LinkedIn, social, whatever.
• 1:46:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have anything to sell anybody.
• 1:46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what I do have though is like if people want to reach out and stuff, I have resources I can link them to as they're working on their presentations, their presence.
• 1:46:34
  SPEAKER_00: If anything resonated here, like I love that stuff.
• 1:46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Kids from Stanford already are reaching out.
• 1:46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, it's beautiful.
• 1:46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and fortunately, I have the that that bandwidth sometimes.
• 1:46:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's you asked everything.
• 1:46:44
  SPEAKER_00: It feels really complete, and it felt like a natural river, which is cool.
• 1:46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anything you want me to ask you?
• 1:46:50
  SPEAKER_00: Does anyone ever turn it on you?
• 1:46:52
  SPEAKER_00: They do sometimes.
• 1:46:53
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people come with a pre-prepped question and we'll ask some stuff.
• 1:46:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um you've given me so um your um the process you articulated for how to secure a mentor.
• 1:47:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna write a piece on the back of that.
• 1:47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, cool.
• 1:47:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um actually, a couple couple of thoughts.
• 1:47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I went out and had dinner the other night with this incredibly well-connected European investment banker.
• 1:47:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is a guy who doesn't do deals below 20 billion.
• 1:47:25
  SPEAKER_02: So has bought and sold some of the biggest companies in the world.
• 1:47:28
  SPEAKER_02: Incredible man.
• 1:47:31
  SPEAKER_02: He was asking us all about our business and wants to work with us and we're gonna partner with them on a on a thing.
• 1:47:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he said to me, you know, what's what's the dream?
• 1:47:38
  SPEAKER_02: What's the big thing?
• 1:47:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I've got a line, right?
• 1:47:42
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be the first conservation-focused unicorn company.
• 1:47:45
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a line, okay.
• 1:47:48
  SPEAKER_02: When he asked me the question, my honest answer was, I just can't believe I get to do this.
• 1:47:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I I get to write, I get to host the leading podcast in the sector, I get to sit down with you and other amazing people and learn so much.
• 1:48:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's only a fraction of the business.
• 1:48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, we talked um at the start about the type of engines and motors we have.
• 1:48:10
  SPEAKER_02: I want to go real fast across a range of topics and enjoy them and experience them and swim in them and then go to the next one and the next one.
• 1:48:17
  SPEAKER_02: What I don't want is to be the same thing for a thousand hours, and I get to do that right now.
• 1:48:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a bit like the showing up thing.
• 1:48:23
  SPEAKER_02: One day I won't get invited anymore.
• 1:48:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just gonna really enjoy it while people want me to be in places.
• 1:48:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um I feel that way.
• 1:48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:48:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I said when you were articulating the story.
• 1:48:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, amazing.
• 1:48:36
  SPEAKER_02: Mate, thank you.
• 1:48:36
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate every moment of it.
• 1:48:38
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 1:48:39
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.