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tarhalindur · 4 years ago

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Higurashi Gou final thoughts pt. 1

(Spoilers go under a cut:)

Taking this by arc:

Onidamashi-hen: The best executed first cour arc by a significant margin. Probably not coincidentally, it stays the closest to the structure of the OG arc and thus keeps more of OG’s tension ratchet than the other Gou arcs. I have two main issues, and I’m pretty sure both of them can be firmly pinned on the anime staff rather than Ryukishi07 himself. First, it pulls its punch on the stealth sequel aspect. I’m not entirely sure that going for a stealth sequel was the correct decision (it’s a cost/benefit tradeoff), but if you do you’re going for the wham of the sequel reveal, and the anime undercut this by putting the Rika/Hanyuu scene at the start of episode 2 rather than the end of the arc. Second, it overdoes the final Rena fight, making it so over-the-top that it’s difficult to take seriously. Neither of these issues exist in the manga (which has a believable amount of stabbing and has the Hanyuu scene at the end of the arc where it should be), and in the former case we also have a Ryukishi07 interview indicating that this was a change requested by the anime staff, so this goes on them. (Interestingly, by way of contrast I think this approach might actually work well for the Mieruko-chan adaptation that Passione has coming out later this year.)

Watadamashi-hen: The core issue here (above and beyond fridge logic after Satokowaski-hen) is the finale, which landed like a wet fart. It both escalates from zero to 100 *way* too fast and has the worst case of “tell don’t show” in the neo-question arcs - we learn about every single dead body in the arc from Ooishi’s end-of-arc narration. That’s relatively defensible for three of those bodies, which we only learn about secondhand even in OG Watanagashi-hen (though IIRC in OG two of those bodies have foreshadowing from rumors earlier in the arc, and unless I’m forgetting something that’s absent here), but all five? Yes, keeping Keiichi locked away from the final showdown removes fridge logic issues, but you have prominent security cameras - you can at least have him see the aftermath of the showdown on the screens (and freak out because of it). Adding insult to injury, the Keiichi vs. door scenes are also so over-the-top as to damage willing suspension of disbelief. The 0-to-100 issue is harder to fix, because the one thing Watadamashi did right was put the Rika-loses-it scene as an end-of-episode cliffhanger, and “Keiichi et. al. are about to enter the Saiguden” probably wanted an end-of-episode cliffhanger as well for discussion purposes (it might have been able to get away with using the commercial break). The simplest fix is the same one @tsuisou-no-despair floated: cannibalize an episode off of another first cour arc.

Tataridamashi-hen: Amusingly, I think Gou has retained OG’s tradition of having the Tatari- question arc being the weakest question arc. As I see it there are two interlocking core issues here which boil down to the same issue. Tataridamashi-hen goes for a very unconventional method of building tension: it doesn’t, instead relying on the viewer’s realization that something bad has to be coming to do so for it (the old “that can’t be right, we’ve still got twenty minutes left in the episode” reaction I more commonly associate with things like police procedurals). The problem is that this runs into the Endless Eight lesson: even flawless metatext should not be used at the expense of enjoyability of the actual text. And while the arc got some leverage out of “when exactly is this going to diverge?”, there’s a point much like Endless Eight itself when you realize where it’s going to diverge (i.e, not until the end) and that until then you’re sitting through the same events you remember from OG. It works about as well as it did for Haruhi. (Unless you’re a new viewer, but in that case staying too close to Minagoroshi-hen has other issues.) Worse, unlike Minagoroshi-hen itself (which did something similar to build tension but a) non-source readers hadn’t seen it before so it wasn’t foregone the same way and b) you had several more episodes after the subarc for the main event) the arc ends almost immediately after this. (The simplest fix here might have been cutting down on the arc time by speedrunning Minagoroshi events, reducing the amount of time you’d have to wait. You could even have a couple of obstacles collapse faster than expected; this late in the first cour it would serve as foreshadowing for Satokowashi-hen, and would also deal with unfortunate implications concerning the village’s prejudice considering that the staff knew Satoko was going to be the culprit. Trimming an episode would also neatly solve the issue of where to get an additional episode for Watadamashi-hen from!) The good news is that the final confrontation is the best of the first cour arcs (it’s somewhat more realistic than the other two, actually not that far behind some of the more memetastic OG moments except for Teppei’s eyes, and not showing Ooishi’s rampage is forgivable given that they knew they would be actually showing it in Nekodamashi-hen), but that’s damning with faint praise.

Nekodamashi-hen: The best Gou arc. The episode 15 jump cut is the stuff of legends and the best scene in the show by a sizable margin (the one thing the director does well is black humor, it seems), while the rest of the arc isn’t as good, it’s far shorter on demerits than the rest of the show. The one really, really obvious demerit is that they really didn’t need to spend half an episode on the intestines-ripping scene (if Ryukishi07′s comments are to be believed, once again we’re pinning this on Passione), but effects on my stomach aside there are worse issues to have.

Satokowashi-hen: And here we have the other side of the coin; this is the worst Gou arc, and it’s the one spot where I’m pretty sure Ryukishi07 himself gets some of the blame. There’s a few issues here. First, the single most obvious dangling plot thread from Matsuribayashi-hen (Satoshi’s fate) is effectively dropped despite being directly relevant to the other dangling thread that was picked up (how Rika treats Satoko and vice versa); this includes missing an opportunity to show Satoko’s character arc through different responses to learning about Satoshi’s condition. Secondly and compounding, Shion is also dropped along with the Satoshi thread; AIUI this is kind of understandable given final Satoko/Shion interaction in the Matsuribayashi-hen VN (which IIRC never made it into the anime), but dropping her without explanation still leaves something that looks awfully like a plot hole since a single conversation with Shion is potentially enough to stop the events of this arc from ever happening. (”Character X had information that would have stopped the tragedy but never had an opportunity to tell anyone” is a classic tragedy trope, but you should really have a *reason* for that character never having the opportunity as opposed to just having them vanish without explanation.) Finally, there’s just the general issue that while the ending points for both Rika and Satoko are reasonable the path they take to get there just doesn’t quite add up. I can kind of get there via a combination of “blame the director” (the loops montage could and should have easily shown Satoko’s deteriorating mental condition as she watched - using interlaced cuts to her face with changes in facial expression is a classic method) and mind caulk (Rika was exaggerating for effect when she described her desire to go to St. Lucia’s as a long-time thing and it only really kicked in after Matsuribayashi-hen, Satoko originally only planned to suicide in Matsuribayashi-2 and only took Rika out with her as a crime of passion after feeling betrayed, hence the next few loops lacking her murdering Rika) but being mind-caulkable is not the same as actual good execution.

I mean, I’ve banged on this drum before, but... the basic concept works. Really well. Satoko’s abandonment issues and Rika’s treatment of Satoko are two of the major dangling plot threads from OG Higurashi (*eyes both Minagoroshi-hen and anime-only Yakusamashi-hen*). It makes perfectly good sense that the latter comes back to bite Rika, especially in a sequel literally titled “karma”. I already suspected Satoko was on the autism spectrum based on OG, her being ADHD in addition to or instead of that makes perfectly good sense given those conditions often overlap. Rika’s desire to escape the well morphing into a desire to escape Hinamizawa entirely? Sure, just present it as that. Satoko steadily losing her support network as her friends are torn away from her by changing life circumstances, then going to a boarding school that she hates, that strips the rest of her support structure for her and starts to take even her one remaining friend (her childhood friend, no less - and one that Satoko is at this point attracted to romantically in true osananajimi fashion) away from her, and then starting to snap with some prodding from a certain witch? That’s a compelling story idea! But as present it just doesn’t quite work, and that’s on the execution.

(Side note: I wonder if some of what went wrong with Gou was just the kind of production issues endemic to modern anime, amplified by the pandemic. I remember at least one comment/blog post somewhere in the wake of WEP’s issues noting some of the effects that production issues can have on an anime, and one of the things they noted was excessive slavishness to the source material as a time-saving measure; that sounds awfully similar to some of Ryukishi07′s comments about how he didn’t expect Passione to take his script quite so literally, and to my admittedly untrained eye it sure looked like there were a bunch more other animation studios than usual mentioned in Gou’s credits...)

Final score: depends on your exact rating system, but given the range I’m looking at I can’t see how I can give it any score other than 3.4/5 for obvious reasons. (Pending Sotsu, anyways. It’s possible that Sotsu will resolve some of these issues - in particular, Ryukishi07 always has struck me as the kind of author who would get a kick into baiting us into falling for the same twist twice; it’s not impossible that the apparent lack of unreliable narrators so far is a double bluff, and that could affect the “question arc” scores in particular. More on this in a forthcoming solution space post.)

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zakadeja · 4 years ago

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Spectrum Dev Blog #2 - 2/8/21

Hi! It’s been a while since I’ve last posted about my project, but here are a few model updates.

• I made the model use 3-4 textures instead of... so... so many. The head, body, tail, ears, claws, teeth, tongue and eyelash use the same 4k texture. I ended up making it 4k, or it pixellated the head - because I kind of suck at unwrapping things.

• Found some bad weight painting, fixed and resolved it. The base skeleton in the model should be perfect in combination with all of the new shapekeys.

• Made a handful of new shapekeys for testing purposes. Some may be scrapped, or improved upon as time goes on.

• Big change, stopped using NoesisGUI and went for Michsky’s Modern UI Pack instead because I couldn’t be asked to learn .wpf and I just wanted to get a preview ready for the public within my lifetime. Michsky provides amazing, personal support for all owners of his product. I really enjoy this asset!

• I’ve been doing tons of secret story/lore updates in the background in-between working in the game and art. It’s not polished enough for me to go public with it - the Wiki will probably be released alongside some bits of lore and characters.

• Updated the character Shader Graph to be less horrible, and made the base for all objects a ‘toon’ shader.

• The current implementation of a character creator is rough at best, but it works. A drag-and-drop layer system needs to be the final design.

• Worlds will now be generated with the help of Gaia Pro (AMAZING), and some new environment assets (not naming until finished) have added a crude, but charming basis for the game world’s environments.

• Water is controlled by CREST Ocean System URP, the sky and weather by Funly Sky Studio. Might end up writing my own in the future.

Current to-do’s:

☐ Script the shapes, manes, tufts and markings ‘manager.’

☐ Make more animations, such as social interactions and lipsync poses.

☐ Rig tufts for jiggle bone use. ( maybe during in-game test? )

☐ Either mesh eyes and animate their pupils using a shapekey, or texture eyes and figure out some parallax stuff.

☐ Randomize button

☐ Undo/redo history

☐ Biograpahy/details actually saves to a file

☐ Really simple ‘voice pack’ assets so that you don’t have to sound the same as everybody else.

☐ Titlescreen, login, options panel etc. will be made after I’ve gotten nearer to the end of the Character Creator’s design process.

Thanks for checking out this post! I’ll try to put out updates more often.

#game development #spectrumreturns #bluemarten #bluemartendev #animal #animal mmo #mmo #mmorpg #unity

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miishae-archived · 7 years ago

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Copied and pasted from an old rp blog of mine, that I feel is very important to read:

Question I was asked: ❝MAY I ASK SOMETHING ABOUT AUTISM AND THE COMMUNITY? I KNOW YOU CAN ONLY SPEAK FOR YOURSELF SO I WILL KEEP IT MORE CENTERED TI YOUR PERSONAL PREFERENCES AND WHAT YOU'VE SEEN TO BE A GENERAL CONSENSUS?❞

Not very many people are aware what Autism or even Autism Spectrum Disorder is. Honestly, I’ve seen a lot of people tend to think of it as “diaper wearing, drooling idiots”

I’m going to start off by talking about my own personality first, and why it should not be outright dismissed as being ‘oversensitive’.

I am on the spectrum disorder. I’m very high functioning, as in, I am able to live on my own, with a boyfriend. I’m able to work, I’m able to walk around in society without causing a disturbance. But just because I appear ‘normal’ doesn’t mean I am.

I’m very very awkward. I get emotional and burnt out really quickly, especially in social situations. I don’t like physical contact, and I don’t like people yapping at me constantly. This is sensory overload. I get tired and cranky, and a lot of times am seen as rude for this.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for how little people understand autism. I constantly have to point it out, because even my loved ones don’t understand me. I can talk to someone over and over about not touching me or shutting up for awhile and giving me some space, and they’d just ask me a lot of questions that really don’t need answering.

I don’t talk much, and it’s not because I’m shy or introverted. I was originally diagnosed with having Nonverbal Learning Disorder, and while I don’t know if that is an outdated diagnosis or not, it aptly describes my social skills still. Link

How it relates to me personally though: I suck at social cues. I suck at maintaining eye contact, I don’t read body language well, and I tend to be brutally honest to a fault. What I think is a reasonable and fair statement can come across as rude and offensive to someone else. It was not my intention to be rude, and since people would rather be offended and passive aggressive, I don’t know how else to word things and I’m sorry, but you need to work with me and not shut down on me. How else am I going to learn how to interact with you?

I’m also incredibly literal minded. I know on tumblr it seems like I’m sarcastic and witty, and I know I crack a lot of jokes, but you would not believe the amount of times I’ve had to go to someone off tumblr and ask “what did this person mean? I don’t understand.”

It’s literally because I don’t understand you. I don’t get a lot of metaphors or jokes, and everyone else will be laughing and I’m sitting over here like “I don’t get it?” and no one wants to explain the joke because “I mean, it’s obvious!” No, it isn’t. Not to me.

I also tend to get hung up on certain things for long periods of time. I hate change in my routine. I hate changing things up because honesty: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But as far as ‘obsessions’ go? Video games comes to mind. I could tell you all about the Borderlands series and how it’s a great game filled with fan-fucking-tastic characters and how it’s an entire world built on survival and it’s dystopian and cyberpunk and-

Or I could tell you when I was a kid and the LOTR moves first came out, I was obsessed with them. I launched into repeated lectures about how the behind-the-scenes worked, or how they did this camera trick, or why that scene was the best to film, and OH did you know Viggo Mortensen was not the original Aragorn? He was called in last minute and only came on because his son was a huge fan and pushed his dad into filming.

I know no one actually cares, but I still care. If you let me talk about something I care about, I will TALK.

This is just the personality side of autism. How ableism comes into play is very subtle. And everyone can be ableist. Friends and family who come to me asking to understand, only to say “okay cool” and forget about it ten minutes later.

I have friends who casually throw around the R-slur. I catch myself using it from time to time, and I’m desperately working to unlearn it. But that word is so heavily used by so many people, and it’s so insulting to hear it thrown around so casually. But worse than that are the people who actually use ‘autism’ as a slur.

“A guy complaining about being friendzoned? He’s autistic.”

“If you play Minecraft you’re autistic I don’t make the rules.”

First off, statements like these are annoying, because they lump a good majority of people into one category, and second off, it’s assumed that people who are autistic are drooling idiots.

There’s a reason it’s a fucking spectrum, okay? I know quite a few people who are on the spectrum, and I’ve heard of other people who are on the spectrum. Everyone has different levels of coping and living. I’m not my cousin, who does need help, because he can’t function on his own.

I’m probably worse off than someone who can hold a stable job and learn to drive and fully function, and I admit that I do need my hand held on some things.

It’s quite possible to unlearn your way of thinking. Quit throwing around slurs as insults. They’re insulting, and frankly, tired. If you want to insult someone, there are far more creative ways to do so.

But it’s not just insults that are the problem. It’s people not caring enough. It’s people who feel the need to speak over us. You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t find insulting. Frankly, I can’t stand blanket “these words are ableist” lists, because more often than not, they’re written by neurotypicals who are trying to appear Woke™, except that they argue with actual NDs who disagree with their assessment.

Also, and this is a BIG ONE FOR ME

DO NOT ASSUME EVERYONE WITH AUTISM IS A CHILD. I am so tired of seeing mental health awareness posts right here on fucking TUMBLR, of all places, with messages for children. I am 33 years old. I’m so far from a child or even a teenager, and I feel like putting my hair in pigtails and wearing little jumpers every time I see one of these super condescending PSAs about mental health awareness or autism awareness. Adults with autism exist, please quit excluding us in your misguided efforts to raise awareness.

I do agree that it’s not my job to educate you. You can ask questions, and I can answer, but I’m not your encyclopedia source. There are tons of helpful links and websites you can go to learn more about autism, spectrum disorder, and anything else that might be linked.

That being said, don’t go the opposite direction and completely ignore its existence. By ignoring it, you’re only contributing to the rampancy that ableism is. It’s very real and very damaging. It’s big things, like me being denied food stamps in my state because they didn’t believe I was disabled and I couldn’t get proof without them wanting to assign a counselor and them wanting to thrust me into the working world anyway (which was the whole reason I mentioned I was autistic, because I need fucking help?) and little things like “You’re too sensitive, just deal with it.”

Ask questions. Look up resources. Not just for autism, but for anything related to mental health or physical health. Ableism is rampant in able-bodied people too. My brother in law is in a wheelchair and faces quite a bit of ableism himself.

All this being said, please please watch how you talk/interact with people. Much like I need to learn social cues and how to interact with you, You guys need to understand that my personality isn’t going to change. This is literally who I am, and who I always will be, so you have to be patient. You have to recognize that I’m trying, and I’m not perfect.

And most importantly of all I guess, we’re not disabled. We’re different. We think differently, and we act a little off. But we’re not bad people. Not all of us, at least. (There are people who play up the “I’m-disabled-be-nice-to-me card” and they should be held accountable for their horrible actions)

Personally, I’m trying. I’m tired, and exhausted, and lonely. I have next to nobody to rely on, and I know I have a lifetime of learning how to behave better ahead of me, and I’m just tired. but I’m still hanging in there, in the best way I know how: by being me. If I can educate myself and learn about how ableism is a problem, so can you.

#autism #ableism #personal experiences #adults with autism #actually autistic

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portergreenuk · 6 years ago

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Why do we self sabotage and how to stop it

Whether it’s relationships, personal goals (like weight loss or exercise) or projects at work, self sabotage seems to be something that many of us are drawn to. I want to use today’s podcast to explore self sabotage – what it is, why do we self sabotage and most importantly, how to stop it.

What are self sabotaging behaviours?

So self sabotage is the thing that happens when you have a plan, and you have every intention of keeping to your plan, and you may have even told people that are following this plan, but for some reason you scupper your chances of success with your plan because you get in your own way at some point during the plan. You do the opposite of your plan, you get distracted by something that isn’t the plan, or the plan starts to freak you out and you stop following it.

Self sabotaging behaviours really do vary – they could include stopping yourself from doing the thing you said you’d do (procrastination – more on Procrastination-how to stop stopping yourself starting here), or maybe self-medicating with food or alcohol or drugs or something else addictive like TV or gaming or whatever, or even at the extreme end of the spectrum, self sabotage could actually involve self-harm. But today I’d like to focus more on why do we self sabotage and how to stop it.

The thing is that because self sabotage takes on a variety of forms, some low level like being open to being distracted and some much higher stakes like self harm, the reasons behind the self sabotage are often just as varied and complicated. But you need to understand why you’re doing it if you want to give yourself the best chance to learn how to stop self sabotage in its tracks. I’m going to talk about self-worth, fear of failure, fear of change, beliefs we were given as kids, the perils of dopamine and the value of support.

Why do we self sabotage and how to stop these self sabotaging behaviours?

Lack of self-worth and fear of failure

In a previous blog, I talked about imposter syndrome, which is the belief you aren’t worthy of your current role, status or opportunity and so you feel uneasy and anxious about that, to the point where you can start to feel like an imposter, which then limits your happiness and performance…so becoming self-fulfilling…self sabotaging. This is almost certainly linked to your sense of self-worth.

So the underlying reason why we self sabotage in this case is often that we don’t believe we are good enough and as a result we set ourselves up to fail because at least that way we don’t have to risk failure by trying to succeed and falling flat on our faces. So we choose to be the architects of our own failure or limitations rather than risk success and set ourselves up for even higher heights and bigger challenges where the chances of failure are even greater and where we’re even more sure that we’re in the end going to spotted as a fraud.

Wow, that is complicated. We’re really tying ourselves up in knots with the second guessing and starting-stopping behaviours there. So, how to stop self sabotage caused by this? In short, stop fearing failure by reframing it as a stepping stone to success or as part of success – failure is a great way to learn after all and it’s inevitable if you want to succeed.

There was this awesome advert with Michael Jordan in it, who was seen as the wold’s greatest sportsman at the time – check it out…if you search on Michael Jordan, Nike, failure, you’ll find it. Anyway to summarise, in it he says “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career, I’ve lost 300 games. I’ve missed the game-winning shot 26 times. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.”

But what about if we really don’t feel worthy of success, like we don’t deserve it, not because we feel like a fraud but because we don’t feel success is owed to us, because our life experiences have knocked our self confidence to the point that success doesn’t feel like it’s part of who we are. We are a failure and being a failure feels easier than trying to be something we don’t identify with: being successful.

That’s pretty big and runs pretty deep as a reason why we self sabotage and it will need some pretty full on soul searching. But by starting to believe that you are worthwhile, that you do make a contribution, that you can make a positive difference in your corner of the world. Then you may start to see some green shoots of self-worth that can help you to see success as something that is part of your story and identity and that you are worth it and that you are owed it.

Self sabotage and the fear of change

Another reason why we self sabotage is fear of change – us humans tend to like to keep things the same because that sense of familiarity and control makes us feel less psychologically anxious. But taken to extremes, that might mean that we rarely try anything new, rarely challenge or push ourselves out of our comfort zones because that might lead us to a place where we feel anxious and where we screw up, we might not be perfect, we might not ace it first time out. When right here in the comfort zone, everything is under control, as it should be, just right.

So again, our fear of failure may lead us to stick with the status quo and miss out on an opportunity to learn, to stretch and grow through experience even if failure may be a possible outcome when we set out on that journey.

Developing a growth rather than a fixed mindset can help with this, again so that we see growth through failure as a positive rather than something to avoid or be fearful of. Carol Dweck talks a lot about growth mindset, particularly in schools, and ways to develop it, so check her out.

Beliefs we were given as kids

And now we’re talking about schools and about kids, and indeed us as kids, there’s an awful lot that our parents have to answer for by leaking their own anxieties all over us and repeating phrases to us as we’re growing up, which can lead us to interact with the world in certain ways. Things we often hear when we’re growing up include “Hurry up”, “Be strong”, “Be perfect”, “Please others”, “Try hard” – these are described as DRIVERS of behaviour and are covered by a model called Transaction Analysis which is fascinating and also helpful.

If you heard any or all of these phrases repeated a lot when you were young, these scripts can seed beliefs and behaviours which it’s hard for you to shake off as an adult. The Be Perfect driver may well relate to self sabotage if we find ourselves fearing failure. Because it’s a lot easier to be perfect in areas we’re familiar with than in areas that we aren’t, so we may pull back from situations where we see failure as a risk and therefore not be perfect.

But if these phrases, these drivers are not helping us, then it may well be worth challenging them and deciding on new drivers that will help us.

The perils of dopamine

We should remember that a lot of self sabotage behaviours like food, drinking, drugs, gaming, app checking, all give us a dopamine hit which feels good, and is registered in the brain as pleasure. So self sabotage actually reinforces itself by giving our brains a pleasure response.

To stay on plan then, you need to remember to focus on the longer term gain rather than getting distracted by the shorter term hit.

The value of support

A word here on the importance of support in understanding why we self sabotage and stopping this behaviour – as with so much of what we experience as humans, making big changes in our lives is so much easier if you get supporters involved. So if you know that you have a tendency to procrastinate, or that you have a fear of failing at something, or that you feel a fraud, then talking about it to people who will listen and give a damn, and who will provide you with support and ideas on what to do about it, will really help.

Last, a word on strengths – at Strengthscope, we define strengths as those qualities that energise you and that you are great at or have the potential to become great at. So here’s the thing – you may know your strengths but will you use that knowledge to strive for excellence in areas that energise and excite you? Because if you really go for it in those areas, you risk failure, and failure in areas you are saying are most energising to you, that are strengths for you. But the upside is that you level up in those areas and in the contribution you can make, learning as you go. My advice though, do it with support, and go easy on yourself, celebrate the small steps along the way.

That’s it, don’t let self sabotage stop you from achieving all that you want in life. I hope I’ve given you some ideas on how to stop self sabotage.

Did you know this blog is also available as a podcast along with some other incredible content? Check it out on iTunes, Spotify, Acast.

The post Why do we self sabotage and how to stop it appeared first on Strengthscope.

source https://www.strengthscope.com/why-do-we-self-sabotage/ source https://strengthscopecom.tumblr.com/post/183741829264

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strengthscopecom · 6 years ago

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Why do we self sabotage and how to stop it

What are self sabotaging behaviours?

Why do we self sabotage and how to stop these self sabotaging behaviours?

Lack of self-worth and fear of failure

Self sabotage and the fear of change

Beliefs we were given as kids

But if these phrases, these drivers are not helping us, then it may well be worth challenging them and deciding on new drivers that will help us.

The perils of dopamine

To stay on plan then, you need to remember to focus on the longer term gain rather than getting distracted by the shorter term hit.

The value of support

That’s it, don’t let self sabotage stop you from achieving all that you want in life. I hope I’ve given you some ideas on how to stop self sabotage.

Did you know this blog is also available as a podcast along with some other incredible content? Check it out on iTunes, Spotify, Acast.

The post Why do we self sabotage and how to stop it appeared first on Strengthscope.

source https://www.strengthscope.com/why-do-we-self-sabotage/

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sirlennon · 7 years ago

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Meaning Of SEO In Digital Of india

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jessicakmatt · 8 years ago

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7 Simple Tips That Will Give Your Mixes Massive Width

7 Simple Tips That Will Give Your Mixes Massive Width: via LANDR Blog

Let’s face it, most mixes don’t jump out of the speaker. They need stereo widening.

Without a strong stereo image, your mix will struggle to achieve the expansive and immersive qualities that mixing and mastering strive for. The qualities that transport your listener out of their seat and INTO your music.

Learning how expand the dimensions of your stereo image and take it from 2D to 3D, is the only way to get that kind of mix.

In fact, your stereo image is so important we even named our company after it: L and R, LANDR… Get it?

Anyways, back to your mix!

So how do you add that extra dimension that takes your mix from 2D to 3D?

In this guide you’ll learn how to expand your mixes and build the acoustic space that makes good tracks great (and professional). So use these 7 tips and go wide with your mix!

But before we start, a few basics…

What is stereo image?

Stereo image is the perceived spatial locations of sound sources within an audio signal.

For example: When you’re listening to an amazing piece of music that paints a crystal clear picture of which instruments are playing and where they are in relation to you: that’s good stereo image.

Just like the real 3D world, your stereo image has three dimensions:

Height

The height of your mix refers to how high your mix sounds. Height is achieved with the proper use of levels and EQs.

Width

Width is how your sounds move from one side of the mix (or speakers) to the other. Width is achievable in many ways (more on this below), but one of the most important keys for width is panning.

Depth

The depth of your mix depends on how you use time-based effects like reverb and delay to create a deep or shallow image.

I know this article is about width. But you need to consider all the dimensions to create the widest possible stereo image. You can’t think about one dimension without considering the others as well—they all interact to create the total stereo image.

A massive stereo image is also dependent on good stereo mic’ing techniques. But that’s a big topic for another day. This article will focus on stereo image techniques during the mixing stage—specifically for getting that massive, extra-wide sound.

In this article, you’ll learn 7 quick and easy Tips that will widen your stereo images and bust your mixes outta’ the box.

1. Start your mix in mono

It might seem counterintuitive but mixing in mono is an excellent place to start for getting a wider mix.

One of the biggest challenges for wide stereo images is frequency balance issues.

Your mix needs balance across the frequency range. Otherwise the mix will sound hollow, muddy, and cause listening fatigue.

Frequency imbalances are extra problematic because they can create masking. Masking is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that causes louder sounds to hide (or mask) quieter ones in the same frequency range. It’s one of the most important concepts in mixing. You never want masking!

Listening in mono will give you access to the most upfront version of your mix, where frequency balance and levels issues are easiest to hear and fix.

Once your mix sounds good in mono—before you add any panning, reverb, or delays—It’ll be way easier to make it shine later on in stereo because the big picture of your mix is already rock solid.

Now it’s time to draw in the details!

2. EQ your “Presence Zone”

The “presence zone” is found in the frequency range of 2.5-5 kHz.

2.5-5 kHz is the frequency range the human ear is most sensitive to. It’s what your listeners pick up on first and remember best. Any sounds within that range will be more easily heard by your ears, and sound closer to you.

Making room in the presence zone for lead vocals is a classic choice. But whatever element of your mix you want front and center should occupy the presence zone. Use your precious presence zone to hook your listener to the best and boldest parts of your mix.

But be careful! When a mix has too much going on in the presence zone, you stereo image will get narrow and instruments will feel too close and crowded. For a wide mix always avoid overdoing the presence zone!

Keep an EQ with a spectrum analyzer (like TDR NOVA seen above) on your master channel. Check it regularly to see if you have too much information in that range. If you’re hearing too much in the presence zone, you’re not done EQing yet. Head back to your bands and make adjustments!

By EQing your mix (in mono first, but again and again throughout the mixing process) you’ll give each instrument the space to shine and expand your stereo image into that beautiful wide space your ear loves.

But remember, width always starts with a clean presence zone—start there and work around it.

Hot Tip: For more info on EQing your mix read our full EQ guide.

3. Use your reverbs for multi-dimensional sound

Reverb is a classic mixing tool for adding width, but also that all-important third dimension to your mix: depth.

By adding depth to your stereo image, you’re also expanding the stereo image as a whole. Reverb will give you more room for every sound to breathe and settle into the mix.

Reverb is a classic mixing tool for adding width, but also that all-important third dimension to your mix: depth.

There are many different ways to use reverb and add space to your mix, but any reverb technique will add some degree of depth and spaciousness to your mix.

There are many types of reverb. Each is capable of adding a distinct vibe and depth to your mix.

Choosing the perfect type of reverb to give that extra oomph without drastically changing your audio’s character will take some practice. But when it comes to width, Hall reverb is a good place to start.

Don’t stop there though… all types of reverb can do wonders for adding three-dimensionality depending on your mix and production style.

When it comes to width, Hall reverb is a good place to start.

Hot Tip: Using reverb with a short decay time will add a subtler reverb effect. It’s great for when you want to add width and depth without changing the overall character of a sound.

4. Pan for ultimate width

Panning is the most crucial step for getting a wide stereo image.

Panning lets you place individual instruments, or even certain frequencies of instruments, in a particular spot within your stereo image—and go as wide as you wanna.

Always make your panning decisions based on your entire mix. There’s a few different approaches to panning, but no matter how you use them, they’re key to getting a wider mix.

Panning is the most crucial step for getting a wide stereo image.

Here are some quick tips and rules for getting your panning pristine and achieving width in the mix:

Keep your low end in the middle

Don’t pan your lower frequencies. Low frequencies are the heart of a groove and drive your rhythm, so keep them straight down the middle.

Low frequencies are the heart of a groove and drive your rhythm, so keep them straight down the middle.

Keep your L and R balanced

Our brains naturally want to center stereo images, so keep the L and R channels balanced to avoid confusion in the phantom center.

Keep the L and R channels balanced to avoid confusion in the phantom center.

Pay close attention to the “presence zone” frequencies I discussed above.

Always pan with your ears, not your eyes. Don’t look at the knobs!

Always pan with your ears, not your eyes.

The only thing that really matters is how it sounds. When panning, close your eyes and listen until you hear that perfect sweet spot.

Even if the volumes of your L and R channels are balanced, if one side has more sound competing for the presence zone this can cause the stereo image to sound off balance.

Keep your lead vocals in the center

Keep your lead vocals to the center as well unless you have good reason to do otherwise. You want that lead vocal front and center to really let it shine.

5. Double track to widen your image

Double tracking is a classic and effective technique for getting a massive stereo image.

It’s simple: take two similar (but slightly different) recordings of a piece of audio, place them on separate tracks, and pan them hard left and right. It will thicken the sound of both, while also making your mix sound larger and expansive.

Hot Tip: The two channels don’t have to be recorded separately: create distinction between them by EQing them differently or adding different effects to each channel.

6. Use Microshifting to expand your space

Microshifting is a clever technique for creating juicy stereo images that allow your channels to sound larger than life and extra wide.

Here’s how it’s done:

Take one stereo track, pan it center and keep it there. Next, duplicate that track twice (so you now have three versions) and patch a pitch shifting plugin inline on both copies.

Now, use the pitch shifter to pitch one copy down a few cents (5-10 cents is common) and pitch the other copy up the same amount of cents. Next, pan one copy hard left and the other hard right. That’s microshifting.

Listen to the three tracks back in stereo and revel in your clever trick and newly widened stereo image.

7. Use delay to create the Haas Effect

The Haas Effect is a technique that uses delay to create wider stereo images. It’s excellent for creating width without changing any of the timbral qualities of your audio signal.

Take a track and create a copy, then sidechain patch a delay audio effect onto that copy.

Next, add up to 30ms of delay onto that copy but no more.

Pan the original track hard left and the copy hard right. This creates the perception of a single, wide stereo track. Your ear won’t perceive the effect as delay, but rather as spaciousness.

Pretty neat, huh?

The Haas Effect is a technique that uses delay to create wider stereo images. It’s excellent for creating width without changing any of the timbral qualities of your audio signal.

There’s a catch though: The Haas Effect creates phasing issues, causing your tracks to cancel each other out (and drastically lower their volume) when summed to mono.

To fix it, create a mono version of the track and keep it panned center. This way, when summed to mono, the track will still have juice.

Summing it up

Stereo widening is key to taking your mix to the professional level and impressing listeners with your soaring sound.

It’s also vital to ensure that every track sits well in your mix and maximizes its potential to shine.

Remember: Mastering will bring out the best qualities of your mix. That includes width too. So always master when you’re done to maximize on your stereo widening efforts.

Use these simple techniques with the tools you already have in your arsenal, and transform a strong mix into a journey into an expansive universe that surrounds your listener in sonic bliss!

The post 7 Simple Tips That Will Give Your Mixes Massive Width appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog https://blog.landr.com/stereo-widening/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/167345651779

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shapesnnsizes · 8 years ago

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RHR: A Three-Step Plan to Fix Conventional Healthcare

In this episode we discuss:

The patient case that inspired the book

Who is this book for?

The mismatch between our medical paradigm and chronic disease

Drug companies and conflicts of interest

How clinicians can help create a new paradigm

The three core problems and how to solve them

What this new paradigm looks like

How do we pay for this? Is it scalable?

How allied providers are the key

Show notes:

Unconventional Medicine by Chris Kresser

Special offer for RHR podcast listeners - get the audiobook free if you buy the book by November 12th.

NaturalForce.com - use coupon “unconventional” and get $10 plus free shipping

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Chris Kresser: Hey, everybody, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. Today we’re going to do something a little different. I am bringing on a guest host, Tony Federico, he’s the VP of marketing for Natural Force Nutrition, a physiology editor for the Journal of Evolution and Health, and a longtime contributor to Paleo Magazine, and also at Paleo f(x), which is where I met Tony, I think, originally, and I have interacted with him the most. And he’s moderated several panels that I’ve been on and I’ve always been impressed with the way he’s done that, the intelligent questions that he asks and just his balanced perspective on ancestral health and Functional Medicine, and this movement overall. Today is the day that my new book, Unconventional Medicine, comes out. It’s now available on Amazon, and I wanted to ask Tony to come take over the podcast and talk with me about the book because I know he’s really interested in all these topics and he’s read quite a bit of the book himself, and I thought it would be more interesting to have a conversation about it than for me to just sit here and do a monologue. So Tony welcome to the show and thanks for being here. Tony Federico: Yeah, thanks for inviting me on, Chris. It’s always fun, when we’ve had the chance to chat, as you said. Whether in person or on podcast, I’m always happy to jump in and dish on health with you. Chris: Fantastic. So, you have read a little bit of the book and we chatted a little bit about it via email, so let’s dive in. Let’s talk a little bit about this book. And for me it was really, it felt like the most important next step that I could take in order to get this message out about ending chronic disease. Tony: Yeah, I got my copy of Unconventional Medicine a couple days ago. I just so happened to have some time off yesterday, and the next thing I knew I was 80 pages in. Chris: Nice. Tony: So, I have to say that, as somebody who’s been in the trenches, I worked as a personal trainer for 10 years, I could really relate to a lot of the things that you were saying in the book, and we’ll get into why a little bit later on in the interview. But you know I just am really impressed with what you put together here, Chris. So let's just, let's get into it, and the first thing that I actually wanted you to maybe tell me a little bit about was how you open the book, which I think is a really great story about a patient named Leo. So I wanted to talk a little bit about Leo and his story and kind of how that inspired you to go down this particular path of unconventional medicine.

The patient case that inspired the book

Chris: Sure, yeah. So, Leo was an eight-year-old boy that I treated in my clinic a few years back, and I wanted to start with his story because it's, unfortunately, a typical story, much more common than, of course, we would like. And it was powerful for me, it was a powerful experience. It's what actually led to me writing this book. So, like way too many other kids of his age, he was suffering from a number of behavioral issues. He was initially diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Eventually they settled on OCD and sensory processing disorder. He would throw these just crazy tantrums where he'd end up crying or screaming inconsolably, writhing on the floor, and this would happen for seemingly the simplest of reasons. Like trying to get his shoes tied as they were going out the door, not cutting the crust off his sandwich in just the right way or getting a stain on his favorite T-shirt. And he was really rigid around his behavior and its environment, everything had to be just right, just the way he wanted it to be, or else he would fly off the handle.

Is a new healthcare paradigm affordable? Scalable? You bet.

His diet was extremely limited, he only ate a handful of foods, pretty much all of which were processed and refined. So crackers, bread, toaster waffles, that sort of thing, and this is part of the kind of OCD-like tendencies. And any time his parents would try to introduce new food, he would go totally ballistic. And they were worried about nutrient deficiency, but they didn't feel like they ... they were just worn down. Any parent who has a kid like this will understand that. It's just they didn’t feel like they had the resources to battle him at every meal. And they took him to a bunch of doctors locally, and that’s where they got those diagnoses. Initially they were kind of relieved to have those, but then after a while they realized that they were just simply labels for symptoms. And when they asked what the treatment was, you can probably guess the answer: medication. Tony: Something to do with drugs. Chris: Something to do with drugs. Yeah. And when they asked how long he would be on that treatment, you can probably also guess the answer. Tony: The rest of your life. Chris: Yeah. Shrug of the shoulders, indefinitely, maybe he'll grow out of it, that sort of thing. And they weren't excited about the idea of of medicating their son, but they were also aware of how much he was suffering, and they were suffering, frankly, too. They decided to give them a try, starting with Adderall, and then they progressed to Ritalin and then antidepressants. And certainly the drugs did seem to help with at least some of the symptoms, but there were a couple issues. Number one, they also caused some very intractable side effects like headache, abdominal pain, irritability, and most significantly, severe sleep disruption. And they had a couple of other kids that were younger than Leo. So they were not happy about the sleep disruption. Nobody was because it was brutal for them and also brutal for Leo. Kids need a lot of sleep, and if they’re waking up throughout the night, that’s going to make ... So that was in some ways worse than the original symptoms they were trying to treat. And then Leo's mom had done quite a bit of research on the effects of these medications and she was scared. Particularly for children and adolescents, some of these drugs have some pretty scary side effects and long-term risks. So what really stood out to me, and I mentioned this in the book, is that not once during this entire process of seeing all these different doctors, primary care provider, psychiatrist, eventually behavioral disorder specialists, did anybody even hint at the possibility that something in Leo's diet or some other underlying issue like a gut problem or nutrient deficiency or heavy metal toxicity or something like that could be contributing to his symptoms. It wasn't even broached as a possibility at any time. Fortunately, Leo's mom, one of her friends followed my work and sent her a couple of articles from my blog. One was on the gut–brain–axis, and I think the other one was on the underlying root causes of behavioral disorders. And so that's what led them to bring Leo to see me, and long story short, we were able to ... we did a bunch of testing, found issues that you might guess at. So, disrupted gut microbiome, SIBO, fungal overgrowth, gluten intolerance, but also intolerance of soy and corn and rice and buckwheat, which were major ingredients in a lot of the processed and refined food products that he ate, and arsenic toxicity because rice milk was the only other beverage he would drink aside from water. And we know that rice products can be high in arsenic. So, we, over several months, it definitely wasn't easy to address these problems because of his OCD-like tendencies and his picky eating habits. But after several months he was like a different kid. His teacher even called home and was like, “What have you done with Leo and who’s this kid that you’re sending in?” Because it was a big issue for her. They often had to come to school and pick him up early because of the behavioral problems. And his diet expanded; he was eating foods he would've thrown against the wall just months before, he was more tolerant of disorder, more relaxed in his environment. They were able to travel for the first time in a long time because he wasn't so anxious in unfamiliar environments. His physical symptoms had improved significantly. So they were just over the moon. They couldn't believe it, and toward the end of our treatment together, she said something that really struck me, which was there’s so many kids out there that are like Leo and they’re suffering, they’re not finding help in the conventional system. Tony: Sure. Chris: And their doctors and parents are not even thinking about this stuff. Like it’s not even in most people’s consciousness that if a kid has a behavioral disorder that you should look at these physiological issues. It’s not, for 99 percent of people they don't even go there because they don't know. Tony: Yeah, I mean I think that that was—reading about Leo and reading about a story and certainly there's people that I've known, myself included, who have had very similar experiences—I think it's great to have a narrative like this that you can really connect to because then when you tease it apart, all the pieces really make sense. It makes sense why having doctors treat symptoms has failed, it makes sense why a lack of communication between the health provider network that was supposed to be serving Leo failed. It makes sense why it didn't work when you actually start to tease it out. But then we’re still all, well not all, but most of us are still going down this path and it's an exercise in futility, really. You have an eight-year-old kid who's on powerful stimulant medications, he’s on antidepressants, and it was bad enough for his parents to reach out and to seek those interventions as solutions, and then the side effects are even worse. And that’s just something that just gets you right in the heart. And like you said, he’s not the only one, he’s not the only kid. His parents are not the only parents. And frankly, his doctors are not the only doctors because I can guarantee you that that probably doesn’t really feel good for the practitioner, for the healthcare provider to not get results as well. And they’re working with what they’ve got. Chris: Absolutely. Tony: And trying to use the tools they have. Chris: Yeah, I mean, let’s be clear about this. Everybody is doing the best they can in this situation. The parents are doing the best they can, in the vast majority of situations, parents just love their kids and do everything possible that they can to help their kids thrive. I’m a parent, I know that that’s how I relate to my kid. I know that every parent I know, that’s how they relate to their kids. And I would even, I would say that’s true for doctors too. The vast majority of them are trying to do the best they can with the tools that they have and in the system that they’re working within. And that’s the rub. Tony: Right. Chris: It’s like most doctors I’ve seen have been caring and they’ve wanted to do the right thing, but the question is, can they do the right thing in the conventional medical system as it exists today? And, of course, that’s largely what the book is about.

Who is this book for?

Tony: Yeah, so let’s kind of speak to that specifically. And we’re talking about doctors, we’re talking about medical professionals, we’re talking about patients, and then we didn’t mention it, but where I fit into this formula or potential formula as an allied healthcare provider, as a personal trainer/health coach, is that your audience for this book, do you really see that kind of triad is who you're speaking to here? Chris: Yeah, definitely. I think if you look at the cover of the book, the subtitle is “join the revolution to reverse chronic disease, reinvent healthcare, and create a practice you love.” So that last bit would suggest that it's mostly for practitioners, but that's not true. It is really for anybody that is interested in the ideas of reinventing healthcare and reversing chronic disease. And, in fact, I would argue that that change is going to be initiated by people, primarily by people that are not practitioners. So it's like a grassroots, bottom-up approach, where a good example is with my training program, my ADAPT training program, now that we've been training practitioners in this approach for the last couple years, we always ask people how they learned about my work or how they learned about the training program. And in a surprising number of cases, the answer is from their patients. So these doctors or other practitioners, their patient brings an article in that I wrote or brings something in, tells them about me, and to their credit they’re open-minded enough to go and check it out. And then they like what they see and they end up taking the next step. So people even who have no intention of ever becoming a healthcare practitioner, I think would really benefit from this book if they're interested in these ideas. And then certainly, as you mentioned, licensed healthcare providers like medical doctors or nurse practitioners or physician assistants that are currently working within the conventional paradigm but have already seen its limitations and want to do something different but don't yet know what that might look like. And then people who are outside of the conventional paradigm but are already practitioners, so acupuncturists, chiropractors, naturopathic physicians, etc., in many cases they’re already well aware of the limitations of conventional medicine, which is why they chose to go down a different path. But speaking personally as an acupuncturist myself, I also saw some limitations in the traditional Chinese medicine approach, or at least some differences in the way that I wanted to practice it. I was looking for something that could incorporate modern diagnostic testing and create a more systematic approach that included ancestral diet and lifestyle and some of the other things we talk about in the book. So, I think many of those practitioners can benefit from the book from that perspective. And then you have the growing and already large number of people like yourself who are personal trainers, health coaches, nutritionists, etc., who I really think are going to play an increasingly important role in this revolution to reinvent healthcare. Tony: Yeah, it so important now for people to really, for patients to be their own advocate, and I don't think we’re living in a time where I remember with my grandparents—if your doctor said something, it was basically gospel and you didn’t question it and you didn't think about it. Now, the first thing people do when they experience a symptom, it's Dr. Google first. So it's super important to equip and arm patients with good information, which I think this book does. Here's a path, here's a path forward for you as a patient. But then it's respectful of the role of doctors, and you highlight many situations where conventional medicine is great. If you break your arm or get in a car accident or have a heart attack or whatever the case may be, yeah, you need a doctor, and you need to go to an emergency room and you need those types of interventions. But it's really in this kind of gray area, it’s really not gray, it’s actually quite clear. And we could probably specify a little bit more, but there’s this middle zone where somebody’s not acutely injured, they’re not acutely in a disease state. They’re in a chronic disease state, or they’re just unwell. And it’s hard for a system that is all about pharmacological interventions, surgical interventions, to deal with a more subtle approach. And that’s where that whole middle ground and acupuncturists and massage therapists and everybody who's in that middle zone. I had clients constantly when I was actively training, constantly asking me questions where I was like, you know what? This is really something they maybe should be taking to their doctor. But guess what? The doctor only has 15 minutes under pressure to see as many patients as they can. I had a friend who was a physician in France. And he was telling me about their medical model, and he would spend tons of time with his patients. And it was actually incentivized for prevention. And here we see some maybe misplaced incentives, and perhaps you can speak a little bit more about that.

The mismatch between our medical paradigm and chronic disease

Chris: Yeah, so, going back to your original comments, I think that the most important thing for people to understand is that our medical model, when it comes to our medical paradigm, is that it evolved during a time when acute problems were the biggest issues. So in 1900, the top three causes of death were all infectious diseases, tuberculosis, typhoid, and pneumonia. And the other reasons people would see the doctor were among those you mentioned, like a broken bone or a gallbladder attack or appendicitis. Tony: War. Chris: Right, injuries, trauma, etc. And so the treatment for that's pretty straightforward. It wasn't always successful, of course, but it was straightforward. You know, if the bone was broken, you set it in a cast. If the gallbladder was swelling, you would take it out. If someone was having appendicitis, you’d remove the appendix. So that's pretty ... it's one problem, one doctor, one treatment. Pretty straightforward. But you fast-forward to today, it's a totally different healthcare landscape. Seven of the top 10 causes of death are chronic disease rather than acute problems now, and 86 percent of the healthcare dollars we spend go toward treating chronic disease. And unlike acute problems, chronic diseases are expensive, difficult to manage and usually last for a lifetime. They don't lend themselves to that one doctor, one problem, one treatment kind of approach. The average chronic disease patient requires multiple doctors, usually one for every different part of the body in our system, and is taking ... Tony: Specialists. Chris: Right, specialists, they’re taking multiple medications in many cases, and they're going to be taking those medications for the rest of their life. So far, it's really, our conventional medical system is amazing for these acute problems. But it's the wrong tool for the job for chronic problems. So that's one issue, and it’s really important to point that out, because we just went through the whole healthcare debate again with the Affordable Care Act and the current administration’s proposal for a replacement, which has not come to fruition. But throughout that entire discussion, it really bothered me that there was an elephant in the room. All the discussion was around insurance. Like, who gets insurance and who doesn’t. And that’s important, it’s important to talk about that. But we have to recognize that health insurance is not the same thing as healthcare. Tony: Yeah. Chris: Health insurance is a method of paying for healthcare. And that’s really crucial to get that difference. Because my argument in the book is that there is no method of paying for healthcare, whether it’s the government, corporations, or individuals, that will be adequate and will be sustainable under the pressure of growing prevalence of chronic disease. It will bankrupt all of us. Government, the corporations, individuals, whoever is responsible for paying for the care will not be able to do it unless we can actually prevent and reverse chronic disease instead of just slapping Band-Aids on it. Tony: I think the analogy you gave in the book was rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “Making a few small tweaks to our current system and expecting that to work is like rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic as it inexorably sinks into the ocean. Too little, too late.” Chris: Yeah, exactly. That’s the argument about insurance. As the whole ship goes under, sinks under. The other problems you mentioned are very real also. So we have a misalignment of incentives, like the insurance industry, for example, doesn't benefit when the cost of care shrinks because they only make more money when the overall expenditures rise. So it's actually not in their best interest necessarily to seek out the most cost-effective solutions.

Drug companies and conflicts of interest

Chris: And then of course, we have drug companies. People are pretty well aware of the conflicts of interest there. It’s in their interest to sell drugs, and even when that’s not in the interests of the general public or the patients or the doctors. In many cases, it’s not in their interest either. So the best example of this is a recent one. We’re in the midst of an opioid crisis, the worst we’ve ever seen by far, and the DEA has been wanting to create new regulations that restrict a pharmacy’s ability to sell opioids in ways that will protect people. So, for example, there was a pharmacy in West Virginia in a town that was tiny. It had like 30,000 people in this town, and they had ordered something like nine million opioid pills in the last year. It was clearly a front, like there’s clearly something shady going on there. There's no way that 30,000 people in that town needed nine million opioid pills, and yet there are no regulations to actually prevent that from happening. And so, the DEA had proposed some regulations to just safely protect people from that kind of thing. And the Big Pharma lobby basically shut that down and they played a big role in writing a law that limits the DEA's ability to do that kind of regulation in the midst of the worse opioid crisis ever. And to put this in perspective, we hear a lot about the gun lobbies and their control. They spend about $10.5 million lobbying Congress, I think, per year. And Big Pharma, they spent $250 million. Tony: Wow. Chris: Twenty-five-fold higher. Tony: It's really tragic. I actually, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, but I grew up in South Florida, which was kind of ground zero for the opioid epidemic. And I remember in high school down in Miami and West Palm Beach, and kids would get a hold of a contact or whatever, somebody that had a prescription and basically would end up being a de facto drug dealer vis-à-vis a pill mill, etc. The kid across the street from me died, multiple kids in my high school died, multiple kids went into in-treatment programs, some of them battled addictions for decades. Some of them got out of it. Very few got out of it. Some of them didn't and have continued to be plagued with either switching from pharmaceuticals to street drugs like heroin, etc., and then we can see what's happening there. And that's just one example. If we look at drug consumption in the United States, is it that Americans are just that much sicker and we’re in that much more pain than people in other countries? Because we’re consuming far and away more painkillers than any other country on the planet. And I would venture to guess that you could say the same about antidepressants or ADD medication. It's very much a case of misaligned incentives. And incentives are working in the sense of the pharmaceutical companies are doing very well. Chris: Yeah. Who are they working for is the question. Tony: Exactly. Chris: We’re the only country aside from New Zealand that allows direct-to-consumer drug advertising, and I think that's a big part of the problem. But it's not just Big Pharma. We also have conflicts in medical research that, of course, are related to Big Pharma because they pay for two-thirds of all medical research. We have broken payment models, where there's no real incentive or reward for good performance, and in fact, you could argue it's the other way around because doctors are compensated for, usually based on the number of procedures they order and the number of patients they see. So to your point about the doctor in France who is actually incentivized to prevent, rather than just treat disease, we don't have that at all, it's the opposite. And so there are a lot of deeply entrenched issues that we certainly need to address, and that's not essentially what this book is about. There are other books that cover that material really well, and frankly many of those issues are outside of our individual control as clinicians or practitioners.

How clinicians can help create a new paradigm

Chris: We can work toward addressing them, and I think we should, but the good news is that I think that the bigger changes that we need to focus on individually and collectively are addressing the medical paradigm which we’ve talked about, creating a medical paradigm that’s better suited to tackle chronic disease. Addressing the mismatch between our modern diet and lifestyle, and our genes and our biology, which we've, of course, talked a lot about on the show before. And then creating a new way of delivering healthcare that actually supports this new medical paradigm and this more preventative approach. Because those things are all within our control as clinicians. Tony: Yeah. I like how you posed the question, and it was kind of a cool little, I think it was, not Hiroshi, but the person who is in charge of cooking at a Buddhist monastery. And basically a young monk comes up to this older man. He’s like, why are you doing the grunt work, basically washing rice out in the courtyard? And he says, it was like, what was it? “If not me, who? And if not now, when?” And I think that that’s really kind of the core of setting all this stuff up. Talking about the problem is really in the service of pivoting to the solution, and I’m a big believer in thinking globally, thinking big, but acting locally, hyper-locally, like yourself. Chris: Yeah. Tony: And then the people around you and who you can touch and impact. That’s ultimately where the power comes from. So let’s talk about that. What is in people’s power. And you started to describe some of those pillars of a new model. And you describe it as the ADAPT framework. And I don’t know how much you get into this on your regular podcast episodes, but to just kind of lay it out, ADAPT from a big-picture perspective. How does that actually address some of these systemic issues from an individually empowered stance? Chris: Yeah, great question, and before I even go into that, I just want to say I agree that I think the change is going to happen on different levels. So, because a lot ... we’ve talked about this stuff at conferences or even some people who’ve already read the book. They say, oh, this is fantastic. I’m so excited. But how are we going to deal with Big Pharma and the insurance industry and these misaligned incentives and all of that? And can we ever deal with that? The answer is we’re not going to deal with that overnight and it’s going to take a while to unwind those things. Tony: It’s the chronic disease, is what you call... Chris: Exactly, exactly. And I use that analogy in the book. But the good news is that changes can happen very quickly on an individual and local level. And there’s already a lot of evidence of that happening. So my own clinic, CCFM, tripled in size in the last three years alone. We have Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, launched by Dr. Mark Hyman, has just blown up like crazy. I mean they started in this tiny space. Now their 17,000-square-foot space, it takes up the whole second floor of the Glickman Tower at Cleveland Clinic. They've got a waitlist of 2,500 patients from nine countries around the world. This is really exciting! The Cleveland Clinic is always on the forefront of the newest trends in medicine, and the fact that they've invested that much money in this speaks volumes. Then we have groups like Iora Health, an organization based in the Rocky Mountain area that’s reversing diabetes using health coaches. So there are lots of really interesting produced concepts, and there's going to be more and more of these. Like we’re doing a pilot program with the Berkeley Fire Department where we’re working with their new recruits to help, we’re implementing a wellness program. Tony: That’s awesome. Chris: To reduce injuries and help with recovery and optimize their performance. And if that goes well, there’s been interest from the wider fire department and in the city of Berkeley as a whole. Robb Wolf’s done some incredible work with Reno that we’ve talked about before. So I think the change is going to happen more quickly on this local grassroots level, and then that's going to start to get the attention of people on a state and federal level. And then it will start to get really interesting.

The three core problems and how to solve them

To answer your question, in my book I basically lay out three core fundamental problems with the healthcare system in the US. And these, I argue, go even deeper than the misaligned incentives and Big Pharma and all of that stuff, although they’re, of course, connected. The first is that there is a profound mismatch between our genes and our biology and our modern diet and lifestyle. And I'm not going to say more about that now because almost everyone listening to this podcast knows exactly what I mean. The second problem is the mismatch between our medical paradigm and chronic disease, which we just talked about. We need a new medical paradigm that is better suited for chronic disease. And then the third is that the way we deliver care in this country is also, it's not set up to support the most important interventions. And we’ve touched on that too, where the average visit with the primary care provider is just actually eight to 12 minutes. Tony, you were talking about 15 minutes. That’s luxurious in our current model. The average amount of time a patient gets to speak before they’re interrupted by the doctor is 12 seconds. Tony: Wow. Chris: So I think it’s pretty clear that if a patient has multiple chronic diseases, which one in four Americans now do, one in two has one chronic disease, and they show up to the doctor’s office and they're on multiple medications, and they had been presenting with a whole set of new symptoms, there’s absolutely no way to provide high-quality care in a 10-minute visit. So we have to change our, not only the paradigm, but also the way that care is delivered. So that was my premise. So it follows then that my solution would address, I would hope at least those three points, right? Each of those three deficiencies. So the ADAPT framework combines an ancestral diet and lifestyle, which addresses that mismatch between our genes and biology in our modern diet and lifestyle. And then Functional Medicine is the new paradigm of medicine that is based on addressing the root cause of health problems, so we can prevent and reverse them instead of just suppressing symptoms. And then the third component is what I call a collaborative practice model, which links licensed providers like medical doctors, nurse practitioners, with what I call allied providers, which include folks like yourself, Tony, health coaches, nutritionists, personal trainers, etc., to provide a much, much higher level of care than what doctors are able to provide on their own. So, again, we're not trying to replace doctors in any, or even conventional medicine. We need people to do colonoscopies and remove cancerous tumors and use all of the incredible amount of training and expertise and skill that they’ve acquired over a lifetime of practice and study. We absolutely want that, but we need to add stuff to that that's not available now. Tony: What that really says to me is, emphasize the importance of community, of connection, of collaboration. We’re social creatures, we’re tribal by nature. That’s another kind of Paleo/ancestral health part of the puzzle. And it would be foolish to think that we can dissect out and silo out all these different aspects of our lives without consequence. I really like this idea of bringing everybody into the fold, and it’s not saying that you can go to just the naturopath, or you can go to just the health coach. Because like I mentioned already, I certainly would’ve been ill-equipped to handle plenty of issues that a client would’ve brought to mind or brought up in conversation during a training session. But it would’ve been really great to say, ah, here's the Functional Medicine practitioner that I recommend you speak with, and to have a good relationship with that person and to be able to, as a health coach, help my clients better by getting them in touch with the right person. And that’s having this network that can really support people throughout their health journey whether it’s just feeling better and more energy, or addressing something like diabetes or hypertension. Which certainly there’s a place for all the players in that kind of scenario.

What this new paradigm looks like

Chris: Absolutely. And let’s use an example just to bring this to life for people. So, imagine you go to the doctor and they do some blood testing for your annual physical. And they find that your fasting blood sugar is 96 or 97. Your hemoglobin A1c is 5.5, and you’ve got triglycerides that are 110, 120, maybe 130. Currently, what would happen is nothing, usually. Tony: You’re not sick enough yet. Chris: Yeah, all of your markers are within the lab range, they say, and that means you’re normal, and so you might get some vague advice about make sure to exercise and follow a good diet. And thank you very much, that’s it. Certainly there are exceptions to the rule, of course. There’s some practitioners who can get a lot more proactive about that. But I can’t tell you how many people, patients I’ve had that have been given that basic line with those kinds of lab results. What could happen is this. The doctor says, “Well, you know, if we think of blood sugar disorders on a spectrum, on the left you’ve got perfect blood sugar. On the right you’ve got full-fledged type 2 diabetes. You’re not on the right yet, you don’t have type 2 diabetes or even technically prediabetes, but you’re progressing along that spectrum. And what we know from a lot of research is that if we don’t intervene now, that you’re going to continue progressing. And in fact, we have studies that show that the average patient who has prediabetes, will progress to full-fledged type 2 diabetes in just five years if it’s not addressed.” So what we want to do is be proactive here. We want to intervene now because it’s much easier to prevent a disease before it occurs than it is to treat it after it’s already occurred. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to set you up with our staff health coach, and they’re going to give you all the support you need to adopt a better diet. They’re actually even going to take you shopping, they’re going to come to your house and clean out your pantry with you, and they're going to give you recipes and meal plans and give you ... totally hold your hand and do everything that they need to to get you on this diet. Because we know that information is not enough. We’ve got lots of studies. I can tell you as a doctor, go eat a healthy diet, and hey, we know that that’s probably not going to happen. Most people know what they should be doing, but they’re not doing it, and it’s not because of lack of information. It’s because they need support, and we’re here to support you. We’ve got this health coach. Furthermore, we've got this great personal trainer named Tony. We’re going to set you up with him and we’re also going to set you up with a gym membership. And the good news is, your insurance is going to pay for all this. They’re going to pay for the health coach, they’re going to pay for the gym membership, they’re going to pay for your sessions with Tony. And in six months’ time, you’re going to come back here and we’re going to retest your blood markers and I can almost guarantee that if you stick with the program, you’re going to have normal blood sugar by that time. And throughout that period you’re going to have weekly check-ins with a health coach, you’re going to have training sessions. And not only will your blood sugar be normal, you’re going to lose weight, your energy levels are going to go up, your sleep’s going to get better, you’re going to feel more confident and empowered because you’re making these changes, and you’re going to feel like a different person. Now that’s totally possible.

How do we pay for this? Is it scalable?

Chris: I can hear some people saying, “Oh, how are we going to pay for that? That’s ridiculous.” Tony: Is it scalable? Chris: The question we should be asking is, is treating type 2 diabetes scalable? Because I mentioned this in the book, it costs $14,000 a year to treat a single patient with type 2 diabetes. So let’s imagine that this patient progresses. We don’t intervene, five years later they have type 2 diabetes. All of a sudden the healthcare system is spending $14,000 a year paying for that person’s care. And let’s say that that person gets diagnosed at age 40, which is still reasonable these days. The age of diagnosis is dropping more and more, and then let’s say that they live until they’re 85 years old, which is also possible because of our heroic medical interventions that keep people alive a lot longer than they might have been otherwise. So 45 years living with type 2 diabetes, that’s a cost of almost $650,000 for one patient to the healthcare system. Tony: And that doesn’t even touch on the lost wages, cost to employers, when someone’s on leave, loss of productivity. And then the cost to the family members. Chris: Absolutely. Tony: People that are actually, are helping the patient, their health is going to be going down too. Chris: Yeah. Nor does it touch on the qualitative aspects. Being immobilized, not being able to play with your grandkids, all of that stuff. But let’s just even forget about that for a second—$650,000, okay? And then the CDC recently came out with statistics saying that 100 million Americans have either prediabetes or diabetes, and 88 percent of people with prediabetes don’t even know that they have it. Which means they're almost certainly going to progress, right? If you do the math and you multiply 100 million people times even $14,000 for one year, you get a number that’s so large, I don’t even know what it is. It’s like a google something. It’s like, it has so many zeros after it, I don’t even know how to characterize it. But then if you multiply 100 million times like 20 or 30 years, it’s more money than there is in the world. It's like it's not going to happen. Tony: Not sustainable, not scalable. Chris: Not sustainable, not scalable. So let’s say in our example that we ... the healthcare system spends $10,000, which is way more than would be necessary, but let’s even say we buy the person’s groceries for three months. And their gym membership and their trainer, and their health coach, and those weekly, let’s say we spend $10,000. We’re just super generous and we spend $10,000 for that six-month period. Again, the research and my clinical experience indicates with near certainty that if the person is at that stage of not even prediabetic and we intervene, there’s like almost no chance that it’s not going to, we’re not going to be able to normalize that person’s blood sugar. And if they do that and they stick with it and they are able to do that because they now have support rather than just information, we’ve just saved the healthcare system $640,000 over the course of that patient’s lifetime. And that’s a conservative estimate, as you say. We're not including even the indirect costs. Tony: Right, right. Chris: I think that this is not only possible, it's going to become necessary. And whether we get there with a proactive approach where we decide to move in this direction and we make these changes or whether we get there because we absolutely have no choice, we’re going to get there. Tony: Yeah. I mean it really sounds like we can’t afford to not do this. Chris: Exactly. Tony: And if we get to that point where we continue down the reactive path and we wait until there’s a total collapse, it might be too late, just to put it frankly. And it’s going to come out at a huge, not just financial cost, a huge human cost. Chris: Yeah, it’s going to be, we can use the chronic disease metaphor again, it’s a lot easier to prevent a problem or reverse it at an earlier stage than it is to wait until the patient is essentially on life support or the healthcare system is on life support. It’s harder to reverse it at that time. And that’s of course why I’m writing the book now because I want to get this message out as far and wide as I can. Tony: Yeah. If not now, when? If not you, who? Go right back to there.

How allied providers are the key

Chris: Exactly. And one more thing about that is the amazing thing, the beauty of this is that it takes about eight years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a doctor. And it takes a certain kind of personality and a certain kind of comfort level with science, and a lot of prerequisites. It’s not for everybody. And there’s a ... already we have a shortage of doctors, and that’s predicted to get worse. I’ve seen estimates that suggest by 2025 we’ll have a shortage of 52,000 primary care physicians. So that’s a big deal. [insert image] So we already don’t have enough doctors, it’s already going to get worse, but if you think of healthcare as like a ... I have something in the book called the healthcare population pyramid. And you were referring to it earlier, Tony, where at the very top of that pyramid you’ve got 5 percent of people who are in really acute situations. So they’re in the hospital or they’re in an intensive outpatient care setting. They need the conventional medicine paradigm as it exists, and it’s fantastic for those situations. Then you’ve got another 25 percent of people in that kind of high middle of the pyramid who are dealing with some pretty serious chronic health challenges. So they require more regular care, but they’re not sick enough to be in the hospital or in any kind of ... they’re living their lives, but they’re struggling a lot. A Functional Medicine practitioner/clinician usually working in concert possibly with the conventional specialist of some kind is a really great option for that 25 percent of the pyramid. But then you’ve got the 70 percent at the bottom. So these are people who do, may have health issues, but they’re more minor, so they might have skin problems, or a little bit of brain fog, some difficulties sleeping, some GI issues. And these can be definitely debilitating and total pain, but they’re not at the level of that 25 percent. My argument is that in many cases these people could be very well served by a health coach or nutritionist with good training. And possibly seeing a Functional Medicine provider once or twice a year, or something like that. And the thing is, we can train people in a year or two without an extensive science background to be very, very objective in this role. Because they’re mostly working with patients on changing their behavior. If you think about it, most of the risk factors for chronic disease come down to the wrong behaviors. Eating the wrong diet, not getting enough sleep, not exercising, or exercising too much, or any number of things that come down to choices that we’re making. And so if a skilled health coach who’s trained in things like motivational interviewing and coaching to strengths and other evidence-based principles of facilitating behavior change which we have a ton of research on, they can be incredibly effective for that 70 percent of the population. That's the majority of the population. So we’re totally underutilizing these practitioners, and my argument is that they’re going to play a huge role in this future of medicine. And that's of course one reason why we're launching an ADAPT Health Coach Training Program next year to complement the practitioner training program that we've been doing. Because I want to create this ecosystem we've been talking about where you have all of these different types of practitioners working to the maximum of their training and ability and scope of practice and supporting each other and therefore providing the highest level of care to patients. Tony: That certainly kind of perks my ears up hearing about the ADAPT health coach option and something that I’m personally interested in. So who knows? Maybe I can get in on that. We can talk about it again in the future. Chris: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Tony: So, for this particular book, for Unconventional Medicine, people are fired up, they’re hearing about it, they’re like, “Okay, this resonates with me. I’m a practitioner, I’m an allied health provider, I’m a patient, I’m ready. Now’s the time. This is it. We’re going to do this.” What’s the best way for people to get their hands on this thing? Chris: Well not surprisingly, Amazon. They have the best way to get your hands on anything. So it’s available in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook. We’re hoping [the audiobook] is going to be out today, the day this podcast is released. But it might be another two or three days. They’re just taking their sweet time to approve it. I narrated the audiobook myself. So you podcast listeners, I figured you might be into that, since you like to listen. Tony: They know your voice. Chris: Yeah, and just listening to something instead of reading it perhaps. So to that end, we have a special offer for podcast listeners, because I appreciate your support and I know many of you are already part of this movement, and some are wanting to get involved. So if you buy that paperback or Kindle version between now and Sunday night, you’ll get some really cool bonuses. The first is a free copy of the audiobook. So again, we wanted to include that for podcast listeners, since we figured you guys and gals are probably interested in audio. But there are two other things that are really, I think, fantastic. And one, they’re both tools to help you be more confident and persuasive and factual when you share your passion for Functional Medicine and an ancestral diet and lifestyle. Because we’ve had a lot of questions from people, both practitioners and non-practitioners alike. They say, “Oh, how do I talk about this stuff to my sister at Thanksgiving?” Tony: “Isn’t that that caveman diet?” Chris: Yeah, exactly. All of our ancestors died when they were 30, so why should we even care? How do you respond to those arguments? Or if you start talking about Functional Medicine and maybe one of your conventional medicine colleagues says, “Oh, that’s just, I saw something on Science-based Medicine that said that was all just hooey. There’s nothing to it. How do you respond to that?” So what we wanted to do is give people the ammunition they needed in a respectful way. You know, this isn’t about getting the better of somebody. It’s about responding in a factual and convincing but respectful way. So we’ve got two different, we’re calling these the Power Packs. And one is for practitioners, so clinicians, health coaches, nutritionists, trainers, etc., and these are facts, research that you can reference and persuasive reasons for your clients or patients or colleagues to consider this Functional Medicine and ancestral diet and lifestyle approach. And then we have one for non-practitioners called the Supporter Power Pack. And these are smart answers and compelling comebacks, again respectful, for those common objections that you hear when you start talking about this stuff with your friends and family. So these bonuses are available until Sunday night [November 12, 2017] at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. So you’ve got a few days to act on that, and you can go to ... we set up a special link for you to get these and that’s Kresser.co/bonus. That’s Kresser.co/bonus. So head over there to get your Power Packs and your free audiobook, and that’s after you purchase either the paperback or Kindle. There’ll be a place where you enter your order number and we ask for some information just to verify, and I hope you enjoy those and get a lot out of them. Because they were actually really fun to put together. Tony: Yeah, I think the audiobook is huge. I like to listen to audiobooks when I’m driving around town or outside getting some exercise. Chris: Yeah. Tony: So, no excuses when you make it that easy. Chris: Yeah, yeah. So, Tony, thanks so much for doing this. This has been really fun to talk to you, as it always is. And I appreciate it. Tony: Actually, I wanted to throw in one extra little special thing, as we mentioned, at the top of the show. I spent 10 years as a personal trainer in the trenches, I was involved with Paleo Magazine for many, many years, going to all the events, and for me kind of an evolution in my professional life was, how do I impact more people? How do I help more people? And at first I was working one on one, and then it was as a facility manager helping other trainers and coaches get better. And then I was able to scale it up that way. And last year I had an opportunity to join the team over at Natural Force, which is all-natural, nutritional products, and I basically said, “You know what? I’m going to go all in on this because if I can touch a million people through really good, high-quality nutrition, that’s me maximizing my impact and really kind of living my purpose.” So one of the things I wanted to do today is put it out there for anyone listening who maybe uses collagen or MCT oil or whey protein. We really bend over backwards to source the best ingredients in the world, no additives, all that stuff. Everything is as clean as we can possibly make it. It takes a lot of work, working with manufacturers. Kind of like what you were saying, how patients have to know how to talk to their doctor. I don’t think people really realize, and I didn’t realize until I got on the inside, how much work it is for a brand to work with their manufacturers to convince them to get outside of the conventional mold. So it’s the kind of unconventional nutrition is really what we’re pushing here. So I set up a discount code for any Revolution Health listeners. Go to NaturalForce.com, use coupon code “unconventional” and get $10 off plus free shipping on your order. So I just want to put that out there as just a little extra bonus for anybody, and I would certainly love to help in that way and really get some good, high-quality nutrition into people’s hands. Chris: Awesome. Yeah, and there’s so many ways people can help, and I ... at Paleo f(x) we’ve see the growth of companies that are serving this space, and it's amazing. Like the products that are available now. I had breakfast this morning, I had some eggs and kale and parsley and a little bit of bacon in a couple of cassava flour tortillas. Breakfast burritos. Whoever thought I’d be having a breakfast burrito again? Tortillas are made from completely cassava flour. They’re autoimmune friendly and they’re grain-free tortillas. It’s incredible. Tony: I think I might have some of those in my fridge as well. Chris: Yeah. I mean there’s so many things. And these people, they’re serving this movement with that kind of work. So it’s great to see. Tony: It takes a village, man. Chris: It does. Thanks again, Tony. I really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody. So again, Kresser.co/bonus to pick up your free audiobook and the other bonuses, and I hope you can all join me in this revolution to reinvent healthcare. We need you, whatever your background and goals. Take care, everybody.

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denisalvney · 8 years ago

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RHR: A Three-Step Plan to Fix Conventional Healthcare

In this episode we discuss:

The patient case that inspired the book

Who is this book for?

The mismatch between our medical paradigm and chronic disease

Drug companies and conflicts of interest

How clinicians can help create a new paradigm

The three core problems and how to solve them

What this new paradigm looks like

How do we pay for this? Is it scalable?

How allied providers are the key

Show notes:

Unconventional Medicine by Chris Kresser

Special offer for RHR podcast listeners - get the audiobook free if you buy the book by November 12th.

NaturalForce.com - use coupon “unconventional” and get $10 plus free shipping

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The patient case that inspired the book

Is a new healthcare paradigm affordable? Scalable? You bet.

Who is this book for?

The mismatch between our medical paradigm and chronic disease

Drug companies and conflicts of interest

How clinicians can help create a new paradigm

The three core problems and how to solve them

What this new paradigm looks like

How do we pay for this? Is it scalable?

How allied providers are the key

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racheltgibsau · 8 years ago

Text

Mitch Joel on Why Agencies Should Care About Conversion Rate Optimization [INTERVIEW]

Move over Don Draper, the modern day agency marketer needs to be more of a Renaissance (wo)man.

Sure, they need to be creative enough to craft a compelling pitch.

But they also need to be data-driven. They need to be well versed in analytics and the latest MarTech trends. And when budgets get tight, agency marketers need to be able to convince their clients to not cut out conversion rate optimization.

Few people know this better than Mitch Joel, president of Mirum, a global digital marketing agency operating in 20 different countries. Mitch is a best-selling business author, international speaker and agency thought leader. But he’s also a full-stack marketer who has been doing display advertising for longer than Google itself.

Mitch Joel, president of global digital agency Mirum and author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete.Image source.

Since Mitch entered the digital marketing world, a helluvalot has changed — and not just in agencyland. As technology evolves, so too are consumers and the way they interact with our brands. At the Call to Action Conference in June, Mitch’s keynote, Algorhythm: How Technology Connects Consumers To Brands Like Never Before, will dive into how to future-proof your brand and embrace disruption to become a digital leader.

PSST. Hey blog reader, we like the cut of your jib. Get 15% off Call to Action Conference tickets by using discount code “blogsentme” at checkout. Offer expires May 12th.

Ugh, why can’t it be June already?

To tide you over, here’s a fascinating interview with Mitch from the Call to Action Podcast. Unbounce Director of Content Dan Levy sat down with Mitch to discuss:

How the agency world has evolved over the past 15 years.

Mitch’s experience selling his independent agency to the largest holding company in the world.

How everything from search results to PPC and even the talent you hire for your agency are all extensions of your brand.

Check out some highlights from the interview below. (This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.)

Dan Levy: You’re known as a bestselling business author, speaker and agency thought leader, but you got your start in the online marketing trenches doing ad sales and even PPC marketing for a site called Mamma.com. Can you take us back to that time? What did the online marketing landscape look like and what did you learn from that experience?

Mitch Joel: Actually, yes, I did do that. But my start in digital came much earlier when I was publishing music magazines in the late 80s and early 90s. I actually was tangentially at the same time very engaged in digital media: first web browser, BBSs, stuff like that. And I actually put those magazines on the “internet” — like air quote internet — because back then, there wasn’t even really an internet.

I remember one of the cover stories for my alternative, cool, fun publication was called, “The Net.” The innovation at that time was hyperlinks. I literally was posting things on the internet from the magazine that couldn’t have hyperlinks. You couldn’t link from one page to the other. That really kept me on the trajectory where eventually I helped launch the sales channel of what at the time was one of the largest meta search engines on the internet. And again, it’s hard to imagine a world before Google. But this was pre-Google. And so the meta search engine would basically grab search results from engines like Yahoo, AOL, Lycos, and create a meta — or a better — search result that we could actually aggregate faster.

My role back then was selling sponsorships on the homepage, it was selling banner advertising. And it was also very early days of selling — literally the first time of being able to take a search result and having a banner that’s related to the search show up in the search result. And to tell you how early and nascent it was, I had to physically go into the code of the search engine to code the banner in. I don’t recommend that in this day in age. Like I don’t think anyone at Google is going into the master code to embed a search result. But that’s how early the times were back then.

DL: Wow. What did you learn from that experience that you brought forth?

MJ: Well I learned to take chances. I can tell you that when they approached me about the opportunity, my first question was, “What’s online advertising?” I mean, we are talking about a time when that first banner ad on HotWired — which became Wired — had just run.

The first banner ad, ever. Image source: Wired.

I didn’t even know what it looked like, what it felt like, what it could be. I think my pedigree in selling traditional print ads and having a construct of what it means to run a media company is what pushed me there. So it was — to this day, it was a great move. And I’m so grateful, I still have a lot of friends in my life now who came from there. A lot of people who’ve become — who’ve ascended in this industry to run major, major web initiatives are people that I hired. People that I brought into the industry. So I have a lot of pride in that.

And I also learned that — again, when I think about it, I don’t know why I took the job. All logic would dictate that at the time, I should not have taken that job. But I took the job and it wound up being great for me because it brought together what I was doing professionally on one side. And on the other side, it brought together my passion for digital. I often say that I was very early into many things. And when we started Mirum, which back then was Twist Image in 2000 (I joined in 2002). At that point in my career I said, even though I might be a little early in this space, I’m going to ride it out.

DL: Performance marketing and brand marketing are often seen as being on different sides of the digital marketing spectrum. Do you think that’s true? Do you see those two disciplines as coming closer together in an age where Facebook has gone from a social media network to just another performance marketing channel?

MJ: I think you’re right. The evolution — and by the way, Google structured themselves — for a long while, and they may still — around brand and performance. And that’s common. Where I think the confusion comes from is that within real behavioral performance-based marketing, there are heavy and hefty living around brand and experience that we often dismiss because we think that performance is still about getting the right search word, getting them to the right page.

But actually if you step back from that, the meta message is that it has to be a very relevant and cohesive brand experience. And I was somebody who wasn’t just buying generic brand keywords back in the day, to just keep that going. I actually believe that — a saying I’ve used since the early 2000s is that the first page of search results is a brand experience.

You can’t separate PPC & brand marketing. The 1st page of search is part of your brand experience. Click To Tweet

So there’s that. That sort of dismisses the idea that performance is not about branding. And you’re right — fast forwarding to today, a lot of my clients and a lot of people I meet when I do speaking events will say that social media is primarily a paid channel, because of what Facebook has done to throttle the content and have you pay against reach. Which I think by the way is a great model and clearly the market would agree with that idea.

But you can’t have any results — whether you’re paying for it or it’s organic — unless it’s a really good experience.

Whether or not that’s through a search result, an email marketing initiative, a great landing page *hint hint wink wink* to you guys, or a good old piece of content. I really don’t care. I’m actually agnostic to that.

DL: Where do performance channels like PPC and landing page optimization and conversion rate optimization come into the picture with the kinds of big brands that you work with? Are those things part of your offer? Do you factor them into how you pitch and bill clients?

MJ: Well it depends on whether someone’s going full bore with us or not. Like any other agency, we work on specific campaigns, specific projects, longer initiatives and then full-on mandates. And even the full-on mandates have sort of splits and fits and starts.

The way we started our company, we only wanted to work with large national and multinational brands and we’ve stuck to that model for what’s coming up onto 17 years. Because of that, being of startup size back in the early 2000s, most brands already had large media companies at play. And those media companies even back then were feeling very threatened by digital and would make those offerings.

So we would come in and grab pieces and parts of it and really focus on the behavioral side. Let us handle the drive to optimization, landing page, unique spaces, unique experience while the media companies were really checking boxes around “online video,” “search,” affiliate marketing” and stuff like that. So from my pedigree, I stand very firmly and aligned with what performance can do in terms of optimizations and moving things forward. I feel like I’m banging against the wall when everyone says, “Well we do that.” I think people do do that, but they don’t really do it.

I still really believe that a lot of the work we see is what I call “rearview mirror.” You know, we did it, we’re running these keywords to a landing page, and let’s see how it did. Post. I believe, and I know that Mirum as an agency believes it, all of that optimization, all of that data, all of that opportunity is now in the passenger seat. When you do it well and you actually are optimizing and driving and creating unique experiences on landing pages and stuff like that, you’ve moved it from the rearview mirror to the passenger’s seat and you can fix it and go so that there always is a positive result, not a result that says, “Oh, that campaign just didn’t work.” I can’t believe we still use that language in business today!

DL: Right, as if a campaign or an experience is a success or a failure — only if it meets your hypothesis. And the learnings aren’t a factor or don’t have anything to do with it at all.

MJ: Right and it’s frustrating for me because I feel like we often lose business or can’t grab the business because there’s a sentiment that we already have someone doing that work. But when you dig into what that work is, you see that there actually isn’t a lot of that stuff that we’re really talking about. They say they do that, it’s on their decks, and it’s on their site. But — and I don’t know if it’s a failure of the brand or a failure of the agency. I’m not sure where it happens. But there is a vast majority of very powerful brands really not doing enough.

DL: Do you think the problem is that optimization is seen as a discipline or a branch of marketing instead of just a mindset?

MJ: Yeah. One of my close friends is Bryan Eisenberg, who I really believe is one of the forefathers of this optimization space. He’s written books about it, “Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?” and intent and scent and all that.

My relationship with Bryan is going on for close to 20 years at this point. And he would often say things like, “You know, here we are talking about all this stuff. And the first thing a brand will cut on a budget is the optimization. Hands down.”

And it’s mind-numbing and it’s mind-blowing to both of us — and years later it still remains the same — because that’s actually where you make money. And I don’t know why brands, agencies don’t get it. I don’t get how they don’t get it.

DL: Can you talk about the role content played in getting Twist on the map? I imagine that your book and your blog and your podcast were all part of ultimately attracting the attention of WPP and making that acquisition happen.

MJ: It’s a yes and no story.

It’s a yes story in the sense that it’s very interesting when they’re doing financial and product assessments to see an agency that has been so consistent for a decade. Creating the blog, the podcast, Six Pixels of Separation, that lead to 50-60 paid speaking events a year. That lead to two best selling books — and I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but represented by a major New York literary agent, onto a major — largest book publisher in the world, onto the global deal. And other things that come from media appearances and stuff like that.

DL: Yeah, I think that from my perspective, Twist Image and Mitch Joel were kind of one and the same.

MJ: Totally. And we built it that way. We always saw from day one, back in 2003ish, when we started the blog, that Twist Image (at the time — now Mirum) would be managing three brands:

that Mirum brand,

Six Pixels of Separation (which we sort of considered the sort of “content engine” — so blog, podcast, articles, speaking, books)

and then Mitch Joel, this media face. This warm, hopefully friendly and personable face to an agency, which again, now seems very obvious.

But if you go back 10+ years, nobody was really doing that. They didn’t really have that. So the fact that we were sharing content, having conversations with people who just didn’t have a voice before — you know, we were having hour-long conversations with business or marketing thought leaders. That you didn’t get an hour with. You’d be lucky if you had one famous enough to get 10 minutes on Charlie Rose. Suddenly, someone is spending an hour with them, having a conversation like they would over a coffee, and publishing it to the world.

There were these assets there that were built over time, and again, I do know that when it came to the opportunity for us to be acquired, one of the metrics was the fact that there is revenue generation that comes out of the content engine. That doesn’t just create media attention and a level of fame, whatever that might be. But that there actually was revenue behind this thing. And that was very surprising and shocking to them.

DL: Meaning what? It gets clients in the door?

MJ: I mean, yeah, think about it. You pitch for business development, you spend weeks, months pitching. And business development is a cost center. It costs every agency a lot of money to business develop. You don’t win every pitch. It’s a very small percentage. And you hope that the ones you win make up for all the money you spent. When you’re offsetting that cost with speaking gigs, book deals, article writing and stuff like that, it’s really interesting that you’re creating this voice and building a platform and it actually is driving business, it’s driving revenue — both in terms of client and raw revenue. We get dollars to speak and write books. It’s not vanity.

It was always about creating equity in the brand, that would have one of two roles. That one day, we would be acquired. Or if we’re never acquired, we’re running this business in a way where all of the top players would want to acquire it. And there would be extreme value in the brand.

I like building businesses that build equity as they grow. And this channel of speaking, writing, etc — it wasn’t a core component of what we were acquired for, but it was definitely on the list.

DL: It reminds me of the Rolling Stones model, where you’re the front man, but ultimately, you share those profits evenly. I know they’ve credited that as their longevity for them as a band. It sounds like the same thing for the longevity of Twist, and now Mirum.

MJ: Yeah, and I try to not have it be ego-driven. I look at it like — my job, as a media entity, is to be extremely personable. And to know that I’m managing Mirum, Six Pixels and Mitch Joel. And I conduct myself accordingly. If you look me up on Facebook, there isn’t a ton of personal stuff. There’s a ton of personable stuff.

DL: If you had to give agencies who are looking to set themselves apart from the crowd and spur growth for both their clients and their own business one piece of advice, what would it be?

MJ: I really think it is much like a great book. A great book works not because the topic is unique. I feel like more often than not you’re reading a topic that somebody else covered in one shape or form.

It’s the voice. I don’t see that much in terms of agencies having that unique voice. Do I think we achieved it? Partially. And I think it’s because it’s a journey — you’re constantly changing it, moving it along. But if I were to go across — and we did this exercise when we were trying to figure out the branding for Mirum, Twist Image — I would jokingly tell people, “You could take the website of all our biggest competitors, take off the logos, throw them in the air, and whatever website they fall on, you’d still be pretty much right.” The services, types of case studies, type of work we do. And still to this day, I think that story rings true.

The ones that stand out, though, are the ones that have a unique voice. It could be a unique individual — I’m thinking of people like Bob Greenberg at R/GA. It could just be a unique story to tell. So if you look at an agency like WK, the fact that they’ve been large and independent, the type of work that they’ve done it’s like the voice of the agency is the work that they do. That type of thing is the only component of your business that you can have that is the defendable against a competitor. It’s how you express yourself, tell your stories, the type of team members you bring in, the type of work that you do, the stories you tell in the marketplace, where you network, what you attend. That’s the big one.

The secondary one is get involved in your industry. What drove this business at Mirum was the fact that we got involved in places like Shop.org, the National Retail Federation, Canadian Marketing Association, Interactive Advertising — I could go on and on. And we didn’t just join and become members. We got involved. In fact, we just had a conversation at lunch about an association that I’m super interested in. And the answer we all came to was: “Not unless we can get deeply involved.” So, what you find out is that by giving (because you love this industry and you want it to be better), you do wind up in some way receiving. We don’t get involved to get results. By getting involved and being active, it just happens.

DL: Well Mitch, it’s always a real treat to talk shop with you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

MJ: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/call-to-action/mitch-joel-interview/

0 notes

littlemarketingproject · 8 years ago

Text

Mitch Joel on Why Agencies Should Care About Conversion Rate Optimization [INTERVIEW]

Move over Don Draper, the modern day agency marketer needs to be more of a Renaissance (wo)man.

Sure, they need to be creative enough to craft a compelling pitch.

Mitch Joel, president of global digital agency Mirum and author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete.Image source.

PSST. Hey blog reader, we like the cut of your jib. Get 15% off Call to Action Conference tickets by using discount code “blogsentme” at checkout. Offer expires May 12th.

Ugh, why can’t it be June already?

To tide you over, here’s a fascinating interview with Mitch from the Call to Action Podcast. Unbounce Director of Content Dan Levy sat down with Mitch to discuss:

How the agency world has evolved over the past 15 years.

Mitch’s experience selling his independent agency to the largest holding company in the world.

How everything from search results to PPC and even the talent you hire for your agency are all extensions of your brand.

Check out some highlights from the interview below. (This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.)

DL: Wow. What did you learn from that experience that you brought forth?

The first banner ad, ever. Image source: Wired.

You can’t separate PPC & brand marketing. The 1st page of search is part of your brand experience. Click To Tweet

But you can’t have any results — whether you’re paying for it or it’s organic — unless it’s a really good experience.

DL: Right, as if a campaign or an experience is a success or a failure — only if it meets your hypothesis. And the learnings aren’t a factor or don’t have anything to do with it at all.

DL: Do you think the problem is that optimization is seen as a discipline or a branch of marketing instead of just a mindset?

MJ: It’s a yes and no story.

DL: Yeah, I think that from my perspective, Twist Image and Mitch Joel were kind of one and the same.

MJ: Totally. And we built it that way. We always saw from day one, back in 2003ish, when we started the blog, that Twist Image (at the time — now Mirum) would be managing three brands:

that Mirum brand,

Six Pixels of Separation (which we sort of considered the sort of “content engine” — so blog, podcast, articles, speaking, books)

and then Mitch Joel, this media face. This warm, hopefully friendly and personable face to an agency, which again, now seems very obvious.

DL: Meaning what? It gets clients in the door?

I like building businesses that build equity as they grow. And this channel of speaking, writing, etc — it wasn’t a core component of what we were acquired for, but it was definitely on the list.

DL: If you had to give agencies who are looking to set themselves apart from the crowd and spur growth for both their clients and their own business one piece of advice, what would it be?

DL: Well Mitch, it’s always a real treat to talk shop with you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

MJ: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.

Mitch Joel on Why Agencies Should Care About Conversion Rate Optimization [INTERVIEW] syndicated from https://unbounce.com

0 notes

maxslogic25 · 8 years ago

Text

Mitch Joel on Why Agencies Should Care About Conversion Rate Optimization [INTERVIEW]

Move over Don Draper, the modern day agency marketer needs to be more of a Renaissance (wo)man.

Sure, they need to be creative enough to craft a compelling pitch.

Mitch Joel, president of global digital agency Mirum and author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete.Image source.

PSST. Hey blog reader, we like the cut of your jib. Get 15% off Call to Action Conference tickets by using discount code “blogsentme” at checkout. Offer expires May 12th.

Ugh, why can’t it be June already?

To tide you over, here’s a fascinating interview with Mitch from the Call to Action Podcast. Unbounce Director of Content Dan Levy sat down with Mitch to discuss:

How the agency world has evolved over the past 15 years.

Mitch’s experience selling his independent agency to the largest holding company in the world.

How everything from search results to PPC and even the talent you hire for your agency are all extensions of your brand.

Check out some highlights from the interview below. (This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.)

DL: Wow. What did you learn from that experience that you brought forth?

The first banner ad, ever. Image source: Wired.

You can’t separate PPC & brand marketing. The 1st page of search is part of your brand experience. Click To Tweet

But you can’t have any results — whether you’re paying for it or it’s organic — unless it’s a really good experience.

DL: Right, as if a campaign or an experience is a success or a failure — only if it meets your hypothesis. And the learnings aren’t a factor or don’t have anything to do with it at all.

DL: Do you think the problem is that optimization is seen as a discipline or a branch of marketing instead of just a mindset?

MJ: It’s a yes and no story.

DL: Yeah, I think that from my perspective, Twist Image and Mitch Joel were kind of one and the same.

MJ: Totally. And we built it that way. We always saw from day one, back in 2003ish, when we started the blog, that Twist Image (at the time — now Mirum) would be managing three brands:

that Mirum brand,

Six Pixels of Separation (which we sort of considered the sort of “content engine” — so blog, podcast, articles, speaking, books)

and then Mitch Joel, this media face. This warm, hopefully friendly and personable face to an agency, which again, now seems very obvious.

DL: Meaning what? It gets clients in the door?

I like building businesses that build equity as they grow. And this channel of speaking, writing, etc — it wasn’t a core component of what we were acquired for, but it was definitely on the list.

DL: If you had to give agencies who are looking to set themselves apart from the crowd and spur growth for both their clients and their own business one piece of advice, what would it be?

DL: Well Mitch, it’s always a real treat to talk shop with you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

MJ: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/call-to-action/mitch-joel-interview/

0 notes

archiebwoollard · 8 years ago

Text

Mitch Joel on Why Agencies Should Care About Conversion Rate Optimization [INTERVIEW]

Move over Don Draper, the modern day agency marketer needs to be more of a Renaissance (wo)man.

Sure, they need to be creative enough to craft a compelling pitch.

Mitch Joel, president of global digital agency Mirum and author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete.Image source.

PSST. Hey blog reader, we like the cut of your jib. Get 15% off Call to Action Conference tickets by using discount code “blogsentme” at checkout. Offer expires May 12th.

Ugh, why can’t it be June already?

To tide you over, here’s a fascinating interview with Mitch from the Call to Action Podcast. Unbounce Director of Content Dan Levy sat down with Mitch to discuss:

How the agency world has evolved over the past 15 years.

Mitch’s experience selling his independent agency to the largest holding company in the world.

How everything from search results to PPC and even the talent you hire for your agency are all extensions of your brand.

Check out some highlights from the interview below. (This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.)

DL: Wow. What did you learn from that experience that you brought forth?

The first banner ad, ever. Image source: Wired.

You can’t separate PPC & brand marketing. The 1st page of search is part of your brand experience. Click To Tweet

But you can’t have any results — whether you’re paying for it or it’s organic — unless it’s a really good experience.

DL: Right, as if a campaign or an experience is a success or a failure — only if it meets your hypothesis. And the learnings aren’t a factor or don’t have anything to do with it at all.

DL: Do you think the problem is that optimization is seen as a discipline or a branch of marketing instead of just a mindset?

MJ: It’s a yes and no story.

DL: Yeah, I think that from my perspective, Twist Image and Mitch Joel were kind of one and the same.

MJ: Totally. And we built it that way. We always saw from day one, back in 2003ish, when we started the blog, that Twist Image (at the time — now Mirum) would be managing three brands:

that Mirum brand,

Six Pixels of Separation (which we sort of considered the sort of “content engine” — so blog, podcast, articles, speaking, books)

and then Mitch Joel, this media face. This warm, hopefully friendly and personable face to an agency, which again, now seems very obvious.

DL: Meaning what? It gets clients in the door?

I like building businesses that build equity as they grow. And this channel of speaking, writing, etc — it wasn’t a core component of what we were acquired for, but it was definitely on the list.

DL: If you had to give agencies who are looking to set themselves apart from the crowd and spur growth for both their clients and their own business one piece of advice, what would it be?

DL: Well Mitch, it’s always a real treat to talk shop with you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

MJ: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/call-to-action/mitch-joel-interview/

0 notes

zacdhaenkeau · 8 years ago

Text

Mitch Joel on Why Agencies Should Care About Conversion Rate Optimization [INTERVIEW]

Move over Don Draper, the modern day agency marketer needs to be more of a Renaissance (wo)man.

Sure, they need to be creative enough to craft a compelling pitch.

Mitch Joel, president of global digital agency Mirum and author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete.Image source.

PSST. Hey blog reader, we like the cut of your jib. Get 15% off Call to Action Conference tickets by using discount code “blogsentme” at checkout. Offer expires May 12th.

Ugh, why can’t it be June already?

To tide you over, here’s a fascinating interview with Mitch from the Call to Action Podcast. Unbounce Director of Content Dan Levy sat down with Mitch to discuss:

How the agency world has evolved over the past 15 years.

Mitch’s experience selling his independent agency to the largest holding company in the world.

How everything from search results to PPC and even the talent you hire for your agency are all extensions of your brand.

Check out some highlights from the interview below. (This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.)

DL: Wow. What did you learn from that experience that you brought forth?

The first banner ad, ever. Image source: Wired.

You can’t separate PPC & brand marketing. The 1st page of search is part of your brand experience. Click To Tweet

But you can’t have any results — whether you’re paying for it or it’s organic — unless it’s a really good experience.

DL: Right, as if a campaign or an experience is a success or a failure — only if it meets your hypothesis. And the learnings aren’t a factor or don’t have anything to do with it at all.

DL: Do you think the problem is that optimization is seen as a discipline or a branch of marketing instead of just a mindset?

MJ: It’s a yes and no story.

DL: Yeah, I think that from my perspective, Twist Image and Mitch Joel were kind of one and the same.

MJ: Totally. And we built it that way. We always saw from day one, back in 2003ish, when we started the blog, that Twist Image (at the time — now Mirum) would be managing three brands:

that Mirum brand,

Six Pixels of Separation (which we sort of considered the sort of “content engine” — so blog, podcast, articles, speaking, books)

and then Mitch Joel, this media face. This warm, hopefully friendly and personable face to an agency, which again, now seems very obvious.

DL: Meaning what? It gets clients in the door?

I like building businesses that build equity as they grow. And this channel of speaking, writing, etc — it wasn’t a core component of what we were acquired for, but it was definitely on the list.

DL: If you had to give agencies who are looking to set themselves apart from the crowd and spur growth for both their clients and their own business one piece of advice, what would it be?

DL: Well Mitch, it’s always a real treat to talk shop with you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

MJ: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

This transcript has been edited for length. Listen to the full episode on iTunes.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/call-to-action/mitch-joel-interview/

0 notes