Episode #1: Revamp of Conversations w/ the Earls (March 26, 2026)

All right, welcome back to the Earl Podcast. Earl Pod. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been about a year. Yeah, it's been about a year. It's been a good year. Pretty mellow year. Well, it's been all right year. I remember from the previous episodes one thing we would do would be a short recap of the previous episode for like a memory kind of mnemonic. So, go ahead. The last episode I want to say that we talked about who our favorite ads of the year were. We kind of did like a year recap at the end of the year. Or honestly, the last episode might have been Topanga. Which Oh, the family ad. over a year ago, which was an incredible trip. And so, good memory. Topanga one was a good kind of family exercise. Yeah. That's I'm so happy that we're doing this again. I think some of the benefits that come from even just sitting down and having a one-on-one conversation with someone. You feel good cuz it's so rare nowadays that you get to sit down with someone, look them in the eyes, and just no distractions other than me vibe coding and it's recording this whole thing right now in front of me. But, no distractions like we get to connect on a level that's like really intimate that I think a lot of people are lacking. So, Yeah. I would encourage anyone to like do that. I think it's a great exercise on being able to better present yourself and talk about stuff and talk about issues and just articulate what you All the thoughts that are in your head. So, It's nice to have it regimented, too. So, it kind of takes the cognitive decision load of like, "Oh, when should we meet? When should we meet?" It's just like, "No, on Thursdays we do this." And I'm down for that. Yeah. We might have to reassess Thursdays now that you are getting a new job. You'll have a little bit more liberty with your day. You'll be working probably twice as hard, but it'll feel like half as much work. And kind of a last minute job that you're stoked about. One more like side point on that just to reiterate it, too, it's like it's one of those things that you just got to We're going to do it once a week, you know? It doesn't matter if it's Thursdays, doesn't matter if it's Monday at 11:00. Like I I really want to dedicate us you by conjunction. But like I really want to dedicate myself to practicing this skill more than anything. And the journalistic component of it is so valuable. Like dude, when we have kids and we don't have time and whatever or like even in our old age we're like, "What were we doing in our 20s?" You know? I just say When the robots have taken over and then we're like, "Why were our parents such fans of the robots?" That human connection will be really valuable to look back on and be like, "Wow, this Who knows what'll happen with this new job with Edvanta, but I have a feeling it's going to be really good. I'm going to learn so much. That team that I'm already starting to like network with and build relationships with, I've been so impressed with them. They're operating at a level that I've never seen. So, It's It's going to be a great learning experience. One thing that I do think is funny is like we were just talking about Oh, it slipped my mind. Then that's exactly why we're doing this. Okay, it came back. What you were saying about like being our kids being able to hear this, I think it's going to be fun because as as confidently as I can say who I was at 16, chances are I'm pretty far from the mark. You know? Like I can think I know who I was, but I'm the truth is I'm not them anymore and I don't know how they would react to stuff. I don't know anything. So, it's nice to have like this physical manifestation of like, "Oh, no, this is who you were." And through these conversations you kind of get an idea of how we think. And so, I think it's going to be really fun for people, our kids, anybody that sees this to get to know us a little bit better. Yeah. And I think about if dad had one of these, I'm sure he would shock us in how he thought differently. Yeah. Yeah, great point. And yes, totally agree with you. And whatever it turns into, too, I don't want to put any expectations on it. I think we need to outline something right off the bat, too, just for like structure for this episode. 4:10, we probably started recording like 4:10. Let's just do like a 30-minute thing or whenever it feels comfortable like, "Cool, let's cut off. We We got it done." Like We've already done the hard part together. Yeah, recording something. Yeah, yeah. But then like whatever this leads to, too, I think it's really interesting cuz we're practicing We're We're learning a skill right now. And being able to present yourself and building your personal brand is more important than it has ever been in history, right? And it's more accessible than it ever has been. And I think about Naval's like three forms of leverage, right? It's like capital, labor, and then code and media. Yeah. Those are the three forms of leverage right now. Like capital, meaning money. Like money influences people more than anything. Like that's a huge influence. Labor like Yeah, you're a leader of men. You You have a workforce. You have all these people. That's also a form of leverage like to get stuff done, right? And then code and media. Like I can go vibe code an app and put it in the App Store and it takes off and makes me a bunch of money, you know? Or like that gives me leverage as a person. And media Like you train this skill and you develop these these communication skills and like you ideally build a bank of enough information and you have enough good characteristics that that stuff's valuable now. And like why not try to learn how to utilize that for your advantage. No, I think what you said where it's like your personal brand and your personal brand being made up of those these things is just the nail on the head, but it's crazy how I don't know if it if this is just me getting older, but I couldn't have told you any of the CEOs of the companies through the 2010s, 2000 like up until recently where it's like all of a sudden all these CEOs have like stardom. Like they're being traded almost. It's like a sports star. You know? It's like, "Oh, did you hear that the head developer at Meta just switched to Open AI?" Or did you hear Open AI's just lost their chief software strategist to Grok? And it's like I How much of this is publicized in the past? Probably not nearly as much. It was more macro and I think that's a consequence of everybody leveraging their personal brand because you Now everybody has a platform. Right. And maybe not a consequence. Maybe just a new way of doing stuff. Yeah. Or just like a byproduct. Right, byproduct. I see exactly what you're saying. I think it's really interesting. My initial thoughts on that were Yeah, I would agree with you. I think we were both younger, so we weren't paying attention to that stuff as much. An interesting thing kind of popped in my head as you were saying that which was around this idea that uh the idea of a company has kind of changed in the sense of it's not so much a machine anymore because things like AI are so smart and there's so many tools that are available to help people do their job that really the skill sets and the value in companies now, more than ever, is in individual knowledge and the knowledge of people. That's really what propels a company into stardom or into whatever. Because like think about SpaceX. Think about Tesla. Think about Facebook. Like none of these companies would really be valuable without the people that are driving this innovation and driving this product. Especially with Elon Musk, but also like any other product really. Like it comes down to the person in charge who's driving that. I really like that. I was trying to think of the people the CEOs that I did know in the 2010s and it was like Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, like those types of guys. But there's an interesting thing that I was thinking about, too, that I want to bring up kind of in response to that was Think about Think about I heard this on some podcast today that kind of blew my mind. Think about Mark Zuckerberg as a founder and what he was thrown into straight out of like being a 19-year-old. He developed a product that his learning curve has been going like this since he launched Facebook when he was 19. Like he had no idea how to run a corporation, dude. But, he developed a product that was so innovative and so capturing that he's just been on this vertical climb since then. Do you think that ambition is genetic? Or do you think that it's more societal? I kind of talking to dad about this today cuz like our dad worked so hard in his career and he was very ambitious. Like you don't You Like Dad's ambition I do feel like I have some of that in me. Like I'm willing to put in the extra hours. I'm willing to do the hard shit cuz I see the opportunity that that creates. So, good question. I don't know. I I fumble between yes just because I think you see from a long line of people they're successful so that they're successful. But I also think that that could just be you do what you know and you know what your dad did or you know what your mom did. And so, you like can kind of inherit that ambition just through proxy. But I also think that growing up in Utah gives a really interesting perspective on this because a lot of people in Utah grow up really fast. They get married really young. They start having kids really quick. And I don't think that there's a better instigator of ambition than I now have to provide for these guys. Yeah. And I think that that responsibility is often really daunting and scary, but I also think that it can be really fulfilling. Yeah. Like and this is a super small example, but since meeting JD, I have probably gotten much more ambitious in that I know that I'm going to have to provide the lifestyle for us that I want to live. Yeah. And so I'm going to start stacking the stones and laying the pathway that I see needs to be done because I want this to benefit not just me anymore, but us. Yeah. And then just taking care of Zuma these last 2 weeks, it's like, yeah, I'm willing to wake up an hour earlier, sacrifice an hour of sleep so that she gets a walk when the weather is still cool. And it's just like that responsibility for providing for those around you, I think has kind of switched an ambition switch in my head. Yeah. And I wonder if that's the case for a lot of these Mormon people that have kids at 22, 23. It's like, okay, well you got to make it now. Yeah. And then they do. They often get wildly successful. Totally. I think I think you nailed it. I think there's a there's a level of unlock that happens when especially with a child. I feel like having a kid is one of the biggest risks you take. Totally. And it's also one of the most selfless things you can do because you are responsible for taking care of this thing and teaching it how to function in the world, you know? Which is which is a level of responsibility that forces you into action. Totally. But I think pets are really interesting and what makes a good pet owner like us as humans, we have these little animals that we live with and it's totally up to us how we treat that animal. I have a cat now. It was his birthday yesterday, sorry. But he turned 1 year old and for some reason in my head I'm like, I want to take care of this little guy. I'm going to go home from work on lunch, make sure he gets a bunch of treats, give him a belly rub, like make sure he's loved and then I'm going to I'm going to go back to work, I'm going to come back and I'm going to take him outside for an hour cuz I know he loves it outside and I'm just going to stop pulling treats and like make sure he has a good day, give him plenty of belly rubs and whatnot. And it's funny to me how like that in the grand scheme of thing doesn't really I think you could argue that maybe that's not going to have an impact that's like worthwhile, right? Like I could have been reading a pod- or like listening to a podcast or reading a book or something, right? Trying to progress in this way. But the cosmic karma, I feel like that was a good thing that made me happy that like I'm taking care of this little guy, I love that, but Well, it's interesting too cuz for me, my true north is I'm going to measure my life on how happy I was. And I feel like I am often the happiness happiest when I am in the service of others, whether that be a dog or not. Like I I take Zuma on a walk and I see how stoked she is when you even so much as say walk. Yeah. And she just loves them. And that joy that she feels is contagious, but there's also a lot of something deeper than joy that brews up in yourself from like Yes. Yeah. Like I'm willing to do this for you every single day. Yeah. It kind of ties into the whole satisfaction cycle that you get from doing something for other people. Yeah. Right. Like that's arguably more rewarding than We've talked about that before, probably on a podcast. Probably it is. Have you heard about the $20 study? No. I'm sure we've talked about it at some point on this, but they had a bunch of participants Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah, they gave them 20 bucks and said you can keep the 20 bucks or you can give it to somebody else and then they measured their levels of satisfaction and the people that had chosen to give the $20 away had much higher levels of satisfaction. Yeah. Which is so funny. Yeah. Than receiving the $20. Yeah, isn't that so interesting? Yeah, it is interesting. It just shows to like I mean like today I just give Yeah, I've been looking at a watches today just cuz I'm like I want a nice watch, but I the battery was dead. This thing's been sitting in my drawer for 3 years. So I went to the clock shop to uh get a new battery and the guy was so helpful. He's like, yeah, give me a couple minutes, I'll go replace this for you. And he comes back like couple minutes later, he's like, all right, 10 bucks. I'm like Oh, perfect. Sweet. he's like, all right, you're good to go. And I'm like, where can I tip, dude? Yeah. And it literally was like such a good experience that I'm like I'm going to give you an extra $5, like run my card again. And I gave him my card, he's like thanks, man. Yeah. And I kind of took him by surprise, I'm like, that was excellent service, like thank you. Yeah. You know? And it made me feel great. Yeah. No, dude, I love that. One of the things that I've been it's nothing more than a thought right now, but I feel like sometimes we isolate ourselves in an effort to get rid of the crowds, but I think that the crowds often bring a lot of joy in like the example I'll give is say you win the lottery, the first thing you do is, oh, I'm going to build that at home gym and I'm going to get that at home sauna and then I'm going to get that at home pool and all this stuff. And in all of these things, you now are doing them alone. Mhm. You know, you're not going to the gym and running into strangers, which can sometimes be a stressor, but often times it's pretty relaxed and if anything, I think that the benefit can outweigh the negative almost any time of the day. Yeah. And it's it's funny to think cuz I've started going to this sauna ice bath place and I always wanted one in my house. I was like, oh, I want the ice bath and the sauna so that I can do them whenever I want. Right. But I have been more consistent with going when it's somewhere else and there's like a social factor of like, oh, I'm meeting people, I'm seeing people. This is like great for community. I think that the it's really hard to measure the benefits of community, but I'm I'm really feeling it Yeah. especially in the spring. Yeah. Uh totally agree with you. I think I think that's a good insight too. Especially for people that are like all about self-help, all about motivation and monk mode and grinding it out. You are at least in my experience this past week, I've been way more productive this week, just blitz, like so busy, meeting with people every day. I've got like five meetings a day, trying to close out work, trying to start this other job, like grinding literally when I wake up to when I go to sleep. I don't have any anxiety right now. Yeah. Like normally this winter when I was like struggling with purpose and what am I doing here and all this stuff, I was isolating myself. I was like struggling, dude. Yeah. And just that busyness, that connection, that building your network, building your brand, like whatever it is, so rewarding. Makes you feel so good. This girl from the cursor meet up, I was at the cursor meet up in Salt Lake a couple weeks ago and this girl reached out to me and was like, hey, I have a school project, like we need to launch this thing, like I would love to meet with you and like see if you can help. Like she came into this meeting totally not like totally disorganized, but kind of just overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. Bunch of people in my class that already have projects in the app store and I met with her and I kind of showed her what the process was from, okay, you want to get in the app store, you got to go this way. You want to do a web-based tool, you got to go this way. Here are some great resources. I took notes, I sent them to her and that was so rewarding, dude. Like that made me feel so good, like I'm contributing to something, I'm part of this community, like I feel real honor and like pride in that. But it yeah, just really cool experience today, too. super cool experience. I like how mentorship trickles down, you know? I remember when I was thinking about going the creative advertising agency route in school, I reached out to this girl that worked at The Martin Agency. Her name was Michaela. We only met once, but she had a lasting impact on me that you were calling me and you reached out to me as like the person who's made it because I was reaching out to years ago. And it's like fun to now assume that role and that's not to say that she doesn't still have her mentors. She's still I mean it's beautiful. But she's gotten here to where she can mentor. Yeah. And it's kind of like I can't remember who said it, but they're like, don't ask the person who's made it and is 150 steps ahead of you how to do it. Ask the person that's two steps ahead of you. Yeah. Cuz they'll have a better memory or a better memory of how they did it. That is great. I really like that analogy. And it's fun just how that mentorship like you can be a mentor to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I would like to do in this podcast that I think would be fun to do once a week is just a speed run of what your content diet is. Speed run of what books, what podcasts, what music. I'm going to put you on the spot right here. Podcast, top top, go. Ooh, I can't remember the name. Cal Newport Rick Rubin's podcast. Rick Rubin, okay. Rick Rubin's sort of cut me off in like chapter seven or eight or whatever, but his chapters are short. What the fuck was that fantasy book you were listening to? The Sort of Kai Gain. Dude, that would interrupt me every fucking day for so long and I'd be like, what even is this fuck The Sort of Kai Gain? It's a great book. Okay. It was my first book club book with the guys. Nice. Okay. Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin, I honestly haven't been listening to a ton of podcasts. I've been doing a lot of just silence. Yeah. Like going for walks without listening to anything. Really trying to be more mindful. I feel like these last 2 weeks I've been like really anxious and stressed just amongst a couple downfalls of the overall lesson is don't count your eggs before they've hatched, but I didn't get into a couple pitch competitions that I was hoping to. So, I've just kind of just been refocusing on what in my life is good. And yeah, the the one podcast that I was doing with Rick Rubin was the founder of Liquid Death. And one thing that I will say that I think Rick Rubin is so good at is instigating a conversation with as few words as possible. Really? The whole podcast, you maybe hear him talk twice and he's like Really? Okay, so then how does that apply to this? And then 10 minutes go by without him saying a single word. But these people are like not losing it, just fully engaged. Interesting. Such a great such an interesting conversation style. And and that's what? That's kind of his whole thing is just calm, meditate, absorb, be in the moment. Yeah. And then figure out how to contribute cuz what does he do? There's a funny like five coding meme where it's Rick Rubin behind a computer and he's basically just letting it go, you know, feel the energy. And he's just talking to his computer, but That's funny. He's a unique guy cuz he doesn't play any instruments. Mhm. He doesn't know any I'm sure he I'm sure he's very competent like Oh, yeah. I'm sure he can pick up a guitar and play it, but that's not his skill set. His skill set is figuring out what things need, you know? Yeah. Yeah. What book am I reading? Oh, I'm actually reading our great grandpa's little autobiography. It's like a 25-page autobiography about his life and it's been fascinating. I'm sorry. Yeah. Applied. Yeah, Nephi Clifton. Cool. Very cool. Yeah, so it's Nephi was his name? Yeah. Wow. Nephi Clifton. It's my namesake, middle namesake. Did he write it? Yeah, he wrote it. Wow. I've only gotten through the portion of him telling to the best of his knowledge his parents' life. Mhm. My parents and grandparents, so our great-great-great-grandparents and our great-great-grandparents. What was his life like back then? Not chill. Like desperate? Not not necessarily desperate, but just like harsh. He converted to the church and on his mission this is like probably 20 years after Joseph Smith. So, this is a new religion. Like Mormonism is a new religion and they're from Denmark. He converts to Mormonism and on his mission he literally gets tarred and feathered. Like legitimately tarred and feathered. Where was he? In Denmark. Then he goes and he's like, I'm getting out of here. Tries to sell his farm. Nobody will buy it for anything other than pennies on the dollar because he converted to Mormonism. Comes here, pretty much on the journey all of his kids die. His wife has twins, they both die. Then his wife has another kid, the kid dies and she dies in childbirth. Then he gets married 4 months later to our great-great-great-grandma. Wow. Yeah. Just like he had six kids die? Yeah, just about. Woah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So, and then he had more kids? Yeah, and then he had more kids. Yeah, and he pushed through that. How do you get married 4 months later? Dude, they're like losing a kid destroys relationships. It's it's hard it modern day it's hard for relationships to to survive a lost kid. Yeah. Especially when it's a kid. Not like a baby. 1902 though. Anything else in your content diet? I think content diet is really important. I think I'm going to be more focused about what I consume. I've been really good about Instagram. I get on Instagram maybe once a week for like 10 minutes or something. I don't really do it. But I love X cuz I get a ton of value from X, you know? I get to engage with really cool people. My content diet I'm really happy with actually. I've been smashing Founders podcast and then yeah, reading through the Almanac of Naval, the Naval Almanac again. Book of Milon just came out. There's a couple other ones. I want to start this one called Mindset. It's kind of like a company culture book. Cool thing about Advanta, this new place that I'm going to work with work for, work with as a founder, very cool. Founding CSM manager. Hey. But they have a book club and like 2 hours a week they have a meeting where they just talk about books they're reading. And that's that's the first one that's on the list is Mindset, so Oh, really? Yeah. Nice. Yeah. How's your content diet? That's on point. Oh, dude, that movie. That that is a good thing to include into your content diet. Great adaptation to the book. So good. One of the best movies I've ever seen. Yeah, I've probably had 20 of my peers go see it and not a single one of them has been like, I had any notes. It was perfect. Yeah. Like Jonah and Dean, my roommates went and saw it like 2 nights ago and they both came home and were like, I think that is in my top five movies of all time. It's just uplifting. You see hardship, you are in the hardship with them and you just figure it out. It's problem solving at its finest. I think part of the speed run kind of is exactly how he did it. Like run through the stuff, also gather little insights that you got from it, too. So, very cool. Another thing I think we should include is just what do you want to learn this week going forward? What did you learn last week? I learned last week that and this was a learning through mistake that you have a better connection with the people you know than influencers that you don't know. Yeah. I spent a ton of time just reaching out to influencers who I thought would be amenable to sampling and then posting about Third Life and just was not quite met with what I thought I would. Whereas I've got a lot of great people that I know and they might not all be influencers, but they were like all really great people and I get some seriously needed feedback from them. So, I've been reaching out to people and asking for help, which is a lesson that I needed to learn I think. I kind of been bearing this burden of the promotion too much on myself. Whereas now I'm kind of getting some help with these really small and I wouldn't even say they're creators, but they're people that are willing to help and that have an interest in Yeah. Figure out how to sell the product, too, because the product's really good. Once people I've been using Third Life every morning this week and I'll take one and I'm like lights out, it's a great day, you know? Figure out how to tap people into what the product is because the product's really good. You spent a year and a half developing this thing. Solid like really solid design, really good backing on what supplements and nootropics are in it that promote this good stuff. Like figure out how to sell that and be confident about it, dude. Like that's one thing that I realized this week. I'm like, damn, this is a great Why haven't I been taking this for the past 3 months? Like why am I torturing myself with fucking coffee? I'm like, can I feel good? Why why have I been doing this to myself? I want to feel good. I'm going to take fucking Third Life cuz this is good shit And it's just yeah, way better product, but like figure out how to sell it to people, but like show them what the product is. Yeah, you got a good product, man. So, yeah, really cool. What do you want to learn going forward this week? I would like to learn how to convey what I want done in a less self-conscious way. Whenever I'm asked for help and I'm sure you've had this happen where they're like "Hey, would you mind helping me with this?" And that's almost more frustrating to me because I'm like, "I don't know what I'm doing. Like how do you want me to help you? If you tell me exactly how you want me to help you, I can help you." Yeah. But in an effort to preserve the other person's agency, you often overexplain and underexplain at the same time. Interesting. And I want to just get really clear with "Hey, what if you made a video that was like this, this, and this? Just a quick testimonial and send it my way." Instead of being like "Hey, would you mind making a video? Just whatever works for you, whatever you want to do." Like give some direction. I think I that's what I want to learn. I want to learn how to give better direction. I think part of sales, too, is like being willing to get uncomfortable. Because what you're talking about is uncomfortable. Like you are you're asking someone to do something for you. Yeah. And that like I value people's time, right? Just trust your product, dude. Like this is good shit This is going to help you. Yeah. Like you know, like So, that's really cool. What I learned last week are you unless you No, no, I I was just about to reflect on you. So, what I learned last week was people are operating at an insane level that I had no idea people could operate at. I mean, I know, but I'm in it now and it's so fucking cool. It's exciting. But I think there's a lesson there, too, as far as like no matter what someone's going to be working harder than you. So, find something you're passionate about. That's kind of my takeaway is like find work that doesn't feel like work. Find work that feels like play and you will excel at that, you know? I'm really glad that I found this company cuz I feel like this is something that I can excel at. And obviously there's this shit you have to go through, you know? Stage out my now. I have a lot of them new learning to do. But if I'm ambitious, like I want to get it done because I'm excited about our product. I'm excited about the change we can have in the industry. That's kind of what I've learned this week, but just like people are operating at a really high level. Yeah. And if you're not here's the real here's the real takeaway. If you're not part of that, you're falling behind. Yeah. I have been attached to a company that has been a sinking ship for the past year, 8 years, and I think Army has been wasting my time because I have not been exposed to the network of people that are actually making an impact in the world. Yeah. That's huge. What I want to learn going into next week, what are my goals going into next week? Obviously do this podcast again. Knock out a bunch more onboarding. Figure out how to have a better balance with getting a bunch of [ __ ] done, but also a better understanding of what my capacity is. I think I pushed a little hard this week. There were a couple nights where I had a really hard time falling asleep, didn't sleep well. That led to just brain fog the next day, not as a productive day, more chaos. You can operate at an insane level, but you have to be really structured and organized about it. You need good sleep for that. So, I want to get good sleep next week. Nice. Yeah. I love it. Cool, man. That was fantastic. Great episode, 30 minutes. You know what I'm going to get that clip of you hyping up Third Life. That might honestly be an ad. Yeah, it should be. And it's good. And people need to know that.