What The Funk?

0:00 You know, he got Andrew Rosen, my guy

0:05 from checking in from not New York City, just outside of New York City in the burbs, the burbs guys got kids. He's married. He's all domesticated. Now, it's a fun one for me. Andrew and I were

0:18 college friends. We met very early on in college, Brandeis University. That would have been going back to 1998 at this point. So we're talking 25 and a half years Or so I don't think I've had a

0:30 bunch of Brandeis people. You might be, you might be the first. So don't screw it up for the rest of us. I feel honored. I also feel like it's a low bar. But yeah, we'll get there. Yeah, it's

0:42 a it's a low bar for sure. But you know, Rosen, you're not an oil and gas guy. That's fine. You're a sales guy, I would say marketing advertising You've had a pretty good career, I would say,

0:54 primarily in New York City, working in the media advertising sales universe. So we'll talk about all that, including one of the things that we really wanna talk about, which is middle management,

1:04 which I think you have some really interesting views and theories on. You're at Nextdoor today, where a lot of people, I'm sure that are listening to this, also understand Nextdoor, I'm on

1:15 Nextdoor, I get great updates, it's like super fun site anytime I spend on it. I'm happy to hear that, thank you for your time. Sometimes controversial, sometimes not, but - What? I think it

1:28 is I've had posts taken down. During COVID, it was like, kind of, I had, because, well, now we're going down a deep rattles. Yeah, let's get into it. There's a mega church less than a mile

1:40 from my house. And the mega church just basically kind of had their own rules during COVID. And they would just put together these massive super spreader type events. And I remember I took a

1:52 picture, like outside all these people walking out, no masks and all this kind of like right in the heart of when everything was going on. And I was just frustrated that I couldn't do anything and

2:03 that they were doing it. So I remember I took a picture and I'm like, what is this? Like these guys get to do whatever they want. They don't pay any taxes here, blah, blah, blah, post it out

2:11 next door, got taken down. But I don't think I was the only one that had posted that. So this had sort of been a thing. And the moderators like, all right, this is just bringing like

2:20 inflammatory stuff. People are like bashing religion I was just annoyed with the fact that I couldn't do anything and that the mega church played by its own rules. But anyways, that's some next

2:31 door fun. So that is fun. Here we are. And of course, my question for you, like I ask every other guest is, who are you, man? Who's Andrew Rose? That's the hardest question to answer, isn't

2:44 it? I know. Who

2:46 is Andrew Rose? And I am a father and a father. husband, and at this point, probably like 70 to 80 fully actualized human being, I would say.

3:04 I've filled in a lot of gaps over the past five years in terms of who I am, who I'm not challenging the assumptions I had about myself, which therapy's pretty rad in that way. And as much as

3:16 possible, I sort of carry that perspective with me as much as I can So yeah, I'm a person who is comfortable saying at this point that I'm fairly affable, I'm pretty charming. I'm someone that

3:27 people like to be around, which makes me really happy and thoughtful and curious. And I care a lot about the work that I do, the impact that it can have, and as much as possible setting a positive

3:43 example for as many people in my life as I can. That's the good stuff. You know, I also probably do a lot of things that upset a lot of people, but I don't want to talk about it. Yeah, we keep

3:55 it focused on positive here on what the fun. So I want to go back to before Brandeis, you were an upstate New York kid, went to prep school, I think, and decided to go to Brandeis, you're only

4:09 there for a couple of years, right? And then you ended up transferring to New York, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I was born in North Carolina, moved up to Connecticut when I was about three, hence my

4:20 lack of any defined accent, and then moved to upstate New York in a town called Sargody's famous for the

4:28 garlic festival, for being the home of the 1985 New York State Baseball champions, and Jimmy Fallon, those three things, and very little else. And it was a trip, Sargody's is a very strange

4:43 place to grow up, and not in a bad way, it's just a lot of experiences that most of the folks when I got to Brandeis couldn't relate very directly, I think, are one of our friends, Dan Lok from

4:56 Revere, he sort of had a similar vibe. And so, I don't know, I just went with the flow, made a lot of mistakes, got wrapped up in a lot of strange situations, things that I look back on both

5:08 with, you know, fond appreciation and horror. And

5:14 nothing prepped me very well for being in a situation where I was actually taking care of myself, you know, like one does when they get to college for the first time. So that was rare. Like I

5:28 stopped at Brandeis and I'm not as proud about this as I was when like my narrative was, you know, someone who didn't play by the rules. But I went to probably like 11 classes that second semester

5:41 of my freshman year. Nice. And somehow, some people know the story, I'm not gonna repeat it, but eventually got to a point I was allowed to make up some work and take a couple of retests. and

5:53 didn't get kicked out after that first year, which is great. And then when I went back for the next semester, which was our first semester sophomore year, I hadn't really figured it out. I had a

6:05 better perspective, but ultimately wasn't in a spot where I could really kind of make the best decisions for myself. And so yeah, that's when I had a very amicable conversation with the counselor

6:17 folks and said, I think I should go. And they were like, we agree with you And then I ended up at the new school. So yeah, I went to a Quaker school though. It wasn't quite a prep school. It

6:28 was more of call your teachers by their first names

6:32 and express yourself, type of place. Yeah, and I could see where that Ansagerty's contrasted with Brandeis could

6:42 smack you in the face a little bit. I found Brandeis to be really hard too. You've been up to my place in New Hampshire. I also grew up in the middle of nowhere and I was woefully under-prepared.

6:53 for college, and especially like the classmates that we had there, you had a lot of like what I would consider upper middle class, like studious suburban kids, which is basically how you and I are

7:06 raising our families now. It's much as possible. It's a goal. It is. But those kids were just so much more prepared for Brandeis than I was. Their high schools prepared them better. I think

7:19 their families being in business prepared them better My parents were teachers. I don't know. What did your parents do? Oh gosh, that's a good question. My dad has always been in sales in some

7:33 fashion or another. Interestingly, he's never held a job for more than about three years with the exception of this company that he started. That was a building accounting software in the early to

7:47 mid 90s And he's just sort of, he's kind of like a traveling salesman. And my mom didn't work for a long time after they split up. This is much to her credit. She started answering bones

8:04 essentially for local law firms. But whereas this is my father's influence, but lawyers are

8:13 salespeople, right? Like you need a lawyer, you call someone, and then it's their job to convert you into a client or not. And generally it's the receptionist that is the front line for that.

8:24 And that's not what they do. So this local law firm and then a few others after them ended up hiring my mom to basically take those calls because her conversion rate, essentially, to create

8:36 prospects to customers was like 10x what it was for the people that were doing that job beforehand. Because it wasn't a job. It was just sort of a side responsibility. And so that became a thing

8:47 she's still doing that now So it was cool, I was watching her create a career for herself. from the age of like 68 to 75 was pretty rad. Yeah, that's really neat. I didn't know that about your

9:03 dad. You probably saw that a little bit and you're like, oh, I could do that. Your personality's like, I would consider you one of the more kind of gregarious and unabashed friends of mine. You

9:17 don't really seem like somebody who gets embarrassed easily. Like you remember the first day of Brandeis when you went up on stage in front of everybody, you're like, we need somebody to come up

9:24 here right now for orientation. And you went up there and did something like this guy just doesn't care. He's not going to get embarrassed at all.

9:33 I mean, it's funny. I have - I coined this term, I think. But I think I have adult onset introversion where now I get more exhausted by that behavior. And sort of when I have to go to work

9:44 conferences and spend two or three days just sort of being that and doing that, I come home and I'm like, beat.

9:52 Yeah, no, that was always a part of my general kind of vibe was look at me, look at me, somebody, look at me. And it worked out, you know, like there's

10:07 somehow becoming friends with you, with Berman, with Rap, with the crew, Locke, with everybody. You know, it

10:18 was a pretty fantastic outcome for how weird a time that I had at Brandeis. Yeah, like you would, it's basically like you were still like there, even though you weren't, like, because I don't

10:29 think that you had, when you go to a school in the, in the city, right, especially a smaller school, like new school, yeah, it's just different socially, right? Like you're taking subways and

10:38 you've got your own sort of life outside of school where Brandeis and a lot of other smaller liberal arts schools, it's just so insulated. So you were like, we're like, well, when's, what's

10:47 Rosen doing? It's like, like, oh, he actually has like class and. New York, we're like, dude, get up here. Come on, go hang out with us. And I did. I did a lot. I was there a lot. Like

10:57 half the kids at Brandeis thought I still went there 'cause I was there probably like one or two weekends a month, which is a lot. But it was, the city part was tough because I didn't have any

11:09 money at all. And so we'd like, it'd be after class and there'd be kids whose name I can't recall now that were like, no, we're going to this bar. We're going to this club We're going to do this

11:20 thing. Awesome, awesome city stuff that kids in the early 20s do and you're like, wow. But I'd get there and it'd be like, yeah, that's a14 cocktail. And I'd be like, I only have30.

11:34 Should I tip you? And there were times literally that I would be at like bungalow eight, which was this really fancy celebrity club with some friends in my back then. And I'd have to just ninja

11:45 bail Irish goodbye after 22 minutes, 'cause I'm like, or and no one's buying drinks. I got nothing, I got nothing, literally. Physically, momentarily, nothing. Yep, so it was fun to go back

11:58 to Brandeis where it was, you know, it was just easy. It was like, crashed on that tiny couch on Chester. I could sleep absolutely anywhere. That was a super power. And I didn't mind those,

12:08 you know, three hour drives back and forth. It was a good time.

12:13 And also, we've got to talk a little bit about the Mark Jacobs fashion show, which I've talked about on this podcast before, but it always bears mentioning, which was just the craziest thing ever.

12:22 We're Dan Lok, his aunt. Aunt Judy. Aunt Judy had a contact with COO. She was

12:32 Robert Duffy's psychic. And Robert Duffy, I think, was the COO of Mark Jacobs fashion empire. And he loved her, right? So he's like, Come to this amazing Mark Jacobs fashion show. And she's

12:43 like, Oh, I'm an old crazy lady. I don't want to go to give it to my nephew. So then you always got rubbed into that. We're like, oh, we're coming to New York. So now you come to this too. So

12:54 some really fun memories. And one of the ones that really stands out to me, besides you pretending to be a waiter and walking around serving like many burgers on a tray. That's how I got my gator

13:03 and gig. That's amazing. Yeah, I'll tell that to him, Zach. Yeah, it was, so back then this was pre-social media. So everybody, you know, could just make up stories and people would question

13:15 the validity of them And for you, your big thing was like, I'm friends with Jimmy Fallon. We're like, sure you are, dude. Like, right on, sounds good. We'd be like, this guy's full of shit.

13:25 Now we have to question everything that Rosen says 'cause he's claiming that he's friends with this celebrity guy. So we're at the Mark Jacobs fashion show and the stars start walking in and you've

13:37 got like the sex and the city crew and you got Movan and you got Puff Daddy and Donald Trump. And then in walks Jimmy Fallon, he's like waving, taking pictures and hearing he's like. Hey, hey,

13:47 hey, what's up, frozen? I'll get with you in one second. Hey, guys, good to see you. I'm like, what the fuck is this? We're like, oh my God, maybe he wasn't lying about the out questioning

13:58 everything, but you guys are like the whole like bro hug. And indeed, you are or were friends with Jimmy Fallon. It's funny. I haven't seen Jimmy in a long time. My dad is still really close

14:08 with his dad. So that's

14:11 the connection that holds But no, I haven't seen Jimmy in, I don't know, 15, like probably like recently after that was the last time I actually hung out or saw Jimmy. Really cool. But no, yeah,

14:23 his sister would babysit us and they would come over for Passover every year. And we went to

14:28 their place for New Year's. It was a fun thing when that train started to roll. And then that night, I got to meet Maya Rudolph, which I was tongue tied and dumbfounded, I think is the right way

14:40 to put it like I just couldn't speak partially because. I think she's amazing, but I think she's more amazing now than I did probably even then. But also because like she was a celebrity and Jimmy

14:51 was just Jimmy. And it was funny

14:55 how ineffective I was at

15:01 taking advantage of that relationship. I mean, I also will distinctly remember. So people need to picture this. There's like 300 people there and we're the only six college kids that are there

15:17 completing total outliers, just idiots and 20 years old, maybe 21 years old. And we're like, this is amazing. This is our scene. We started to get comfortable there because we went to five, six,

15:29 seven of those events and started to know our way around and recognize some of the people so Trump, right? He goes to these shows. He's the big New York social act guy, right? And I say, hey,

15:39 Trumpy, nice mullet, right? We're kind of giving Trump a hard time. And then a little bit later, I see you talking to Ali Larder, who was famous for the scene. Ali Larder, and, oh yeah, of

15:51 our city blurs. And she was, she had the, oh yeah, I think she got bigger after that. The whipped cream bikini, which for us at that age was like, whoa. And I remember you were talking to her

16:01 and I walked up to him like, hey, what's going on? You go, oh, Ali, my friend Ali wanted to meet you. She said that she thought it was really cool, what you said to Trump. I'm like, this is

16:11 like fucking Bizarro world out here, dude Like it still sort of is, but that's just how those events were and those nights were. Yeah, I found that you guys were much more comfortable navigating

16:24 in that space than I was. And that's how the catering thing happened, because I always - I was outgoing, but I was also highly anxious in that space. So I remember that first year that I went,

16:38 I just hit the wall, where I think it was the year before that. this happened. But I hit a wall where I was like, I don't know who to talk to. I wasn't with you guys. I was walking around on my

16:46 own. And that was when I saw the table full of trays of food in the middle of the room. And I just saw that caters coming by and caters are all like young kids around our age. So I'm just like,

16:57 all right, I'll get it. And I just I picked up a tray. And I started walking around. And I just started serving food. And it was the easiest way to approach people because you have something.

17:06 And like there's a reason that you're there. I didn't have to like figure it out. And I met Stephanie Seymour, Perry Farrell, Rosanna Arquette. And I just kept like I just kept doing it for

17:18 probably like an hour and a half. And then I think there was an altercation between the actual wait staff. The actual caterer, yeah. The actual caterer staff, which was not about me fate catering.

17:29 And and then that was the end of that. And then the next year, same situation, except that the caterers were coming from the back kitchen. Right that trays weren't out in the middle of the room

17:40 anymore. And the same thing, I'm walking around, I'm having a great time, I'm seeing celebrities, and I just like, I shrink, and I'm like, I don't know what to do anymore. So I walk to where

17:49 I see the caters coming from. I happen to be wearing gray pants in a white shirt, which is similar enough to the white staff. And this big dude is like, what are you doing back here? And I'm like,

17:57 oh, Jason sent me to come help out. He says, you guys are a short staff. He's like, Jason, I'm like, yeah, Jason. He's like, all right, I'm like, that's when I found out there's always a

18:05 Jason. And he let me back, I pick up a tray, I don't talk to anyone. Then for the next like two plus hours, I'm just work in the room, serving food, selling the tray, selling the plates. Yeah.

18:19 And just talking, and I got offered internships that night. I got a lot of weird questions about what I was doing and why. And then at the end of the night, this other man asks me what the hell

18:28 I'm doing. And he's like, do you work for me? And I'm like, I can almost guarantee you, I don't. And he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know, man, I'm just serving food. And

18:38 he's like, all right.

18:40 His name was Ari and that was how I got my catering gig and so it was, he had this like high-end catering company that served all the fashion awards and all these like half a million dollar weddings

18:54 and bar mitzvahs and everyone who worked for him except for me was a model like that was just what they were so they all fit a very specific size. They were all six feet, they were all like

19:04 broad-shouldered and so when I got my catering uniform every single job I had to like roll up the sleeves and roll up the cuffs on the pants and I looked like I was wearing my dad's catering outfit

19:17 but it was a blast, I had a great time. I didn't realize that it actually resulted in catering gig but that is just so truly you. I mean to us it was like this is hilarious you know look at Rose

19:30 and he's carrying around a tray this is cool but then like 45 minutes later you're still doing it we're like holy shit. He's actually like, he's taking this seriously now. This isn't just like he's

19:39 trying to make, you thought you were trying to make us laugh. Like, ah, just goofy rosin, and then it turned into like, shit, he's like, he's working. Yeah, guys, stop it, I'm trying to

19:49 work here. I'm not getting paid, but I'm working here. It's like Larry David and Kirby enthusiasm, like selling cars, you know what I mean? It's like the same concept. It's like, we're like,

19:60 what are you doing? Oh, you're actually serious. All right, dude, well, I'll let you get back to your job, which should be hanging out with your friends, but instead you're back there getting

20:10 these silver platters and catering the event. But yeah, that was - The juice was worth the squeeze at that point. And you got a job out of it. A lot out of it. And I got a job out of it, paid

20:19 like22 an hour. And I got all the free booze I could want at the end of the night. It was great. Nah, I mean, 22 an hour or 20 years ago is probably30 an hour now. So that's - Yeah, that was a

20:31 good relative - I had no prospects or skills to work anywhere This is, this is. This is a history of rosings in general and me specifically just kind of falling ass backwards into successful

20:44 endeavors. So you didn't know what you wanted to do. So I think you wanted to be like an acting major, which as you found out very quickly at Brandeis is like extremely demanding, like really hard.

20:56 And it put out like some pretty serious actors. And you're like, okay, like that's a little too much work. Maybe I'll be like a history major or something. You end up leaving me to pray Even

21:07 quite, well, in my mind, that's where things would go. But you leave Brandeis in '99, 2000. And

21:17 you go to this new school, which I think is more prominent now, but it was literally like a new school back then. It was one of those things that like, again, you guys didn't believe that it

21:25 actually existed. You didn't, sure. Specifically, I was very competent that I made it up. But no, it's a real thing. And so what was that like, first of all, like going to college in New York

21:36 City, Like what was the new school all about? So the new school was great for me because for one, all I had to do was sign up when I started, I didn't have to apply, which is great 'cause I went

21:48 to the continuing education program. So most of the classes I was in was me in a bunch of like 65 to 85 year old women. Wow. And I did a lot of creative writing and

21:60 the good part for me was it was flexible by design and I was able to do literally whatever I wanted there for credit and I took intro to guitar for a half a credit. That's cool. And I can still play

22:13 some of those songs but I made it into something valuable for me. For one, I always did love school. Like I love learning from people that were engaging. I just wasn't ready to do that at Brandeis

22:26 and the fact that everybody had a plan and like that idea of defining your major your sophomore year was this huge

22:36 like Albatross around my neck. where I was like, I don't, I'm 18. Like I have no idea what I wanna do, but I know it's not pre-med. So when I got to the new school, I just started taking

22:46 classes that interested me. It started with dream psychology and the Bible as history. So you're not wrong about the history angle. I really do love that stuff. And then I just started taking a

22:55 lot of philosophy courses, film courses, anthropology courses, media studies and creative writing. And I found this through line accidentally through a lot of these classes was semiotics, which

23:08 is essentially sort of like it's dinner party academia. There's a real use for it. It's the science of symbols and symbology or signs and signifiers. So the classic example is if you're watching an

23:20 old Western and you see a guy in a white hat, that means something to you. You see a guy in a black hat. That means something to you. So there's a history of what informs those, like that visual

23:31 meaning And there's also a way to look at storytelling as a way that you're kind of subverting. those expectations. And that's how we tell compelling, interesting stories. So it was just something

23:43 I found that I'd like to talk about and that kind of created something of a through line. So my major became creative writing with a concentration on semiotics. And that kind of led into advertising,

23:56 sort of. Like

24:01 I was catering and then I moved back to Boston for a bit after school And then I was working in restaurants. And then I was about to move to Chicago and my brother-in-law had a friend who had a

24:13 friend. It was working at this company called Quigot that just needed young, dumb people who would pick up the phone and make phone calls. And I was terrified, but like I interviewed, I met some

24:26 people and everyone got along. And then I was just doing that. But the thing that kept me interested was seeing

24:36 advertising, the way that the images were meant to evoke some kind of influence or whatever. It was all about kind of how to influence people subtly. Reminds me of stuff that I'd seen in

24:48 anthropology and media studies where in the '60s and '70s, if they wanted to show, if they were trying to sell Prozac or antidepressants, they would always show a woman prominently featuring her

24:59 left hand with no wedding ring. The sign being that she's obviously unmarried, which is either she's depressed because she's unmarried or she's unmarried because she's depressed, but either way,

25:09 it's something she can fix. And that was always really interesting to me. So like, I didn't really care about the calling people part. I had some interesting conversations with some folks, but

25:17 that kind of aspect of it was always just like, how are you looking to influence people's behavior? What are you doing visually? What are you doing through your copy? That part was just compelling

25:27 enough to keep me engaged until I started making money. And then the money kept me engaged. Right Well, there's a lot, actually, for me to - to dive into there. First of all, you probably

25:38 didn't know this. My dad, he's retired now. He was a psychology professor at Plymouth State University for 41 years. He was able to create some of his own curriculum and the most popular course

25:53 that he created. No, the second most popular course that he created was the psychology of dreams. Love that. You can imagine. Yeah, he was a lot. You know, he took a sabbatical and just like

26:04 read a book end to end like every day. He's just like super introverted, brilliant. And he's like, yeah, this is this is what I want to do. So he he decided when he came back from sabbatical, I

26:14 want to do two new classes because he'd done sort of the abnormal psychology and tribo psychology, sort of all that stuff. He came up with the psychology of film and the psychology of dreams. These

26:26 classes would fill up in like 15 minutes of being open, right? Because people are just super interested in that. And I just remember. So anytime I have a question I just reached out to my dad,

26:38 like, 'cause I know that he's got like sort of the insight or the answer, but he always prefaces it with like, this is still unfounded, like, you know what I mean? Like, how do you really prove

26:48 that this is what it means? But nonetheless, I find it really cool to be able to have that resource and just how intrigued humans are by understanding the psychology of something that happens to

27:00 them consistently, film, everybody watches movies and dreams Basically, everybody has dreams. What does it mean? What does it mean if it's in color, right? I actually, in my dreams last night,

27:12 I can't totally bring it back, but you were in it, and so were some other Brandeis people. I think just because I knew this podcast was coming up and it was going through my brain, but nonetheless,

27:22 I'm like, oh yeah, no, I'm gonna see Rose in tomorrow, too. I saw him last night, which is kind of fun. There you go, there you go, I'm with you always. No, I think it's, I mean, dreams

27:32 and film very similar. And, you know, when, when There was a lot of avant-garde cinema that was trying to show dreams or show film, you know, in very surreal kind of ways, much likeDreams would

27:44 be. There's that movieWaking Life that Richard Linklater did. It was filmed in rotoscope, so like a paint over film. So it was a really kind of trippy looking way, but the whole thing was about

27:56 dreams. It's like it's dream psychology. It's how dreams are represented. It's, I'd be interested to hear your dad's take on it What I think is funny is that your dad approaches it academically.

28:09 My mom has gone through the whole thing. She read Taro, she did kabbalah, she does dream work, but it's dream work. And there's a higher degree of certainty in what means what when you're talking

28:24 about that sort of like esoteric. I won't call it nonsense. But and it's that certainty that always bumps me out So it was nice to hear that. because they do think there's something really

28:36 interesting about being able to make sense of your dreams and find some level of meaning or

28:44 guidance and direction in them.

28:48 And yeah, that's really funny. So that's what your mom and, or my mom and your dad having comment. Yeah, they would probably sit. I'm not sure how introverted your mom is. My dad would be

28:56 really comfortable talking to somebody like your mom over on like a bench for three hours, completely, platonically, about dreams, right? Yeah, she would do that. She's not introverted at all.

29:11 So they would have a good talk, that'd be a good chat. You know, and we talked a little bit before this about my sobriety, which I like to bring up. More is like a beacon of hope for anybody that

29:22 wants to get sober. I'm an open book on that kind of stuff and hopefully start to continue to build. My profile is like, hey, I'm like a sober guy in oil and gas and it can be done. 'Cause I know

29:34 people struggle. It's not my job to make recommendations to them, but I don't want to see people struggle. I want to see them find their best selves and a lot of positives have come for me since I

29:44 did get sober at this point, 548 days ago. And assuming I keep going one day at a time when this podcast was released will be about 560 days. But one thing as it related to dreams is when you're

29:57 drinking or smoking or whatever you're doing, whatever your advice is, you don't dream quite the same way, right? It's sort of like you're just passing out, maybe you're not hitting that deeper

30:07 level of sleep that allows you to dream. Which is it, yeah. Yeah, but then I got sober and I would have like these incredibly vivid dreams where I was partying.

30:21 And I would wake up confused thinking, oh man, I've worked so hard, I've been sober a month or three weeks or five weeks, I can't believe I did that. And it would take me like a few minutes to be

30:32 like, oh my God, that was just a dream. Yeah, it's really interesting 'cause it's like you think about what your brain, and there's a lot of different theories about, and I took dream psychology

30:42 or whatever it was, you know, 20, whatever many years ago,

30:47 but there's a theory that it's just your brain's way of like processing what it needs to process and sort of like flushing out almost, what it needs to flush out, which is part of your just ability

30:56 to live and to evolve and to survive as a, you know, a thinking, breathing human.

31:04 But it's, yeah, yeah, I think that's super interesting. I have dreams like that, but it's never, it's more like like work anxiety dreams. Yeah. Those come fast and furious where I'll do an

31:21 entire like day of work and I'll have a big presentation or maybe I'm not wearing pants, who the hell knows? And then it'll wake up in the morning and I'm like, wait, I gotta do that again?

31:30 That's not fair, like I just did that. I just did that, that's not fair. I just did that. Why do I have to do that again? I love it, I love it.

31:40 So let's talk a little bit about career now, we're 32 minutes in, we barely talked about that. So you decided to get into, I guess you're gonna be a hustler. You're gonna get into sales, you did

31:51 the restaurant thing, you were a caterer, all right, you worked your odd jobs, you have a degree, you're a smart guy. So then you found this opportunity, which eventually led you to, I think a

32:02 company that acquired by Yahoo, right? Yeah. Wasn't that, so talk a little bit about that. You started at like a smaller-ish company, you're relatively early on in your career, and then boom,

32:11 all of a sudden you're working at this huge corporation. What was that like, and how did your path take you there? Were you in New York City at the time? You're probably going into the office,

32:20 you hammering the phones, like talk to me a little bit those elements of your early career. Transitions. Yeah. So the first six months was phone work, basically, right? Like I was, I was

32:31 calling mom and pop vitamin shops for the most part and saying, hey, do you want to spend100 to drive some clicks to your website? It was a Google AdWords competitor and I did that for six months

32:41 and it was fine. And then a different friend of my brother-in-law's was running a sales office at a different company It was an ad network so it's basically a sort of technology layer that aggregates

32:58 advertising inventory on websites from across thousands of different websites and then says like we can target people based on the types of sites that they read or we can target people based on the

33:08 type of content they're looking at or we can target them based on the fact that they've been to your website before and they might want to go back again. Which for the record is super common and

33:17 everybody understands this now but back then and this was like a newer phenomenon. This was like technology, and it. It was, you know, I drink, I make and drink Kool-Aid quickly. I can get

33:30 really excited and interested in whatever it is that I'm doing. And I start to see the second and third order effects of it and how it sort of functions in a larger ecosystem. And that stuff that

33:38 just kind of like, I don't know, I feel like it's a survival mechanism for sales. Like I just, it's always come naturally. And then the other thing that came naturally early on was relationship

33:48 building. Because once I got to a point where I was able to take people out for lunches or dinners, especially, and we were talking about bigger money deals. And that was exciting and interesting.

33:58 It wasn't100. It was300, 000. And it was sort of, you know, the

34:01 context felt grander. But I was also just making a ton of friends. You know, like other kids around my age, we would go out a lot. They were always happy hours. And I had a great time. And in

34:12 that time, in the part of the industry I lived in, everything was intensely the same. So my company did the same thing as about 400 other companies. Really, the only determinant was, do you like

34:25 me, or do you like that other salesperson? Well. And sometimes the answer was yes. So for the first few years, that was it. I jumped jobs a lot. I was in four jobs in that first three years,

34:35 and mostly it was just like, listen, I can pick up a phone, I can forge a relationship, I can talk good, and that tends to lead to sales. There's some ups and downs there, where it started to

34:47 change for me a little bit was when I got to the company that Yahoo acquired, which was a company called Interclick Get off as that ad network, and I went there because a good friend of mine was

34:57 running sales, and I followed him to pretty much every job he had. That's good to have guys like that. It was great. I'm, we're still super close tonight. I miss him dearly now that we don't

35:06 work together all the time, but at a certain point, the industry evolved, got more mature, more sophisticated, and more interesting. And to their infinite credit, the leaders of that company,

35:20 the product, the operations, the sales and the marketing leaders. I understood that we needed to build something to solve a real problem that could be differentiated. It could be interesting. So

35:31 we started talking about big data analytics back in 2010. And there was a time that that also became pretty common parlance and certainly it's still a function now, but early on it was sort of, I

35:41 had to figure out how to synthesize a story to communicate to 24, 25 year old buyers about what this was, why they should care and why ultimately they should work with us instead of someone else.

35:55 And I saw this really interesting cycle of like innovation, imitation, and then commoditization where like, that's kind of the way it works in tech. If someone does something new and interesting,

36:06 pretty soon people will catch up with the language of it and start to say they do it too. But then eventually after that, they will build the thing. And so you have a really short window to bring

36:16 something compelling to market and to be the only one there. So that became the new thing for me. finding the narrative in the data. I love distilling complex concepts into simple soundbites. And

36:31 that was super fun. And that's when I hit the biggest wall I hit in my career up until recently where I got into management. 'Cause that's what you do. You take your great sellers and then you

36:42 promote them to management. I got a key title. I was 29 years old, 30 years old or something. I was like, Wow, look at me. I made it. And I made it. I did it And nothing else. No hills left

36:53 for me to climb. Screw you, you brand-ized guys, a graduate, or you're a fucking piece yet. It took me five and a half years, but I'm a VP. I had a company called Interclick, which sounds made

37:03 up, but it's not to follow that theme. So that's when the hardship or the hard part about going to Yahoo, the acquisition was super exciting. And I was like, some money involved, much, but

37:20 enough. And then I got to say, Yahoo And I'm finally like in this. big company that when I talked to people, they know about it. And I, uh, and I thrived on that for a quick sec. And then I

37:27 realized that like my, not that this was my job, but it was my job. My job essentially was like asking my team to fill in spreadsheets that I would then pass up to my boss, because he had asked me

37:40 to ask them to fill it out and that was it. That was the whole job. So I, you know, I like, I learned a lot. I got more involved in how brand advertising works in full funnel marketing and I met

37:58 some really, really, really interesting and smart people. But ultimately, my job was just like, I am a tape recorder in a room that you could then take to a different room. And it wasn't

38:10 terribly. I just wasn't at my best. And then I moved to a similar role at a smaller company, followed my buddy J again. And I spent, so in total, I spent about 10 years in middle management.

38:24 Wow. Just sort of a regional VP,

38:27 you know, the titles changed, but the role was the same. And I never really figured out what I was supposed to be doing outside of some information needs to pass from them to you. And I'm the

38:39 conduit for that information. And I have to, you know, nurture their careers and I have to help them troubleshoot and problem solve when things come up And I found some skills that I liked about

38:52 myself. But I'd say I was pretty stagnant in the skills development, like part of it for about 10 years. And that only changed recently. At the end of 2020, I hit this inflection point. I was

39:07 like, I don't want my boss's job. I don't want my job. I don't want any job.

39:12 And then I did a sort of like values assessment Start with why and find your why. It's this guy, Simon Sinek, who's a big marketing guru. He's getting the somebody who was just talking about this

39:22 to me like earlier this week. Oh my God. What was the context? Do you remember? Uh, it was, let me think about it. Um, I don't know. Keep talking and I'll come up. I'll come back to it. So

39:35 the idea, he's got this really popular Ted talk. It's super compelling. I, without any, it was really important to me to figure this out for myself And I credit that framework because it was and

39:48 still continues to be super helpful. But there it's self help and self help is all dogma, right? It's all like this is true. Yeah. And it's like, and if you it, I have mixed feelings about it.

39:59 So I came up with this value statement, this Y statement for myself, which was my Y is to foster a sense of community where people feel heard. So more of us understand that we're all in the same

40:08 boat And that's what I bring and I've always brought passively and now intentionally to the roles that I've had. companies I've been with. It's all about communication, collaboration, connection,

40:19 community. And that led me to Nextdoor. Nextdoor has a platform that is built to create stronger neighborhoods, stronger communities. It was a really easy fit.

40:31 To do that, though, I took two steps, three steps back in title. I was the SVP of enterprise sales at Nativo. How could I not love my life? Sounds kind of blanchard. Oh, my gosh, man. I love

40:42 telling people that I was the SVP

40:45 of sales enterprise sales at Nativo. Not media sales either, enterprise sales. That's right. And I sold SaaS. And then I took an IC role at Nextdoor. And I had a very clear vision for what I

40:58 wanted to do there and what I wanted to build there. And ultimately, because I stayed true to what that vision was, I got to build those things. And so even though I wasn't the SVP of anything,

41:09 and I wasn't working for the CEO, and I wasn't involved in those management, you know, leadership meetings that had the most satisfying and rewarding. years of my career to date because I, well,

41:19 therapy at this point helped a ton too, but like I was owning what made me good. I stopped apologizing for my successes. I stopped assuming that everything that good that happened was an accident

41:30 and everything bad that happened was my fault.

41:34 And yeah,

41:36 but along the way, I just sort of, I found a lot of meaning in the work I was doing. And that's hard to say in advertising, I find. That was a long answer too. I don't even remember what the

41:48 question was. I have no idea what it was either, but my mind started going in a bunch of different places as you were talking, 'cause about the why. So it was with my friend, Sonia Murthy. She

41:58 was the Chief Marketing Officer at Seven Lakes and is somebody who I respect greatly, not just for her hustle, but for how she sort of views just life as a whole. And interestingly, she and I

42:11 worked And we didn't have the greatest relationship, I think, because of how our roles were, marketing and sales can have a weird dynamic sometimes, but then we end up going our separate ways.

42:21 And she sees what I'm doing, and especially with the podcast, she's like, You are like a light in your industry. You know what I mean? Like I said, some really nice things, I'm like, Yeah, we

42:30 need to reconnect, right? And she was, I was talking about funk futures, because funk futures now is, I'm like three years into this business And when you start your own thing, you have a why.

42:42 My why for starting this company was so that I didn't have to have a full-time job. I wanted to have a little bit more control and to represent multiple different products in a space where I thought

42:57 that could provide value. But ultimately, what was my why? I didn't want to have one W2 full-time job. That's not the why anymore, right? So I think for me, it's like I need to figure out what

43:08 is the why moving forward, not just but organizationally, 'cause now it's like a real company, right? We got a bunch of retainers, we got a bunch of good clients, I have contractors, I have

43:18 employees, we do some recruiting, there's a lot more, right? And I think I've struggled with early on, I had thoughts, and then you start executing, and what happens when you get really deep in

43:29 the tactical, at least for me, two things start to be sacrificed. One is strategy, and two is creativity, because you're just so deep in checking off task, after task, after task. So if I can

43:42 find time to work on the business versus work in the business, I think my next objective is to figure out the what next of the why, both personally and professionally. So it sounds like I need to

43:54 watch some TED Talks. Well, so the practice was effective. There's a lot of different ways to get to it, right? Like companies have whys that have nothing to do with Simon's Connect, but

44:04 ultimately there is. You're right. Even when you're founding anything, you have to kind of understand what your partner story, What's the why behind the company? What I've found to be true, and

44:13 this has been enormously helpful, is that the first two 15 years of my career were about title, salary, relationships, and intellectual curiosity. If I could go somewhere that had some of those

44:25 things, I'd be like, all right, I could do this for a bit. Sure. But you always hit the same wall, because titles you start to find out, everyone, someone has a better title than you somewhere.

44:36 Relationships change, you don't hang out in the same way you used to, money is all relative If you make more than you spend, or if you spend more than you make, like it doesn't matter how much you

44:44 make. And then intellectual curiosity tends to burn out where I found

44:50 sustainability in being able to work through those ebbs and flows more effectively, the highs and lows of the day to day, how my relationships with people change, the challenges that arose was

45:01 understanding that like the North Star matters to me, and it has to matter to my team as well, because they'll get to a point where they'll be like, I will, you can't promote me. because there's

45:11 not enough money. Or you can't give me a big enough raise because there's not enough money. So I'm gonna go somewhere else and do this work. And sometimes you can't, as a, you know, you're

45:19 constrained. You can't do, you can't promote everybody. You can't give everybody a raise. But if they know why they're doing that work, if they're finding some level of personal satisfaction in

45:28 that work, then you have a much better chance of maintaining that, you know, core unit that's doing great work together. It adds a lot to like, as funk futures grows, it's a good thing to keep

45:43 in mind because it'll be important for you. It'll be just as important for your employees. You're hired. Thank you. And then the other part. It's probably gonna be half the pay of what you make

45:54 today, Andrew, but you're hired. All right, I'm gonna sell my house and move to a smaller one. Actually, if we could just move in with you. Yeah, if you wanna come to Colorado, that'd be

46:03 great too. You know I do. I know you mentioned, was it about that like management middle management layer. And that's the kind of end of that story was for 10 years, I was like, it's as a middle

46:16 manager, it's my job to be liked and to make sure nobody's mad at me. That's my job, right? Like, I don't want my bosses to be pissed off. I don't want my team to be pissed off. If everybody

46:28 likes me, I must be doing something right. I boomeranged from next door to another company and then back. And at next door, I had the benefit of working for a woman who was an amazing model of

46:40 what a great manager could be and that at the other company that I went to, business insider, where I had an amazing experience in a short time there, I met a few people and one in particular that

46:55 helped me understand how to be an effective manager. Have you ever heard Big L, Little M as a thing, right? I'm kind of flipping that. For some people, for people that that are naturally

47:09 charismatic. people that sort of like can talk good. Leadership, it's not that it can be easy, but it can come kind of naturally, you know, when you refine it, you make sure you're an effective

47:17 leader in different ways that are, you know, more difficult, but you can kind of do it. The management side of it doesn't feel little to me. It's like how you actually help your team prioritize

47:28 their time. Make sure that they don't get to the end of a week where it's been back-to-back beanings all week. Constant sales calls, constant internal work, whatever it is. They get to Friday

47:39 afternoon. They know they've been busy, but they can't point to exactly what they accomplished. Stat. That's what a great manager can actually help prevent, because the reality is that you have a

47:50 few things that you really, really need to do. Those things have to ladder up into long-term, consistent, sustainable success. And that comes from probably a shorter list of clients or prospects

48:02 or targets or whatever it is. Those are the ones you need to make sure you're planning against, tracking progress against. and staying focused on. And so now I think about my job as a middle

48:11 manager, not as someone who passes information back and forth, but just someone who says, like, I'm here to spot check to make sure that you're spending your time where you should. That aligns

48:20 with your best interest and the best interest of our company. And the rest of it as well. But it's been that part now, like, I love managing for the first time ever. And I can't really imagine

48:30 not doing it now. Like, I don't think I'd take an IC role, even at a company I was really excited about, because I'd missed this part of it 'Cause I'm now feel for the first time like I'm good at

48:39 it. And like, I wanna continue getting better at it. And so it's a really, it's a pretty nice feeling to kind of figure out, okay, now I know what a good manager looks like, but how a good

48:50 manager thinks and what a good manager does. And now I just gotta keep practicing, trying to be a good manager. Yeah, there's so much gold there, and I'm definitely gonna play that part back a

48:60 couple times when I listen to this. 'Cause I think that that is something that leaders in general should, strive for, especially, okay, yeah, you were busy. I brought my team into a whole bunch

49:12 of shit this week. Man, you're probably tired when Friday comes around. But for what your job actually is, did you accomplish what you should have accomplished this week? Often times the answer

49:21 is no. For my team, I try so hard. And it's part of why my calendar is so incredibly busy on a weekly basis is I want to keep them out of that shit. Just to the point where they're like, what are

49:33 you doing? Why are you so busy? I'm like, if you wanted to come to every meeting, I was in, I could invite you to every meeting. You could see exactly what it's like, but I'd rather you just do

49:41 your job. So in a day when they have a couple of pipeline called the client or a sales call for a potential new client, and that's even two 30-minute blocks, I'm like apologizing to my guys because

49:52 their job is to deliver for the active clients. And I know they're going to want to do that 'cause I'll be like, where are the leads at the end of the week? And they're like, well, you called me

50:01 into this thing and now they're working extra and then they're getting mad at me and it starts this whole cycle. And I try really hard to not manage people the way that I had shitty managers. I

50:13 don't know if I have all of the skills that an amazing manager potentially like you has, but I know more what not to do and that's sort of been my basis of management. It's a good, I mean, it's a

50:26 good basis, right? Like we sort of repeat the best and the worst of what we kinda went through. And you can identify those real hard negative examples of I will never be But there's always like

50:37 little ones that are just so common that you don't really recognize them. So I think just trying to be aware of it is huge. The other thing though, and this is where I'm really excited about the

50:46 world of AI and gen AI in helping run teams like ours more efficiently, is that you can record all of those meetings. And now without like manual work, you can pretty easily with a pretty simple

51:04 setup, say, synthesize. the content from this week's internal meetings, in 10 bullets or less from my team. And then, you know, it won't be perfect. It'll require edits, but ultimately like,

51:16 you know, that those two, three, four hours of internal meetings can now involve less people, but you're still disseminating the information in a way that is digestible and actionable. And then

51:27 you get better and better and better as you go. So that's where like, I'm in no way am I an expert at this, but I am curious and I'm using tools like Perplexity AI to really try to help my team get

51:39 smarter about the business that they run, understanding their clients more better, more better, more effectively and more better, more better. Yeah, more better blues. But ultimately it's like,

51:51 can you get smarter in less time about what your clients care about? Can you use your skills to connect our capabilities to what they're trying to do? And then ultimately when you're thinking about

52:00 outputs, when you're thinking about deliverables, collateral, whatever it is, are you using the tools to help you do that more? efficiently, because right now is a moneyball moment where the

52:09 people that lean in and start to practice have an advantage over the rest of the folks that are just kind of doing things the way they've always done them. And that'll change. Eventually, it'll be

52:17 table stakes. But right now, there's an opportunity for people who want to, to really kind of figure out, right, I could do three hours of work in 25 minutes. And that leaves time to either do

52:29 more work or, and this is a huge thing for me, take better care of myself Go for a fucking walk, spend some time with someone important, call someone I haven't spoken to in a long time. Do things

52:41 that actually feed your soul so that you can continue to thrive and not just survive. I think that's, you know, ignored too much. Totally agree. I mean, there, there becomes a point of

52:52 diminishing returns. And I think people love to juice how many hours they work in a week. And I get why because work can be intense But I truly max out probably 55 between

53:02 and 60 hours in a seven day span. It's a lot running your own company, you sort of do it, but I mean like real intense actual work. And it almost starts to get me wondering like, when I hit 52,

53:14 53 hours, would I be better off not working another three to six or seven hours? And I'll be more productive next time? 'Cause I know my thresholds. I was never gonna be one of those people that

53:27 like, you know, you work on Wall Street or whatever, and these guys are putting in 100 hour weeks and all that. That was never appealing to me as much as I'd love to make money. I know that I'm

53:36 not built to do that, but I'm also not somebody who's like, Hey, work is sort of important. Work is very important to me, right? So, finding what that balance is and then what works and what

53:47 those thresholds are and where you start to lose it.

53:52 Yeah, I think that there's a lot that

53:55 people can take out of this conversation from a leadership perspective and something that you said maybe 20 minutes ago that I wanna get back to. In a 20 minute monologue.

54:05 slight dialogue is stagnation. So I felt that at points in my career too, particularly because I've mostly worked at smaller companies. And if you're at a smaller company combined with being middle

54:20 management, I truly believe that the companies may not feel like it's their job to develop you professionally. So it was interesting to hear you talk about that sort of period of time where you

54:32 don't feel like you develop professionally How are you able to take it back and truly develop? Was it leaving certain companies going to other companies? Was it research that you did in your own

54:44 time, books that you read? Like how are you able to then become really mindful and lean into some of the learning and development that you clearly needed to take the next step in your career? I

54:54 love that question because it connects to something else that I find is something most people don't do which I'll ask you, do you have any mentors in your professional career. I have some amazing

55:06 mentors and some of those mentors are also business partners of mine. Yeah, and did you, how did you establish that relationship with your mentors?

55:18 I started asking them questions where I thought they were experts and realized that they were willing to help with nothing in return. Yeah, I think that's it, right? Like there's just a natural

55:32 inclination for people to help each other when asked. So I, coming up in AdTech, I worked for people that were originally like just a couple of years older than me and then eventually there were a

55:42 couple of years younger than me and then like, but I never really had mentors. I always worked for my buddy, Jay, Jay's brilliant. And I've learned a tremendous amount from them. But we were

55:52 friends and it didn't really kind of click in a mentor mentee's like situation. And at a certain point, my CEO at Nisivo, when I was taking on new responsibilities, that you have to start

56:03 collecting mentors. And that was a proactive thing. I needed to start reaching out to people. And I would ask, I would say, are you willing to sort of, like, I would like you to be a mentor to

56:14 me. And if usually if they were like senior enough or old enough or rich enough, they'd be like, Yeah, of course that's great.

56:21 So, and then it's up to you to kind of develop that cadence and figure out what that is. So, one of these people is my friend Jeff, who's also a great friend of mine, but like my definition of,

56:31 and collection of mentors has expanded greatly And Jeff has been infinitely helpful to me in my career over the past few years. And he was the one, we were sitting down to a really delicious dinner.

56:43 And I was pitching and moaning about, I don't wanna do this. And what am I supposed to do? And I can't do this. And he's like, cool, then you should figure out what matters to you. You should

56:52 figure out what your values are. And then you should figure out who can help you, or who's doing that. And then you can work there. And that slight shift in perspective was everything I needed.

57:04 start with why and find your why and he helped me through that process. So it was a pretty involved thing, but that's what really changed. That inflection point for me meant to stop thinking about

57:16 the money, to stop thinking about the title and to stop thinking about the rest of it and start thinking about where do I see myself working for 20 plus years? It's happily, and you can't do that

57:28 if you don't, I mean, I'm sure you can, but like I couldn't do that unless I care very deeply about what the outcome was And that was kind of how I got to it. So I think those inflection points

57:37 are so interesting. During the pandemic, when I got laid off, I ended up connecting with a lot of other people that got laid off and we built this small short-lived, but still really impactful

57:49 networking slash support group. And the whole idea was like, we're all at this inflection point. We've all been laid off and we came from different parts of the industry. And in some cases,

57:58 totally different worlds. But the question was like, all right, how can we help each other figure out? what should we do next? What are our values? And then it was about opening each other's

58:07 networks up to each other so that we could facilitate introduction, so that we could help open up opportunities. But I think those inflection points that feel daunting are the most important things

58:18 to recognize and then take advantage of, so that you can take a little bit more control over your career so that you can challenge those assumptions you've made about yourself as a person and a

58:28 professional. And you can start to say like, my career path is not linear I can build tributaries, I just have to do it with intention, focus, and it's hard, but it's ultimately incredibly, you

58:41 know, it's important. Yeah, I mean, a lot of wisdom to that. And I think easier for you to say at this point, we would have been having a different conversation 10, 12 years ago, right? Well,

58:50 both of us were still in it, earning money, trying to figure out where we were going. You have the luxury now of experience, of time, of

58:60 mentorship that allows you to have this.

59:05 you know, kind of evolved perspective, which I think will still evolve too, right? 'Cause we're really in our prime earning years right now, so we have to make money. But we also really have to

59:12 enjoy what we're doing or it's gonna start to bleed into how we parent and how we enjoy everything else. It just feels like a very impactful and important time in our lives being in our, I guess,

59:22 early to mid 40s. You believe that shit, man? No, because when I like look out my own eyeballs, I assume my face looks like it did when I was 17 Right, right. Yeah, yeah, but I can tell you,

59:36 it doesn't. It does, yeah, thank you. I feel like it does, thanks for saying that. I also know that when I like get off off the ground, I have to do that in 17 separate, distinct micro

59:48 movements, each one carrying its own groan with it. And I hate when my son sits down or stands up and he goes, Ugh, I'm like, I know you're picking up for me. Yeah, don't do it. You're fine.

1:00:03 buddy, buddy, you're eight, okay? Like, you're good. Oh, we can call him. It's still flexible. Seven. Yeah. Dude, I appreciate this more than you know, rarely do we go an hour. And I

1:00:15 honestly feel like we could go much more. You definitely have a face for podcasting. No, you, you have a lot of skills that would make you an amazing podcast or you're very inquisitive, but

1:00:26 you're a good listener. You've got a lot of wisdom to, uh, to impart And I learned something today too, um, you know, I could put you on the spot and ask some other, you know, like rapid fire

1:00:38 questions, but I think we'll have to do that another time. My advice for you, if you want any advice is like seriously consider starting a podcast. I wouldn't say this to everybody who does this,

1:00:50 but you just have for someone who hasn't done a lot of these before, you just have a level of insight and also sort of a level of versatility in terms of what you've done I'm like, yeah, you're a

1:00:59 sales guy, And you also have this super creative side and you're from the country, but you've lived in the city. We didn't even talk about like your passion. Do you, did you like living in New

1:01:10 York, do you prefer living in the burbs, do you miss the country? Because I know when you would come out here and visit, especially in our twenties, like before marriage and kids and everything

1:01:17 got crazy, you were like looking for houses out here. You know what I mean? You were like, man, I like it here. I'm like, move here, not as many career opportunities and back then like virtual

1:01:28 wasn't really a thing But I think you're just sort of one of those go with the flow types of guys, which I would guess has helped you a little bit in your career. I appreciate it, man. More than

1:01:38 you know, I appreciate your friendship. I really do. That's sincere. And

1:01:46 yeah, I'm grateful for the opportunity to do this, honestly. You reached out as soon as I posted that. And it was sort of a soft landing. It was scary to post that I wanted to do these things

1:01:57 ultimately the support broadly was pretty pretty great. and you were the first and it made it really, and you made it really easy. So I'm psyched you're doing this. I'm psyched for everything

1:02:08 that's happening in your world right now. Yeah, I keep on keeping on. That's a terrible way to end. That's so cheesy that you just did that, but you know what?

1:02:20 Do you know that? No, we definitely could. I'm not going to edit it out. I'm gonna title this keep on keeping on with Andrew Rosen. That's where we go So dude, real quick, before we close this

1:02:31 out, like where can people find you? Like where are you more active? Is it your LinkedIn profile? You have an email, you have a website, like company, all that stuff. How do people get a hold

1:02:41 of you? That's a great, thank you for asking that. I want to say like, well, I'm coming up on the file, nowhere, literally. LinkedIn is the only social platform that I'm actually active on.

1:02:52 So, you know, feel free to follow and find me there. But ultimately, I'm hoping to do more of this I'm excited about. kind of just having conversations like these. Again, like I want to help

1:03:05 anywhere I can and learn as much as I can. And I feel like that's what I just did with you. So yeah, again, just super grateful for the opportunity. Thank you. Is Andrew Rosen on LinkedIn? He's

1:03:17 at Nextdoor. I'm sure if

1:03:20 you have Zoom info, you can find him in there too, but cryptic they're ending. But you know, keep on keeping on with Andrew Rosen. Hopefully the AI that transcribes this and pick that up and make

1:03:29 this game with the episode. I'm also still on MySpace if anybody is still - Is it really? I don't, God, I don't think I would know my login, but somebody probably does. There you go. Man, I

1:03:29 appreciate you, Rosen. Have an amazing weekend. And next time you're gonna come on this, you'll be a guest co-host. We need to figure out who we wanna bring on to - Mother's idea. So I think it

1:03:30 is. I think about that,

1:03:32 okay. Andrew Rosen, everybody, y'all blessed.