Ep. 369: "The Casserole Counters"
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: It's really good.
John: I just sat down here at the computer, and there was an email here.
John: It said that a friend of mine had referred me to a company that
John: Wait a minute, no.
John: What it said was, hi, John.
John: It's my friend's name, but just his first name, not his last name.
John: It's my friend's name from my friend's company in Seattle.
John: I'd like to be able to refer customers to you, so I've added you to my network on this business site, a site.
John: Let's say for the purposes of this, a site.
Okay.
John: And then it says, a site exclusively for business owners to network with each other.
John: And then there's a green button that says, accept my invitation.
John: And then in paren, note, this invite expires in 24 hours.
John: That's a lot to take in.
John: It is.
John: So this friend, the friend who sent me this, or this claim to come from,
John: He's a good friend.
John: He's a businessy guy.
John: He's a, he's businessing a lot, you know?
John: So I figure, Oh, you know, this is maybe one of these business things.
John: It's like LinkedIn.
Merlin: He thinks that, Oh, you're not anonymizing.
Merlin: This is not LinkedIn.
Merlin: This is for business owners to network.
Merlin: Could you, could you privately send me the site so I can look at it?
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Let me send it to you here.
Merlin: So we've got a friend who owns a business, and they want to add you to a network so they can refer business to you.
John: Right.
John: And my friend, he owns a business, and it's a business-y business.
Merlin: Oh, it's like a business-to-business business business.
John: Exactly.
John: He's like a biz-devity, biz-bappity, biz-bev-devo.
John: Ooh.
John: Kind of guy.
John: Okay.
John: So it's not crazy to think that he wants to be able to refer customers to me.
John: Now, I don't know.
John: I don't know what that looks like, but I'm always saying to him, hey, business guy, we've been friends for a long time.
John: You haven't figured out a way to make me rich yet.
John: What's the slowdown?
John: And he's like, I'm working on it.
Merlin: Yeah, it's not an open demand, but it's certainly an open offer.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So what have you done for John lately?
John: Well, you know, when he was one of the guys that helped on my political campaign, like, we're tight.
John: I should say he's one of the dim summit.
John: Okay.
Merlin: You keep saying friend, and it seems to me that's a word that you...
Merlin: Well, sometimes he's lightly, sometimes not lightly.
Merlin: If you've referred to him as a friend repeatedly, that tells me you guys are friends.
John: I would say he's a personal friend.
John: He's a personal friend, okay.
John: But he's also, you know, in business.
John: He's doing business at times when you and I, hopefully, if things are going right, you and I are not doing business during those times.
John: Okay.
John: But he is, in the morning,
John: Doing business.
John: He's going.
John: He goes places.
John: He walks into rooms.
John: There are people there waiting for him.
John: He like lays out his deck or whatever it is that people do.
Merlin: He probably gets offered a bottle of water.
John: He does.
John: He does.
John: He does.
John: He's going to call in.
John: He's going to call in or someone else is going to call in.
Okay.
John: They're going to look through the deck remotely, and then some people at the other end are going to offer some suggestions.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Anyway, so I clicked on the button.
Merlin: I looked at his website, and is it deliberately inscrutable?
John: Yes.
John: Okay.
John: Yes.
John: Yes.
John: His business is inscrutable deliberately.
John: Okay.
John: Now this company, the Accept My Invitation company, also is inscrutable to me.
John: So I did.
John: I clicked the button.
Merlin: I'm looking at it right now.
Merlin: It looks kind of like a site for connecting new moms.
John: It looks like a new mom network.
John: So, yeah, it felt a little bit like the font.
John: The font was a little bit, what, Etsy-y?
Merlin: Pinterest-y?
Merlin: It could be, okay, this is a hot take, just based on the decisions that they have made.
Merlin: We're not going to talk about what site this is.
Merlin: It looks like it could be a site.
Merlin: It looks like it's a site for women.
Merlin: Oh, I didn't know that.
Merlin: Well, I think that typeface skews a little bit playful.
John: Yeah, it's playful, right?
John: No, we're not talking about his company.
John: No, no, no.
Merlin: We're talking about their company.
Merlin: Can I just say also in passing, kudos to whoever chose to say it's for business owners and they didn't use the word entrepreneur.
John: Oh, I'm glad about that too.
Merlin: I mean, you know, it's, it's okay.
Merlin: So anyway, I'm looking at this.
John: Let me walk, let me, let me walk you through what's happened in the next, in the last two minutes.
John: See, so I clicked on accept my invitation.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Are you ready?
Merlin: You're ready to get some referrals.
John: I was like, if my friend wants to refer customers to me.
Merlin: From this inscrutable business.
John: Right.
John: So I need to be on this network, a site exclusively for business owners to network with each other.
John: So I go on.
John: I click the accept my invitation.
John: I put in my name.
John: I put in the name of my business.
John: Did you work with the Roderick Group?
John: No, I kind of should have.
John: But lately, you know, my music publishing company is called Beats Working Music, which I thought was pretty good when I came up with that 20 years ago.
John: And I'm astonished that no bigger company has come and knocked me off of it.
Merlin: You're good with words.
Merlin: I also like when you say Dr. Dre keyboard, too.
Merlin: That makes me happy.
John: That was funny.
Oh.
John: Anyway, I put some information in it.
John: I wouldn't even go as far as to say it was my information.
John: I just put some information in there.
John: Okay.
John: And right before you called, I clicked send.
John: And now I got an email from Tessa.
John: Oh.
John: And Tessa says, welcome to this company, this place.
John: That was fast.
John: It was immediately.
John: John, grow your business with us.
Hmm.
John: This company is a referral network for small businesses just like yours.
John: And then it says, get your first referral by describing your ideal customer.
John: So now describe my ideal customer and describe what I do.
John: And then they'll share it with the 16,582 businesses in Seattle so they can refer customers to me.
John: Okay.
John: Would you believe there are 16,582 businesses in Seattle?
Merlin: I can't believe there's that many businesses that are in a position to refer people.
Merlin: That's odd.
Merlin: I mean, some of that's shoe repair.
Merlin: Some of that is probably going to be like a hot dog cart.
Merlin: But I mean, if you're making techs and tech and makes, what is it?
Merlin: Are you looking for investors or contractors or what?
Merlin: This sounds like a circle jerk.
John: So I'm now inclined to say the name of this company because it seems like it's a viable... We don't want to put them on blast.
John: Well, no, we don't, but they're a little bit putting me on blast because since I've been talking to you, I've gotten four emails from them.
John: Oh, that's a lot of email, John.
John: But let me tell you, so this is the one.
John: So then there's a button at the end with the 16,582 businesses.
John: The button at the end says finish profile.
John: And I'm like, all right, okay, all right.
John: They got a live one.
John: And then I get a new email from them.
John: This is two minutes ago.
John: It says private message.
John: private message and then there's a thing and it says you have a new message in your chat with insert the name of my friend's company and then a button that says view messages under that it says responding quickly will help build your friend's company's trust and confidence in my company responding quickly will help build their trust and confidence in beats working music so
John: And then I got another email just a second ago, Merlin.
John: This is from a friend of mine, a different friend, who works in local government.
John: And it says, I would like to connect with you online.
John: this website service yes yeah and then it says accept her request and then one just came in that's from a guy named somebody else a different guy oh he says he's a musician and he wants to connect with me so now i have a social i have a social network group you woke up this morning you had some stuff to do you got ready to record our program and now you're you you're in a different place really you're you're part of a network you're part of a community now
John: Well, so I clicked on that and now I got, I came to a screen that says many of the people I know are already here.
John: And then it has my email address preloaded and a button that says, show me, show me.
John: And then it says, this company will, our promise to you, this company will never spam your connections or send any invites without your approval.
Hmm.
John: Now, I have yet to be to the site itself where I am.
John: This is all happening in your inbox?
John: In my email inbox.
John: I haven't seen.
John: Oh, whoa.
John: Well, no, I just clicked on the thing, and now I'm on a page where apparently I have a profile now.
John: It has a photograph of me.
Okay.
John: Where did that photograph come from?
John: I didn't put that in there.
Merlin: It's probably, if you have a photograph associated with your popular email service account, it might be pulling out that photo.
John: No, I don't think that's what this is, but maybe.
John: But it says there are 16,582 businesses in Seattle.
Merlin: That's a lot of businesses.
Merlin: Just to close the loop here, is it a photo that you've used a lot for things?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Really?
John: No.
John: I mean, it's a photo that I have put out in the world, but it's not like my popular email service photo.
John: Oh, here, all these buttons are purple.
John: Maybe that's connected to the fact that Seattle's local football team is purple colored.
John: But there's one gold button.
John: Guess what the gold button says?
Merlin: Uh, upgrade your account today for opportunities.
John: Yes.
John: Boost my referrals in Seattle.
John: It's a boost.
John: It's a boost.
John: If I, if I go premium.
John: Oh, they want you to go premium.
John: Yeah.
John: If I go premium and the button just, the button doesn't even say.
Merlin: They're giving me a golden eel.
Uh.
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John: It doesn't even say go premium.
John: The button just says, see how.
Ugh.
John: See how.
John: See how.
John: See how.
John: See how.
John: Diddy Mal, it says.
John: Diddy Mal.
John: Muck Schnell.
John: Oh, no, wait.
John: My sister's on here.
John: Oh, geez.
John: Susan Roderick Productions.
John: Susan Roderick Productions.
Merlin: You should invite me.
John: Oh, okay.
Merlin: And I'll get to get in on this also.
John: Okay, yeah, that's a good idea.
John: I'll do that right now.
John: I'll invite you.
John: anyway so that's what's going on with me it's pretty exciting john we got a we got a project finally we can work on together yeah it's good i well you know i feel like i'm gonna once i invite you then we'll be able to get to the bottom of this well i'm gonna find out what's going on here yeah for sure yeah business referral okay here's a here's a national poll what would you do this is on the site what would you do to finance a short-term cash crunch
John: Would you delay paying some bills?
John: Would you focus on collecting receivables?
John: Would you use a bank line of credit?
John: You could sublet a space.
John: Oh, borrow from friends and family.
John: That's a popular one.
Merlin: It's a short-term money crunch.
John: Money crunch.
John: You could, oh, start a side hustle is one of the options here.
Merlin: It depends so much on how you got crunched.
Merlin: Like a shark tank, you know, they'll say, well, you go in there and you say like, oh, we're doing really great.
Merlin: We've got these cookies, cookies, cookies.
Merlin: Everybody loves them.
Merlin: And the sharks say, well, then why are you here?
Merlin: And they'll say, well, you know.
Merlin: We got bitten once before because we couldn't fulfill.
Merlin: Our repacker was corrupt.
Merlin: Somebody peed on the donuts, and now we're dealing with that.
Merlin: So it depends.
Merlin: I think people love answering things like this.
Merlin: It's back to my thing where the Lyft driver asks me if I'm having a busy day, and I say no.
Merlin: And he gets sad.
Merlin: Because I think he's really used to people saying, yeah, am I right?
John: Oh, man.
Merlin: Oh, my gosh.
Merlin: I'm always crazy with the stuff and typing.
Merlin: Oh, so many phone calls.
Merlin: People love that stuff.
Merlin: They love being asked.
Merlin: I think men in particular love being asked how they would do something.
John: Oh, sure.
John: They want to tell you how they're going to do something.
Merlin: Well, it's like 17 magazine quizzes for grown men.
Merlin: You see this a lot.
Merlin: You can see this in different aggregators where you see the kind of, I don't want to be unkind, the kind of businessman porn that a lot of these guys like.
Merlin: You get your Business Insider, you get your Forbes, and people love to go in and read penetrating articles about market movers.
John: Right.
John: Penetrating articles about market movers.
Merlin: Yeah, you want to move the needle.
John: Well, no, I've been thinking about this lately.
John: You know, I would like to move the needle.
Merlin: Well, then you must seek out things.
Merlin: I've heard that used before.
Merlin: You know how every company or group gets its own...
Merlin: that nobody even realizes they're speaking.
John: You're going to open the kimono for me right now, aren't you?
Merlin: I am.
Merlin: I did a talk at this place, and they're really nice people and everything, but they were so deep in the Patois, and the adjective that everybody kept using was needle moving.
Merlin: I don't think that's going to be needle moving.
John: This wants to connect to my Facebook page.
John: I don't think I want to do that right now.
Merlin: Just invite me.
Merlin: Do you have to upgrade to invite me?
John: Well, so it says referral.
John: I'm looking for invite.
John: It says referrals.
John: I clicked on referral.
John: Maybe I can just sign up.
John: I'll just sign up.
John: The referral thing wanted me to upgrade.
John: Upgrade.
John: It said you need to upgrade to unlock powerful insights.
Merlin: Oh, all right.
Merlin: Well, let's see what we know here.
Merlin: I can't believe I'm doing this.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: No, it's going to be good once we're connected here.
Merlin: What's the name of your business?
Merlin: What's the name of my business?
Merlin: Um...
Merlin: um um um i don't really have a name for my business i gotta come up i john i'm sick oh you're sick right now sick right now yeah oh what kind of sick oh it's okay i'll probably have a a chest rattling cough at some point that i will try to mute oh no a little bit out of it see i'm scared to do this they want to know address stuff well see so i put in a po box that i that i keep you know that i keep for this type of thing yeah
Merlin: Okay, I'm going to go fake on this.
John: I hope you don't mind.
John: No, I think you should.
Merlin: I'm going to go with an excellent alias.
Merlin: Character from the Hudsucker proxy named Thor Stenson Finn Lansen.
John: Oh, I've gotten emails from and about Thor Stenson Finn Lansen.
Merlin: Thor Stenson Finn Lansen is one of those activist investors.
Merlin: What is the name of your business?
John: Just butts.
John: Homemade ceramics?
John: Just butts.
John: Just butts?
John: B-U-T-T-S?
John: Yes.
Merlin: Just butts.
Merlin: Oh, sorry.
Merlin: Just butts, LLC.
Merlin: And then, let's see.
Merlin: Post office box.
John: I've got so many questions now.
John: This is asking me questions that I can't answer.
Merlin: Why?
Merlin: You choose not to or you're unable to know?
John: Well, so it says down here at the bottom, it says, which would, it says, okay, so the box, the box says my answers.
John: Okay.
John: And then it says, demonstrate your expertise by answering member questions.
Okay.
John: My expertise.
John: And the question is, which would you use?
John: And there's no comma in this sentence.
John: Also, which and would are both capitalized.
John: You and use are not.
John: So which would you use?
John: Upwork or Fiverr?
John: And Fiverr has two R's.
John: Fiverr.
Merlin: Fiverr is where you hire people to do or make things for you.
Merlin: And what is Upwork?
Merlin: Don't know.
Merlin: Fiverr, we did a bit on another program I do that involved hiring people to do things on Fiverr.
Merlin: And yeah, they'll do stuff like that.
Merlin: People will make videos for you.
Merlin: They'll do voiceovers.
Merlin: There's a lot of stuff like that.
John: Oh, I see.
John: It's sort of like going to Lowe's.
John: And picking up five guys out front to clean up your yard, except it's about making videos.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Hang on.
John: So Upwork's got to be that, too.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Got that cough.
Merlin: God, all these questions.
Merlin: Did you just push a sneeze button?
Merlin: Is that what that was?
Merlin: He's got a sneeze button.
Merlin: He's got a noisy pot on there.
Merlin: Yeah, that is a noisy pot.
Merlin: Up to five types of businesses you work with.
Merlin: Manufacturers.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Let me just be done with this.
Merlin: See who you already know.
Merlin: This is the easiest way to start building your network.
Merlin: Sounds good.
Merlin: To see who you already know, click allow on the next screen.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Bam your thing with a thing.
Merlin: They want you to log in with your Google credentials so they can get to your.
Merlin: Oh, Jiminy Christmas.
John: Okay.
John: I don't think I did that, although they did find that picture of me.
Merlin: What I got was, what had happened was, it says, see who you already know.
Merlin: This is the easiest way to start building your network.
Merlin: You enter your email address.
Merlin: And then you hit continue.
Merlin: So on this screen, it says, we'll import your address book to suggest connections and help you generate referrals.
Merlin: When you hit continue, click allow on the next screen.
Merlin: And then it takes you to, hey, guess what?
Merlin: It's your Google stuff that nobody's allowed to use.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I don't know how.
Merlin: I want to grow my business.
John: Come on, get on here.
John: You got to be able to do this.
John: They weren't fooled that you were Thor Stenson, Finn Lansen.
Merlin: Well, okay, let me see if I can just skip this for now.
Merlin: Skip.
Merlin: People who complete this step get connected with new customers.
Merlin: Are you sure you want to skip this step?
Merlin: I think I am.
Merlin: I'm super sure.
Merlin: Start building your network with these suggestions.
Merlin: Ew, how does it know I know these people?
John: Well, that's what I'm wondering.
Merlin: Oh, no, these are people I know from things.
John: I know.
John: There's a guy here that I went to high school with who's like a super... This guy is a guy you're going to love.
John: He's from Anchorage.
John: He's a...
John: He's a Hispanic gentleman who is a huge Donald Trump supporter.
John: Oh, cool.
John: And his business is selling vitamins and supplements.
John: Oh, he's a powder man.
John: That do amazing things.
Merlin: He's a powder man.
Merlin: That's a powder man.
John: And on his Facebook page, he's one of these guys, you know, like, you know, the, like, liberals can't meme side of the conservative internet.
John: Right, right.
John: Where they're like, liberals aren't funny, we're funny.
John: And so he's always posting this hilarious stuff about, you know, liberals getting owned.
Merlin: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Merlin: I said triggered.
John: And, you know, but he is a very Hispanic man.
John: Like, he is...
John: His whole family, like they are from Mexico and, um, and yet it just doesn't seem to, it does not inhibit him at all.
John: I think he thinks that the, that the Mexican people or the, the, uh, the Hispanic people that are troubled by Donald Trump are other, uh, other Latin Americans, not, not good Latin Americans like himself and his friends and family.
John: So it's, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh incoming.
John: A thing just popped up from Safari that says the website, this one, that we're talking about, would like to show alerts in Notification Center.
John: Oh, that's nice.
John: I'm going to say don't allow.
John: Oh, wait, but here's an email from Thor Stenson Finn Lanson.
John: Hello.
John: It says, I am Thor Stenson Finn Lanson from Just Butts LLC.
John: Just Butts LLC.
John: I'm a contractor, John.
John: I contract.
John: I'd like to connect with you on this website.
Merlin: I would like to refer some business to you.
John: Okay, I'm accepting.
Merlin: Our ideal customer.
Merlin: Who should other businesses refer to you?
John: All right.
John: Well, I don't want to connect with really any of these people, including my sister.
John: I don't want to get any powders from my old high school friend.
John: This is how they get you.
Merlin: How do I send you business?
John: Deja is here.
John: Uh, I don't, well, so I'm going to skip that option.
John: Okay.
John: Connect with people I already know.
John: And then it wants me to, yeah, it wants me to put my, my, my Gmail.
John: Yeah.
John: I don't want to do that.
John: You don't want to do that.
Merlin: I don't want to be on this at all.
Merlin: There's a handy link that you could add.
Merlin: You could add to one of your social profiles for your social graph.
Merlin: You can say to people, Hey, check me out.
Merlin: Let's refer business to one another on purple site.gov.
Merlin: Let's go.
Merlin: Come on.
Merlin: Upload a banner graphic.
Merlin: Nice.
Merlin: Oh, a banner graphic.
Merlin: Oh, nice.
Merlin: I could trick this out.
John: I do a customer about us.
John: What's funny is I don't want anything to do with this.
John: No, this is terrible.
Merlin: Yeah, I should have used a different email address.
John: Yeah, and so now we're here.
John: Now we're on this thing.
John: Yeah.
John: And this is like a worse...
John: LinkedIn.
John: I think LinkedIn's already a worse LinkedIn.
John: It's really, LinkedIn is the worst.
John: I think we all agree.
John: Yeah, I deleted all that.
John: So I was thinking about this just this morning, that every single place on the internet now, there is someone behind it.
John: Like there's a wizard behind the curtain of every place you go, and that wizard is trying to figure out how to get your money.
John: There's no place where you go on the internet where there isn't some wizard standing behind the curtain going, whoo, hoping that they're going to get your money somehow.
John: It didn't have to be that way.
John: It didn't have to go that direction.
John: And yet that's where we are now.
John: There's no site you can go to where there isn't some
John: what feels like a scam.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, like the nice version that you learn about on the purple side is calling it side hustle.
Merlin: But what it really is, is there's this whole class of like a lazy man work called passive income.
Merlin: And the idea is you get some kind of phony baloney business that just earns money for you somehow.
Merlin: You get an income muse, it's been called.
Merlin: And the whole idea is just really is so gross to me.
Merlin: And it's,
Merlin: There's this podcast I started listening to that I really super like a lot called Your Kickstarter Sucks.
Merlin: And part of it that's funny is that these guys go in and just eviscerate silly Kickstarters.
Merlin: But also, the guys have a great chemistry.
Merlin: It's a really enjoyable show if you like that kind of thing.
Merlin: But they're always on, you know, kind of like on...
Merlin: on alert for like what the real thing is that you're trying to do here.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: It's one thing to be like walking down the streets in a metropolitan area and you say, well, that, that guy in the filthy Elmo suit probably wants money for me to take a picture with him.
Merlin: That guy over there is like selling hot dogs.
Merlin: That lady selling beaded purses.
Merlin: And it's like, those may be bad beaded purses in a filthy Elmo, but,
Merlin: title but yeah but you get what it is that they're trying to do and there's other places where like it just like again another podcast i'm listening to about uh mlms and uh the wellness racket and it's like it's so hard to tell sometime like what do you what do you want me to do here like i know you want my money but how would you want my money and like yeah when will i be done with this yeah and
John: How do you want my money is right.
John: This company that we've signed up for, we're still not mentioning it, are we?
John: No.
Merlin: But somebody going door to door, you're like, look, I'm dealing with stuff here and there's stuff going on.
Merlin: What do you want?
Merlin: What do you want?
Merlin: If it's a child, just give the child money.
Merlin: But I don't know.
Merlin: I take your point, though, your larger point, though, which is an old point that we've talked about, which is there was that time in the 90s when we all thought, oh, this is going to be this transformative thing, something, something, education, connection.
Merlin: And that all still exists.
Merlin: It's still there.
Merlin: I mean, there's so much great stuff that I use every day that is really very good and helpful.
Merlin: But, yeah.
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Is that, was it, was it, no, wait, was it a Paul Newman quote?
Merlin: The one where like, if you can't, if you're playing poker and you can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
John: Sucker is you.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, I just unsubscribed from all emails from that company and you can bet they were sorry to see me go.
Merlin: Oh, did you, did you want to click that button that says I unsubscribed accidentally?
Merlin: Please resubscribe me.
Merlin: Oh shit.
Merlin: Thank God.
Merlin: Oh my God.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I wonder if you got into a thing where you set up a bot that was unsubscribing and then claiming to have accidentally unsubscribed and resubscribing, how long would that go before something broke?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I'll tell you that of all of the heavy, high contact sites out there, Facebook and LinkedIn are the two I've had the most difficult time getting to stop emailing me about things.
John: But I'm wondering, you know about like doxing.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And, oh, denial of service attacks.
John: DDoS.
John: DDoS.
John: DDoS.
John: DDoS.
John: Could you turn that technology to create, like, bot loops where companies that do stuff like this, you sent into a loop where you started using their energy...
John: to process your subscribing and unsubscribing.
John: And if you did that on a big enough scale, could you break the machine?
Merlin: So you're like a Professor X mutant, but your power is like, you know, like they say that Hulk's strength is unmetered because we don't know how much angrier he could get.
Merlin: You could always get angrier and thus stronger.
Merlin: In this case, you're saying like you will always use all of their server capacity.
Merlin: That's your power.
Merlin: You're gonna burn them to the ground.
John: When I first understood what a DDoS was, I was like, oh, that's so smart.
John: What an example of some smart kid figuring out that the way to destroy it is just to...
John: just to redirect it and squander their forces.
John: I think about that all the time now.
Merlin: The thing that is an old sob but is really true is that spam would not have caught on the way it did if it cost anything to send email.
Merlin: And anytime, let's just put my old Merlin Mann hat on, it's like anytime there is a resource or access that is next to free, it's going to get abused.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: That's like, you know, it's one thing to steal toilet paper.
Merlin: And it's another thing to send, you know, Viagra ads to like millions of people at a time.
Merlin: I'm so tired.
Merlin: I'm so tired.
Merlin: I'm sick and I'm out of it, John.
Merlin: I apologize.
Merlin: I'm not at the top of my game today.
John: No, it's all right.
John: You know, I got you started.
John: I got you started talking to me about something that I got.
John: Oh, no, we're not done.
Merlin: We're not done with this, buddy.
Merlin: Don't worry about that.
Merlin: No, no, I got I got I got I got.
Merlin: OK, so this is an observation, just an observation.
Merlin: Now, as you know, I'm trying to grow as a person.
Merlin: And I'm trying to... Is this a recent thing?
Merlin: Yeah, well, you know, just since my 30s.
Merlin: I'm trying to become a better person.
Merlin: I'm trying to become less cynical.
Merlin: I'm trying to assume less that I understand everything.
Merlin: And so when I catch myself getting to...
Merlin: worked up about something, I try to say, well, let's look at what's going on here.
Merlin: Now, with that said, you know, it seems like there's a lot, boy, this sounds so obvious.
Merlin: People get so mad when you talk about this, though.
Merlin: There's so much horseshit in the world of what we call business.
Merlin: And even setting aside the false economies and setting aside the terrible, often deliberate abuse of customers, you know, any way you can until you get caught.
Merlin: There's just something so basically horseshit at the center of so many business McBusiness guys.
Merlin: And they must be having some measure of success because they are at the airport and they are talking so loud on the phone about something.
John: They do do that.
John: They do it all the way onto the airplane.
Merlin: Who uses a phone that much?
Merlin: Is it really?
Merlin: And so there's all of that.
Merlin: And then there's just all of this.
Merlin: Like I said, there's this news aggregation.
Merlin: app that i like a lot called nuzzle and nuzzle uh exists to basically show you what people that you follow on twitter are linking to and it's ranked it's like your own personal reddit if reddit was good email john um and so you uh you so when your friends uh post stuff to twitter you can say okay over the last 24 hours show me the things that have been linked to the most and it's really cool if you just want to yeah you want to you want to jet in regardless of whether somebody's muted or not like you find out
Merlin: you know what they're posting the next tab over is friends of friends which is actually also really useful so that's things that have been posted by people uh who are followed by people whom you follow and the next one over is just like most popular or and it is so douche-tastic it's like if you if you squoze all the all the juice out of a ted talk
Merlin: And then it just got to just sit there and become fed it.
Merlin: And it's all fucking business insider, nine hot tips to turbocharge your growth hacking or whatever.
Merlin: And are those are the most popular or who is determining the popularity of those things?
John: Raw numbers.
John: What is it then?
John: Just raw numbers.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: But I think it's that you're seeing, however that's being aggregated, it is a lot of people.
Merlin: And you can tell.
Merlin: So just out of interest, if I go to my people I follow, you can click on the icons of who I'll link to it.
Merlin: And you'll see that in most cases, people, you know, cool people, smart people, yeah, they've linked to that, but they provide their own context.
Merlin: It's not always just a straight retweet.
Merlin: And then over on the business douche tab, it's like, it's just retweeting business insider, retweeting Forbes, retweeting.
Merlin: And like, let me go in and look, I'll see if I can find you some goodies, but that's, it just feels so, so masturbatory to me.
Merlin: And so like, again, like I'm sorry to make this all about penises, but it's very circle jerky to me.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, that's what I wonder.
John: Like, are they popular because that's what people are clicking on?
John: Or are people clicking on it because they're being told they're popular?
Merlin: Oh, well, yeah, that is a big problem with the way ranking lots of things works, for sure.
Merlin: Let me look here.
Merlin: I want business insights.
Merlin: Here's Best of Nuzzle.
Merlin: Best of Nuzzle.
Merlin: London loses top spot as Global Finance Hub.
Merlin: That's Financial Times.
Merlin: Let's see here.
Merlin: Parasite Power.
Merlin: Oh, that's cool.
Merlin: I like that guy.
Merlin: Oh, there was a lot of sports today and a lot of Kobe.
Merlin: Kobe.
John: Yeah, Kobe.
Merlin: There's not as much Business Insider today.
Merlin: Bloomberg.
Merlin: Some stuff on Warren Buffett.
Merlin: But, you know, it's just strange sometimes.
Merlin: Like I try to quote a line from Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.
Merlin: What is this in service of?
Merlin: What are you producing by moving all of these little business bits around?
Merlin: It doesn't feel like people do anything.
Merlin: And this is also where when people call themselves a serial entrepreneur, it kind of gets under my skin a little bit.
John: Oh, it does me too.
Merlin: I mean, if you mean a small business owner, why don't you say that?
Merlin: Not everybody who owns a business is like, strictly speaking, an entrepreneur.
Merlin: It's just, it's just people, people.
John: This is the, this is the thing we, we, we got off track somewhere in the world where it used to be that you started a business because you had a product or service that you believed would help or make money or, or grow or improve the world somehow.
Yeah.
John: And then at some point, and I think this is due to the rise of the business school and the rise of the, and the deregulation of the stock market and all the things that have happened in our lifetimes.
John: We got to a place where doing business, doing a business was its own goal.
John: A business was first a business before it was anything else.
John: You know, when I was in high school, I joined some business.
John: It was some, I forget what it was.
John: It wasn't DECA.
John: It was some after school program that was supposed to teach you business.
Merlin: Oh, FBLA maybe?
John: What was that?
Merlin: Future Business Leaders of America?
John: Something like that.
John: And what it was was we got together this group of kids at the end of the, you know, like after school.
John: I can't believe that I was subjected to this or subjected myself to it.
John: And it was like, we need to come up with a business.
John: Let's start a business.
John: And we'll show you how to do a business once we start one.
Merlin: And I don't remember... Usually you're selling widgets.
John: Yeah, that's what it was.
John: Like we were 16 and we didn't have any skills.
John: Oh, no, but the point of this was not... It wasn't just like student Congress.
John: We actually were going to start an actual business.
John: And so we started a business making candy bars.
John: And we spent...
John: two nights a week for six months, starting up this business selling candy bars.
John: And in the end, what we did was we gave ourselves a job basically like being kids that went door to door selling candy bars.
John: It's just that we had made the candy bars.
John: It was miserable.
John: But at least we were making candy bars, like something, right?
John: But when somebody says serial entrepreneur, it's clear to me that what they're making doesn't matter to them.
John: What their business is doesn't matter.
John: And so if your business doesn't matter to you other than that, it is a business to, to make business, then whatever it is you're making is, isn't adding anything.
John: You know, you didn't, you didn't, you didn't discover that there was a market or that something's missing from the world or that you're going to make something that you're passionate about.
John: You're just casting around starting businesses for the, for their own sake.
John: And that's like cultural now.
John: There's, there, there,
John: There's no one in America asking anymore, really, like, is this business making anything?
John: It's a question of whether or not the businesses can make money is the question.
Merlin: Eventually.
Merlin: That's the other irony, of course.
Merlin: Can you eventually make money?
Merlin: Well, yeah.
Merlin: And the phrase they use on Shark Tank is we're currently pre-revenue.
Merlin: Pre-revenue.
Merlin: Yeah, you say pre-revenue.
John: Yeah, right, and there are a lot of companies that are still really pre-revenue.
John: My daughter's mother works for a company, and when things go wrong there, which I think is happening right now, and this happened a couple times in the time she's worked there, everybody just speculates that the CEO is looking to sell it to somebody.
John: And it sounds like exactly the same language that you would use
John: If you had a car that was about to throw a rod and you were going to try and find somebody to find a sucker to buy it, except this is a 300-person company that is –
John: that like people are counting on, not just the people that work there, but like it's, it is selling itself as providing a service that if you bought it, you would want that service to, to work and be good.
John: And yet at the, at the, at the level of the boss, it's like, well, we were having some HR problems, but don't worry about it.
John: Cause I'm in talks with some, you know, other, I'm in talks with people to sell the company.
John: Not because I, not because the company is good because the company is bad.
John: I don't know how to... There's so many bigger fish to fry right now, Merlin, because the whole world is coming to an end.
John: Yeah, but we probably deserve that.
John: I didn't used to think that until just a couple of weeks ago.
John: Until a couple of weeks ago, I was like...
John: I was like that little dog where he's having a cup of coffee and the fires are all around him.
John: And he's like, this is fine.
John: I'm sure this is fine.
John: I was.
John: I was like that.
John: I was like, no, no, no.
John: No, it's fine.
John: What changed?
John: What changed?
John: Oh, this thing in the Senate where I just realized.
John: The thing about the Senate, right?
John: And it's hard in this moment to realize.
John: You know how I like to do.
John: Yeah, civics.
John: It's hard in this moment to acknowledge that, well, you know, whenever the Senate is in the hands of one party, for a long, long time, they've just voted according to a party line.
John: about stuff.
John: It's not crazy that one party would have a majority in the Senate and would just steamroll the other party, right?
John: We've been doing that for decades and decades.
John: It's not like there's ever been a, it's not like back in the past, it was really easy to turn four senators to your way of thinking.
John: So that bit of it, the fact that we have a Senate that is like being sort of criminally
John: on uh negligent like negligent isn't that isn't strictly new what's new is the 10 things that led us to a place where we're living in a
John: in a state where the, where the president is a, like just a bold faced liar and nobody's paying any of the unspoken rules and no one has any pride or dignity anymore.
Merlin: And it's, and every, and it's just like a, they've, they've caught onto his other utter lack of shame.
Merlin: Like that's, that's the thing is like all along you're like, this is a man.
Merlin: Well, on the one hand, he's obviously a man with tremendous,
Merlin: Um, anxieties about, about class and status and things like that.
John: And penis.
John: I mean, you, you, you, you've, you've, uh, you've broken the penis seal on this episode.
John: So let's just call it what it is.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think that's probably part of it.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Um, I bet, I bet it just sticks out a little bit, like a little umbilical, you know, like a little acorn.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: But up until you need a flashlight and a set of tongs to find it.
John: Up until a week ago or two weeks ago, I was pretty bulletproof or I was pretty, you know, resistant to this like, okay, it's this crypto fascists are taking over the world and everybody.
John: I was like, yeah, but there's all, you know, what about this and what about that?
John: And just sort of like still had like really my faith in.
John: in, I don't know, bigger systems or longer games or just history, like the arc of history or all this other stuff, right?
John: And I don't know, just something broke in me.
John: Something snapped about 10 days ago where I was like, oh, no, it's just as bad as everybody says.
John: It's just as bad as...
John: Just as bad as even the most chicken little screaming like panickers have been saying.
John: It's just like, oh, I guess they were right all along.
John: Oh, well.
John: Well, but I'm super mad about business to business emails I'm getting, but also climate change.
John: And also, I don't know, you know, let's keep moving it out of the way.
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John: And I don't know what, I don't know what, learn to skateboard or...
John: You know, I've been playing a lot of guitar.
John: I like that.
John: And I have to say that the guitar has been helpful.
John: Just strumming a G chord will make you feel better.
John: It does.
John: And, you know, playing the guitar.
John: I went to see some bands the other night.
John: And I had one of those nights where it was like I went to see a band and then I went across town to see another band.
John: Whoa.
John: And then after the last band, I went out to the bar with the guys from the first band and some of the people from the second band.
John: And we stayed up until the bar.
John: It wasn't.
John: It was a thing I hadn't done in a long time.
John: But it was also really good just to watch people playing music.
John: Like good people playing good music.
John: And then for whatever reason, I don't know why, I came home.
John: I went down a rabbit hole.
John: And I was trying to figure out a story about Billie Eilish.
John: What's the story with Billie Eilish?
John: I was trying to figure it out.
John: Like what's her deal?
John: Just what's her deal?
John: What's going on here?
John: And then somehow I got bounced over into asking the question, what's the deal with Ed Sheeran?
Merlin: Oh, that's where your toot comes from.
John: You had a tweet about him on the Game of Thrones.
John: I did.
John: And so I'm like, what is the deal with him?
John: I don't know anything about this guy.
John: I know he's redheaded.
John: Call him a ginger.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: It's hard to get a beat on Ed Sheeran for me.
Merlin: He's right up there with the, like, I don't really understand what's happening here.
John: Right.
John: So I had zero beat on him.
John: And I was like, all right, I should listen to a song by Ed Sheeran to see if I have heard it.
John: And I listened to it and I had heard it.
John: And the last thing in the world I would have thought was that it was by this little, little ginger guy.
John: Right.
John: The song sounded like some kind of, it sounded like Neo soul sort of like.
John: Song that that you hear playing in supermarkets where you're like, oh, that's probably Bruno Mars or something, you know, like just some general sort of sound of modern music that I find is not useful to me personally.
John: But then I went and looked at some other songs by Ed Sheeran, and his songs are across a wide genre of songwriting.
Merlin: He's very diverse in his offerings.
John: He's strummy, guitar-y.
John: He's got a very nice voice.
John: So I'm like, all right, tell me more about this kid.
John: His videos, he's pretty self-effacing.
John: Then I found out he's good friends with Tay-Tay, which was appealing to me.
John: Tay-Tay Swaswa?
John: I feel like she's a nice lady.
John: She has good taste in friends.
John: I hope.
John: I just want her to be happy.
John: I just wish she hadn't dated John Mayer.
John: That really is hard.
John: It's hard to stomach.
Merlin: She seems to have a lot of trouble with her exes.
John: All her exes don't live in Texas.
Merlin: I gotta be so mean.
John: But so then I'm watching Ed Sheeran and I'm like, Oh, but tell me more, you know, and it's interesting.
John: And he's still very young and he sold more records than anybody.
John: And I, for a while there, you know, he was like, his record was the number two bestselling record behind Adele.
John: And I was, and even though I was on Ed Sheeran,
John: tip and I was enjoying watching him I was still kind of rooting for Adele oh come on be serious give it all to Adele but then like the last couple of years Adele hasn't put out a new record and Ed Sheeran I guess writes 120 songs a day and so now he also tours in a unique way he does unique touring oh I don't want to stop you keep going we're not done with this alright well I need to know more about that but yeah he's making money hand over fist
John: And then I saw that he had been on Game of Thrones, which I thought was funny.
John: But then I saw, oh, no, everybody was mad.
John: I was like, why would you be mad about that?
John: So I went on and I watched the clip.
John: It's not good.
John: He's on a different TV show, John.
John: But I remember the moment, right?
John: Because you're watching Game of Thrones, you're like da-da-da-da-da, and then somebody starts singing.
John: You're like, huh, singing on Game of Thrones.
John: That's interesting.
John: I mean, it's not like raucous singing.
John: It's like somebody with a sweet voice singing a little folk song.
John: And I remember the little redheaded dude, and the redheaded dude in the Game of Thrones looks like all those other weird little hobbity people in the TV show.
John: So I was like, oh, it's like a friendly hobbit.
John: I wonder why they don't give him more lines.
Hmm.
John: You know, because Maisie's a little bit of a hobbit too, and it was just like a bunch of little hobbits.
John: But then, oh, everybody was so mad because he didn't belong there, and it was like putting Elvis in the middle of Dungeons & Dragons or something.
John: So there was a lot of – of course, you know, I like critical commentary.
John: So I read 10 BuzzFeed articles about how –
John: I do.
John: I do.
John: I want to hear both sides.
John: And I understand it sounds like from the little sick sniffles that you're making that you had a feeling about Ed Sheeran's Game of Thrones.
Merlin: No, it's fine.
John: Ed Sheeran is Chipotle.
John: Did, did you recognize him when he appeared on the show?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And did you go, did you go?
John: Yes.
Merlin: Anyway, he's, he's Chipotle, which is like, he's, he's, he's very satisfying to like normie people and he's not terrible.
Merlin: This is from Polestar.com.
Merlin: This is from August of last year.
Merlin: Ed Sheeran is doing something he really does, taking a break.
Merlin: This is my last gig for probably 18 months.
Merlin: This came after a marathon-like...
Merlin: 893 days and 255 shows with a staggering 8.9 million tickets sold.
Merlin: That's tickets that were sold.
Merlin: Massive gross of 775.6 million.
Merlin: On average, here's the nut.
Merlin: On average, Sharon played a stadium or arena twice a week for two and a half years.
Merlin: that's that's you got to give it that's a lot of that's a lot of wow yeah oh constant touring mode a perpetual ballet of ceaseless travel setups teardowns yeah yeah we all know the jackson brown song um yeah richard prior on the video um i have to imagine i have to imagine that the only way you can do that is to be young and not have any not have anything else going on yeah i wouldn't do it with two babies
John: I heard that he married a girl at his high school.
John: Oh, that's nice.
John: Well, so here's the crazy thing, right?
John: So watching the video...
John: This is this anti-ginger racism.
John: The Game of Thrones?
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: His music videos.
John: The sort of anti-ginger racism that you see in the world where people just cannot imagine a ginger person.
Merlin: Casual ginger racism.
John: That's right.
John: Where you cannot imagine a ginger person being in love or being loved by anyone.
John: It's a very common thing.
John: You say, oh, right, but they would never have that
John: They would never be able to go out with that.
Merlin: Well, they couldn't be loved.
Merlin: They're like left-handed people, but left-handed people were worse.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: There's something basically medieval about their moral flaw that is borne out by their handedness or hairedness.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: They're not as bad as left-handed people, but close.
John: And so watching the videos, I'm like,
John: He's a pop star.
John: He's extremely rich.
John: He's extremely talented.
John: He's got a lot of sensitivity.
John: He's got a beautiful voice.
John: But you know, he's still a redheaded person.
John: And so how am I supposed to believe all these videos where he's like...
Merlin: in love and stuff well there's there's there's something else to you reach no no you reach a certain age in life and and you start realizing for example a man who always wears a hat always a man who always wears a hat i'm gonna make a 75 bet that i can tell you something about his physical appearance under the hat
John: You know what I'm saying?
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Yep, yep, yep.
Merlin: Ed Sheeran, bless his heart.
Merlin: He's got that look.
Merlin: I remember seeing this in pictures, the photos of the zombies in the 60s.
Merlin: I'm like, wow, like two of those guys are already pretty bald.
Merlin: But that was a time when the hair would accommodate a coverage.
Merlin: And I think he's, I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: If he come out of the pool, I got a feeling I'd really see what he's working with.
John: Are you saying that Ed Sheeran's got used in some augmenting sprays?
Merlin: I'm saying this is something, I will tell you off air, whom my wife said this about one time.
Merlin: But she pointed out that a mutual acquaintance of ours has a hipster comb forward.
Yeah.
Merlin: It's a comb forward, isn't it?
Merlin: It's a hipster comb forward.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You sort of could rock this as the George Clooney Caesar cut a little bit in the 90s.
Merlin: But the hipster comb over is a tousled, carefree look.
Merlin: that belies some skin accessions.
John: I see what you're saying.
John: I'm looking at the pictures, and he very much definitely is combing his hair forward.
Merlin: And good for him.
Merlin: $775 million gross.
John: Well, that is the thing that really makes one wonder.
Merlin: You should get connected to him on the Purple site.
Merlin: Maybe he could send you some business.
Merlin: He's got a lot of tattoos.
Merlin: He's got a lot of tattoos.
Merlin: They'll just let you get whatever you want.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: You know, you go in and you're like, I want this tattoo to commemorate.
John: Apparently, I found this out.
John: He has a tattoo of Heinz tomato ketchup.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And then he was on a ketchup bottle, too.
John: Yeah, because he likes ketchup.
John: It's his favorite.
John: And that's endearing.
John: I like that.
John: The guy likes ketchup.
John: He likes ketchup, huh?
John: Anyway, I can't slag him because I only just learned about him, and he does seem not as bad.
John: I bet he's nice.
John: No, I bet he's very nice.
John: Yeah, that's what I'm hoping, that he's very nice.
John: He looks like Colin Malloy a little bit, frankly.
John: Oh, boy.
John: In a kind of redheaded way.
John: Yeah.
John: So I learned that, and that kind of made me – that was something I could go focus on for a little while.
Merlin: Does that make you want to grow your business a little bit?
John: His relationship with Taylor.
John: Yeah, I'm thinking –
John: I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to have some financial independence, Merlin, to have grown my business a little bit.
John: You'll think about that from time to time.
John: Yeah, so that I had some peer-to-peer relationships with people.
John: I could connect with that friend of mine that's selling nutritional powders in some way that would end up where I was the wizard behind the screen.
John: where people were coming to my site and wondering how I was trying to get money from them.
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: And they say the first rule of networking is that you offer other things.
John: Don't talk about network.
Merlin: Don't talk about network club.
Merlin: You help other people.
Merlin: And that's how you build your network is what they say.
Merlin: You don't go in and ask, you go in and give.
Merlin: And then I guess they feel like they owe you something.
Merlin: So Matthew Powderman, he's going to find out, Oh, John, John's helped me out with my powder business.
Merlin: I should throw him some acoustic gigs at the mall or something.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I don't know if Matthew Powderman runs that, but it's worth asking.
John: 100% of my problem with this stuff is when people reach out to me and say like, I'd like to throw some business your way.
John: Yeah.
John: What I think is, Oh cool.
John: You're going to,
John: this is going to be something inventive that allows me to do something new and expand my portfolio of abilities.
John: And what it usually means is, will you play the opening of my coffee shop?
John: So I'm not getting any new opportunities.
John: This is just a thing where somebody wants me to play
John: a show and they want to not talk to my booking agent and have it be all they're doing as you and then run.
John: Yeah.
John: It's a little bit.
John: It's not really a business opportunity for me as much as they may be are laying it out as that.
John: And what I'm hoping when my friend sent me that invitation, that what he's trying to do is there's somebody that's like, we need a new CEO and we're thinking outside the box.
John: And I'm like, I'm ready.
John: Oh, you might be offered some, uh, some board opportunities.
John: That's what I want is board opportunities.
John: But usually what I get is an email that says, Hey, we're having a board event.
John: And I'm like, yeah.
John: And they're like, would you play, would you play four songs that are
John: at our board, and I'm like, no, I want to be on the board.
John: I don't want to play four songs.
John: I never, ever want to play four songs.
Merlin: You should withhold that as part of your package, is that you are open to the idea of negotiating the playing of four songs.
Merlin: But first, you're going to cross Daddy's palm.
Merlin: What's it going to take to get you in this board seat today?
John: You know what I feel like it should be?
John: I feel like the songs that I'm going to play for them should vest over time.
Merlin: Oh, that's good.
Merlin: So you get a grant at the beginning of song options.
John: Yeah, once I'm on the board, they get song options, but they only vest after I've been on the board for a year.
John: then you get like, then you get four songs that vest.
Merlin: And then if I'm on the board, in good faith, you could play one short song right now just for good faith.
Merlin: But then if you want those four bangers, you're going to, you're going to need to, you know, sign on the line that is dotted.
John: I'll come, I'll sit, I'll strum the guitar, I'll pick out some stuff.
Merlin: You're not a monkey, John.
Merlin: You're not a monkey.
Merlin: You're a board member.
John: I'll do that thing like when you're talking and one of the people is just sitting and noodling on the guitar while he's talking to you.
John: I'll do that.
John: Yeah.
John: Give you a little taste of what it could be.
John: Here's what you're missing.
John: And then you'll vest over time.
John: Vest.
John: And pretty soon, you know, after I've been there for five years and I own...
John: I own 2% of the shares in the company, you'll get a full show.
John: That's right.
Merlin: I think that's good.
Merlin: Everybody's trying to fuck everybody, and you've got to really check your sex.
Merlin: I feel like this is not precisely what you're saying, but it's just something I'm –
Merlin: Well, you know, on the one hand, selfishly, I'm leery of people who just want to blow a lot of time to get something.
Merlin: Like, you know, they'll go out and get a coffee kind of people.
Merlin: And it's like, yeah, I got coffee.
Merlin: I'm good.
Merlin: And I do have friends.
Merlin: I don't need a new acquaintance.
Merlin: And once I start answering your emails, you email me all the time.
Merlin: I don't want to get into that.
Merlin: But something I learned, it took me a while to learn, but I've learned at length is...
Merlin: You know, there's a lot of carrots and sticks out there.
Merlin: And you got to be picky about who in your life you allow yourself to owe a favor.
Merlin: Because there are favor collectors out there.
John: Tell me more about paper collectors.
Merlin: The kind of people who like, this is a little bit Seinfeld-y, but it's true.
Merlin: The kind of people who like do a thing for you or give you a thing or there's some perceived movement of value from them to you.
Merlin: And then you get this implicit like, well, you know, I did do that thing.
Merlin: I bought you that Big Mac that one time.
Merlin: Or like, you know, I gave you access to this app.
Merlin: A lot of times it's something that doesn't cost anything.
Merlin: But, you know, intimacy and secrets and there's all kinds of things that can be perceived as valuable.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: Sometimes you just see people around you.
Merlin: You may notice people around you who are favor collectors.
Right.
Merlin: Kind of like low-level power brokering a little bit.
Merlin: And I think you have to be careful because pretty soon it's like the panopticon.
Merlin: You start policing yourself and you're like, well, I guess I better not do anything to escalate any problems with this person or discuss anything real with this person because...
Merlin: They feel like I owe them a favor, and now I feel like I owe them a favor.
Merlin: And I don't mean to sound like a hard-hearted man, but I am saying, I think you have to be, there's a lot of things in life to be careful about and to be mindful of.
Merlin: And one of them is making sure you're not in Dutch or feel like you're in Dutch to somebody that you don't like and respect, or where you don't trust their taste.
John: You know, my mom...
John: Has always been extremely and I think she was very early.
John: She was very early on the scene here in the favorite collectors because my mom is is hyper conscious of not wanting to owe anything to anybody because she doesn't want to be.
John: Yeah.
John: She never wants to have to do something.
Merlin: Your mother is wonderfully independent.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: In almost every way that I can think of, you can tell that a temple of her life is her independence and getting to make and own the decisions that she makes, which I really respect so much.
Merlin: I also just like her a lot.
John: She's a nice lady.
John: She is.
John: In the mid-'90s, she moved into a house, and her kitty-corner neighbors were –
John: You know, this a couple of married women who were who'd been together for a long time and they were, you know, they kind of fit the old school lesbian dialectic of like one of them wore a tool belt and one of them, you know, warm eye makeup, you know, the kind of old dynamic.
John: Yep.
John: And they had a great house and they were working on the house all the time.
John: And the Femi or the two worked in state offices and the sort of butchier one was a contractor.
John: And they loved my mom right off the – and adopted her and she really loved them.
John: And they developed this wonderful neighbor relationship.
John: But they started to – and they wanted to help my mom.
John: They wanted to help her with her projects.
John: They wanted to help her –
John: They wanted to help her and they just wanted to be good neighbors and they wanted to bring her potlucks and they wanted to be friends.
John: And at a certain point, they had brought over one too many casseroles.
John: And my mom started to say under her breath, like, no more.
John: Do not bring me any more casseroles because I feel like you're starting to count them.
John: She could feel that the casseroles... Oh, now she's in the midst of the casserole counters.
John: Yep.
John: She could feel that the casseroles were being counted at a certain point.
John: And my mom was like, I do not... I am not going to bring you a casserole in return.
John: I don't know how to make a casserole.
John: It's, I do not want these casseroles that you're bringing me.
John: Did you say this with mouth words?
John: No.
John: Okay.
John: But, you know, she's...
John: And no, because she's a, she's a person, she's a vibe person, right?
John: She just starts sending the vibe.
John: And this is a big problem in my mom's life.
John: I have to say like, this is, this probably, you know, this probably would end in her marriage, but it's just like, she started to say, okay, I feel like,
John: debt rising and it's not debt that I want.
John: We're living next to each other.
John: I just want to live here peacefully in my house without feeling like every time I step out the door, I have to go perform for you, my neighbors.
John: I don't want to.
Merlin: Yes.
John: I don't want to have to come to dinner with you because I owe you.
John: I don't want to have to have you over to the house because you had me over to your house.
John: Like all of that.
John: I cannot – and so little by little – and then they got –
John: then they were like, what's wrong?
John: And I think that they had, they felt like they were going to be over at one another's house every night for dinner for the rest of their lives.
John: And little by little, and so my mom started to school me on this thing.
John: You know, she would sit me down and she would say, here's how they get you.
John: They do nice things for you.
John: This is how, and she's not talking about the neighbor.
John: She's talking about mankind.
John: Because, you know, she was always giving me...
John: Big, big lessons on mankind, particularly at this point in my life when I was in my late 20s.
John: She was like, here's how they get you.
John: It's a honey trap.
John: But there's no such thing as a free casserole.
John: And I was like, I don't even want – and she was like, no, no, no.
John: It doesn't matter what you want.
John: The casserole – and she was right.
John: Eventually, one day – and I remember the fight –
John: One day, one of them said, but we brought you all these casseroles.
John: And my mom was right.
John: they had been counting them, tallying them in their minds how much they had done for her.
Merlin: Well, maybe it's just basic card counting, where what's clear enough is that we have provided many casseroles, and you have provided none.
Merlin: That's all the count you need, especially if you feel righteous indignation about the dearth of casserole.
John: Well, and I think, yeah, right, but then...
John: What is often the case is that when they start to wonder why my mom has not given them a casserole, the solution or the thing that they think to do is bring another one over.
John: Like maybe if we brought one more casserole, she would understand that it was her turn.
John: You know, like the debt keeps accruing.
John: It gets worse and worse.
John: You know, they don't pull out.
John: They dive deeper in.
John: Anyway, what ended up happening was the, my mom's worst nightmare, which was that now she had neighbors that lived kitty corner to her that she was afraid to run into because avoiding avoiding.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: You're avoiding them because now you've had a falling out because of a thing, because of this thing, this exact thing.
John: And, um,
John: And I'd always watch my mom do these things and say, like, if you had just played this differently, do you think that you could have... Because the end result was the same, right?
John: The end result, which is that you're alienated from your neighbors, which was what you didn't want in the first place.
John: Somehow that's what ended up happening anyway.
John: Is there a way... And I did ask her these questions, and her answer was, I'm never accepting another casserole from another person.
John: And I think from that time on, no, you know, like if you try to deepen a relationship with her as a neighbor or as a, you know, somebody that she runs into all the time, if you're like, you should come over, my mom will just say, no, thank you.
John: And just avoids ever taking that, you know, like if you bring her a casserole, she's like, thank you so much.
John: Please don't ever bring me another casserole.
John: I'm sure it's delicious and delicious.
John: And thank you.
John: But don't ever do that again, please.
John: And I think people find that pretty unusual.
John: It's difficult.
John: You kind of do something like that, don't you?
Merlin: I do a lot of things like that.
Merlin: I try to do a lot of things like that or have historically tried to do a lot of things like that where like...
Merlin: I mean, just to go into Holden Caulfield mode for just a moment, there's a thing at the center of most of these sorts of things that puts me off my beer, which is the assuming – how do you put this?
Merlin: Pretending that you and the other person – that person pretending that you guys have more familiarity than you do or should.
Yeah.
Merlin: I find troubling.
Merlin: So that evidences itself as like, you know, hey, I know this person that you know, and here's a favor I want.
Merlin: Or it just can be fine, which can be fine.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: But like, you know, I had to finally delete the email that's associated with the show that I do with Dan.
Merlin: Every email I get to that account now goes straight to the trash because it's so – setting aside the wonderful –
Merlin: 20% of the email we get from people that Dan now points out to me, because I'm not getting it, it's a vast majority.
Merlin: The vast majority is people saying, hey, I really love your podcast, Back to Work.
Merlin: And your recent topic got a topic we did recently.
Merlin: And I wanted to have a guest on, be a guest.
Merlin: And it's like, we've never had a guest.
Merlin: We've never had a guest.
Merlin: We just crossed, I think, nine years of doing this show.
Merlin: And we've never had a guest.
John: I get those now, too.
John: Because you're on the list.
John: Now you're on the list.
John: Yeah, the Roadwork show where they're like, hey, Dan and John, love the show.
John: Would you be interested in having this great guest on your show?
Merlin: He's a serial entrepreneur, an author who's going to share his secrets to the seven-second work month.
Merlin: Yeah, you get a lot of those.
Merlin: But anyways, so why does that, this is the Holden Caulfield part of me that I can't shake, which is like, you've never seen so many phonies in your whole life.
Merlin: It's like, don't do that, man.
Merlin: Don't front your game here, buddy.
Merlin: Take it to the next stall.
Merlin: Like, don't do that.
Merlin: Don't pretend that, because now I'm the asshole, right?
Merlin: I'm the asshole for going, I don't have any fucking idea.
Merlin: You fucking idiot.
Merlin: If you ever listen to one goddamn episode of that show, you'd know we've literally never had a guest.
John: No, how would you?
Merlin: But then now, again, I'm the asshole.
Merlin: Because I'm like, you know, you're wasting my time and you're trying to make – I am a person with whom it is surprisingly easy to have a very emotional connection.
Merlin: I like a lot of people and I get along with a lot of people.
Merlin: And I'm sorry to burst your bubble, everybody.
Merlin: I'm actually a fairly warm person in real life.
John: I agree.
John: I can attest to that.
Merlin: But like when you –
Merlin: when you have to like when you're expected to have a response even let's be honest in your mom's case even when the response is thank you for the casserole but like what do you say that you don't sound like a psychopath and that's the problem the problem with all this my whole holden caulfield lifestyle the part that's difficult for me is like we're not allowed to really be honest with each other because you've established this context
Merlin: where the only way that I can respond to what you're saying to me is to act like it's real when it's actually not real.
Merlin: And that's a basically dishonest way to start your relationship.
Merlin: And I don't have the time or inclination to even deal with that.
Merlin: But like, I think it's a struggle in life because you're an adult.
Merlin: You're an adult and we should strive to be kind to each other.
Merlin: We should strive to give each other the benefit of the doubt.
Merlin: But, you know, think about this.
Merlin: Think about working in like customer service somewhere where like all you see is people on their worst day or being a cop where all you see is people on their worst day.
Merlin: And like in this case, like I just, it's exhausting, John.
Merlin: It's even when I'm not sick, it's exhausting.
Merlin: Because I really try not to do that to other people.
Merlin: What I've learned over time is try not to personally attack people.
Merlin: You can attack things, but try not to attack, especially civilians, personally.
Merlin: Try to minimize that.
Merlin: I try to do that.
Merlin: I try to assume...
Merlin: that just because I don't, you know, I, sometimes when people assume more familiarity than I would like, I try to take it in the best conceivable way, but like, you got to check your six in life.
Merlin: Everybody's trying to fuck you.
Merlin: Not everybody.
John: I just got a, I just got an email.
Merlin: Oh, what'd you get, buddy?
Oh,
John: Well, you know, I clicked unsubscribe on all the things from that website.
John: Yeah.
John: But I just got a... The unsubscribe was, I guess, about a certain class of email from them.
John: Oh, you got other ones now, huh?
John: There are other ones.
Merlin: Product announcements, you got...
John: Yeah, well, no, but this one was, it came not from the company, but from a person, like a normal person's name.
John: Like, let's say his name is Fred Johnson.
John: Fred Johnson.
John: It's an email from Fred Johnson.
John: But I know there's trouble because Beats Working Music is the...
John: is the subject line.
John: So I'm like, Fred Johnson is not emailing me about beats working music out of the blue.
John: You know what I mean?
Merlin: No, we're talking about it.
Merlin: Must work.
John: And so it comes in here and it says, hi, I'm Fred Johnson from a record label in Portland, Oregon.
John: I'd like to connect with you on name of website.
John: I'd like us to refer customers to each other.
John: Oh, nice.
John: And now I'm going to – so it's just kind of like you're saying.
John: Now, if I don't accept this request, what I can't know, what's not transparent to me is, is Mike Jones on there and he just saw me and –
John: saw me appear on this website and said, I want to be friends with him and clicked on it.
John: And now he's, he's like that scene in the Facebook movie where he's just refreshing, refreshing, refreshing to see if I accept his request or is all this just happening?
Merlin: I think it's mostly hap.
Merlin: I mean, it's, you know,
Merlin: It's not even a circle jerk.
Merlin: It's like a quantum circle quark.
Merlin: Circle quark.
Merlin: Circle quark.
Merlin: And everything's connected.
Merlin: And I'll bet you that there's probably some little side rail where they're like, hey, friend of a friend.
Merlin: Hey, this guy, John's Music just joined.
Merlin: And that's a friend of your other friend.
Merlin: So you're going to get music stuff because they're acquainted with this –
Merlin: Ask yourself this.
Merlin: This person that you know a little bit with the inscrutable company reached out to you.
Merlin: Think about all the people they actually do know, they are networking with.
Merlin: So you've probably been exposed to a very large audience of influencers.
Merlin: Congratulations.
John: Right.
John: Yes.
John: No, that's 100%.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, so what do I do?
John: Do I click unsubscribe?
Merlin: Well, it seems to me you're in a favor at this point.
Merlin: You need to set them up with, get them some business.
Merlin: Maybe they could take over for some.
John: so i'm going to accept his request here i go all right i'm it's redirecting me yeah oh it wants me to connect with my sister again oh no you're already connected with your sister do you really need more of that well and there's here's the guy with the here's the guy with the powders too oh geez but now i am connected to fred johnson
John: Oh, Merlin, listen to you.