Relationships Are the Real Career Strategy: Howie Cohen on the Human Side of Work

Welcome to the first guest episode of Life Between Titles. I'm your host, Savan. this show is about what happens in the space between who we were and who we're becoming. That uncertain, often uncomfortable space between chapters. It's where growth happens and where we learn what really matters. I'm really excited for my first guest. His name is Howie Cohen. He's a strategist, advisor, a lifelong learner whose work bridges customer experience, leadership, and more importantly, human connection. He's someone who spent his career helping people, organizations adapt not to just technology, but emotionally as well. In today's conversation, we talk about a lot. But at its heart, it's about how we navigate transitions with purpose. We explore relationships, career success, and how true leadership is about serving others. Howie and I also talk about the reality of unemployment. How it can be reframed not as a setback, but as an act of self-ownership. We get into the power of creating a life plan, how AI is reshaping the job market, and why communication skills have never been more important. Howie shares how family, mentorship, and community play into every major decision, and how finding peace can be more meaningful than chasing happiness. There are so many takeaways from this conversation, but if you remember nothing else, remember this. Relationships are key to career success. Leadership is about serving others. And sometimes, unemployment is simply the beginning of self-ownership. Let's get into it.

Good morning everybody and welcome to the first episode of Life Between Titles. I'm your host Savan and today I've got my good friend and confidant and partner for the last probably year and a half Howie Cohen on Howie How are you?

Good, good. Thanks for having me here on the first event here. This is great. I'm excited.

Yeah, I was saying, you know, no pressure on kicking this off. I mean, it's just a make or break thing for this new podcast, right? And so we've got to make it somewhat stimulating for the audience here. So, how, what do you, what have you been up to, man? Like, I know we've known each other for almost two years now. What have you been doing lately?

Yeah, it's actually been a little bit more than that. So I've been working with a company called CX Studios recently as I left, departed the work as an HQE, now the DOW. And we've been looking at the CEO of the company's name, Bibhakar Pandey And Bibhakar is a really interesting and fascinating guy. And what this company seeks to do

Yeah. Yeah.

is look at customer experience from end to end in the context of the work is all CX. So you might be a developer, you might be a designer, you might be an analyst, you might be a technologist, but it's all in the context of customer experience and really business based outcomes. So I'm doing strategy work relative to that, a number of different areas. I'm looking at companies in... finance, insurance, know, federal and defense, we're doing some work with companies you may know like Adobe, Salesforce, and really looking at how the market's changing from a customer experience perspective and look at the artificial intelligence and things that you and I did together as well. We're looking at the same a lot of things and and of course, how people are being impacted issues around work and my side gig.

Yeah.

that I don't get paid for is, ⁓ except for in love and hugs and stuff like that, which I really appreciate, is helping people find opportunity, helping people find work and sort of be in the Robin Hood of jobs. So it's kind of, that's my passion and that's what I've been doing. I spend a lot of time on

Yeah, yeah, let's put a pin in that because I definitely want to circle back on that and dive a little bit deeper. But before that, I do have a canned intro of who you are, howie, and you can correct me if any of this stuff is wrong. But you're really the driving force around a lot of, in my opinion, serious thoughtful posts on what's going on in the world. And not just from a CX perspective, but I think just from a sort of overall industrial perspective, you're the author of Coenvene, I think that's how you pronounce it. Conevate, yeah, okay. You're a marketer too, so I like that, I like that title. You're also one of the, in my opinion, modern thinkers of how career,

Co-innovate, like innovate, co-innovate, yeah.

Changes skill sets technology and all that stuff is really evolving over the last I would say like the last you know, 10 to 20 years In your recent post which I just read titled Welcome to the war for talent and you're losing you highlight something that I thought was super interesting and it's really around this pressure to perform in this changing technological landscape and there's these two driving forces, you have these companies punishing those who don't use AI, and then you have these educational systems that do punish you for using AI. And it sounds very much like a lose lose proposition. And what I really love about how you think and what you've done, I'd love to sort of like circle back on, you know, the some of the history that's gotten you to where you're at right now is, ⁓ you position these things as not individual failures, but it's really this systemic whiplash of all this stuff that's been happening. And we've contributed to it, right? As a society, we've contributed to a lot of these changes. And so today I'm hoping that we can dig into that a little bit. We can dig into some of the things that you've been doing to help out others as they look for their next job and whatever else sort of comes up.

Sure, I'm happy to do it and thanks for calling out the post. think it's important.

Yeah, absolutely. So Howie, one of the things I'd love to talk about is how people got to where they are. We don't have to go through every single job you've had over the last 30 years, but give me and the listeners a little snippet of some of the things that you've done to really influence where you are now.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Everything has been about the relationships that I have with people and the value of the relationships and the outcomes that we achieve relative to the business really have to do with how we work together with people and how we network and how, whether if you're the smartest guy in the room, no, or not. What really matters is that you're listening to people and you're respecting people. I look at any team that I ever had or worked with it was integrity trust and respect those three things were my sort of a part of a motto If if you lose one you don't have all you know, if you lose any one then you lost all three but the bottom line is is that whether I Started I always had this vision and it was very young that I was gonna be at the bottom and someday I was gonna

Yep.

I was going to be at the bottom, I was going to have the voice of the CEO. I was going to listen to the ear of the CEO, and I was going be able to tell the CEO, hey, these guys up through this chain of command, these guys are doing this and this wrong. And this is how we can fix it. And I had this mentality and this mindset that I'd be able to help that way. And what I discovered was that my perception was wrong.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Everybody at every level is facing ⁓ both team dynamics and individual and business challenges that are sort of centered in where they are at the layer that to which they're operating. And so I just continue to work to be not the best for myself, but the best relative to my team over the years. And, you know, I'm on LinkedIn. If people look at my LinkedIn profile, they'll see where I started.

Mm-hmm.

and they can follow my work journey. But the bottom line is that no matter where you are, there you are. And you have a responsibility to respect people and treat people with kindness. And you have a responsibility also, if you're in a leadership role, you have a responsibility to look at what the needs of the business are and bring that back to the team so that they can figure out how can they contribute and how could they be their best selves. And so my career has been sort of a progression around that. And on and I've always taught. I've always taught throughout my whole career. I did. I taught at Bryan Stratton. I taught at Columbia University. I taught at I Thomas Earl. He's a big name in service oriented architectures and cloud computing and now artificial intelligence for years. I did work with Thomas Earl and I've and I've done a lot of work with the Sims Society of Information Managers to do the leadership forums and I'm passionate about that. So always taught. Not because of teaching, because I wanted to tell someone something. Not because I wanted to say, how he knows. It's really because I wanted to learn, and I wanted them to learn along the way as well. So ⁓ I wanted to hear, and I wanted to learn from them. But I also wanted to be articulate enough in the thing to be able to have a conversation and a dialogue around it. So I've had many different types of jobs, but the one thing that has been consistent is my job relative to people.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. I like that. You know, one of the things that you read about online or when you're having conversations is the idea that at some point in your life, you will be a manager or at some point in your life, you will be a leader in some capacity. For those listeners that are just starting off in their career, what are some things that you've seen when you first started to make you reflect and say, holy shit, man, like I'm a leader now. Like I've got to start doing leadership things. Like I can't keep on taking the same type of jobs because one, it's not fulfilling and two, it's not where I want to be, right? And so like, What are some things that you've seen when you started off to make you start thinking about things in that capacity?

It strikes me, had a, at one point I was with Lockheed Martin and they had this exercise that you're, you know, you're supposed to be the leader in this exercise. And it was for Six Sigma or something, you know, and, and you're, and so you, you step up and you, you know, you come up with this story and then you go and you do this leadership thing. And it was interesting because when I did it,

Yeah. Yeah.

It was, you know, it like a role play kind of thing. But when I did it, I certainly wasn't in a senior leadership role at Lockheed Martin at that time. But I, I tried to, I was emulating the people that I had seen before me come before me and the people that I thought, you know, did a good job of leading. And I was thinking that if you just put these things together from, you know, formulaically, and you know, if you appear a certain way, you know, you see, you read books about people standing in a certain position and holding their hands in a certain position. speaking in a certain way, that it's gonna mean something, right? But what I discovered is it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean shit. The truth is, the truth is that people see you how they see you, and they respect you if you respect them. And if you have results, you're results oriented, and they can see the results, or they can see your, they can see your results and they can see your effort.

Yep. Yep.

they feel that aura, then you start to be empowered. You empower yourself, you see your self value, and then you sort of become the CEO of you. Now if you're the CEO of you, then it doesn't matter who you work for, it doesn't matter what you do, you're always at the top of your, of the business of you. And I know there's books written about that, and I'm not trying to be cliche about it, I'm saying this for real. If you take responsibility for yourself, and you don't worry about what other people do, but you worry about other people, there's a difference. There's a difference. Worrying about what someone's doing, but being concerned about them. Once I had this realization that I'm just gonna be the best me that I could possibly be and not get hung up on what anyone else is doing, then I just continued to move from a leadership perspective. Things started happening for me and...

Yep. Yep.

And people didn't want to come along. They didn't come along. People wanted to come along or people felt like I was the right guy to hang out with and they did. And that's how it worked out. I just kept getting up. I mean, I love Rocky. So it was kind of a rocky thing. kept I kept getting I Yeah, all of them. I mean, you know, it's it's it's it's you got to you. You can only be your best self. And, you know, I think that this is important.

Which Rocky?

to realize and then when people see that in you, by the way, you're also blind to yourself, right? I'm very, I acknowledge that I'm blind to myself at times and I don't necessarily see what other people see in me. So I just have to focus on what can I do to serve other people and continue to focus on the things that I need to focus on relative to service and then of course understand the goals and objectives if you're doing something. That's sort of how it pans out.

Right, right, right. You know, one of the things as I'm having conversations with people recently is around the stigma of being unemployed or not having an active job at some capacity. in many ways, it is dehumanizing because you start to doubt yourself and you start to You start to become a reflection of a lot of the insecurities that you may not have had when you had a job. To your point about being your own CEO, what are some things that you think could, that people could do to maybe think about that in a different way? Because it's essentially total ownership, right? Nobody's telling you what to do now. You don't have a boss, you are your boss. But in that same light,

Mm-hmm.

you still have, you probably have more responsibilities to yourself to sort of get out of that rut and start to think about things in a different way. Like what are some ways you think that people can reorient themselves to really have that positive spin on, you know, their unemployment stage or whatever it is that they're trying to do? And how could that look? Cause like, I'll tell you, you know, for people like you and me, we... we're always thinking about something to do, right? There's always a project, you're always talking to somebody. And if that's not happening, somebody else is filling that time for you within your household. But I do think that like the approach that you have of being your own CEO is the right one.

Mm-hmm.

But I do think that even within that, there's probably nuances to how you can actually approach that so that you don't start to negatively spiral into something maybe darker than what you really wanna have.

It boils down to a couple of things, and I promise you this, I talk to people every day. Some people more than once a day. I see a lot of different types of facets with this, and I'll just introduce a few to kind of tease it out a little bit. So you're a CIO. You were a CIO of maybe a one billion dollar

Mm-hmm.

shop, know cost center, operation center for you know, 10 years. And you lost your job, you were released because your company was acquired by a PE. ⁓ And you think that you have this great network because you were the CIO and you know all the people and you went to all the dinners and you did all the things. The minute that you step out of that role, the minute that you step out, then all these people scatter. People don't call you because they don't know, are you going to retire?

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

What's your value? were, know, sorry, did I say you're an asshole to me while you were in the seat? You you didn't help me out. All sorts of stuff happens and then they feel very alone. They felt alone in the first place because they were a CIO. So, who's gonna be there to help them? You could try to hire a coach. You have this dichotomy, you have this like issue.

Yep.

that you feel like you're super valuable, you know what you've done, you know what you can speak to the board, you do all these things, but at the same time is do I actually have the value? I don't know the tech anymore. I wasn't the guy that actually implemented it. I knew OpEx, CapEx. People don't want CIOs anymore, right? So what do you have to do? What do you do? Now, on the other side of it, you have people who are coming up, maybe they were technologists, maybe they were business analysts, maybe they're a kid out of a young person. out of school trying to figure it out. And there's all this, it seems to me to be like they either feel like they have too much confidence because they're overconfidence because they're overshooting the mark, or they don't have enough confidence, or maybe they don't even know where to start. So what I like to do with people, whether you're the CIO, the CEO, you own your own company, anything, what I like to do with people is sit down with them and talk with them about

Right.

what their life is about, what their life plan is, what do they think their grant, the big purpose is, right? Because at the end of the day, we're all gonna wind up either in ⁓ a pine box or somewhere in between, right? We might be dust in the ocean, but we're all going to the same place, right? So you're not gonna be remembered, ⁓ I'm not gonna be remembered as Howie Cohen, the director at VMS, right? I'm gonna be remembered as,

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep.

And by the way, we're only a few generations from being forgotten. Right? So, how do we deal with the now and what do we do for ourselves right now? So I start with a life plan. What do you want today? What happened to you in the past? What are you looking for in the future? What's going to make you, what's going to bring you peace? Not happiness. Not happiness. What's going to bring you peace? And what does peace look like?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And then we start to tease that out. And by the way, right then and there, I can tell you if someone commits or doesn't commit to doing a life plan, I can tell you right away how their journey's gonna be. Now, I will tell you this, 100 % of the time, 100 % of the time, if people follow the process, they successfully land. It's not my fault, and it's not because of me, it's because that's the way this works. If you put energy in and effort in, it's about, you know,

Mm-hmm.

the person meeting the opportunity at the right time. There's some luck, you know, but there's a lot of commitment. So we start off with a life plan, and then from the life plan, we start to talk about what's your value? What do you think you can do? What do you want to do? And then what's the responsibility? And then the question is, do you know where to start or do you need help getting started? What are the three things that you need to know to get you into position where you can get started?

Mm-hmm.

Then you have some decisions to make, have some testing to do, you gotta do like you do, you gotta be healthy, stay healthy, eat right, you know, go to the gym, take a walk, climb a mountain, talk to, if you're religious person, talk to someone, other people, keep your spirits up and know that the world is not gonna be there to save you. There's not gonna be some, you know, deity that comes out of the sky and hands you a job, you have to You have to work on it and you have to sculpt it and you have to invest the time. And then I try to do my best to be there for those people who are willing to go through this, you know, the crucible, so to speak. And I try to give them feedback. I give them feedback, good, bad. Sometimes it's hard for me and sometimes it's hard for them, but we have a good outcome. So they become the CEO of them through this process. they're, or the,

Yep.

or the junior CEO depending on who you are because you might have a person in your house that you're co-CEO. You're co-working with someone in the house.

Yeah. touch on the life plan that you mentioned and I know that you and I over the past few years have talked about it but for the audience that we have here, break down what that typically looks like. How do people approach putting one together?

Yeah, I did not make the life plan. In fact, the life plan comes from the program at the leadership forum that the SIMRLF. I learned of it through there. And I really didn't modify it, but just a little. effectively, basically, basically, the life plan is sort of quad, four quadrants. And it's, you know, what are some of the things that have happened to you in the past that are not been not

Mm-hmm.

been so good? ⁓ What are the things that have happened to you in the past that are good? What are the things that are that you think in the future are going to happen that are not necessarily so good? And you know, like maybe a little bit of gray hair? And what are the things that are are going to be good? Like possible? Maybe I'll retire and get that boat, you know, sort of. then and then how long do you think? How long do you think you're going to be around, you know, in your life? And the twist?

Mm-hmm.

or I mean a little spin that I put to it is if you have a partner, then you have your partner do the life plan and you take it and you overlay your life plan with their life plan. And you have a discussion with them because what, for me, what I discovered with my wife is that she, I felt, I don't think I was gonna live as long as she thought that I was gonna live and that we were gonna live together. And...

Right. Right.

you know, she has opportunity to get a golden retriever, I think at some point, because that's what she wants. So I mean, so but but I'm saying I but but what what happened in that moment was, when she saw that, and it became real to her, she was like, So what do you want to do? No, so what do want to do? Because she didn't say how she didn't say, No, I don't believe you. She just said she said, she said, Well, this is not this is not what I'm planning. And so then we were able to say, Okay, well, here's things that we need to do.

Right.

And it gave me courage to take some steps that I didn't necessarily have at that moment. And it gave her courage too, I think. So that's where we started with that. And that's where I like to start with people. Some people don't want to invest the time. Some people don't want to share the information with their partner. There's a lot of reasons why people don't want to do it. Some people just don't see the value in ⁓ it. Maybe the time wasn't right. But the people that do, it starts an amazing journey for them, for sure.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think like with all things, there's a certain amount of commitment that you have to have to investing back into whatever that process is. And I feel like the life plan is a great suggestion, especially for people that may not know what they want next. Right. And I think for people that are looking for work, I mentioned this in my first my first podcast, but You know, you're just literally taking anything that you think is a step up versus the thing that is right for you and the thing that really hits the values that you have in life at that point. And a life plan will definitely give you at least a guide or a North Star for how you can actually start to approach. when you need to have conversations about do I wanna apply for this job or I have two offers, which one should I take? What does that look like? What are some of the costs for some of these things? So I can totally get behind something like that. How can people find out about the life plan? You mentioned a leadership course, what does that look like?

Uh, well, so I have it on my blog. I can share a link with you and you can make it find it. Pop it. We can there. I have that and they can go through that. I also have a couple of posts called the work and finding work and that basically shapes out everything that I do with people. So what happens is is so somebody will call me and say, Hey, I heard about you through so and so and and and uh,

Okay, yeah, we'll pop the link in the comments for sure. Yeah.

you know, I don't know how you can help me. I've had people say to me, you can't help me and or I don't know how you can help me. And I'll say, well, let's let's explore. We'll see. Let's see. And so I'm not caught. It's going to only cost you your time. So if you're willing to spend the time and I'm willing to spend the time and then what I do is I send them a link to the life plan and then I send them a link to the work and finding work, which is basically like three or four posts. And then I send them and if they want to some other posts around different

Right. Yep.

you know, aspects of work, like, for example, AI interviewing and stuff like that. And then I learn from them as they go through their journey. This is the part that I think I hope you I hope you love this part, because this is all you. As they go through their stories, I learn from them and I take it and then I read, I read blog about it. So I'll sort of I'm not I don't necessarily use their names, but I'll say, Hey, you know, you just taught me this about, for example, AI interviews are

Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Amazingly interesting. So like you just went through this interview with AI. Can I can I write about it? Tell me about your experience and I'll write about and then I write and I put it out there and then like well, how do we gamify those like how can you beat the AI? Because a lot of times we gotta beat ATS and AI and stuff like that. So I'll give you the links to all that and you can go through those. You want to welcome to share with everyone.

Yeah, fantastic. I'm sure that'll be highly sought after after this podcast. ⁓ Howie, I want to transition into, I just pulled up your LinkedIn profile. One of the things that I'm always fascinated by is how people land at the jobs that they've had, right? So I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile and

I hope so because you're the man. Mm-hmm.

between 2017 and 2020, you were the head of digital capability management at Bristol-Meyer Squibb, and then you went on to be a strategic advisor at IonX, and then...

That was my company. I own that company.

Okay, so you were an entrepreneur and a managing partner and a strategic advisor. And then you went on to be a senior advisor at ⁓ the DMA, the Defense Media Activity. And now you're doing a lot of strategy type work for CX Studios. I look at that, I look at that body of work and there's a lot of breadth there, right? There's a lot of different types of things. ⁓

Yes. Correct. Yes, sir. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm.

And if you were somebody applying for, let's just say you're going through the traditional career ladder, your resume would not look like a traditional career ladder. And I think that's fantastic, right? And I think that's one of the things that I tell people is that there's no cookie cutter way for you to approach your own journey. How, you know, for each one of these steps and stages in your life, like how have you really approached what you commit your time to? next, let's just say you go from having your own business to then working for the DOD and now you're ⁓ an advisor, like what are some of the key things that sort of come up either in your life or in just your career journey that's made you commit to some of these different places over the last, I'd say, what is it, like eight, 10 years now?

Yeah. I lost my job at Chubb. I was released from Chubb Insurance because I was, yeah, I lost my job at Chubb because Chubb was acquired by a company called Ace Insurance and ⁓ they didn't feel like they needed the type of services. I was a vice president of knowledge management. had left Booz Allen as a consultant. And of course, people will tell you, people told me when I lost my role at Chubb,

Mm-hmm. I didn't even bring that one up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And I had a lot of great friends there and family that I made there, but they would tell you you can't cross industry For example, I live in I live in New Jersey So going from insurance to pharma was like not you know, if you talked to it, it'll never happen so the first thing the first thing that I the first thing that I would suggest is that and I do share with other people is Don't let anybody tell you what you can and can't do

Mmm. Right. Right.

because they don't know you like you know you. You're a thousand people to a thousand people, right? So they have this version of you in their head and it may not be the right version. thankfully, I had the CEO, this is a very clear answer from Bristol Myers Squibb, the CIO of Bristol Myers of Chubb Insurance and I were very close before and he and I became close because of Chubb.

Yep.

And then we became friends and he became like a big brother to me, mentor, a colleague and a mentor. And he had hundreds of people that he could have chosen to mentor, but he chose to mentor me. And he went on as he's a leader in the society of information managers, which I had mentioned earlier, which is a leadership forum. He's a, he's a, he was actually the, he was actually, think the CEO of that at the time after he had left Chubb and He had this network of CIOs, this big network of CIOs across the United States and some, think, in the world. And these are not CIOs of like Little Mom and Pop Shops. These are CIOs of major companies. And it just so happened that I was lucky enough to get through a few interviews with Bristol-Meyer Squibb. And one of the references was him. So he knew the CIO of Bristol-Meyer Squibb. And the Bristol-Meyer Squibb CIO, whether or not he said to the hiring, executive at that point, hey, we should pick up Howie or not. I wasn't privy to that particular discussion. But I think that they said, hey, this guy is probably a good guy to talk to. At least got me a shot. So, ⁓ BMS was a great company. And I just want to point one thing out if it's okay. I actually have this on my desk, ironically. I didn't plan on this.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I got this from my team at Bristol Myers Squibb when I was leaving.

Okay, explain to me what that is.

It's a sincere appreciation plaque, a man who has always stayed focused on our mission. And the reason why they said that, the reason why they shared this with me is because I used to tell them the mission of BMS was to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious disease, right? Because I would know the mission. And I said the mission is part of every day because we're trying to help people, right? That was the purpose of being in the pharmaceutical. So they gave me this plaque.

wow. Yeah.

to, this was my team, it wasn't given to me by the senior leadership, it was given to me by my team to say, you we love you and I love them as well and an amazing team. I had to leave Bristol-Meyers Squibb because my mother was sick, it was in the beginning of COVID and it was too much. had to make a life decision, it was too much for me, I was in a big position, I was running cloud for a,

Right.

different factors of Microsoft Cloud and also to other stuff. This team, I just want to make this point. This team was amazing and limitless. The only thing I did in that job as a director of collaboration services, the only thing I did was block and tackle for that team. That's it. I would just explain what they're doing. They did everything else. It was like freaking magic, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so I was lucky, I was sad to go. I'm still in touch with some of them today. And then I started my own company so that I could do some basically side work consulting while I was in between my mom's illness, my mom's cancer. And so that exploded. My mom passed away and the work exploded and I was working directly with a couple of companies and the company just grew to a point where I couldn't do it by myself and my partner was just getting too big.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so we we sold the company. I actually sold the company to my partner and she she put took the company in a different direction. And then ⁓ and then I got the phone call from Admiral Pittman for for the defense media activity. I had done work in the defense media in the defense world before. And so, yeah, shout out to how and he called me and said, hey, I need some stuff going on. I need some help. We're going to do something that's original, never been done before. And I need someone who can do it.

Mm-hmm. Yep, shout out to Hal.

So my career, just, so how came from years and years ago, right? From years ago at US Joint Forces Command back in the, you know, back in the 2003, 2004, working at GIFCOM and people remembering me, people remembering me and saying, hey, there's a guy and everyone's, know, over the years, people call me for whatever they needed, right? And I would pick up the phone. So. ⁓ What a blessing to be able to have because look I got to meet you and everything right so I mean I mean right I mean so I'm just saying it's like it's it's it's this it's this it's these relationships is this connective don't burn bridges like if someone's an asshole You know let them do they let them be their own asshole whatever but you know, but but if but if it were but if it weren't for the people I Wouldn't have had a chance. I would have had an opportunity and so many people are

Yeah, that's fantastic. Mm-hmm. All right. Yeah.

angry at themselves or jealous or mad or whatever, they got their own thing. But there's so many other people that have warmly received you and love you and respect you. And then the other thing is I say is, you know, study. I'm always like reading something. I always got a book around. You didn't know I was going to be on this. Look at this thing. It's a little sizable. But you know, I'm still trying to learn strategy. My title is strategist. I'm still trying to figure out strategy.

Yep. Yeah. Oof. You know what? I am too, man. I'm still trying to figure out a lot of things in life. So, don't feel bad.

I'm still trying to figure it out, but I do know I know pizza so you can't you can't pull that off you can't pull that away from it so Yeah, yeah

⁓ man, amazing. Hey Howie, I want to circle back to your chub boss. What's his or her name?

His name is Carmen.

Carmen. So I want to circle back to Carmen and one of the things that always interests me is how people pick where they spend their time and where they spend their energy, right? And we've talked about this in the past where all that's currency. You're building up currency in some way or another whether it's through relationships.

Yeah. Yeah.

or finishing projects or just getting things done so you can do other things. And I feel like, you know, when Carmen out of all the people that he's had on his team chose to decide to mentor you, there was a reason, right?

Yeah. so my Chub, hold on, so you're talking about the CIO of Chub. Yeah, yeah, that was, yeah, his name is Jim. His name is Jim, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So whoever was the guy who decided to mentor you. Okay, we'll slide Jim in there. But why do you think Jim decided to pull you in and mentor you? Were there things that you did that stuck out to him that made him say, like how he could could be a rock star, right? Like, I'm gonna invest time in him. Because, you know, when we're all working, we're all trying to vie for some attention somewhere, right? You're finishing a project, you want to get promotion.

Jim.

You wanna get that extra bonus, something like that. And it always amazes me how we choose what we do when it comes to investing that currency of energy and time. What did you do to get him to invest in you so that you start to learn all these lessons? Because that sounded like it was like the foundation of how you got to all these other things leading up to the DMA.

Can I answer that question with a question? Is that okay with you? Okay. So you and I met while I was at the DMA and I'm an HQE and I think you're an HQE and you have a role that you had a lot of gravitas in that role and some pretty good juice and some really wide range in terms of scope and opportunity and an ear with the CIO of the now what's a Department of War, but at the time of the Department of Defense.

Yeah, yeah.

and you chose to let me in to the door, you chose to help me to become part of your team at some capacity, what were the things that allowed me to have an opportunity with you?

Yep. man, that's a great question. know, I think the DOD, one, it's a massive organization. You meet people every day. You meet people that you will probably never ever meet again outside of that one meeting, right? Because these meetings are so freaking large. And it takes a lot to stand out in that organization because there are smart people there and there are people that are like very accomplished in many ways. ⁓ but for me specifically, you know, I gravitate, especially if I'm in that work capacity, I gravitate towards people that have a certain disposition to how they approach work. Right. I like to think that I work with people that are critical thinkers that, ⁓ know how to get shit done. That, don't just ideate for the sake of ideating. Cause that drives me bonkers. and you know, after a few meetings, can sort of tell who's who in the zoo and how they actually operate. And I think for like, for you and me in the, beginning, you know, it started off really small, you know, we, talked just specific about DMA things, and then it's sort of ballooned into things that are much bigger, like fulcrum, like blue roof, like all these things that were sort of offshoots of that. And I think, that's. really what enticed me to say like, man, like how we could probably come in and help out. Now, what we had was a handcuff of the detailing process, which we won't get into here, but I think that was a huge handcuff because it didn't, it really sort of held us back from being able to unleash like the full capacity of the partnership that we started to build.

you So my answer to your question is similar to your answer to my question. When you had a mission, you had a vision, you had goals, you had objectives, and you were very clear about them. You were tying your work to the star fulcrum that was coming from the office of the CIO. You had helped write a lot of this. You had a team of people.

Mm-hmm.

I would say you had the bad news bears, so to speak, of kids in the team. But they were rough and tumble. They all had their own special unique ability. And you chose to embrace and engage us. You chose to trust us. And we gave you back our best in partnership and friendship and execution.

Yes we did. Yes we did. Yeah.

witnessed it, you bore witness to this realization through the activities and you didn't like the baloney. Like, let's just get stuff done. So the answer is, is that Jim, my friend Jim,

he's still he's still a big brother to me. He he allowed me to do the best that I could in service of his mission and his vision and his goals and his things. when he had asked the he had over 100 VPs, I believe at the time, when he had asked the VPs to step up and step in to to support him, I did.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

And then in return, for me, raise my hand to be of service to the thing that he wanted to accomplish, he allowed me in the door. He paid attention to me and then he chose to embrace and engage and later on I would say that he loves me a little, I love him a lot. My life would not be the same without him teaching me and being involved and he certainly changed my life.

Hahaha

He allowed me to do that because I chose to embrace his vision.

Mm-hmm.

it's very similar, I'm just saying, we give and take from each other. And when you see someone is willing support you, that's all the world.

Yeah, I want to go back to the opening of our conversation where we talked about your last or your latest post. And I want to maybe double down on that conversation because I think it's very relevant to what people are facing now, especially for people that are in their late teens and maybe early 20s that's straddling what this looks like. For our guests that haven't read your blog post, maybe in your words, can you just try to sum that up and what that's all about?

Companies are releasing people and record droves across the across the world because they feel like they need to free up resources for people who have expertise in artificial intelligence and at the same time education colleges universities students in high school and even down through elementary school and beyond they're not they're they're being told not to use artificial intelligence and they're being

Mm-hmm.

Many, not everywhere, but a lot of places are basically saying that it's cheating. So we're training our kids to think that using tools is cheating or a problem or problematic because they're using the tool and they're not necessarily using all their brain power. But then the opposite of that is when you're getting into a business, then you must use these tools because you need to get the outcomes to the outcome. So we're going from a knowledge-based

Mm-hmm.

We're going from a knowledge-based idea to an outcome-based idea, and those don't necessarily align. And there's definitely a tie from one to the other. So I think, so that's the whole context of the post. And it really talks about what are the things that, what you might think to do, ⁓ how you might tackle those things, and why it's a problem. And also, I want to just add one other point to this.

Right.

My perspective is that the reason why companies are releasing people is not because of the AI piece. They're releasing people because they need to free up resources because they're losing money and they're losing ground and because there's a problem. So I would say that's an excuse, at least in some part. It's an excuse. Because how would you even know what people you have doing what with AI? You're not interviewing every...

Mm-hmm.

Accenture supposedly just laid off 11,000 did they interview the 11,000 people to figure out what AI these people do and don't know or they're using or is chat GPT not enough? You know, use chat GPT, you know, so I think I think it's I think it's problematic But that's that's the whole post

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting too, because with AI, I was listening to this podcast with Jensen over at Nvidia, and one of things he brought up was part of his job is not to figure out where the Apple is gonna land now, but it's where it's gonna land in the future, right? I probably just really fucked up that saying, but it's really sort of thinking. you know, five, 10, 15, 20 years ahead and getting ahead of that curve. And I do wonder if, if it's really sort of this reactionary behavior that we're seeing from not just industry, but also government where they're like, we've got a right ship. We've got to get things slim because this wave is coming. We don't know what it looks like yet, but we just know that it's, it's going to be here. And you know, many times. The humans are the ones, the workers are the ones that get caught up in a lot of that firing, which is unfortunate.

Yeah, I agree. I don't know if you asked me to predict the future or if we're talking about predicting the future relative to these things, I think it's very difficult to know what's going to happen because there's so many different facts. When you put technology in the hands of potentially all most human beings on the planet, mean, many, many people have access to technology. It really brings technology down to the same level as you know, and Maslow's hierarchy needs of food, water and shelter, right? Now everybody has a cell phone, right? I mean, even, you know, kids in the desert, you they're, you know, you see like, don't, you know, you see the kid, I don't have any food.

yeah, I've seen people in Cambodia in villages with no electricity with a cell phone and I'm just like, how does that happen?

Yeah. Yeah, you're in Cambodia, you're in the fields. And by the way, you know, your your social media. So I think what you. Yeah. And so what you find, what you know, so what you find is, is that what you find is when you put the technology in hands like that, a lot of amazing things happen. And by the a lot and the shackles of human creativity and knowledge are broken off because there's no controls around those things. So I can't tell you where the where we're going to be.

Yeah, yeah you gotta check snapchat yeah for sure.

cause of that, because you never know, like, the kid in Cambodia could just create, like, the next craziest biggest thing, and that's happened. However, what I can tell you is that companies are being acquired, like, by PEs in a lot of ⁓ &A, and a lot of cost consolidation, and what's happening is that the first thing that these companies look to do from a holding perspective is strip mine the company down to its bare bones. And so a lot of people get shed, there's no culture, there's cultural issues, there's a war. I always like to say there's a war on talent, not a war for talent. it becomes problematic because now it's just about making money. And look, you go to the grocery store, you know that this is happening because it's not even if the thing is cheaper or more expensive, it's that you get less of things, right? The boxes are different. The Twinkie is not a Twinkie anymore, right? Like that's really irritating. So you make Twinkies at home. You know, so I think, you know, this is like, so where I'm going with this is that the bottom line is, is that the decisions that are being made in the boardrooms are the decisions that are, that are really strictly relative to making money. And then when you're a conglomerate, when you're a big company, you're going to look to cut the cost. You're going to look to do all these things. The onus always falls now on the operations, the cost center. So you're a CIO.

Yeah.

a traditional CIO, you're asked to cut, you know, OPEX and CAPEX, and where's the first thing you're gonna go to? You're gonna say, do I have the talent? Any CIO I talk to, the first thing they say is, we don't have the talent. Well, how do you know you don't have the talent? You don't even know George. You don't even know what George can do. But the first thing they say is, well, I know I don't have the talent, we gotta get the talent, and it's gotta be cheap, so we gotta get it from overseas, you know, and then you gotta cut somebody, and that's how this is happening. It's a big cycle of craziness.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting, right?

It's interesting too because really the way that companies make these cuts is by looking at some spreadsheet. And I'm not talking about small series A startups, right? Where you know everybody. But when you get to maybe the 150 to 200 plus people mark, you start to lose track.

Yeah.

Who's who in the zoo and and who's doing what what value they're bringing and You know that brings me to the next point. I want to touch on with you Which is around skill and Really sort of putting yourself into position where you're always staying relevant and you're learning the new things that you need to learn in order for you to be relevant wherever you are

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

How have you sort of like kept your knives sharp, right, in your tool chest? Like, what does that look like for you? Especially since we've got all this time now, we don't have to clock in anywhere. Like, how do you spend your day staying sharp?

Yeah. Yeah. Again, I didn't plan for it, but I mean so like I do art and You may not think that you may not think that my art is Well, it was so part of it was AI part of it is using AI to make the cuts, right? So this so so this wasn't AI generated But all these pieces were actually leftover pieces from something that I did generate ⁓ So Today we have a number

Yeah, yeah. Was that AI generated? Yeah, yeah. ⁓ okay.

I like to do things that feel real. In the world that we live in technologically, most of the time it doesn't feel like it's real. So even if you see something to its end, it doesn't feel, you can't feel it. So I like to make things. I like to test the system. People talk about how easy it is to use AI and I find it's very difficult to use AI. Try taking a scalable vector graphic and splitting it up into four pieces. Take it and upload it to Gemini.

Yep.

know, Nano Banana and ask it to make this SVG in the four pieces so that you can print it on a laser printer. It doesn't work. It doesn't work out of the box. doesn't. So you still have to figure those things out. So the process of me figuring it out makes me really understand how challenging and difficult things are. And then I have to kind of peel back the onion to figure it out. And then I, so I, I give myself these little mini challenges to sort of to make things. And then I produce something and I give it away.

Mm-hmm.

So I may make a piece of art or do something and then I figured it out, now I'm giving it away. And I challenge myself across the board, whether it's strategically, whether it's technologically, and I like to play and test and figure things out that way. So I do a lot of that, I do a lot of that. And I use AI as a tool and I try to invoke this, my kids, I say to them, I encourage them to use it. And I also encourage my kids to teach me and try to, there's a lot of fear around things with AI. Like, can I really ask it that question? know, I'll, you know, they'll push me a little bit. We'll ask the question, I generated a website and, know, with cursor AI and then I took the website and I, you know, reverse engineered the code and then I made changes and then I put it back in there and can I keep it the same, right? Can I make it sticky, you know, stuff like that. So a lot of that, and then, ⁓

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I take those things and then if I'm in a conversation in a business conversation and someone says something like, hey, we want to take an image and we want to put this image on something and we want it to be repeatable and we want it to look the same across the board, then I could really have a solid discussion with them about it. I could be like, hey man, I tried that. And they're like, well, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, come on, let's do it. Right? And so what is it going to take to train it? What are the costs that are involved? What's the compliance involved? What's the copyright involved? What are all the things? And so you take your strategic knowledge.

Yep.

and you take the things that you learned over the X amount of years that you ever did stuff, and then you take the knowledge that you have of the world as it is today, and then you take the technological knowledge, and then you also phone a friend if you need, and you put those things together, and that's how I continue to keep my skills up. So.

Yeah. Yeah, I think. For me, especially around AI related projects, the possibilities are just so endless, right? Whatever you can think of, you could probably use AI in some capacity to help you with it. I'm struggling right now with the fact that I have maybe too many things that I wanna learn and too many things that I wanna do and... You know, I go from one day trying to pick up vibe coding to then working on my memoir to then just launching a podcast to looking for work to talking to people. And, you know, there, there are times where it just feels like somewhat suffocating, just cause the possibilities are endless. Like we don't have a container anymore that we've put ourselves in. And, you know, in some selfish way, like.

Yeah.

I want all the skills, right? Like I want to learn as much as possible. And right now I think for me at least that's been the hardest thing, which is how, how do you determine where you spend your time and where you're going to get the most value out of that? Right? Cause there are things that will take years and years to get good at like writing and there are other things that you may pick up on a weekend and you can start to use that pretty much immediately. And so, you know,

Thank Yeah. Yeah.

I do think for people that are looking for work right now, they're trying to figure out how they can stay relevant. The act of being mindful and thoughtful about where you're spending your time to become better at certain skills is something that you're always gonna be struggling with. Like I know I do, I don't know if you do or not, but that is definitely a struggle.

No, I will tell you, I think there's some key points here that we can tease out. One is communication is consistent. Communication skills are consistent across the whole of the ecosystem. if you're upskilling and you want to focus on something that's going to help you across the board, it's communication. It's writing. It's reading and articulating what you read. It's speaking. It's podcasting. It's art. Your communication skills, how you are able to convey is critical. That's number one. Number two is if you're working on something for yourself, I heard a podcast the other day that inspired me to go back and look at something. I'll share this with you very quickly. And if you guys remember Rocky I, in the first Rocky movie he went back and he was in the ring towards the end and he was getting ready to fight.

Mm-hmm.

Before he had he had gone in he was the night before and he'd gone and talked to his wife Adrian and Adrian and he said to Adrian I don't think I could beat him he's like this guy's too good basically and She she didn't say to him you pull rock you can beat him, you know, she said what are you gonna do? Now isn't that what we're in the situation oftentimes, you know, we're looking for a job We're trying to figure it out. I can't get this job this stuff. I don't know this AI's business

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

There's too much of this. I'm too old. I'm too young. I don't understand. Like it's every, all the things, right? And Rocky said, Rocky said, I was a bum before, I'll be a bum after. All I want to do is go the distance. So he, didn't think he was going to beat Apollo. He just needed to go the distance and stand there, right? So I saw someone talking about this and I was like, let me go back and look at it. And it's being thematic for me. because, because what you need to do is you need to go the distance.

Mm-hmm.

Right? It's not about what other people are doing, it's about what you're doing, and what does that mean? It means if you're interested in art, or not, like I'm still working on this, but if you're interested in art, then focus on art if it's gonna help you. If you're interested in science, you're interested in math, if you're interested in horseback riding, whatever it is you're interested in, take that, use that, empower yourself with that. If it's in service of others, if it's in volunteering.

Yeah. Yep.

Spend the energy doing the thing that you're passionate about and introduce facets of artificial intelligence, introduce facets of things that are brand new, and then be of service to others and be of service to yourself. That is the way. That is the way because then you get towards the flow. You get towards the flow, you know your purpose, you're on a high, they can't stop you. When you go into a job interview or you're having a conversation with someone who's like, well, what do you want? You know what you want. Well, what do you do with you? you talk about some of your hobbies? Yeah, I can talk about some of my hobbies. Why? You know what? What makes you get up in the morning? Whatever the questions they might ask you? What do you want in next 20 years? I want to live. I want to go the distance. I want to go the distance, right? And you know, so so most people forget that Rocky lost that fight. But did he? But did he?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he definitely didn't because there was a lot more Rockies after that.

That's right. you know, so but so my point to you is, is, is, take the technological aspects of things and the business things and focus on the things that that are good for you that that that are the fuel for the fire that's stoked for the fire of your soul, and be of service to others because in giving you're getting and do and do it into inter intermix it in your life. And All sorts of things will happen from that. You'll be better. Now the other part you just mentioned is sort of the ADHD of it. And yeah, can go, oh, dude. But if you don't stick to something and you don't have a purpose for it, then you're going to be, it's just a distraction. And we need to be focused so that we can get to some place, even if it's a short term.

Mm-hmm. Yep, yep. I do wanna talk about maybe the Apollo Creed in your life, if we're gonna stick with this analogy here, right? For those who haven't watched Rocky, it's a boxing movie ⁓ and Apollo Creed is the first villain slash friend towards the end of ⁓ the movie. But what?

Yeah. He wasn't a bad guy, was Apollo Creed.

You know, since you left the DMA, what have you struggled with? Like what causes anxiety for you now? Like what do you get up and maybe not every day, but you just worry about, right? With this sort of new chapter in your life.

very connect I feel very connected to the to the world. I feel very connected to people. I feel I'm sad about what's happening in our world. I'm not, you know, we're not talking about colors, you know, red and blue. I'm talking about people. I'm very sad about what's happening in the world globally. And it affects me every day. And I'm doing everything I can to to help myself.

Mm-hmm.

by being focused on small things, by being focused on purposeful things, and by helping where I can, because you never know what your impact is gonna be, and I'm sticking to that. You know, the butterfly effect of what we do. So ⁓ I really try to focus very, very hard on where I can be of service and where I can be good. And I also talk to a doctor. I see someone and I talk to him.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

and I see him regularly. And I also talk to mentors. I call someone once or twice a week and I get insight and wisdom. I also feel it's important to have community. So I reach out to people, I reach out to you when I'm upset. And ⁓ I try to find, it's not about finding solutions. Sometimes it's just about achieving that what I mentioned earlier. It's not about being happy. It's really about finding peace.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So I work on finding peace. it's not, Apollo is there. It's more like maybe like Ivan Drago, man. I was, that was rough. He was something else. mean, you were mad. were like, we were running in the snow. I feel like another Rocky reference.

Mm-hmm. He was something else. He was something else. ⁓ Yeah.

that I actually just posted today, believe it or not, was that he was talking to his son and he said, the world is gonna throw a lot of stuff at you. It's not about anything other than you getting up and pushing, moving forward and pushing through. And again, my perspective is simple. I go to the cemetery. I go to the cemetery and I visit my family at the cemetery and I realize and I recognize that someday I'm gonna be here. I don't know when, but I'm gonna be there. What are people, are people gonna come see me? Is the world gonna be a better place because I was in it? And does it matter necessarily tomorrow as much as it matters today? And I think it matters today. That's why I'm here right now.

Yeah. Yeah, that's an amazing perspective. Last two things, Howie, I think we're hitting sort of that hour mark, but I wanna talk to you about family. I know you're a family man, I'm a family man, and we've got obligations outside of ourselves. ⁓ And some days, a lot of those obligations feels maybe more overwhelming than other days. ⁓ How have you navigated sort of the impact of where you are now with your family?

Hmm? ⁓ huh. Yeah. Yeah.

you know, are they a part of your journey as helping you decide what's next? Like, what have you been doing to keep them in the loop? And how do you keep not just your spirits up, but their spirits up as well? Because I know for me personally, there are days, especially when I'm feeling a little bit lower that...

Yeah.

family also feels that right just it's just sort of natural because we're all living together but for you how have you navigated through this time with your family?

The You know, there's a lot to that. I mean, I'm a guy Whether or not whether or not, you know I'm a Gen X or so, you know, there's a traditional thing going on to some extent I Think I go back to what I said to you or just a minute a couple minutes ago about communication You know if someone hits your hand with a hammer you say ow, you know

Yeah. Yep.

Like, you don't get hit, you're like, ⁓ you know. I'm not afraid to expose to my family how I feel and my family and my extended family. have, again, I believe that it's important to have community. It's not, it's, you know, blood, we're all of human family, right? We're all connected. If we went to another planet and they'd be like, you human people, because.

Mm-hmm.

We are all we're all family to some extent. So my core family absolutely communicate with them about where I'm at, what I'm thinking, how I'm feeling. I ask my wife is a great supporter. She sometimes does what I just mentioned earlier about about the rocking race. She's like, what are you going to do? It's not, you know. Oh, how we, you know, you know, where I'm. we're fully supporting it's what are you going to do? So I do, we talk, we communicate and I do that with my family, I do that with her and that's how we press through and then of course my extended family, like I said.

Mm-hmm.

So that's what helps, right? Because good communication is the key.

Yeah, and I'm wondering too for people that may be struggling with that, that don't have, that may be a little bit older. And I don't even know how I can say this in a PC way, but you know, people that are between the ages of say 40 to 60 that have been brought up in a world that may be a little bit different than where we are now. You know, your job is that cornerstone of a lot of families. It's the cornerstone of your identity. And, you know, when you lose that, think there is definitely impact that that has on. how you're being portrayed and how your time is getting invested, especially during the days where usually you'd be in the office. And I'm wondering, for you, I think your kids are older than Sammy for sure, but there's probably a good bit of trying to figure out.

Yep. Bruh.

you know, expectations that they have of you when you're home now, more than before at least, and you have got time during the day, ⁓ what are some things that that you're doing to maybe set

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

the tone of what this looks like now for you and your life with say your kids or your wife ⁓ and be able to balance that with some of the things that we talked about, right? Like the upskilling, the having the conversations, like the going and working on these projects. Like how have you juggled those things?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I asked my kids for help. ⁓ I asked my kids to be involved. mean, the other day I was working on a, I just bring this up because I think it's important. I was working on, I was making a pumpkin out of wood. And ⁓ I had a pattern that I was generating for the pumpkin. And it had like 10 layers to it. And two of the layers were missing. I'm gonna tell the world right now, I'm not great with math.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

I'm just not. just I wish I was better. But you know, I, I went to my youngest who's he's also a Sammy. I went to my Sammy. And I said to him, Hey, I'm trying to figure this out. And we he helped me figure it out. He was involved in my in the process. So it worked out because you know, I involved him. So I think we have to involve

Mm-hmm.

our children in what's going on. We don't want them to be panicking or worried or concerned, obviously, but it is it's good to involve them and talk to them about what's happening so that they they actually can participate in helping us. Right. And they feel my kids know that if it weren't for my wife and my children, that I wouldn't have I wouldn't be where I'm at. I wouldn't have the opportunity because they're supportive to me and I want to be supportive to them. And so we're it's all we're all together again.

Right.

What does it sound like? It sounds like communication.

Yeah, amazing. Last question, Howie, for the podcast. It's a magic wand question, which I know that you know that I love. So the magic wand question for us today is, if you had a magic wand and you can create any job for yourself tomorrow, what would that job look

Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If I had a magic wand and I can create any job for myself or tomorrow. Hmm, I think. Well, I think if I think it would be. Something well, closely to what I'm doing now with when it comes to the leadership and the coaching and advisory. But with the with with more backing financially from you know from from you know other groups, corporate groups and agencies so that I can help more people.

What would you be doing?

Because I really, if you're, there's an old movie called Dave and he was finding people jobs and that was his thing. And I get the, I understand that feeling. I love when people are able to find an opportunity and then they want to help others, right? It's domino effect. I love that. So if I, if I had a magic wand and I had the ability to do that with some financial backing and that includes, you know, helping them find,

Right. Right.

you know, where their library cards are, right? Because most people don't realize that they have access to the library, which they can upskill, reskill, new skill themselves all day. There's thousands and thousands of dollars from their library, LinkedIn learning, free subscriptions, and all these things. So being able to help educate people and inform them of the things that they have, the best things they never knew they had, and then once they land, then have some responsibility to help other people, I would love to be in that position to see that.

Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, you sound like, it sounds like a life coach slash recruiter slash CEO advisor or something like that. I don't even know if there's a title for what you want to do there. Like, what is that?

That's it. Yeah, not the boss. I don't want to be the boss. I just want to be the guy. I don't want to be the boss. I want to be the ultimate helper. If that's what you're, that's my title is the helper. Yeah, that's pretty much it. And so if I could do that and get some, a couple of extra bucks to help people or not a recruiter because I,

Tony Danza.

But like I said, that's a whole to do, right? I want to just be able to be like, hey, you need to to Dan. Dan's got a bunch of stuff open. And Dan's like, you came from Howie. That's pretty cool. Come on over. Let's figure something out. ⁓ I would like that to be a little bit easier. But yeah, that's it.

Yeah. Well, you know, with the unlimited amount of backing that you would have with this Magic Wand question, it would be significantly easier. ⁓ All right, brother. Well, that wraps up this episode, the very first episode of Life Between Titles.

I can do it. I can do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. thank you, I hope there's some great music that goes with it and I'll make sure that I send you some links.

Yeah. Hopefully I don't get sued for any of the music I use. Yeah.

You can find it you can find a cop not copyrighted music. That's awesome. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it

Alright brother, thanks man, see ya.

All right, bye bye.