1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,460 Welcome to the Thravo journey. We're a new podcast dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs to uncover and embrace their purpose here on earth as 2 00:00:09,540 --> 00:00:18,400 Multifaceted human beings we strive to navigate our financial mental physical and spiritual well-being and that's what this podcast is all about 3 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:25,020 We're here to inspire uplift and equip you with the tools to thrive on your journey to greatness 4 00:00:25,020 --> 00:00:32,360 All we ask in return is your support one subscribe to our YouTube channel or to download the podcast from your favorite 5 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:40,240 Platform your engagement. It helps us grow and attract incredible guests who will enrich your life with valuable insights and 6 00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:44,360 Wisdom now in turn we promise to keep bringing you 7 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:50,240 Content that in livens edifies and elevates your journey not just as an entrepreneur 8 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:56,160 But as a human being and with that I want to thank you for being a part of the Thravo journey number one 9 00:00:56,400 --> 00:01:00,500 Certain skills that were really valuable 10 or 20 years ago are totally useless like spelling 10 00:01:00,500 --> 00:01:04,660 I spent you know and when I was in school we learned how to spell and write prayer paragraphs 11 00:01:04,700 --> 00:01:10,600 That's not super useful or even tired. They're both right like there's two special things that only human beings have been able to do for all 12 00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:17,720 Of a human kind for all of human history number one. We've been the only ones to create meaningful relationship with each other, right? 13 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,640 We have not you know, no matter how much people love their you know 14 00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:30,520 Their animals it's never been quite the same as having a husband a wife a daughter a parent that relationship 15 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:32,520 That's number one and number two 16 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:34,520 Yeah 17 00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:52,940 Welcome journeys to another episode of the Thravo journey today our guests is Nick Jane now Nick is a CEO of idea scale 18 00:01:52,940 --> 00:01:54,940 I'm leading innovation software company 19 00:01:55,320 --> 00:02:00,920 Idea scale is the core of many leading global organization in the innovation efforts including NASA 20 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:05,040 Comcast NASCAR Dostard with without borders and many others 21 00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:10,840 Nick graduated at the top of this class from Harvard Business School and holds a degree in mathematics from Dartmouth 22 00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:12,960 Let's just get on with the conversation and 23 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:21,000 Nick welcome to the Thravo journey. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much L. Michael for having me on really excited to be here 24 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:23,240 Yeah, I'm excited to have you 25 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:27,080 You know as you know, we have guests that come on and you know 26 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:33,960 I do my research and find out a little bit about them before actually, you know, we get on the podcast and you have a very interesting story 27 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,680 Which I'm really interested to get into so just to kind of go back 28 00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:40,800 Before we you know get to the present day 29 00:02:41,440 --> 00:02:43,000 You talk about 30 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,480 Your how you were raised and you were raised by your grandmother in a small city in India 31 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:53,400 What was that like and and what was growing up with your grandmother? How did that? 32 00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:59,240 Shape your life your life. Sure. So it influenced me in a couple of ways number one 33 00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:03,040 I actually didn't meet my parents till I was over five and then they raised me after five 34 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:09,680 So the meeting is like I'm you know was grew up very close to my grandmother because from age zero to five 35 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:11,680 She was the only you know adult I knew 36 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,120 So deep relationship with her. She's since you know, she passed away a few years ago 37 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:20,040 But right up until her death. She lived with us super close to her. She influenced 38 00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:22,840 much of how I think about life 39 00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:30,040 A second is you know when I grew up in this kind of tier two or tier three city in India in the early 1990s 40 00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:36,200 And that's fundamentally a very different life than you would imagine either that that you get in the United States or Canada 41 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:40,360 Or developed country today, but also very different than you would get in India today. I remember as a kid 42 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,360 Electricity would go off randomly in the middle of the day when you're watching TV 43 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:48,040 We had running water for two hours a day one hour in the morning one hour at night 44 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:52,960 And even as a three or four year old it was my job to go fill the water tank downstairs 45 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:59,240 So when water is running go fill in the tanks that you had inside everyone had inside their house because then you had no water for 12 hours 46 00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:06,240 So and that was level responsibility. I had at age three and just you know fundamentally 47 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:09,520 Infrastructure was different roads were less good and what that's meant is throughout my life 48 00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:14,580 Kind of the notion that hey life is difficult or there's a challenge 49 00:04:14,580 --> 00:04:18,220 It's okay. Hey if I can live with running water for two, you know for two hours a day 50 00:04:18,220 --> 00:04:23,140 I can probably run you live with almost anything else I encounter in my adult life living here now in the US I 51 00:04:23,780 --> 00:04:25,780 could imagine 52 00:04:25,780 --> 00:04:32,980 Like when you as a child that actually gave you some kind of outlook on what life is or could be 53 00:04:34,500 --> 00:04:36,500 Growing up like 54 00:04:37,300 --> 00:04:43,260 When you come up with kind of when you come up against issues or you know problems 55 00:04:43,260 --> 00:04:49,580 That childhood may have influenced who you became to came to be these days 56 00:04:50,780 --> 00:04:52,300 What 57 00:04:52,300 --> 00:04:55,460 Go ahead and talk about what that what that done has done for you 58 00:04:55,460 --> 00:04:57,220 I think 59 00:04:57,220 --> 00:04:58,700 And I want to be very careful 60 00:04:58,700 --> 00:05:04,220 I'm about to say because there are still hundreds of millions of people around the world who don't have access to even what I did growing up 61 00:05:04,220 --> 00:05:06,420 Right, so I don't want to start by acknowledging them 62 00:05:06,820 --> 00:05:08,380 But I think 63 00:05:08,380 --> 00:05:13,180 The way or its influence means a lot of challenges that we run into living in the Western world 64 00:05:13,860 --> 00:05:17,140 in developed countries are really, you know 65 00:05:17,740 --> 00:05:20,760 Rounding errors in the grand scheme of what humanity goes through right? 66 00:05:21,260 --> 00:05:28,100 So whenever I encounter challenges in life. Hey, the how you know heat broke or the basement flooded or it's a tough day at work 67 00:05:28,420 --> 00:05:31,260 It's still a rounding error in the grand scheme of things, right? 68 00:05:31,260 --> 00:05:32,860 I've encountered greater challenges 69 00:05:32,860 --> 00:05:37,860 I'm more cognizant that people around the world encounter much greater challenges than even I've ever encountered and 70 00:05:37,860 --> 00:05:39,860 They make make it through it. So 71 00:05:40,540 --> 00:05:45,900 It gives me I guess more resilience more perspective on what resilience actually is 72 00:05:46,540 --> 00:05:50,540 Yeah, I can I could imagine I mean not even imagine I could actually 73 00:05:51,420 --> 00:05:55,260 Understand that because growing up, you know as I grew up 74 00:05:55,260 --> 00:06:02,900 I mean we've always faith we face challenges, right and we just know we learn how to overcome them and they 75 00:06:02,900 --> 00:06:08,780 Somehow they become the tap tapestry of who we are as adults and you know beings. Yeah 76 00:06:09,420 --> 00:06:14,780 Did you ever imagine like growing up in India that you know one day that you would be leading global? 77 00:06:15,820 --> 00:06:17,940 transformations in in in different industries 78 00:06:19,460 --> 00:06:24,560 No, I I've been very weird kind of you know, there's that joke of living life one day at a time 79 00:06:25,300 --> 00:06:29,300 It sounds really funny, but at least my personal life or as well as my professional life 80 00:06:29,300 --> 00:06:31,180 I'm not too worried about 81 00:06:31,180 --> 00:06:36,180 You know what's gonna happen five years from now or 20 years from now when they asked me when I was like five years old 82 00:06:36,180 --> 00:06:40,060 What I wanted to be when I grew up. I had no idea like I'm not one of those kids who said hey 83 00:06:40,060 --> 00:06:46,460 I want to be a CEO or I want to be a fireman or I want to be a nurse like I just you know was a kid and that's kind of 84 00:06:46,460 --> 00:06:48,460 That's still the same mentality I have today 85 00:06:48,700 --> 00:06:52,700 Look, there are things that I want to accomplish my professional life and my personal life 86 00:06:53,260 --> 00:06:56,140 And I want ideas to be able to continue to grow and be successful 87 00:06:56,140 --> 00:07:02,660 But I'm not thinking ahead of like oh, I want to run a billion dollar company or a hundred billion dollar company in ten years 88 00:07:02,660 --> 00:07:05,820 That's that's not part of the plan the plan is to do everything right day by day 89 00:07:07,020 --> 00:07:09,380 that sounds to me like just being present and 90 00:07:10,020 --> 00:07:13,460 Who you are today and just just living in that? 91 00:07:14,700 --> 00:07:16,300 Yeah 92 00:07:16,300 --> 00:07:20,940 So you went from India you came over here to the United States 93 00:07:20,940 --> 00:07:25,660 What was that journey from India to the United States? How's that? 94 00:07:25,660 --> 00:07:28,420 I actually moved to Canada, which is where I can yeah 95 00:07:28,420 --> 00:07:32,460 And I came here for college when I was around came to the US for college when I was 18 96 00:07:32,460 --> 00:07:38,540 I think there's a really funny story that so you know in all my memory. I'd only grown up in India at age 5 97 00:07:38,540 --> 00:07:41,380 I'm ready to start kindergarten my parents bring me back to Canada 98 00:07:41,380 --> 00:07:46,300 And there's like a really funny memory that kind of shows you how unaware I was as a five-year-old 99 00:07:46,300 --> 00:07:50,740 Or maybe all five-year-olds are this unaware as we're driving back from the airport near Vancouver 100 00:07:50,740 --> 00:07:54,220 Canada to my parents home in a farm town near Vancouver 101 00:07:54,220 --> 00:08:00,580 I see the sign for a store called Wendy's with this, you know red-headed girl there and preschool 102 00:08:00,580 --> 00:08:06,380 I was intending in India was called Wendy's and so I point to I remember distinctly pointing out on the on the ride back 103 00:08:06,380 --> 00:08:11,700 From the airport. Hey, is that where I'm going to be going to school now pointing to Wendy's obviously the fast-food chain 104 00:08:11,700 --> 00:08:17,420 Because it look very kid-friendly, right? That's great advertising on their part, but also shows you how naive I was 105 00:08:17,420 --> 00:08:21,380 You know, maybe still am as a five-year-old 106 00:08:22,220 --> 00:08:27,540 But yeah, like it was you know as a kid you just take things in stride while you're living it, you know in 107 00:08:27,860 --> 00:08:30,740 India or you know or Canada or the United States 108 00:08:31,220 --> 00:08:33,780 It's it's that's all the only life you know 109 00:08:33,780 --> 00:08:35,460 You don't know that I'm not straight that hey 110 00:08:35,460 --> 00:08:42,780 There's you know billionaires out there living in air-conditioned apartments not something you're aware of and as I think a lot of children 111 00:08:42,780 --> 00:08:46,780 Especially if they're raised by loving and caring families are just you know 112 00:08:46,780 --> 00:08:51,500 They live they are living a very comfortable protected world. Yeah, and I was one of them 113 00:08:52,100 --> 00:08:59,700 Yeah, I have you know, I have nephew great nephews rather that you know, they all they spent a lot of time with me and 114 00:09:00,100 --> 00:09:07,220 I just I just see through their eyes how the world is and everything for them is perfect 115 00:09:07,220 --> 00:09:12,180 You know what I mean and they're they're taking care of but to them, you know 116 00:09:12,180 --> 00:09:19,780 Uncle Mike is you know this the superstar and it's so funny because you know, that's not the life I live but you know to them 117 00:09:19,860 --> 00:09:22,780 That's who they are. So I just you know being five-year-old 118 00:09:23,540 --> 00:09:28,980 You know, it's just it's just who you are and just loving life, which is really great 119 00:09:28,980 --> 00:09:31,780 And so you were in Canada you're in Canada 120 00:09:31,780 --> 00:09:37,060 You went you came to school here and you started in Dartmouth or do you start in Harvard? 121 00:09:37,060 --> 00:09:42,220 I went to Dartmouth for undergrad and then at Harvard for business school 122 00:09:42,620 --> 00:09:46,500 Harvard is a okay. Harvard is pretty cool school from what I understand 123 00:09:49,500 --> 00:09:51,500 What do you to go to those schools? 124 00:09:52,020 --> 00:09:53,820 Sure, so Dartmouth was very easy 125 00:09:53,820 --> 00:09:56,900 It's obviously a good school and they offered me a bunch of money 126 00:09:56,900 --> 00:09:58,780 My parents are both blue collar workers 127 00:09:58,780 --> 00:10:03,580 My father was a janitor and so when a good school says hey, we're gonna give you like 75 and off 128 00:10:03,580 --> 00:10:07,140 You kind of say yes, right? The other 25% was still pretty expensive 129 00:10:07,140 --> 00:10:11,820 But my parents, you know had saved up, you know, every they've done the typical immigrant thing 130 00:10:11,820 --> 00:10:14,500 They'd saved up every dollars to give me a better chance at life 131 00:10:14,500 --> 00:10:21,380 And so Dartmouth just gave me you know 75% 80% scholarship and that made it a lot easy to say yet very easy to say yes 132 00:10:22,980 --> 00:10:25,820 Going to Harvard was look kind of two or three things number one 133 00:10:25,820 --> 00:10:27,820 It's Harvard. It's nice to have that on your resume 134 00:10:27,820 --> 00:10:33,740 When you're a poor kid from somewhere else like going to a place like that opens a lot of doors that may not otherwise be open 135 00:10:34,860 --> 00:10:39,100 Second I met a lot of really interesting people an interesting can mean like famous rich 136 00:10:39,100 --> 00:10:41,580 But also just interesting people who've done cool things. I met 137 00:10:42,220 --> 00:10:49,740 One of things like I think HBS does really well is they have folks from military backgrounds folks from nonprofit backgrounds folks from 138 00:10:50,220 --> 00:10:57,460 Scientific backgrounds, so I made friends and developed relationships with people who from other walks of life that I'd never encountered at least in my professional career 139 00:10:57,460 --> 00:11:04,020 And as I said it opened a lot of doors that may not have been open for me. Otherwise, I could imagine I could imagine 140 00:11:04,460 --> 00:11:07,780 What do you have a trumps and transformative moment? 141 00:11:08,300 --> 00:11:10,300 Why why you're in Harvard? 142 00:11:17,140 --> 00:11:21,740 I don't know if I'm trying to give you a thoughtful answer rather than a flip it answer 143 00:11:21,740 --> 00:11:27,340 And I don't appreciate that not from Harvard. I can probably point to some things from college 144 00:11:27,340 --> 00:11:33,020 But I don't think business school is a transformative experience per se. Well, let's just talk about just because we're in that era 145 00:11:33,740 --> 00:11:38,420 And just building up just so people can know you we're building up here 146 00:11:39,140 --> 00:11:46,180 What is a transformative moment or can you recall or transform transformative moment in that era in your college college years? 147 00:11:46,580 --> 00:11:47,820 sure so 148 00:11:47,820 --> 00:11:50,580 transformative moment to me is one that makes you realize you had a 149 00:11:50,580 --> 00:11:54,060 Misconception about the world. Mm-hmm. Okay 150 00:11:54,740 --> 00:12:02,140 Something that you just assume to be true like gravity an apple falls from a tree and you realize wait gravity may not always work that way in other parts 151 00:12:02,140 --> 00:12:04,700 The universe that's a bad example gravity does work everywhere the same 152 00:12:06,220 --> 00:12:11,140 But it's like something you've believed to be so true down to your soul and you realize it's not and 153 00:12:11,580 --> 00:12:18,220 Yeah, and I had one it kind of in my educational background. So I darkmouth is a pretty good school. There's again, you know some 154 00:12:18,220 --> 00:12:24,340 It's an Ivy League school. There's a lot of smart people a lot of rich people there all that fun stuff and I you know when I showed up 155 00:12:25,300 --> 00:12:29,700 In my high school career I had been I went to a small farm town school 156 00:12:29,700 --> 00:12:34,780 Not a lot not some fancy prep school not some elite magnet school just normal middle-class town, right? 157 00:12:34,780 --> 00:12:37,540 Like most folks there were blue collar employees 158 00:12:38,620 --> 00:12:45,540 Our most folks parents there were blue collar workers when I showed up at Dartmouth. I you know, I had been very fortunate 159 00:12:45,540 --> 00:12:49,340 I've been a good student. I'd gotten a good education. I just assumed that hey now I'm at this great school 160 00:12:49,900 --> 00:12:57,460 Everyone has had the fortune of having such a great experience and such a great education and the kind of transformative experience or eye-opening 161 00:12:57,780 --> 00:13:01,500 experience ahead there was like no turns out that a lot of you know 162 00:13:02,620 --> 00:13:05,500 High schools around the United States actually really suck 163 00:13:05,900 --> 00:13:11,620 And these include some extremely well funded ones elite ones like prep school ones where people are dropping $40,000 a year 164 00:13:11,620 --> 00:13:13,620 but also a lot of you know 165 00:13:13,620 --> 00:13:18,940 Reg just regular public school systems in the United States suck and made me realize how fortunate I was 166 00:13:19,060 --> 00:13:22,980 Get to get the education I'd gotten because Canada tends to have a very well-funded 167 00:13:23,460 --> 00:13:27,060 good rigorous education system and the implication was like 168 00:13:27,660 --> 00:13:32,740 It was eye-opening to realize how different the qualities of education are across different schools 169 00:13:33,060 --> 00:13:38,140 But be the lot of the school of the skills that I had taken for granted that hey 170 00:13:38,140 --> 00:13:41,740 I had learned how to do this math thing or I had read books from other countries 171 00:13:41,740 --> 00:13:44,940 And again despite going to a normal middle-class school 172 00:13:45,460 --> 00:13:51,140 Made me realize that a lot of assumptions about the skills that I was have that I assumed people had developed were incorrect 173 00:13:51,140 --> 00:13:55,420 And that's something that's been very relevant through throughout my career because you know sitting here CEO 174 00:13:55,420 --> 00:13:58,740 I just assumed that somebody may have learned this skill, but that's not true 175 00:13:58,740 --> 00:14:03,820 Right, somebody may not have learned how to do a marketing ROI analysis because their marketing boss had not taught it to them 176 00:14:03,820 --> 00:14:05,220 Or somebody may not you know 177 00:14:05,220 --> 00:14:11,700 somebody may be a software engineer and they may not have actually looked at how an algorithm works or how to write machine code or 178 00:14:12,260 --> 00:14:13,860 You know somebody may be an artist 179 00:14:13,860 --> 00:14:20,420 They may not actually have studied how why public because I became famous and those are assumptions about how educational and skills journeys 180 00:14:20,820 --> 00:14:24,540 I assume what to be true are not necessarily true, right? 181 00:14:25,580 --> 00:14:33,500 Wow, okay. That's that's good. So you're in this you know in this era you go through these trends over the moments 182 00:14:33,500 --> 00:14:35,500 What led you into 183 00:14:35,820 --> 00:14:42,300 With the next space in your life and was that when you started work for Bayne Capital and Greenlight? 184 00:14:42,900 --> 00:14:48,540 Sure, so after kind of during my educational career between college business school and afterwards I worked in finance 185 00:14:49,260 --> 00:14:55,380 Really fun area learned a lot to your very early in your career. You're getting to work with some extraordinarily talented people 186 00:14:55,380 --> 00:14:58,300 You get you know, I was at 22. I was in the same room as CEOs 187 00:14:58,300 --> 00:15:02,180 I wasn't you know presenting to CEOs, but I got to be in the same room and learn from them 188 00:15:02,180 --> 00:15:09,100 Yeah, and that's such an extraordinary experience, especially early in your career when you get to be around extraordinary senior and successful people 189 00:15:10,780 --> 00:15:14,340 What I do today now is a bit different I'm a professional CEO 190 00:15:14,340 --> 00:15:19,500 So either private equity firms venture firms or founders hire me to take companies to their next 191 00:15:20,180 --> 00:15:22,180 To their next level of success 192 00:15:22,580 --> 00:15:25,780 And that kind of happened more by coincidence anything else one day 193 00:15:25,780 --> 00:15:29,700 I got a call saying Nick. Hey, do you want to come look over on a hundred million dollar revenue trucking company? 194 00:15:29,700 --> 00:15:35,260 And that's obviously a once-in-a-lifetime phone call that you get. I said yes after thinking about it 195 00:15:35,820 --> 00:15:40,100 And that's how following the career path that I'm in now, which is kind of really cool, right? 196 00:15:40,100 --> 00:15:46,300 I am on my third company now. I am helping grow idea scale into a billion dollar global organization 197 00:15:46,300 --> 00:15:48,540 That's that's a fun journey to be on 198 00:15:49,820 --> 00:15:53,860 Yeah, you you have a lot going on for you 199 00:15:54,220 --> 00:15:56,460 in the different, you know 200 00:15:56,460 --> 00:15:59,900 different areas that you've been been in and 201 00:16:00,460 --> 00:16:04,380 Now that you're in idea scale and you talk a lot about innovation 202 00:16:04,980 --> 00:16:06,980 What is innovation to you? 203 00:16:08,700 --> 00:16:15,900 Innovation is a process for discovering and doing new things and that can be you know new products 204 00:16:15,900 --> 00:16:18,300 It can be new workout routines. It can be 205 00:16:19,260 --> 00:16:25,500 New sports that we develop is that process by which you arrive at new things and new ways of doing things 206 00:16:25,500 --> 00:16:27,500 mm-hmm 207 00:16:27,540 --> 00:16:29,260 now 208 00:16:29,260 --> 00:16:35,740 These are ideas and you talk about idea meritocracy. I was reading 209 00:16:36,420 --> 00:16:39,340 something about it and it's basically 210 00:16:42,980 --> 00:16:46,980 They were talking about I can't find it right now, but they were 211 00:16:46,980 --> 00:16:55,220 Is the power of idea meritocracy and how it's really changing in a lot of companies 212 00:16:56,740 --> 00:16:58,740 What's happening and what's the shift now 213 00:16:59,420 --> 00:17:04,220 That's happening in companies. So let's look back to kind of old ways of doing things 214 00:17:04,220 --> 00:17:10,140 So historically if you look at most organizations, there's so many organizations operate this way is there's two ways 215 00:17:10,700 --> 00:17:13,460 Ideas get heard number one. They're said by the boss 216 00:17:13,460 --> 00:17:18,380 So when the CEO says something it could be the dumbest idea in the world but people listen because he or she's the CEO 217 00:17:18,500 --> 00:17:20,540 Or that you know the managing director or whatever 218 00:17:20,540 --> 00:17:26,540 So that's a method one where whoever's the most senior their voice their ideas get heard and their ideas get done 219 00:17:26,620 --> 00:17:30,740 Even if they're bad ideas the second way is whoever speaks the loudest 220 00:17:30,740 --> 00:17:35,060 So if someone is really popular or they're really charismatic or they're an extrovert 221 00:17:35,140 --> 00:17:41,460 They're much more likely to say their ideas promote their ideas make their ideas go viral than someone who's let's say an introvert 222 00:17:41,460 --> 00:17:45,780 And again, so that's not necessarily the best idea winning. That's the loudest idea winning 223 00:17:46,300 --> 00:17:53,220 There's an increasing shift as companies become less hierarchical and more results oriented that look 224 00:17:53,220 --> 00:17:56,500 We don't care we want to separate the quality of an idea 225 00:17:56,860 --> 00:17:59,460 From the seniority or loudness of the person 226 00:17:59,460 --> 00:18:03,740 So if some if a quiet junior person has a great idea, we should listen to them 227 00:18:03,740 --> 00:18:05,980 If it's the CEO is a great idea if it's someone in Japan 228 00:18:05,980 --> 00:18:11,220 We should listen to them because we want the best ideas because they become the best products or best 229 00:18:12,260 --> 00:18:15,620 Services that we can deliver to our customers or to our constituents 230 00:18:15,740 --> 00:18:20,540 So the notion of an idea meritocracy is shifting from doing just whatever the boss says 231 00:18:20,820 --> 00:18:27,220 To a world where the best ideas get done no matter where they come from whether they come from somebody who looks different than you 232 00:18:27,220 --> 00:18:32,700 Somebody speaks the funny accent somebody who's junior we want the best ideas in our organization or any organization 233 00:18:32,700 --> 00:18:35,820 To happen not just the loudest ideas 234 00:18:36,820 --> 00:18:42,860 That's what you bring to the organizations. That's that's our that's what our software company 235 00:18:42,860 --> 00:18:47,900 That's what our software does our software is kind of think of it like it's a social media platform for ideas 236 00:18:47,900 --> 00:18:53,660 So in tick-tock everyone submits their you know crazy cat videos or dance videos a lot of the videos on tick-tock 237 00:18:53,660 --> 00:18:57,140 Suck but guess what because the voting systems the algorithms the best 238 00:18:57,540 --> 00:18:59,500 Videos the ones that are most eye-catching them 239 00:18:59,500 --> 00:19:06,660 But the best they float to the top go viral across the world our software does that except with making the best ideas go viral 240 00:19:07,500 --> 00:19:11,900 You only do that for large companies or who do you do that for is that like evens? It's like 241 00:19:12,820 --> 00:19:16,020 You know singular person LCS or these large companies 242 00:19:16,580 --> 00:19:21,420 So our customers tend to be large organizations Comcast Pfizer US post office, right? 243 00:19:21,420 --> 00:19:25,220 Be these big this big media organizations that have lots of people 244 00:19:25,220 --> 00:19:30,460 But not a good way to get all those people's ideas together in one place and sort through them now the good news 245 00:19:30,460 --> 00:19:35,820 It that's where paying customers are the good news is our our founders mission was we want to support innovation 246 00:19:35,820 --> 00:19:39,980 So as part of that we actually give our software away completely free for 247 00:19:40,380 --> 00:19:43,700 Team for or teams or organizations less than a hundred people 248 00:19:43,700 --> 00:19:46,140 So if you are one person if you're L Michael 249 00:19:46,540 --> 00:19:52,500 You can just use our software entirely online totally for free by yourself or with your team of up to a hundred people 250 00:19:52,500 --> 00:19:56,180 Not gonna be a hundred people at Samsung if you want it right like a billion dollar company 251 00:19:56,180 --> 00:20:00,340 So yes our clients tend to be big organizations because they find it most useful 252 00:20:00,700 --> 00:20:07,620 However, we intentionally give our software away to support innovation amongst smaller organizations or individuals. Why do you do that? 253 00:20:08,300 --> 00:20:14,780 Two reasons number one is what our mission is our mission very clearly is we want to support innovation around the world 254 00:20:15,100 --> 00:20:18,580 Right and if we really believe that and it's not just buzzwords or corporate hype 255 00:20:18,580 --> 00:20:22,860 You kind of got to be willing to support for people who can't afford that enterprise great software 256 00:20:23,140 --> 00:20:28,260 Right if we believe in what we do we have to be willing to kind of take that extra step number two 257 00:20:28,260 --> 00:20:29,940 Is it's obviously a good marketing avenue? 258 00:20:29,940 --> 00:20:34,780 Well, where eventually look your team may be 99 people today when your company becomes a thousand 259 00:20:34,780 --> 00:20:37,300 You know person company or five thousand billion dollar company 260 00:20:37,300 --> 00:20:43,180 We want you to remember that we were there for you when you were a small and to remember that we were there to support that 261 00:20:43,180 --> 00:20:45,820 Innovation that led to your success. We'd like you to come back to us then 262 00:20:45,820 --> 00:20:47,820 Got that 263 00:20:47,980 --> 00:20:49,980 Do you why not what? 264 00:20:50,580 --> 00:20:57,940 I'm looking at the present and we talked about a little bit before versus the past and let's talk about generational 265 00:21:00,780 --> 00:21:04,740 I guess generational spaces you're what are you are you millennial gen X? 266 00:21:06,740 --> 00:21:11,860 Born in the late 80s, I don't know which generation that makes so maybe millennial or something like that. Okay, well 267 00:21:11,860 --> 00:21:17,140 I'm a gen I think gen X maybe gen X or something 268 00:21:17,340 --> 00:21:22,020 So when we talk about no innovation and all these things that are changing 269 00:21:22,860 --> 00:21:26,580 Do you find where people are older people? 270 00:21:27,180 --> 00:21:30,300 That you may have come come in contact with that they're 271 00:21:31,980 --> 00:21:39,080 Afraid of the change or they have some hesitancy about the change or using idea scale 272 00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:45,440 Not I don't think about using ideas here. We've made our software kind of I like to use the word stupid simple to use if you can open up 273 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:49,880 Instagram or Facebook, right? You should be able to use our software because it's at the end of the day 274 00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:54,160 It's a it's a social network. We can post a fine, you know a video of your dog to Facebook 275 00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:57,280 You can use our software because basically works very similarly 276 00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:05,680 So we don't face a resistance to using our software based on how old someone is or which country they sit in because it's designed to be 277 00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:09,080 You know very social. That's what we focus very hard on 278 00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:18,000 Innovation as a general concept is sometimes more difficult for people who are you know more calcified in their ways or more habituated in their ways, right? 279 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,280 And that often comes with age. That's okay, right? 280 00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:26,840 Like, you know, my my parents who just who've retired over the last decade or so they're less interested in trying out 281 00:22:27,360 --> 00:22:31,320 You know the newest AI tool they my mom, you know, I introduce my mom to chat you tea in Gemini 282 00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:40,720 And she likes to chill use it a bit, but is she going to make it a part of her daily routine less so right then somebody who is 22 they are a more open to change 283 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:46,480 But be they I think a lot of you know, 22 year olds entering the workforce realize that if they don't adopt these AI tools 284 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:51,320 They're going to be you know, they're not going to be employed in 10 or 20 years because it's become such a core part of 285 00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:57,280 The skills that you need to be a productive member of the workforce these days. So going back to your question 286 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:04,880 It's our software doesn't meet resistance based on generational or race or gender or anything like that because it's actually designed to be super easy to use 287 00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,080 But the general notions of innovation are often 288 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:17,680 Sometimes innovation is easier with younger workforces, but that's not necessarily true. There's some, you know, there's a lot of companies that have, you know, 1560 year olds only that actually are reasonably innovative because they have that mentality and culture to succeed. 289 00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,080 How do you cultivate your workforces? 290 00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:28,080 How do you cultivate innovation within a within an organization? 291 00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:40,080 Sure, I think you there what I call the three legged stool of innovation. You need three things. Number one, you actually need people who want to innovate not in some ways as an eight character. Some people just want to show up nine to five and do the same thing over and over. 292 00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:48,080 Other people want to try new things. So you need that people have that spirit of innovation or experimentation. Number two, you need to create the right innovation. 293 00:23:48,080 --> 00:24:03,080 Number two, you need to create the right incentives to innovate. And a lot of organizations actually really suck at this because at many organizations, if you try something and fail, you get slapped or you get demoted or you get laughed at right. 294 00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:08,080 And if you try something and succeed, your boss, your company steals your idea and they make a billion dollars off of it. 295 00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:19,080 So that's called a perverse incentive where they're actually saying, don't try anything new because if you fail and f up, we're going to blame you. And if you succeed, we're going to take your idea. That's the exact opposite of what you want. 296 00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:34,080 So you want to create a positive incentive. And the third is right the right tools and technology, which is obviously where idea scale comes in, where if you if you let's imagine you've got the right people, you've been given the right incentives, and then you send them into a dark room by themselves and say, go innovate. 297 00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:43,080 That would be crazy, right? That would be like telling an athlete, go, you know, a world class runner, go run, but we're not going to give you a pair of shoes. So a lot of companies also, you know, struggle with this. 298 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:56,080 They've hired the right people. They've given a lot of thought to giving the right incentives. And then we say, and then they say, go be creative or go be innovative. That's often not a great thing to do because it's akin to letting telling our athlete go run without shoes. 299 00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,080 Yeah, that probably wouldn't work well. 300 00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:10,080 I mean, it can some athletes, you know, train barefooted but you know when they go out and run their races, right? I sometimes I'm a runner I'll sometimes run barefoot on the track just to stretch different muscles. 301 00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,080 But it's you know, it'll tear up my feet if I do that for too long. 302 00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:25,080 Yeah, so I'm a sprinter. I've sprinted, you know, for many years, not now, you know, older and a little more just more pain in different areas, right? 303 00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:46,080 But yeah, I see what you're saying. And is it crucial for like business leaders to especially in tech to really just have a solid understanding of innovation and where we're headed to in the future as far as AI and things like that. 304 00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:56,080 Sure. So I don't want to, I'm going to be careful and not speak for the entire technology industry because you know, there's very few leaders who have that capability to do that. 305 00:25:56,080 --> 00:26:04,080 What I will say for myself, I run a software company and I believe it is super important for me to stay abreast of all the innovations. 306 00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:21,080 So I spend 20, 30 hours every single month explicitly trying to learn new skills and new technologies that are out there. So last month or sorry, two months ago I took courses on prompt engineering so I could learn how to use chat team T and Gemini and these 307 00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:35,080 AI tools like a pro last month I personally built a couple of tools in code myself just to show like, hey, it works. This month I'm trying some commercial tools for AI selling for AI marketing. 308 00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:49,080 So it is really important. I would say it's really important for technology leaders to continue to learn about new technologies because there's always new technologies coming out that could either help your business or disrupt your business. 309 00:26:49,080 --> 00:27:00,080 So what's up Thriveau journey listeners and watchers. Look, if you're someone with big dreams of entrepreneurship, but need a flexible way to earn income while building your business. 310 00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:14,080 Let me tell you about the Orians group. 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If so, head over to www.theoriancegroup.com to learn more about becoming a CSP with the Orians group. 314 00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:12,080 Look here, support your entrepreneurial journey while supporting the Thriveau journey podcast at the same time. All right, one more time. www.theoriancegroup.com. 315 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:19,080 All right, we're doing the spot. Let's get back to the podcast. Yeah. 316 00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:28,080 There's, there's a lot of, you know, word, you know, just not a lot of stuff happening right. Right. 317 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:43,080 I just saw, it was a, not that I was looking for it, but I found it and I saw it. I was saw a commercial. That was a commercial or something with Kim Kardashian and she had this robot. 318 00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:50,080 And she was teaching this robot to do things and, you know, I think it was a little kiss or something like that. 319 00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:57,080 What role is that going to be playing in people's lives as we move forward? What do you think? 320 00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:09,080 So robot companions have been an idea for a long time. If you've ever read like Asimov's iRobot series where humans started inventing this, this is an old book series from the 1960s. 321 00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:10,080 Right. 322 00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:24,080 Robin Williams actually did a movie off it called Millennium Man and then a 2000s. We are now, you know, one of the first things once chat between things came out was people started inventing AI chatbots, AI, sorry, girlfriend, boyfriend chatbots for people because people are lonely. 323 00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:34,080 They wanted somebody who chats and empathizes with them. So what I would say is the genies out of the bottle. We are going to have social robots or social AIs as part of our lives. 324 00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:42,080 And those could be, you know, those could be our future boyfriends and girlfriends. They could be our nannies that are teaching our children. 325 00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:43,080 That sounds weird to me. 326 00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:55,080 I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I'm saying it's out of the, this is a real product. There are a hundred million dollar companies out there that make chatbots that are people that act as people's boyfriends or girlfriends or they're to, you know, you can use them as tutors. 327 00:29:55,080 --> 00:30:02,080 I used an AI recent to teach me how to do a weird function in databases that I was trying to deal with. 328 00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:14,080 So these AIs are increasing going to play a part, a social part in our lives. And that social part could be very extreme where, you know, somebody could go marry a robot in 20 or 30 years. 329 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:18,080 I don't know. I think it's very possible once we figure out the legal system for that. 330 00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:28,080 But in the more intermediate term, they're going to, they're already, you know, acting as people's surrogate boyfriends or girlfriends. They are acting as tutors and teachers and nannies. 331 00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:37,080 And once we give the, once we start putting AIs into robots, they could very easily be our, you know, if you've ever seen the Jetsons, the Jetson nanny, right? 332 00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:55,080 They could be our pets. There was, I was in Japan about six months ago and there was these little, very cute but dumb robot AI pets that a woman who was working with there, she'd bought this because she was allergic to dogs and cats, but she had this little cute robotic dog and pat, dog, sorry, dog pet. 333 00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,080 That was very kind of cool. 334 00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:13,080 It is cool. And I have nothing against it at all. I was actually talking to, I can't remember, but I was talking about the Jetsons at one point and I remember that it was an episode where, I forgot her name. 335 00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,080 Rosie, I think it was Rosie, was it? 336 00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:20,080 Not Rosie, not the, not the robot, but the wife of the Jetsons. 337 00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:21,080 Jane, I don't even know. 338 00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,080 George Jetson, his wife, Jane, is a Jane Jetson? 339 00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:27,080 Jane Jetson. And so he went to the song. I got it. 340 00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,080 Yeah, exactly. 341 00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:35,080 And she was actually like, the TV came down where she can actually talk like we're talking. 342 00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:46,080 She wasn't all made up. So she put a mask on so that it make her look like she was, you know, she was all ready to go. And, you know, the screen came down and now she's, you know, talking, you know, on that screen. 343 00:31:46,080 --> 00:32:01,080 But the point is that back then, I think it was maybe in the 90s or something, then we're now actually kind of living that life presently, such like as iRobot and, you know, there's a couple of different movies that I'm thinking about. 344 00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:14,080 I can't remember the name, where they had the girlfriend robot, you know, where there was just talking through some kind of telephone that they had the girlfriend and the boyfriend robot. 345 00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:25,080 And it's just like, you know, our imitating life life and telling you are imitating art. And that's just seems like this where we're going. 346 00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:35,080 It's very interesting to me that we're still, I mean, it seems like it's always is already out there. We're just now catching up to it. 347 00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:42,080 What would you, what would you say if there's a bad downside to it? What would you say that downside is? 348 00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:58,080 I think there's two downsides that are going that are going to happen in some ways unavoidable. Number one is we're taking, we're sorry, they're both, there's two special things that only human beings have been able to do for all of human, for all of human history. 349 00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:15,080 Number one, we've been the only ones to create meaningful relationship with each other, right? We have not, you know, no matter how much people love their, you know, their animals, it's never been quite the same as having a husband, a wife, a daughter, a parent, that relationship. 350 00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:32,080 That's number one. And number two is human beings have been the only thinking machines in history, right? You can have, you know, once upon a time we used to plow our own farms, and then we realized oxen could do it, and then we realized tractors could do it, and then we realized, you know, automated robotic tractors can do it, right? 351 00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:46,080 But it was still a human being making the decision or thinking. These two things were, so these two special roles that human beings have had, we alone have had emotions, or not emotions, we alone have had meaningful relationships with other humans. 352 00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:57,080 And number two, we've been the only, we've been the thinkers. Those were our two special superpowers as a species that no, you know, monkeys don't have that, rocks don't have it, oxen don't. 353 00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:06,080 Those two superpowers are no longer going to be special in the world of AI. So that's special place we've had in the universe is no longer going to be special. And that kind of results in a very 354 00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:18,080 philosophical or existential crisis for us. We're no longer special. And how will we deal with that as a species? I don't know, but it's something we're going to have to deal with in a really rough way over the next couple of decades. 355 00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:29,080 What kind of education you think humans should have when it comes to this, this new world that that's, you know, it's creeping up on us. 356 00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:38,080 I say three things that are changing versus traditional education systems. Number one, certain skills that were really valuable 10 or 20 years ago are totally useless like spelling. 357 00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:49,080 I spent, you know, and when I was in school, we learned how to spell and write prayer paragraphs. That's not super useful or even type, right? Like, if you ever remember Mavis beacon or those typing things so you could type 100 words a minute. 358 00:34:49,080 --> 00:35:00,080 That's not super useful because now you can talk to a robot at 150 words a minute, and it'll transcribe everything for you. So a lot of skills that we had learned historically spelling writing are going to be less valuable. 359 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:14,080 That's number one. Number two is certain other skills are going to be much more valuable such as understanding how to interact with these AI tools or with these robots understanding what they're good at and what they're bad at. 360 00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:26,080 Like, almost anybody can talk to chat chip T today, but the average person using chat chip T or Gemini or any of these LMS doesn't understand what the limitations of these tools are where they break down where they're wrong. 361 00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:32,080 What, you know, what the tech, what the engineers call the hallucinations of the LMS. 362 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:46,080 And number three is that probably new skills and so number. So the second was learning how to work with these AIs. And number three is there's probably going to be new skills that I can't even sit here imagining today that are going to be needed in 10 years. 363 00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:58,080 Like, if we just look back at the clock five years ago, no one thought that there was a skill, this magical skill called prompt engineering that would emerge. But now, if you want to work with an AI, you better be really good at prompt engineering. 364 00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:07,080 And that was a skill that didn't even exist five years ago, right? It would be like typing wasn't a skill 100 years ago. And, you know, by the 1990s, if you didn't know how to type, you couldn't work in an office. 365 00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:24,080 Yeah, it's true. And, you know, everything is changing. And I think it's just for someone like me who, you know, always like tech, but not, you know, super, you know, thorough and understanding what goes on behind it. 366 00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:39,080 And at this point, I imagine I just use it for people. What's your advice for people that are like me, that, you know, feel behind, need to catch up, know that all these stuff is all these things are changing. 367 00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:44,080 And really kind of just want to feel like we're, we're present to what's happening. 368 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:55,080 Sure. So firstly, the fact that you're feel that you're openly acknowledging that you are, you know, feeling like you're falling behind, that's the first step, right? Like the first step to a problem is recognizing that you have a problem or challenge. 369 00:36:55,080 --> 00:37:07,080 The second is the good news is you're nowhere near as far behind as you think because 99% of humanity is in the same boat. They use these tools without understanding what these tools are, why they work, right? 370 00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:19,080 And the third is because you're not particularly far behind, it's actually really easy to go learn about them. Like what I would recommend if you care about LMS is Coursera, which is online for university has a couple of great courses on LMS. 371 00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:31,080 And there's two or three that you that are really powerful. One is there's a, there's one on how the actual code works. If you are really interested in the math and the code, that's, it's called deep learning by Andrew Ang. 372 00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:44,080 If you don't care about how the code and engineering works, and you just want to know how you can better interact with it without knowing any of the math behind it. There's a course from Vanderbilt University offered on Coursera called prompt engineering. 373 00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:58,080 And it just tells you how do you better talk with the robot where where does they the robot breakdown without getting into any of the math. It's entirely it's a course that like a 10 year old could use, but personally made me like 10x better using it these AI tools. 374 00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:09,080 So I encourage you and the great thing is you can go learn it and let over a weekend like these courses are 10 hours long. So they're not, you know, college, they're not college level like, you know, 100 hours deep notes and things like that. 375 00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:14,080 Well, the Andrew Ang one is, but that's if you want to go learn the hardcore math. 376 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:18,080 Most people, most people probably would not, but it's okay. 377 00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:19,080 Right. 378 00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,080 I have my job right. You probably don't as part of your job. 379 00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:35,080 Yeah, but it's good to know that those things are out there because I mean, you just never know when those issues may come up where you need the education to, you know, further your mind and this new tech world. 380 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:45,080 One thing on that and the thing I would emphasize is all these this education that's out there is free right at 20 years ago you'd have to pay somebody a lot of money or go to a fancy university if you wanted to go learn about ML. 381 00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:55,080 There were maybe like 10 universities in the world and they were all super expensive today. You can go watch for YouTube video go to these free online universities and get access to that education for free. 382 00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:57,080 And that's incredibly empowered. 383 00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:04,080 That is that is what is the future for idea scale. 384 00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:09,080 Sure. So idea scale, I think is going through three transformations at the same time. 385 00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:17,080 Historically, we were very much like a one product North America focused company, three transformations that are happening are number one. 386 00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:31,080 About a year ago we started expanding globally we added people in Mexico, South Africa, Japan, Europe. And so we're trying to make our software much more accessible through people in the world we just won the national government of one of 387 00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:44,080 the world of Esquitini, right, which is a small country in Africa. So we're starting to really expand and have a global presence and make a global impact in how come countries even are innovating which is kind of cool. 388 00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:59,080 Number two, we're adding more products so historically, we were, you know, we had this, our core solution is an idea management solution or an idea social network, we're adding a whole bunch of other products that help people innovate so we recently launched and are about to 389 00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:06,080 create a whiteboarding solution. So you can do anything you can on a piece of paper except you can do it digitally. 390 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:20,080 As well as in about six weeks or so, we're launching this AI tool that basically takes all of your data and understands it for you. That's really cool it doesn't analyze it for you it understands it for you. 391 00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:30,080 We're launching this kind of these other products that will help our customers innovate faster more effectively and come up with better ideas and get those ideas done. 392 00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:45,080 And then thirdly, is we are trying to make a greater impact of the organizations we already serve we historically entered or worked with the innovation departments or R&D departments of many companies, but we realized, look, that's that's only a small part of 393 00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:50,080 innovation. Innovation doesn't just happen in the innovation department doesn't just happen in the R&D department. 394 00:40:50,080 --> 00:41:03,080 If you work on a factory floor, people are innovating how to make that factory floor more efficient or more safe or more clean. We want to be there and we want to make an impact there so we're also expanding into the areas of businesses and organizations we serve. 395 00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:18,080 That's a bright future. You guys have a lot of stuff happening and ideas scale and you're the CEO of ideas scale and I get to tell from you know this conversation that we had that you know you you always seem like you always have ideas and things. 396 00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:26,080 I should because that's that's that's you know, it's what we do if I didn't if I didn't live and breathe our valve of what we do then I'd be a pretty terrible CEO. 397 00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:39,080 And I was going to say that you are a great representative of your business and your company so you know, there it is you know when people look at you and talk to your listen to this podcast or see the podcast, you know, they get a great example of what the 398 00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:43,080 business is all about through who you are. 399 00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:58,080 And going, you know you've you've accomplished so much. And I know that you wrote down here that I know you like to play poker, right. So, if you could go back and play poker with your younger self. 400 00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:03,080 What advice would you give him. 401 00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:13,080 Okay, I would give two piece of advice. And I'm a pretty competitive poker player right I'm trying to make my way to be good enough to play the world series and actually you know have a shot at winning. 402 00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:19,080 So, I'm not good at, I'm not there yet I'm probably like five or 10 years. 403 00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:33,080 I'm actually going to be on that stage is one enough money where I like I consistently win right I could already go and pay for my own ticket there it's just like I'm going to go and lose I'll make it to day two or day three, but I'm going to get killed by the pros and I don't want to wait 404 00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,080 waste a lot of money. 405 00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:36,080 You can probably be something. 406 00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:53,080 I'm going to have a shot. So, I would say I would give two piece of advice on poker to my younger self. Number one, understand that a lot of poker players are don't actually understand how the game works. Most of them are a lot of people about 90% people are playing poker or just truly the gamble. 407 00:42:53,080 --> 00:43:06,080 They don't understand what good decisions are versus bad decisions. I incorrectly throughout most of my poker until actually last weekend, literally assumed that most people had this terrible assumption that people understood how the game worked. 408 00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:12,080 And turns out most people, they know what the hand rankings are they know that flush beats the straight but that's about it. 409 00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:32,080 And number two is understand the fear motivation so whenever people are gambling yes there's greed there's adrenaline, but there's fear. And one thing you have to do really well and in poker is understand how fear plays into the dynamics of the game. 410 00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:46,080 And one thing I you know I certainly am not even I'm not even great at that today, but I'm certainly better than I was at it like four or five years ago and so I would love to teach my younger self like how to understand and take advantage of fear as a mechanic of the game. 411 00:43:46,080 --> 00:44:00,080 Okay, you got a deep there for you ask me for I will if I've got five minutes with my younger self I've you know built a time machine travel back. I'm not going to waste his or my younger self's time with like, Hey, have this Wendy's Berger and said the McDonald's burger 412 00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:05,080 and I'm going to give him life advice that's going to help him. 413 00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:19,080 It was good I was leading to that. I mean that's good because you know a lot of people probably wouldn't think that, but being the person that you are, you know, that's a great conversation that you know you should have with your with your you could have with your younger self. 414 00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:43,080 Um, other conversations was really has been really great and you've shown me and really taught me some things throughout this conversation and one is you know, life is going to change right and there's ways that we can educate ourselves continually with the changing environment with you know, 415 00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:56,080 the innovation of who we are as people in our businesses and innovation of the business itself, and also with the whole tech world and how AI is changing and how it's changing our lives. 416 00:44:56,080 --> 00:45:11,080 And there's, you know, there's something to be said about you know, being educated, you know and not living in the past, but being the president and flowing into the future and being educated about all that. 417 00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:23,080 What advice as as your last words, what advice would you give someone just last words advice a story what would you say to someone. 418 00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:36,080 Two pieces of advice I'll give to number one go get some fresh air the world outside is awesome and it raises you know there's also the hormonal reasons for why fresh air and sunlight make it such a big difference to people's lives we spend way too much time inside. 419 00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:50,080 Number two is throughout your career whatever you do in life, you know, go in that and go just learn new skills right. It doesn't matter whether you're CEO whether you're a junior analyst whether you're a janitor whether you're a line worker to factory teacher go learn a new skill. 420 00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:58,080 It will make you smarter, make you happier and make you more proud of who you are so you being and that'll lend more meaning to your life. 421 00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:11,080 I love that. I love that. Nick, how does how does one get in touch with you from the from the business owners from once in 99 and 99 and 99 people and up. How do they get in touch with you. 422 00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:22,080 So two ways number one our website is ideas skill calm you can see the spelling behind me. If you want to use our software it's as I said it's completely free there's a get started free button at the top. 423 00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:32,080 Start it takes 30 seconds to sign up it's all online so no no downloads required, and you'll be up and running in like 15 to 20 seconds. It's pretty awesome. 424 00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:40,080 Number two if you want to get in touch with me personally the best way is through LinkedIn. My name is Nick Jane it's you know down at the bottom of the screen there. 425 00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:45,080 DM me I respond to 100% of messages on LinkedIn so feel free to DM me. 426 00:46:45,080 --> 00:47:01,080 Nick, I want to thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for your time. And you've been you've been amazing. And for all your listeners and watches, make sure that you connect with us on Facebook or Instagram at the thrive journey. 427 00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:16,080 As we always say, make thriving your new name normal. And I will see you on the next episode. Thank you. Thank you.