Name Roast And 90s Nostalgia

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Welcome back to Corporate Strategy Podcast that could have been an email. Anthony. And I'm Michael. Hey, Michael. It's good to see you here, Anthony. It's good good to see you here. It's good to see you here, Michael, on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

I love to think about like the people who first watch one of these episodes and they see how like cringy we are, and I just die laughing. Like the first impression must be so bad.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

So bad. Well, I am not comfortable using our real names. I think they suck. I think our real names suck. Yeah. I think our both your name sucks the worst. My name also sucks. It's the second worst, if we're being honest. I swear. Well, Bruce and Clark, I mean, they had character, they had personality, they were single syllable. So we'd come in from the intro and they'd be like, Bruce. I'm Clark. And it's just like, oh, that's punchy. That's podcast material. And it's like, um Anthony, the second suckiest name. And it's like, oh I'm Michael, the first suckiest name. Like, what did you?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

I mean we gotta go back. It's tough because we had Bruce Bangers and Clark Cheddar movements that we put together. And like they were so, so good. And like getting rid of those is hard because what what am I gonna be? Michael movements? That's I mean, that sounds like you've had too much fiber.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

What am I, Anthony Banger? That sounds like someone who belongs in jail for being a pest. Uh arsenic Anthony? That's disgusting. I mean, that still sounds like someone who belongs in jail for being a pest. That sounds like I've committed crimes that are unforgivable by their very nature.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

What else? What else could we do? It's the Anthony Advantage.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Oh, that's bad. That also sounds like something that would put me in prison. Every single, it doesn't matter what you do. If you take Anthony and pair it with a word, it sounds like I belong in prison.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

It's Michael Movements and Apostrophe Anthony.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Oh, yeah, apostrophe Anthony. He split people in two. That's great. That's good. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

It's Michael Movements, Apostrophe Anthony.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

That's no. No. This is not good. This is not good.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

It's getting worse.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

We just gotta shut it down.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Hey, can we can we talk about something really quick?

SPEAKER_02 2:43

No.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

What show the people your shirt, please? How cool is that? Be nice. That's what the world needs right now. Be nice. That's so good. Hey Arthur! No, that's hey Arnold. But I don't think this is.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

No, it is Hey Arthur. You're right. Hey Arthur. Yeah, yeah, I have that. That's all right. Yeah, no, because the theme song is like every day when you're walking down the street. Yeah, and he's like, Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

So good, dude. I wouldn't wear a shirt. Cartoons in the 90s just were something else. They really were. Like just the amount of amazing cartoons that were out then. Oh, but I love your shirt. I love what you're trying to get across. Be nice. And you know why I love it? Someone said to me, uh, I was talking to somebody about the World Cup, and they were talking, they're like, you know what? I feel like the world just needs the World Cup right now. Like everybody, just all different nations coming to the US, just acting like people that are that love each other, that are you know getting together around a sport that are saying, hey, if our leaders weren't ridiculous right now, we'd actually be pretty cool together.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

You know, and that's just what the world needs. Well, I especially love I especially love some of the visitors to America from countries like say, let's just say Australia, and some of the chants they have come up with. Yeah, uh, it's pretty great. It's pretty great. Yeah. Uh yeah. I'll just say Australia, you ain't wrong.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Uh that's all I'll say. That's what I'll say. It's it's

Buc-ee's And America Through Visitors

SPEAKER_00 4:20

so funny too. My wife has been showing me um all the different like I don't do like social media, but she's she's been showing me the Instagram videos and like all the different things that are like the Japanese coming over here and going to like a Buckeys gas station for the first time and like seeing their reactions of like this just absolute atrocity that we've created in America. And it's just the funniest thing ever.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, I'm not I'm out of the loop on the Buckeys in general. So my neighbors, their son, is like obsessed with Bucky's as a franchise. And you know, he's got like the apparel, and I'm like, hey, is it's just a gas station, right? He's like, Yeah, but it's really cool. And I'm like, but it's just a gas station, like it's a gas station, like it's where you go to buy gas for your car. He's like, but there's so much more to it than that. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Not just gas, I guess not just gas. So now the gas is amazing because one, it's usually well priced, but it's well priced, and two, it's highly available. They have over a hundred pumps. Yeah, a normal gas station, it's got like 12 pumps, maybe. Uh yeah. Bucky's have over a hundred pumps, and that's just nuts. But that is two. Would you trust getting a brisket sandwich at a gas station ever in your life? No, the answer is no. But at a Bucky's, the answer is yes. Because the food is fantastic. Now, I'll be honest, the one time I've been to one, did it feel like a Walmart? Yeah, it kind of felt like a Walmart to me. I I hate to say it, but people love it. Well, I mean You know what? You feel like a Buckeys guy.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Really?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

You think so? You feel like you would wear you feel like you'd wear the Bucky's gear. Like I'd see you in a Bucky's hat just because their their mascot is just so ridiculous. I feel like it's a you thing. It's it's an Anthony vibe.

unknown 6:12

Oh no, man.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

I where where is there one near me that I can check out?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Uh no, not really. You gotta go like towards Daytona.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, I'm never going to Tona. I'm never going to Tona.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

If you ever have to hop on the 95, if you ever hop on I-95, you'll hit it.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Okay.

unknown 6:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah. No, just know. If you ever need to go to North Florida, you'll probably run into it. Yeah, well, I know this.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

I know this now. I know this. Uh, I know this to be true. Hey, uh, speaking of things like World Cup, all that.

Slate Truck Modular EV Temptation

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Have you seen uh the just recently the Slate automobile? Have you seen this?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

No.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

The Slate Automobile? Not endorsed by any of us. I'm just saying it because I have to, you know, it's look up Google yourself. Do yourself a Google and look up Slate automobile. Okay. What in uh is this a Jeff Bezos thing? I don't know who it is. I don't know who it is. I don't know who makes this thing. I could be endorsing some absolute wacko and their project, but I mean it's a $20,000 electric truck. I see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but you can customize it however you like it does, it's there's no paint on it, it's just a sticker. So like you can you can make it look like an ice cream cone. I mean, I'm tempted. I'm very tempted. I've never owned a truck in my life. I'm not a truck person, but like it's so it it's everything I love about things. It's completely modular. There's this little dude, you can change it however you'd like, you can customize it to the nines. It's it's pretty neat. And for that price, I mean, I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

You know what it does have? It's got a frunk because it's an EV, it's got an EV, it's got a it's a frunk, it's got a front trunk, and I don't know how I feel about that. Look at all the wraps you can put on that bad girl. Look at them all. You see them? It is kind of crazy, yeah. I mean, it is pretty cool, and under 25k, like that's pretty awesome for a completely customizable electric view. Yeah, yeah. Like I mean, I'll be honest. I think this could be my vehicle. It does feel like it could be a you thing because one, it's a little quirky, it's a little quirky, but two, it's like everybody needs somebody in their life with a truck, but everybody also always gets a truck, which is like way too overpowered for what they need. Like hauling one thing every every now and then, maybe towing something every now and again. But the problem with trucks is like they're so beefy. Like, I I've got a truck, I'm a truck guy, but I also tow a boat and I do a bunch of other stuff where I need the truck, you know, out where I live. Yeah, yeah. So for me it makes sense, but for the person that just like lives in the suburbs, like doesn't really make sense. This is an affordable way to like get a nice looking truck that doesn't need to be too souped up and crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

It just it just this looks fun. I mean, like I'm the guy, so you know, if you're not if you're not watching on YouTube, you'll never you'd never see like I bought a freaking, you know, like Game Boy I love I love kitschy electronics, I love them. Yeah, I think kitschy electronics are my favorite thing, and you know, like anything analog any the the the brand analog makes, I just buy it. I don't need it, yeah. I buy it. I just love a kitshi electronic and like this little truck, it goes like kitschy electronic. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

I love that. I love that for you. Maybe it's an option. You know, I'm surprised. I'm surprised you

Phone Ecosystems Privacy And Nothing

SPEAKER_00 10:00

still have an iPhone. Really? Have I ever told you that? Yeah, because you've you've been an iPhone guy for a long, long time, right? Well, I feel like you know why, right? There's these new phones, but tell me why. I mean, are you stuck in the cult like me? Like, I can't escape the ecosystem. No, no.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

I I I was an Android guy, and I loved doing the custom firmware, I loved doing the jailbreaking and all of that and and loading up my sign loading. You know, I'm an electronics kid. So I bought the Galaxy S3. This is like 20 years ago now. Like this is all this is ancient history, but like bought the Galaxy S3. Six months later, that thing just completely cramped itself. And I took it in there, like, yeah, no, it's just got issues. I'm like, what do you mean it's got like replace it? Like, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

So like I'm done.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

I'm just done with these phones. Like, I know for a fact that if I buy an iPhone, it will just last. I don't like the nice thing about the iPhone. Well, and then as I became more, you know, as you know, as you know, I moved more and more to cybersecurity and realized like Google is a dangerous game. Like I left Android because I wanted something that wouldn't break in six months, but now I stay off Android because uh I want something that is privacy oriented, and uh I have de-googlified everything in my life except for this YouTube channel. So, you know, that's just where I'm at. But what were you gonna say? You're gonna say you something about phones?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I was gonna bring up there's this startup called Nothing, and they make phones, nothing phones, nothing phones, and I feel like it is so you, but the problem is obviously it's Android because it's not part of the cult, so you will be the green message and not the blue message. But the brand is awesome. Like if you watch their product videos, they're hilarious, they're customizable. Like the phones look amazing. I I'll be honest, I watched a recent phone and I was like, I want this phone, but the problem is like I'm too deep in the ecosystem. Everything I own is Apple, and so like getting this would just mess up everything.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

This is gorgeous. This is actually gorgeous. Like, I love this. Every part of this, I want this. I wish I could use this. Dang, I hate that it's an Android device, like that sucks.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, and what's funny too is like what I love is they have so much customer apathy, and they are constantly like, hey, we're building a phone for you. Like, what features do you want? And part of it is like they're like, We we're building a phone without an operating system, like it'll have apps on it, but it's just like a slider of buttons that you open the apps, and like you don't have like an operating system that does a bunch of stuff. Like everything is just an app. You pull up the app, you scroll to the app, you click the app, like get rid of all the fancy widgets and everything else showing photos. Like, that doesn't matter. You just need apps. And I was like, I love this idea, it's fun. Is this actually Android or is this something else? It might be running something else. I don't know. I think it's like Android to me. Yeah, they might have created their own OS off of Android.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

I mean, yeah. That's interesting. I I really I mean, this is this is exactly what I love. I love this kind of stuff. Yeah, uh this is you. Huh. Tempted me. I'll never go back to the Android though. Can't do it, won't do it.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Yeah. I was this close. If I got the job at Google when I applied to them way way back when, whatever, I think I would have then gone all in. I would have been green message on everything, I would have had every single little thing. But I didn't get the job. I'm glad you didn't get that job.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

I'm just gonna be honest.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

I'm reading the plan. Yeah, I worked for Apple, it just makes sense that I'm Nicole.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Also,

Nintendo Bumping And Pokopia Addiction

SPEAKER_00 13:40

you want to hear something hilarious? I do. So copia. We finally started playing Picopia. I want you to realize I said we. I'm not really playing Picopia. My wife is playing Pacopia. She got into it because you bumped me. You bumped my switch, I did bump it, and then we started Pacopia, and she just texted me. I got this live breaking news, live news. She said, Why can't I play Pacopia? It's not working. And I just remembered it's because you bumped 14 days.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, we only had a 14-day window. She is so mad right now. Well, come over, come over and I'll re-bump you.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

I mean, you either do that, or we're just gonna have to buy it. You have to make physical contact with me every 14 days, otherwise, you're not allowed to play Pocopia. That's the rule. That's the rule.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

This is the best way to see your friends. Be like, hey, if you wanna if you want to get to play that game, you want to play that game? Well, you're gonna have to see me every 14 days. If you're a grandma and you want to see your your grandkids, don't listen, do not buy them the game. You buy the game and then you bump it to them and you say, Hope you come back in the next two weeks so I can see you. This is actually brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Nintendo needs to make an ad for this, like Nintendo for grandmas, right? Like, this is genius Michael. This is genius. So just see the ad. It's like grandma, she's playing Animal Crossing on her switch too, and she's like, ah, yes, straight up for the 17th time in my life. And then, you know, little Timmy calls, Grandma, I can play Donkey Kong. She's like, Wait, so I can bump you. And then she's got she's like making her lemonade, she's getting the cookies ready. Little Timmy comes up and he's like, Hey grandma, and she's like, I can bump you. And then he's like, I'm Donkey Kong. Like, doesn't it sell doesn't it sell switches? Does it not sell switches?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

It would a hundred percent sell switches. Like I think back. None of my grandmas are alive anymore. But I think back to like what my grandma all 17 of them. What did my what did my grandma do for me? She would go to these garage sales and she would buy these outdated, like the Game Boy you just showed. I have two of those from my grandma who passed away, you know, many years ago now. Because she would go to garage sales and buy them for me. Because she was like, You like video games, right? Like, not realizing that console was so so old at the time. But I loved it because I love the games. I love that she would do that for me, and she would love to see me every every two weeks. So, like, that's an ingenious way for your grandparents to be able to sneaky see you whenever they can, every 14 days at least. I love this idea. Great work.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

I mean, I also realize like we're talking about something that is very exclusive knowledge between you and I, just for anyone who's like completely out of the loop, in order to share games on the Nintendo Switch 2, you can actually share digital copies of games, which is neat. But to do so, you have to be in physical proximity of your family member. So I had to go over to Michael's house, add him as my child to my Nintendo account, and then doink his Switch with my Switch so he could get a copy of Donkey. No, you got Pokopia. I gave you Polkopia. You can only do one game at a time. So uh that's that's where he's at right now, is why the the license is up. You gotta doink me. Come doink me, bro.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

I know my wife is so mad, like she might actually show up at your house and like knock on your door again. I don't care that you're podcasting right now. You need to bump me.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Pokopia is a sickness. Let me tell you, man, my my game with the earlist right now is tight. Pokopia is on it because that game did something to me that like hasn't been done in years. So I get it. It's been a lot of fun, it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

You know, it's funny. Were you the kid? Like, I mean, I think you were the opposite of me. When I was growing up, like with my cousins and you know, with friends, I always was like the watcher of games. I wasn't like the main player, you know. When you're playing a single player game, yeah, it wasn't like hand off, handoff. It was like I just liked watching other people play games. So now my like wife is playing it at night, and I just go like watch her. And one, it's so funny to see the differences like between how we play, but two, it's just it's a fun game. I I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you, I'll give it to everyone in our Discord that was like, you gotta play it. It's heartwarming, it's fun, it's surprising how many Pokemon I remember. Like the little shadow will pop up, and I'll just think in my head, who's that Pokemon? And I'll be like, I know exactly which Pokemon that is. It's Club Shido. Gotta love Club Shido. He's the mess.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

He's the best.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Oh, I love that. But, anyways, thank you for bumping us. Now we're addicted. Now we're gonna have to spend money on this game. Uh, and I'm sure she's buying it like right now.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

You're welcome. Uh, they're they're actually releasing an expansion pass with three additional locations, and I can't wait. So I'm gonna be diving back into Pokopia

Nintendo Craftsmanship And Remake Hype

SPEAKER_02 18:40

uh, I think in the fall. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

In the fall, okay, gotcha. So we we gotta get ahead to get to the fall. Yes, yeah, it's a fun game. You gotta start. I've been I've been really enjoying it.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

I'm glad. I picked up Star Fox, uh, which just came out. And dude, firstly, you can beat that game in two hours, but it is like you are playing a movie, and like I'm gonna bump you, I'm gonna bump you Star Fox next. You gotta play it. Like, dude. It is good. Like, one, I love that it's two hours because I sat down and literally played through an epic freaking movie with great music, great graphics, really fun gameplay, and a story. It's like, you know, I'm watching these little fox and frog and everything talking to each other, but like god, it's hooks in me. It's like watching a good Star Wars movie, you know, just like, oh, the hooks, they're in. But you know, Star Fox very arcadey, so you kind of like choose your path, you get to the end, you fight a boss, and it's like, yeah, you do that in two hours, but then it's like, hey, you could have done this totally differently, so go try it again, and this time see if you can get the medals. I'm like, oh no, this ain't good. So I got unbeaten this game like three times now, and I'm like trying to get all the medals, like, oh, this is good.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Nintendo's on a ripper right now. Yeah, they're absolutely I mean they've always been awesome, but like, oh wow, I just like changed my my thing to way more bright. Stop, stop. We're we're we're getting we're getting all sorts of colors here. We're gonna turn that turn that way down.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

But yeah, the listeners, Michael is changing his skin tone live on stream, so that's what I'm dealing with right now.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

It was kind of impressive when you think about it that way. No, but the thing is, like, Nintendo, they just take such care in like the titles that they put out, and there's so much thought, like, even playing Pacopia, and like that's it, kind of goes to our topic today, which we'll talk about in a second. But like, I feel like that company and Apple's similar, like they take a while to do things, but when they do it, they just get it perfect. And the attention to detail is wild. Like, watching Pacopia, I'm just like, I admire the little things of like think about like the art that they had to put in and all the logic they had to code into this game so that way when you sit down like a railroad track or a vine, like somehow it snaps to the other one, like all those little details and the little noises, like the little the little cooking noise is my favorite noise in the world in Pocopia.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

And then like throws over the back, and like it feels good, it feels good, it's very good.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

I mean, all the I don't think we can't make this a Pocopia podcast. I mean, maybe we could, maybe we rebrand but rebrand the whole thing. Every detail in that game is a reference to the original Game Boy games. Yeah, like that's what I think music is an ambient version of the music from the towns, the origin, like all the little sound effects, like they're all references. Like, oh, it's so good, it's so good.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Nintendo, even the names of the towns, Vermilion, Palet Town, like all these. I'm like, this is amazing. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

I'm gonna I'm gonna just say a bold claim right now because Nintendo Nintendo is a business, it's gone through many eras, right? Like the Nintendo original, like like the Nintendo entertainment system. You had Mario, you had Zelda, you had Metroid, but there was a lot of slop on that box. A lot of slop. Right. And then early video games. Like that was 80s. They're figuring it out. Super Nintendo, it's kind of a high point for them. Because you think about like Star Fox, Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Mario Kart, like everything. Donkey Kong. Oh my gosh, Donkey Kong Country. Right. Like you had just nothing but bangers on that system. The Nintendo 64, very small library of games, but like the four-player madness you could have, right? Like the GameCube, the Wii, like they have so many interesting high points. The Game Boy. I feel like the Switch was a really cool piece of technology, but like the games are just like, yeah, like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, great games. Super Mario One, uh, Odyssey, great game.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

But like the rest of the library kind of just I feel like the Wii, like the Wii U was all the biggest, one of the biggest flops.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Do not, do not besmirch the good name of the Wii U. It failed because marketing didn't know that they shouldn't have called it the Wii U. But that console was brilliant. That console deserved better. Should have been called the Wii 2.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

If they called the Wii 2, we wouldn't have this conversation right now.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

You know?

SPEAKER_00 23:17

I I maybe agree with you on that. I just feel like it was like Wii, like this amazing thing. We had so much fun playing the Wii. And then it was like, the Wii U is the follow-up. It's so good though.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

I still have my Wii U. The Wii U's library, it's like the Nintendo 64. Small amount of games, all of them bangers, and like super good at being like good party group entertainers. My point, the point I wanted to make, Switch 2 has been out for a little over a year now. And every game Nintendo has put out for the Switch 2 is like an eight plus out of 10. And that is really hard to do when you're a game manufacturer to just, hey, hit it out of the park on every single thing we're putting out. Like that's difficult. Even Nintendo has not had that track record for the last few generations of console. I am so impressed, and I cannot wait. Did you see they're making a remake of Ocarine of Time?

SPEAKER_00 24:14

No, I did not. Is it gonna be a true remake? Not the true Nintendo classic thing. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Like look up the trailer, you're go you'll cry because you'll be like, oh my gosh, that's like this is bad. It's real bad.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

It's real bad.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Well, I played the Wind Waker. I think I told you. I told that the podcast people this too. I played the Wind Waker and it's fantastic. Like I played it, of course, you know, when I was way younger, but I loved that game. And getting to play it on like the Nintendo or the Switch 2, but the net through the Nintendo Classic thing, it was awesome because it felt like the original game, but also it wasn't like ported to the game. The controls didn't always work right and had the little sidebars. So like truly, it just was like a okay, get this in the whole line and toss it over. So yeah, it's a port. So the fact that they're making like Ocarina of Time remake.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Yeah, it's a it's a complete remake. It look, I mean, it's what the Star Fox is a complete remake of Star Fox 64. This is gonna be a complete remake of Ocarina. I am like that's one of the greatest games, if not like the greatest game of all time. Like, I'm I don't I'm gonna poop myself.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Oh I'm gonna have to play the original, I feel like, before that. Let's do it. You've played it. I've played it, but I feel like I gotta play it like recently.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

I mean, yeah, I guess I guess I can I can play that game in my head. That's how well I know I'll create a time because that was just like the game I obsessed over as a child. So it's a good game. Yeah, it's a good game.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

It is

Corporate Reality Nobody Knows Everything

SPEAKER_00 25:40

such a good game. Hey, speaking of it. Should we talk about like corporate stuff?

SPEAKER_02 25:43

Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna say, like, maybe we spend like five minutes talking about work stuff and then we can go back to talking about Nintendo. What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

You know, the problem is it's a weekend. Like if this were a weekday, we'd be in our work rhythm. We'd be in it. The fact that we're doing this on a weekend is like bad. It's bad for us.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

I mean, I'm gonna get off this podcast and I'm gonna go play Nintendo. Like, that's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna it's we're mad.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

I I would, but I'm gonna have to see you before I can play it again. So come on over. Doink me, baby. Nobody clip that. We're doing like little clips on shorts and everything. I feel like that's just gonna be it. Doink me, baby.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Speaking of getting doinked.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

No, no, not speaking of that. Speaking of getting doinked, I think we need to do a we need to approach a topic that's really been grinding people's gears recently, which is something that I think the freshers out there, this is my topic, but I think I've figured this out. I thought of this topic, no one else did. Uh, I think the freshers out there, they're really struggling with. I mean, to be fair, I'm struggling with it too, but it's figuring it out. How do you figure it out?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

How do you figure it out?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

One, I love that you came up with this topic all on your own, and it had nothing to do with me. I definitely didn't say this right before this podcast that we're gonna talk about this today. So I'm so happy that Apostrophe Anthony came up with this today. Gosh dang it. It's a great topic.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

This is gonna be my torture now. You're gonna call me apostrophe Anthony just to ruin me.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Well, I gotta hit you back real quick. I know you do. But, anyways, it's a great, it's a great topic. I was, you know, it's funny because um my wife is she has been a teacher for a long time. And now she's working with me, and we're working with businesses, and it's so interesting because like the way that she does work and sees other people do work compared to like being a teacher. Like this topic came to mind of like you're you're always a little intimidated to get into a different space, you know, a different career path, different role. Because you're like, oh man, at this company, everybody's got figured out, right? Like, I'm gonna be the person who doesn't know anything. I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna try to like stay on the low key until like I feel confident. And then you and I have been doing this for a while. So I think you and I both know nobody really has any idea what they're doing, they're just figuring it out, they're just figuring it out one day at a time. Yeah, you've got a nice unicorn horn. For anyone not watching, Anthony's got a little unicorn horn popping up on the back of his head. Watch on the YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

I got sorted.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Well, so but it's so true.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Yes, it is so true. And you know, when you told me this was gonna be our topic, I mean, when I told you this is gonna be our topic, uh I had a realization, I was like, you know what? It's kind of funny because I think people might listen to this podcast, especially if you're a fresher, you might think to yourself, like, oh, Anthony and Michael, they've got it figured out. But in actuality, I think a lot of corporate is how good are you at reading other people's minds and being able to implement the thing that they've told you they're thinking, and can you understand that and translate it? Like literally, the act of working in corporate is the act of figuring it out, and you will never, I don't think I don't think it's possible to ever figure it out because as long as there are other people you have to work with, there's always going to be this strange act of figuring because you can't read minds.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Would you agree? 100% because I'm I'm working, you know, in a few companies right now, and it's so funny. Like the people I work with are just like, to be honest, I don't know how I really got into this role. This is what I'm doing now, and I I don't I don't really know how to describe what I do, but I know this is what I'm doing, like, but I don't know what to call myself, I don't know what this role is, and it's just so funny because they're big companies, they're national brands, like they're companies that you would know, and like you would think you get to these, and you'd be like, Yeah, in digital, these people got it figured out. They got an app, they got a website, they got all these different rewards programs, and it's like so many things, like you'd be like, they got it figured out, right? And then like you start actually working with them, you're just like, No, yeah, they're just figuring it out like everyone else.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

I think as a baseline for this topic, we have to establish doesn't matter who you are, you will never figure it all out. All being the keyword there. Working in corporate is the art of figuring it out every hour of every day.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

And you have you never stop figuring it out.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

I think at the end of the day, like the thing you have to remember is you can learn all these skills, you can uh get these certifications, you can you know go to all these classes, you can get coaching from people, you can do all these things. But at the end of the day, you're working with people and you're working to create things for people, for your customers. And alongside things that customers need and things that people want, things change in the world. Yeah, technology evolves, needs change, different things in the world happen that lead to different wants, different needs, and changing the way we work in order to accommodate them. And so I think that's just something that should get everyone a little bit of like a relief, like a big sigh. Be like, oh, okay. So it's not that serious. It's not like Anthony isn't he's a professional product marketer, he went to school for this, he's only done this his whole career, he's two decades in. It's like that's if you've listened to this podcast, that is not the case at all.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

No, I'm still figuring it out.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

And like every day, yeah, we're still just figuring it out, even though we've done some really cool stuff. It is just a matter of finding your own path, figuring out how you provide value, and figuring it out.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

That's it. Yep. So I think it's important, you know, now we've established you'll never you'll never figure it all out. You're always figuring it out. So how do you figure it out?

SPEAKER_00 32:21

It's funny because it it still comes back to you have to know and try things. Yes. And so, like, if I had to sum up my career and what's made what I would say, you know, me successful at companies, it's a lot of doing what you were saying earlier. It's I work for somebody, and they might work for somebody who works for somebody, and so on and so on. And I'm trying to interpret the want or the need that they're expressing and the output that they want. Is it a presentation? Is it releasing something to our customers? Is it you know getting just the process right internally of how we do things so it doesn't feel so chaotic? And some of that is in my role as like a product manager or uh or a product owner on a Scrum team, but a lot of it is like kind of just working with people to try to make it better for our leaders to understand like what we do and how we do it. And it's about trying things because to your point, every single leader has a different flavor of how they like things. And especially now that I'm you know doing some consulting work

Open-Minded Collaboration And Mind Reading

SPEAKER_00 33:30

and so on, like that's the first thing I do is try to figure out what kind of style do these people that I'm working with like? Like what's their preference on communication? Is it text? Is it email? Do they want to you know be kind of hands-off and just like get pure feedback that I'm doing well, or do they want to like actually get a weekly update? Like all that is figuring out the person on the other side of the screen or in the office that I'm working with so that way I can be more effective. Because at the end of the day, if I try a bunch of things and then I kind of nail, you know, the thing that they seem to resonate with the most and they seem to you know be seeing value in that work, that's what's gonna make me successful because they're gonna look at that and say, hey, they're doing the thing that I want them to do. And I think like looking back in all my jobs, my job at Universal, I did work at Universal for one person pretty much the whole entire time. But like I dialed in how to work with this person, and we worked extremely well together because I was able to gear everything I did in to to this person. I had new people come in and they tell me, like, I don't know how to work with this person. Like they seem intense, they seem like they're not ever happy with the work that I put together. And I'm like, listen, I'm a bit of a whisperer with this person. Like, I can I know where their brains are at. Like, tell me like what the conversation was, tell me what you saw. Okay, here's what you need to do. Like, go and do that. And it it's funny because that's not product management skills, that's not like things I learned in class, that's not a certification I got. That's just figuring it out, trying different things, trying to figure out what makes the most sense, getting that feedback, and then adjusting my style, adjusting my output, etc.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

I think a huge misconception people make, and this is why I try to make this point like the mind reading. People assume being good at your job is being skillful out of thing. And that's true if you're a carpenter and you make custom furniture. Like, yeah, you need to be skillful at that thing. But your clients who buy your furniture have taste, they have expectations, they have wants and desires, and they like your furniture because you have figured out what their preference is for that specific kind of furniture you're carving. And I would say there's no job on this planet that isn't in some way, shape, or form about understanding the people you work with and work for and serve. And to that point, I would say a really big key part of figuring out work is keeping an open mind. I think a lot of people, and we saw this big core. When you work in technology, when you work at anything that has sort of a standard business and practice, you have this set of expectations. Well, I'm a developer, so I got to be good at coding in C. And I'm gonna code this specific way, and I'm gonna build my product with this kind of user interface. That's that's a very closed-minded approach because you're building things based on what you think. A big part of figuring it out is having an open mind, basically saying, Hey, what does my customer want? What does my product manager want? What do my teammates want? And again, it's all about the perception of you and understanding what the perception of other people think about you. We've talked about this a lot on some of the most recent episodes, like, what do people think about you? And being able to like have that open enough mind to say, hey, I might be wrong. My assumptions of what I think are the best way to do things could be wrong. And the only way I'm going to check those assumptions is by talking to other people, asking questions, being you know, open-minded enough to say, hey, this is not how I do things, but let's try this out and see if this is a good new kind of solution to approach this problem. But you'll never figure it out if you're a closed-minded individual.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

100%. Yeah, if you're not willing to try things and get feedback of what other people don't like or fail and learn from that

Agile Versus Outcomes And Real Change

SPEAKER_00 37:30

of like what's actually going to work, you're not going to be successful. And I've seen this in a couple of different ways. The first way I've seen people get this like altruistic view on what their role is supposed to be. You and I saw this. In Big Corp, we went from waterfall software development to agile software development. And people drank the Kool-Aid of Agile. They're like, this is what a scrum master does. Yeah. We do two-week spreads, we do burn-down charts, we do story point estimations. Stories have to be this size. And the reality is, is like, no, like, sure, that's a method of getting to the output. But the output is that you develop high quality software and you release it in a timely fashion to customers to meet their needs. The process and how you do that, whether it's agile or waterfall, actually doesn't matter. Waterfall isn't, you know, the worst thing in the world. Agile is about, and what's the core preference or the core um, you know, what am I trying to get at? The core foundational thing about agile is faster duration. Right. And it's about learning quickly, building and learning and measuring and doing that loop over and over again. And so it's a faster way to get validation on the product you're building. But you could be so in tune with your customers that you don't need that. Right. Right? You could just say, we know exactly what we need to build. We signed 75 contracts for millions of dollars. We just need to build that thing and get that there. Agile or waterfall doesn't matter. It's fine. Either, either approach. So I've seen that with people in product management where they they're like, well, product ownership is this. I do this, I don't do this. Engineering does that. And I'm gonna stick to a user story has to have a as a I want so that. And I've got to have these behavior-driven design save statements for given, when, then. And my story has to have all these perfect things. We've got to burn down against our backlog. And then you actually get into it and you're like, that's just not the way this team works effectively. So, and you could just try to like bang your head against that wall, right? Like that's one approach. It's like, no, Anthony, you do it my way. Like, we're gonna do it this way. It's the way it's done, it's the way that we're gonna be successful. Or you could say, hey, let's try something. Like this might work, this might not work, it could help us improve, and it could help us learn, and then we'll try something different. And I think the former approach is the wrong approach. It will never be that altruistic thing that you think it is. It'll it will never be that fully terrible thing of like that you used to do in the past. It'll be somewhere in the middle of how to do things in the way that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Uh, I'm looking, I'm looking up a quote. Uh, okay, Robert Iger. If you don't innovate, you die. Agree or disagree.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

In a life aspect?

SPEAKER_02 40:13

No, I mean, well, I just aspect. Well, I think this pairs well with the conversation, right? Because like figuring it out, I think let's go back. We talked about Apple earlier and how you know Apple, with the exception of that stupid headset, for the most part, releases products that hit with the market want and demand. And Siri. Siri sucks. My God. But like well, I mean, it was amazing when it came out, they just never did anything with it. So, so Apple has figured out what their court audience wants. They innovate on, you know, features and expectations. Hey, the AirPod Max 2s better have a USB C. It better have better sound canceling, like, right? So, you know, that's that's the thought process Apple's going through is how do I give my customers the next generation of things so they spend more money on me? If I don't innovate, I die. Is that true? Like, and I I ask that in the context of figuring it out because I think a lot of folks get locked in on doing things the same way because that's how we've always done it. And can you there's there's also saying you can't pull a rabbit out of the hat twice, right? So, like a big part, you know, I'd say one part of figuring out is being open-minded. I think another big part of figuring out is accepting that change is good. And in order to continue to succeed and be successful in corporate, you cannot pull that same rabbit out of the hat every time. Like consistency in branding and marketing, great, but just being consistent in work can actually find yourself in a at a point of stagnation and even hurt your performance. Would would you agree?

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Yeah. I'd agree. I was thinking like the life aspect, maybe not. I mean, you could probably do the same thing for it.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

I'm gonna eat cinnamon toast crunch every day for the rest of my life. Yeah, I won't die.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Yeah, you definitely will be completely fine. Yeah, yeah, those are all the nutrition things you need, you know, to have a diet. So I'm sure it'll be totally, totally fine. But in like the work aspect, I'd agree. And I think the reality is what I was saying at the very beginning is like things change. People have different preferences. Yes. When you change jobs, when you change roles, the way you're working with people changes. And I think you should always be looking at ways of how can we do things better? And I think that comes down to agile again. Like, that's why agile is so fun for us because it's like every two weeks after we're done with our sprint, we'll do a retrospective. Well, well, well, what didn't go so well? What are we gonna try next? And like taking that, what do we try next and iterating on that 20, 30 times with this group of people? You're gonna figure out a way to work with these people that's really, really highly effective and that you guys are gonna be really, really efficient. But is does that look exactly like what you learned in your agile class? No, I guarantee you it doesn't. And people are gonna come into that with a fresh lens, they're like, oh my gosh, you guys are doing things so weird, but you guys are really, really productive. Like, why? And the reality is it's just because you guys iterated over and over and over again, 30 something odd times, telling each other with honest feedback, this is what's going well, this isn't what's going well, this is what we want to try, and holding yourselves to that. And the end product is totally different than what you thought it was going to be in the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Yes. And I think the the real danger of we've always done things this way is like that is that that leads you to a culture rot as well, right? Like a lot of people, and um, you've

Leadership That Breaks Culture Or Builds

SPEAKER_02 43:50

seen this, I've seen this. I think everyone who's worked a corporate job has seen this. When a manager comes in or a leader comes in and they're replacing a previous leader. Leader. And the first thing they do is, well, this is how we did things at X Corp. And now we're going to do them that way here because it worked there and it'll work here. And it's like, you don't understand, you know, the culture of the worker's environment and what's going on here. You don't understand how we build product, how we sell product, how we market product. You're just taking a cookie cutter template for what you did at X-Corp, and now you're trying to apply it to Y-Corp and totally different shapes, totally different cultures, totally different customers. And sadly, I one day, maybe someone's already done this. If if if so, tell me the book. I think I'm going to have to go get a PhD in psychology and I'm going to have to do an evaluation on leaders and leadership mentality. Because my hypothesis is psychopaths and narcissists move their way up into leadership. And the problem with that is, is like normal, grounded, logical thinking people are like, I don't want to be a leader. Like case in point, right? Like I'm so tired of having to lead. I don't want to do it anymore. But like a psychopath is like, oh, hell yeah, I want to control the world. I'm going to move all the way up as high as I can go so I can control all the people underneath me. But like that mentality seems to come with a lot of baggage and inability to understand like empathy and culture and you know functionality. So we see it a lot with leaders where they just come in, hackslash and burn, cookie-cut their way through, and things are worse than they were before they came in. And like that's a very exclusively corporate problem, which is why I'm gonna have to go get a PhD in psychology so I can unpack this and figure it all out. But that's that's a problem for a future book and a future episode. But I know like I do see that. And I think a lot of that comes from the fact that they figured it out once, but they're not actively figuring it out anymore because they don't think they have to. They think they're the they're the best thing since sliced bread. It's the narcissism.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yeah, it's like it's like you're going into like you you know how to cook something really well in your kitchen, right? Like you always cook that thing, it's always perfect. Maybe it's a batch of cookies, maybe it's that banana bread, whatever you love cooking, right? And then you go to a different place, and they have different types of ingredients and different tools and different appliances, and you try to do things exactly the same. It's probably gonna taste different, not be that amazing thing that you've tuned and geared over the years, right? To like make the perfect recipe. And I think if anybody's like cooked before, you get that. Like you go to another kitchen, you're just like, man, the oven just didn't cook it like I was hoping it was, it's not as crispy, you know, I gotta leave it in there longer. Like, that's the reality of someone coming in, like with a different leadership style. And I'll be honest, I hate when people do that. Be like, well, this is how we did it over here, so we got to do it here the same way. And it's like, yeah, the ingredients are different, tools are different, the appliances are different, it's not gonna be the same.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

They're not open-minded, they're change averse, they're not figuring it out. And like, you know, if if you are a fresher and you've stumbled upon the clip that Michael has made of this episode, maybe this is the clip. I don't know. Uh, what I would say, one of the best traits you can take on upon yourself, especially in going into work, is being open-minded, be willing to try things that fall outside of your assumption set, do things differently, try new things, be willing to be the not only the change agent, but the change acceptor. You will go so far. And I think, yeah, Michael, you and I are very good at this. Like, we roll with things. Um, I know that because people will tell me, like, does this not bother you? I'm like, no, I'm excited. I'm excited to see how this works out, right? Like I look at I look at the oncoming changes in my job and you know, in my my spaces, I'm like, this excites me. It's a new way to do things, but I'm I'm change anticipate. Like, what's what's the opposite of change averse? I am I'm pro-change, right? Like, I want to do things differently, I want to make things better. Yeah, you can adopt that approach. Yeah, I'm curious, I'm change curious. Uh yeah, you adopt that approach, you will find so much. I am. I'm I'm I'm a butterfly. I'm the change butterfly, the butterfly change. Hello.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

I I agree with, yeah, you flipped those wings. I agree with everything that you're saying. I agree, I agree with that, you know, in so many ways because and I think one other thing I'd add on top of that. It's okay to be curious to you know acknowledge that it's okay to change and like take that feedback in, but also realize that comes with your ideas will get shot down. Yeah, and like it's not, don't take it personally. It's not personal, it's not because Anthony sucks. It's just you tried something, you said, hey, this is what I think it's gonna do for us. And then at the end of trying something, everyone's like, hey, Anthony, that kind of sucked. Like, let's not do that again. But like you could take that feedback and you could say, okay, I'm never gonna try anything again. Like that was so disheartening. I don't want to change anymore. Like, I'm just gonna ride the wave, I'm gonna be alone with everyone else. I'm not gonna go try to swim against the current. Or you could take that and be like, Oh, you're right. Like, I actually didn't expect this to happen. What did I learn from this? Okay, I learned this, this, and this. Maybe next time we try this and do this a little bit different. And I think that's that curiosity. It's like, it's not personal, and like you have to be adaptable. I think that's the word. It's like you're gonna get punched in the face on your your idea sucks, or the leader just doesn't like it for whatever reason. And you can say, hey, that's okay. Like, I'm okay with that. I can't tell you how many dumb ideas I've yeah, I do like water. I can't tell you how many dumb ideas I've had that have gotten shut down or didn't work. And like, sure, I felt stupid in the first like five or ten of those, but after try like 200, I'm like, I don't even care. I just I'm trying it because who knows, maybe it could be way better for us. And I'll tell you, a majority of things that we implement and try something different now hit. It's like, oh yeah, you're right. Like that is very helpful. Like, let's keep on doing that. And that's what made me get promotions and leadership positions because it's like people don't see the failures, they look at the successes you had, right? And I think when you keep on trying things, you'll get more successes, you'll get more visibility, you know, you'll be a change agent inside your organization, and that will draw you to better positions, better work, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

If I had a nickel for every idea I've put forward that was rejected, I'd have like $2.67. So it's a lot. It's a lot. That is a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Yeah. That's thousands. At least. Maybe even like four thousands.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

I I agree. And I think that's the thing. Like, as you're coming in, don't get discouraged if you recommend something and it doesn't work. But also understand the situation and the context before you recommend something. Because if you just recommend something that is like totally out of bounds of like people are like, what are you even talking about? Like, we don't even we don't even build products like that. Like, why would we our customers don't want that? Like, you're just gonna look like and you and I were probably in this position because we were freshers at one point. You recommend something, you're like, this is gonna be the best thing since sliced bread, like we gotta do it. And everyone around you that's older is like, I've been through this a few times. Like, just let just let the youngins try it. Try it out. And after it doesn't work, we'll be like, okay, come back to the main, the main. And I think we were lucky because we worked with older

Pitch Ideas With Data And Experiments

SPEAKER_00 51:40

people that let us have the freedom to do that. They probably knew it was gonna fail.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

Oh, yeah, they were totally checked out.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

They're just like, yeah, whatever. They were cashing.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

I don't have that energy to fight them.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Right. Yeah. But I I mean, you know, something I've said since the very early days of this podcast as we approach like 200 and 500,000 episodes. Uh bring data. If if you are figuring it out and your idea is like, hey, I'm gonna propose this new way to do things, bring data or bring, I would I wouldn't even go so far as to say like endotes, but yeah, bring some kind of proof.

unknown 52:14

Right?

SPEAKER_00 52:15

How are we gonna measure it to tell everybody? This is why it will it will work.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

We'll see X and pitch an outcome, right? It's not just, hey, we should try doing things this way. If there's no why behind the what, you've failed the assignment. But you say, hey, we should try having biscuits at three o'clock every day. And the reason why is there was this study done in the UK where the company provided biscuits to their employees and they found people actually, after having the biscuits, they their email, their send rate on emails goes up 25%. And right now, we're seeing a lull where people just stop responding to emails at three o'clock. So I think if we brought biscuits into the office, we will not drop off on customer communications in the afternoon. What I just said might sound insane, but you would still be like, I think we should consider it because he has data. He's got a why. The why is we don't want customer comms dropping off. The what is the biscuits, and and you know, the middle part is this has been tried elsewhere and it worked, right? Like that's how your pitches need to be. The most ridiculous ideas can bring benefit, but you have to have a why and you have to have a metric and bring an outcome. What's this gonna do for the company by doing this thing? And I think that's really how you become a change agent, a leader, and that is how you figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

Yeah. And I'm gonna give you uh if you're not a fresher, you're a manager, you're a leader. I'm gonna give you some feedback that you might not remember for when you were a fresher. If there's not a risk, don't discourage them from doing it. Well, that's good because you should encourage your employees to try to like if if you listen to the bisque idea and you're like, God, Anthony might be an idiot, but I love his passion. Like, I've I know I've had leaders who have thought that. Like when I pitched them something, I can see it like looking back into those situations where I was pitching something, and like in hindsight, it wasn't the smartest idea. And I know when they like let just let me do it, they probably were thinking, this ain't gonna work, but whatever, Michael's excited about, like, just let him let him run with it. It's fine. And like that encourages them to keep on trying, and from that, they're gonna learn. And I think as a leader, you should encourage it, or even just one up to be like, actually, Anthony, I think what you're getting at is our customer comms drop off, and we need to lift employee morale in the afternoon. So why don't we try the biscuit thing one day, and maybe another day we try like the cookie thing, or do we do Pizza Fridays? Like, as a leader, encourage them by adding on to their idea because there's nothing more encouraging as a fresher or an individual to be like, wow, like they were so interested and they gave me this helpful tip. Like, I feel so encouraged. And I also learned something of like it's a morale thing. Like, we need to focus on the core thing of like, how do we raise morale? And like that, there's nothing better to get that feedback as a fresher because then you'll be so encouraged. You'd be like, this leader cares, they're trusting me with my idea, they added on to it. Like, it's just the best feel in the world when you get a leader who encourages you.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

Well, and here's the final piece to this puzzle, right? So let's say you're the you're the leader, I'm the fresher. So I pitch you this biscuit idea. You say, hey, why don't we just let's open it up? Let's do coffee, let's try coffee one week, pizza one week, we'll do donuts one week. Let's like we'll see which one generates the most comms, just outgoing comms to customers. So we go through this experiment, we're like, you know what? Donuts did it. So we're gonna bring in donuts every Thursday and Friday. That's really when our comms drop off. And moving forward, this is what we're gonna do. Now you go to leadership and you say, guess what, guys? We've improved customer throughput. And because of this, we're closing more business now than ever before. And it cost us $30 a week. We're generating $50,000 more in revenue for $30 a week. Let me tell you how we did it. I had someone on my team come up with this idea based on data they found. And then we went and we iterated on it, we executed, and now we've increased throughput. Everyone looks good in this situation, right? You look great as a leader because you're fostering ideas. You make your teammate look good. You're like, this guy's a future thinker. Like this guy's thinking, you know, they're they're next generation leadership. We need to keep our eyes on them, keep them paid well, keep them happy because they're gonna really help this business grow. The person feels good because their idea was implemented. And the customers are happy too, because you've now solved part of the problem by going through and experimenting on an idea. I love what you said though. It's like if it's a low-risk idea, embrace it, improve it, execute it, right? And then build a build a case study out of it. Hey, this didn't work. Let me tell you why. But you know what it helped? By not working, we actually identified a bigger problem, which is that our network gets clogged after three o'clock every day because everyone's watching YouTube videos. They're just they're just checked out. So, like, we're we're gonna put a block on YouTube domain after three o'clock every day. Like, whatever. You're gonna learn something. And the learning is how you figure it out to the point of the episode. So, I mean, that's I think it's a it's a great example that we just came up with right here.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

It's it's so cool too, because in one thing as as a leader, you might be thinking to yourself, well, if I just let everybody come up with ideas, it's just gonna create more work for me. Wrong. Wrong, wrong assumption.

unknown 57:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

And the right answer is I tell Anthony, hey Anthony, every week I'm gonna give you $150 of our budget to try something. And I want you to own it and run with it and tell me the results every single week. So I'm delegating, right? Because you're the one who brought the idea. I'm enabling you by giving you the budget. I'm maybe adding on to your idea, and then I can tell you because I've done this with people on my team before, they'll surprise you with ideas they come up with and that they're running with. And they'll be like, hey, actually, I came up with an idea. Why don't we do like uh, you know, a quarterly competition? Whoever has the most afternoon comps on any of these teams wins this prize. And we just pool all the $150 for every single week into whatever that prize is. It's gonna be of all-inclusive vacation to Hawaii. And like, your employee just came up with that. You didn't have to do anything except for just say, hey, a little bit of money every single week. I'm supporting your idea. Here's something bigger to think of it. And now they're coming up with ideas because they understand what the end goal is and they're trying to figure out how to, you know, figure it out. And it's not gonna be exactly what you thought, which is okay. People are smart, people will figure it out as long as you give them the right guidance.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make as a species, just as the human race in general, is assuming because I think something works this way means that everyone else must also think the exact same thing I'm thinking. And that is such a terrible assumption to make. All of our brains are unique. You know, they say, like, walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Like, actually, though, think about what it's like to live as another person and think about like, hey, their experiences, their life might actually give them a different perspective on this problem than what my life and my experiences have led to. Being open-minded enough as a leader to say, my team is as equally as talented as I am, if not more so. And I should trust them because we hired them for their specialty and expertise. I want to get all of their perspective. I can share mine, but I need to be willing to accept that just because I'm a leader, that does not mean I'm the decision maker. It means I help facilitate the process of decision making. And I'm willing to accept that there might be some really great ideas that come from people who might not have as much experience as me, might not have the same background or education that I do. But you'll be surprised. Having an open mind really will surprise you, especially when it comes to people, because the good ideas come from the most unexpected of places.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

100%. I couldn't agree more. And again, I we've had, you and I both, we've had leaders who have shut down ideas that we're trying. And it sucks. Like you lose motivation, you end up kind of taking it personally. Your leader, you just feel like you can't communicate with them with ideas on how to improve things. So you kind of just give up. And the reality is you're not going to retain people on your team if you do that. Like you want to have a team who's productive, who's always thinking about ways to improve, who you encourage, and they build this environment of we're willing to try things, we're going to enable each other, and we're going to, you know, build a better team over time. And I think you know, both of us have had leaders where we immediately got out of there because we're like, they don't value my talents. Yeah, they don't value my ideas. And then we got on teams that we did, and like it's just a game changer. Like, I I in Big Corp, you and I had this experience where I had one leader, I was doing this coding challenge every week, and they literally messaged me, like, why are you doing this? Like the team should be focused on the work. I'm like, it takes like 10 minutes, we're all trying to learn this new programming language. It's just a fun little thing for us to like collaborate. And every single, you know, one time a week at a stand-up, we're gonna talk about it. And he's like, Stop. And I was like, I'm like, okay, well, I'm just never gonna come up with a good idea again, right? Because like, why would I even bother? And then I went to a new team and like I just kept on recommending things. I didn't give up, I kept on giving uh feedback on how we can improve. I immediately got like a 20% raise, and then they brought me into like everything. So like, hey, you've got great ideas. Like, come in and like check out all this work. And that like accelerated my career from there is just getting with the right leader who was willing to support me. And then I also really benefited the team and the company by doing so. So I think that's like a success story you have to think of. And if you're not supported by your leader, probably a bad leader. Yeah, you should try to find someone else.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:04

Yep. And and you know, I don't want to start a movement or anything. I mean, I kind of do, but you know, I'll say I don't want to start a movement.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

If you're in a situation, maybe you're not a fresher, maybe you're not a leader, but maybe you're just a cog in the machine. And you feel like me and my teammates are never listened to. No one cares about what we're doing, no one cares about what we were thinking. Maybe that's time that you and your teammates talk about we don't facilitate this anymore. Maybe we look else, we all look elsewhere for jobs together and we leave and let this fall apart. But like you should not suffer because of bad leadership that is not facilitating the increase of productivity, positivity, uh optimizations that occur when you are allowed

Job Search Experiments Plus Community Plugs

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

to figure it out. So I think there's there's something to take away for everybody here. And even for those freshers who are looking for jobs right now in the worst job market in the history of mankind, really, because I mean, even in the factory days, you could always get a job at a fact, there's always another factory, but now there's now there's a factory because the robots have taken over. You want to find a place that's gonna let you figure it out. And because you've been rejected 800 times because of the AI resume filtering, that doesn't mean that you don't have value. In fact, I think your value is more valuable than ever before because we've given in. We've let the machines decide what good is, and honestly, it's not that good. When you find the place where you belong, you're you're really gonna find it now. Because the way everything is working, I think human talent is more important than it ever has been before. And when you do get to that place, it lets you figure it out, like you're gonna be home.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:45

I think it's in if you are searching for a job, like the market is tough. So total empathy and good luck to everybody that is. But I think to take a lesson out of this podcast and this episode, try different things. Experiment. Like, don't just submit 800 of the same exact resume to the same exact roles. That's not how you're gonna be successful. Try something new, do an experiment every week where I'm gonna submit 10 like this, I'm gonna submit 10 like this. I'm gonna reach out to 10 people on LinkedIn to have this job posting this time, and I'm gonna send them my resume directly. I'm gonna start posting to like build my own personal brand. I'm gonna look at different roles. Like, you have to look at it as build, measure, learn. Try something different. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result, right? Because that that will happen. If you apply for the same job, 800 jobs, the same exact way, you're not gonna be successful. You have to try something different.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

Yep. And I mean, that's that is how you figure it out. Yeah. Well, I think we did it. All right, John. Good job. I'll see you later. Michael drop. Uh, it's the Michael drop. Everyone, look out. Michael drop. It's the Michael drop. He he did it, he did the thing. I did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:56

Uh watch out. Kaboom is what's gonna happen. Just like the roller coaster tycoon shooting the big kaboom right out of the top. No casualties. Good reference. No casualties.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:07

Good reference. I forgot all about those days. Those were good days that we had. We need to do that again sometime. Hey, you know, if that was a lot of fun. If you have no idea what the Michael just referenced, we occasionally do stream games on YouTube. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel, but don't just subscribe and hit the notification because subscription means nothing. Notification means something now, I guess. So do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

I don't know. We don't understand YouTube. We're still doing it out.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:34

We don't. We're figuring it out. We're old. We're never gonna change our ways. If you want to be part of the conversation, and not just like this conversation, we actually have an ongoing conversation that never ends. You can do it on our Discord. Uh, you can do so by going to the link in your show notes. Click on that link tree. You can see our Discord in there. You know what else you can see in there? What? Patreon. Oh. You know what you can do on Patreon? What's that? Get access to exclusive content for the low low price of uh a few dollars a month. You can get access to very exclusive, spicy, saucy, interesting content. Uh, I show my feet. You can check them out. They're pretty cool. Uh there's lots of good stuff on there, including educational content that we're working on right now, um, presentations that we've given before that are actually meant to help people. We are we're working on a couple of new drops for that place. So if you've got a couple dollars to spare, the Patreon money goes back into this podcast for all of our sponsoring, hosting fees, and all the cool things that we're looking to do in the future. It's not this nonprofit podcast. So please help us out, sign up for our Patreon, give us a dollar or two a month, and we would appreciate you forever. And for everything else, uh, there is the sharing. Please share this podcast with other people. If you can't give us money, give the podcast to others because it really does help, whether it's on YouTube or on the podcast platform of your choice. Thank you so much for doing that. Thank you. We love you.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

Also, why would you not get in the Discord? We're doing an Is It AI challenge. And I'll be honest, I think I think we're I think, as you said, we're cooked. We are the AI on these images is getting so, so good, and like everybody's voting on them. And I gotta tell you, one, it's one, it's split, but two, I think the results are gonna be shocking for this one. Like, I I think it's a perfect, like it's a little grill setup, some kebabs, some dogs. I think people are gonna be so shocked when they find out the results of which one's generated by AI, which one's in the Discord.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:35

Get in the Discord. I've put my my thoughts in there. Uh, we've got the thoughts of our our very favorite King Ica in there as well. Uh like it's tough. It's a tough one. Get in the Discord, join the Is It AI channel and give us your thoughts. We are screwed as a species, but yeah, I mean, we might as well go down swinging. That's that's what I say. I'm John Connor, and uh, I will be destroying the machines. Uh until until that day comes, though, I'm gonna still go by Anthony and uh joined by my favorite co-host, Michael Movements. And oh god, it's just disgusting. You all are on mute. It's not good. It's not good, it's terrible. It sounds like you need Pepto. Michael Movements. Oh, what's wrong? I've got nausea, burn, indigestion.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:28

It's Michael's McDonald's McGriddle movements. Good lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:34

That makes apostrophe Anthony seem somewhat tolerable. All right, well, let's test it out. I'm apostrophe Anthony.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:43

And I'm Michael's McIntyre's McGriddle movements. And you're on mute. We will see you next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

Diarrhea.