#i love you marcus! you’re my dude for the rest of forever

[preciouspatriots]

[harlowsbby]

All About You

Being set up on a blind date by your friends was the last thing you wanted to do this year, you didn’t know what to wear or how to even act you haven’t been on a date with a man since what seemed like forever ago.

“You’re going to be fine besides he’s someone you already know.” Your friend Erica was trying her best to ease your nerves. “Someone I know? That just makes this all even worse.” You huffed.

“Will you relax I promise you’re going to have the time of your life.” Your other friend Ella said. “But you both need to seriously stop setting me up with people we know.”

Your last date was with one of your close friends and it didn’t really go all that well. “What? I thought the date with Marcus went good?” Ella asked you to which you stopped what you were doing and gave her the most irritated expression.

“Are you kidding me? He knew he was going out with me and didn’t bring his wallet because he claimed he’d cover us next time.” Ella covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing in your face meanwhile Erica felt pitty on you.

“I promise this dude he’s sweet, funny, charming.” Ella tried her best to describe Jack and although he was all of things she mentioned he was also a flirt and loved flirting not to mention the two of you connected well but there was this unresolved ‘beef’ there.

You just hated how unserious he was no matter how serious the situation was Jack somehow always found a way to make a joke out of it and you hated that and he hated how serious you were.

While you were getting ready Jack was back home getting ready with Druski and Urban and the rest of the guys. “Who did you set me up with this time.” Jack asked Urban.

“It’s a secret but I’m sure you’ll love who we picked.” Urban smirked. “Why are you smirking? Did you both set me up.” Druski laughed. “I promise it’ll just be a date to remember that’s all.”

Even though the two of you bickered like cats and dogs and didn’t really see each other’s opinions you both liked each other but just didn’t know how to act on those emotions which is why your friends felt that they needed to bring it upon themselves to act on those emotions for you.

“When is the date?” Druski looked down at his phone seeing Jack had to be out the door in 5 minutes. “Actually right now so let’s go.”

Jack was actually very nervous about going on a blind date he hasn’t been on an actual date ever since he became famous he didn’t know how to act or how to feel, having one on one time with someone he knew for however long was also nerve wracking, he wanted everything to just go good.

————————————————————————

You arrived before Jack so you had time to look over the menu and pick out the cheapest item just in case you had to pay.

Ella and Erica along with Druski and Urban were a few tables behind Jack and You they wanted to spy on your little date and see how everything was going to go down.

You looked down at your phone seeing that Jack was 10 minutes late already. “Great let me find out I just got stood up.” You mumbled.

“Y/N? Don’t tell me you’re my date.” You looked up seeing Jack. “Oh you’re fucking joking this is a joke right? Are you on some type of prank show or something is there a mic hooked on you.” Jack smirked and laughed before sitting down across from you.

“Well I was told my date was going to be wearing black heels and.” He pushed his chair back and looked under the table seeing you had on black heels. “You have on black heels and you’re sitting outside where I was told my date would be sitting.”

“Why are you here?” You groaned. “Because I was put on a blind date.. why are you here?” He joked. “Jack you know why I’m here I was put on a blind date I knew it was going to be with a friend but I didn’t think the friend was going to be you.”

“What’s wrong with me? I can be the man of your dreams.” He grinned and leaned back into his chair with his arms opened wide as if he was the greatest person on earth. “Please I’d rather go on a date with the biggest asshole on earth than date you.”

You looked down at the menu skimming it over again Jack frowned he knew you didn’t wanna be here but he was going to try his best to make sure you have the best time.

“Look put the menu down for a minute.” You put it down on the table and looked back up at him. “If you have a good time tonight you let me take you out on a proper date that isn’t set up and if you don’t have a good time then you don’t have to see me ever again.”

You gasped sarcastically. “Wait you mean it? We never have to be in the same room together ever again?!” He rolled his eyes at the sarcasm dripping from your voice. “Do we have a deal or not?” You thought about it for a second. “We have a deal.”

Surprisingly you had a great time with Jack you found out a lot about him and he found out all about you, you even got to see a different side of Jack a side he never really showed.

“So what was your thought process behind making Jackman?”

Jack played you a few songs from his upcoming album Jackman he was a bit nervous on how everyone was going to react since it was something completely different than what he put out not even a year ago.

“Honestly I knew I wanted to put out something raw.. something different and just get back to my roots come home the kids miss you was a great album but it’s what the media and everyone wanted to hear it wasn’t me it wasn’t Jackman.” He joked.

“I loved the songs you played for me I think you just might have album of the year with this one.” He chuckled. “I really hope so.” It was quiet for a few minutes the two of you just enjoying one another’s company.

As you looked around Jack couldn’t help but to admire you. You were absolutely perfect he loved the way your eyes shimmered under the moonlight and how plump and kissable your lips looked, the small smile that played on your lips as you watched an owner get dragged along by his excitement filled dog.

“You know I can feel you watching me Jack.” He blushed in embarrassment. “I’m sorry you’re just so beautiful.” He covered his mouth quickly when he realized he said that out loud.

You looked at him wide eyed, “Did you just call me beautiful?” He mentally groaned. “Shit that wasn’t supposed to come out my mouth but it did and dammit I’m sorry.” He apologized.

“It’s okay don’t apologize. I actually think you’re really cute too.” You looked down nervously and twiddled with your fingers. “You think I’m cute?” He smirked.

“Don’t go getting a big head now Jack but yes I think you’re cute.” “How long?” He asked.

You looked at him with your eyebrows furrowed together. “How long what?” “How long have you liked me?”

“What who said tha-.” He cut you off. “I know you like me Y/N, I catch you looking at me all the time and you know Ella sucks at keeping secrets.” You groaned and made a mental note to yell at Ella later.

“I’d say for a few months now I’ve just been scared to tell you.” He frowned.

“Why?”

“Because I just didn’t know if I actually liked you at first because you just always acted so immature but after tonight I guess my feelings for you became stronger or whatever look can we just forget about it.” You we’re beyond embarrassed now.

“What if I don’t want to forget about it what if I wanted to be more than friends?”

“I’d be really happy.” You shyly spoke and watched how Jack made his way to sit next to you. “You would huh?” He softly spoke and leaned into you. You nodded your head you couldn’t even find the words to speak.

“Use your words Y/N.” You looked at him his blue eyes were honestly putting you in a trance right now you’ve never been as nervous and jittery around a man before. “Yes I would Jack I’d love to be your girlfriend.”

Before you knew it he was closing the gap between the two of you and smashing his lips against yours you wasted no time and immediately kissed him back. He grabbed the back of your head and deepened the kiss he wanted more of you but you were in a public setting so he had to pull back.

“Damn it’s about fucking time.” Druski’s voice came from behind the two of you which startled you. “What? What are you all doing here.” Jack asked.

“We set this whole thing up.” Erica said. “What do you mean?”

“Well we knew the two of you liked each other but you’re both so stubborn that we knew you weren’t going to admit it to each other so we set this up.” Ella said.

“It’s a good thing we broke it up when we did I swear there was about to a porno at this restaurant.” Urban joked and you hid in Jack’s chest making the girls coo.

“Whatever Urban now if you all don’t mind I’m going to take my girl back to my place, Urban you might wanna spend the night with Druski.” Jack said and took your head and led the two of you out of the restaurant.

“So I guess I’m staying with you tonight?” Urban asked Druski. “Staying with who? I got plans with Erica you better hit up Maggie and ask to stay in Jack’s old room.”

(Honestly I had no idea what I was doing with this but I hope y’all still like it 😭💘)

[smartguyreviewed]

1x5 - Don’t Do That Thing You Do

Original air date: April 16, 1997

Alright, Disney. We need to have a little talk.

I take a lot of shit from you in the name of nostalgia. You repay me by selling all of your DCOMs on iTunes but since they are DRM protected, you then make me have to buy third party software to remove said DRM just so I can watch these movies for my own personal viewing. If you’re worried about me selling and distributing copies of your movies to people who also wanna relive them good ‘ole days, stop. People will find a way to pirate your shit regardless and actually have more than what you release. Really, just stop.

You then removed all of the Smart Guy episodes from YouTube so that the only dregs of the show left are sped up, slowed down, or only take up a third of the video player due to copyright shit. You gave me considerable hope when I saw you’d be putting all the original shows and movies (minus In a Heartbeat. Minus The Jersey. Minus The Famous Jett Jackson. Minus Model Behavior. Minus My Date With the President’s Daughter.) on this shiny new channel of yours.

I know you have a problem with misordering episodes, making certain episodes season finales when they shouldn’t be and just not having any general sense of continuity. I am still baffled as to why this episode, episode number 5 is not included in the first season, which is already hella short at just 8 episodes. Disney, do you enjoy making me wonder why I even fuck with you? Once I get a .mp4 file of Johnny Tsunami and maaaaybe Can of Worms, I’m through with you forever.

This one is gonna be long because TJ really pissed me off in this episode. But if you actually read the above, I love you because I’m literally just whining.

In this episode, I will actually feel bad for Marcus. Yes, Marcus, teenage horndog, sexist Marcus will tug on my heartstrings and make me relate to him. I know I give him a lot of shit, but at the end of the day, he’s still a teenage boy. A dark-skinned teenage boy in a family full of gifted and/or capable light skinned people, at that. In this family, guess who is the odd one out, the black sheep? Marcus. Coincidence? I just couldn’t help but notice some things Yvette does (like pursue dance at one point) are encouraged while Marcus’s hobby (music, another art) is constantly shit on by Floyd who wants Marcus to be more book smart. Or how Yvette didn’t get into any trouble for not trying to stop TJ’s party just because Marcus, who is younger than her, was in charge? Just two examples, but you get the point. 

We begin the episode with TJ bothering the big kids while they’re trying to rehearse for the upcoming Battle of the Bands gig. The gang needs cash to continue banding, especially since Mo’s strings are caca. Marcus is certain they will win and as soon as he manifests positivity about his future, something bad happens. Their guitarist breaks his finger. 

Marcus is whining to pops about this little roadbloack when we see Yvette has invited Gabrielle Union back to her place to study in the kitchen. None of that learning crap will be happening right now though, because Floyd has made Gabs wet. She tells Yvette who delivers the most visceral reaction. But Yvette...your dad is hot. And it’s perfectly normal for friends to have crushes on your parents. And you also date older men! Yvette has her moments where I hate her and this is one of them. Instead of just dropping it and continuing to study, she actually throws her friend out! You would have thought Yvette was Floyd’s damn girlfriend, the way she was acting. 

Because every show needs a montage here and there, we are now jettisoned to the garage, where Marcus is auditioning for a new piano player. Spoiler alert: they all reek, except for one guy who clearly must have been on some type of psychedelic drug to audition for a high school R&B band during a federal pursuit. The others were straight duds, including the most aggressive polka musician ever who thought his accordion counted as a keyboard. 

Marcus is fucked. His goose is cooked. His dream is deferred. How the hell is he going to pull a new piano player out of his ass in time for BotB? He suddenly hears someone tickling the ivories and is beyond impressed...and then disappointed once he sees its TJ. Turns out the little guy knows all their songs and then proceeds to explain music in math terms and I pretty much feel the way Marcus does here.

I mean, really, it’s annoying to know that your freakishly intelligent brother is pretty much good at everything, including the thing that you love more than anything. You share a room with this person, you see this person every day at school and you now have to let him in your band because of circumstances.  I do like that Marcus includes the rest of the group in his decision making, even though they really don’t seem to care about its direction as long as they can have sex with all the groupies. 

So now its Mackadocious +TJ and Marcus is doling out the “kicks” to everyone except TJ. But TJ, homie, you just entered the band and your role is to just play the piano, since nobody else is around. This is not the time for you to be trying to get your Regina Spektor on. Play your part! TJ gets upset at this, but once Marcus threatens violence, he immediately goes back to his role.

B plot land is just Yvette pissed off that her friend finds her father attractive. They go to the BotB thing and she even cuts in front of them. Jeez Yvette, chill.

When her bestie leaves a voicemail directed more towards Floyd, although flattered, he has to let her down gently. Yadda yadda, Floyd is about to have that uncomfortable conversation but it’s fine because Gabby met some dude in a black trench coat and needs Yvette to style her hair like Halle Berry’s in the last month’s Essence. Yvette is happy that things are back to normal, at the expense of her lonely father who most likely reveled in that small amount of validation as quickly as it was snatched away from him. Poor Flody. 

Anyways, back to the main arc of the episode. It’s time for the BotB and TJ is still vying for that piano solo but Marcus isn’t budging. This will end well. Once they get far enough into the song, Marcus is about to do his solo. He’s probably thinking that finally, the spotlight will be on him for a change and he can feel like he’s doing something worthy of praise. But this is TJ we’re talking about, and he is a petty little asshole, so he immediately hijacks the show and begins with his piano solo. Marcus looks straight dumb trying to hop back into his own set. So now instead of being a dick and doing the solo he wasn’t supposed to do, he has now embarassed Marcus. His feelings about the situation can best be summed up here.

The next day at school, we see that TJ is still hogging all of the band’s attention. Marcus’s insane level of togetherness right now is commendable, seeing as TJ clearly has no remorse for what he’s done and is now rubbing it in their faces. Just Marcus, though. TJ is a little babe magnet and is now basically getting girls for Mo and Goose to have sex with. Everyone is getting what they want right now. Except Marcus. 

During a rehearsal, TJ moves on to insulting Marcus’s compositions and telling the band that they need something “else.” Marcus has had it and decides it’s time for TJ to go. TJ tries to save his ass by apologizing for something he’s clearly not sorry for after the fact, but the damage is done. Now we all know that TJ is totally one to accept defeat and move on so I’m sure nothing else will come of a rather amicable split.

Later, Kid from Kid n’ Play shows up and offers Mackadocious some moolah if they play again, but with TJ, seeing as Mackadocious has been unwillingly changed to The Band With the Cute Little Kid. Marcus, putting his dream over his desire to teach his little narcissist brother a lesson (just kidding, he wants the money) asks TJ back, but he’s strangely okay with staying out of it. Marcus then grabs TJ and threatens him, calling him a little twerp. This is still funny to me.

Floyd comes in and breaks up the fight and forces the siblings to hash out their differences in a healthy way. TJ says he wishes he could sing like Marcus. Marcus hates that TJ is good at everything. They both apologize to each other and Marcus even asks if TJ wants to rejoin the band and TJ is about to ruin this totally fine moment between them by revealing his evil plan.

After being kicked out of the band, TJ wanted to get even. Instead of just taking the L and moving on, he reached out to Kid and offered some tax code write offs in exchange for promising Mackadocious a lot of money to perform a bogus gig where nobody would show up. Yes, you read that right. TJ wanted to destroy Marcus’s life and possibly crush his spirit to the point where he’d never want to pursue music at all. All because he did something shitty and got punished accordingly. TJ is a petty little asshole. Floyd hears this and allows the beating to continue. Did I mention how much I love Floyd?

Stuff I noticed:

- TJ’s shirt. Where can I find this shirt? Seriously, it’s amazing.

- Oh hi, Christina Milian.

- When TJ is mentioning the name of the band’s fan site, he just says it’s ww.cutekid.com which makes no sense because that’s too general to refer to a band and also sounds like pedo bait. 

[midnatt-heronweather]

2020 review

Disclaimer: You won’t hear much about the virus in this. I’m not a denier, I know the damage and destruction covid19 has caused and the death toll, therefore I am not yet cold enough not to realise this is going to sound completely selfish, but that is my decision.  My reviews focus on MY year. Just so you’re aware. “I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” Bob Dylan.

2020... What can I say?

This was the year I decided to officially identify as Non-Binary, not that anyone actually cares or believes me or things i'm "(insert stereotype at will)" enough. except for those very VERY rare people who do and who actually listen and hear me when I speak

Anyway -It has been a trashcan fire of a year since February/March February when I saw the Hu and Counterfeit alongside Ally. And I say February/March because that was the weekend I say my year ended...the good part anyway. Because it was that weekend when I got the ultimate honour, privilege and miracle of meeting Jason Carter, After that it was like a Dementor had French kissed the year and I can’t be the only one who thought it? Conventions and gigs postponed, rescheduled and ultimately cancelled, masks, social distancing, lockdowns the works. And can I just say - I didn’t clap, and I don’t feel in the slightest bit ashamed for it. Despite or maybe because I have friends and a few family who work in the NHS I couldn't bear to be a part of the hypocritical BS idea. I live in a country that will clap for their 'beloved' life saving NHS but then stand silent when Pay rises are frozen and when the NHS is in danger, we as a country expect a lot but don't lift a finger to gave back, clapping doesn’t pay bills. But...Bright points in the year let’s try staying positive and leaving the crap outside shall we...well... The main one has got to be that the US finally found their sense and President Elect Joe Biden will b sworn in January 20, 2021. After that... I’ll have to get back to you. Oh...no..no that’s not one... seriously I’ll have a think and get back to you. Conventions: Just one this year, for me, because of the obvious... But what a convention FCD Events presents 2258 a Babylon 5 Conventions: Where, as well as finally being among actual self confessed fans and being able to tick a b5 convention off my bucket list after starting cons way too late to attend the OG cons I did the impossible... I MET JASON CARTER... have I mentioned this? Have I? Should I say t again? I MET JASON CARTER!!! Also Mira Furlan, Tracy Scoggins and Patricia Tallman, but I met him! Finally! And... Just a reminder I did warn you guys, several times that it was likely hell would freeze over if I ever got that particular honour, do not say I didn’t. I’d never done an FCD before, I’d meant to, even bought a ticket but it just never seemed to happen, but the second someone said b5 con, I was so there! Karan Robinson made my year by making me the Anla’Shok uniform. And Nadine added the cherry on top by making the belt buckle that ONLY Marcus and Entil’Zha Sinclair wear: D (for the record: Velcro still hates me) David one of the organisers of FCD kept randomly shouting “We live for the one.” And when people other than m actually knew the response and responded... dude kick in the feels I kid you not. Next Year (Angel Willing) Adam and I are attending the Teen Wolf conventions entitled “Howl at the Moon 4” in Paris, France... which is cool on so many levels not least of which being I get to meet JR Bourne and Daniel Sharman again and get to visit the church of St Julian of the poor. And yes, there are cons planned here in the UK. But... well. It’s already looking Grey, and not the good kind. Music and Gigs: Two gigs one after the other at the 02 Ritz in Manchester. The First:

The Hu a Mongolian band who Ally really likes and I think are pretty cool. They are amazing live there’s no doubt, can hold their own in England even in a room of idiots. The 2nd :

Counterfeit (also with Ally) I went VIP and got to meet the boys again, and listen to a Q&A with them. I will forever love them, not just because of Jamie’s acting side despite what people say. Didn’t realise how special until recently though because;  after keeping fans going and hyping up new singles during lockdowns, they recently decided to go their separate ways. Jamie’s gone solo and he’s put three songs out on YouTube. _ I was meant to be attending a one off gig by Ruelle and Fleurie both of who had music used on Shadowhunters, even talked my friend Lou into it, but it was a victim of the lockdowns and things and I’m not the optimistic type so I doubt it’ll ever happen now, will be lucky if even one of the ladies comes over here if I’m honest. Recently I’ve rediscovered a love for Black Veil Brides and their leader Andy Black’s solo stuff. Olivia Hyde of Bad Pollyanna recently killed everyone in her black unicorn’s fanbase with an amazing solo album, me included. Ally has introduced me to a few interesting bands this year, *Wingtips – very 80s Goth, very Ally (translation: very cool.) *Allegiance Reign – a Japanese Samurai metal band,  not sure what Ally actually thinks of these guys, she found them while perusing YouTube and thought of me :D Suggestions greatly accepted, I am always up for giving new stuff a try. Hopefully next year things will even out and gigs will be able to be put on again. TV and Fandom’s: *We FINALLY got Roswell: New Mexico in the UK, and ITV blitzed through 2 seasons in less than a month, but it was enough for me to decide I loved it, maybe more than I did the original. Alex is my fave, but obv Michael isn’t half bad, nor is Max when he’s not making goo-goo eyes at Liz. * Finally got to see 9-1-1 Lone Star and I absolutely love it, (I kinda knew I would from all the talk) * Decided to give the Charmed reboot a 2nd look and it’s proved addictive, now waiting for s2 to be downloadable on Amazon or something. *In march I was so, so excited for the return of The Expanse and the fact the main cast were coming to a con in the UK, then.. The verse went to hell. I still Love the Expanse, but I’m not as die hard as I was, not for lack of trying. Still love it for Anna of course, any excuse to see her. *After 15 years Supernatural finally ended in 2020 with season15: I stopped watching religiously at the end of season 6 but that does not mean I stopped liking the show just that I didn’t like the direction (like with The Expanse recently) I loved watching the reaction of the fans, and how much they (we if I’m counted) mean to the cast. * I have to mention Cursed... If only to say HOLY HELL DANIEL! 𝑴𝒚 𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑻𝑽 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒐𝒇 2020 Cursed 9-1-1 Lone Star & 9-1-1 Warrior Nun Prodigal Son Penny Dreadful: City of Angels Doctor who (Officially season12) Roswell s1&2 (it counts cos ITV only just got the reboots) Charmed s1&2(it counts cos E4 only just got the reboots) Call the Midwife (s9 btw) Our Girl Strike Back: Vendetta Friends: “Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

My understanding of "friendship." is skewed, and I’m not saying that to be "Vulcan." it’s honest, and anyone who wants to know how or why just has to ask. But let’s leave it at that for this. It makes some things more stark... and I've said this recently, but this binfire has made even me more aware of who’s out there in my verse, whose pack, who’s potential, and who’s just pathetic. The last I’m not going to waste my breath on. The first two: Pack and Potential (read: new acquaintances /potential friends) Pack: Yes I go on about friends as 'Pack like a person whose OD'd on Teen Wolf... because I am so :P My pack as a whole are varied, and spread out across this country with a few dotted around Europe and Aus. hopefully they know who they are because I don't do mushy crap as they know. But if they do know, they know I'm there when I'm needed and more than willing to sod off when not. Yorkshire brass makes me frank and I’d hope fair. There are 2...mayb 3 who sit above the rest, in special place for the things they've done and things they've been through with me. I make no denial of that. But everyone is important to me. I wouldn't change them for anything.... Ok... tell a lie, maybe 1 or 2 when they do my box in, but that’s only like for a week maybe less. I've spent too many years and got too many scars and burned too many photos and bridges because of fake people and users to not be honest to a fault. It’s who I am. Potential: the Counterfeit gig in Manchester, 2258 and yes even Tiktok have given me the opportunity to make some interesting acquaintances this year, and some I hope will become friends in the real in the future, but for now I will say - "I am defensive, stand off ish, sometimes bull headed and of course opinionated, but I am by no means blind. Or blinkered despite what may be said of me. I am there when needed, if I can be of use, just poke me."   Ave Atqua Vale This section has its own post these days. Sadly. Pictures Will try and make one of my “a year in ten pics.” Posts later. Final words While I am not fond of this time of year, Enjoy your celebrations whatever for they may take, I will be watching The Magicians / Call the Midwife and plotting 202? Cosplays. I will be here when (fk knows why) I'm needed. Otherwise-  Compliments of the season, now go get a beer, i'm sure you need it after reading this crap.

in the words of The one and only Jason Carter  “Hindsight is 2020″

[element-effect-blog]

"Generating Leads With Podcasting Feat. George B Thomas" The Inbound Success Podcast Ep. 10 [Show Notes]

Looking for a way to generate leads, establish thought leadership and get massive return on investment from your marketing? Look no further than podcasting.

Listen to the episode here, or read the transcript (below), to learn how George raised his profile as a thought leader, got invited to speak at INBOUND and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in business leads...all from a podcast.

Transcript

Here’s what George and I discussed on this week’s show:

Kathleen Booth (host): Welcome to The Inbound Success Podcast. My name is Kathleen Booth and this week my guest is George B. Thomas of the Sales Lion. Welcome George.

George B Thomas (guest): Kathleen, thanks for having me.

Kathleen: I am so excited to have you here. I specifically waited to have you as my guest for a few weeks after starting the podcast, because even though you and I have known each other for a while, I wanted to have some kind of a track record before I invited you in because you are a pro at this.

George: Well ... I've done a few podcasts, let's just put it that way. But, I love being on podcasts. It is a great medium to educate, to inform, all that good stuff. And I'm glad to be here. Finally, I'll say, you know, tonight I'll sleep. At home tonight, I'll sleep cause I've been on the podcast.

Kathleen: You crossed one off your bucket list right?

Kathleen: Well I'm really appreciative of it and before we jump in, I've known you for a while but maybe not everybody who's listening does know you, so tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and what you do these days.

George: Yeah definitely. So my name is George B. Thomas. Like Kathleen said, I do work at The Sales Lion. I started out as an employee, and I'm now a co-owner, which is always interesting. I started with inbound marketing in 2012, listening to Gary Vaynerchuck, and decided I wanted to become a thought leader in something that I knew absolutely nothing about, so I started educating myself, started growing myself, kind of changing my mentality of "never arrive but always succeed." And now I go out and I give workshops, I speak professionally and I train clients over the internet from the comfort of my home office, which is awesome.

Kathleen: I wish that people listening could actually see what I'm seeing, because we're on video as we record this and George does have a really cool home office. 

George:Let's just say super heroes people, super heroes.

Kathleen: It's pretty cool. Well, I think one of the reasons I was excited to have you on is that you've kind of made a career out of educating other people, and what I love is you just said, you started this journey in 2012, which funny enough is kind of when I started focusing on inbound marketing. Your career has been fascinating to watch. As an outside observer, I give you so much credit because you, more than anyone else I think I've ever met actually, are so committed to teaching yourself and going out and learning and not waiting for the information to come to you.

You're so proactive and I really see that as something that everybody can learn from in this space.

George:Yeah, Kathleen, I appreciate that. I'm humbled because I'm just trying to be me and I'd like to say that there's a sexy answer for that but there's really not. I tie the way that I am with education to the fact that when I was 17 years old, I had somebody tell me that I would never amount to anything, and for the rest of my days I will be able to wake up in the morning and say to myself, no, I will be something and they're wrong.

And so there's this innate desire to know as much as possible about anything that I dive into. I'm hoping somebody will get something out of this. I think they will because we're talking human level, which we'll get into podcasting in a minute, but there's something that is really awesome about being able to be a sponge. This is what people will usually say about me is, hey I'm gonna head George in this direction, and then just absorb the information.

This is what I did with Hub Spot in 2012, 13, 14, 15, 16 right? It's what I do now. But 18 months ago, 24 months ago, Marcus, knowing that I'm this type of person, Marcus Sheridan by the way other owner of the Sales Lion, pointed me in the direction of video and said, "go do what you do, but with video versus Hub Spot." And now we teach video workshops as well as go out and teach at workshops and stuff like that. But we'll talk about that more.

Kathleen: Well, whoever that person is that said you would never amount to anything, has spent many, many years eating their words.

George:Well yeah, and it's funny because, and again I'm just trying to speak to somebody out there, for a lot of years Kathleen, I was like I really hated that person, it was a place of anger. But, now I'd actually love to go back and see my math teacher and thank him. Because, it is that spark that fueled this forever educating mentality in my brain.

Kathleen: Yeah, and you were saying there's not really a sexy answer, and again as somebody who kind of is an outside observer, what I have observed is it's "roll up your sleeves and do the work." We happen to be Facebook friends, and George will post at like eight o'clock in the morning, that he's starting the day with a bang and he woke up early and he got a new Hub Spot certification. Or it'll be a weekend and in between taking his kids to the movies, he's getting another one. It's really amazing. And this is gonna sound really corny, but you totally do inspire me.

George:I appreciate that.

Kathleen: You're an amazing role model.

George:I'm humbled, I'm humbled.

I'm trying to do the best I can, and if people can come along for the ride, if I can change my corner of the universe, which really ties back to The HubCast and the podcast, if I can put a little dent in my side of the universe, when I get to the end of the road ... I should start singing Boys to Men right now, but I won't. When I get to the end of the road, I want to be able to look back and be like, yeah that's a good dent right there.

Kathleen: That's so funny cause that's what I say when I send my son ... I have a fifth grader ... when I send him off to school every day. I always say, "make the world a better place." I think he thinks I'm nuts, but no, someday you're gonna remember that I said that to you.

George:Absolutely, absolutely.

Kathleen: Well, speaking of little corners of the world and wanting to make a difference, I started this podcast because I really felt like there's a lot of companies and people out there that are doing inbound marketing and it's been around for a little while now. I do feel like if you sort of follow the plain vanilla play book, it's getting harder and harder to see results. One of the things I wanted to do with this, is shine the light on people who are getting creative and following the play book, but adding to it with their own spin and testing out and doing new things and getting awesome results. And really pick apart what they're doing so that the average inbound marketer - the person who is in the weeds, in the trenches, boots on the ground, doing the work every day - can extract some lessons from that, apply it to the work they're doing, and also improve the results they're getting.

We could probly have you on five different episodes. You talked about video, and I feel like that's another one but, for this one, I specifically really wanted to talk about the work you've done with podcasting because we haven't talked about podcasting on this podcast before. It's very meta! When I spoke to you and to Marcus about some of the things you've done with podcasting and what that has meant to your organization from a lead generation standpoint, I was really fascinated and it seemed to me to be a best practice.

I'd just love to turn it over to you and have you tell us a little bit about the podcast and how it came to be and what the original purpose and objectives were.

George:Yeah, and it's funny that we talked about video a little bit. Before we get into podcasting, my biggest fear that video is so hot right now, and 99 percent of the people who haven't even touched on podcasting for their business. You're like, well blogs aren't working anymore and everybody is saying "well video is the wave of the future", which is true, don't get me wrong, again probably a different episode. But podcasting is so, so magical.

Let me kinda just paint a picture for you. It was 2014, Marcus Sheridan sent me an email and said hey, I think we should create a podcast. I'm like, "uh I don't know." Cause, side note, I hate my voice.

Kathleen: You actually have such a great DJ voice.

George:I hated my voice for years. And I'm like, "okay dude, if you think this is a good idea." And he's like, "I want you to put together what you think would be a great show for HubSpot users." And I don't want to gloss over that. I want everybody to realize that immediately we were focused on a niche audience. We were not creating a podcast, and we were not about to create a podcast for marketing automation, or inbound marketing, or marketing. This was going to be a podcast specific for HubSpot users. 

And so I put pen to paper and I started thinking, "What are the goals? What are we trying to do with this? And how powerful could it be?" First of all, we had to figure out a name. We came up with The HubCast because at that point, if you tried to use "HubSpot" in your podcast name, HubSpot probably would've crapped a brick and there probably would be some legal things happening. So we're like "Hub" for HubSpot and "cast" for podcast. We just mashed it together.

Kathleen: It's a great name.

The HubCast was born. And with the outline, what I realized I wanted to do, I wanted to have something that I could spin up quickly. So the show notes would be repeatable, meaning there were going to be sections that each week I would just be able to copy a template, paste it and then fill in the slots. And so, from that, I knew that I wanted to be able to do this quickly. From that I knew I wanted to be a resource. It had to be educational. So we put in a strategy section, we put in a question of the week, and then I knew that it needed to be focused on somehow building a community. Cause I knew, people aren't just waiting around for a HubSpot podcast to come out and if they do, it's gonna be slow growing. So how can we implement this to be a little bit faster.

So we put in tweets of the week. The whole strategy behind tweets of the week, was to actually find people who were using #hubspotting, #Inboundmarketing, whatever, #INBOUND16, etc, and actually find things that they were saying that we thought were creative so that we could then mention them on the show and then mention that we mentioned them on the show so that then they would share out that they were on the show and other people, friends, family, dogs, cats, would actually start listening to the podcast, which worked really, really well.

We also did another section in there, which was agency spotlight where we'd start to talk about what agencies were doing well. Again, it was all about mentioning people so we could grow the community.

Kathleen: If I could just interject on that...That's something that I've always thought you guys did particularly well. Because The Sales Lion is an agency and not everybody realizes that at first because you are so much about education and about helping, but you do have clients. And it seems counter intuitive as an agency to promote other agencies. But back from the very beginning it starts with Marcus and River Pools and the famous story of how he would write blog posts about the top pool companies that were not his own on his website and what that did for his business. And I think you've taken that "aha moment" that came about through that initial experiment and really ran with it very successfully.

George:Well, I'll tell you a couple things. One, we bleed the fact - the truth - of there is no secret sauce. In podcasting you gotta talk about it. In the written words you gotta write about it. In video, you just gotta show it. There is no secret sauce. And the other thing is some of these posts that we do have become the most magical moments of our content marketing.

For instance, we have a Top 12 Hub Spot Partners post. It's a huge post. We don't mention ourselves. We mention all these other people. But I can tell you, the amount of traffic that we get, because we mention these people in a post. And also agencies who have said, how do I become the first person on this list. And then us adjusting overtime where we actually put people on the list. It's just, you have to be transparent, honest, authentic (which, by the way, those words I just said are key to the success of The HubCast podcast as well). That's the way that you have to communicate in today's space.

Kathleen: So you, had an objective, which was to create a podcast for HubSpot users. You determined that, and that audience was specific. Did you go out and look at other podcasts to try and get an idea of what the best practices might be for your format? Are there other podcasts that you look at as really good examples or get inspired from?

George:Yeah, I'd love to say that I was that smart at the beginning, but there has been a lot of learning along the way. However, I was a podcast junkie before this. And so I had listened to and paid attention to what other folks were doing at a very light level on educating myself. But there was really no "I want to be this type of podcast". It was more of like, "hey this is something new and I have no clue what it's going to look like, this is how we're gonna initially mold it and see what happens."

And one of the major things that we talked about was there's not gonna be any sponsors at first. No sponsors. And I think we made it to episode, Kathleen I think it was episode 54 before we ever actually talked about a sponsor. Now, one of the things that we weren't worried about in the beginning was how are we gonna generate revenue from this podcast. However, it has become one of the larger revenue generating sides of the business for us, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a little bit.

Kathleen: I think we understand the general concept of the podcast, and you talked about building community, obviously a campaign involving a podcast starts with making the podcast. You record it, you produce it, you publish it on your website, on some kind of hosting platform, but then how specifically have you promoted that podcast and gotten it in front of more eyeballs, more listeners? You have your show notes, which you do a very nice job with the show notes and we want to talk about that at some point too. But I'm curious, what are your lessons learned for how you promote a podcast and really start to get a bigger audience?

George:Yeah, I'm still learning. As a matter of fact, when you emailed me over before this podcast, and you used the word "campaign" attached to a podcast, I was like, all of a sudden like sparks started coming out of my brain and I'm like, "oh my gosh, this is the longest campaign that we've ever run and there are pieces of a typical campaign that are missing from what we're doing right now." It repositioned the way that I looked at the content that we are creating. So, that was amazing.

I'm always learning. As far as promoting the podcast, it was really just an organic thing at first where we would just create it, we would mention people, they would mention it. And because it was so authentic, transparent, useful stuff that was just important to them as a HubSpot user, it started to get noticed. Then we started doing other things where we would do social publishing. One of the smartest things I ever did probably - well, I mean I've done a couple smart things - but, one of the smartest things with The HubCast was that back in the day, when you could actually use the HubSpot share tool and share to LinkedIn groups. What I did was I went and I actually, not for a spammy crappy way, but just to be a helpful utility unto the HubSpot world, I went and I signed up for every possible HubSpot user group that I could on LinkedIn and then when we would produce a new episode of The HubCast, I would send it that way.

Here's the amazing thing, not once ever did anybody who was in charge of a LinkedIn group say, "oh you gotta stop sending us content." They were like, "yeah, bring it, this is good quality stuff." It's providing great content to a niche audience of HubSpot users, in a HubSpot user group, which if you think back is exactly why the podcast was created, so it was a perfect match.

Now that's a little bit more difficult and time consuming because you can't do it with one click, one button.

Kathleen: You gotta go in to LinkedIn to do it. Yeah, my heart shattered a little bit when they made that announcement.

George:Yeah, I think I cried for at least 30 seconds. Then I was like "I got work to do so let's just do this."

Kathleen: Time to move on.

George:The thing is, so we started to do that and it really helped.

The other thing that is really helped us is we've leveraged hashtags. As INBOUND has done a lot of work, to go from 2,500 to 5,000 to 15,000 to 21,000 attendees, they've given us a large amount of people that we can hashtag. Like if you look, there's a lot of titles that have #INBOUND15, 16, and 17 in them so that people are like, "oh I'm getting ready to go on a flight. Let me see what this podcast is about because I can listen to it while I'm 50 bazillion miles in the air."

Kathleen: So, that's a good thing. So you put the hashtag not just in your tweets, but in the titles of your podcast?

George:Because then, when anybody shares it, what's there? The hashtag. And so it spreads like wildfire. And so that is definitely another kind of social strategy that we have done.

Now I'll tell you what's in the horizon. We've actually talked about, because we've realized the power of, if we can get people to listen to The HubCast, if they see the value that we can add, there is revenue on the other side of it. So, it's working, now let's add gasoline to the fire and really fuel it up. So we've been talking about starting a Facebook lead ads campaign where we're just using some type of video content to get them on a page where they can subscribe to The HubCast and they can just realize "wow, this is super awesome, super valuable and I need to listen every week."

I want to rewind for a second and pick apart what you do for the podcast. You have the show notes published on The Sales Lion website. In sort of a blog format, correct?

Kathleen: Do you host your podcast on a platform like LibSyn, or where is it hosted?

George:Let me just give you the kind of run through. Anybody who's trying to do this, cause I wish everybody would do this. First of all, let's just talk about gear and how simple we've kept it.

We use Skype, we use Skype Call Recorder and we use ATR 2100 microphones. That's it. That's how we record it. Boom. The way that I edit it, is I split the track with a piece of software that comes with Skype call recorder, I put it in Adobe Audition, I add an intro, I add an outro, I sometimes add a commercial for the HIT workshops or the video workshops that we do, I export it out to an MP3, I upload it to LibSyn, I throw all of the metadata that I need in there for iTunes, Stitcher and all those good places, and then we put it on our website. Then when we publish as a blog article to this specific category called The HubCast, then it shoots out to iTunes, Stitcher, blah blah blah.

Behind the scenes of that, before the recording, we use Dropbox Paper to create the outline for the show notes and where I can, again, take that template, paste it, fill in the blanks, and then share it with Marcus. He shows up, we look over the show notes, we record it, I do the whole editing part, then I take that outline, and I put it on our website as a blog, add images, tweak the links, make it look pretty, add a call to action, hit publish and then people can either listen on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever or on our actual webpage.

But we're never really trying to always drive them back to the webpage. I don't care where they listen. I just want them to listen. And that's pretty much the whole process other than like, on some episodes we'll have a special guest and there's another layer of complexity to that. That's pretty much it.

Kathleen: Do you have any sense of which platforms people are mostly listening on?

George:Yeah, for sure. It's a lot of IOS. So iPhones, iPads, whatever. Website might come next. Stitcher is probably after that. But you know what, while we can look at some of that granularity, I don't look at it very often. Really there's ... this is sad. I mean it's not sad. Well, it's sorta sad. There's really two metrics that ... well there's more than two metrics. There's some hard core metrics and there's some soft core metrics that I look at when it comes to the podcast.

When I think of hard core metrics, I think of things like, we started with 53 listeners. So, that's 53 downloads. Now we get well over 5000 downloads a month. And we've even had ...

Kathleen: And you're measuring that through LibSyn?

George:Yes we're measuring that through LibSyn. And we even had, Kathleen, this one time, I may have like pooped myself just a little bit. We had one episode that got 2185 downloads by itself. And we're like, "we're big time now people."No, I'm just kidding. We didn't say that at all. We're like "wow, what happened?"

So we went from 53 listeners to 5000 listeners and so every month I'm looking at, "are we up and to the right?" Are we always gaining more listeners? Did something fall off? Are we not talking about the right topics? What are the hot topics? And then there's the intangibles, the soft metrics like the hand shakes, the high fives. And being able to tie back, if we didn't start The HubCast in 2014, I probably would've not spoke at INBOUND in 2016. I would've not spoke at INBOUND in 2017 because there was a power, a brand, a growth that was shown, and a massive amount of people who were like, "hey we wanna see George B speak at Inbound," this was 2016. So, that doesn't happen.

Because that doesn't happen then you can't say, well the deals that we closed because of INBOUND and speaking in front of an audience or retainers or whatever, that doesn't happen. You have to look at the audience growth year over year. So like, 2016, I think I spoke in front of 500 people, and then an overflow and this year it was a room of 1200 people with an encore and an overflow to the encore.

There's those metrics that aren't somewhere on a chart but you can visually see them. And then we can track back for 2016, over six figures of income that came from our services that we sell on just The HubCast. That's the only place we were promoting them. And this year of course it's still calculating. I don't know what it will be this year but last year was well over six figures.

Kathleen: Now, how are you tracking that?

George:If you have a podcast, and the only place that you promote a HubSpot Intensive Workshop or a video workshop or a workshop on workshops, all of those things, if that's the only place you're promoting them, and you can then sit back and go, "well we went out and did this many workshops for this much money," it's tracked. That's it. It's simple.

Kathleen: Do you have other, for example you do provide agency services, do you have a way of knowing if somebody comes in through your website and it's not something that was solely promoted on the podcast, do you have a way of being able to attribute that to the podcast, like a question and a form?

George:No. Other than, we'll hear people when we start to train them, they'll say things and you'll be like, "you listen to the podcast don't you?" And they'll be like "yeah, come on." But we never ... although Kathleen this would be a really good idea. On our onboarding of new clients we never say to them "are you a HubCast listener, or have you been a HubCast listener." So that's interesting, which might need to happen in the future.

Kathleen: It would be interesting to almost incorporate that into lead scoring and try to figure out, is somebody who is a HubCast listener more likely to become a client because they're already bought in to you, on a personal level, which is really a game changer for most of the leads that agencies get? Because, I don't know, I've owned an agency, I've worked for an agency and I do find that when somebody comes in cold, it always starts with an element of adversarialness to it. "Prove to me that you're as good as you say you are."

Kathleen: "Have you really gotten the results you talk about?" And so, part of the challenge in the sales discussion is overcoming that adversarialness and developing a different relationship.

George:We've never had that.

Kathleen: Because people listen to you online and they know who you are.

George:I say this humbly cause it's funny you're mentioning that and I'm remembering back in the old school days when I worked in an agency where we did have to claw and bite for the business. We're thought leaders. At The Sales Lion, we honestly do not have that issue because, after 154 episodes of The HubCast and over 400 HubSpot tutorials that I've done on YouTube, they've seen my face, they've heard my voice, they've tied it back to Marcus Sheridan and the larger strategy of "They ask, you answer," the Big Five, and as a client you sit back and you go, "well holy crap." We've got strategy and the most tactical tactition that is going to educate us on what we should be doing. And so usually its just like, "where do I sign?"

Kathleen: Yeah, and that's something that I want to pause and just emphasize. The concept of thought leadership. I talk to so many companies that are either doing inbound marketing and want to be able to do it better, or just starting to do it. Almost, I would say 90 percent of them at least, come to me and say, "we want to establish ourselves as thought leaders." What I find is that in today's world, it can be harder to do that in a blog because there are so many of them. Especially if you don't already have an audience that you can start to get really great content in front of.

But podcasting, there's a little bit more of an opportunity. It's a little bit more of the wild west still. There are a lot of podcasts. But not necessarily in every industry.

George:But specific. Specific.

I will tell you right now, one of the trainings I did last week was to a foam installation company to start a podcast. That's the thing, if you go very niche, into your industry or the services that you provide, there is still a lot of gold that can be mined. And that's why I said at the beginning, I get nervous that video is so popular because podcasting is still an area where you could be crushing it. I know you're gonna ask me some questions later, and what you'll notice is there's some names in there and they are podcasters, but they're also thought leaders. And when you talk about thought leaders, what I really want to say to those folks who say, "man I really want to be a thought leader," then I'm gonna say two things. Educate the crap out of yourself and work your butt off.

George:Cause if you don't do those two things, it doesn't happen. And so there's this thing I talked about at INBOUND17 where people want to educate, educate, educate, educate; that does not equal a thought leader. That also does not equal inbound success, but if you educate and execute, educate and execute, then you'll be an Inbound hero and you'll be a thought leader and then your world changes. Trust me. Your world changes.

I look at me, my family in 2012 and me, my family now in 2017 and whew, my goodness.

Kathleen: But you're also the master of if you put your vision for your future out into the universe, it will come true because having been a loyal HubCast listener from day one, I know that you've gone on that show and said, "this is what I want to accomplish next year and it's gonna happen." And every case when I've heard you say it, it has. There's something to that.

George:I live and die by goals. I'm always focused on what the next thing because I never want to feel like I've arrived. Not that I don't want to feel like I've succeeded, I just never want to feel like I've arrived. I think there's two differences there in the way that you look at the world. And even as we speak Kathleen, there's a board over to my left that has three year goals, things that I want to reach by the year 2020.

Kathleen: I want to know what's on that board.

George:I'll share with everybody.

George:I'm gonna get some people paying attention. I'm gonna talk specifically, talk about specifics. This is video, just for the use of talking to people about what I'm going to do, the micro moments to get to that larger goal. I'm sharing how I'm growing my community, how I'm working out, trying to lose weight, how I'm educating myself. So you're gonna see the nuts and bolts of, if I make it, how I made it through this video thing.

Kathleen: I love it, I love it.

George:Take the summer off ... by the way, not all of this is business related, which is something to think about listeners. Take the summer off to travel with family. 2020 will be my oldest daughter's senior year, and I want to take three months off, and I just want us to go travel around america and do whatever we can do and see whatever we can see.

By 2020 I want to write a book. And I even have the title, I have the idea. I've been through enough stuff that I think it would be really interesting to put out this manual if you will to the world. I've had, and I say this humbly Kathleen, I've had people come, several, multiple, many actually, people come up to me and say, either in email or in person, how do I find a George B Thomas for my agency? I think this book helps them find that person or build that person.

I want to ... this is the big hairy one where, when I wrote it I laughed, and I know people will laugh. By 2020 I want to make 250,000 dollars a year. Which is a lot of scratch right? That's a lot of money. What's a guy gonna do with that? Well a guy's gonna make a bigger dent in his universe.

Kathleen: Guy's gonna put his kid through college.

George:Yeah yeah. Guys gonna make a bigger dent in the universe.

Kathleen: Speaking as somebody who has four kids, two of whom are in college at the same time right now.

George:Exactly. I already put one through college, I got three more to go. Statistically, one probly won't go to college, which is shameful. But then last but not least, I want to sit on a board of a non profit organization. Again tying back to the deeper reason of why I'm actually here on the planet, versus just being an inbound thought leader.

Kathleen: I love that. And I'm gonna do an ask, and it may or may not be possible, I don't know what's on that board. But would you be willing to snap a photo of the board and share it with us so I can put it in the show notes?

Kathleen: I love it, that's awesome.

Kathleen: It's funny that you said you have personal goals on there because a couple years ago I read, I think it's like Mastering the Rockefeller Habits or something along those lines. And he talks in the book about how your goals have to be personal and professional because you're really not a complete person unless you can balance those two and be equally fulfilled in both realms so I totally agree with that.

George:I live my life, and I know this has gotten a little bit off of podcasting but, I live my life Kathleen, in a way that there is no work life balance, there's just life.

Kathleen: Love it. Alright so, back to podcasting for a minute.

Kathleen: I want to come back to something you mentioned earlier. So we've talked a couple times in this podcast about video. And you mentioned that you talk about video a lot. And you also mentioned that when you were making The HubCast you made a lot of videos and put them on YouTube. I think a lot of people, when they think about podcasting, it's very binary. It's like we're gonna put out this audio file, there might be some written show notes and boom we're done, but you managed to combine video as a really important part of that podcast. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

George:Yeah. This ties into the show notes. One of the things that I realized is, and this is because of weakness, I'm not a great writer. Okay, I just can't write. My spelling sucks, my grammar sucks, it probly has something to do, tying back to the math teacher who told me I would never amount to anything and at the age of 17 dropping out of high school. Not having the education I needed for that part of my life. When Marcus said, "hey let's do The HubCast," which by the way people, that was being vulnerable.

When he said "lets do this podcast," I was like, I'm gonna make the most incredible show notes, where it has nothing to do with if I can write great but I can be creative and I can put images and words and videos and whatever on this page where people are like, "man these show notes are awesome." Cause that was my side of the written word right? And people, our content manager or Marcus, would go through and just make sure that the parts that I did write, were like, yeah you're good and the rest is awesome.

But, going more specific into why video in the show notes, was, one of the sections, because one of our goals was to educate and its very hard to show people how to do things in HubSpot in audio form. I'll tell you, Chris Handy with Hub Spot To Go did a great job. I'm sad that that podcast isn't continuing to go more and more and more. But it's just very difficult. By the way, Chris Handy is one of my heroes. I just love him in the space and hey, I mentioned him alright, cool. Check.

So I wanted to be able to show people how to do things in HubSpot and that became a section that was HubSpot Tips and Tricks. It grew and it had its own thing where, all of a sudden Marcus one episode called me "Georgie Claus" and there's this whole "ding, ding, ding" thing that happened around every time that I would have the tutorial in one of the episodes. And what we found was super interesting as people would come to the show notes and then go to our YouTube channel and watch these videos. And so it was something that was working.  It stuck, and we could educate them while they are walking up the mountain or while they are driving down the road and when they got to their office, they could then get these micro moments of video content specific to, tips and tricks in the tool of HubSpot or HubSpot CRM.

Kathleen: That's great. It just goes to show that you don't need to be such a purest in your format. Somebody actually told me that the other day about podcasting. In fact, it was somebody fairly high up at HubSpot. I was asking what he saw as some future opportunities in marketing and he said, I would look at different formats of podcasting. There's a Hamilton podcast, which is a musical podcast. And they're doing great and they're different experiments. You don't have to follow the traditional playbook. I think that's a great example of how you built on what were your strengths and found a great solution.

George:Yeah, you just have to find ... it is, it's about your strengths and how you can tell the story. And how you can kind of lead the way through that story.

Kathleen: You have gotten fantastic results for the company through podcasting, you've built this large community, you've got a big following on the podcast. What I've loved hearing about this story is that you did come about the format and the whole campaign, which we're now gonna call it, organically.

Kathleen: You came about it organically in a way that really good marketers should, which is what's our objective? Who's our audience? And what's really gonna work for them? I would love to know, as somebody who is so committed to learning, where do you turn for information? When you go look for websites for ideas and the latest thinking and cutting edge tactics and strategies, who are you looking towards? I feel like a lot of people look towards you.

George: First of all there's a butt ton of podcasts that I listen to as I'm flying or traveling. But if I have to give you the default answer to this, I would of course say, it's HubSpot Academy. I mean come on. I've got 14 certifications out of the 15 so that's definitely a huge part of it.

Kathleen: Probably the only reason you don't have the 15th is they keep releasing new ones, darn them!

George:No, to be honest with you it's because it's Growth-Driven Design and you need a snack and a backpack to get that one done.

Kathleen: Nice, put it on the board.

George:Yeah, put it on the board.

There's other pieces like Moz for SEO and Lynda.com for other things. But here's the not so, again not so sexy answer is more times than not, I learn stuff about inbound marketing when I'm working through things with my own clients. There are several systems in place that are not taught anywhere. Like anywhere else. The fact that I got up and at INBOUND this year, one of my sessions for a Highly Effective HubSpotter was triple qualify your leads. And I was talking about informationally qualified, engagement qualified, and persona qualified. And there were HubSpot users and agency owners that came up to me and said, "Holy crap, gold! Where did you learn that?" And I'm like "no, no, no, I built that."

That's something that has happened more and more and more. And Kathleen the reason I think this has happened is because, I'm able to take the things that I have learned through 14 certifications, and because there's not one two or three certifications, but there's 14 certifications and I'm literally looking at the landscape from marketing, sales, design, development. Because I used to be a nerdy designer and developer, I'm able to piece ... and add in the fact that I understand humans from being a recovering youth pastor, I'm able to see all of this and kind of like, ooh if this part of the brain attaches to this piece over here and we add two of these and a little dash of this, pppffff, inbound goodness right. That's part of the answer as well.

Kathleen: Awesome. My next question, which I always ask everyone who comes on this podcast is, who - company or individual - do you think is doing inbound marketing really well? So if the listener wanted to go out and see an example of somebody who's just killin' it, who should they look at?

George:Well I should say you. Cause you're doing a podcast.

Kathleen: You can't say ... cause that's you know ... well aside from us.

George:Again, IMPACT is killin' it, you guys are killin' it.

Kathleen: It's not about us.

George:I know, it's not. But I did prepare. If you wanna see people that are out there that are killin' it inbound and just general good people, I would say people like Stephanie Casstevens, Moby Siddique, Francess Bowman, Dan Moyle. Those are like the core group of people that I'm watching and excited about their growth in life and where they're going.

Of course, then you layer on the people who are doing podcasts like, HubShots with Craig and Ian. Zon and Adam from The Kingdom who are doing HubnSpoke. Any of those people who are doing what we're talking about today. Creating content through a podcast or have just generally been killing it with very interesting out of the box things or ideas. That's where I'm at.

Now, that's people. And in the question, people or companies. Companies, and I don't wanna turn this into a TSL client show, cause it's not what it should be. But I will tell you, we have one client that I'm super excited with in particular. I've been watching them. And it's Slick Woody's. They sell Corn Hole boards, Corn Hole bags, Corn Hole lights and other stuff like apparel and adirondack chairs. They have been killing it. When we say write these things, or do these tactics or use HubSpot in this way, and what's really neat about it, is they've been leveraging HubSpot and Shopify and The Sales Lion training for a year, just signed on for another six month contract of, I think it was like, we just love you so much we wanna keep you around to be honest with you. But just signed on for another half a year contract with us. But have, just astronomically blown out their yearly "this is what we'd like to make" number. And their customers are super happy with the way that they are actually doing it.

That to me is a "win, win" scenario. And then I think of a couple UK clients that we have. OSV and Triaster, they historically have been killing it with their inbound marketing.

Kathleen: That's great. I definitely will put a link to Slick Woody's

Kathleen: ... in the show notes. Everyone go check that out. I think it's nice to see examples from different industries too, cause everybody always comes in and thinks, "oh I can't do that in my industry," there's another one - corn hole boards - that who knew, was a great candidate for inbound marketing.

Well thank you for sharing all this George. It's been so fun and so interesting and I love that you shared a lot of the personal stuff in addition to the podcasting stuff. You're always so good about walking the walk with being honest and transparent and authentic.

George:Yeah, sometimes I'm ... I'm waiting for it to get me in trouble. But so far, it's been a good thing.

Kathleen: Well, it's great. And if our listeners have questions, obviously they should definitely listen to The HubCast. I recommend it.  When I had my own agency and I would hire new people, one of the things I would assign them - I don't think I ever told you this - as a new employee, was that they should listen to every episode of The HubCast. For everybody listening, that's definitely a great place to start if you want to be a better inbound marketer. But if people specifically want to reach out to you with questions, where can they reach you?

George:So I'll give you a couple different places. First of all, that is kinda cool that like, "hey you're hired but you have to listen to these 150 episodes of a podcast." I love it.

If people want to reach out to me, by the way, if you have questions about podcasting or whatever, you can email me, george@thesaleslion.com I did just give you my email.

But if you just want to have a conversation on the socials, then you can reach out to me on Twitter @georgebthomas and on Facebook, which is really the place that I love to jam the most, @mr.georgebthomas, which now that I said that I feel like maybe I'm saying I'm old, cause I like Facebook. But anyway. Doesn't matter.

Kathleen: I love it. Well thank you for sharing all those different ways for people to get in touch with you. And for sharing all this awesome feedback on podcasting, I definitely am gonna hound you about getting that picture of your board cause I think that's so cool and I might just start my own board as a result of this.

Kathleen: I have all kinds of thoughts in my head right now about what my goals are gonna be. But anyway, thank you so much. And for people listening, if you liked this episode, please review us on iTunes or Stitcher. It means a lot and helps us get in front of other people. And if you know somebody who's really kicking it with their inbound marketing results, let us know. Because we're listening for and looking for new people to interview every week. And if you are somebody who's killing it, we'd love to talk to you. So that's it for this week and, join us next week for our next interview with an inbound marketing rockstar.

Want to stay updated when the podcast is released?

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This content was originally published here.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #157 - Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) Getting any sort of footage or image before a studio logo is exceptionally rare. I appreciate that Paramount and the filmmakers decided to open the film with this dedication:

2) This is an end to a trilogy started by Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan, as it is a direct sequel to Star Trek III which was a direct sequel to Khan. Leonard Nimoy returns to direct after Star Trek III and decided to give the film a lighter tone as Star Trek was taking itself rather seriously. I think that works for this movie, but I also think the film succeeds because (out of the trilogy) it does the best of examining the crew outside of Kirk/Spock/Bones (as we shall see).

3)

Vulcan Computer [testing Spock’s recovery]: “How do you feel?”

Spock’s emotional arc - though it becomes more subtle as the film progresses - is a nice touch. The dude DIED. He’s not just going to walk away from that scot free. He’s Vulcan, so his intellect has been largely focused on. But it is his emotional recovery - getting in touch with his human side - which carries the Vulcan through this film. And I think it works wonderfully.

4) The noise the alien probe emits has a wonderfully ominous design to it. It is effective and makes you uncomfortable. You know something is up.

The entire idea of a mysterious alien probe with unknown intentions which is creating death and destruction (seemingly involuntarily) is very compelling to me. It is an idea in the same essence of “The Twilight Zone” or even something HG Welles would write. Mysterious, frightening, foreboding, and interesting.

5) This is the last film appearance of Lt. Saavik.

According to IMDb:

A scene written for but cut from the film explained why Saavik stays on Vulcan: she is pregnant with Spock's child, stemming from an event in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), when she "treated" the young Spock's pon farr. This was the character's final appearance in a Star Trek film.

I’m a little disappointed that Saavik was just kind of dropped. Apparently Nimoy and writer/producer Harve Bennett couldn’t think of anything for her to do in the 20th century, but this was an incredibly interesting and fun character from Wrath of Khan who just lost steam and disappeared. Ah well.

6)

Bones [after Kirk says Spock will recover alright]: “Are you sure? [Beat. Kirk is silent.] That’s what I thought.”

Neither of them are sure if they’re going to get their friend back, but they have to trust him. They have to try. Bones even later tries to strike up a conversation with Spock, checking him both as a doctor and as his friend. These small bits of concern are neatly effective in portraying the conflict Spock (and, in all honesty, the crew) is going through with his emotional recovery.

7) I love this line.

Spock: “There are other forms of intelligence on Earth, doctor. Only human arrogance would assume that [the probe] MUST be meant for man.”

8) So Kirk and the crew end up time traveling to the late 20th century in order to find some humpback wales and save earth from this probe. But here’s the thing: they’re never asked to do that. Quite the contrary, they’re being court martialed. They could spend the rest of their lives in jail. They have the perfect opportunity to escape and live the rest of their lives. But it is at the expense of the human race. It never even crosses their minds to run away. To not help. They take some seriously big risks for people who may jail them forever and without even a second thought. If that doesn’t speak to the character of these characters I don’t know what does.

9) I’ve never watched the original series of “Star Trek” but I know they time travelled before (at least once, maybe more; again I never watched). So I’m glad they include this line.

Kirk [about time travel]: “We’ve done it before.”

10) Man, these time travel effects are trippy. I love it.

11)

Kirk [about 1986 Earthlings]: “This is an extremely primitive and paranoid culture.”

This has always fucking bugged me in the “Star Trek” universe, although it might just be a personal thing. Yes, the human race as a whole can tend to suck. But why define us by the worst of our elements? Isn’t that just a loud minority? Why not remember the good in history. “This is an extremely primitive and paranoid culture.” What about the people on the Challenger who you dedicated to this film? They weren’t primitive or paranoid? What about people who fight for Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and other social justice movements? Why would we let the worst of humanity define us? I mean really? REALLY!?

Okay I’m done.

12) Leonard Nimoy said he wanted this film to have be lighter and boy is it that. This is by far the funniest Star Trek film ever made. Like, I don’t even know hot to properly communicate how funny it is. Here are some early examples of humor in the film:

Kirk [walking away from an invisible space ship he left in Golden Gate Park]: “Everyone remember where we parked.”

Pawn Broker [about Kirk’s glasses, when they need money]: “I’ll give you $100.”

Kirk [after a beat]: “Is that a lot?”

[Kirk and Spock get on a bus only to immediately walk off of it.]

Spock: “What does it mean, exact change?”

The time travel and 80s setting allow for some fish out of water comedy which is the film’s best feature in my opinion. There are so many brilliant and honest jokes derived from these characters. No one ever acts contrary to who they are. They’re them! They’re the best crew Star Fleet has ever had! But in the 80s...

(GIF originally posted by @andurile)

13) Gillian.

Gillian is a very important and very well done character in the film. She is the outsider. Our tether to reality and a key component to saving the whales (because, again, this is the Star Trek movie where they save the whales). She is unique unto herself, not JUST a plot device and I don’t think even someone for Kirk to get together with (I don’t remember if they kiss or not, but I don’t think so). She is passionate, empathetic and has genuine care for the animals under her care. A great character who I think the film is better off for having.

14)

Kirk [after Spock called him Admiral]: “Jim. You used to call me Jim.”

Kirk is obviously getting frustrated with Spock’s lack of emotional development. He went to hell and back, sacrificed his career and his future, all to save his friend. And now his friend isn’t totally back yet. It hardly leads to a big climactic fight but it is an undercurrent of the film which keeps rearing its head in important and compelling ways.

15) I love this line.

Spock [about whaling]: “To hunt a species to extinction is not logical.”

Gillian: “Whoever said the human race was logical?”

16) Honestly, the way Kirk reacts when he sees that Spock has dived into a tank with two whales in full view of everyone is my reaction too.

17) A little thing that bothers me in this film is when Gillian’s coworker calls her kiddo. He seems to be the same age as her and not her superior in anyway, so what is this demeaning bullshit?

18) Remember how I said this film was hysterical?

I think the pairings of Bones/Scotty and Uhura/Chekov are quite interesting. Even if we don’t get a deep examination of those relationships it’s pairings we haven’t really seen on their own before and which do show us just how comfortable everyone is around each other.

19) I love how Kirk just tells Gillian the truth. Yes he was massively bullshitting her for about twenty minutes but he just sort of lays it all out on the table at the end.

(Screencap originally posted by @icheb-of-nine)

And Gillian doesn’t get angry at this seeming insult of her intelligence and storm off like the cliché is. She obviously doesn’t believe Kirk but she roles with it anyway. Figures what the hell, and it pays off later.

20)

Kirk [to Spock, after he learns they might lose the whales and the earth could be doomed]: “You’re half human. Haven’t you got any goddamn feelings about that!?”

This is sort of the peak of Kirk’s frustrations with Spock. Again it plays out more as a subplot throughout the film but one which gives it heart and warmth. It is after this that Spock sort of starts getting it together.

21) Chekov and the navy is fun (although I don’t like their use of the word, “retard,” in the scene). It showcases the film’s humor beautifully AND allows actor Walter Koening to truly shine.

22) And THIS is the culmination of Spock’s emotional arc (or at least the earliest example of it):

Spock: “We must help Chekov.”

Kirk: “Is that the logical thing to do, Spock?”

Spock: “No, but it is the human thing to do.”

23) I LOVE Bones in the hospital!

He regrows a woman’s kidney with a pill! First and foremost Bones is a doctor and he will be a doctor no matter where he is or who the patient is. I think it’s great that they actually take this into consideration with his actions.

24) The entire scene where the former-crew of Enterprise (as they are on a Klingon ship now) rescue the whales is great. It is incredibly tense and conflict filled, packed with surprises (such as the ship saving the whales from the whalers while cloaked). All in all, a great climax.

25) This was James Doohan’s favorite line as Scotty.

(GIFs originally posted by @spaicetrek)

26) I love how Kirk’s “punishment” is to demote him from Admiral to Captain (which is something he wanted all along and which everyone knows).

27)

Kirk [after Gillian says she’s on a different starship]: “Why does it have to be goodbye?”

Because this series rarely brings back female characters introduced in the movies, it seems. (I’m thinking mainly of Carol Marcus.)

28)

Spock [after his father asks if there’s anything he wants his mom to know]: “Yes. Tell her...I feel fine.”

And with that Spock’s emotional journey is complete.

29) And the crew is returned to a recommissioned Enterprise. They are home (see title) and this trilogy is complete.

I wildly enjoy Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. You wouldn’t think a Star Trek film where they save the whales would work but it does. The lightened tone is well appreciated as is the choice to focus more on the crew of the enterprise. The humor is phenomenal, the message is heartwarming, and it is just a feel good film all around. A wonderful treat for fans old and new.

[themusingsofacurlyhairednerd]

All My Friends Are Heathens; Part 6

Summary: Murphy is still banned from cursing, Octavia makes a deal with Bellamy that no one likes, and Bellamy contemplates telling Clarke how he feels.

TrashPrince: OCTAVIA U MOLDY HAMBURGER BUN THIS IS WHY WE DON’T LET U DO ANYTHING ALONE

Jaaaassssppper: tag urself I’m moldy hambuger bun

TrashPrince: THIS IS NO JOKE YOU GUM ON THE BOTTOM OF A SHOE

I DIDN’T SIGN UP TO GET FRECKLES A GF AND CLEAN HER TRASH HOLE OF A HOUSE

I WAS TOLD WE’D BE SAFE FROM REPERCUSSIONS AND NOW I’VE GOT A BUTTLOAD OF LIBRARY FINES AND I’M SWEEPING UP GLASS AROUND A GARBAGE RIDDEN POOL

TheSuperiorBlake: Bell promised the library fines would go away

this was the only way to get monty to stop crying

he’s fragile

I had to protect his little green bean heart

Greenbean: I thought this was about Bellarke?

MillertheKiller: don’t throw his little green bean heart under the bus like that

we ALL did this for bellarke

HeadBandWonder: well bellamy better hurry tf up because I JUST FOUND A CONDOM UNDER THE COUCH

Trikru: 0_0 was it...used?

HeadBandWonder: NO YOU LIMP NOODLE I’M SCREAMING CAUSE IT WAS STILL WRAPPED UP

OF COURSE IT WAS USED

UR DEAD TO ME OCTAVIA

Jaaaaaasssppper: GUYS I FOUND LEFT OVER BROWNIES

Greenbean: don’t u dare

u gotta be sober like the rest of us for this

i-make-it-go-boom: somebody want to help me keep murphy from diving into the pool?

it’s full of cups and smells like a toxic combination of vodka and chlorine and murphy keeps eyeing it suspiciously

Jaaaasssppper: DUDE DRINK IT

Trikru: DO NOT DO THAT MURPHY

TrashPrince: somebody end my suffering

*Iliad direct messaged Officer_Kane*

Iliad: Hey Kane, cane I ask you something?

Officer_Kane: it’s probably not legal

Iliad: What? No it’s a lady thing.

Officer_Kane: Oh 

Wait... What kind of lady thing...?

Iliad: How’d you know it was the right time to tell Abby how you felt about her?

Officer_Kane: Oh thank God!

Iliad: -_- Gross Kane

You’re like a father to me DON’T GIVE ME MENTAL PICTURES OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP

Officer_Kane: right, sorry

Look feelings are always complicated

I didn’t tell Abby how I felt first

Iliad: You didn’t?

Officer_Kane: She was married before and I didn’t want to push her so I waited until she was ready

Iliad: So what, one day she was just like, “hey Marcus I’m in love with you so now would be a great time for you to say it back”??

Officer_Kane: is that how the kids are doing it these days?

She said when we first started dating that she wasn’t sure how ready she was for a committed relationship. After several months of taking it slow, going on casual dates and a drink every once in awhile, she made her mind up about what she wanted. When she said she was ready to get serious, I was free to voice how I felt.

Iliad: This has been incredibly unhelpful

Officer_Kane: What’s the matter, Bellamy? You’ve never had girl trouble before. I can recall a time where the trouble was keeping girls OFF of you.

Iliad: Freshman cheerleaders are terrifying

I don’t know

I’ll figure it out

Thanks anyway

*NurseGriffin has been added to the Bellarke Forever<3 group chat*

i-make-it-go-boom: mom ur house is clean u can stop living out of a motel now

TrashPrince: it wouldn’t kill ya to clean up a bit every once in awhile tho

NurseGriffin: THAT WAS YOUR MESS

TrashPrince: a thanks will be fine

NurseGriffin: raven get ur bf under control before i strangle him with my bare hands

Jaaaassssppper: i’ve watched enough law and order to know strangling somebody without gloves is a no no

unless u WANT jail time of course

MillertheKiller: yeah there are better ways to strangle a guy

Trikru: Roan knows a guy if u need him

TrashPrince: who’s side are u on u donut head???

NurseGriffin: I WAS ABOUT TO SAY THANK U BUT SOMEONE WROTE BELLARKE FOREVER WITH MY BRAND NEW $50 LIPSTICK ON MY BATHROOM MIRROR

U SHITBRICKS

OCTAVIA I KNOW IT WAS U

TheSuperiorBlake: me???? I was making out with lincoln in his car

it couldn’t have been me

*Trikru direct messaged TheSuperiorBlake*

Trikru: Octavia

the light of my life

my sun

my moon

my stars

TheSuperiorBlake: what did u do lincoln?

Trikru: i did a bad thing and used clarke’s expensive lipstick to write the message on her mirror 

TheSuperiorBlake: THAT WAS U??

I’M SO PROUD

MY BABY ALL GROWN UP AND REBELLIOUS

Trikru: they are meant to be together I HAD TO DO SOMETHING

tbh gettin real sick of ur brother always looking doe eyed at clarke when he thinks no one’s looking

TheSuperiorBlake: I didn’t think it was possible but i have never been more in love with u <3 <3

Trikru: awwwww babe <3

 *NurseGriffin direct messaged Iliad*

NurseGriffin: ur sister owes me $50

Iliad: I’m afraid to ask

NurseGriffin: She wrote “bellarke forever” on my bathroom mirror in lipstick

Iliad: I had a feeling she wouldn’t give up on her plans so easily

The whole party was just her scheme to get us together

NurseGriffin: How thoughtful

Just talk to her, would ya? I got a test I gotta study for

Iliad: Yeah, sure

Listen, before you go, can I ask you something?

NurseGriffin: can it wait until I’ve had a couple glasses of wine and a bubble bath? No way I’m gonna do this paper with all the stress our stupid children have caused without one

Iliad: Never mind. It’s nothing.

*IceIceBaby direct message Iliad*

IceIceBaby: listen freckles

I didn’t let lincoln break my beautiful nose for u to not ask clarke on a date yet

and tbh gettin real tired of checkin facebook to see if u have updated ur relationship status

do u know what’s on facebook dude?

my mom won’t shut up about politics

LIKE THE BORING POLITICAL STUFF

the stuff u see in newspapers

she literally never stops posting

do u want me to be subject to that just so i can see if bellarke has happened yet???

Iliad: Roan, did my sister put u up to this?

IceIceBaby: dude I have eyes!

ur breaking my shipper heart

just ask her out already!!

Iliad: I’m blocking your number

IceIceBaby: ur a monster

*Bellarke Forever has removed NurseGriffin from the group chat and added IceIceBaby, per his request*

IceIceBaby: u guys got a new plan yet?

TheSuperiorBlake: lincoln and i are on our way to your place to discuss specifics

i-make-it-go-boom: murphy and i are standing by for orders

and by standing by i mean sitting in his rust bucket truck arguing over which Halsey song to listen to... so hurry this up

TrashPrince: IF I HAVE TO LISTEN TO CLOSER ONE MORE TIME I WILL LOOSE MY MIND

IT’S NOT EVEN A REAL HALSEY SONG

GASOLINE IS A REAL HALSEY SONG

HELL, I’LL EVEN LISTEN TO THE ACOUSTIC SETS IF U WILL JUST TURN OFF THIS DAMN CHAINSMOKERS SONG

i-make-it-go-boom: u shut ur whore mouth john murphy

closer is the anthem of our generation

TrashPrince: if i die because my brain melts in my skull, tell everybody that the Chainsmokers murdered me

I want it written on my headstone

Repeat it in ur ulogies

write songs about the poor sap who was killed by this god forsaken song from hell

TheSuperiorBlake: drama queen of the year award goes to murphy

Greenbean: again

[3one3]

The Sequel - 817

Omaha

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

“This show really blows. They need to stop letting the Americans bid for things. Did Schü call? I wish I had taken my phone with me. It was so boring over there. I could have done with some tunes,” Christina remarked resentfully as she kicked off her stirrups and slid down to the ground from her tall and rotund Hanoverian stallion. Nick seemed to be enjoying the reclamation of his place in her competition rotation after the intermediate-length absence from the circuit. He was a happy boy when he landed in Omaha, as if he hadn’t just spent 11 hours in a box on a plane. Rio, his traveling companion, was always thrilled to be getting off a plane, but his happiness was usually heavily made up of relief and not much excitement. Christina and Tom could tell the difference. Nick was perky and affectionate right away. Rio acted as if stress was melting away. He never flew particularly well, and a trip that long was hard on him. Nevertheless, the Brazilian bred warmblood was sitting in second place in the World Cup Final after the first round on Thursday night, and was calm and relaxed in his stall with plenty of hay and his favorite stuffed animal on Friday afternoon when his rider returned Nick to Tom after a brief hack. Nick only had one competitive event the entire week, and it was Saturday, so Christina took him over to the schooling ring to stretch his legs that afternoon before the dressage final started.

The only two redeeming qualities about the horse show venue in Nebraska were the ambient temperature inside, and the food. It was warm enough to ride in a long-sleeve top without additional layers, which was why she didn’t have her phone with her, and there was a vendor right in the convention center part of the facility with standard Midwest-ernized German food. Many Americans in the Midwest fancy themselves the children of generations of German immigrants, whether they really are or not. As a consequence, lots of flyover territory is full of vaguely German restaurants with food that sort of nods at authentic cuisine but definitely Americanizes it. An American bratwurst is nothing like one at Signal Iduna Park, for example, but Christina loved both kinds. She loved the potato pancakes that were closer to a McDonald’s hashbrown than her dad’s kartoffelpuffer. Tom looked like he’d had too many of them when she handed over Nick’s double set of reins. She furrowed her brows at him, silently inviting an explanation for the positively perturbed look on his face. He exchanged her iPhone for the reins.

“I think there is some bad news,” he replied, apologetic. Oh no, his rider thought. Is he not going to play? She was eagerly waiting to hear from André about whether or not he was fit enough to be in the team for the match against Schalke on Saturday. Obviously everyone wanted to play in the Revierderby. He really, really wanted to play because he scored two goals for Germany the weekend before and thought he could carry some momentum over. His wife was rooting for him. Unfortunately he was also carrying over a painful knock sustained early in that match, and hadn’t been able to train with his club again yet. She thumbed the Home button and quickly scanned the variety of notifications on the screen, expecting Tom to provide an explanation for his response. He was supposed to answer if André called.

“Oh no.” Her own response was more grave than the disappointed version of the one she said in her head a few seconds earlier. “Juan Mata could be out for the rest of the season? What? What the hell?” She swiped urgently at the Bleacher Report notification to find out what was going on, and tried to deduce it while the news article loaded. What could have possibly happened to him in training today that he’s already diagnosed and going to be out forever? Did someone break his leg or something? What the hell.

“Did he call you or anything?” her new stable manager questioned. He was already trying to get the big warmblood into his grooming stall so he could untack him and put him away. He knew her more than well enough to know that she would be very upset for the Spaniard if he were really going to miss the rest of the season, and he knew her more than well enough to know that a serious injury to the player likely would have come up as a talking point between them if she knew about it. Christina told him nearly everything on her mind when they were alone on the road, especially when they were together so much. Almost none of her friends were in Omaha. She spent nearly all of her time hanging around the stalls, except for meals, which she sometimes shared with Marcus and Ludger instead since Tom was often working while she was free to eat.

“Bleacher Report says that he had groin surgery today. How? I just talked to him last night! It must be a mistake. I’m calling him.” She furiously but absently stroked Nick’s nose while she waited for her friend to pick up, and then growled aloud when she got his voicemail. “Is it tomorrow in the UK already or something?” she asked, forlorn. “Is it April Fool’s Day already? This can’t be right. Is it all over Twi-“ A text interrupted her rant and the loading of the Twitter app on her phone.

“I’ll call you soon,” Juan told her.

“He would have said it’s wrong and he’s fine if it were wrong and he’s fine. He just said he’d call me back. Maaaan. If he got hurt today he couldn’t possibly have the surgery today too, right? Nobody does that.”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so. He didn’t say anything about an injury?”

“Not a word. We talked last night before I rode, and he texted me this morning to congratulate me.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to worry you. You are talking about someone who lied to you about Seven being put down the last time we were at one of these,” Tom pointed out. He too was guilty of keeping things from her so as to keep her plate clear, so to speak, but that hypocrisy didn’t seem to matter to him, or was outweighed by his longtime dislike of Christina’s relationship with the Chelsea man.

“Nothing from Schü though?” They can’t both be injured. Jeez.”

“Nope.”

“I’ll wait for Juan to call me back and then I’ll call him, so I don’t end up with both of them at the same time.” Shudder.

“Whatever. Take your helmet and your boots off and relax. There is nothing you can do for injured football players on another continent by worrying about them and staring at a phone.”

That is a reasonable point. I’ll go change, she thought before dropping a kiss on her pretty stallion’s nose and leaving him and his handler to their business. I have to put the watch that I won for this last year on anyway before I go to the autograph table. Bleh. I appreciate fans and all but this isn’t a sport for or funded by spectators, and I’m forever afraid I’m going to get sick because they all want to hug me and shit. Or I’ll get Lukas sick. These Midwestern American folk are all really huggy. I bet nobody tries to hug me in Mexico City. Oh! Phone!

“Dude, what’s going on?” she sputtered into Juan’s ear while simultaneously tripping over a lunge whip and her own foot.

“I had a bad pain in training some days ago, we decided the surgical option to fix it is best, and now I have a while to recover,” he explained like a father trying to reassure his very young daughter that yes, the dinosaurs did go extinct, but her stuffed one survived and is fine, and no, he doesn’t miss his extinct family. He sounded very calm. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to distract from what you’re doing there, and because I’m fine. I’m disappointed that I won’t play for a while, but I’m feeling okay and there is no need for you to worry, or try to come home, or be overwhelmed with sadness on my behalf.”

“But how long is a while?” Christina despaired.

“Three, four weeks.”

“Oh. Well, gosh. The Internet made it sound like an eternity! I’m so relieved, Juanin, you have no idea.” She released a long, pent up breath and plopped on her tack trunk. Heiner’s familiar whistle was audible somewhere up the aisle and she was glad to be on the phone because it meant he might not try to talk to her. The Germany boss had been annoying her all week with mini-interrogations about her life, her training, and why she was systematically severing ties with various advertisers. He’d been so hands-off with her throughout the winter that there was a gulf between her willingness to open up to him and his willingness to advise her. Even she knew he was asking the questions so that he could help her or guide her through if she was having some kind of problem that made her want to scale back her associations with brands. It was just difficult for her to do a heart to heart about it. The rider thought of all their broad-spectrum conversations as a process- as her warming up to being able to unload the full state of the union address on him, so to speak.

Tom overheard a lot of those talks, and he was encouraging her to let the chef know exactly what was going on with her, from her homesickness to her questions about Dirk’s form and fitness, and even her relationship struggles. The groom was even more intimately acquainted with her problems than in the past since he was with her every day instead of just at competitions. He was an observant creature, like Christina, and didn’t need to have things spelled out for him. She argued that it couldn’t possibly be wise to clue the team coach in on all of her problems a few months before he would sit down with Holger to make a final decision on the Olympic team, and Tom argued back that she needed to let go of the idea that Heiner was like a supervisor she needed to avoid while sneaking out early at the end of the day, or coming back from lunch 15 minutes late. He said she needed to stop treating him like an enemy that she had to negotiate with explicitly and with subtle diplomatic maneuvers in public. Tom said Heiner was there to help, and that he sought information so he could be most useful to his riders, not so that he could use it against them. Christina didn’t 100% believe that, but she accepted that it was mostly true. She’d been burned by the man before and didn’t think she needed to share everything with him when everything included information that would make it harder for him to pick her.

“It’s just a little thing, cariña,” Juan reiterated reassuringly. “Just a small hernia. Two weeks to rest, and then I can start a little training.”

“Okay,” Christina replied, her voice quiet and private. I want Heiner to realize I’m on the phone, but I don’t want him hearing what I’m saying, she thought. Private. Her eyes were on the curtain concealing her in the stall. “Who is taking care of you? Did your mom come? Is Paula there? Is someone bringing you juice and making you food?”

“Yes, my mom was here anyway, and she’s looking after me,” the player chuckled. “It was a routine thing- the surgeon does a few every day. I’m just resting and watching TV. Do you want to speak to her to verify that everything is fine?”

“No. I trust you. I was just scared. You didn’t tell me,” his friend complained. “I was more concerned for your heart than your health. I was worried you’d be so upset not getting to play forever,” she mumbled. Her own heart felt a little funny, as it always did when she recovered slowly from a shock or a scare, real or imagined.

“My heart is fine, my head is fine, and my abdominal wall is reinforced and extra fine! Don’t worry about anything. Focus on what you’re doing there.”

“I miss you,” she said even more quietly. He had to have surgery and the time out is terrible news even if it’s only three weeks, and he’s thinking of me and my needs and my head. He’s such a good person. And a better one than me. I’d be wanting him to come take care of me and talk me out of wallowing in woe. I would want him and Schü both to wait on- Hey, wait-

“I miss you too, but I’m free to watch all of your riding now. What time tonight?”

“Is Taylor there? She probably doesn’t want to watch show jumping...”

“She’s with friends in Manchester.”

“She didn’t come back? Did you tell her?”

“We don’t see so much of each other right now. I told her, yes, but I don’t need her here to watch me rest either.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t talk more about that right now, cariña,” the recovering Spaniard added, his voice quiet too. “Another time.”

“Okay...” Are they done? He never talks about her anymore, regardless of who is sitting next to him on the couch.

“What time tonight?”

“2 am.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Christina laughed, forgetting the question on her mind. Juan sounded so thrown off. “You’re excused. You don’t have to watch. If it’s a great round, I’ll send it to you in the morning.”

“I’ll call you back again before you ride, okay? I have a few other people to get back to now.”

“Okay. Call or text any time if you’re bored resting. Love you.”

“Love you too, baby girl. Talk to you later.”

I bet his mom or dad or Toni or somebody was coming and going from nearby during that conversation, she reckoned. He was all quiet and hiding some things but then not others. Whatever. At least he’s okay and he isn’t going to be out of commission for the rest of the season. Phew. Now, boots and helmet off, and-

“Chris!”

Here we go. Heiner joined her in the tack room stall to chat while she changed her footwear and brushed out her hair. He just wanted to discuss a person he’d just met- an American trainer who he thought she might know, or know of. Christina knew the man well enough to say hello and how are you, and she knew enough of him to be able to give a decent account of his reputation up until she lost touch with the East Coast show scene not long after she moved to London. By the time André called to catch up and tell her that he wasn’t going to be in the team for Saturday, his girl had to head to that solo autograph session for the FEI. The line to meet her was ridiculous, and it didn’t flatter her at all. It simply made her groan into the phone about how long it would take to sign that many programs and posters. He told her to call him back after if she could. He was having dinner with his friend Dominic, who he’d known for at least twice as many years as he knew her.

“It’s going to be between 3 and 4 in the morning that she rides,” he told this friend, whom he met at his hometown youth club. Dominic lived in nearby Düsseldorf, and provided a companion with which to do things when Christina wasn’t around. Usually there was a third member at their boys’ dinner, but the other friend was unavailable on Friday since he did still play lower league football and had a match coming up. “I don’t know if I should try to stay up or if I should go to sleep early and then try to wake up.”

“You’re not going to stay up,” Dominic replied, assured. He was an inch or so taller than André, and spent more time lifting weights and less time running like his life depended on it. He easily reached across the table to point down into the other German’s wine glass, as if to say that the wine was going to put him to sleep.

“I could call Mel and make her talk to me so I don’t fall asleep,” André countered.

“When is the baby expected?”

“Next week. She’s having trouble sleeping now. That’s why I know she’ll be up. Her husband is with her but he’s supposed to go to the same shows as Chris after this weekend. He’s even more senseless than she is. Why would you go overseas when your wife is about to give birth?”

“You have no idea what it’s like to be around a woman about to give birth,” Dominic chuckled. His long time girlfriend’s sister had three kids, and André talked to him about where to take children in the area for fun or interesting outings when he was alone with Lukas. Dominic and the girlfriend did a decent amount of kid-sitting, so he figured he’d know.

“I don’t think Chris was bad enough that I would want to go away if I didn’t have to. I talked to her every day on the phone. She was frustrated and whiny but not that much more than usual, and she definitely didn’t have sleep problems. All she did was sleep and watch TV when she was this close. And tell my mom to leave her alone. I still regret that I wasn’t with her during the last weeks, and when Lukas was born.”

“Don’t schedule the next one to come during a tournament, then.”

“I don’t know if there is a next one.” André lowered his eyes from the conversation and grasped his chopsticks with more intent than before. “I know Chris wants Lukas to have a sibling, and she’s said many times that she wants the brother or sister to be around the same age. I don’t see her putting her riding on hold again any time soon.” Or wanting to have another baby with me while she’s walking around not even sure that we’re going to be together in the future, the BVB player added more bleakly to himself. He thought things were really feeling better between them when he left for international duty. That was nearly two weeks in the past, however, and as usual, being apart left room for doubts and disappointment. Hearing about how much fun was had trying to fit as much of Berlin as possible into two days with Juan, for example, was a small blow to the confidence with which André left Christina. Her constant reiteration that she wished Daniel were in Omaha was another annoying detractor from the sense of progress. He kept reminding himself that those things didn’t have to matter, or mean anything. He knew his relationship with her could be just fine even when she was having lots of fun with Juan, so he knew he shouldn’t worry that her having a good time with the Spaniard and her being happy with her partner might be mutually exclusive. He knew there was nothing going on between his girl and her teammate, so he knew he shouldn’t be upset that she just wished her friend were at the World Cup too. It was just irritating to be away from her, and unable to observe her and glean whatever he could from her behavior and demeanor the way he’d been doing at home. Paying attention to her and moderating his own behavior and demeanor instinctively in response was really helping to stamp out the accidental fights and flashpoints.

“I thought you want at least two?”

“I do, but who knows,” André shrugged, hoping to change the subject. “Which country to do you think has the most restaurants in the top 10? The big list, that everyone respects.”

“The US?” Dominic guessed. His right eyebrow dipped to indicate his surprise at the turn in conversation. André was waving a tuna roll around between his chopsticks, but it wasn’t like they were eating at the world’s best Japanese restaurant and had been discussing food. After deciding what to order, nobody even mentioned food.

“Spain. Chris told me that today. She’s lining up a pitch to spend our summer holiday taking the boat around Spain and Portugal. I don’t think she has any idea how big Spain is,” the player smiled, more to himself than his friend. “She wants to go to San Sebastian, which is practically in France but on the top, and Estoril way over there. They have a competition there.”

“The restaurants?”

“No, the horses, in July right after the Confederations Cup. Does Lena ever just start randomly bringing up things about places you think she might want to go to, while pointing out reasons to be there? Like every couple of days?”

“No. She picks a holiday and tells me where we’re going.”

“Oh. Actually...Chris does that too, but she also does the hints, for...lots of things.”

“You talk about her a lot more lately.” Dominic’s observation was plain and lacking any indication about how he felt about the fact he was relaying. André knew the reason he was amidst his third Christina conversation of dinner was that thinking about her, and her very name, was no longer igniting rage and hurt in the pit of his stomach. His partner wasn’t stressing him out so much anymore. He was able to think of her randomly throughout the day and focus on a positive or at least neutral issue or context rather than just negative ones. That actually marked a huge change from the last time she went away. It meant his state of mind stayed generally more neutral or positive, in spite of his boo-boo keeping him out of team training and the matchday squad. André found that encouraging as he thought it over and finished his sushi.

“I love loving you,” he tapped out to send to Christina when the plate was empty. Loving her can be so hard. Right now it’s just nice, I think.