108. A Day in the Life of Bruce

Speaker 1: 0:00

out of me Yonk it man.

Speaker 2: 0:03

Good thing I didn't say that right before we started recording, that would have been because I would have kept that in. I would have absolutely kept it in.

Speaker 1: 0:11

Well, I'm just convinced we don't add it anymore. We just, we just go raw audio every single time. No for the best.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Well, the way I imagine it is, this is you and me hanging out in the lobby and then hit the button to get at the elevator. I know the preach, the little you know. Then it's welcome back to corporate strategies, the podcast. That could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Clark, how you doing five check, five check. This was my travel week. I did some travel to the West Coast, yeah, and I have no crazy stories to tell.

Speaker 2: 0:45

West Coast. That's good question mark.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Yeah, what? Oh? No, not really.

Speaker 2: 0:49

I mean you and I have talked about this.

Speaker 1: 0:51

I'm. I'm an East Coast kind of guy. I'm not a West Coast kind of guy. It's nothing wrong with the people. I think the people are great. The actually the weather was incredible and got super lucky with the weather, I don't know something about it. I just like the East Coast better.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Yeah, I East Coast, beast Coast.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Is that what this? Never done before, but I'll take it. Yeah, West Coast Best.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Coast, east Coast, beast Coast. It's easy, fair enough. Well, I don't have any.

Speaker 1: 1:14

I didn't have anything wrong with my flight. So I have no bag fondling, hand fondling, handle fondling stories, nobody coughing at me or in me, so that's a good thing. I think it was all pretty basic. Yeah, I mean, the challenge that I had was just because my company card like expired right when I was booking things, which was a big pain in the butt, and I got a cancellation like a couple of days before, but luckily I just rebooked and everything was fine. So nothing new, everything was nice and easy. Yeah, and it was really productive week. It was exhausting, though, man. Whenever you change time zones, you like go back in time and then you go forward in time and your body like still tries to go to sleep at the same time. And whoo, time is a mystery. Yeah, I, I just can't.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Am I alive? Am I alive? What kind of question is that? Of course I'm not. I've been long gone, years now, um, emotionally, physically, mentally, all dead. No, I'm going to travel this week. So this week I'm going to Phoenix, not quite the West Coast, but I'll be in the Phoenix area for a few days and not looking forward to it. I got a direct flight, thankfully I'm flying American, which I've not flown in like a decade, but they're going to be flying direct now. So that's the choice I've made.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Fair enough, yeah, you're sacrificing your points and your loyalty. Yes, To go with direct flights, which I can understand that you know, when I was younger I'd be like I'll take a little bit of a layover and I'll switch. And then, as I get older, I'm just like no, just get me there as fast as humanly possible, Like I do not want to wait or be inconvenienced in any way.

Speaker 2: 2:53

I think out of the, I think I traveled at least. Well, I traveled at least 12 times last year because I traveled at least once a month, but probably more than that. It's probably like 16, 18 times. I was going to say you did a lot of travel, I did a lot of travel and I flew Delta. Every time and I would say, let's see, I actually at one point I was counting it was over 12 flights or over 12 trips had delays both ways and then I would be like frantically worried about my layovers because Delta. So you know, I said, screw it. New year, new me. I don't care about points, points suck, they're. It's imaginary money, it's imaginary privilege for people who spend lots of money. And I'm just going to fly direct and not not stress about it. And so far, so good.

Speaker 1: 3:36

That's good. Yeah, I hate the whole status. Like I went to the I flew Delta as well, actually, I went. So I went to the club. You know thinking, okay, I've flown quite a bit this year. I did an international trip Like I, surely, surely I still have status going into 2024. You don't get there and they're like you don't know what do you mean? I literally did an international trip in Q4. How can I not possibly have status? And they're like well, this is the way it works. And then QM, qms and the QDQs, and because you didn't hit this rate and, to be honest, I have no idea what any of that meant and I was like I thought I just I paid money, I get benefit, that's it. And that's not the way it works.

Speaker 2: 4:15

They jacked their rates up last year and they got a lot of backlash from from frequent flyers because it basically it used to be if you flew once a month, you pretty much qualified for silver slash gold based on the status you had the previous year, right? So you get 12 trips, you get, you get your status. Last year they changed it, so it's like 36 trips, which is, you know, that's your business, you're just strictly business once a week type travel, or it was. You spend like $36,000. So like, yeah, it's not, it's not for us, right? Like it's insane, yeah, I don't get it.

Speaker 2: 4:50

These benefits are not for normal people, so there's no point to even try to chase status if you're normal, and why can't they just like?

Speaker 1: 4:58

why can't they just make it simple Like miles, you got miles and you got dollars, and you can look at it either way, or maybe both Like, why do they have to do like the whole MQM QDQ? I don't even know what I'm saying. Yeah, QDQ, like blah, blah, blah, like I don't understand any of that. And then I try to read the descriptions of it and I still doesn't make any sense to me. I'm like just tell me, did I fly enough miles to get the status? If no, that's fine. I just want to know the answer yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 5:23

You got to use the app and the apps suck. I have yet to find a good airline app that doesn't suck. It blows my mind that things the apps don't tell you, like when you arrive, you know some of them do, Some of them don't, and it's just. It's so weird. Travel I feel like we always talk about travel but like airline travel specifically is such an in precise science in both how they serve you, Because you would assume vehicle go up in air has to land in place within certain amount of time, Else people might miss flight logic. They would have a better system of well, traveler is up in air, clearly not going to make flight connection. Let's bump them, let's automatically take. No, you're still on the next flight even though it's already taking off before you've landed. And it's your ability to go work with a ticketing agent to figure your crap out. It's like what? This is your fault. This is entirely your fault.

Speaker 1: 6:19

I had zero control. I set on the tarmac for an hour before my flight took off. I couldn't control that, while when you deal and I was in airplane mode the rest of the trip how do you expect me to handle this situation Almost every flight.

Speaker 2: 6:32

If we're doing round trip, almost every single flight costs more than a PlayStation 5. But a PlayStation 5 can do so much more than a Delta ticketing agent. I'm just saying, if you're going to choose to spend your money, think about it.

Speaker 1: 6:47

And let's joy until you get the blue screen of death, which isn't going to have. Just no, you just got to deal with inconvenience and you have no saying it, and you lose the money right after.

Speaker 2: 6:57

And sit in a metal tube next to people that haven't showered. They're seven years old and they're sneezing. They have to fondle your luggage. I mean, take your pick. You could be playing God of War or you could be crammed between two weirdos who are going to sneeze on you the entire flight Sneeze on.

Speaker 1: 7:14

you, fondle your backpack, handle All of the above Listen. The PS5 would never do that to you.

Speaker 2: 7:20

PS5 is not going to fondle your luggage, just saying they're not going to do it.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Oh man. Well, actually I've got a question. I've got a travel question for you, because we're a travel podcast. Now we are Diet wise while you're traveling. How do you hold up to me? My body just gets wrecked. Like anytime I'm in a plane, it's like a blender, like anything I put in my stomach gets chopped up. It's inconvenient for me, I don't feel great and then, like when you eat, you're limited on options. It's out of your normal routine of eating, so then you just don't feel great. In general I try to stick to working out. Still, like I say, relatively you know routine, but man, the food just killed me on this one. I don't know what it was.

Speaker 2: 8:01

So here's I do have some bruises travel tips for you here.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2: 8:05

I think I don't know if I ever shared this with the podcast, but for a long time I was gluten free because I was diagnosed celiac, which turned out to be a big fat lie. But in the three years that I was, yeah, I can. Our medical system is almost as bad as our airline system, yeah, and in those years of being gluten free I still had a lot of trouble traveling, even though I was eating bland, boring food. So now my diagnosis is I have IBS irritable bowel syndrome quite common, but it's treatable through medication. So I take a peppermint pill before every meal and it helps to just ease the digestive process and my stomach don't get wrecked. Now you can. You know I'm not saying everyone needs to go on the medication I'm on, but what I will say is you can totally preempt the traveler stomach blues.

Speaker 2: 8:58

Am I taking a pep job before you get on the plane? And what I would recommend you do, because the biggest thing we all get wrong when flying is not drinking enough water Right, buy one of them big old. Either bring a bottle, or buy one of them big old smart water bottles or whatever, the big one that's like 32 ounces of Wawa in the Hudson Shore and just sip that for your entire flight and if it empties, get more water on the plane. They want to drink soda. They want you to drink alcohol. All that's going to do is wreck you. It's going to make you feel miserable. Get water, keep drinking it, don't stop.

Speaker 1: 9:33

It's a great tip, Just in general. We talked about this like way back when about like health tips. It's so simple.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Drink water, especially you'll better.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Yeah, drink water, feel better and I agree with what. Everything you're saying makes a ton of sense. And if you take that pep talk before, yeah, like three, four hours before your flight.

Speaker 2: 9:50

It's going to slow down your entire digestive tract. You're not going to have the urge to. You know. Blast out your butt in the middle of the airplane. Excuse the crudity, but we've all been there.

Speaker 1: 10:00

And listen. Yeah, it's so true.

Speaker 2: 10:02

Everyone's worst case scenario. You know when you're over hydrated you'll have to use the bathroom. So unfortunately you will have to probably go if it's a six hour flight. But I mean, you're just. You just get rid of toxins at that point.

Speaker 1: 10:11

That's good for you. Sit on the aisle anyway. My hot take. I'll every time Never sit unless you. You know everybody in the row but never sit window. Then you inconvenience everybody. Like just sit aisle, it's so much better.

Speaker 2: 10:23

I get. So this, this might sound insane. This, this probably isn't saying I get upset. When I have a window seat, I would almost rather be middle because I went into inconvenience to people to take a pee twice during the flight. So like I get it, I love the aisle.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Give me the aisle, give me a week, I'll for sure.

Speaker 2: 10:43

And it's not like like thinking they still have to get up, Like everyone has to get up.

Speaker 1: 10:48

And the most annoying thing is if you have TV screens everyone's plugged in most of the time, dangling a cord right in front of them and they got to like either make it, they make, they got to make a choice. They're stuck with that 50 50. Do I take just the headphone part out and I put it in the dirty little pouch in front of me behind the seat, or do I yank the thing out and then I got to reconnect it back in and then do that whole process again Next time they walk through. It sucks.

Speaker 1: 11:11

It sucks being anywhere but the aisle.

Speaker 2: 11:12

I agree. And I do have one more food related travel tip for you, and this is a big one and I think you know as a worker travelers we often forget like oh yeah, free meal paid by the company, I got to indulge, I got to get that $70, 60 ounce porterhouse and slather of the gravy. But if you think about what you're eating and you think about how you normally eat, anytime you disrupt the pattern, the norm your stomach and your intestines are expecting.

Speaker 2: 11:44

It's going to cause disruption and it's going to churn up. I hate to say it because I know everyone's all about travel and eat, but eat light. It doesn't mean you can't eat fancy foods, but don't overindulge, because that totally throws your body into a digestive tizzy and it might try to offload. It's like oh, I didn't expect this much time to purge, I don't need all this, right? No-transcript. And if you're not used to the kind of food you're eating, that can also cause disruption. So I've learned a lot like, in all honesty, I went from being terrified of flying and just travel in general because of my intestinal issues too. I'm a master of understanding how my body works and it just took practice and learning and I hope you all learn something. Thank you for coming to my digestive tech talk today.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Thank you. Thank you, bruce, and appreciated that and honestly, it's so true, like as I did, exactly you said, I got like a steak flaminya and had these fancy mashed potatoes and I ate it. I was like that was a pretty expensive meal. I got it, you did it. I gotta enjoy it and I should have known there's a price to be paid. There's consequences. There's good and bad consequences with every decision you make, and that, for me, had the good consequence of I really enjoyed the meal. Had the bad consequence of I died later.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Yeah, if you're gonna go big, go big in the middle of the trip, when, yeah, the next day, you're not, you know held Hoss by being black yeah the day before you fly go light and the day of your flight.

Speaker 1: 13:07

I'm not gonna word. I've never had a serious Disruption to my system on a plane. Oh, I have. I've been so lucky been there multi-times.

Speaker 2: 13:18

Oh yeah, I have destroyed an airline bathroom. I'm just destroyed it. Has Matt had to come in afterwards do a spray down? Oh man, there's like monsters in.

Speaker 1: 13:35

We got a stage four player tackle you in the middle of the plane.

Speaker 2: 13:38

I was like show you to fondle my luggage. No one gets to use the restroom for the rest of the flight. What you've deserved.

Speaker 1: 13:46

Oh man, those poor people in row 55 that just live with that.

Speaker 2: 13:51

That's another travel tip. It's it's nice to be near the bathroom, so you have to walk that journey. I would prefer the walk and to get the waft, and you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Listen, that's the worst feeling in the world when you're sitting next to that thing. You're just like there's no escaping it.

Speaker 2: 14:06

You can't, I don't have a mask.

Speaker 1: 14:07

I got nothing.

Speaker 2: 14:08

Mmm, that reminds me I do need to buy some masks, because every time I fly now I get like some kind of head cold or viral thing. So yeah, I'm gonna try masking up this trip and see how I do.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Yeah, I think, I think that's where to do it. I do so. I do like a cocktail of, you know, just vitamin C and vitamins in general before I hop on a flight. So I do like the airborne, like I nuked my system. I'm like airborne vitamins zinc, orange you shot usually an orange like I'm literally never gonna get sick because my defenses are up. So I get ready and then on the way back I do the same thing, and then when I get home I do the same thing.

Speaker 2: 14:44

I'm gonna try your your orange vitamin zinc cocktail and see how I do.

Speaker 1: 14:50

If it takes, you know, a day off my life later on, I'm fine with that to not be sick From an airplane sickness that's floating around because I'm stuck in the metal tube and there's no escaping it. I think it's worth it.

Speaker 2: 15:01

How much would you sell a day of your life for? Oh, we're putting money to that, huh yeah, how much would you just if someone's like hey, clark, I want to buy a day of your life, how much you'd sell for? Oh, I Don't know. I mean, I guess depends on 10k.

Speaker 1: 15:17

Can I do it for like a weekday, cuz I enjoy?

Speaker 2: 15:19

the weekends. Let's assume it's a retirement day. Okay, you get one less day of retirement. How much they were tired it would you do for 10k?

Speaker 1: 15:30

I do it for 10k, for sure.

Speaker 2: 15:32

You go in 10k, would you do it yeah?

Speaker 1: 15:34

Yeah, 5k, for sure, keep going.

Speaker 2: 15:38

Can I get a day for 2k?

Speaker 1: 15:40

I Would probably do it for like one or 2k. Dang okay, so that's your limit, because I can have some fun with one or 2k and I'm like, okay, I sacrificed a day, but now I just got this money to burn. Sounds like a great time pretty fair.

Speaker 2: 15:53

Actually, you know, I didn't think about it like that. It's like, if you take that money and put it into a day for you, it's like, yeah, I gave up a day, but I just had a great day.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Yeah, yeah, I literally got $2,000 just for a day that I probably you know Scrapped. You can scrap it, you can like just knock it off as like a you know, a miscalculation or like a rounding error in the future. I think it's worth it, you're not wrong. Now we're talking like weeks. Then it gets kind of morbid and sad. Okay, okay, a week less to see my family Right week less to hang with my friends. A week less of corporate strategy. Right now you're starting to say, okay, is 10k enough? I don't know, it's a little sad when you make it a big number. But just a day, sure?

Speaker 2: 16:32

I Like that. That's good, good answer. You're convincing me. This is good. Hey, good, vibe check, I think. I think I check up weird, real quick. We're doing a really good job of like keeping it under the 30 minute mark with a 17 minute intro. Yikes, let's do it. Let's do some news, all right.

Speaker 2: 16:53

So this comes from Bloomberg. It's actually the. It's an article, it's an opinion article by Allison Schrager, columnist. Face out, this isn't like the heavy hitter Bloomberg. We have to subscribe to rate it. This is just the. You know, hey, I'm contributing because I want people to read my stuff. So and you know it's funny, pretty good article. So I'm gonna post it in the the corporate strategy Channel of our corporate fam discord. So I want to read it afterwards.

Speaker 2: 17:16

But the introverts have taken over the US economy. Oh, during the pandemic, a lot of Americans had to stay home and many discovered they just prefer to staying into going out. And the neat thing about this article is it gives data, lots of data, about what time Gen Z goes to dinner, which is wild. The whole thought behind this is Gen Z is going to dinner much, much earlier, not for, like, early bird specials or anything, but because one they drink less. So they're not really interested in like going out, staying out. They want to go, they want to get their food, they want to be nourished. Then come home and, as the data shows, watch TV and play video games and hang out with their dogs, which this aligns perfectly with me.

Speaker 1: 18:04

Finally, data I'm gonna say I'm the wrong generation. I'm Gen Z. I'm a nutshell that you are absolutely, you should be Gen Z.

Speaker 2: 18:11

I'm a majority player in Gen Z. This is wild. I'm a zoomer.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Wow, summer, is it what they call that?

Speaker 2: 18:19

So that's why the insensitive term. But I am, I'm a Gen Z oh fair enough, you know your lifestyle fits it.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Why can't you be who you want to be? I like it, I want okay. How does it affect the economy? Is it just saying like, since they're not spending as much money and they're, you know, because everyone's going in sooner that all those businesses who relied on, like late-night partiers and drinkers, are now taking a hit?

Speaker 2: 18:42

Oh, interestingly enough, they talk about that and it's. It's basically causing a shift in how restaurants and bars operate. They're focusing a lot more on the delivery model, and that's how they're supplementing their income. I'm not having people in the shops anymore, right? Which is interesting. One of my favorite restaurants in our town, clark, I used to go to all the time is a diet and experience, and now they're solely Takeout and delivery. It's like why would they do that? But now I know the data. They were just ahead of the curve.

Speaker 1: 19:09

They were there, you always coming. They saw the consumer behavior change and they anticipated. That's super interesting. Yeah, I love a good data post. So all the data they can share around that I wonder if it's so. You said it's us based, right, right.

Speaker 2: 19:24

It's. It's very interesting too because if you look at the demographics like, they even talk about drinking Right and Allison in the article says older generations are still drinking probably too much, and links to another article. This is this may explain why alcohol spending on alcohol continues to rise, though a smaller share of it is in bars and restaurants. So people are drinking at home and it's mostly the older gins are drinking more, which you know it's not a silly surprise.

Speaker 2: 19:49

Yeah, we kind of taper with age because older liver, older, you know, insides kind of slow down, but right happening.

Speaker 1: 19:57

But, as we know, habits are hard to change. That's true, and I think the older generation that was kind of, since they didn't have the internet and all these fun games and stuff like that. It's like I didn't really have a choice. It's like you go out and you socialize. What do you do at home? Play puzzles. You know, on video games he's so it's harder to like. Did you just say play puzzles? You can do a puzzle. I don't know what's the verb. You puzzle a puzzle, I think you put a puzzle together, right.

Speaker 2: 20:22

You don't play a puzzle, yeah. But I want it in two words Can't? Sometimes you don't get to work. What Sometimes you got to?

Speaker 1: 20:30

put a puzzle together. But anyway, you get my point right. Like you don't just sit at home and do nothing. Like you go out with your friends, you drink, yeah, yeah, smoke, like that's what they did. They didn't have all these fancy things that were better for their lives and you know their health and all that good stuff. So they had limited options. They had to go do that. We did not have instruments. They couldn't play instruments. I mean they could, but what you do by yourself? You're just gonna sit in your room playing instrument.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Isn't that what most people do when they play instruments? Is that?

Speaker 1: 20:57

Yeah, sure, but after a hard day of work you're coming home and beating on the drums by yourself. Nothing feels better than coming home from work and beating on a drum.

Speaker 2: 21:04

Tell me you're wrong. Yeah, that's true, jummers, drummers in the discord, please represent nothing, come nothing. Feels better coming home from a hard day banging on some snares and symbols. Oh, you just reminded me of a story.

Speaker 1: 21:18

You probably remember this. We were talking to one of our co-workers back in the day and he was like you know what, nothing feels better after a hard day of work, when it's, you know, one of those really grimy days. It really sucked and hopping on Grand Theft Auto and just like slaughtering tons of people, yeah, and then we'd like laughed awkwardly. Really, okay, yeah, that was funny, like I get it, though. I mean you get out, you get all your rage out, you gotta go do something. Drums, grand Theft Auto, all depends on the times, right?

Speaker 2: 21:49

Yeah, I mean you know different, different strokes, different folks, hey that's a terrible one too.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Yeah, we talked about someone said open the. I'm not gonna say it's a trigger where oh, yeah, do that saying you know it's kind of different structure, different folks, kind of feels gross too. The garment.

Speaker 2: 22:05

Taboo is what it shall henceforth be referred to as.

Speaker 1: 22:08

I like that. Yeah, I've got a little piece of news for you. Oh, do you know? Did you see apples complying with another EU compliance mandate? No way Apple, why? They don't know. They're bending over and they're complying and they're saying we're not gonna do what we want to do. We're gonna comply. But I hate to tell you this what's the compliance? Very much show it's it's. I won't go into so many details that it bores everyone to death, but it's malicious compliance.

Speaker 1: 22:35

So, I'm gonna tell you about it. So EU launched the the Digital Markets Act, the DMA, which essentially is kind of setting stage for for third-party app store Distribution so you can use like a third-party app download on your phone, just like you can with, like you know, if you don't use a Google Play Store with Android, you know you can say loading apps.

Speaker 1: 22:53

Yeah, yeah, you got it. So basically this enables, like it kind of the whole goal was to, you know, remove the monopolies, you know, get away from just the app store for iPhones so that other app distributors can be in place, especially because they take a 30% fee when you use their. You know the payment processing fees and everything. So they were like, yeah, we're gonna comply. So they basically said, yeah, of course, and then they basically updated they didn't announce it, they updated all of their internal agreements that they are introducing a couple new feeds because they have to comply with this new mandate, and one of them is called their core technology fee.

Speaker 1: 23:28

So basically, every single Install, every single person who installs your app, after you hit a million, you have to pay 50 cents for that person. Or in a million installs, let's say, you and I launch a corporate strategy app it's live in the EU. We have a million installs by the end of Q1. For the other three quarters, we have to pay 50 cents for every single person who downloads are out for the rest of the year. So if we're not monetized, we're host. Yeah, you just have to pay the fee, regardless of distribution channel. You have to.

Speaker 2: 24:02

How is that? How is this better? This is so much worse. This is so much worse.

Speaker 1: 24:07

It is so much worse because obviously most people operate their apps globally and they make their money off either in-app purchases or one-time purchases of the app and there's many other ways to monetize. But there are essentially going to have to. A lot of developers that can't afford this are going to have to pull their apps off of the app store area so they don't allow those users to download their app anymore because they're going to have to pay ridiculous fees. Isn't that so terrible? And they also introduced a 3% payment processing fee, so sure you don't have to pay your 30% cut to Apple anymore, but you also see, any payment that happens to our platform, you have to pay 3% still.

Speaker 1: 24:45

So everybody speaking out Daniel Eck, part of Spotify, is basically raging at them and he's like, hey, this is convoluted, he's like any app with tens or hundreds of millions of users now facing new tax on every new download and update annually. So obviously this is going to cause them an extraordinary amount of money. And they basically said Apple install-based for Spotify is in the $100 million range and this could skyrocket our customer acquisition costs. Basically allowing them, or having to force them, to change the price in these regions to a paid app potentially increase the amount that they're charging for their service monthly, so it's going to basically change the way all these apps operate in the EU.

Speaker 2: 25:28

I do not like this, sam I am. I do not like Green Eggs and Ham. This is bad.

Speaker 2: 25:34

This is bad this is so bad Like this is. You know, one of the times I really regret we're not on camera, because I went from being really happy and positive on this podcast to head in hands trying to breathe through some anxiety as you explain this to me, because this is a snowball, this is basically set. This is like the. This is the. The capitalistic hellscape we have feared should not occur. Right Government steps in and tries to say no, bad company, you need to be better. Company says sure, government, I'll do what you want. Then turns around and punishes every single person Yep, it's behoove it to company, because I've been punished by government. This is the whole like playground logic of well, I didn't get what I want, so I'm taking away what you want. This is bad.

Speaker 1: 26:25

It's so bad and it really sucks for the consumer. Like sure sucks for the company is they got to pay different fees. But there's no way these companies can operate without changing their business model in this region. And so these poor consumers in the EU like all their favorite apps. They got to make a choice, so like, okay, well, I guess I got to go for a crumbier version of Spotify now because I can't afford to pay, you know, triple what I was paying monthly in order to support these new fees.

Speaker 2: 26:51

So and a lot of these services are already too expensive. Already, like it's already bad, people are canceling streaming services and subscriptions because they keep jacking up the rates and it's not affordable. Like, oh, that's not good. I don't like this. I really hope that the EU slaps back and basically says no, you cannot Like, we're so.

Speaker 1: 27:15

That's what happened with the lightning to usbc thing. The use like listen, we hate that. We have to like offer other charging ports and you are are unique and other people can't just stick to a standard like you should have to, so everybody can actually just use the same devices and make it more convenient for everyone. So I kind of forced them into using usbc and that felt like a huge win. And then you know everything Apple's been battling I think for years now against Epic Games and Fortnite and like they've had to pull the app off multiple times because Apple is trying to basically take 30% cut and Epic's like no, like we're not giving you 30% of our, of our you know subscription fees. This makes no sense to us.

Speaker 1: 27:51

So they've been battling back and forth and finally EU puts out this new you know regulation I think was last year and that basically opened it up to say, okay, well, if you don't want to use Apple because you're a developer to distribute your apps, you can use something else and we're going to force them to do it, which you know forces Apple's hand. And now they come back and do. This is exactly what you said. Slap to the face that. You slap to the face of everyone who's been trying to get them to like, change the way they're operating to be more fair for everybody. It's it's so bad, it's greedy and it's bad.

Speaker 2: 28:19

You know what's going to happen, because we've I mean, we haven't really seen it to this extent before, because we've never been so connected and dependent on virtual marketplaces and virtual spaces and apps and services and everything Like it's. It's all compounding to one big movement and let me tell you I'm excited for it. We're about to enter the golden age of piracy. Like we thought we were there in the 2000s, like now, water torrents those were the seeds that were planted, but we were about to hit a wave. I'm just calling it right now Like it is going to be the wild west of free stuff, because people are going to be so sick and tired of these companies stealing from them when they're paying for their own services. Like it's just, it cannot continue.

Speaker 2: 29:11

The amount of money these companies make, the profitability is off the charts. So fun fact. I didn't post this in the discord because I just thought it was depressing. There has been almost 50% of the layoffs that occurred in the entirety of last year in the gaming industry in this month. Wow, oh my goodness. And the companies that were performing these layoffs are two of the most profitable gaming organizations on the planet, laying off thousands of their employees.

Speaker 1: 29:44

Right, well, I couldn't. And one of those is Unity, right? No, it's Microsoft and Riot. Oh, yeah, yeah, both those. And then I think Unity did a bunch of layoffs at the end of the year, like the actual game development platform, and it creates these both.

Speaker 2: 29:58

That was. That's a different pill. Oh, a whole different pill. Okay, I want to throw them into that bucket, because Unity at least has an excuse. This is like they shot themselves in the hands, the feet and the mouth and are now like how do I stop the bleeding? But Microsoft and Riot have truly no excuse.

Speaker 2: 30:16

So it's just unfathomable to me how people can continue to get laid off, treated poorly, told they have to spend more money, punish for using open source or free apps Like this is all compounding too. We're going to start stealing in mass.

Speaker 1: 30:33

Right, the hardest thing about moving away from the Apple ecosystem is everything's locked down to the hardware now, like there is no way to really sideload apps anymore, to jailbreak like you used to. Like it's nearly impossible and unfortunately, I think the amount of iPhones that are being sold like it's still is 70% of the domestic market here in the US. Like it's. It's crazy, 70% of people have an iPhone, 30% have Android. It's different overseas depending on the country.

Speaker 1: 31:02

But I think to your point, what's going to start happening what I hope happening happens is all these third party you know distribution channels come online and people are like, oh, I want this cool new app but I can't use it because it's not an iOS app store. And then you get more and more of those and you know just the law of. You know the marketplace and the network effects. Everyone's going to want to be on those new apps that are no longer on the platform, so you're going to have to buy a different phone that allows you to actually interact. I hope that's what happens if they don't roll that back.

Speaker 2: 31:29

We need a third phone. We really do. Yeah, we need a fourth and fifth phone, like we need options that aren't Apple and Android.

Speaker 1: 31:36

Mm, hmm.

Speaker 2: 31:38

Truly it's. It's exciting to me that you have the choice between privacy or the wild frickin west. You have all the assurance, like I don't know if you saw, like the Google pixel literally like locked out its own users. It's just Google's phone. They updated and broke their own phone. Like I just right, both options suck. And like I'm going to choose privacy every time after my stint with identity theft. But right now we need like a Linux stuff.

Speaker 1: 32:09

It's tough, and I mean the more and more to your point we rely on technology, on things like this, like the more and more you can do on these devices and just the convenience factor.

Speaker 1: 32:18

I know there's a lot of brands that are trying their best to disrupt the market, but they're just not being successful yet. Yeah, I think with the distribution of apps on third party distribution platforms other than the app store and the Google Play Store, I think that's going to start opening the doors for other like, as I think the biggest issue right is it ties into the ecosystem. As you think about iOS and Android, if you don't build on those platforms, you can't do the native things that the phone can do that make it feel really seamless and natural, like add things to your calendar and all that. So I think you know moving into more third party distribution channels allow it basically forces Apple and Google to open up those gates for anyone to access, and I think that's what's going to start forcing the difference and where we could potentially see other players that integrate just like iOS and Android do so seamlessly with the devices.

Speaker 2: 33:07

Crazy.

Speaker 1: 33:08

Yeah, it's wild. Sorry, sorry for the press, it's wild. It's something in my world and the digital product world. You know, when they announced this and I started looking at you know different companies that I work with, different clients, that I have like different things, like that I was like, oh shoot, this could affect some of the companies I've worked with this is like this is it in home? We actually have some users in the EU and that's just going to be a big deal. So we're going to have to come up with a strategy.

Speaker 2: 33:34

I'm genuinely I'm so interested in the next 10 years.

Speaker 1: 33:42

What a wild really wild yeah, it's gonna be crazy. And also do the new vision platform, the AR headset from Apple's coming out, I think, this Friday, so it'll be really interesting, like how that's used and how that changes, like the headset game and moving us into where more headsets rather than doing everything on a phone in your hand. I still think we're many, many, yeah, wearable tech. I think we're still far, far away from maybe like a few years of where it's good enough to replace something like a phone, but I really don't think we're that far away.

Speaker 2: 34:11

I think it's getting really close. Are you going to wear one around on your face?

Speaker 1: 34:18

No, am I gonna get one? Potentially, because I am an early adopter and develop apps for companies and other things. So I think it's cool to be like an early adopter because obviously you know they do tons of research and they can see the way it's going. And I think wearable tech is the next thing. I think it's really cool for, like, if you're on an airplane or something like that, like where you're in a confined space and you want to be totally immersed watching a movie, rather than on the screen with all the noise around you. I think it's got some really cool benefits for that. But or sitting at home, you know, maybe you're browsing or you don't have like a massive TV, or you know there's, I don't know, you live with other people. I think there's a lot of benefits to that, but I don't see it being like a practical daily use type of thing for normal stuff.

Speaker 2: 35:02

I'm curious to try it, simply because I have two very nice VR headsets.

Speaker 2: 35:07

I would say like the leading VR headsets and I love both of them. They're great. I like playing VR games a lot, but I think the longest I ever did was four hours. It was actually a couple of weeks ago. I was playing Resident Evil four in VR and it's just. It's such a fun game. It's always been a fun game, but it's even more fun in VR and the thing about VR is unlike looking at a phone where your eyes are always pinpointed and contracted. You're looking relaxed. I mean, you're looking long distance. It's good for your eyes. But when I took off the headset, it's four hours. My eyes have been relaxed for so long I couldn't focus on things up close. Oh, like that.

Speaker 1: 35:41

I mean, that's a long time, yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:43

So like I mean, could you imagine wearing a Apple Vision Pro Quest Plus on your plane for a six hour flight from Florida to California? Like what's that gonna do to your eyes?

Speaker 1: 35:54

Yeah, I think the only difference is it's like augmented reality instead of like a full virtual reality, so like you can see through it technically. So I think that'll make your eyes adjust a little better. But to your point, if you are totally immersed like that for that long, yeah, definitely not gonna be good for focusing.

Speaker 2: 36:09

I'm just curious. There are these glasses I've considered getting a couple of times. I think they're called Xreel. They used to be in real, but now it's Xreel and you can plug it right into your Steam Deck and you can stream your. Steam Deck to your glasses and they're very low profile. They're inconspicuous, supposedly. They work great.

Speaker 1: 36:27

I've been taking I think you can even plug it in your phone, right? Yeah, like you can literally plug it in your phone, yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:31

Yeah, that is something that's a little more interesting to me, but even still, I value my vision. You know I laserized, so I value the work that's been done on them and I don't wanna lose that. Right Well if you wanna get a yeah, that's the news.

Speaker 1: 36:48

I guess we just spent half the episode talking about just random news, somewhat depressing.

Speaker 2: 36:53

This is more than a typical episode a year ago.

Speaker 1: 36:55

We've been done by now. Well, I am happy to say that I think this topic is gonna be really fast Okay. I thought it might be interesting and again, we talked about this beginning, so just fair warning to everyone that's still listening. After we did a 40 minute news and intro section.

Speaker 2: 37:12

We talked about poop for like 10 minutes.

Speaker 1: 37:15

I hope you enjoyed that the poop part of the discussion. I thought it'd be interesting to talk about a little bit of the day in the life I thought we'd share, like what our days look like, you know, for a product management director at a Fortune 500 company versus, you know yourself, being a director of product marketing at a tech startup. I thought it might be interesting to tell the folks what our days look like. Sure, I'm down, I'm down to clown and I want a little bit of the personal side. Bruce, I wanna hear from start to finish you can skip the bathroom part because you talked enough about that, but Okay, I wanna hear a little bit more about what a day in the life of Bruce looks like.

Speaker 2: 37:58

Sure, sure. So I wake up. You know, my wife and I have three dogs. Gotta take care of them. So usually we walk the dogs and I try to always have some cold brew in the fridge on hand. Okay, what time are we talking?

Speaker 1: 38:12

7.30. 6. 7. I like to get up with the sun basically. If I get it.

Speaker 2: 38:16

Shining through the window. I'm up.

Speaker 2: 38:18

Very natural, very natural, totally natural. It feels good. It feels good to get up with the sun and I already realized by saying that that's some privilege right there, cause I didn't used to have to do that. I used to have to get an alarm five in the morning to go be at work by six Yep Holding an irrigation system. So I've done my Love it. So I try to get coffee, or I go get coffee and then I'm up at the desk. I'm actually where I am right now, sitting in front of my desk at my laptop, and generally first part of the day, because most people aren't awake yet.

Speaker 2: 38:53

Great email you were distributed, so you're across the world so a little over a hundred employees now I'd say about 50% of our employees are in Eastern Europe and Another 50% are all over the United States. So morning is great for me to get through some coffee, wake up, go through email, catch up on Slack messages and then, if I have any document reviews or if I need to do any drafts of things. That's the first two, three hours of the day, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 39:23

So you know reading written content Do you like plan your mornings like it is your week, pretty well planned out where you have like to your point you? You don't have meetings Because people are still asleep. But do you have like tasks ahead of you or do you like dive into email?

Speaker 2: 39:35

first thing. Well, I have actually followed your advice from pre-Christmas and I'm using the getting things done model. So on Mondays I'll actually go through. I have a personal Trello I use now and I'll go through all the tasks I've created, make sure they're all to date. I'll put anything down, like a look at my calendar and see what's scheduled for me, because I don't just write. I do press engagements, analyst engagements, I have to give webinars, I have to do sales training, so there's a lot of things that could be on the calendar that I may have to plan for instead of side time for. So I try to look at the things that are do deliverable versus the things that I must perform and Create some kind of plan for how I'm going to tackle the things that aren't Hard set on the calendar, and that's that's where I play getting things done.

Speaker 1: 40:20

I love that. That's great. Yeah, I think that's such a pro tip because I think a lot of people just jump into the either their first meeting you know developers that daily stand up could even be marketing know if you guys are kind of working an agile to you know you stand up first or and or they just dive directly into email. And I think a really pro tip for all those freshers out there, but maybe even seasoned professionals, is you're letting the day control you. If you do that, you know you're you're just diving into fires of what's the hottest thing happening right now. It's much more efficient for you to have a plan of these are the most important things. I need to be working on their schedule. You have the focus time and rather than just jumping in and clouding your brain with all of that fatigue, You're actually just hopping in and starting the focused work, which is the most value you can provide.

Speaker 2: 41:09

I completely agree. I saw Continuing on the day's journey. I'll try to get through that. If I have planning, I'll do a little planning. If it's like a Wednesday and I've already got my plan, you know, I might have some meetings. I might have to do a webinar. If I have a nice hour of free time between the hours of 9 and 12, I like to get in a little exercise, so I'll do a 20 minute row, take a shower, like I do, like to break up the first part of the day with exercise when I can. Recently that has not been something I've been able to do because chaos, right. Fortunately, my day-to-day as of late is not representative of the day-to-day I had for the last two years. It's, it's truly taken a strange sort of dive, but I'm trying to forcefully Get that time back. Yeah, some of it might be a little bit of malicious compliance. Some of it might just be better time budgeting for me and my own personal time, but I do, like you know what sucks. What's that?

Speaker 1: 42:08

and what I hate about what you just said, because I do the same thing, so I'm not blaming you in any way. You're calling you out. You cut arguably one of the most important things to you, being the best you can be Out, and that's the first you went after. Right, the exercise, right, and that's so.

Speaker 2: 42:25

You know part of my IBS, which you talked about earlier. I'm a very slow digester so I can't exercise after I eat, and I don't eat until about 12 o'clock. So the 9 to 12 window is the time for me to exercise. Otherwise, if I try to do it after I eat, I will throw up and that's just fun. So it is sad because that's that is usually. The window where I have free time is in the morning and it's it's been given up because of Poor management.

Speaker 1: 42:53

Yeah, I Recently. So I totally agree with you. I did that quite a bit the last few weeks. It's just been hectic I would just say Q for it. And now has been hectic and I, the first thing I cut is that because I'm like, well, you know I got to answer and catch up on things and the time that I would normally do that, and or you know I got to get to the office earlier because there's these meetings going on and At least from my perspective and I'm curious on yours, bruce it actually makes it worse, makes the situation worse. When I exercise I always feel better, I'm always more productive. And taking 30 minutes sitting on my computer droning over email, like mindlessly my brain is just numb and like I'm so slow and I know I'm not productive, versus like getting a 30-minute workout in, like it's, you can't compare right like night and day difference, how you feel when you get exercise in and how much more productive you will be completely agree, and it's.

Speaker 2: 43:48

It's unfortunate because if I, if I don't do it in the morning, that I won't do it in the day generally, because the timing of my other two meals, as we talked about earlier, yeah, all in five, right, like so, like I eat early dinner and then it's just that's my, that's my window to be nourished and to take care of myself, when there's not really a good window for exercise after that. So yeah, oh man, yeah. So then when?

Speaker 1: 44:13

you hop in, so let's say you exercise, if you're lucky to do so in Bruce's dream day, the meetings usually start after lunch.

Speaker 2: 44:22

Well, actually they usually start right around 10. Okay.

Speaker 2: 44:25

I try to get the row in between like nine and ten, and If I've done that it's gonna be a good day. But meeting start around 10. That's when the you know the Eastern Europeans, the Americans, can usually get together and chat. I Block my lunch, which is at 12. That's always eat a lunch. I try to block an hour when possible. I try to block an hour when possible, but recently that's been getting cut down to 32, so I Do that. And then the second half of the day is Generally 80% meetings and that's the nightmare, right like that's, when I'm just jumping from meeting to meeting. Hopefully it's not 30 minute meetings at 30 minute meetings, because that's just the most draining thing. If I can, at least I agree hour to hour. That means it can zone out and read reddit through most of them, but if it's 30 minutes there's no hope. There's just no hope of me being able to even check out right and I try to close the laptop at five.

Speaker 2: 45:20

That also has been changing recently because, again, you know, just life finds a way. But yeah, the work has to get done in the morning, because the work cannot be done After that unless. I want to work at night and I don't, so I don't.

Speaker 1: 45:41

I don't really hear like email, like are you just constantly kept checking in on email and like like teams or chat or whatever you use?

Speaker 2: 45:48

Yeah, I'm always on a slack. I usually respond to those things during meetings, because meetings are useless. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:56

That's unfortunate, yeah, mm-hmm, oh man, that's, that's rough. I mean it's great, a lot of good things in there. Like you have focus time in the morning usually, you try to get the exercise window in usually, which is good, and then, yeah, the meetings are kind of inevitable. When looking for many size company, you know you tend to have a lot of meetings and it's really hard to break that, that behavior, once it starts and you're in full swing.

Speaker 2: 46:21

I Really stop. So I have multiple monitors. I will literally be giving a presentation and Someone will ask a stupid question and then someone will start giving a stupid answer and I'll be like, while the presentations on my screen, on my second monitor is my email and slack and I'll just start responding to things because I know this is gonna take 15 minutes and it's not gonna be productive. So Go do work, and that's how I get things done.

Speaker 1: 46:44

Yep, yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't just agree with you. We talked about this before. It's like in those meetings. You should just question. You know why? Haven't this meeting at all Like?

Speaker 2: 46:53

is it really I have the identity of others to do my job?

Speaker 1: 46:56

Yeah. Yeah, oh man Whoo, wow. Well, I mean we could dive into mine or we could save it for another topic, because I know we're hitting that. The hour marks here, but yeah, it's really interesting and your day, obviously, you know you have your focus work, but then it's like reviewing things like the marketing beats or campaigns or whatever you're doing. Like you said, you might do a training for your internal team or you might even be like presenting or preparing for like a conference or like sales calls, right.

Speaker 2: 47:22

Right, yeah, okay, a lot of stuff is building up to bigger things like. This week is all travel, and I spent a lot of time building Presentations and getting my team ready to present this next week, which is a lot of meetings.

Speaker 1: 47:35

So, yeah, yeah making sure you're you have your pre meetings to plan for the meetings you know. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:40

Oh, I love it. I had at least four of those this week at least, wow oof.

Speaker 1: 47:46

Yeah, not fun. But yet again, when you have big things like that, like hopefully it's not all the time You're acting like that to prepare for internal meetings, at least you're like generating business from the meetings. Hopefully this week.

Speaker 2: 47:56

Yeah, yeah yeah, totally. Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely, of course, yeah, totally. I would never. I would never do something that's completely fruitless in a waste of everyone's time, energy and effort, just because someone asked me to, I'd never just do that, I would stand out. This is wrong.

Speaker 1: 48:12

You're a good corporate being and you do the maximum company work that you need to do. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:17

So I appreciate you have to do company work and it is just a complete, utter, invaluable waste of effort, money and time. You know I'm gonna be the one to stand up and say, guys, we shouldn't do this, not just sit there and say, I'm gonna do this because what's the point of trying?

Speaker 1: 48:33

Yeah, yeah, you told to do it. So, being a good company man, put your head down and work, even if it takes you a long time and it's useless absolutely right. As if we couldn't get any any more depressed. Well, tell me about after, so like, do you do something, do you break? I think a big thing is like breaking out of that work phase, like you was, like shutting your laptop screen. Do you have any kind of rituals like that today? Okay, that concludes the day.

Speaker 2: 48:58

Yes, Generally, when the ring light turns off, which is a weird sentence to say for someone who doesn't, you know, stream on only fans. When the ring light turns off.

Speaker 2: 49:07

That's why I'm done, so I will turn off the ring light. Okay, take my phone off, because my phone is my webcam, so I'll take that off right now. I Will finally look at my phone, see the nonsense that's happened while I've been Me deep in the meetings all day, shut the laptop, lid and then end cap the workday with dogs again. So we have to walk our dogs usually five, five thirty, so walk them and then the rest of the day is mine. I won't look at my email and I won't look at black, regardless of how many times I get messaged or how urgent it is, because, screw that, I've been here all day.

Speaker 1: 49:44

That's great, that's awesome. So you guys just have dinner. You know, do whatever you do, hang out has some personal time and time you had to bet eyes bleed.

Speaker 2: 49:53

Usually we go to bed around 11 12 o'clock. Recently it's been okay. The power world you know truthfully.

Speaker 1: 50:00

Yeah, new game.

Speaker 2: 50:02

Dealing any free moment we have. But 11 is a good bedtime, nice, not so much in pals around then when the power world happened. Now it's like 12, 12, 30 is fair enough. It gets dangerous for you.

Speaker 1: 50:17

Yeah, it gets dangerous.

Speaker 2: 50:18

It's slippery slope on slippery slope cash and and putting them pals to work Very nice.

Speaker 1: 50:26

Well, it's good. Thanks for giving us a little insight on your day. I was curious what it looked like for you. Put me in your shoes. I want to walk it.

Speaker 2: 50:33

I know, your day is Absolutely Bonk, nanas, it is. Mine is why I know we're at 50 minutes.

Speaker 1: 50:42

Yeah, we can't do it.

Speaker 2: 50:43

I want to save your day for next week.

Speaker 1: 50:47

Please. Yeah, I think that's the right way to do it. Okay For yours. I'm wondering if you know more and I wonder if you feel this, because I'm going to explain this on when I go through mine as well. Like longer range planning is something I'm trying to get in the habit of doing, because I still feel like the weeks come and like I have a plan and generally my week is good, like I've got productive plan for the week, but beyond that, like two weeks from now, I'm like I don't really know what's going on.

Speaker 1: 51:16

And so I'm trying to do a lot better of doing that because I'm just not good at it. Are you decent at like I mean for you? You know you have events you're working towards, obviously, that your plan is the same with, like you know, digital and technology and you know, road mapping exercises and all that. But like trying to figure out when you have a lot of scope and responsibility two weeks from now is a really difficult thing for me to do lately.

Speaker 2: 51:38

Yeah, the challenge for me in my role at a startup. We do have to do long term planning. I have MBOs that are set for the quarter, so like I got to publish eight blogs this quarter. I know I'm going to do four videos and I'm going to grow the percentage of awareness about our company by X amount. So like I have to set these goals and follow them, which requires more long term strategy and planning. But I still do work at a startup and, because of factors unspoken, things change like wildfire in the wind and I have to be able to respond while still keeping the promises I made, and it leads to some very creative work.

Speaker 2: 52:19

Let me tell you creative work.

Speaker 1: 52:21

That is a nice way to say it.

Speaker 2: 52:23

Yeah, so I have to del. I've delugally balanced both the literally, we have to change our messaging this hour and also we need to change the entire website for the year, and let me tell you, it's fun. Never, never, a dull moment.

Speaker 1: 52:42

Oh man, the qualms of being part of a startup. Fun in some regard, not fun in others.

Speaker 2: 52:49

I'm curious if other people's startup experience is the same as mine. It'd be so curious Because I really liked the startup when it was small and I think I've only started to really find challenge with it as it's grown bigger.

Speaker 1: 53:09

Yep, I mean, hey, when you're scaling, things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Speaker 2: 53:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:17

Well, welcome to this depressing corporate strategy podcast that we talked about poop particles. We talked about travel tips with Bruce. We talked about, you know, evil monopolies that are just trying to squeeze every penny out of the consumer and the other companies that they work with. And, yeah, we're ending on a note of Bruce's life just coming to a collapse and malicious compliance.

Speaker 2: 53:38

Gotta get there. Everything ends in malicious compliance.

Speaker 1: 53:41

I think so you know it's more of like a lifestyle it is the way I operate Just everywhere Malicious compliance.

Speaker 2: 53:50

Bruce is in the room I can point to a man.

Speaker 1: 53:56

You know, we didn't do today, we didn't do the etymology of any corporate saying and at this point it's too late yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:04

I'm too tired, I'm winded. This is not like I know. I wore you out.

Speaker 1: 54:08

I wore you out. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this podcast now feels like work. But, thank you. I know it was hard for you and it's gonna be hard for me when I do mine, because why talk about work when I'm always talking about work, you know? Yeah. Hey you got to do it for the people, the sacrifice we make.

Speaker 2: 54:23

Yes, so hopefully next week, when you record our next episode, we'll have even more travel tips and we'll get a look into Clark's day to day experience. Boy howdy, I'm excited because I know a thing or three about Clark. You do you know too many things about me? I think so. I think so. Hey, Clark, you know what it's time for. What is that? Believe it or not? Not ready Almost an hour in it's time. For what do you mean? It's the game show within a game show in the podcast and the podcast Nice.

Speaker 1: 54:53

Who's up?

Speaker 2: 54:56

Is it me? I think it's.

Speaker 1: 54:59

I think it's. I'll be honest, I haven't checked the channel so I'm like I'm holding it's me because you did last with the little kitty cat.

Speaker 2: 55:05

It's me. And so, surprising to none, surprising to none. This week's meme was submitted by capitalist correspondent Alex Trepo, who's always on the what Do you Meme game. Yes, in this game we have to describe a meme submitted by one of our wonderful listeners or correspondents in our Discord, the corporate fan, which you'll find out how to join in just a minute or check the show notes, up to you. You can leave right now if you'd like. And this week's meme, let me describe it to you. It's a man, orange coat, a man, yellow background. Okay, absolute disgust. He looks like he could want nothing to do with this thing that is to his left. What is that thing? Sweaty handshakes. This man, sweaty handshakes, but what's that? In a moment of clairvoyant realization, he looks towards you, finger extended, saying hey, buddy, I like this. It's our boy. Knuckles the hedgehog, knuckles the echidna, excuse me. And he's pointing to fist bumps, because knuckles loves good fist nuts, good old nuts.

Speaker 2: 56:15

Nucks the echidna.

Speaker 1: 56:16

That was great.

Speaker 2: 56:18

It's got those chaos, emeralds.

Speaker 1: 56:21

Listen, I relate on a personal level and an emotional level to this meme. Yeah, not because I'm a Sonic the Hedgehog kind of guy, but mainly because I've really clammy sweaty hands. Yeah, and I feel for the people I got to shake their hands. I like always do the wipe on the side of the pants, you know, before I extend the hand because I know it's going to be. It's not my fault, I can't do anything about it.

Speaker 2: 56:43

And I deserve this.

Speaker 1: 56:44

I know and I'm sorry, but if this bump would be much cleaner, we'll do it, just do it.

Speaker 2: 56:49

This is my point. Last week you set the tone Be your own, bruce. Stick them nuts out, give them nuts. I agree, keeping in the action and improves this message.

Speaker 1: 57:06

I love it. Well, you can get in on the action. All you got to do is join our discord. It's in the show notes. You can go to website Corvus Strategybiz. You can join it. There's a link. It's super easy and anyone's welcome. We keep on growing. Every week Keeps on growing. And then what you do is you head down to the what do you mean? Dashes in between channel and you can submit a meme and we'll talk about it every episode, whether we like it or not.

Speaker 2: 57:29

The discord today is to grow. We only have the best people in there. So if you're not in there and you listen and you think you're the best, yeah, well, obviously the data is not correlating here, so get in here.

Speaker 1: 57:39

Come on, yep. The only thing that you shouldn't do is fondle anybody's handles on a few cases. If you do that, don't join. Please, don't do that, please please don't.

Speaker 2: 57:48

If you want to do keep in touch with the podcast and episodes, we have a newsletter. You can sign up for that on our website, super easy. Again, don't miss out. And if you thought to yourself, huh, why is there an advertisement on this show? There's not, by the way. Well, not on this one, not yet. Anyway, there could be, there might be in the future, could be for a dentist office, you never know. Support us. All you have to do is go to those show notes again, click on the Buy Me a Coffee link and support the show. This is a completely funded by us endeavor and by us I mean me. So we pay to do this and we hope you find it valuable. And if you want to send a little value back to us, all we're looking to do is to hit that flat zero on the profitability scale. So we're not bleeding to make this happen. So, if you're interested, support the show.

Speaker 1: 58:40

For Bruce's sake, please, please, just support the show. He's going broke over there.

Speaker 2: 58:45

It's like those commercials he used to see, the cartoons, the sad dogs, that. But it's us, it's you.

Speaker 1: 58:51

Yeah, it's you. I'm half an angel, thank you. Mark, you're welcome, I'm here for you and now we're going into. Yeah, you got to share, you know, if you're already in and if you're not in, or if you are in, you like us. Sure, if you enjoy this episode.

Speaker 1: 59:06

It's been a weird ramble of different things and it's usually about corporate related stuff and being corporate beings, but now we're diving in to learn a little more about Bruce and also just going through travel tips randomly every single time we experience them. So, yeah, join, join us, share us. That's the best way. Rate us Well. Thank you forever.

Speaker 2: 59:23

Yes, and this. We're completely unmarketed. Word of mouth is the way. So if you want to do us a solid, share it with a friend and get them in the discord and that's it. That's our show, that's it. That's all she wrote, that's it. So I don't have one, I don't have it up, I know I was like trying to think what's a good one.

Speaker 1: 59:43

It's what the problem is. It's a weekend and usually I don't hear any on the weekend.

Speaker 2: 59:48

Yeah, no, you know so none are like fresh of mind. 10x our listenership, share them. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll touch base next week.