The Startup Ideas Podcast - The Power of Becoming a Feedback Magnet with Kat Cole

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

Great leaders help develop game-changing brands. Kat Cole (@KatColeATL) knows this first-hand, having led Focus Brands as their President and COO, and now in her new role as President and COO of Athletic Greens. Her secret? She understands how to find the feedback, process it, and turn it into ideas that make teams and businesses stand out from the competition. In this episode, you'll learn the frameworks she uses to lead, opportunities she is excited about, and how to spot the best leaders.Want more community? Learn more here: http://trwih.comSPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORSCOMMONSTOCKhttps://commonstock.com/Why settle for the old model of investing when new options offer you so much transparency to help you grow your wealth? Commonstock is the home of smart money and an innovative social media approach to investing. We both love the platform and have used it to enhance our financial strategy.Commonstock is a social media platform like Reddit, but it removes anonymity and adds transparency. The app lets you see what smart money investors are buying and selling – in real-time – all while letting you see their reason why. This way, you know whether investors have skin in the game, or whether they only talk a big game. It’s a great way to get insights that support your investing strategy.To learn more and sign-up today go to commonstock.com.CAPCHASEhttps://www.capchase.com/roomToday’s show is sponsored by Capchase.Capchase is a new financing option for fast-growing startups. They are offering Where It Happens listeners .25% off their first draw, preferred onboarding, and more. Their main product Capchase Grow lets you tap into your future revenue today, meaning you can reinvest in your business faster. We love what they are offering to business owners.To learn more go to capchase.com/room

What's up, everyone? We just got done filming an epic episode with The Cat Cole, went into so much cool stuff, had some really cool frameworks around building a startup where you come down from what the big companies have and build that for the small guys. What'd you have, Greg? I like the MMDD framework, made my day difficult. I thought that was brilliant, super quick, easy win to ask your employees to make the experience more fun, more enjoyable, more rewarding. So many cool startup ideas coming out of this one. You guys are going to love it. Let's dive right in.

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So if you want to go look into it, go to capchase.com slash root. Dude, I finally watched Squid Games. Okay. What do you think? I know, like, I used to talk trash about like these subtitle shows because I couldn't do it. I always had trouble, like, reading while watching. And first off, I realized that, like, after two minutes, your mind just somehow adjusts to it, and you just, like, naturally read and are able to watch the show.

So I've never really figured out how to do that until recently, but it definitely happens. And so, like, one thing, I'm over that whole hold up on it. And Squid Games is insane. And I'm, like, I'm super late to this party. I get it. Everyone talked to us Squid Games, like, several months ago, and it's not that cool anymore. But it's crazy. I mean, it's like a super interesting human, really dark, but like great quality, good acting.

I thought it was dope. I mean, I basically don't watch TV, so I haven't seen Squid Games. Have you seen the Mr. Beast Squid Games reenactment? No. You have to watch that. Have you seen all the hype around this? He spent like seven weeks putting together like a real life reenactment of Squid Games, obviously not killing people. But got like 100 million views in like 72 hours or something like.

I did see that on Twitter. The stats on it were completely. I mean, that guy's legit visionary. Is that what got you into Squid Games? You, like, saw it. You're like, oh, I should probably watch that. Which is fascinating, actually, as like a case study on how creators can, like, add value to these platforms. Because he bane the video.

He obviously did really well on the actual video. The whole thing got sponsored, 100 million views. Like, he's making a bunch of money on it. But the amount of value that I imagine it added back in, like, driving a resurgence of Squid Games into the Netflix platform. And he's not getting or capturing it. any of that. So it's kind of interesting. Like, could you see a future where these platforms actually like harness creators to go create cool viral content around it to drive people back? Yeah, that gets me thinking of CC0. Do you know what that is? No. So some NFT projects have what's called

Creative Commons, which basically means that the community owns the rights to the product. So you own a Cryptodes, right? And Cryptodes, like, what that means is you actually don't own the IP to that Cryptoads NFT. Anyone, Kevin, our video guy, could go and just print a hat with your Cryptodes on it. And the thesis on it is that if you basically open source the IP, that anyone could, you know, do things with it, that more creativity is unlocked. And then, because of that, because of that, there's just like more there's more memes around it and you know if there's more memes around it the value goes back to you know the value goes back to the original sort of purveyor of the meme in this case cryptodes another way to think about it is do you

know the the Ramora the Ramora and shark relationship no so Ramora is like a fish that basically hangs on to shark Yeah, the sticky thing that sits on the side. Exactly. Like cleans it and eats the parasites. Yeah, it's the definition of, it's a definition of symbiotic relationship. So that's the idea is that the big shark is cryptodes and the little sharks are these like projects that are kind of built on top of it. Baby shark.

Baby shark, exactly. I think it's kind of a cool idea. I don't. I guess the analog I would use. used in like a real world would be like people that are creating replicas of certain artwork or certain collectibles and that actually drives more people and drives value of the actual. But I don't really know the right way to think about it in an NFT sense. I agree with you though.

Like the nouns thing that we talked about. Like Jack Butcher, our friend created these like nouns, sweatshirts and hats and different things. That nouns are like the red glasses that are like cool kind of pixelated. Also a CCO. Yeah. Okay. So very cool because then you have a bunch of people out there wearing these things

and some of them actually own things that are nouns. Some of them don't. But hugely valuable to the ecosystem around it because it adds this coolness and this vibe to it. So I do feel like there's something there. It's an interesting concept though for like Netflix or these other platforms that are trying to gain share to collaborate on to like seed interesting creators to create things that stoke viral intrigue in the product. It's sort of like guerrilla marketing.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's the future of Hollywood is like it's not, you're not super guarded on your IP, right? You make it more open. I remember I once, 2004 or five, I drove down from Montreal to Burlington, Vermont to go see a third-eye blind concert. Love third-eye blind, by the way. Semi Charmed Life is still like one of my favorite songs of all the time. So I'm there. I'm at the concert with like my best friends. and I had just gotten a audio Vox cell phone with a camera on it.

I even think I actually I brought a digital camera as well, like an actual digital camera. And I was really stoked. And then when we got there, the venue, Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont, we, like me and my friends started taking pictures and they were like, there's no pictures. And it was this whole big thing where third eye blind doesn't want anyone to take pictures. And I remember thinking back then, like, 2004, 2005, whatever it was, like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, the more pictures I take and share on social, the better it is for you, right? Like, I'm taking pictures of you, the singer of Third Eye Blind. I'm posting it.

I'm like, I had such a great time. And I think that's kind of the same aha moment I'm having with a lot of, like, Hollywood productions where you're either like very good. guarded or unguarded and the ones that are going to win are going to be unguarded. Are there platforms? It's making me want to ask a question to you. You might know the answer. You might not. Are there platforms or like infrastructure for small companies to track and manage their IP? So like Disney has thousands of people that are dedicated to this probably and are like constantly tracking hits on different IP and what it's doing and the value of it. But like if you're a small creator or you're a small Web3 project or you're like up and coming. You don't really,

you have all this IP, you have it out there in the wild. Maybe you're just a startup actually and you have your brand or your logo, whatever it might be. Like are there platforms that allow you to actually track hits on that IP, the like perceived value of it? Because the IP, by the way, in traditional financial services context, has value. Like you can go get a loan against IP and actually have cash that comes in from it. So I wonder whether you could build a platform, because I haven't seen it exist, that actually just helps companies, especially content-related companies, track and manage and like kind of leverage the value of their IP more readily. I haven't seen anything. I think what you're describing is basically like Hootsweet but for IP. So instead of tracking like tweets,

Instagram posts, whatever, you're tracking like your digital IP or non-digital IP in like a really like nice dashboard probably a great business idea there it's kind of like a niche down version it's like a kind of cool little niche though but like um you know every startup does the whole like in the wild thing where like they have their slack channel or whatever they're operating on and they're like oh i saw i don't know swag up in the wild and you're like saw the picture of this thing or like oh i saw a party round sticker in the wild or mercury in the wild whatever it is um and that there's actually something really powerful in that right Like if you are seeing it in the wild, more being able to actually track and manage the value of that and track the perceived value of what you're creating and then figure out like what are the levers we can be pulling to increase that value.

It's kind of a cool idea. I think like the bigger idea slash framework is that there's some, you know, you started off by saying like Disney has thousands of employees probably doing this thing. And it's like, how do you take basically that software that they, built that's proprietary and bring it to everyone else. So the idea, like the framework for it is like what are, what are, you know, and Facebook is notorious for this, Stripe is notorious for this, where they have amazing internal software and just bringing that to everyone else. This is, this is an amazing framework. So this is like, I forget who I recently talked about. It might have been like our friend Sean Puri that I talked about this with, but I don't know,

it was Bobak. We have a friend Boback who is an investment. debut capital small fund that's doing all black and Latinx founders and they backed this company Squire. It's like this barbershop platform. And basically it's for like mom and pop type barbershops. And it brought the like management tool software of huge salons and barbershops like big chains and scaled that down so that any mom and pop could have the best in class tool. And that like he was talking about it in the context of that. That is a very cool framework for starting businesses. Go find like what the largest company is doing and doing really well. So in this case, Disney, what are they using for IP management defense?

IP defense would be a part of this of like who's infringing on your IP and not using it appropriately. And then figure out what that looks like and what's like the atomic unit of that that you could bring and give to startups as a small tool or give to, you know, smaller companies as a tool. Yeah, and maybe that's the case for like going to work at one of these big companies. is like you're getting a first-hand look at the potentially greatest internal software, and then you can just use that and bring it to different verticals. Yeah. Or you just go talk to 20 people at some of these companies.

But like, I think the coolest version of this actually would be for creators. So I like it for startups. I think it's interesting because they have cash and their stuff. But like an up-and-coming Mr. Beast, he's bigger now. An up-and-coming Mr. Beast is producing all this content, all of it. is kind of their face or their brand around it. They might be TikTok, YouTube. They have it across all these different channels.

People are resharing it, taking the videos, doing like talking about Mr. Beast stuff, whatever it is, all over these different platforms. Can you give them a tool that allows them to track and manage all of their personal name brand creator IP that exists out there so that they can kind of track their like perceived net worth almost in the value of like what they're building as a personal brand? Yeah, I would even do it like give it away for free.

Just get like everyone on it. Yeah. And then monetize how. Like you could monetize, I guess, on the back of that with sponsor. You like you become the connection point because you're tracking the value of the IP so you know all of the hits on it. You're able to then be like a marketplace that's connecting different brands in for the actual ads on it. You could help them actually by like connecting them with services to scale the quality of their IP because you're constantly in the flow of seeing what they're producing and how. it's being reused and how much and the K factor on all of it.

Yeah, it's interesting. I like it. Financial services stuff on the back of it. It's kind of an interesting thing. I like that framework a lot, though, just to like double down on that of go find what the huge company is doing, that they're doing extremely well, and that they've probably spent tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars developing plus hundreds of people. Go find that and niche that down into a product that is like just what is exactly needed for

smaller players. You don't need the Disney full suite of services probably if you're a creator or if you're a startup. So you find what is like the atomic unit of that that works really well that's valuable and you go pull it down into the smaller universe. And make it freemium. Like make some free component. Like for example, I'm an investor in a company called VidIQ, which is basically started off as like a free Chrome extension for creators to see, you know, on YouTube specifically. what is their vid IQ score? They have this kind of unique score. What are their video tags?

And it just allows like, it's competitive analysis for the video space. And they start up by giving it out for free. And then they started adding like paid products and stuff like that. But I think that like obviously the best way to like win a market is just to like give it away for free. And then as you're learning about it, then you just add paid products monthly subscription. And like vid IQ is an example.

That business is absolutely crushing. totally agree two huge opportunities i see and two totally different industries to apply this one twitter analytics so there's like ilo is one that i've seen follower wonk is another no offense to them but like i i've used both and i just think there's a lot to be wanted from the platform and so i think you could go create like a beautiful intuitive version of that it's free up to 10,000 followers and then if you have more than that you need to pay um and just create like exactly what a massive brand is using to track and manage other social, like a hoot suite or whatever, but you kind of have brought it down to something that's very actionable for a

Twitter creator. Go talk to 100 people that have a scale following. Talk to me, talk to Greg, talk to whoever, and figure out what exactly we would use and need. Like, we're booking guests for our show. I really want to be able to search by location, find who lives there, what they do, like how big their influence score is, like all of these different things that I can kind of do it with ILO and with follower wonk, but it's not great and it's not quick and easy, and I can't plug in an assistant to do it or do something like that. So I think that's one opportunity that could be really big. The other one would be transportation and logistics. Like I've talked to, I have a driver who kind of helps me a lot in New York. I've talked to a bunch. She drives for Uber.

I talked to her about all her problems. And one of the biggest issues she has, she's trying to figure out how to scale her own time as she builds her business. Right now, it's just a time for money trade for her. And she's doing well, but she wants to take it to the next level. But she keeps telling me, like, oh, but it's such a headache if I hire someone, then like dispatch and dealing with bookings and dealing with when they're driving our private clients and doing all of that would be really difficult. And I was asking her, like, what exists? There has to be a software that you can do this. And she said limosys is the main one people use in New York. And so I went and looked at it. And it literally, like it says, been around 35 years, whatever. It's like this old company that's been around for forever.

I'm sure it's fine for like taxi companies in these old, you know, Dial 7, the old stuff. But like if you are a young woman that's trying to build this, she's tech savvy, she's digitally native, why doesn't just a very simple dispatch and like driver management tool exist where you could like take what the big huge limo companies are using and just scale it down to this? Yeah, I think whenever you hear that like the word headache basically, it's like a light bulb should go off in your head. where you're like, okay, amazing startup opportunity right there. So I think with this in particular, like, yeah, it makes complete sense. Yeah. And you could go, I mean, that doesn't have to be a venture back business, by the way.

Like you could probably build that with low code, no code tools, figure out whatever the dispatch looks like, figure out some algorithm for it with one or two people, and then go find 100 drivers to test it out. And you could pretty quickly figure out whether it works or not and do it in a geo-focus, start in New York, start wherever. and see if you could scale something. Maybe it already exists,

but the fact that this woman was like, limosis is the option. I pulled it up on my phone. I'm like, it's not mobile enabled the website. I'm like scrolling, it didn't fit the screen. And right away, I was like, oh my God,

a non-mobile enabled website from a company that's supposed to be the de facto player, like red flag. Well, that's another like sign, right? Like, that's like a really, I've never even thought about that. But if like, go like find mobily unoptimized websites. websites for big businesses and like if you're looking for a business idea like go compete with

them right and just make it like digitally native mobile first this is our friend nick huber's thing where he says uh you go like see who's still who has a fax number on their on their like page or if you go to their facility and they have like a fax machine there you just know that they're ready to be disrupted it's like the exact same framework of just short those companies yeah seriously i mean you short them by going and attacking their market get share. But I think this is interesting. So I know we've riffed on this for a while. We have an awesome guest coming in. One of my favorite people in the world, Cat Cole, incredible, like, multidisciplinary thinker. She's been an operator. She's been an investor. She's a

life coach, CEO whisperer. I mean, she's done so many different things. And I know it's going to be a wide-ranging discussion. I do want to get her perspective on a bunch of this stuff. I want to talk to her about the whole idea of like niching down things that exist for huge companies. And I think in the context of coaching, that idea is really interesting. Like CEOs, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, they have CEO coaches that are these incredible people. We're talking to them. Why doesn't that exist down for normal people, middle managers, like up-and-coming startup CEOs? And so I think there's an interesting concept to kind of go deeper with her on that, given her specific knowledge. Cool. Yeah. I mean, I've had a coach

for a while, too, so I would love to get her opinion on it. Personal experience. Love it. All right. Let's bring her in. Cool. What is Marlowe? So Marlowe is, is essentially an atomized coaching app. Okay. And they take the mechanics of coaching. So feedback, 360 feedback, metrics, ongoing feedback, reporting directly to the person, and basically have digitized the non, kind of like, non-unique elements of coaching. and are putting it in hundreds of companies

and taking coaching all the way down to the, like the, I don't want to say the lowest common denominator, but to any level of people manager and spreading it throughout the organization in a cost-effective way. There is a human coach element, but you get all this feedback that's just automatic. And then recommended steps,

but then you get a coach. once a month, but it's being spread across that whole company. And so there are these other insights, right? If you have a coach that's spending 30 minutes with you, 30 minutes with you, the coach is going to be able to step back and give the executive team some insights like, hey, in addition to what the data is saying about your 200 people managers, I'm talking to 50 of them. And here are some common themes. So there are like actual insights and data, and then there's still a human element, which scared away some investors at first. But if you talk to any big company,

that is the issue, is that there is still an element of confidential reflection that's needed for a manager to process what they're seeing, even if you give them really great data. I'm just on their website. I love how specific they are. So, like, you go to the website, it says you can't even see the website until it says,

every manager deserves a coach, which is like kind of a hot take. You know? And it's like put your name and email to actually access the actual website. So you access it. So you put in your email. They're like, check your inbox. They send a PDF overview of like why. And I love that they're just starting with the why.

Yeah. It's interesting. It is really interesting. And it's also an interesting example of, I guess there's a couple interesting things that I draw. And by the way, I'm not an advisor or an investor. I'm at them mentoring Jason Calcanus's launch 21. Yeah.

Nice. And was so blown away. That's cool. By her, that I had a follow on. I didn't see that one. I saw a business called Scale that's doing coaching. Chief Product Officer, I think, from Tinder was starting it. That was pretty interesting.

They were raising money recently. You should meet with them and chat with them at some point. Super interesting. I've always thought about the. as like the consumer facing side, which is like a Marlowe or a scale where you have to like win customers. And Marlowe sounds interesting because they're kind of taking the B2B approach of like going and landing the client and then you can go and get as many people as you want on it.

It can be B2C or B2B. Yeah. And it gets smarter as you have more people on it and there's product-led growth within the organization because I'm like if me and Greg are in the same company and they're offering this and I'm not using it and I'm not growing as much as Greg and he's getting promoted. Suddenly I'm like, oh, shit, I got to get on. on this thing, I've got to be using it in the same way. For sure.

So it's kind of a smart selling tactic. The other approach would be just going infrastructure layer and saying, like, practice, which I'm a investor in full disclosure, Julian Smith, the founder of Breeder has started this thing and it's infrastructure for coaches. And it's managing their bookings, managing that whole experience, which again goes to this whole idea of taking what massive people probably have, expensive software and all these things, and bringing it down to any coach. So if I'm a coach and I have 10 clients, I need a way to manage bookings and retention and track all of that.

And so they're building a product for that small subgroup. Basically taking a bet on, and this is the reason I like infrastructure personally, I know coaching is going to be a much bigger thing 10 years from now than it is today. Because people are starting to get more in tune with their own personality traits, feedback being an important thing, spirituality as an aspect of it. And that was always a thing where you were like, oh, no, I'm tough. I got to just grind through it, whatever, put my head down. Like hustle culture was kind of the last iteration. And now we're realizing, no, that's not the way to grow. And so the infrastructure to me is a cool play on it because then I don't have to bet on who wins.

I just get to bet on, hey, the space is going to be 10 times as big in a few years. And so I want to ride that wave. Yeah. It's also interesting this division of coaching the life coach versus the career manager coach and where should they overlap for scale? I mean, it's hard to get away from the psychological element, but not all coaches have the same level of capability training. Some are therapists, some or not. It's really interesting when you get into coach and people like, well, what kind? Like, am I going to have someone making me draw circles and talk about my dad and, you know,

all of this stuff? Or is someone just going to help me be a better people manager? And is there a way to do that without any of the life coach? So what do you guys think about that? I've never had a coach. So I want to ask your opinions on this of like, what do you think? And I don't know if you want to go this deep into somebody that's spending that much time on coaching. No, I know you're not, but you know about it. There are a lot of people who consider you, whether or not you're formally their coach, they consider you a coach and probably both a life coach to talk to them about challenges of becoming a operator, CEO, investor, all the things you've done.

But like, what do you, I mean, you have a coach or you've had a coach. Is it a life coach? Is it a purely executive coach? Is it both? I mean, I feel like for us, like our lives and our personal lives and professional lives really bleed into one. So I feel like having a coach that's just focused on professional doesn't really make sense anymore. I mean, at some point you're going to hit a wall with those conversations where it's like, okay, what we're working on has deeper roots than this business. Exactly.

So we're going to have to break through the dirt. And that's when you get into this personal, like, there's shit going on at home. Or there is something from your childhood that's causing a behavior that you don't realize that all your people are picking up on and reflecting back to you. I mean, it's almost impossible to stop at the surface. Exactly. I had a coach for a few years. And that coach helped me basically sell my last company. the islands to we work, like, just through the whole process.

And I would say, like, 30% of the stuff we worked on was literally business, like, tactical, professional stuff. And 70% was, like, hey, like, why do you want to sell the company? Oh, it actually stems from this, you know, you want validation or something, you know, and really, like, prying. And that's why, like, yeah, I think the best coaches do have that personal. plus professional kind of way of thinking about it. And I think that's the harder part to do at scale.

Yes. You know, something at Marlowe or any of these companies that are breaking it down into its parts and getting feedback. At some point, it requires a human touch, like a one-on-win. You can't AI your way to, like, your issues with your mom. And it needs to be intimate. Yes. Like, there needs to be like a trust, like blind trust, like completely.

Completely blind trust. That's what's interesting about Marlowe or platforms like it where they're pairing together the human coaching element with the data-driven feedback, the process orientation. And that is scaring away some companies and it's scaring away some investors. But I think it's the right way. I think it's the way to do it right over time. It just may slow down. What I like about Marlowe is that it's getting people who wouldn't have a coach something.

Yeah, exactly. It's like get them started and then from there like let them potentially, oh, oh, you know, I never thought a coach would actually be, you know, valuable. It's that tagline on the website, the statement of, to your point, where the world is going, why shouldn't everyone have access to some form of professionalized, structured, rooted in expertise, feedback, and then some guidance with what to do with that feedback. I mean, that has its own limitations. but if every manager had that from the time they began managing, got used to soliciting feedback, receiving it, and doing something about it, like ask, answer, act, and being a part of a culture where that's normal, imagine what they would be like when they're executives and CEOs.

There has to be, like the point you made about investors being scared off by the fact that there's a human element here cracks me up because it's like, first off, I just think that's dumb. Yeah, it's a human element. But there's huge businesses now being built around mental health as an example for companies. Like Spring Health, Lira are both multi-billion dollar companies backed by like Tiger and some of the biggest, you know, investors in the world. And clearly there's a human aspect that's selling basically B2B mental health services. And then there's actual, you know, mental health coaches, psychiatry.

Like I think there's actually clinical aspects to it. But clearly that's human. And everyone knows that has to be human. And so it's almost like it's almost a. It seems like a silly pushback where people just think, oh, coaching and feedback can be automated, and so it should be. And I'm not going to invest if there's a human element. Because it can't scale in an unbridled, unhuman way. Right.

But there has to be multiple billion dollar businesses within performance coaching as that industry becomes as big as it should be. I think about the lost GDP from the fact that there are people who are not maximizing their skills and they're leaving talent on the table. Because you have in a big corporate, you worked in a big corporation. I've never done that, but even in a finance org, I was at a private equity fund. And in that, there are people that literally get left behind. We talk about not leaving children behind when they're in school. But that happens in organizations every single day. Thousands of people are getting left behind because they're not getting consistent feedback.

They're not giving the tools to actually grow and get better at the things they're deficient in. And so to me, I look at it and I say, as an organization, if I'm a CEO or a board member at a company, I want this because it's making all my employees more productive. and it's a no-brainer. If I'm a person, I want my company to have this because it's allowing me to scale up, which I'm going to make more money and take care of my family, so I care. But I don't know how you could look at that and say, oh, there's no billion-dollar-plus outcome within this industry because there's a human element. That just feels short-sighted to me.

Not to mention one of the greatest challenges of our time is labor and staffing at all levels. And you talk to any founder, any CEO, any investor or board, what are their biggest challenges. They're in this bucket of finding talent. And getting people coaches at all levels increases the likelihood that some of your talent moves up from within. And you don't have to go find it externally. And then the retention is higher. And the cultural knowledge is higher.

And they're all, it shouldn't be everyone, but more from inside an organization should be able to move up than often do. Less catered lunches, more performance coaching. Seriously, like, oh, great, I have my kombucha on tap. and you have my like nice catered lunch, who cares about that? That's commoditized at this point. This feels like the next layer of that. Like, oh, you're giving me things to level up my career to become better at the things that you're telling me I'm not great at, giving me more consistent feedback.

I recently read an article about becoming a feedback magnet and how the greatest leaders are feedback magnets. Chivani Barry, I think, was the person that wrote it. She runs a course called Assend, which is like a leadership program for women. Very, very cool. And she wrote this great piece. I think it was a first round review article. They published it. And it was this idea of being a feedback magnet.

And I'd never thought about it that way. Like the best leaders are feedback. Because constantly wanting feedback because there's so many times when you like shy away from it or scared of feedback because you feel like it's a criticism on you rather than flipping it. The entire opposite way of this is a huge opportunity for me to get better at whatever it is. I think there's a way to reframe feedback. in not just someone having a shitty experience and having the courage to tell you and you having the gumption to digest it, but literally feedback as in a radio. It's signal.

It's just signal. I mean, when I worked for Hooters and I was running the training department, so I was a, I don't know, 24-year-old director of training for the corporate office. And when I would lead these workshops for managers and for franchisees, whenever we would go on breaks, I'd go in the restroom, pee in the stall, and then stay in the stall so I could hear what people were saying. And I never used the info. I know it sounds creepy, but I never used the information for evil. I never told anyone. There was one time where I heard something that was against the law. And so I had to do something about it pretty overtly. But even if it was just people saying, the music sucks on the break, or these snacks aren't great, or that guy in the corner is distracting.

And granted, I was only hearing the women's version because this is before the all-gender restrooms. But I still had feedback. I had intel. And then I magically corrected these things. Like it was just not about me. Sometimes the feedback was me. Man, I wish you would stop saying that word. That's so annoying.

Or when she does this, it's annoying. And I'm like, great to know. Fix. Just this constant, constant iteration. I've been so obsessed with the true truth, which is other. people's truth, not mine. And if you frame it that way, one, the ego is completely removed. It's not about me. It's about their experience. And yes, their experience is a reflection of me. This is true for coaching, managing, putting on events, audiences, community, whatever.

And just caring about their experience and then deciding what's signal versus noise, you know, where are the patterns versus the one-off, and then doing something about it. And so ask, answer, act. Sometimes ask is just listen. And then create an environment, or in my eavesdrop on an environment where people are speaking a truth, which they tend to do, washing their hands in the restroom, beside their classmates, and then do something about it. And just to your point of a feedback magnet, and then soliciting it. So doing check-ins and asking for it. And that starts to not only give you the things to act on, but it builds a culture where you don't have to ask for it as often. How do you, so I think it's, I mean, that's an amazing example, first of

also crazy, like amazing. Like, makes sense. that you were on like multiple episodes of undercover boss. You were an undercover boss before you were an undercover boss. That's true. So many people have asked, like, wow, did you learn something, you know, life-changing or transformational? And the answer is yes, because of course the experience was unbelievable. And I don't want to sound like an asshole when I say, but not really because I've always

believed in being there in the trenches, listening, asking, I don't typically have a wig on and really bad makeup to try to pretend I'm not who I am. But when I was traveling around the world opening franchises, every time I was in a country, I'd never been there. I was leading a team I had never met. They had never met each other. They were coming from all over the world to be a part of a team, to open a new brand,

to launch literally a new entity and brand in a new country for the first time. There is no trust. There is no familiarity. Most people don't assume trust and started 100 and give you a chance to go down. They start at something lower and you have to build it. And this idea of being able to build trust, rally people around a common cause, iterate as the experience evolves, to get to a common outcome every time in a different place with a different team. I was building that muscle when I was 19 years old because there was no playbook. Like you have no choice.

You have to know the true truth. You have to ask people for their experience because if they don't do the work, the store doesn't get open. And if you don't get feedback from them and understand their experience, there's a lot of friction. And to your point of productivity, you don't have productivity. And so coaching, feedback, check-ins, like all these mechanisms to ask, answer, and act, to listen and then iterate, literally lead to the best leadership outcomes. So I think 95% of people are sensitive to feedback. I don't know if you agree or disagree. I was going to ask the same question.

And my question to you is how, like, what advice do you give to people to help them be less sensitive? And it makes sense why they're sensitive. It's like, especially if you're like, I think about it as like you're like a chef in a restaurant and then you're creating this, you're spending all this time. It's like you're putting yourself into the thing. It's your artwork, whatever it is. So how do you develop that thick skin? Like, you clearly had it somewhat intrinsically, probably, if you were able to do that at 24. But, like, to listeners, even myself, trying to embrace and become a feedback magnet, how do you actually do that?

Do you have to remove yourself from it? Like, what's the... Most people would say find a way to remove the ego and remove yourself. But that's a very difficult piece of counsel, especially for people who take pride in their work. It usually comes from a really good place. And not tactical. It's not tactical because it's like, okay, what is the ego? Honestly, what is that?

We're going to get into a very meta discussion. What is self-et? Exactly, yeah. Who am I? Who am I? Do we just do mushrooms? You'll never know. Microdose before this episode.

We're good. It's fun. It's fine. It's fine. Just kidding. If anything. It does get it. But I have a pretty tactical approach, which is if the fear of feedback is around the

optics of failing. However you define failing, failing, failing to be perfect, failing to be wildly successful, failing to do what everyone needs at all times, failing to delight, you know, whatever that is. I just redefine failure. Fail, so go farther up funnel of the psychology. I redefine failure's first attempt in learning. Like, of course, when there are new elements, and the reality is there are always new elements. There is no way, the playbook of yesterday, works for this. There's no way what I did with 30 different humans in a different country is going to be exactly the approach for a different country and 30 additionally unique variables. And so failure's first attempt in learning. Failure is not,

you know, preventing or failure is not having issues. Failure is not someone being disappointed. That's not failure. Failure is just fail. F-A-I-L, first attempt in learning. And then this definition then of what is my role? My role as a server, go back to the chef example, the restaurant example when I was a hooters girl, is for them to have food they love, an experience they like, so they spend the most and tip me the most. That's it. Like my proximity to feedback, the feedback loop in that business is it's not even a line. The dots are like laying on top of each other. You cannot escape people's reaction to what you in the business have prepared. It's this amazing training ground for digesting feedback because they're

like, I hate this or it's not what I wanted. And you literally have to fix it. You can't be like, oh, that makes me scared. I'm going to go out in the bathroom. Like you got to fix the wings. And make it not about you. I remember so many times we had two wing sauces, mild and three mile. They sound a lot alike in a loud restaurant. And so sometimes three mile would get delivered, which is blazing effing hot. And when they ordered mild and they would take a bite and it was an unfortunate incident. And I'd have to say, I'm so, you know, could have been them, could have been me, but say, I'm so sorry. That is not what you wanted or needed. I will get back on it right away. It's about them. And I don't beat myself up that I made a mistake because what's

really important is just fixing it and them having a great experience. And then, oh, by the way, here's some extra ranch and celery. You're going to need it after accidentally eating. out and making it better, even better because there was a mistake. So this idea of reframing failure has been empowering to me, going back to that hooters, sit in the restroom, listen to what people say and then iterate on their feedback example. Failure would have been letting the experience be suboptimal. Failure would have been not correcting the things in their mind. It's in their mind, no matter what, don't I want to know it? And then I have the choice to do something about it. Or maybe it's not something I change, but I can explain a bit later of why things are

the way that they are. It's literally why I implemented the MMDD log, made my day difficult log. In every restaurant I've ever opened, this was guidance from like a 1980s restaurant consultant where he'd say, do an MMDD log. Let the staff tell you what makes their day difficult. Find the patterns, fix it. So literally every opening, I had a clipboard at the back door. Before you left, You have to write the one thing that made your day the most difficult. Sometimes the answer was me. Luckily, we had a culture where obviously people felt comfortable saying, cats confusing us with these instructions.

But then I could find the patterns, come back the next day, fix the top few things, or if I wasn't going to fix it, say, hey, this is making everyone's day difficult. Here's why we can't fix it right now. So I see you, I hear you. Let's try to smooth it out around the edges. But I actually can't change, so don't spend your, energy. Or I disagree, maybe something bigger at the corporate level, I disagree that this should change. Here's why I've clearly done a bad job of explaining the benefits. So I have used a literal

version of the MMD log for 20 years in business. It's now a Slack channel and all the companies I run and advise or an email if the culture isn't comfortable with an open Slack channel. I've used apps where you upvote and downvote, what made people stay difficult. The less change, the more often you need to ask. The less change, the less often you need to ask. The more change, the more often you need to ask. So if there's a lot of shit going on, it's a made my day difficult. Every day and every day there's change.

If it's a little more spread out, you can do it once a week, once a month. But this literally is soliciting feedback and building feedback magnets in the organization. I do it in departments because not everyone needs to know about everyone's feedback, but then department leaders need to talk. and if there's something that is consistent across the company, it rises to the level of the executive team to get dressed. It's also a startup. Yeah.

Like I'm listening to you and I'm like, okay, Kat, like, how do I invest? You know, like how do you productize this? Like, I don't know if it's a SlackBot or an email with like a dashboard. The branding would be perfect. I see it now. I love it. I've literally implemented this for decades in my own business. It could literally be called like Feedback Magnet.

It's just a thing that gets dropped into 20 places in the organization. Feed bag. Feed bag. Yeah. I think it's a cool idea. It might be maybe not the most game-changing practice in a company, but in the top three. Well, I mean, I experienced it firsthand in the context of my own career where, like, I would get to a year-end review. Like, we had a two-review cycle was our standard, which may be a standard in corporate America.

Like, you have a mid-year review and then a year-end. and there would literally be things that would come up in my year interview that I had no idea I was doing wrong. And I would show up and be like, how did I not know that that was an issue? How did I know my hair was so good? I knew that. No, but seriously, like, that is crazy. And that is a lot of GDP and growth for that company left on the table when that happened. So feed bag or whatever we end up calling it.

Maybe it's, there's like a very simple way to implement it too. It's just constant feedback. Like, you have an interaction with someone, they should be able to rate that interaction. It's kind of, there was a, there was a Black Mirror episode. Did you ever watch that show on Netflix, Black Mirror, where, like, you would rate your interaction with someone.

Like, I would see you and it was augmented reality, and then I'd be like, oh, five stars for Kat, like two stars for Greg, didn't really like that. Here's why, whatever. And during the course of the day, you'd have like a buildup of different interactions, different things that would kind of rate your experience. But that could be in a corporate setting,

like if I have a meeting with someone and I feel like they didn't come in as prepared as they should have been, or they didn't deliver the insights in a short form enough to be able to iterate on that. And then at the end of the day, get a report or end of a week of things I can be working on and thinking about. Super cool. One of the things I noticed as I pushed this feedback practice, he's like, this is happening.

As I push this feedback in practice to leaders who were then getting it that weren't me, right? It's one thing if I'm comfortable with it, I redefine failure, I'm a feedback magnet. I'm doing it. That's great. But when I start to push it to other managers who then are implementing it, there's still a lot of psychology and emotions to the whole point of where we've gone with this discussion underneath how to take it. And so if you put in this feedback bot magnet, some MMDD log made my day difficult log, there must be an accompanying alignment around anyone who is in charge of receiving and acting on the feedback around the attitude, the culture, the removal of ego to the

extent that it's unproductive. You do have to have that as the side dish to this thing in a company in order for the people who are being asked to give feedback to do so candidly and frequently. Otherwise, we all know how it plays out, right? Someone gets it and is like, that's bullshit. Or someone gets it and they're like, oh, that's me. I don't know how to process it deal with it, or these people suck. They don't know what they're talking about, right? You have those managers as well who don't respect the people giving the feedback and discount it. And so this can be quite revealing across the organization of the need to create feedback magnets, of the need to have discussions and coaching around feedback culture and can, like, don't we want to know?

Don't we want to act on it? If we don't, our competition will. If we don't someone else, will. I think the really cool thing about it too is that it creates a very real stake in the ground that you can then track against. So like if I know from the first month, here are the five things that consistently come up about me as a manager, as a peer. And now this is what I'm going to give reviewed against or comps against is going to be my ability to take that stake in the ground and improve it. And so if I was getting rated as a three on communication, you know, efficiency or something, I need to make that to a four. And so I'm just going to be thinking about that constantly because I know that at the end of the year or at the mid-year, whatever, my bonus or my

review, comp is going to be based on my ability to actually improve those like five things that have consistently come up. And so it's kind of cool to think about how then it plays into the ability of orgs to actually action on, you know, performance reviews and promotions and bonuses and all of those things to make them more. I just always hated the arbitrary aspect of that pay. It's like, oh, did my boss like me and was I nice to them and did I do stuff for them versus did I actually make real progress and get better at the things I was supposed to be getting better at. So it's kind of cool. Could be an interesting component.

And to your point of patterns over time, so my husband and I do these monthly check-ins that many people have heard. Yes. So it is feedback. And so since the month we met, we decided that we wanted to be as good for each other at home as we are in business. And I've never felt that way in previous relationships. I mean, I wanted the relationship to be good, but I never thought I want to be an amazing partner. But I did when I met him. And he did as well.

And so we're like, all right, if we care and if we want that and we want to be proactive about it, where can we take inspiration for how to do that? And of course, the answer was business and our leadership roles. And so we scheduled a monthly check-in. We asked the same questions every month. What's been the best part of the last 30 days? What's been the worst part of the last 30 days? Tell me one thing. I can do differently to be a better partner for you.

And that is either a stop, a start, or a continue. What has worried you the most in the last 30 days? What has given you the most pride? And what are you most grateful for? Every 30 days, since we have met, we have asked and answered those questions to each other. Sometimes it only takes 15 minutes, max. Other times, it creates a deeper discussion.

We don't hold off real-time feedback for that place, but that place, that space, is held for the purpose of feedback on anything touching the relationship, which could be work. And this check-in format I've used in business for over a decade as well. So sometimes since it's about work, the thing that has worried them the most that affects them at work is something at home. So it's not a heart to your point of, it's not a hard line. There's not a big wall there. There are things that affect who you are in this piece of your world that come from other pieces, and there should be permission to talk about that, but it's still primarily focused on the area. And those monthly check-ins, which are not okay ours,

They're not checking it on KPIs. You're not talking about deliverables and performance. It's just those questions. Has been, I mean, I don't know our relationship without it, but I can tell you the people who've adopted their own version of it after hearing about it have said, this has changed my marriage or this has changed my direct report relationship with my executives. There's something about that going in, tapping in to just where you are. and that question, tell me one thing I can do differently to be a better partner for you,

is very interesting to see the patterns over time. This is another startup idea, by the way. There's going to be too many coming out of this episode. But, like, that should be in an app or some easy format where, like, I would love to do that with my wife. I think that's super interesting. And if you could make it really easy. Six moleskins full of the handwritten notes and it sucks to not be able to go back. But it's a really cool, like, if I'm just on the go and I want to, like, plug something in or I'm thinking about it,

it's kind of a cool idea to just have like a super simple web or app interface where you could check in like we have all of this for when you first start dating hinge exists there's all the algorithm and you're connecting and it's like trying to match you at the outset but then there's nothing really as far as I know that exists for like later on now you're in a relationship or you're married and you're trying to track these things and track the progress of your relationship you want to hopefully have a curve where you're growing over time in your proximity and in you know the depth of your relationship and and you change and so there's different things that things that change about your life. You have a kid. You don't have a kid. You're like getting old.

Your kid leaves. All these different phases. And so the ability to like track it over time, look at the data over time for these people that are more data oriented and not like, you know, KPIs and all this and that. But like, just to, it kind of provides like a journaling plus real feedback element to it. That's kind of cool to pull together. And it's, it is interesting to see when you talk about like one of the questions, which can be the most emotional, which is what's worried you the most in the last. 30 days to see how that evolves over time. And even with my direct reports, executives, right?

Sometimes it's the health of a parent, money, or something directly in the business. Like, my team is just not jelly. It's very interesting, to your point of being able to look back and go, look how far you've come. Remember when that was the thing that was wearing you the most? And remember when that was the thing that was the worst three months in a row? Look how far. So yeah, that's amazing. We'll add it to the list.

I know we're starting to get close to the end of our time together. I need to ask you a question that relates sort of broadly to your career and experiences. But one of the things I've admired about you as a friend and as a mentor or person I look up to is you're extremely open to new ideas, experiences, people, cultures. You've shown it with your going down the rabbit hole and red pill on Web 3. and how deep into that world you've gotten and how you've embraced it. My PFP's our cartoons half of the time. But it's a personality trait you clearly have

and that you've embraced. And I read an amazing story about you from early in your career, I think, of an experience you had in the Middle East. And it's a perfect example of this trait that you have. And I think a lot of people will benefit from hearing it. So I would love for you to just tell this story. Yeah, I was traveling in Egypt

visiting my franchisees and this was with Sinebond, and the Gulf is the largest market outside the U.S. for Sinebond. How old were you at the time? 31. Okay. New president of Sineabon, taking over the global business. And I had, for the past two years, I had also spent some time in Turkey and fell in love with the Adon, the call to prayer.

I mean, when the loudspeakers would blast, it was, it touched my soul. It was, like, meditative. and so much so that I had an app on my phone with the Adon, with a call to prayer, from every major country that has it. So there's different tones and different speeds, and it's really cool. Anyone can look it up in the app store, just look up Adon or call to prayer, and a bunch of them will come up. And I really have no religion to speak of personally.

And I just thought it was beautiful. And so I had this on my phone. I'm in Egypt. We're driving through, and then the call to prayer comes on. we pull over to people, you know, need to go pray. And this happened a couple times. But throughout that, my franchisee that was in the car, when it came on, I just said, this is so beautiful.

Can we roll down the windows? You know, I really wanted to hear it. The music was on. Can we turn down the music so I can hear it? And he was blown away. He was blown away that an American, a non-Muslim, like all the things you can imagine that this was a narrative violation in this moment. And he got teary.

And it started this whole different conversation together about my appreciation for it. I showed him my app. He didn't even know there was an app with all of these countries. And he thought that was really cool. And we were already totally viving. He's just super cool guy. But it took our relationship to a very different level quickly. And he saw me as, I don't know, a family member, a more connected human because I just said something that clearly articulated.

I thought something about his culture was beautiful. And on its face, like, I don't know what they're saying. I mean, I know a bit more now, but at the time, I'm like, I literally have no idea what they're saying. I just think it's so beautiful. And it created this moment that accelerated trust and a common bond that led to better business. You know, and it just went on. I'm still dear friends with the franchisees, well, all over the world, but certainly in this region today. I believe that that moment did something with our relationship where I became more like family than this very hospitable culture would have already treated me.

That lasted throughout my term as, you know, president of the brand and even into being president of many brands with the parent company. And it made it easier for me to call and say, hey, do you want to be a franchisee of job? Jamba Juice and hey, I mean, it led to big business and big growth over time around the world. And similar things happened, but that was a really unique one. And you didn't go into it. What I think is so amazing about the story is that that wasn't why you did it. You didn't say, you weren't like, oh, this could be a big business moment for me. Let me like kind of play my way.

It was just you were. Yeah, I'm not that strategic. But it's sort of, I mean, there's an amazing lesson in there of just like you said narrative violation, like be a narrative violation. Just embrace different cultures, different people, different. ideas, talk to the random person on the street that you come across, you end up coming up with random startup ideas, you build these relationships that you never know how they extend. You never know where those trees kind of lead you in those branches unless you open yourself to it.

I love, I used to call myself a walking conflict of interest, not because I was, but because I knew that's how some saw me. I was a hooters girl and I was advocating for women's rights. I was running cinnabon and investing in the future of health and wellness. And it's not that I was, atoning for my sins. You know, I'm the same person who saw purpose and mission in these things as I'm on my own personal journey. And in fact, that makes me more of a bridge person because I'm not preaching to the converted. I'm someone with a hand in one world, a hand in another authentically, not trying to have no opinion or no point of view or be neutral, but literally find beauty here and find beauty here and live in both worlds where many people don't. It's one of the

things I'm loving about Web 3 and NFTs, like this, you know, anonymity and just leaning into Web 3 and then people coming together, IRL, and you put some of these groups together, and every one of them would acknowledge we might not have ever met, we may not have otherwise been in other circles. It looks like a narrative violation. It's amazing. But it's actually not. It's actually, it is the way.

I think it's the best. I also like how, I like how you use the word authenticity. Because it reminds me of, because, you know, I know you were not strategic, but I think from a marketing perspective, like being authentic, obviously is such a great way to grow your brand. Yeah. And you're seeing this with Web 3, like, NFT communities that are taking off. But it reminds me of the story of, like, in Quebec, people don't drink Coca-Cola. They drink Pepsi. And the reason why they drink Pepsi is because when Coca-Cola and Pepsi, when Coca-Cola came to Quebec, they basically use the same.

ads that they use for the rest of Canada. And they're just like, okay, there's these French people who live here. We're just going to translate it into French. Literally the worst country to make that decision. The worst country. And it was complete, like, people were like, you know, absolutely not. And then Pepsi came and they crafted a message that was so authentic to that group of people. And they kind of went, you know, they went anti-Coke in a lot of ways.

They just basically learned from the mistakes. And to this day, Pepsi is everywhere. I have a funny story. So I brought the first Hooters to Quebec, Gattano, Quebec. And we had not thoughtfully evolved the business. We're open to it, but other than what was required by law, which was the menu being in French and English. There wasn't really any other overture to say, we are here for you. And there are certain places, certain cities, countries, states, Boston is another one as a city in the U.S.

Where if you aren't like of the people by the people from the people for the people, it's one of the worst cities for chains as a result. And if you don't figure out how to really grow from within, you are doomed. And I remember it wasn't until the last day. I was there for almost 30 days that the team warmed up. It was brutal. I mean, it was the toughest time in building trust. in relationships I had in any country, anywhere in the world, out of 80 countries because of this, one, it was a pattern of American brands entering the space without the respect and partnership.

So there was just this wall up. And it took us while we're trying to train and deliver and get our putine right and all of the other things on the menu and trying to get my American trainers to not, you know, react and poke fun, but to just be curious, like be curious and help make it happen. it was so high friction. And at the end, there were tears and hugs and appreciation, but it wasn't as natural as that Egypt's story. It was, there was a lot more,

you don't want to be here and we don't want you here. And it's you in our land as opposed to our thing that we're building together. And about a week into the training, I scrapped it all. I scrapped the menu, scrapped the recipes, had like a do-over meeting with the team where all we did was,

listen and learn in French, listen to people talking about their restaurants that are their favorite, how they think this type of food has a place in their world. I mean, I should have done that day one, but I'm proud that I had the courage to still do it day eight. Quebec is the only place in the world where Starbucks isn't called Starbucks, and KFC is now called KFC. I believe it. It's called, you know, KFC is called PFC, Poulet Free Kentucky, which is hilarious. Yep.

Starbucks is called Le Caffe Starbucks. And they do, you know, I think it's a lesson learned, right, for these brands. That's right. To make people feel at home. And I think, you know, there's that saying, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. But if you're a marketing person, if you can make it in Quebec, you can make it anywhere. For sure. Because, and that's what I think I learned from that experience is if you're going to be a community builder, you do have to,

you have to not talk and listen, I guess, is the big sort of lesson there. And then once you've listened, you really understand the people, then you can understand what are the nuances that they have, that I can build product around, so that I can serve them. I mean, literally, a listening leader is a learning leader, and a learning leader is a lasting leader. And you're never done. That's good.

It's this deep, this interesting full circle. is a learning leader. Learning leader is a lasting leader. Boom. That's good. That's a good. Get that tattooed on my chest. I know.

I think that's a good place to wrap up. I know we've got to get you out to whatever your next event is as well. So thank you so much for coming in and joining us. Awesome. It's always. I like constantly learn so much from just being around you. So I feel privileged that we get to do this somehow for a living. It's awesome.

It's the future and we love it. So thank you so much, Kat. You're the best. Thank you. So we covered a whole hell of a lot that episode. So I don't know how you're going to do this, but what was your one big takeaway? I think my biggest takeaway is how important it is for all of us, startup founders, startup employees, employees, creators to find a coach and use a coach to become just the best version of yourself.

And I know that's easy to say. and it's hard to find a coach and they're expensive. But I think that even if it's once a month, once every two months, once every three months, or even using some of those automated solutions that Kat was talking about, I think it's pretty crucial. So just go one layer deeper for me. Like how can someone go find a coach? Like what's the step to take for someone that actually wants to go do that and action on it? Is it like Google search?

Are you talking to people? tweet it out? Like, how do you actually go find a coach? I mean, I think, I think, you know, first is you just ask around, ask friends, join discords, come into our discord and just ask and maybe we can provide some recommendations. The hardest part about finding a coach and Kat, you know, Kat kind of mentioned it is finding someone you can trust. So I think it's like a very personal decision also. Like, what, you know, what might be a great coach for myself might not be a good coach for you because you just might not just connect with that person. So I think it's going on, you know, step one, going on

Discord, going on Twitter, asking around, step two, going on Google, setting up, like, there's a bunch of marketplaces that you can kind of like go and have video chats with some of these people just to get a sense of it. And then feel it out and set up a budget for it. And this is like you're invest in yourself budget. Maybe it's a couple hundred bucks a month. Maybe it's a couple hundred bucks every three months, whatever you can afford, and use that to, you know, work on one or two, three things that are affecting your professional life that even might stem from your personal life. Super, super interesting. Something for me to think about personally, too, because I've never had a coach in this context.

Definitely something for me to reflect on more. Time for a coach, I know. Yeah. I loved all the startup ideas, man, we had so many in that episode, which was crazy to go through. but like the whole concept of taking something that the big companies have and have built, finding the atomic unit of that and delivering it to a smaller group of niche down, smaller community is such a cool concept to me, like whether it's for transportation, with the Uber drivers that I talked about, you know,

whether it's the coaching solution that we talked about and applying it here. And then the feedback, feedback in dating or the feedback in relationships app ideas were really, really cool. So I'm excited. There was like a lot out of there that I want to jump into the community. want to get in there and talk about more. Let's talk about all these startup ideas. Let's talk about coaches,

see if we can help some people get more of that coaching and maybe some peer-to-peer coaching couldn't even happen as a result of it. So we want to jump in there. Let's get into the community. Let's talk more about it. Look forward to seeing you in there. See you in there.

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