Shaun Newman Podcast - #683 - Aaron Youngren

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

He is the head of product at Red Balloon America’s largest non-woke job board and talent connector. He has also written his first book “Undiscovered”. Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone] – and be sure to let them know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Ken Drysdale. This is Dr. Mark Trozy. Hey, this is Gordon McGill. This is Drew Weatherhead, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. How's everybody doing today? Silver Gold Bull, my favorite precious metals dealer, offering a full suite of services

to help you buy, sell, store your precious metals. They ship your metal discreetly, that is, fully insured, and with tracking straight to you, and they've got a nice little ultimate sleep-at-night insurance policy only available. here for the SMP listener. That's smaller than one ounce silver coins. The reason they like holding fractional silver,

well, it gives you real optionality in a worst-case economic scenario. With a low premium offered only for the S&P listeners mean you have a solid investment no matter what comes to pass, text or email gram down in the show notes for details, you can always go to silvergoldbull.com. To see everything they've got.

Calrock, your trusted partner in surplus oil field equipment, Leaning supplier of new used and reconditioned oil field production equipment in Canada, but that's not all. Tank fabrication, new and refurbished fluid storage tanks, trucking, pump tracks, and demolition, calrock.com. And then Clay Smiley over at Prophet River. Yeah, Proffer River. All your gun needs, okay?

They specialize importing firearms from the United States of America. They go from coast to coast. Don't matter what province, what territory you're in, they can get you that firearm. They are the major retailer of firearms, optics, and accessories serving all of you, fine Canadians. Just go to profitriver.com. If you have no idea what to get, they also do gift cards and all the goodies for the hunter or sportsman in your life. Windsor plywood builders of the podcast studio table for everything wood. These are the guys. Hopefully you're enjoying some deck season. If you got a project on the go and you need some, you know, you need some quality

wood. Head on over to Carly and team over Windsor Plywood here in Lloyd Minster. All right, it has been a wild ride here in July. We're getting close to August coming back. August coming back. August coming next and that means I'm coming back full time and you're starting to see you. We've had a couple of lives with the military boys. Last night we did a live on the Jasper Forest Fire. It'll be out tomorrow. And so some things starting to cook up here. Mashup 118. I'm going to be back ready to roll. I'm sure we got lots to talk about. If you've been missing out, want to see some pictures. Head on over to Substack. Show you some things from the trip. If you've been waiting for some substack exclusives,

I've been just kind of holding off on July, on almost all social media being asked why I haven't been posting on Instagram and Facebook and everything, and I'm like, sorry, folks. July was kind of like, we're going to pull the plug for a little bit. Obviously not, because the podcast's been still rattling off some interesting content, if I may say so. But for all the bonus stuff, substack is where it's been going at, and we've been sharing a little bit of insight into the road trip 25 days on the road

to finally get to Mel's parents in Minnesota. That's where we're sitting today. And if you want to hear and see some more about that, head on over to Substack. All right. Let's get on to The Tale of the Tape. He's an author and head of product at Red Balloon, America's largest non-woke job board. I'm talking about Aaron Younggren. So buckle up.

Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. I'll tell you everybody all about it. I'm sure they're curious as well. I'm sitting here with Aaron Youngren at Red Balloon. So, sir, first off, thanks for, I don't know. allowing me to pit stop in Moscow, Idaho. People may recall us talking back on episode,

I think it's 447 right now. You're like 6. What is it, 70 something, roughly somewhere in that. Yeah, congrats on that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's been a ride. You have a beautiful state here. I was saying that when I first walked in.

But if people have never been to Idaho, man, they've got to put it on their docket of places to stop. We've been now in Idaho, I think, for, I think it's four or five nights. Geez, I don't know. Times kind of, you can imagine. I was just saying, we've been in the vehicle now. This is day 11 with three kids under eight,

and they were fired up this morning. They weren't too happy to be back in the vehicle. But anyways, thanks for letting me stop here in Moscow. Yeah, absolutely. Great to talk to you. Now, you aren't originally from Idaho. You're a guy who transplanted in. What have you been your thoughts?

Just briefly on Idaho. for people who, you know, majority of my listeners, Western Canada, and I, you know, when you look at a map of how to get to Idaho, there's this like thin sliver. You know, it's a giant state, but there's a thin sliver between Washington and Montana, and I never hear of anyone going to Idaho until recently. And I ran into a girl, and I think it was somewhere near Sandpoint.

And I was just, you know, friendly Albertan talking. And she said, yeah, I'm not originally from here. I'm, oh, where'd you move from? I'd rather not say. And I'm like, oh, don't worry about it. She's like, yeah, the politics here are just better. And I'm like, I get that answer. Everywhere I've gone here has been clean, ridiculously friendly. Like, I mean, ridiculous. Even my wife has been like, it's really friendly here. I'm like, yes.

Would have been your thoughts on being in Idaho, being, you know, coming from somewhere else. Yeah, so I grew up in Seattle, which does not shockingly have a reputation for being Super friendly. Quite the opposite. And then my wife and I moved to Chicago, and we were in the city, in Chicago for 12 years, and escaped with our very lives. My kids were getting older, kind of coming into their college years.

There's a great private college here in town called New St. Andrews College. I asked you about this last time, man, you don't look old enough to have college kids. And yet I do. And yet I do. And so we moved here. And, you know, funny thing about the trip when we came out here, I took a trip with my girls to come out and see the college, right? That was the thing. We're going to evaluate the college.

I heard a couple of the professors speak. And immediately I was like, okay, that checks out. I'm okay. And I took my youngest. And we took a drive for the day, popped all the way around Cordo Lane, kind of went up back roads and around Cordo Lane. by the end of the day I was convinced we just needed to move here. It's, it's shockingly beautiful. Yes, shockingly.

In Cortalane, when you're like, what is this place? Right. We went hiking on, I think it's Tubbs Hill. The Tubbs Hill, I think it's Tubbs Hill. One night, you know, and like, there was like, I don't know, it felt like straight out of a movie, you know, like how they, how they just show like, it's not thousands, was it hundreds? I'm going to say hundreds of people out on this Tubbs Hill, which for folks who've never been,

is kind of like a, you know, a decent sized hill, but it's right in the middle of Cordillane Lake, I think, is what it's called. And you can hike it, and then there's ways to hike down, and there's, like, these little coves where you can swim. And there's just, like, it's, you know, it's like eight o'clock on a Monday night. And there's just hundreds of people up. You're like, like, where am I? Like, I understand. It's summer.

I get it. Um, it just, Cortaline was shockingly. I think that's a great word. Yeah. But I think Idaho as a whole, we drive into Moscow. And I remember, you know, there's a Moscow in the United States. Right. Isn't that an odd?

You know, and you come here and it's as shocking as, uh, you know, because I, you know, it's farming country. You come out of a lake country and all of a sudden it's just like farms everywhere. I'm like, wow, that's, that's kind of interesting. And then you roll back in and it has the same kind of feel, uh, here as, as, as as Cortaline. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong on that.

But you. obviously picked this spot for a reason. Yeah, this is a wonderful, wonderful town coming from a huge city to a town that, you know, some small towns are dying, but this one is thriving right in the middle of farm country. You've got forests. You've got the Paloos, so these giant rolling hills that are almost, you know, strange looking when you first rolled down them. It's a, it's a wonderful place to be, wonderful place to be. Okay. Well, I could sit and talk about, you know, It's been a while since I've been behind the mic, Aaron. You're the first one in, well, probably 11, 12 days, so I'm feeling the itch.

You know, as we make our giant loop, I hope to run into a few more people that have been on the podcast and have them on. You've written a book since we last talked. I have. Let's talk about that, you know, because for people, red balloon, you know, I'll probably toss it in substack a post on it. But, you know, I think everybody remembers the commercial. I want to work for a woke company, you know, like, and it was. superb you know and it's what drew the attention of my audience and then my course myself to you but since then you've written a book what it what have you

written a book about so the book is called undiscovered and it's really trying to move from a true foundation toward the basic principles of building a business and building a product you know something that you're going to sell to someone else I have found, so I spent seven years at Amazon.com, I spent three years at GE Healthcare, working with product professionals quite a bit. And I have found that when it comes to the day-to-day operations, the day-to-day tactics, the tools that you're using every day to do your job, many of those are just not informed by anything. They're not informed by any worldview. they're not informed by, well, they are, right?

But they fly under the radar, you know, business tools, business literature, business books. They fly under the radar as not having a spiritual perspective. And of course, everything has to come from somewhere. You can't just have no foundation for what you're doing or what you believe. And we're seeing some of the consequences now when you build a business up. as though you were not building from any foundation at all. You know, when you have things like a bud light face plant where an entire leadership organization turns their back on their audience

and allows some other strange, you know, worldview to creep in, that doesn't happen on accident. It doesn't happen overnight. It happens because people weren't thinking about the underlying principles that their products were based on. And so this book is an attempt to build a new foundation for business and creating products that rest solidly on the truth, which comes from the scriptures. First sticking on the bud light thing for an interesting moment here. You know, I would have just loved to have been a fly on the wall in some of the rooms just to be like, hey, listen, I think, you know, I think the world's going this way of men being women.

And I really think that would work. But I just, at some point, somebody had to have been sitting in the room going, this is a horrendous idea. Yeah. And yet, it plays out. And, you know, the thing I guess I didn't fully understand as a consumer was how many people would share my sentiment, which would be like, well, there goes bud. I'm not drinking that anytime soon. Right. And it became the butt of all jokes and on and on and on, right?

Because who are the prime, you know, when you ask who my audience is, I was curious, your questions on that because if you're sitting in Bud Light's chair, well, who's our audience? Right. It's about as far from Dylan Mulvaney as you're going to get. And I assume you sitting there watching that, we're like, this is a horrendous idea. Yeah. And how many people stood up and, you know, shook a fist in the air, maybe in their office or maybe wherever they were when they saw Kid Rock pull out an, you know, an automatic weapon.

And, but I mean, it's a joke, but it does, it is really illustrative of a deeper problem. And the deeper problem is we have these massive companies. Of course, we saw this through COVID, right? We have these massive companies that really are steering global culture. And they are, they are doing that work based on a totally corrupted, not, unreal way of looking at the world. So you have a company like Google, for instance, who used to, their mission used to be do no harm. That has been since walked back into complete, you know, a mission that makes absolutely no sense. But you start to look into.

What is their mission? Their mission now is something like bring the, understand the world's data without, you know, offending any. I don't know. I have it in my book, But like, unfortunately, we used to have businesses that had really, you know, proud, some kind of mission that had a sense of truth to it. And the absolute and utter confusion we see in the business sphere right now reflects the absolute and utter confusion of the state of the American mind or the Canadian mind or the global mindset. And the point I'm trying to make in the book is ideas have consequences, right? So you can't say I am going to try to understand and transmit all of the world's data. I'm going to try to help you understand all of the world's data without putting your own spin on it. And in Google's case, it's very obvious that the way that they look at the world is highly materialistic,

as though there were no spiritual universe that take the concern over AI, for instance, right? Everyone is very concerned about AI. There are some dangers to AI. Unfortunately, some of the concerns over AI when you start examining them from a biblical perspective are kind of nonsensical, right? So we're not, we're just not going to be able to string. ones and zeros together in a way that transcends human consciousness and intelligence, right? Because the Lord actually created us to have dominion in the world.

He didn't create, we're not possibly capable of creating something that transcends us. I mean, it's an absurd level of hubris to think that we can. But it's exactly the level of hubris that companies like Google and Facebook and, you know, and the like, exactly the kind of project and fear that reflects their way of thinking about the world. You know, my audience has been hearing a lot about this because it's a long book, but I'm almost done. I'm right at the end of Atlas Shrugged.

Okay. And what you get out of that book is politicians are steering the way people should think, and they have this. And meanwhile, the public doesn't agree with it. And what I find so fascinating about it is we're in a different version of what Anne Rand, wrote about in that what you just said, right, these giant conglomerate companies are trying to steer these ideologies thinking there will be no pushback, no nothing. And in Budlite's case, or Victoria's Secrets case, and the list goes on and on and on, is people vote with their dollars. So they look at it

and they go, no, walk away and what are corporations built on? Success, right? And so they're having to come to terms with, they're insane ideologies that just putting a few people, usually blue collar, in a room would be like, yeah, that's a terrible idea. Like, that is about as terrible ideas you can get. And yet,

they're trying to steer like you say, like the the way the world thinks, because they think they know better. And that is in its thought, yes, as a thought is dangerous enough. Right. But now put billions upon

billions upon billions and, in fact, maybe even trillions of dollars behind it. And you get kind of the world we're living in. Right. And so it's funny you say that, you know, businesses are aiming at success. And typically we think of that as as financial success. One of the issues that I tackle in my book is that, you know, businesses that aim purely at success have to have a way to get there. the business myths that we have right now, the business stories that we tell each other, really have the idea at the center, what I call the idea at the center. So you have Travis Kalanuck standing at the side of the road with his phone. How do I get a taxi? If only I had a button to call a taxi and that's Uber, right? Or you have Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in their

basement and how do we make a personal computer that can fit in every home? And then this idea is born, right? And then from that idea comes the success. The problem is, the problem is, is both financial success and success that comes from progress or ideas, both of those are a terrible foundation, right? Both of those are ultimately going to fail you. I would argue aiming for money actually is slightly better than aiming to bring your own idea into existence. It's a well-known fact that 10% only 10% of startups last past 10 years, right? So if you have Joe's Auto Body, you know, you open up an auto body shop, you actually have a 30% chance. Startups have a 10% chance. So it's a big risk. But when you ask someone who has this big idea or wants to find success,

the simple question, why? The whole foundation starts to break apart. Okay. So I want people to stand on the side of the street and order a taxi by pressing a button. Well, why? Well, because it'll be obviously more efficient for that person. Well, why? Why does that matter?

Certainly the taxi cab unions think that that's a bad idea. So you can't just say that it's good. You have to know what good is, right? what is the good that your product is doing in the world? If you're unable to answer what good is, then you actually don't have a mission. You don't have a product. If your version of good, you know,

if I'm talking to someone at Google and I say, you want to organize the world's information and you want to give it to them in a nice, tidy package, why do you want to do that? Well, you know, for progress. Well, what's progress? Whose version of progress? What if we're just a big pile of warm goo, as you probably think we are, riding a rock into the heat death of the universe, our lives are totally meaningless.

Our consciousness is meaningless because the only things that are real are what I can see and taste and touch and put under a microscope, right? So if we are all just these evolved beings, there's no spiritual world at all, there's nothing else at all, why does anything that you do matter? Well, your mission just disappeared, right? Your whole product just, the reason for your whole product just disappeared. So we both know sitting here, as I told you when we first started chatting before the mics came on, that we know that isn't a true statement. Right. Like if we aren't a warm pile of goo floating off into death.

And life certainly isn't meaningless. And I would say majority of my audience, if all of them aren't further along than me, because all of you are bright, brilliant people. you know that that statement isn't true. So when you put yourself in the context of knowing that, what do you say to those folks? Well, then it gets a lot easier. Why am I here?

Well, I exist to love and worship God. I know what the most important things are. If I'm looking at the scriptures, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Ah, neighbor. Now I'm in the world of business. Wait, you mean I have neighbors?

Okay, so my goal is actually to serve my neighbors. What is good for my neighbors? How would I know what's good for my neighbors? Well, I'm going to do two things. I need to find out what's true about the world. Thankfully, I have the word of God right next to me, like God actually told me what's good for the world. And I'm going to look there to know.

And then I'm going to start actually having to talk to people, not to bring it around to Bud Light again. But part of the problem is there's, there's, they didn't listen, as you said. So Proverbs 1813 says, a man who answereth a matter before he has heard it, it is his folly and shame. And I don't know what better picture you would have of, of folly and shame than picking a mascot that is polemically opposed to your audience. And in fact, that your audience believes rightly is evil. And there's a reason why, you know, someone can, a goofy guy can cut a video of him firing round after round into your product and everyone stands up in cheers and it gets a million likes. They're actually standing up for the truth.

You know, you might not acknowledge it in the moment, but they're standing up in a world where things actually matter. And it is interesting how they tried to spin that into violence against the LGBT. Q 2SLIA plus world. You know, you'll have to point this out to me. We've got a book club, and this is how this slowly comes in to be. And, you know, all through COVID and on and on and on, we've been reading and discussing and talking about things. In Canada right now, I'm trying to think of how many LGBT yada yada yada flags I see, painted, storefront, on and on and on. And so, you know, it just got said, a text to me this morning.

Oh, have you seen anything? You know, and I'm like, well, I, and I couldn't actually answer since I've been in Idaho if we had. But in fairness, I haven't been looking for it. It's been about as far from my mind. You know, when one of the goals of coming on our family road trip for me was to unplug from the podcast. I just, when you talk about this nonstop, it's all you see. And it's, man, it's almost. depressing in a way, in a way getting to run into people such as yourself and others.

I mean, there's so many others. It's been a lot of fun. I don't know, you know, I'm excited to be back talking to people. But when it comes to the flags, the painted sidewalks, on and on and on, I don't know, is that a thing in Moscow? Do you even think about that? Oh, it's absolutely a thing. It is. It's absolutely a thing. And Moscow's a really interesting place because you're in a very conservative state, conservative libertarian type state, but then you have a university here. So, University of Idaho. And so, you know, if you walk down and I would encourage you to do so, walk down the street, you have businesses, excellent businesses doing a, serving amazing food, serving great beers, great coffee shops, all of those things.

types of things, bookstores run by Christians and conservatives. And then that is just peppered with people, you know, with abortion as health care signs, flying the trans flag. If you go down to nectar, which has very good food, you're going to get served by a transgender woman. So, yeah, I mean, it is here then. It is here. And I would say, no matter who, you are where you are, you're probably not going to escape that conflict. I'm sure there are nations where... Yeah, but it's a Western, you know, when you think of the Western culture, it is a Western culture issue, ideology, whatever you want to put it as, that has literally gone to all corners of the Western world. That's right. You know, because it's just, you think, you know,

think it hasn't come and then all you got to do is actually no it's over there right and it's serving you here and it and on and on and on and uh you know i go back to kid rock why why does that because that has been censored or pushed from you know that is not right no we need to be kind to this these people on and on i think of honestly i think of atlas shrug they just think of people are are so upset you know in the book folks they celebrate infidelity because they're just being truthful they finally just be truthful. Yeah.

And people just celebrating truthfulness. And you think Kid Rock's shooting some cans, that's all it is. But what's hidden in the meaning? Well, the idea is in the meaning. And it's stupid. It's a stupid idea. And so many people know it, but in our world today, you're not allowed to express that. So when you talk about it being here as well, I guess that shouldn't shock me.

But I've unplugged from the system for so long, or not so long, you know, for a couple weeks, a little less than that, that it feels like, you know, you're in this new world. world and it isn't here, but it is. Yep. And so bringing it back to business, one of the, I would say, fallacies in most people's minds, certainly you're, there are probably a lot of people going to work today, clocking in at a large corporation. And they're a assumption when they took that job was that this is going, this is going to be a neutral space, right? Yeah. This is going to be a space where values don't have to come into play. I'm going to leave my private values outside and come to this neutral space and work with other people. And honestly,

I just don't think that that can actually happen. I think that we can have workplaces where different kinds of people come together. Ultimately, everyone's going to have to answer that question. Why? right? And then when you're building a business, oftentimes, you know, I talk about this again in my book, you are going to be entering into markets where there are people diametrically opposed to what you believe in the market. When you do that, you can't have a simple, competitive mindset. You're going to have to have more of a combat mindset. right? If I was starting a beer company today, I would just, I would run that commercial all day long, right? I would run the Dylan Mildane stuff all day long. If I was trying to take out

Bud Light, you know, I would go to war based on on values, you know, on values, on the fact that this company somehow at the top became corrupt. Too often, you know, people in the conservative world or freedom-aligned people, they have a too much, what I'd say, too much of a competitive mentality. If I'm running a race with someone and, you know, I can look at their stride, I can try to beat them around the corners, I can try to pursue some competitive advantages. If they whip out a bowie knife and slash down at my Achilles tendon, we're in a different game all together now. We're not in competition. We're in combat. That's, you know, the values thing is, it's what sets companies apart. And now more than ever,

you know, as we sit here in Red Balloon. Right. Right. Like, I mean, I think about it and what it stands for, just to a Canadian who stumbled upon your commercial and has interviewed you before and now sits here, it's like, well, why am I here? Your values. The values of this building is why I'm here, nothing else, right? Because I look at Red Balloon and I go, like, will I ever use it? I have no idea. I'm a one-man band right now. I show it to Jack and St. Louis, who helps edit the podcast.

I guess we're, you know, a two-man band. But, like, you know, overall, it's like maybe someday you'll be up here. Until then, I look at Red Balloon and I go, why am I here? Why is the audience being pulled here? Because of the values. And it's never been more advantageous. and maybe this has always been the case, maybe you can correct me on this,

to show your values off. Because, like, the world is searching for it, like immensely. They just, like, think of how many thousands, millions of people are wandering in those big companies going, what the heck is going on? And they haven't heard any truth for a very long time. They know something ain't right, but they don't hear it. And then they stumble upon Kid Rock, or I'll bring it back to Red Balloon.

Red Balloon's commercial, and they go, in their quiet, maybe in their car at home, away from people because they don't want to be caught laughing at certain things, but they get it. And they understand that makes more sense than what the heck's been talked about at the old DEI meeting. That's right. I mean, when I left my last company, which I will now reveal, was GE Healthcare. So a Fortune 100 company. And we talked about this last time on the podcast, I left very loudly. I sent an open letter to about 200 of my colleagues and the CEO and posted it all over LinkedIn.

And I wasn't trying to be a loudmouth, but I was trying to say there are people out there that think the way that you do to my colleagues. And when I did that through back channels, I gave them my private email address. So many of them reached out. People that I would have never suspected, never suspected had any contrary thought. to what the leadership. Yeah. Reached out. Thank you so much.

Oh, I'm so glad somebody said something. You know, I hope you do well. Fist bumps, all of it. But there are just a massive amount of people with internal conflict. The sad part is that internal conflict is actually a loss of integrity, right? So if you're sitting in that job and that moment comes where you should say something and it passes. And then in a week it comes again. again and it passes. And then your boss says, well, you need to hire this person of color, this woman,

this trans person, whatever, and not the person most qualified for the job because that's what we need you to do. Because, by the way, 40% of S&P 500 executive salaries were based on their diversity hires and 94% of hires in 2023 were diversity hires. So the stakes are real for the executives driving this, right? But when your boss says that, and you let the moment pass, and you let it pass, and you let it pass, what is happening? Your integrity is eroding one little bit at a time, and it gets harder and harder to say no.

And yet when you taste the other side, you know, you're asking about the journey of the podcast, and the journey has been interesting to me. Maybe not to you. you know, I wonder about people who've been on the other side before you get there or maybe have been there for a long time, had the ability to tell GE health. Like, yeah, by the way, peace, I'm out. And, you know, I think of, what is it, is it a Dave Chappelle skit where he tells everybody

to F off? Yeah. Screw you and you and you, I'm out. Right? I think of Aaron Younger in doing that. Maybe I'm, you know, I'm sure it wasn't that colorful. But, you know, it's the fear of the unknown on the other side. When you just stepped through the door, you're like, why the heck did I wait so long to get over here?

Because, you know, one of the things that I look back on COVID is I had to live two lives. I was working for Baker Hughes, a GE company at one point. Maybe still is. That's a good question. I actually don't know. And I actually don't know if I care anymore. But at the time, you had to live two lives. One, and I don't know, maybe you can understand this.

It was hard because in one breath, I was doing the podcast, starting to talk to all these doctors and lawyers and professors about. like what's really going on. Like, this is really strange. And then you'd have to walk in every day, you know, punch your card, not actually, and sit there and have these conversations. And the more you tried to, hey, these are kind of, the more I got secluded from the people that were there. And I don't think it's any fault of theirs.

It's just, you know, like you're that disturber. And I didn't set out to be that way. Right. And they don't, we can't, nope, stop. And so eventually you're sitting there eating lunch by yourself and you don't want to be around anyone because nobody wants to come talk to you anyways. and you know and yet you can't hop to the other world full time you know at that point young family you know bills etc etc and you start living a dual life which is like almost tears at your soul you know

it's just it's so hard to you just want to be and that's hard when you you can see the outside but you're living on the other side of it yep i think i that's absolutely right i made a decision early on in my career when I was working at Amazon.com and it was quite clear to me that this was going to be an environment that I would have to put everything that I believed in a box, little box and politely never talk about it, or I was going to have to be a rule breaker. Those were the two options. I could be a rule breaker and a little bit of a wild man or I would have to just not talk about things ever. How long did you work at Amazon? Seven years? Yeah, seven years. Seven years. And is that like right at the start of Amazon or close to it? It was about five years in.

So it was growing at an insane, absolutely insane speed. At that point, it was a company that valued merit and contribution above anything else. So best ideas win, best work wins, Best Innovation wins. It is not that way today. But in that environment, am I going to talk to people about what I even did on the weekend or not? Well, it's not going to be super polite if I bring up that I went to church and had a great time. But isn't that an insane thought? It's totally insane.

Yeah. What did you do on the weekend? I just went to church. Yeah. Not a lot of talk about that. Yeah, let's not go there, please. Yeah. So what did you do?

Were you a rule breaker? Or did you put it all in a box? Oh, I was a rule breaker. for sure. But I had to make the conscious decision. I'm going to have to be okay in a corporate environment where my job is at stake making people uncomfortable sometimes. And the reason, why am I doing that? Okay. I'm not doing that because it gives me some kind of inner joy. That's, that's not me. I'm doing that because I love the people that I'm working with. I actually care about them and I care about the work that I'm doing. And so if someone asks me to do,

something and I have to answer that why question why are we going to build it this way versus this way why are you going that way versus that way or god forbid what did you do during the weekend i have to give an honest and truthful answer because i love them right it's not just it's not just concern for myself it's also concern for them i want them to know what the truth is and have a lifeline to the truth yeah it's um it's probably it's probably um it's probably um Sitting where I sit, one of the hardest things to, like, I think I always go back to going in the gym or something. It seems like this really, like inconsequential muscle. And I'm sure it's Uber important, right?

To just, you know, oh, man, this is going to make the conversation uncomfortable. I'll just, uh, not much. You know, what did you do on the weekend? Not much. And then they just, they just glide by it. And yet what you're talking about is you're like, I went to church. And you just explain it. And over time, you build this little tiny muscle, which heck, maybe, is the most important muscle.

And people either steer away from even asking the question now because they know what the answer is going to be. Right. Or they steer into it because they want to know more. Yep. That's right. Seven years, you found a way to, you know, when you think about that, to be a rule breaker, either they didn't care about the rules near as much as what they thought, you know. Right. Or you found a way really to navigate that.

a way that didn't put your job at jeopardy. Well, this is... Job in jeopardy. Yeah, this is a big part of the equation. I think, and part of the reason why I wrote this book was because of experiences like this. So I would go in, when I started at Amazon, I started really low in the totem pole. And I would go in and have this very strange experience where I'm walking into this pretty drab office building. I'm sitting down to manage a team that pays bills of all things.

There's piles of copy paper stacked up everywhere. It's a gray, you know, it's your stereotypical corporate office. Okay. And I am having the adventure of a lifetime. Explain that to me. What do you mean an adventure of a lifetime? Yeah. The stakes are super high.

I am trying to, the company is growing. I am trying to invent things that help the people around me do their job. And I'm finding success, by God's grace, finding success in that. I had a very good run at Amazon and was eventually put in charge of a global innovation team in our finance department, got to hire whoever I wanted, build out this team. And we ended up building a company that saved the, or a tool that saved the company $6 million, which started, by the way, with me in that little cramped, you know, cubicle. I firmly believe part of the reason for the malaise of the workers in, in our, in our country, it's a spiritual malaise, but it manifests itself every day

when you think that the work that you do doesn't matter. And the conversations that you have don't matter. And if they aren't grounded to some, to the truth, right? If they're not grounded to the truth, how could it matter? Right? As I said before, if I'm a, if I'm a bunch of atoms, um, and that's all I am. I'm just this, you know, blob and you're a blob and you might pay me a blob called money for a blob that I make called the product. Why, why would any of that matter? right? Why would why would I not behave exactly the way that the workers in our corporations behave right now, which is kind of mindless? You know, COVID comes along. We're going to force everyone to get an untested vaccine. And you see people that are supposed to be these thoughtful leaders of some of the most powerful institutions in the world. And they're just mindlessly, you know, repeating these talking points. Same thing with DEI, by the way. It's not just. when they're scared of, you know, scared of getting sick. It's also when their paycheck is attached to it. So now, you know, you have these senior executives talking about how something that happened yesterday,

for which we have no evidence. We don't know what happened, but clearly this is another example of institutionalized racism. And they're, you know, adopting a cry voice saying how much they've learned about their own internal prejudices through the training they just went through. and you're going, good grief. Like, you are supposed to be the smartest people we can produce. But I truly think when you're this decoupled from what is actually true, what is actually virtuous in this sphere called your workplace, this is the inevitable result.

If people wanted to find your book, where can they get it from? It's available at Amazon.com. Oh, that's interesting. And it will be available elsewhere soon, but I've got to put the infrastructure in place. Boy, you got me with that one. That's just funny, right? It is funny. It's Amazon using Amazon.

It's Aaron using Amazon against itself. You know, I'm curious. You talk about products and ideas and how and the why and, you know, and going down. One of the things for the first time in five plus years of the podcast. Here in July, it's the first time I've ever slowed it down. Normally, I speed it up, you know. I started with a podcast a week back in 2019, then two, then three, then four, now it's been five a week for two years. Since I started full time in 2022, it's been like full steam ahead.

And for the first time, in July, we dropped it down to three. And just slowed it down. I told you to begin with, got young kids and certainly just wanted to enjoy. some time with them and think about the podcast as a whole, you know, where do I want this to go? Yeah. You know, when you sit and think about that question, where does one want to go? Yeah. How would you answer that?

Or what advice would you give? And that's a pretty big question. So forgive me for springing that. I love it. I love it. So again, I would start with the, because I believe it is true, because it is true, you are put here to love God and to love your neighbor, right? And that, as I said before, that means that all of your dreams should not be based on some imagined future that you want to achieve.

That imagined future ought to have other people in it, and it ought to be involved serving them in some way. And the fact that we actually can't conceive of that kind of a mission as adventurous, requiring courage, requiring faith, daring, bold, risky, just means that we're not very grounded to what's real in the world. But you were put here to serve your neighbors. So then you need to think about who are these people, like we talked about before we started,

who are the people that listen to my podcast, and what is the best way that I can serve them? I would argue because we live in a world that God created and God created things to have value, And part of the reason we know that things have value is when other people pay money for them. So they're saying your thing has so much value that I'm going to give a part of my time and part of my expertise expressed in my work for which I was paid to you so that I can have your work. Right. So I think payment is one of the surest proofs that you've made something valuable to pay.

people. I would be thinking about where is the future where I'm delivering a ton of value for free to people. And then I have made something that helps them so tremendously that they that they pay for it. From there, you know, I have a framework in the book. We're going to talk about investing. So you are investing time every day, no matter what you do. And I love that you're taking some thoughtful steps to invest in your family. So when you think about investing in the future of the podcast, you need to have a way of thinking through how do I invest such that I get a return down the road for my investment in my product and that return serves people. Then you're going to go out and have to figure it out. As you've clearly done six episodes in, you're, I mean, 600 episodes

in, you've clearly figured out how this thing works. But when you set your sights on something bold and ambitious out there that's going to serve people in a dramatic way, there's always going to be something new to figure out. And indeed, one of the things that makes work and adventure is the fact that we live in a universe. We haven't even really measured the width of or the breadth of yet. You know, God's put us in the middle of this universe that is brimming with things for us to discover. Proverbs 251 says, it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. The kings in that equation is you, right? And so you, part of your job is to be an adventurer out there, exploring, sacrificing, risking,

trying to find something that's valuable to other people. So then let me throw it back in a way that we can maybe end on Red Balloon. Sure. When you look at the future or the adventure for Red Balloon, what is one of the things that Red Balloon is trying to do? Yeah. To, help its neighbor in the future. Yes. So we now being three years in, have the, have a wealth of feedback and insights from the people that we serve. And that would be two kinds of people. One kind of person is that person that's in a corporation and they are or some small company maybe even. and they are in an environment that in which they are losing in their integrity by the day or every day they're inching toward the door or being pushed toward the door moment by moment.

I used to go downstairs when I was working remote at GE until my kids, you know, the money's been good. It's all been good. Dad could step on a pronoun landmine tomorrow and this would all be I'll be over because I'm going to step on it if it's there just so you know. So there are a lot of people like that. Okay. Our ambition is that every single one of those people would find a role, would find work in a company in which they will thrive as a whole person, as a person of integrity, in which they can say what they mean and mean what they say.

Now, that doesn't mean everyone needs to be an activist for their little thing. The thing about stepping on a pronoun is the thing, the problem with today is, it could just be some random word that you, you, you, you were like, I called it what it, what the name of today is. Oh, but that goes back 200 years. You can't say that anymore. Now you have a real choice. Yes. Right. And so it's the, the, the pronoun landmine is so like, yeah, okay, I know. But there's other landmines out there that you have no, no clue that are sitting there for you. And if you're of the, you know, like, so. To me, some of that is like the landmines set. You know, you have no choice or you can't dance around someone because you have no clue what they are anymore. That's right. That's right. So for us, if you are someone who desires to be excellent, you desire to make profit for your employer, you desire to be in a workplace in which you can thrive and grow and excel. We want every single one of those people to be in a work environment that is,

for them. And in doing so, I think you will see a fundamental change in the way business is done in America. On the employer side, they, you know, employers have a really tough job of it right now. It is a very litigious environment. Their employees can sue them. The EEOC doubled the number of lawsuits that it brought against employers. That's the American Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, doubled the number of lawsuits that it brought against employers in 20, 23, three out of four employers say that they have been involved in a small business. Employers have said that they have been involved in an employment-related lawsuit in the last five years, three out of four.

And so employers don't even know how to ask the questions anymore that would lead them to a good employee. And they're scared to and they need help. And so what we're trying to do is build a set of products that can bring these two people together. Sometimes that's software. Now we have a very large recruiting team that goes person by person. We do interviews. We're legally protected. Are you in Canada? I asked this the first time, right? You know, I got Western Canada. And there's going to be people listening to this who are business owners, because there's lots that are going, wait a second, can I use Red Blune? And I forgive me, I can't remember

your answer on the first go-around because I asked this 200 episodes ago. I'm going to ask it again. I think it is technically possible right now. Well, I know that it is technically possible to sign up with us right now from Canada. But we, you know, we have our own country to worry about first, to be quite frank. You know, it's like, can you, you know, it's the same question if someone asks if you can adopt a child, you know, like you're like, I got to take care of my children first. And the legal landscape in America. keeps us very, very busy trying to stay ahead of it.

So I have high hopes that we will expand out our Canadian neighbors. That would be, you know, the very first priority for us. Yeah, our shining cousins, you know, up north. But so right now, yes, you can post jobs. As a product person, I have to say with the caveat, you know, we don't spend a lot of time.

Worry about Canada. Not yet. Not yet. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you giving me some time this morning on our journey. You know, the podcast, you know, when you talk about adventure, it's just like, it's almost a little bit of a mindset change. Because every day it can be an adventure. I think people hopefully understand that. But when I've leaned into this creation, you know, and building things out, one of the things when you say, oh, yeah, if you're ever in Moscow, I'm like, when the heck am I going to be in Moscow? Well, 200 episodes later, here I am, you know.

And I was saying to you before, you know, talk about Frank Prady. Went through the, you know, where Frank pretty lives. Unfortunately, that didn't work out for me and Frank, which is too bad. Maybe someday in the future, I'll get the opportunity. But somewhere along the journey, I hope, you know, the adventure awaits all over again. And I appreciate Aaron getting to meet you in person. Thank you for the book. I got some time.

Chances are, I'm going to get a chance to flip through it. Excellent. And give it a read for anyone who wants to buy a copy, go to Amazon. It's undiscovered Aaron Youngren. And any final thoughts to the audience before I let you off and back to your busy day? Yeah, I would just say if you are in that position where your work is not deeply rooted in what is actually true, start building your path now to find a workplace, to start a business, to start a podcast, to do whatever you can, so that your day is full of white knuckle risk and adventure on behalf of your neighbors.

And if you can use red balloon, use red balloon. But don't wait. Don't wait. Don't let the risk of doing something outweigh the risk of not doing anything. Because the risk of not doing the risk presented by. staying where you are is that you end your life and you are bankrupt. Your integrity has been stolen one moment at a time. You don't want that.

And it's kind of like the frog in boiling water with the integrity thing, you know? Yes. It's, you don't feel like you're losing it. And then one day, you know, I don't know, I just, I come back to the dual life thing because it became very evident to me as I was starting to drift away from what I had built or become part of maybe. I'm like, now I'm fighting this, this Y in the road and almost like doing the splits. It's like, how far can I stretch before I break, you know?

That's right. That's a terrible visual. John Claude Van Damme did great, you know? Thanks again, Aaron. I appreciate it. And, well, if you're ever up in Canada, you make sure you drop me a line. Hey, now. A couple hundred episodes, and I might take you on that.

That's right. That's right. Thanks again for doing this. creating a spot here at Red Balloon for us to sit and have a quick chat along the road trip here down south.