Testing A New Recording Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Oh. Welcome back to Corporate Strategy. The podcast could have been an email. I'm Anthony. And I'm Michael. And you're on mute. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

You know, I may actually be on mute because you're already buffering. This is this is starting to be. How am I buffering?

SPEAKER_00 0:17

You're you're fine. You're fine.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

What are you talking about? Explain, explain to the people. Give them give the rationale for what we're doing and why we're doing it. And if this is a good idea at all. We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

We don't know. So we are using a different platform than we usually use to record ourselves podcasting, which we do every week on a podcast called Corporate Strategy the Podcast could an email. I'm Anthony. Hi Michael. But we have no idea if this podcast platform that we're trying out is actually good or not. If it is, it could be a fundamental level up to how we record, how we produce, how we publish, how we manage, how we create downstream content. But like everything in life, it's a test. And uh right now, this test might be their patience. Yes. Yes. It does look weird because the little audio things are not aligned.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

I know. That's what I'm worried about. I'm like looking at this, I'm like, your mine is so quiet, and yours is just booming. So this could just be an epic fail episode. We don't know. But this is what we're all about. We are about short iteration loops, fast feedback, and iterating to a point where it's going to be magical for everyone, or we just iterate so much that the quality and output of what we produce is just terrible forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Hell yeah. And and I've used this before. I I've used this many a time, but I've never been the one producing. This is the first time I'm on the I'm on the producing side of this thing. So we'll we'll see how it goes. Hey, Michael.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Hey, Anthony.

A Video Game About Repair Work

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Hey, ask me, ask me what I'm playing. Oh, are you playing something right now? What are you playing? Which what are you playing? Ask me what I'm playing. How dare you? That's a very personal and private question. Why would you ask me something like that? Uh I'm playing this game. You ready for this? I'm playing this game called Restory. Just came out on Thursday. I've been looking forward to it for a long time. Let me tell you what I'm doing in this game. In this game, you are a repair shop owner in Tokyo in the year 2000. And all you do is receive devices. You take them apart, screw by screw, plate by plate, wire by wire, clean them up, sometimes resolder them, and then you put them back together, and then you sell them back to the customer. And sometimes the parts are broken. So you have to go online on eBay and then buy other things that you can take apart, see the part out, and then put it in the other device. And then you're like, hey, I fixed this for you. And then you get paid for it. And then you do it for 18 hours a day, go to sleep, and then wake up and do it again the next day. And it's really fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Cool. Nobody asked. Uh, what we're gonna talk about today is just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. You posted something in our Discord about this, and I did not click on the link, but I'll be honest, it sounds like a lot of fun. If you've it's great, if you've been to Japan or China and you've been into like the deep tech repair hubs, it's just super, super cool experience because you go in there and it's just like small microelectronics, think Radio Shack, but much less organized and like a culturally flare around it that just is so much fun. Like you're walking around, you're like, they literally have everything. You need a little LED light that goes in RGB colors and can be like synced with whatever you know type of PCB you're working with. It's right there, it's five cents. It's it's incredible. So this game sounds like a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

It's a lot of fun. Uh, that's not actually the reaction I thought you would say. I thought you'd be like, why are you working another full-time job after your full-time job?

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Well, I was gonna ask because uh my brain is ruined for video games now. Um, what's the end goal?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I don't what isn't it just work until you die?

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Is this game just never ending? It's basically like, hey, you work and you make money, and if you don't pay your bills, like you just die.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

I don't know. There's this there's this girl that works at a hostess club that keeps bringing me like stolen material to repair, and there's also definitely a yakuza who keeps coming by and he's like, hey, fix my cell phone. It it got broken, not in a fight or anything, but like, you know, ignore the bloodstains. So, like, there's something going on. So I it feels a little bit illegal, but everything I'm doing is above board. That's what matters.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Good. Honestly, it sounds like I'm gonna have to look up a video. I'm gonna have to come over and watch you play, or I'm gonna have to look up a video because it does sound like fun. Like, I like tinkering and doing all that, but I think my brain is so rotted that right now I can't play a video game that doesn't have like a goal in mind that I can get a reward from.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah. Now it's uh I it the the I love electronics and electronic repair IRL. And one of the worst things about it is every time you hit a wall and you're like, I gotta wait two weeks for a part, I order on eBay to show up. Yeah, and this game, like literally you order a part, it shows up in 10 seconds. Like it's so it's all of the things I like about electronics repair with none of the frustration.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

In Japan and China, you can get into this weird, you can get into this weird niche uh of videos and creators on YouTube who live in China and Japan that do exactly this. But to your point, the beauty of what they do is they can just go down to the market and like literally buy anything they want. Like you can't do that in the United States. It's impossible. You gotta order everything in some parts got to come from China. And to your point, it could take like two weeks. So imagine actually living in that where it's like, oh, I'll just run down to the you know, the local guy who sells the RGB little light indicators that go to my PCB, buy one for five cents right now.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Even things that should be logically like attainable. So like I had to order some, I forget what it's called. Uh,

Why Electronics Repair Is So Hard

SPEAKER_00 6:10

it's some kind of poly tape, but basically it's it's gold transparent tape that they basically use on like the space shuttle and in in you know, space because it it absorbs all the heat. So you can tape around a part and then use a heat gun on it. So none of the other parts melt, but you get that one part unsoldered or melted off. That tape took like three weeks to show up because no stores nearby had it. And I'm like, surely some store has this tape. No, no, it's us Americans, we are we are just missing out on an entire uh I mean, the Europeans right now are pushing for right to repair. Apple's probably gonna have to add uh a detachable battery to their new phones. Like it seems like every other country is aware of the fact that it is important to be able to fix and repair the objects you buy. We're in America, we're just like, oh, it's broken, throw it in the garbage. Buy a new one. Buy a new one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Awesome for our economy, awesome for our environment, I'm sure. I'm sure there's no bad effects that that come from this behavior.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

There's certainly no risk to thousands of tens of hundreds of millions of thousands of people throwing lithium-ion batteries away. There's nothing bad that could possibly come from that. Nothing. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Well, yeah, in in kind of this same vein, uh, if you're watching on the YouTube, you can actually see I my office looks a little different. Usually it's a little different looking than this. And the reason I bring this up is because there is a cat tree if you're watching. But the reason I bring this up is now I now have another desk for electronics right here. You can't see it, it's out of view. Nice, but it's going to be my little work desk where I can work all my electronics stuff. I've got a soldering iron, I have like all these other things and that I need to like do stuff with. And I like to repair laptops and phones when I need to. So now I have little desks to do it. So this is just a world of first because we're trying out a new podcasting platform, which by the way, doesn't bode well for me or everybody in the Discord. I told them, hey, we're gonna tell you when we're recording and going live this week, and then we just didn't go live at all. So we're not live on us.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

We followed through. We followed through with our promise.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

We didn't go live, so they're not missing anything. So I don't know if this will work out. I'm in a new office space. We're talking about you know, this game and this weird dynamic we live in in the United States where you can't buy any sort of electronics items ever. And it's gonna be a short episode. So this is weird. This is weird.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, I'm all yeah. We have no idea if we're synced up, we have no idea if anything's working. It's uh it's a it's a wild west, as it were.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

If you're tuning in this for the first time, just know we've done a lot of episodes and there's a lot of good stuff. But this is one of those things we're trying to hopefully make the experience better for you. So bear with us. Go listen to some other episodes if this one's a little wonky.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, yeah. And you know, if you're tuning in to anything, uh, what is it, 1950, where you live? Were you tuning in, tuning your knobs? Yeah, dialing in.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

I'm adjusting the little, you know, the little antenna to try to get in the right range for these channels.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Frequency, yeah.

The Value Of Career Retrospectives

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Well, I've got a fun topic since we're keeping it short, and we're already almost 10 minutes in. So you want to talk about something interesting?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Why are you saying it that way?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

I'm not. It's it's the uh it's the streaming platform, it's not okay. So I think in life, well, it's actually interesting. In life, it's actually interesting to evaluate things in retrospect and try to think about what your life could be like if you took different paths. Some people don't believe in this, some people think you should just no regrets, forget everything that ever happened prior to you, don't think about other paths and like just go forward. But I actually think it's interesting mentally to like think about where would I be if I took a different turn in life and like what would that look like? And the reason why I think it's beneficial to do is I think one, you could actually visualize yourself and in a different role, and you'd be like, wow, I actually might be a lot happier. Maybe, maybe I should have taken that, or maybe it's not too late for me to take that route and go get that degree or go try another another job. But I think if you don't take a second to like think back, then you you're gonna kind of miss it. You're just gonna be trudging forward. You're not gonna be taking in what you learned and thinking about why it's better, why it's worse, why you like the things they are now versus why you didn't like it then, and you miss a chance to understand yourself. So my wife and I were talking about something interesting that I think would be fun for us to do. What if we took a different turn in our career? Where would we be if you never took the sales engineering role after engineering? What would your life would have would have looked like? What would my life would have looked like? Would I have found product management? Would I be started my own company today? What do you think? That's a good question. I mean, you want to go down some hypotheticals for our lives, and maybe this will help some people too.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

I do. Well, and also I want to address the you know, people who people who uh know regurts just push forward. Listen, I get it. I don't think it's healthy to dwell on the past. Dwelling is not good, but retrospecting, I think is great. Uh, you can always learn from history, you can always learn from a retrospective. Dwelling is where it gets dangerous. With having said that, let's go. So, what's the first hypothetical we want to go down?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

So, I want I want to think about in your career.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Think about the pivotal moments that you took, whether it was moving to try for you, like you've made some career transitions that have definitely not been normal career paths that I think put you where you are today in a place that you're very happy you made those changes.

Engineering Vs Sales Engineering Paths

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah. But maybe let's think back to like one of those first ones of switching from engineering to sales engineering. Like, what if you never made that pivot? What do you think would have happened? Or why are you happy you did?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Oh, I think I I don't know, man. If I didn't go to sales engineering, I hated engineering, especially with the company we were at. Uh, I hated the people, I hated the product, hated the business, hated the bosses. Like I hated everything about engineering. Like the job itself, I'm terrible at. Uh, like there, there was nothing working for me, good for me. Like, I it would, I probably it was safe to say I was like borderline, like chemically depressed from the lack of satisfaction, the lack of interest, the lack of happiness. I think I would have probably quit and become either like a teacher or go back to landscaping, or just been like, you know, I'm sad being poor. Like, I can't do this. I cannot do this. Uh yeah. I don't think there was a future for me there. I think we know that company is gone now. Uh, that role would have been gone for me about a year after I left. And the only other game in town is a bunch of warmongering uh government contractors, which I had applied to work for prior to. And I was like, I can't work here. I can't work on things that kill people. So I'm not gonna move. I think I think that would be it for me. I think I'd be out of corporate had I stayed in engineering. Wow, you think so?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

I think one you are very humble in how you speak about it. I think you brought a lot of value. Like, I think I think you were better at doing what you think you were doing than you think you were, if that sentence made any sense. Like everybody from the outside in actually thought you were doing a really good job and helping lead the teams, and you were using other skills you had where maybe it wasn't like your engineering skills that were the strongest. You had other skills that helped bring people together and like help the team stay on track. So it's it is interesting to think about that though, of like from the outside looking in, you look like you were doing a good job. You were leading. Like that was the perspective. Obviously, we knew each other on a different level, so I knew about your unhappiness. Like we shared personal stuff and we drove together and carpooled, and so like I knew what was really going on. But I think from the outside looking in, it was like, no, Anthony's fine. He's gonna be like a rising engineering leader here because he's helped coordinating everything. But it's so interesting that like you didn't feel that way in that no.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Well, I it's not just a feeling, like I knew I was bad, right? Like I would look at I would look at how other people would code and I'd be like, my God, I don't understand any of what they've written. I'm in a review, I'm like a reviewer here, and I I this is like reading Egyptian to me. And I'm expected not only to review this thing, but go create it on my own. Like it was and going through my head was when when I get fired, not if, but when, I'm not gonna be able to pass the interview tests at other companies that I will apply for, even though I don't want to work there. And it just like it, and truly in hindsight, with AI now being so developer eliminatory, uh bullets dodged by getting out of engineering, just so many bullets. But but truly, yeah, no, no, you might have thought I was doing good, I was not.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah, no, going back to what we talked about last episode, I think you would have been promoted. I still don't think you'd be happy, you know, given everything you were talking about. But I think you'd be promoted because you were well liked and you knew the domain and high level of like what we were doing, even though that that role wasn't your strongest fit. You know what I mean? So it is interesting to think about that. Yeah, for for me, in hindsight, like it's easy to look back and say, oh yeah, that was the right career choice. But I think naturally what I ended up doing is leaning into my strengths, which then pushed me into product ownership and product management. Because I actually felt like I was a decent engineer. I I felt like I was always pretty good at coding, but I found more energy doing the product ownership type work than I did sitting at a computer. Like sitting at a computer all day and like not talking to people and like coding like all day long just didn't feel natural to me, even though I could do it. And I think I kind of leaned into without even knowing it, I leaned into saying, what are my soft skills? And I started just poking into areas that I didn't know if I'd be good at, but I was naturally good at. And like that encouraged me to keep going down that path. I think if I never went down the path of like trying to become a product owner, I would be in a similar place to where you were kind of thinking in your head too. Of I realized at some point in hindsight, there was only two paths if I wanted to go down the engineering way. I could either get really, really good at a specific niche or program or whatever it is, and like solve really hard algorithmic problems, or become like a solution architect where I'm more guiding the integration of the work and giving the outline to the land. And like in in retrospect, it's easy to say I would have hated that. But in the moment, I just kind of went with what felt right, even if it wasn't necessarily my primary role. But I wasn't unhappy. I think it was still something new to me. I was still like enjoying the process of being on the engineering team and working with a team. But to your point, like I can look back and easily say the culture felt wrong. I don't think I was using my strengths to their strongest suit. And also I don't think I was that great at it. I was just like pretty okay and not bad, but not great.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

See, we worked on some like outside of work projects, and I was always impressed by your coding ability. Like even from the earliest days, I knew you were a better programmer than I was. So I I do agree. I think you would have you would have likely gone the architect route, whether it was solution architect or software architect. Like, I would I saw you running basically a product and being the guy that says, like, this is how we're gonna build it, this is what we're gonna like, because you have that architectural mind that I don't. And I like I always saw that in you as like you're you're gonna get go far doing that. But I do think product management is a better fit for you.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. It's interesting now, because in just talking this out has helped me realize this, which I think is one of the values. I'm still a systems thinker. I'm a builder, I like to build. So talking is fine, but I I realize with my job at Universal, when I get abstracted so far away from the work that I'm no longer involved and I'm just directing a large team to go do all the work, I don't find fulfillment in that. I like to be in the weeds, I like to really understand the problem, but I also like building the solution towards the problem. And so fortunately, I think for your saying, and I'm saying, like, I'm happy that pivot never, like I never stayed where I was because I think I'd be much less happy than I am now. And that change propelled me to, you know, start my own business now, where thanks to AI, I don't have to be amazing at coding, right? Because AI is really great at codings, but I can still focus on my strengths of being a systems thinker, being a builder, and helping understand the end goals, being a product manager to ultimately

Fulfillment, Stress, And Creative Work

SPEAKER_01 19:35

build a great product for clients.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah, I I agree with that. I think I think every step you've taken has been the right one, every step of your journey, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

It's interesting too because I had an opportunity to do sales engineering. Like you were encouraging me because I think you guys saw those soft skills. Uh, you were encouraging me. Capitalist correspondent Alexa Strepo was encouraging me. And like when I was going through it, it just didn't feel right, but I didn't understand why. I'm like, I just something doesn't sit right with doing this role with me. And that's why I ended up not doing it. And I kind of stayed where I was before, you know, ultimately having to make a decision whether I wanted to move or not and stay in engineering, which kind of finalized my decision of like time and place. I'm not leaving Florida to move to Minnesota, no thanks. Kind of made that decision or helped me make that decision of finding a new job. But it's interesting because I think I would have done okay at sales engineering, but not been as happy because I would have been abstracted away from the work.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

See, it's interesting for me because I was a sales engineer when I was trying to groom you into that role. And I think, you know, the more interesting pivot for me would have been what if you didn't go into marketing and stayed as a sales engineer? And I think the very interesting dichotomy of that is staying a sales engineer would have been better for me emotionally, mentally, probably monetarily, because I kicked the butt at being a sales engineer. And I probably would have closed some stupid deals eventually and gotten paid stupid money. So I would have I would work so much less, I would be so much less stressed, but I would not be challenged at all. Because that job is a cakewalk. And like I'm very good at it. So like the two paths that I went down, you know, I chose the one that was more difficult, paid more at the time, and it pays consistently more. I think salary-wise, I make more than a sales engineer, but bonus-wise, they stand to make more than I do. But the amount of work I do, the amount of stress I deal with, the amount of hours I work, uh, the amount of just absolute day to day bureaucracy, politics, red tape, bad attitudes, bad energy, just like all of that compounds into a much more difficult, much more emotionally and mentally drained. And taxing job. But I do, I love the role, right? Like it's it's mentally fulfilling for me in a way that sales engineering never was. Because sales engineering is just it's theater, but you're doing plays about products instead of, you know, I don't know. Shakespeare. So I I mean, that one for me is the hard one because there's there's potentially a universe where I have less gray hair and look younger than I do right now. Yeah. Uh and maybe that's maybe that would have been for the better. Hard to say. Yeah. Also the job I feel like would have been much better for me too. Like I could have moved around easier, have jobs easier because I'm the best at.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah, I think that was probably the role that you were naturally the best at and would have been the path to the largest monetary game.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

And working like two hours a week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah. Like I have a friend who does this. He's a solution architect now, but was a sales engineer for a long time. And yeah, the schedule's pretty nice. I mean, there's there's of course other stress with the job, it's not an easy job, and you have to be the right type of person to do it. But like monetarily, job market-wise, like you will have a job because you are a technical salesperson. Like that will never be gone, at least in our lifetime. Like, that is going to be such a necessary role. But I can go back to it, but I don't go back, but it's not creative enough for you. Like your brain, and people, anybody who's listened to this for a while, they know Anthony is a creative guy. You've got great dreams and big visions, and like you need that sort of train, you need that thing for your brain to work and function properly to do well and feel fulfilled. And I feel like sales engineering is like cut and dry.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is a there's a serious sickness inside of me. I play games with my brother-in-law uh most nights of the week. We just get online and play multiplayer games together. And we're playing, we play this competitive game where you choose a character and you go, you know, battle the other characters for 40 minutes. And like rounds take 40 minutes. And there's this character, and he's like, You're so good at playing her. And I say, and I hate it. I hate playing as her. She's not fun. She's very difficult. I don't think she's a very good character. And then the next round we queue up and we'd start the game, and I'm her. And he's like, Why are you playing her? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I can't tell you. Like, I enjoy hurting myself. I enjoy doing things that I hate. Uh, there's something, and and I mean, you think I'm joking. I did this four more times before I finally was like, I'm I'm done. I'm not playing this character anymore. I'm done, done, done. So there's just a mental illness inside of me.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

I think it's a good insight into like yourself, though, of things you're going to like and not like. And that's why I think this exercise is helpful. Obviously, we're doing it now. Even this alone, like, has been beneficial to me, just to try and think about how I think about, how I process the things I enjoy, the parts of work that I don't. And having those insights is helpful because then you can truly understand what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy and why you enjoy things when you don't enjoy others. And so, even though you enjoy torturing yourself, it's about the challenge to you. Yeah. You don't want the easy reward that is going to give you the best end result. You want to challenge yourself with something different so you can try to achieve that level of success. And that's good to know about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

That is, I I guess so. I mean, it's also like terrifying to know about myself, is that I like struggles and difficult things for no reason and know that it's bad for me. But uh, you know, maybe maybe that's what therapy is for.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Maybe, maybe that is. And it's weird to meet this is a type of therapy in a way.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Yes, that's true. That is true. Are there any other choices you would change or have different routes that you could go down?

Leaving The Corporate Ladder To Build

SPEAKER_01 26:05

The path to I guess like the recent pivot, I had a recent pivot one, uh, one that I could bring up now of just starting my own business, leaving a comfortable career that I could have rose the ranks and probably run, you know, digital at some point after I get more gray hair on me, like for a very large organization and a prominent brand. But for me, while I could have done that again, I think it goes back to I don't like getting abstracted away from the work. And I like to truly be able to be part of building the solution. And so I recently made a pivot to start my own business, as many of you guys know. So I left Universal and I started this, and I've been really, really enjoying it. And at least for right now, obviously, we're just getting started. It's like a lot of people would look at that and saying, Well, you're you're young, like you left an executive level position as someone who was probably the youngest executive, and you you could have had this path to keep climbing that ladder. And you know, it took a life event for me to realize that it just wasn't the right fit for me. And that's not where I find fulfillment of just being at the top and like pushing around paper and being in meetings all day and like controlling large teams. I'd much rather have like a smaller team building things, seeing the tangible result, being in the weeds with the team, and like even if it's less monetarily, even if it's less stable, that for me is much more fulfilling. And so I think that's the recent pivot that I did. Fortunately, maybe with gray hair, this comes of like for me, I knew it took me a while to realize it, but I knew it was the right move.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Do you think I I don't disagree with you, but I you said something that I I have to address. Do you think, in all honesty, that you were too young to climb those ranks? And your youth is what would hold you back? I think I have an opinion on where I have been, where my youth has come into play.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

And I was just curious what you thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

I do think so. Especially when you grow in an organization. I mean, I was at Universal for eight years, so like I had five promotions, and there's a point when upper management is looking for a certain type of person in a certain demographic to lead. And not that you won't get there eventually, like they still see you as someone that's a early, you know, a strong riser through the company, but it's gonna take time before you can ever get to that next level position.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

I think I was because people will only ever see you as exactly what you were when you came in eight years prior.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

They know where you came from, and that was the hardest part is in some ways that can work, but usually you don't see people rising those range for 30 years. And in my case, it was eight years, and I did get passed up on a promotion for someone, and the person was great, so I don't want to say anything against them, but I got passed on a promotion because I think it was an age thing. The person who was hired as that promotion in that spot was much older than me. So I'm not saying it's cool, it might be coincidence. That person's great, they're still there. No hard feeling.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

I didn't work there. So as an outside observer and someone who's experienced this time and time again in my life, I do think our youth or the perception of our youth has hampered our growth. And uh couldn't couldn't agree more with you getting out doing your own thing. Because you said, you know, I could have climbed the ranks. And I'm thinking in like 10 more years, like you need to be old and fat, and you're not either of those things. And I don't think I don't even think in 10 years you will be. So I I think you made the right move. Not because optically, Michael, you're just too you're too likable, too young, too handsome to be executive leadership at a corporation. You'd never make it.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

You're much too guy. Yeah, it's it's it's interesting to think about. Like, fortunately, and maybe it is wisdom of like I just knew it was the right move. Like, I think it's a real thing new, and all the doors open to being like, this is the time. And so, you know, I was fortunate a lot of in a lot of ways to have the right time, the right opportunity, and like being able to make that transition relatively easily. But it's certainly not an easy path, the one that I chose, and it's going to be harder monetarily, at least this year, you know, getting started for the first time. Probably not going to be what I was on pace for in my corporate role, right? But it's like those are the trade-offs that I knew I was okay making because the fulfillment would be there on the other end.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

What about you? I think you will eventually outpace yourself, yeah. Of of where you could be had you not pivoted. I I think in both of our cases, all of the decisions we've made have been the right ones. Um like I said before, yeah, I'd probably be happier. Uh, I'd probably be less stressed. I'd probably live like 20 more years had I stayed a sales engineer. But like, is that worth the struggle that I get to endure every day? The misery, the absolute just emotional gut punch I feel every time I check my email? Absolutely not. Why would I give that up for anything? I mean, what kind of sicko would trade in what I get to deal with for happiness and enjoyment of their job? That's that's psychotic. So I think both you and I really did come out ahead in all of our choices. And I think we made the right ones the entire way.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Yeah, it's hard, it's impossible to know, right? You when you make a decision, you don't know whether it's going to turn out. I wish Anthony, I could tell you like every decision we made, we made because we knew confidently it was the right one. The reality is life is a series of decisions and you have to make them, but sometimes you have to make the decision that's not so safe. And for us at least, fortunately, like that's that's been more beneficial to our careers, even monetarily, living situation-wise, fulfillment-wise, those decisions have fortunately all been positive decisions and pivots that we've made. And I think if you don't take those chances, you don't learn, and therefore you can't use that wisdom that you've gained to make the decisions later in life.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yep. Yep, agree. Uh, you know, I'll give you, I know we're we're we're at time, but I'll give you one more uh life decision that I regret.

The Bitcoin Mining Regret Story

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Do you remember a gentleman I used to sit behind? Uh his name was, or sit, he sat behind me back in our big corp days. Uh his first name was Alex. It's kind of a nerd. Uh, not capitalist correspondent, Alex Astrepo, but another Alex. Every day in like 2013, no, 2014. Like every day he'd be like, dude, you got this gaming PC. Like, there's this thing called Bitcoin. You can mine it like while you're at work. Dude, I got like two coins yesterday. Like, you should be doing this. And I'm like, man, I'm not gonna waste my home electricity on Bitcoin. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. And then, like, for a year, he's like, bro, you've got the hardware. Because I, you know, I built gaming PCs back then. Yeah. And he's like, you've got the hardware. You could get so many of these things. Like, they're worth like 20 cents now. It's gonna be worth a hundred bucks in 10 years. And I'm like, dude, you're so stupid if you believe Bitcoin will ever be worth a hundred bucks in 10 years. You absolute buffoon. Um, yeah, I think about that a lot. I think about it a lot.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

I tell this story all the time because I I agree. I think this is probably the one of the biggest regrets that I have too, because I just remember going to his office and it like being dark and dingy, just hardware parts everywhere. And I'm like, this feels illegal. Like, I think I remember.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Oh, he was definitely doing illegal stuff in the office.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Like absolutely was when we left the office, because he's like, Hey, listen, you got to get into this Bitcoin mining thing. And like for me, like I'm just starting programming. I remember looking at you after him feeling like, This is a is this illegal, Anthony? Like, should we be doing this?

SPEAKER_00 34:16

But I mean whatever he says to you, just smile, nod, yeah, yeah, okay, all right. That looks good.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Dude's probably a multi-millionaire now. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Dude, I mean, he probably sold what it was worth, like a thousand dollars, a coin, and thought that was gonna be the most it's ever gonna be. And he's just as poor as the rest of us. But there's part of me that hopes he's a millionaire, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah, I hope he's just a multi-millionaire, never has to work again, and we'll never talk to him again in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yes, yes, that's uh that's my big regret. But uh, you know, it's all it's all in good jest. Again, I mean, think about all the suffering I wouldn't be doing had I been a multimillionaire. So it's jokes on them. I got exactly what I wanted. Uh and I I think with that, good topic, Michael. Bring in the heat, make it an introspective today.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

I have to say, shout out to my wife. I was talking to her earlier and I was like, hey, do you have any ideas? Like, what are things we could talk about? And she brought this up and I was like, yeah, but like what kind of takeaway are we gonna have for the listener? Why do they care to hear about like our prior regrets and our work history? It actually turned out to be a really fun topic. So I'm really happy.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

I think so. Shout outs, shout out to Michael's wife. Shoutouts. Also, shout out to Michael's wife for like literally everything she does for this podcast behind the scenes. So just more shout-outs. All the shout outs.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

We do nothing.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

We

Patreon, Discord, And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_00 35:36

do nothing. Hey, and uh, if you like the nothing that we do, you could support the show. In fact, you can give us money to do nothing. I do have good news. I actually took Hein this week to rebuild the presentation. I just need to film it. So I'll probably film it tomorrow. There'll be some new Patreon content coming up real soon. Uh, how to present and tell stories. It's a it's a masterclass course by yours truly. So if you're a member of our Patreon, you'll get access to that. Uh, if you're not a member of our Patreon, you can join it by clicking the link, wherever the link is and whatever the thing you're using, join it, support the show. We pay for all this out of our pockets. Well, not entirely anymore because we have a Patreon. So help us continue to keep the lights on. And if you're not into lights, we're gonna have to join our Discord.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

I'm gonna do some onboarding stuff. We're gonna have a reusable kind of PowerPoint you can take away as a template. So that way, if you are helping onboard people, you can build something that can be reusable. I just helped uh one of our clients through this, so I think this would be really, really helpful to share.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

It's it's good content. It's good content that's worth paying for and keeping us in business. So please keep us in business. If you don't want to do that and you hate us, join our Discord and tell us all about how much you hate us. You can do that by clicking the link and the thing. Go to there. It's a great community, it's a great conversation. The the Discord's been on fire these last uh couple of weeks. There's some real um emotions being tossed in there uh based on some real good topics. So if you want to see what our community is talking about, get in there. We're on YouTube, we're on Instagram, we're on all the podcast platforms. So wherever you're seeing this, go check out the other places, follow us there, like us, comment us, subscribe us, ring that bell, uh, and you will be doing us a great service. Oh, and comment wherever you go, leave comments. Even if it's just like, hey, you guys are goofy, that's a good comment. That's good for us. We'll take it. Is there anything we missed?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Uh buy a baby onesie. We have a shop where you can buy gear. And if you're having a child, there's nothing better than snuggling them with the warmth of corporate strategy.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Yep. Nothing, nothing says landfill quite like the usage of a corporate strategy branded baby onesie. I I can't think of a better thing to throw your money away on than that. Certainly not our Patreon. Uh, so I think with that we've we've done it yet again. A little bit shorter episode, but again, we're testing out a new platform. This might all be for nothing, and only the Dart will benefit from hearing it. So uh thank you as always for your listenership. We appreciate you. We love you. We hope you are well uh until you hear our sweet, sultry voices next time. As always, I'm Anthony. And I'm Michael. And you're on mute. We will see you next week.