Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
103. A Corporate Carol
Amidst the holiday frenzy, have you ever stopped to ponder the delicate dance of managing work stress and personal well-being? As flu season collides with year-end deadlines, our latest episode serves up a heartening blend of humor and resolve. We swap tales of seasonal ailments and overfilled calendars, contemplating the need for a new tradition—perhaps updating resumes by the fireside—to remind us of our pursuit for a healthier work-life harmony.
Reflect with us on the past year's shifting American consumer patterns and Chick-fil-A's operational choices, all through the lens of our podcast's milestones. Joining us in this celebration is Alex Restrepo, who sparked our most riveting dialogues on late-stage capitalism, while contributions from Squid Boy and Keelan Austin shed light on the nuances of corporate culture. We're brimming with excitement for the year ahead, teasing plans for our Discord community and video content ventures, and a nod to our future forays into merchandise, inviting artistically inclined listeners to play a part.
As we wrap up for the holidays, we embrace the rare corporate kindness of a Christmas break, sharing how we navigate the complexities of time off and unexpected work emergencies. Our exchange is kept merry and bright, steering clear of cynicism as we extend festive wishes to you, our listeners. Tune in for an episode that's as much about candid work-life chatter as it is about fostering a welcoming community, filled with the joy of memes—even if we can't show them to you.
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Craig, he's always listening, just like Sandy Claus.
Speaker 2:You know what Happy holidays, Craig.
Speaker 1:Happy holidays, Craig. Thanks for doing all this work you do.
Speaker 2:Love the robots. One day it'll become sent to you.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast. That could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Burke and it's the eve of the eve. I think we're going to release this episode on Christmas. But Christmas Miracle is a corporate strategy. Christmas Miracle, that's the gift that keeps on giving all year round. A little bit more on that in a minute. First, Vibe Checula Clark, how you doing.
Speaker 2:Vibe Checula Sounds like a terribly branded cereal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's chocolate's younger, sibling cereal.
Speaker 2:You really drink the corporate Kool-Aid? That's another way.
Speaker 2:You eat the corporate cereal and that's what you call it Vibe Checula, vibe Checula For you. Abul. I will eat a big Abul right now. No, I'm doing good. This week was extremely busy. It's the week before the holidays and there's one or two ways it can go, and I've seen this at a couple of companies now. It's like it's either dead quiet, everybody's out, no real work is getting done, people think they're going to do work but nobody really is. You are just goes in the complete opposite direction and you are just working your tail off nonstop to try to get things done before the new year, and unfortunately mine was the latter. Me too, pam, me too, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:On the work life and the home life? No Well.
Speaker 1:I had the flu, so I yeah, we got to Vibe Checula.
Speaker 2:You've been. I'm surprised you're alive.
Speaker 1:We even put out an episode in two weeks. So here's the run up on what happens. Right, my wife has to go up to Philadelphia to Nanny for our niece who's going to be one in a couple months, because they're housekeeper, just up and left like hey, I got to disappear for two weeks, the mafia's coming after me or something. So she goes up to Nanny, she comes back, she's sick. Oh, she gets sick while she's nannying up there. She comes back, she's sick. She's got a cold. Four days later I get sick. But I don't get the cold, I get the flu. That's right. So one I realized I never had the flu before. We talked about this in a previous episode. Like I don't get flu shots because you know previous incidents, I would always get the flu. Well, it turns out I didn't know what the flu actually was.
Speaker 2:The flu is nothing. I knew it. When you said you were getting sick, I was like he's probably just getting that little case of like the flu you get when you get the flu shot for like 12, 16 hours and then you're good. I know, my friend, no flu like noxious.
Speaker 1:But no, my friend, quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. Actually, what I had been getting all these years was just a radical sinus infection, just the worst, because this week I go I get the flu. I'm like this is actually easy. I had a high fever, I had chills, I had aches, that was it, I was able to work.
Speaker 2:That was terrible.
Speaker 1:That was it. That was awful.
Speaker 2:You think?
Speaker 1:it sounds terrible, my friend, but you have no idea what I deal with year after year. I mean, let me set you up for what happens next, right? So I go three days, I just work through it. I have the flu, I kick its butt. I can work through a high fever, that's no big deal. The flu, freaking, migrates into a bacterial sinus infection in my nose. So then I have to go back to urgent care and they're like yeah, you got just the worst, the worst sinus infection. I feel like death. And now I finally know for reels, for reels, I'm not getting the flu every year. I'm getting this awful sinus infection that literally feels like there's a knife penetrating my brain. So right now I am on like 18 steroids and an antibiotic, but let me tell you, two days later I'm feeling okay. Ruse, it just works.
Speaker 2:That is rough. Were you able to? So this is. You know it always depends what type of sickness you get, but were you able to actually like rest? No, or was it one of those sicknesses that it just hangs around and you just die?
Speaker 1:I didn't sleep because the high fever and the aches prevented me from doing that.
Speaker 1:And then I basically just worked all day because my work life is an absolute nightmare and I was like you know what? I'm taking a page out of Clark's book I'll just work till I die. And I did. I did Basically. The only time I took off was Friday when I finally went to urgent care to say like, please medicate me, give me something. And then they put me on the heavy steroid and I didn't work for the second half of Friday. But, clark, let me tell you, I've finally in your shoes and I hate them. I hate your shoes. I want to kick them off and throw them against the window. I've never worked so much in a December in my life, in my life.
Speaker 2:You know what? There's a commercial out there that has a saying for this.
Speaker 1:A December to remember. Yeah, I'm certainly going to remember it next year when I'm tailoring my resume.
Speaker 2:Well, you got to do a couple of things. One you got to make sure you stay healthy. That's going to be a goal for you. I am healthy. I mean I have sinus infections. I am healthy. Why is your body always want to murder you? I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. I had a physical. So I mean, this is a lot of personal information, but I had a physical this year and the doctor did my report and because I've been rowing so much, I've really tried to row at least three times a week, do hard, intense rows. She came back and she's like your results are better than they've ever been. She's like you're healthier than you've ever been in your life. That's, bruce. I'm like thank you, I'm so glad I'm healthy now. I'm glad I've got my diet under control. I got my health under control.
Speaker 1:I still get these stupid science infections that just destroy me and, like I said, the flu is nothing, cold, nothing. I can handle all of it, but these science infections, it's awful. I went to an ENT years back and once I started getting them, the man said look, the only way your life is going to get any better is if we do this incredibly invasive procedure where we cut open your nose, we break all the bones, we put plastic in there and there's an 80% chance your life gets better. And then I said well, what's the 20% chance like? Your life gets so much worse. So this is where I'm at.
Speaker 2:Holy cow. Yeah, I just got into it. I feel like you've gone through a series of physical, neurological like just crazy trauma in the years that I've known you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you can't such a break. No, but you know what I really do take it in stride, because I do. I do know one how lucky I am by how well I'm compensated and the life I live outside of work. I mean, my work life is a nightmare but it pays me well and I do well. We have a, we have a nice little podcast. I live in a very nice house. I have a good home life, but you know, you got to get a role with it. You got to just make lemonade, as they say.
Speaker 2:It's a great perspective going into the new year.
Speaker 1:It's like you know what, given all things.
Speaker 2:It's not that bad.
Speaker 1:And I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So, speaking of making lemonade, I just wanted to call quick, brief attention to the LinkedIn news. Just the sidebar you see on LinkedIn. I have not seen that. You see the plans, layoffs, $2 billion in cuts. All of those layoffs are focused on their American staff and expanding in China. Just giving you the long and the short there. Way fair, ceo to staff Work more. Another article Americans spend, just not on gifts. You want the long and the short of that one. We're spending on things we need, not actually things. We want Chick-fil-A on a Sunday, maybe in New York. That's right, chick-fil-a and establishment long, known for not opening on Sunday For religious reasons. You can make what you will of that. He's thinking about opening on Sunday. Wow, the world's falling apart.
Speaker 2:What is happening? Yeah, this was just your newsfeed on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can make a lot of things suck, and that's what puts it all in perspective for me, right? Like I think about the crap I deal with on a day-to-day basis, and then I hear about everyone else and I'm like man, things are pretty great. I'll take it.
Speaker 2:You know what's crazy In perspective? We were talking about how we had to work harder this December and everything you just said is companies are forcing their employees to work harder and they're making bigger cuts, and I think that's just a symptom of the overall economy. As we were talking with Alex with the late-stage capitalism 2 electric boogaloo episode, he was saying it's not as bad as everyone thought it was going to be, which is good, but it still feels really painful because I think we had that bubble for a while that I was like actually things are pretty good, jobs are out there, people are getting paid and making tons of money, and then it just kind of popped a little bit Like it's deflating, and so I think that's why everything's happening right now Like we're on this slow deflate and you just feel it more and more towards the end of the year as you're looking at the next one.
Speaker 1:We are rapidly approaching the 10,000 mark for layoffs in the video game industry. Need I remind you this has been the most profitable and successful year for video games of all time.
Speaker 2:And not even just normal console gaming, desktop gaming. It's like even mobile gaming has absolutely blown up. People are playing mobile games more than ever before.
Speaker 1:There is a gross imbalance when you look at what the company is making versus what the people are taking, and I don't think we need to say anything other than it certainly sucks to be a person and not a company. If I could be a company, I'd be sitting real pretty right now.
Speaker 2:Unless you're a lucrative podcast that makes no money. Yes, that's true Podcasts that tends to be a company. You're a 50% shareholder and owner of a company and it makes negative dollars, so you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know what, clark? Here's an idea. Are you ready for this? Yeah, I'm on it. Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I stopped listening because I got the press for a second and then I snapped back in, so I'm here.
Speaker 1:What if we got out of this depression? What if, instead, look, it's the eve of the eve. Whether or not you celebrate the holidays or you just use it as a great excuse to take time off, which you should, that's the only thing we should celebrate this next week is just the fact that we get a little time off work.
Speaker 2:We focus on the positive, I agree. Let's end the year on a high note, because it's been a hard year, especially if you're still looking for jobs and if things are going wrong in your life. It's a good time to be joyous and talk about some happy things, so you can end on that high note and I'm excited We've got some really cool stuff to talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do the Christmas Carol thing. Let's sit around the table. You're my invalid son, I am your father, who works for Ebenezer Scrooge, but he's just been visited by three ghosts and things are going to get better for us, I think. So let's do it. Let's torment that old geyser.
Speaker 2:Who's the first ghost? We're doing the past.
Speaker 1:Let's ghost of Christmas past. We got a backtrack 2023.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Man. We're going to do kind of like a podcast rundown but also just talk about all the amazing stuff that's happened for Corporate Strategy this year, yeah, so when we started this pod up today, or when Clark and I did the pre-show, we literally looked at our little account, which we use our for podcast hosting, and it gave us a nice little rundown on how we're doing and, believe it or not, pretty good.
Speaker 1:We got a recap yeah, 42 episodes this year 42. That's the most ever, right? I believe that it is. We actually held ourselves accountable, because I think last year it was 30 something. Yeah, you're right, we did the thing we said we were going to do. We were more consistent. Despite sickness, travel, meteorites, godzilla everything that happened this year, we managed to crank out 42 bangers.
Speaker 2:Didn't miss on one of them. Not only just like quantity, but also the length of them got longer and longer. Yes, like we had a. What was the longest episode? Close to an hour, over an hour.
Speaker 1:Over an hour. That's right. In fact, the last episode that came out I had to hold off on publishing, because we usually publish on Monday or Tuesday. I had to save it for Thursday because we overwent on our budget for publication time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That is insane.
Speaker 2:Quality is going up, quality is going up. More and more people are downloading. As we look at the numbers, every year we're between 2022 and 2023, we doubled. So we doubled this year compared to what we were in terms of listener account downloads of last year, and that's super cool because that means people are listening more, talking about us more, we're talking about things that are relevant and we continue to grow, which is really awesome, and I hope at some point I'm sure we won't be able to continue doubling, but I hope we continue doubling through 2024 and keep on growing it and this awesome group of people that has rallied around.
Speaker 2:I think that, honestly, I think what I'm most excited about even though it's contradictory because I rarely actually contribute is the Discord. The Discord is so cool. We have so many cool people in the Discord and Alex has done an awesome job moderating it and like all the time, whenever I do jump in there, I'm like, oh, there's like three new people. This is awesome. And we're talking about new topics and we're getting new suggestions for things to talk about. Like it's super cool. If I had to look back, I think that's like the coolest thing we've done this year is starting to build an actual community around our listenership.
Speaker 1:There has been some absolutely fantastic conversations in there and I want to highlight the fact that we have not been part of them. A lot of these happen, naturally, and y'all are just giving such good advice. I will read it and I'll be like I can add nothing to this. In fact, I would be tracked. It'd be a negative if I spoke my mind, so I just won't. I love it. We have 40 people in the Discord right now and they're all amazing. We love all of you. If you're listening and you never make it to the end and you're like the Discord, what the way you get there is my go on our website, corporatestrategybiz, and contact us. You'll be able to find your way in there. But it's so nice to be able to chat with all of y'all and hang with all of y'all all the time. I love it 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so good and we have so much in store. We'll talk towards the end about ideas for next year, things we tossed around, but we have so much in store for the Discord to keep growing. So definitely hop in there, join the conversation, contribute back. That's what this is all about. It's us helping each other because we're all just people in this corporation, in this work-driven world. So join the Discord. It's been highly valuable to at least me and everyone, I think who's been in there has been really thankful and they've contributed a ton. So, yeah, thank you for everybody that's in there.
Speaker 1:Big shout out, big thanks. Hey, speaking of that. So we got 40 people in the Discord and, according to our stats here, corporate strategy within the top 50% of all. Buzzsprout. That's our host's podcast. Because we're top 50%, which means we get 30 on average, 30 or more downloads in the first seven days. To be top 25, we need to get 105 downloads in the first seven days. Now there's 40 people in the Discord. We're getting 30 downloads on average in first seven. Here's my call to action for y'all. How do we get to top 25? Via sharing word of mouth. I spend more money on marketing. You tell us like how do we get in more feeds so we can get to the top 25%? I want to know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think you know some of that math is still mathin right now, but I think we can go way beyond that if you, if even just you guys, start sharing it with some people, and I think it is on us to make sure we keep on producing. You know, good podcasts with relevant topics that you feel like you want to share. So, as always, use the discord because you can suggest topics there. So jump in there, Tell us what you want to hear and we'll more than happily talk about it.
Speaker 1:It's definitely the best way to get in contact with us. I never check our email, but I'm in the discord.
Speaker 2:The email may or may not still be running, when I hope it is.
Speaker 1:I really hope it is. Hey, you know what else Speaking of? Speaking of quality episodes, our top episode this year, major shout out to Mr Alex Restrepo, our discord moderator and owner, for providing our number one episode late stage capitalism a solution. Episode 63 more downloads than any other.
Speaker 2:That is super cool. A guest speaker came on. You talked about something super relevant and super knowledgeable about it. I learned so much every time Alex comes on the show and the fact that it's the top episode of the year like shout outs to Alex. Not only is he doing all this, you know, for free, but also he's providing an incredible amount of value to our listeners.
Speaker 1:Big shout out, Big thanks. Hey Clark, what was your favorite episode this year?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a tough one, oh man we had so many On the spot, oh man. So I was kind of scrolling through them before. This is you and I were talking and I'll be honest, we dipped a lot into the AI. Well, we went to it many times Like we just kept coming back, you know, to the well, but I think, honestly, some of my favorite might have been like the random articles that one of our lovely discord contributor, squid Boy, gave.
Speaker 2:It was just so like out of the blue, he would find these articles and they would post them and we would just read about them and say like, ok, does this make sense in the corporate world?
Speaker 2:And it was kind of fun just like breaking those down and saying what's valuable, what's not valuable and it kind of gave me at least like an outside perspective of OK, this is how we feel in our corporate you know niche realms of where you work, bruce, where I work, but also this is like just generic stuff that everyone feels beyond just your niche of work and I don't know. I think that was a lot of fun and I also think the travel tip ones because I travel quite a bit this year was a lot of fun too. Yeah, but I think having Alex on for the both the late stage capitalism updates might have been my favorite too, just from a learning perspective. You and I were talking about that before. Like anytime I get a chance to learn something, I just like absorb that and it was super cool to hear all the different you know content that he shared.
Speaker 1:I agree, I loved making the Squid Boy suggested episodes. Like Squid Boy, if you want to be our full time article contributor, you're hired Congrats. You submit topics to the end of days and we'll do them, because you've produced nothing but bangers for us. They're fun, they're really fun for us to make. I think my favorite episode was yours. Yeah, has to be 93.
Speaker 1:Understanding the world of unions with labor lawyer Keelan Austin, who is, you know, not just a great relative of mine but a fantastic lawyer, and I thought I knew about unions. We went into that episode with just a few questions and we came out like with a fundamental understanding of the pros and the cons. I loved how non or how unbiased it was, like it was a very just, flat picture of unions and what works and what doesn't work about them, and it definitely changed my perspective a bit, and I think that's that's the important thing to me is I come in with an idea of what I think and then I walk away with my mind having changed. That's one of the reasons I love talking to you so much, clark. You changed my mind all the time and anytime we have an episode like that, it's, it's just powerful for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, yeah, it's really cool getting a different perspective and I thought exactly what you said, like, I thought I had an idea of like what unions were and the different perspectives from both sides, both the company side and the individual side, because I've worked in some non just tech companies and Keelan, when she came on, I was like holy cow, I did not understand. You know the pros and cons and ramifications and I also agree with what you said, like the non bias look at it of, even though, like, her job is usually to protect the company, she is also just saying like the pros and the cons of the individual side to why you would want to have a union. So I thought that was really cool to hear that, that it was like, hey, these are just the facts and this is how unions work today and could change over time, but this is why, or why you would not want a union on both sides, both the corporate side as well as the individual side. So I agree that was super cool.
Speaker 2:And just for spending that time with us and, you know, sharing that knowledge. I think everybody learned a little bit.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree more. Hey, you know who's not going to do it right now. Oh, the ghosts of Christmas present.
Speaker 2:Well, you didn't say something crazy too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One, we almost talked for 1600 minutes.
Speaker 1:Oh, like that's insane, that is insane, that's more minutes than I've been alive.
Speaker 2:I hope that's not the case. But, like, if you think about that, like let's, let's do some, let's do some quick math. Yeah you know, 1600 divided by 60. So 26 hours worth of us just talking to each other over a full day. Wow, just of content that we've talked to each other. And we also talked to each other outside of that, you know, pre-show post. We've been, we've been talking a lot this year, which is super cool, and we don't get paid. No, we get paid nothing.
Speaker 1:Jeez, we're shutting this podcast down. I know right, Most of Christmas present just gave me a great idea. I'm getting a day of my life back here.
Speaker 2:You know, 1600 minutes, 42 episodes. You know we doubled this year. Like you said, top 50 percent of podcasts per this provider. It's super cool year, you know. As we look back at it, I think you know it's really awesome to see the growth that we've had and more podcast episodes than ever, and I think you know we're going to keep on that trajectory. I think Q4 has been our worst quarter and that's just because of life getting in the way. Yeah, and as travel holidays like this, I felt a little slower and like kind of on that we were on the downturn this last quarter but we're going to pick it back up and in Q1. So don't you worry.
Speaker 1:I'm down for that, and I think with that, the ghost of corporate present must leave us, because now we must talk about the ghost of corporate future. Actually, I think it's what is it A ghost of corporate yet to come? That's, that's how Dickens wrote it. We're super old literature now. I don't know what's happened to me.
Speaker 2:So what's the cop? What's what's in our future as we kind of look at it, I think one thing that's giving us. I just want to talk about the momentum and the motivation that we had. You know, as we're kind of talking about this, I'm just getting excited. You know, the amount of stuff that we're doing is a super cool the new discord and I think the cool thing too, you know, talking about things in the past but also motivating us for the future is we had two of our discord family members, corporate strategists post that we were their number one podcast that they listened to all year. Big boy Jendi shout out to you guys for listening to us and having us as your number one podcast. So super cool to see those charts and I think that's going to carry us into next year to do even bigger, better things. So kind of stepping into that. What do you want to talk about first? What's coming?
Speaker 1:up. You know, I just got a linker on one thing. You just said they listened to us more than anything else. So technically and I don't know if this is the truth for you, clark you've listened to us more than our own corporate peers likely have. So thank you, that's actually very true.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to us, our incoherent rambling, sometimes Absolutely All right. So what's in store? You got anything exciting you want to start with.
Speaker 1:I mean, the world is kind of our oyster. You know, I said it before I'd love to grow the amount we listen to. But honestly, thinking about it like if I had to choose between growing the amount of listeners on the pod, like a number that shows growth for the podcast, or growing the discord and getting more people in there that one can help and two need help I'm far more interested in that. So for me, I would love for the discord to become even bigger, to have more folks in there and have more good conversations and help more people. That's still the North Star that I want to see happen, and I think the way we do it is by keeping the podcast alive, Like we have to keep making content the way we are. I think, importantly, we've changed the format of our show. We're refining it and we're making it better.
Speaker 1:But one thing we will be doing moving forward is the news part of our show will have a video element that we'll start putting on YouTube, which is just one more venue for us to get out there, and with video we can also be on Instagram, Tik Tok, whatever else. Right now we're just trying to refine the technology behind that, but that's absolutely. We've tested the water. We've done it. Once we know it's a little tricky, we're going to master it. This podcast started with me recording individual tracks and audacity taking Clark's recording over a Google Drive, and then I'd spend 30 minutes to an hour cutting the thing together, removing all the sounds. Now we have a bot that does all of this for us, so we've optimized our audio. We need to figure out how to optimize our video so that becomes a smooth process, but I want to have a stronger video presence because I think that will help grow both the listenership as well as the Discord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the more channels that we can expand to. You know, now we have YouTube, we've got our normal social channels that we post to, we've got automation that's helping us on the recording front also, on even the posting front, just to try to make that a little bit easier to expand our reach and I think that's what it's about, just like you said it's gonna be. How do we continue to expand our reach, driving people into the Discord, because I think that's where some of the biggest values coming from and we're just gonna start engaging more. I know I said that when Alex was on the call giving us feedback, but I really am gonna do it next year and we're gonna make it meaningful in terms of like reaching out to you on the individual basis.
Speaker 2:If you join, you might even get us reaching out in the DM, sliding into your DMs when you slide into our Discord and kind of asking you questions about what you think you know. Is there any way we can improve? And we'd love to get your feedback, because I think that's how we're gonna continue. You know, making relevant content for you guys. Heck yeah, so yeah, I 100% agree.
Speaker 1:If Clark slides into your DMs and you want him to stop, just message me and I'll make it happen.
Speaker 2:Or message Craig. He's really the enforcer Of this whole entire Discord.
Speaker 1:Actually don't message, Craig. I don't know what happens when you do that.
Speaker 2:Don't think the risk. Don't think the risk, oh man. But yeah, I think one thing I've been thinking about is I wanna spend more time. I love like our off the cuff, not a ton of preparation episodes, because it's kind of fun just to, you know, hear our fresh take some things without like diving too deep. But I do wanna do more with CAC and I think that's something you know. Some people might not even know what it is if you're just not listening, but CAC is essentially our kind of scale of rating pretty much your happiness and your fulfillment levels at where you are in your company, and it stands for, you know, culture, autonomy, compensation and challenge, not necessarily in that order, never in that order yeah, it's almost never in that order, depending who you are.
Speaker 1:It's never in any order, will you?
Speaker 2:And where you? True, but each person rates those things differently and you might, you know, think those one of those things is more important than the other. Rate it higher on the scale, rate one lower. You might not even care about one, and the thing I think we can do is kind of lean into that a little bit more. You know one I think we have to look back at our weeks and kind of give our CAC rating of, say, this is what value we'll use our CAC calculator that we put together.
Speaker 2:And I wanna see what you guys can do with the CAC calculator too. Like I'd love to throw it out to a few people in the Discord and say, hey, here's the calculator, jump in here, fill it out this week, and we won't disclose anything. We'll kind of read it out anonymously to see what your CAC levels are and what kind of interesting data we can pull together. I think that would give perspective of you know if you're feeling some certain way, probably validation that other people do too, or maybe another way to look at you know how you kind of value those things, based on the insights that we can share. So I really wanna do that next year. I think that'd be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:There's some pretty cool tools and utilities we can use in the Discord to help collect some of that data too. So we can double up on our Discord usage by doing this experiment right in there.
Speaker 2:I love it. Yeah, and I think some more prep for some episodes not too many, I think, the off the cuff ones, the ones with the yeah, exactly but one of these times we're gonna prep for like a deep dive episode. I don't really know what that topic's gonna be yet, but I think we've got some ideas we've thrown around way in the beginning that we're like, hey, maybe we just spend a lot of time talking about this and doing some research on this. So I think you may get some of those deep dive topics and certainly we're gonna bring more people in the podcast. We're gonna get someone from an HR perspective into this eventually, bruce.
Speaker 1:That was gonna be. My next point is listen. Y'all. You're the listeners, but you're also the experts. Like we just share our opinions and what we think, and many times our opinions change because we're human. But y'all all know what you do and you do it better than we ever could.
Speaker 1:If you bring a unique opinion or perspective to the table, we'd love to have you on and have a conversation with you. Reach out there's no formal vetting process yet or anything like that but if you have an interest in joining in and having the conversation with us, so long as you're not the stark, raving lunatic and you're gonna tell us about the mole people living under the stairs, we're happy to have you on. So do I mean? You can always get us to the DMs on the Discord or whatever, but we would like to increase that presence. Or maybe you know someone you have a really cool boss or a VP who is interested in being on a show like this. We would love to have them on and get that perspective. So think about who you'd like to hear us talk to, because you know we're open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, we're open books. You guys know that. Hey, you got ideas, throw it at us. Hey, you said the B word. Oh, should we drop one of the biggest corporate strategy projects that we have on our docket for next year?
Speaker 1:The biggest one we've been talking about for a year but haven't touched once.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean to be fair. I did throw some ideas down on the paper at one point.
Speaker 1:I also came up with a great title.
Speaker 2:Do you want to release it? Do we want to talk about the book that we're potentially going to be writing next year? Nah, let's not do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what, leave on a cliffhanger, that's just, you know. Just move on. That's enough content for one episode. No, no, we, clark and I, have been talking about putting together a book. Ideally, I think our CAC focus is probably a great outline for what we'd actually like to write about. We need to hold ourselves accountable and actually do the thing. But we are very interested in actually creating and publishing a book that focuses on some of the topics we talked about in the episode, but, more broadly, how we've come up with CAC and how it can apply and you can use it in a more formal corporate way, because we think it's valuable and we think that other people can benefit from this rating mechanism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's what it's all about. That's kind of our mission is how do we help the corporate strategist out there? So I think the book is gonna be really cool. Not only you know to build up all the constant we put together, you know this really unique tool that you can use to kind of evaluate and make your life better at the end of the day. You know, working in the corporate world I think it's gonna bring a lot of benefit and I'm super excited to put that together and work with you on a Bruce and then share with our community.
Speaker 1:I Can't wait and I really truly do hope we get the time to actually do it this year and sit down and hold ourselves accountable. It's is been a rough year, as we implied in the beginning of the show. Time has not been kind, but we did manage to get more episodes out than we planned on, or that then we did previously. We held ourselves to a higher standard there. We did get a video episode out. We did get some great guests on. I think Every time we set these goals, we do manage to get closer to them, which props to us.
Speaker 1:It's hard. This is the hobby. We have full-time jobs. Clark has two full-time jobs that he calls a single full-time job. It's true, I'm approaching that and it scares the crap out of me. So I really do want us to actually go off and achieve these things next year. And you know, personally speaking, I'm doing better than I ever have done before in my professional work life. I'm at a higher Performing level that I've ever been. You know there's a lot more expectation, responsibility of me. I'm far more proud of this than that, and I think the the thing that the scales that fell for my eyes this year is just because you're closer to the top Does not mean anything at all. You just find it's more frustrating because you see more of Of things you can't change or influence or do anything about. It's nicer to be at the bottom. I miss being at the bottom. Clark, I waxed so nostalgic about you and I in the IT lab Whipping markers against the wall like Miss it so much, just rewiring random network cables, going between servers, cleaning it all up.
Speaker 2:It was incredible those. Those days were the good days, but I think I think it's an avid here.
Speaker 2:I think it's inevitable. Yeah, you have to eventually climb your way up, see the things you don't want to see, because it puts it in perspective for you. This is the way I look at it is one you're close for the information, like you said, you see the core issues of where you're working, and to me, I think it puts it at ease because I understand how it works, if that makes sense, right. It's worse when things are happening and you don't understand it. I prefer I'm happy, I'm in my position, I'm in because I get a lot of visibility I prefer to just know the reason things are the way they are, so that way I can control what I can control, rather than not knowing and just being blindsided by everything you know, I don't know, find that way.
Speaker 1:I think I would almost rather not know. I'd rather, I'd rather, be in the janitor in Closet you type in a way at the keyboard, you know, coding up weird animal named automation processes for quality assurance testing. But the pay is pretty nice and that's the thing I have to make. You know amends with. This is why you have cat.
Speaker 2:This is why you have cat. That is your autonomy, challenge, compensation and through life in that order. Yeah, through your life those things are, your rating is good and balance, and it's gonna change and you know You're depending where you're at now. That's why I think we should look at it in the new year of. Maybe what we do is we do one more episode before the end of the year. It's gonna be a little tight. Okay, maybe we do like a kickstart into balancing our cacks Going into next year.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I'm terrified.
Speaker 2:But not only where we are now, but where do we want it to be. Oh, oh, did I hit you with the hard one? Because I just said it out loud into the world.
Speaker 1:I got you. Well, the thing I bring all this up to say that, this podcast, the reason I Wake up every morning and not record this, but once a week, is because I want us to help others. Yeah, you'll positively and Make better the work environment and I think we can do this if we keep doing it. And you know, maybe I don't want to be towards the top anymore, maybe you're gonna be the top and I'm gonna be at the very, very bottom and I'll be happy with that. But as long as we keep recording this and we keep spreading the word and making things better and doing this cat exercise and understanding how to fix it, that's the step. That's the step towards the future, or absolutely the corporate ghost of yet to come. I Know my paper that says fill out your cac, go it out.
Speaker 2:That is coming 2024.
Speaker 1:I'm ready for it. I'm excited, I'm pumped, I'm in thrall. We need to make some merch.
Speaker 2:We have merch. No, we need to make some like cac merch. We should like I want. I want a cool like graffiti shirt that just says like hashtag cac.
Speaker 1:Okay, real talk, real talk. Actually, this is a this is a request of the audience. I am absolutely interested. If you know someone who is a designer or who does graphical design that Sees our logo, gets our vibe, and would be willing to do some commissions, I'm happy to negotiate on their behalf of corporate strategy and Commission some art, because I too would like some merch, both in t-shirt, mug and maybe poster form. And if we could get a cac thing, heck yeah, that would be sweet.
Speaker 2:Imagining, like in all black shirt, a little pocket maybe, and you just got a like a hashtag cac on the chastor over the pocket. We need, like graffiti style, a nice little look to it. It looks modern. Oh, this is gonna be a fun one. We got to find an artist. If you're an artist out there, please, yeah, please, let us know we're not asking for free work.
Speaker 1:We will pay you.
Speaker 2:No, we will absolutely pay you with our negative dollars. We will pay you yeah.
Speaker 1:This. This is just a money sink for me. But you know what, when I die and they put me in the grave, they can put cac on my tombstone and they can say Bruce came up with 50% of this and Clark did the other. Clark's gravestone is somewhere else. I'm totally down. I'm down to clown. And now you got me thinking about the website. We need to do some of the website. We do, yeah, we got.
Speaker 2:We're gonna improve it, for sure, I agree, feeling it.
Speaker 1:Feeling it.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm pumped. I think we're gonna probably do a deeper planning in January and we're gonna start employing some of these things. Likely in January too, you're gonna see more and more like. You mentioned the video right away. You know we already have that format down. You might see us posting in a couple different areas and you're gonna see the discord grow because we're gonna be interacting with it. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my only ask is you know if you're in the space that we are trying to Promote ourselves and just share, just give it a thumbs up, or sure we appreciate it, you're. You're actually helping us, because one thing we talked about before the show is data collection. We have data from the last year now that we can compare what we're trying this new year. So we're gonna be taking inventory of what's working, what's not working, and you can really help us guide that by Just doing a little share for us, yep.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That makes all the difference. It really does Anything else I know.
Speaker 1:I think the ghosts have left the ghosts are out.
Speaker 2:I think we're back just in present day trying to wind down on this weekend.
Speaker 1:We've woken up for the holidays that the smell of corporate goose is in the air. Oh, kids are jumping in the streets singing songs. Yeah they, they are You're. I'm still your invalid son, or wait, I think it was the other way around.
Speaker 2:No, I think it was the other way around.
Speaker 1:You're definitely yeah, but you know what? Now we're happy Because our overlord boss has decided that he's gonna give us Christmas Day off. Hey, are you getting time off this?
Speaker 2:week I Was going to had, you know, a whole out-of-office situation and then there was an emergency for someone in my team. So I am not gonna be off the whole week, but I am going to be off for these two few days for tonight.
Speaker 1:What about you? I'm taking the whole week off, but who knows, for you it's been a nightmare. Who? Actually knows anything anymore. I might be as much as you, hey, and you know what? If we are, we got it to this backs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and we'll use this podcast as a break for us where we can air a big and give each other therapy.
Speaker 1:I love that I do too. Well, I feel good. Do you feel good, clark? I feel great, you Awesome. I think we did exactly what we set out to do, which is not be negative, for let's see here 40 minutes, great job, good job.
Speaker 2:There's nothing but positive vibes for the next few days, so I'm good, let's keep it rolling.
Speaker 1:So this will likely be up on Christmas. If you're listening and you celebrate, merry Christmas. If you celebrate other holidays, happy holidays.
Speaker 1:You know whatever the heck you want. We love you and you love what you celebrate. If you want to come celebrate with us, all you got to do is go to our website. Once again, it's corporate strategy dot biz. That's dot Biz. Biz stands for business. That's what we do. If you want to stay in touch with us, just go to the website, go to the contact us page, join our discord and hang with us. The discord is the way we network with y'all, so get in there. Nothing to be afraid of. We're all super friendly. There's there's not, been, one single ounce of conflict in our discord, and I love it.
Speaker 2:They're just a nice place on planet earth people are so cool they really are, and we also have a bunch of places in the discord.
Speaker 2:If you're in there to talk about, you know, do you want to listen, or do you want to listen us talk and ramble about something? So throw your pod topic in the pod topics channel, huh. And you can also submit topics on our website and sign up for email lists. There's so many different ways that you can find out when we release episodes, when we are actually. You know, if you want, I can't even speak today it's okay. If you have an idea and you want to talk about, throw it in there, even the discord on the website. You've got options, so do it. You know what?
Speaker 1:people also throw in the discord. Clark, what's that? Oh, you forgot. It's our favorite game show. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:I thought we were gonna skip it. I was so fine.
Speaker 1:We fine, we're gonna skip it. You thought we got out of it. He thought, oh, it's a Christmas miracle. It's not. It's not cuz guess who's turn it is this week, clark.
Speaker 2:Oh, why it's always?
Speaker 1:mine. If it was mine last week, in this one?
Speaker 2:No, it's false every time I do this, I try to remember if you've done one and you haven't.
Speaker 1:I just feel like I do them all. I messed up Ben Stein last time. That's why I know it's me. I did it, I made. That's right. I'm looking at it now. For those that don't know, if you're not in our discord, which we've already told you how to get there, we play a game where you post a meme based in the previous week's episode and the other member who did not talk about it last week now has to describe the meme in vivid detail with their mouths. Clark, please tell me what's going on. And the latest meme or strepo is posted.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna give some. I know he literally tagged me in it. Thanks, thanks, alex. Yeah, so first of all, you gotta kind of tie it back to I think it was two meetings ago. No, yeah, was it the last episode?
Speaker 1:it's like December 4th. It's almost a month ago.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been way too long.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I'm gonna remember when we even released this. But the context is I was talking to Bruce about my kind of work management, of how I manage everything, and so this kind of is a direct dagger to my heart of what happened. I was explaining it and it was literally the meme where, like all the equations are kind of running off my face as I'm Reading it out to you, bruce, and you're like taking some things in and you tried it and you're like this is way too complicated and it's literally me just kind of you know, let's. Let's describe to me. It's a board with a bunch of red lines going through it, all these papers, this craze, look in the eyes, a cigarette in hand, and it says it's just a couple hours Work a week, but this system will change your life.
Speaker 1:Who is Pepe Silvia?
Speaker 2:I'm like I should. You literally is. He's just calling me out because this is how it feels when I explain that. But it is not a couple hours a week. I promise I'm gonna get you in at one of these days.
Speaker 1:So I absolutely, in January we're gonna do an episode just called getting things done, because I've been doing it. I tried your application. Look at you. All about it, absolutely all about it. It deserves its own 30 minute deep dyes. Let me tell you, there's feel like there's bad. So it's. There was certainly one part that made me feel like this meme.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, setting up feels like this once you got a good system in place, though effortless, it's bliss.
Speaker 1:We'll save it. We'll save it. I will say getting things done Deserves its own episode. Holy crap Clark, we've opened a door. No, you opened a gateway, sir, a gateway into madness hey, don't, don't thank me.
Speaker 2:Thank mr Allen.
Speaker 1:Yes, man, that cover. You didn't see the cover. It's on the discard. So see a path that's all I think of hey, you know there, actually, there's not gonna be ads in this episode. I'm I refuse to put ads on a Christmas episode. Christmas I'm not doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was about saying do you literally want to be screwed because that's what Jesus got calm, slap me in a dream and then send free ghosts for being greedy, I'm not doing that, it's just money out of my pocket, so screw that.
Speaker 1:No ads this one. I love it. I think I really like it.
Speaker 2:I love it. I think I already shared everything else we talked about sharing. We talked about, you know, podcast provider of choice. Yeah, you can literally find us anywhere now. Yeah, it should be really easy because you know we're in that top 50 percent, so you should be able to find us. So I think we covered everything else.
Speaker 1:I think we did. Yeah, just leave a nice review. If you haven't share with your friends, your neighbors, you loved ones, it's a gift, truly the good is strategy.
Speaker 2:You can't wrap us in a box, but you can share a link I like that Clark was very nice.
Speaker 1:I like that, did you.
Speaker 2:Merry Chroma, happy Chrysler. I'm done. That should be the meme. I'm gonna try to find that name and I'm gonna post it.
Speaker 1:Hey, clark, yeah, when you're sitting down with your family in a few couple days and you're, you know, looking at the meal that's ahead of you, make sure you start from soup to nuts. No, got them. That's it, folks. That's all we got for this year or this week. We will do one more for this year, but yeah, we're not. Thanks for listening. Make sure to grab the low hanging fruit.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're just standing on the test.
Speaker 1:This is the problem.
Speaker 2:We're gonna listen to this. If you made it this far, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:We got apologies every time, never stick around for the last five minutes. I said low hanging flute bike.
Speaker 2:Well, I literally like I had a seizure in the middle of this and could barely even talk. So it's fine, it's what it is.
Speaker 1:Oh, don't grab it. Okay, I'm Bruce. And I'm Clark and you are certified fresh. We love you. We love you for being the freshest. Hey and the rest of y'all are on mute. We'll touch base with you next week. Happy holidays, Happy holidays.
