Income tax 2021-2022, software example, depreciation of rental property. Get ready to get refunds to the max, dive into income tax 2021-2022. Lesser tax software, you don't need tax software to follow along, but you might want to have access to the forms and schedules, which you can find on the IRS website at irs.gov, irs.gov. Starting point here, we got the single filer Adam Smith Living in Beverly Hills 90210. Adam has some rental income flowing through to line number eight. Let's take a look at that flow through process. We got the schedule E, which is the supplemental income and loss. This is gonna be the property that is rental property in this instance. Then down below, we basically have an income statement, which we've kept quite simple at this point with the rents and that being the income, of course, for the rental property at the 120,000 and then one expense at the 20,000 that nets out to that net amount of the 100,000, which flows into the schedule one called the additional income and adjustments to income at the 100,000, that then flows in to page one of the form 1040, the place we started at, the eight line number eight, you recall, it wasn't that long ago, you probably remember. So this is gonna be the total income 100,000. We got the standard deduction at the 12,550. We've got the taxable income at the 87,450. Page number two, calculating the tax at the 15,015. Let's go back to page one. Let's go to schedule E and we're gonna add a bit of complication. That's gonna be with the depreciable type of assets. Now there's different types of depreciable assets that we could put on the book. The general idea is the same, that being, if something is a large kind of expenditure, it's gonna be benefiting multiple periods into the future, then we shouldn't be putting it on the books as simply an expense here, even if we paid cash for it, even if we're on a cash basis system for other kinds of transactions. This one's such a large deviation from a cash basis or from the time that we make the payment to the benefit that that expenditure is gonna be providing us, that the tax code forces us to use an accrual concept, that being a concept of depreciation, putting the asset on the books as an asset and then depreciating it. Now you'll note that we don't have a balance sheet on this schedule E. This is just an income statement. So how do I put it on the books as an asset? Well, we're not gonna have a balance sheet but we'll have another schedule which will be a depreciation schedule which will at least have that one asset and the detail behind it for the depreciation of it. So that's where we're gonna put it, that's gonna be the balance sheet account and then we'll pull it over here in terms of depreciation. Now what kind of things do we need to depreciate? Well, first of all, obviously the property itself. So even if we paid cash for the property which isn't often the case, we often finance the property but even if we were to have paid cash for the property, we're not gonna just expense the property because that's the biggest example of something that is the reason you have an accrual concept of putting it on the books as an asset. It would be a huge distortion to say, I'm gonna put the property on the first year of rental as an expense, like a $300,000 rental property down here and it'll just expense the whole thing doesn't really make sense because that rental property is gonna be generating revenue for many periods into the future. So from an accrual concept, it would make more sense for us to take that cost and allocate it over the useful life or over the period that expenditure is going to be benefiting and that's gonna be the general concept. So we'll do it with the actual property itself and then any large kind of improvements that we'd have to be putting on the books, we'd have to put those on the books as improvements as opposed to, say, simply repairs. And that's always gonna be kind of a confusing component to think about is something a repair or is it an improvement? And remember, our mindset is always trying to say, I would like to record it as an expense as opposed to capitalizing it. That's the typical mindset of the taxpayer, meaning my mindset as a taxpayer is I'd like to get the expense earlier rather than later. So if I can expense it today instead of capitalizing it, then that's what I would typically like to do.  So that's kind of our mindset from a taxpayer perspective to maximize our tax situation. Now, note when you're talking about other types of things that you might have to put on there, like refrigerators or appliances and this kind of stuff, you could also have accelerated depreciation that could be on the books, like a 179 depreciation and special depreciation, which could allow you to depreciate more upfront, basically, expensing it in essence, even though you have to go through a depreciation process, and that's gonna be dependent on the tax code. There's very extreme policies to allow accelerated depreciation and attempt to stimulate the economy, which obviously they stimulated the economy far past, it's overheating right now in economic terms. So you would think that they might roll back those policies, even though it's not popular to do that. But so we'll see what happens with those accelerated methods, but you gotta take into consider 179 deduction and special depreciation as well. So let's put the building on the books for first of all, now the actual property itself, if we bought it for rental property, it would be pretty straightforward, we would just put it on the books as the rental property, although it's still kind of complex because we have to add up all the stuff that's involved. But if it was personal property before that, like your personal residence and converted to rental property, it gets a little bit more confusing because now you gotta think about the cost that you had versus the fair market value of it. So just keep that into consideration. And we need to be breaking out between the amount we paid for land and the amount that we paid for the building because the land is not depreciable and the building is depreciable. So again, from our standpoint, we would typically like to put this more into the building than into the land because we would like to depreciate more of it and you can't depreciate the land. So you'd like to put more into the building so that's another thing to just kind of keep in mind. So if you were to look at your closing document, for example, for the purchase of our property here, then this is very expensive property but we're gonna say it costs $300,000. It's actually selling for multiple million dollars right now, but we're gonna say it's a $300,000 property and we would look through all the things that we had to expenditure on your closing document, including the cost of the property but all the other kind of stuff that you had to make expenditures on which were necessary in order to get the property complete and purchased and ready to be put in place for the rental. So you gotta take into consideration all those other costs as basically the part of the cost of the property and those are costs that you would like to be able to simply expense and not include them possibly at the cost of the property to get the expense now but no, typically those should be included and packaged in to the cost of the property. Now the next question is well, how do I get the breakout between the land and the building? So if I bought the property for $300,000, how do I know how much is land and how much is building because that wasn't broken out in the sales agreement. They didn't tell me how much to allocate to land versus the building. I didn't buy them separately. So you might look at the property taxes for example and the property taxes calculation will typically allocate between land and building although the last statement might not, it won't match your purchase price. So the land and the building of the last statement might have been like 150,000 or let's say, let's say 150,000 versus 20,000 which sums up to the 170,000 and then you could take the percent of that. So we're gonna say this was building and this was land. So if I take the percentage of that and I could say okay, 150 divided by the 170 and then 20 divided by the 170 and I make those into percentages is about 88 and 12 and then I would underline that. And if I sub that up, we're talking about 88 and 12 that would sum up to 100. So if I took my 300,000 then so cost was 300,000 then I'd break out the land. So land would be at 88% of it, 88% of the 300, this would be the 300 times the 88 and building, building, actually let's say building first, building and then land. Land would be at the 12% of it, making that a percent. So that would be the 300 times the 12%. So that's one way that you might go about kind of thinking about the breakout between the land and building, looking at the property taxes. And then if the IRS questions you on the calculation, you can at least say, well, I'm just trying to follow the property taxes, right? So that's, you know, other than, because they might question how much you applied to the land versus the building. Okay, let's put it on the books then. Let's put it on the books. We're gonna go to the depreciation calculation page and I'm just gonna call it buildings. I'm just gonna say building and I should probably be more specific. I would be in practice and add the address and everything, but I'm gonna say building and then the category is going to be, this is gonna be for the building itself. And if we place it in service, let's just say at the beginning of the year, 01, 01, let's say it was the middle of January, 01, fifth, no, let's say at the beginning, 01, 01, 01, two-one. So January 1st, 2021. And the cost of the building we said was this 264706 and then no section 179. Then the method is going to be 27 and a half. So this is the maker's method, 27.5 years. It's a straight line residential rental property. And remember the government kind of forces us to use.  We got to go accordance to what category the property falls under. And then prior depreciation, prior special amortization. And then we have the land, which is not depreciable. So I'm going to say land. And that's going to be under the category of land. Land, is that land? That's miscellaneous. Land, 010121. And the cost of it we said was the, what did we say, 35294. And the method there is land, which is non depreciable, non depreciable. So land or no depreciation. So that's just going to be stuck on the books kind of like an asset. And we're just going to record it. It's not going to go down in value. Okay, let's check it out, go into the forms. And now we've got our rental property here. And now we've got the depreciation pulling over of the 9,225. So obviously we didn't get the full amount of 300,000 deduction. We didn't get the building amount of 150,000 deduction. We had to put it on the books as an asset and then get the depreciation. Now we got the depreciation schedule, which is going to be over here. We got 2,021 and 2,022. Let's take a look at the full thing, even though it's kind of small, it's a little small. But hopefully we can zoom in there and check it out. So we got the building. So this is the depreciable item, 264706, 264706. Notice this stands for straight line mid month. That's what the double N stands for and then a 27.5 life. So if I was to try to mirror this, I'd say, okay, the building was a mid month convention. So if I tried to recalculate this just to understand it, I'd say, okay, well that would mean that for one year it would be this divided by the life of 27.5. It's a straight line method. Let's add a decimal there. Let's underline it. So then you would think per year would be equal to this divided by that. And so there we have it. But then there's a mid month convention. So there's months in a year, months, let's get it per month, months in a year. The months in a year are 12, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. So D pre per month would then be equal to this divided by 12 is that. And then, so I'm gonna underline that. I'm looking for the underline. So then we had a half month convention. So we put it in there in January, but we only get half the month in January. So months in first year, the months in the first year were gonna be 11.5 because we have that half month convention. We make believe we bought it in the middle of the month. That's what the half month convention means. In essence, why did I center it? Shouldn't be centered. And so I want a decimal, that's what I want. So then we'll multiply that out eight times that. And this is first year D pre D pre. So nine, so did I get that right? Nine, nine, two, two, five. So that's an idea. It's a straight line mid month convention 27.5. Now, if you looked at year two, 2022, for the regular depreciation, now you get the full year straight line that would be at the 9,625. That's how much we're gonna get next time, 9,625. So that's gonna be the calculation for the, so once you get it on the books, it's pretty straightforward calculation. Notice the land is just sitting there. That's not doing anything. We're not depreciating the land. It's just on there to kind of complete the purchase process on our balance sheet accounts that should tie into our purchasing calculation. And obviously when we put this purchasing calculation in, we would add up the whole calculation. Here's the cost of it. Here's all the other stuff that we put into place to put the original amount on there. And then there's our justification for the allocation between the building and the land, for example. Now note that as we start expensing this thing, you can see with the depreciation schedule, then we can look at like the cost or basis after the depreciation is taking place, right? So the basis is gonna be going down. When you can think about this as like the book value from an accounting kind of terminology. So after that first year of depreciation, for example, we've got the total cost, let's say building and land, total cost was 300,000. And then we deprec... So the ACC deprecumulated depreciation after year one would be this. And then we're gonna say that the adjusted basis, in essence, the adjusted cost would be the 290. That's important because we would rather have a higher basis too, because when we sell the property, it's gonna be the sales price minus the basis. So as we're eating up the accumulated depreciation, we're digging into the basis, which means that when we sell it, we're more likely to have a gain at the point in time that we sell it. Now of course, when you're talking about a gain with a real estate, you gotta think, okay, at that point in time, could I convert it to personal property and possibly get an exemption on the gain? Is the gain gonna be a capital gain versus the depreciation which might be a benefit on ordinary income? Might there be a difference between those things and those kind of things add into the complexity of the discussion as well. But let's talk about other depreciable kind of stuff that we might have then. We could have like five year property, we could have seven year property, 15 year property, other types of things that we need to put on the books as an asset. So five year property could include things like computers and equipment, for example. So let's say we had some five year property we put on the books here and I'm gonna put it on the books, five year property and let's say we just had computers and equipment. Let's just say computers, computers in our rental activity. So then I'm gonna say this is going to be five, this is gonna be equipment, I called it, right? I called it machinery and equipment. Let's put it on the books. Let's say it happened on 21521 that we bought that and let's say it was for 2400. I'll leave the section 179 as is and this is gonna be five years and notice I have the five years I got the maker straight line but typically you're gonna choose the five years equipment. Also note that you have special limitations for the auto, that's why they have another five years for the auto because you might have caps with the regards to the auto for luxury automobile kind of caps and stuff but we'll keep it with the equipment. Now if I don't do anything else the system is gonna try to calculate any 179 and special depreciation we might get. So if I was to go back on over here and check this out I go back to my depreciation schedule and I'm gonna say regular and so now you got your equipment down here, 2400. Notice that it took the whole thing and special depreciation. So it's trying to basically and those are accelerated depreciations that have been put in place and those are the types of kind of things that you would expect the tax code to fluctuate in as to how much you might have in terms of advanced depreciation like 179 depreciation or special depreciation which are kind of like a topic in and of themselves but in that case it kind of acts as if you got to write off the whole thing in the first year. So it kind of almost negates the idea of putting the thing on the books as a depreciable asset because it takes a little bit more time to put it on the books but you may get the full amount of the depreciation as it rolls in to the depreciation schedule on the schedule E and note that they do that, they do that special depreciation to kind of stimulate the economy. So again, right now the economy is overheated. So this is one thing that you would think from an economic standpoint they would start to taper back on but from a political standpoint that's not popular so you never know what's gonna happen would like the special depreciation and the 179. If we were to try to take that layer off let's say they didn't qualify for the special depreciation and just look at the normal depreciation under makers. So now I've removed the special depreciation and again of course if you could get the special depreciation you would typically want to be able to get the special the 179 but I've removed it because this is back to like the normal rules which you would think would be more consistent over time and so now you've got the 200 DB which is double declining balance I would call it and then the half year that stands for half year convention, five year life and then the 200 that's the rate that we're gonna use on like a table kind of method. So if I was to reconstruct that it's a little bit more confusing if I was to say okay we put this on the books this is equipment, had a cost of the, what did I say, I said that had a cost of the 2400. So then we're gonna say that the useful life so the life was five years and so if I underline that I'm gonna say then this is gonna be equal to this divided by five which gives me a rate if I was to look at the rate would be this divided by this making that a percent that would be our 20% you can also think of it just as one divided by five would be the 20% that's our straight line rate if it was a double declining balance now if I was to double it for double declining then the double declining rate would be the 40% so this is where it gets a little bit tricky because you could see they multiplied it by the straight line rate which is the 20% that's because of the half year convention so in other words I would normally take your one depreciation, your one D-pre D-pre would be equal to the 2400 times the 40% but it's not that because there's a half year convention half year convention which means we assume we bought it in the middle of the year so we divide it by two so I'm gonna take that divided by two and that's year one, that's your one depreciation so basically you could just do the straight line because of the half year convention which again is kind of confusing if I was to take that to year two using a normal double declining balance I now have the original amount of the 2400 minus the amount that we depreciated last year that's gonna give us then the 1,920 and then I would multiply that not times the 20% but times the 40% because that's the double declining rate and so in year two you would think it would be 768 if there was a normal double declining with the mid-year if I go to year two here, 2022 you could see that we have the 768 in year two so just to get an idea obviously you can see that we're depreciated more in the current year then in the following year that's normal kind of double declining well we would be depreciating more except we had the half year convention so we bought it in February we assumed we bought it in the middle of the year 615 and that's why it basically breaks down to that straight line which confuses people because it's not really straight line even though it looks that way in the first year of the purchase okay so you could have seven year property for example so we might have seven year property which includes stuff like office furniture and you wanna be specific when you put this on the books notice I just said computers here you wanna actually list out the actual computer so Dell computer here's the number on it because if you bought like five of them you probably wanna put each of the computers on the books separately because if you sell one of the computers or one of them breaks you gotta take that thing off the books and when you take it off the books if you can't find it on the depreciation schedule or you grouped 10 computers into one line item then it causes problems when you sell the asset or it's disposed of in some way so now let's say but I'm doing generic stuff here so I'm gonna say furniture so again you wanna list out this is the sofa the brown one with a tag on it or something like that so that you can find it in case you sold it or something like that at a future point you can find it on the depreciation schedule but we're being generic here we're being generic okay so activity and this is gonna be the category of furniture and this let's say this happened on O3 1521 and it costs 1,900 I don't know and then the rate on that one is this one's gonna be seven year property we're gonna say it's seven year and again we would probably choose the double declining not the straight line because we would get more upfront if I don't do anything to it it'll probably try to take the special depreciation again so you get the special depreciation if I was to eliminate that just so you can see the calculation of the double declining I could say we don't qualify for special we'll not take the 179 and we'll just take a look at it here and then you could see the double declining calculation here for year 2021 and then the second year calculated here so I won't do the calculation again because it's similar and then we could have 15 year property for like roads and fences I won't put that in at this point now you also might have improvements that you put on the property right if you had improvements on the property like you expanded on the property your first thought is like well can I put it into repairs maybe because then you get to expense it if it's bringing it back to like it's normal operating condition maybe in repairs but if not then you might have to put it into improvements and when you're doing the bookkeeping for this type of stuff you're kind of looking at that kind of thing if you see a lot of stuff in supplies you're like oh there's 100,000 in supplies that seems like maybe we should be capitalizing something there or repairs has a large dollar amount in it that might make you dig into it and see if there's anything that should be capitalized because if you don't do that then that could be kind of like a red flag you would think for the IRS as well if there's this large amount that's going to be expensed if you do expense a large amount because you believe it should be categorized as repairs instead of as improvements for example you want to make sure you log that down as to your rationale in the event that there's an issue with it so if we had like other improvements that we had to put on the books then we might put that on as another line item improvements and again you'd want to list out the thing that was the improvement that was put into place and I'm being generic category is going to be the improvements and let's say this happened on let's say oh seven oh two 21 and let's say it was for 60,000 improvement of some kind and then or let's make the improvement in 2022 just so we could see it so that happened in the following year we put it in place and then we added an improvement in the next year and the method it's gonna generally have to be aligning with the method of the property itself which was that 27.5 year straight line residential real estate and so that's a long time to have to write off that improvement over so what you'd like to be able to do is categorize the improvement first as a repairs or something if you could and if you can't then maybe be able to categorize it as some other depreciable asset if possible that has a shorter life to it and then if not then you gotta categorize it over that long life which is gonna be not as beneficial typically so if I look at the depreciation schedule now we've got the building and the land and then if I go to 2022 not in the current year now we've got the category of the improvements as well now also note that if you purchase a lot of stuff like at the end of the time period it would convert from a mid a mid month convention for I'm sorry a mid year convention for things like the furniture and so on to a mid to a mid quarter convention so let's say we made a substantial purchase of like five year property for example and it was I'm gonna call it I'm gonna call it equipment and again that's very generic and not good you'd wanna be more specific so that you know what kind of equipment you're purchasing but let's say we bought equipment for on and let's say that happened on 12 12, 2021 and let's say it was a significant amount like 70,000 of equipment and so that's gonna be most of the equipment and so I'm gonna say that was five years so now if I move back on over because I believe it's more than 40% was purchased in the fourth quarter now they're gonna say we're not gonna allow you that mid month convention in the same manner possibly let's take off the special depreciation so it's a special depreciation I'm gonna take that off just to look at this mid quarter thing a little bit more closely so if I go back on over so now it's got notice it switched this to 200 double double declining balance I would call it mid quarter instead of the mid month convention that I'm sorry instead of the mid year convention and then you've got the rate that's being applied to it and notice it also did it to the computers before I put that in place the computer was at a mid year convention instead of a mid quarter convention so just to see that so that basically means in the first year instead of assuming it was purchased in the middle of the year we assume it was purchased in the middle of the quarter now note I can see you could see this change if I made that dollar amount on this one something small smaller at least like let's say it was 2000 and I go back on over now it doesn't it doesn't do that so now we're on the half year convention again so if you see that switch over and you say hey I thought there was a half year convention on like machinery and equipment and so on then but if you made a large purchase in the last quarter then it's going to it's going to kick it over and it's going to kick everything over to the mid quarter convention that the rationale being that it looks like you might be taking advantage of the of the mid month convention and some of the stuff might not be you know as relevant when there's like a 179 and special depreciation in place but again those things could could fall away at some point you might not always qualify for it so it's good to have an idea of the you know convention methods because those will probably stick around even as the accelerated depreciations with the 179 and the special fall in and out of favor as changes in the economy happen and and the you know whatever happens with the law happens with the law so we'll see and we'll follow it and it'll be interesting


It's a very weak clap. That was a weak? Wow. What in the world? I'm getting insults. Weak clap. Hello. Hey, how are you doing? Why are you laughing already? Claude, I'm tired. I'm just even saying that I need some type of coffee or something, but yeah, that's probably what I'm laughing already. But yes, yes, I'm good. Did you say how are you? I did, yeah. I'm good. Yes, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, we're back. We're back, we're back, we're back. It seems like people enjoyed the episode we did, the previous one we did. So I've come back again with some more for you. Oh, really? Yes, yes, yes. So I think this should be a thing that whenever we do these types of episodes, do a little icebreaker, and then we get into the episode. Especially because this one today is, I want to say it's heavy. It's not heavy. It's not heavy. Deep, but not heavy. Meaningful. Meaningful. Authentic. That's the words. Authentic. Wonderful. OK, yes. What do you mean authentic, actually? All our conversations are authentic.  What do you read? I guess I mean that we are peeling back a little bit around how things actually work, because so we both come on relatively happy, good, mean-attacked people, but that can mask a lot of how difficult things can be. Yeah, that's very true. I like that, yeah. And I agree. OK, so before we get to the how difficult things can be, I've come to embarrass you again. You know what? I'm not, I'm not on it. I'm not on it. And in fact, I have some questions for you today. We're warm. So, quick, quick fire round, quick fire round. These are easy. Well, I'll start easy anyway. Wow. Get to know you a little bit more, because I think people know me because they've heard me on episodes, but we don't know the women behind the scenes. OK. So easy question for you. Would you call yourself an early bird or a night owl? Why are you doing this? OK. Currently a night owl. OK. What's the favorite city that you visited? Oh, Cape Town was, yeah, was lovely. Yeah. How many wires did King Henry VIII have? Eight. It's six. What was the last movie or series that you watched? Oh, what have I watched? Oh, The Crown. It's back. Is it? Yeah, it came back. Oh, gosh, I don't know when this episode is going, but yeah, it's back. So, yeah, I'm enjoying that. I watched the spin-off thing. That was, that was actually really good, but not the main thing. If you went on a holiday, a beach or a city type holiday? I need a beach holiday, but I always find myself in the city, but a beach holiday is what I require. Thank you. What is the brightest star in the sky? The sun. Is that a star? It is a star. It is, yeah. No, it's called Cyrus, actually. What is the sun? What's your favorite season of the year? Bright and the sun. I say autumn because of the, autumn, winter because of the fashion. OK, Timo. I don't know how you really... What book are you currently reading? I'm reading a devotion, actually. Can you read a... It's called... What is it called? Wake Up or something? It's by Jackie Hill Perry. OK. Yes, please, thank you. It is Upon Waking. Upon Waking, yes. Thank you. Last question. Go into trivia for the final one. OK. What is the biggest island in the world? What is this? Island. Alex, help me. And the biggest island in the world. I'm sorry. Claude... You haven't even said one yet. Let's go.  That's why I'm confused. You haven't answered the question. I reject it. You told me. Here's Kavine thens. What the... I would never have said... You know what, there's many I wouldn't... I don't think I would have said anything. I didn't... But you really took me. That's a surprise. What's going on? That was good though, well done. Thank you. Woo, it feels a bit when you're the one... Oh, it's not fun, is it? Yeah, it's not fun. But yes, you've woken me up though. That was like my old coffee fix. Thank you. You're welcome. Cool. Where do we go from here? So, do you know what? This actually is the highlight. This is how our working relationship is. This is literally it. I've said this a few times that every single day at the time I speak to Claude, he surprises me in some way with either if it's like a new idea, a new way of working, or a pop quiz, you know? And I've really enjoyed that about you. Yeah, it's... I don't know if a lot of people get to experience that or even in your day to day because, you know, especially with like board roles and all of that, there's like a specific standard that you have to give so you might not be able to always show every element of you, but on this podcast build and this podcast, it's been really amazing to experience that. Obviously, it's also sometimes sugaring because I'm like, Lord, my whole way of working or living is like all over the place. But yeah, yeah, I've enjoyed that. I'm glad and I do enjoy being able to, I guess, show more of my personality because sometimes I just have to be serious and about like the things that I do, some of them require that serious, more forward to the side of me where you can't be myself entirely. So it's nice to be able to do that here. Good, yeah. I think I'm trying to think back to the first time I actually spoke to you or met you. I don't think I met you in person. I think it was virtually. But I'm trying to think, did I actually feel like you were just this really serious guy? I don't know if I felt that way or... Yeah, I think I'm now realising that it's a 50-50 split. It literally depends on at what point in the day you catch me or what I'm doing at that time. So my sister, because I thought I came across as serious to most people, but literally earlier this week, my big sister was saying that I have boy next door energy apparently. Boy next, what does that even mean? I was just like, I've never heard of that before. No, no, explain what a boy next door is. So she was like, yeah, you come across as like, I guess like on a type of likable, type of approachable type of thing. But then I'm also just like, I don't know if that's true all the time. But then your sister, who is your twin? Oh, no, it's my oldest sister. Anyway, Claude has a twin. Yeah, I have a twin. Do you know when I found this out maybe a few months ago? Oh, really? Yeah. I was like, hold on, you have not mentioned or... Anyway. But yeah, so it wasn't your twin. This is my oldest sister. I just want everybody to know because now I know. Okay, yeah, I think maybe because she has that familiarity with you that she can say that. But I also see it as... I say, yeah, I see it as well. Yeah, I see it as well. But I guess like you said, if most people are seeing you in like the business function, I know a lot of people say, oh, I'm in groups with Claude. Like, oh, I know him in that remit, but they don't know you. Outside. I think even within us, even us too, do we really know each other outside? Not really, not really. I don't think so. We obviously spend a lot of time talking about the podcast and building Dream Nation, but I just, I don't feel like we... Yeah, it's not like a... Yeah, that's quite interesting. Just realizing that. But still, I'm receiving that. But yeah, I think today we're talking a lot about ourselves and that's because we are going to be continuing to talk about ourselves, our journey, creating this podcast and also just building like a authentic work relationship that is... Yeah, meaningful. Wow, the words are coming back. There was actually, when you said both of those, there were things out in my mind as well, so... Yeah, I took them from you because you said them earlier on. Okay. What were your first impressions of me? Oh, as a... Because remember the first time I met you, I was under a guest on one of your podcasts. Oh, yeah, one on... Prejudice, yes. Okay, so maybe not then, because I was, at that time of the podcast, I was very quiet. You were very quiet. I wouldn't even say anything. And now I'll be like... So yeah, my first impression was you was very quiet. And then you followed up with me about something and then I think that's when I first noticed that there's a lot of drive there and you was obviously quite capable and quite able and you thought about what you were doing quite deeply. And then that then evolved into you jumping on the Dream Nation team prematurely, I guess, during lockdown and we're trying to do a few things. And the way you handled that was excellent, which is although that project never got released, everything that you did was great. And even the people that you reached out to, a lot of them came back to me and said, I wish I had to hold on to her because she's really good at what she does. And then when it came to me launching this podcast, I was like, you're the person that I need and you've been outstanding. Sometimes a bit stern. You don't take a lot of my nonsense. And but what you are great at is because I tend to be quite big picture and thinking about the future, you're amazing at bringing us right here, right now, that we need this episode done this week and you need to do these lines the way that it's been written down, otherwise it's not going to come across the right way. So I like that you're passionate about what you do, but you also know you're good at it and you've got enough confidence to be able to even push back on me when you think that this is the right way to go. Thank you. Yeah, I'm going on to the stern comment. I appreciate everything that you said. And yeah, I think it also goes into the environment that you're in, that I think I said this before, that allows you to be that way to actually, you know, that your your boss is like, I want to hear your opinions. And and if I if I don't agree with them, still share like, you know, I think not a lot of people have that working environment to allow that to happen. But the sternness, you know what, that also is in that because I think it takes a lot like you're it takes a lot to say to somebody.  Yeah, I would never say that. You say it in nicer ways, but I hear what you're saying to me like, yeah, we're not doing that. Yeah, no, but you surprised me with this idea because it was actually you, you brought up that, you know, we should talk about our podcast, the podcast and how we created it. Initially, I was just like, that's boring. But then I'm not I'm not boring because what we have been doing is been like straightforward. But because I'm like, do people really want to know? But then you shaped it and you were like, yeah, but it's about, you know, the dynamics and how we've worked through things and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, OK. So, you know, you've you've also figured me out and how to. Oh, yeah, we're out of that. It's needed. It's needed. But yeah, I I think I don't say as a I guess, I mean, I don't know if every like as a business woman or as a woman. Yeah, it sometimes can feel a bit bad to say to someone like, oh, no, what you're doing is wrong and have to be so stern about it because you don't want for me, I don't want to hurt your feelings.  And also you're like, hold on, like, why am I so bold and confident that this is wrong? Like, where does this come from? And I think within myself, I'm still trying to figure that out.  And in that moment, I think I am. But sometimes I'm like, where does this confidence even come from? Because this world of podcasting and it's still very fresh and new to all of us, and, yeah. So I'm still trying to figure it out myself. So it didn't great. Thank you. Thank you. So what type of what type of decisions have we made then, actually, that we've had to go through the back and forth and forth? There was one that I had to make before you actually came on board. OK, this was December last year. And it was also going to even do this in the first place, in all honesty, because I knew I wanted to do a podcast. I knew there was a lot of potential behind it, but I also knew that I could not do this by myself. And you wasn't here at that point. I didn't I didn't know that you was going to come on board. I didn't know if I could afford you. So but I made the commitment to the studio that we work at, which is Dream Factory, what we're doing now. They are amazing. I made that commitment. I put the money down, paid the deposit. You have to pay the whole year in advance. That's a hefty amount. It's not a small amount of money. And I did that with like no plan of how to deliver. And that was quite difficult to do. Then I think a couple of months later, that's when you came on board. And then we had, I think, our first difficult conversation, which would be around your your compensation. Oh, we're going there. You're going to go there. Oh, wow. Yeah, that was. Do you know what? Before Dream Nation or before working on the podcast, I have spoken to Claude about how to compensate myself before. I said, you know, I've got these different opportunities. And I'm like, I don't know what I should do and I'm struggling. And it was, yeah. And you gave me some really great idea advice on how how I how to pitch myself, basically. And I don't even know if we were sharing this advice. Maybe you should share it again. But do you want to share? Well, firstly, I think if I remember correctly, or it will probably be the same advice I give to most freelancers, which is stop, stop packaging your value based on your time. So we have this nature or kind of tendency to be like my hourly rate is going to be X, Y and Z. And then I'll then charge people accordingly. Whereas on the other end of it, the person receiving that rarely cares in terms of how long it takes you to do anything. So if you can accomplish the same task in an hour that will take you to 10 hours, I don't. That's that's irrelevant to me. All I care about is the end result. So rather than thinking about how long it takes you to do because you can learn to do things faster, instead think how valuable is the other person. And then if you instead charge based on the value that you provide to that person, then you're more than likely to be able to get a much better deal for yourself and make negotiations a lot easier. Yes. And that is still hard. But yes. So then when it came to Dream Nation and you're like, OK, so how much would you charge? And Claude always does this thing. And even people that reach out to me about working with Claude and they're like, oh, how much would he go for? I'm like, you pitch what you think your value is. And if Claude can do it, I'm looking. If Claude can do it, he would do it. But you pitch yourself. Don't think, OK, because of who somebody is or what is actually your value to that person and then go from there because otherwise sometimes you can underpitch yourself or you're overdoing it.  We had that recently. So even with this amazing advice, when you then asked me that question, I was like, I think that's that thing with freelancers that you could do things for free. You're like, I could do it for free. But I have to get to that point in my life where I'm actually building myself, building a business. And also when you feel like you're being paid for the work that you do, you also feel valued. So I went back and forth. I think I wasn't straight. I wasn't like, oh, yeah, this is about straight away.   But I was like. And also I was aware that if this was like another production for like a bigger company, I may have also been like, actually, this would be have to be my full time job. So I would pitch at this amount. But knowing what I could actually give as I already have a job and this is the amount of time that I could give to this podcast. This is what I would say. So I was realistic as well. I could I could have pitched myself at some crazy amount, but it's ridiculous. Anyway, but yeah, I gave it to you and what did you do? The thing is with your one in particular, I'd already put a number in my head of this is how much I want to be able to pay you. And you're that fell within the veins that you said. So I was like, yeah, fine. Like we just took it from there and let's move forward. I feel like one thing that I was clear with you on though is that even when I'm paying you now, if I'm being honest with you, the value that you provided is definitely below that amount. But it is the most I can do as of today. But with our journey as hopefully when we become even more successful, then we'll be able to continue to increase that because for those that are thinking about working with Abyssal in the future, that's not going to be an option because my goal is to take a full time for my company because there's a lot more to do. She knows this as well. And I tell people like, you know, you can enjoy it for today. But yeah, but yeah, that's the goal. And I think your willingness to see the vision of where it is. I was trying to go still hold your ground in terms of what was important to you and making that clear to me. So I knew kind of where your boundaries were in terms of like from a price and perspective, but then also the willingness to to grow with me on this project that I think that made all the difference. And that's part of the reason why like could other people that I spoke to and they might have felt more as this is just a job to them. Like it's just an opportunity. It's just a way to make a bit of money worse for you. It's like you've generally bought into the vision. So I was happy to make that sacrifice and yeah, make it a consistent part for I guess your income now. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I definitely bought into it. Thank you for listening to these episodes. If you haven't already, make sure you sign up to our mailing list at dreamnation.co forward slash mailing list. And from there, you'll be able to find out about all the things that we have coming for you. But on money still, there was the other decision that we had to make, which was the levels to to our studio membership here. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So I'm going to I'm going to take I'm going to take this one. So Dream Factory is absolutely amazing because they have two studio spaces. But in each studio space, the one that we're in right now, there's multiple rooms and it's just a lot. And the one that we were in before is a bit smaller, but it's equally amazing. But we we had an opportunity to view the one we're in now. And when we saw it, we were like, damn. Yeah. It's the first one is the first one is it's great. That's where the first week episode. Yeah, you can see some. So the episode that is coming out next week. This is the season episode you'll see it in. And yeah, Courtney and Renee, I don't know if there are any others that are out that have not yet, but yeah. So those episodes you'll see and you'll see it's it's it's wonderful. But we had a vision and we wanted a space. And you know, it's so funny. Anyway, we'll go into that because where we are right now is like, they've never actually done podcasts here before. And now they do podcasts there and it's all that. But against that. But yeah, so we came to do a tour of this space and we were like, oh, gosh, this place is amazing. You know, we'll dream about it. And yeah. And then Claude was like to me, do you see this space as somewhere that we should be? And I was just like, yeah, yeah, but where we are right now, you know, it's fine because I knew how much the difference was. And I was like, where we are is fine. We can dream about this. Doom, doom, doom, doom. And it will happen, you know, when the time is right, because we know as well, we're not making any money from the podcast at the moment. So that is a big investment to then like, I don't know. Is it like triple the amount or double the amount? I think it's double. I can't put it up. Double the amount. And then Claude just. So for me, I mean, we're here. Yeah, for me, I remember the reason why I asked that question because I was walking around. I can see that you fell in love with the place. Like I can see that you wasn't going to say it because you're like, oh, he's not going to want to pay for this now. I'm not paying for it. I can't say go and pay for it. But I can see because I think this goes back to one of the points I said from very early on with you is that I see this podcast as being as much yours as it is mine.  And going back to like a lesson I've probably said like a million times in the podcast now, when you're a leader, yes, your job is to have the vision is to get the right people. And it's to give those people the resources they need to be successful. And I saw this as being a resource that you needed to be able to. And that's your vision for what this could be. So I just saw it as part of my job. And yes, it was hard, but you made it work. Yeah, we we are here. And yeah, definitely there is definitely something in believing each other like that we get the vision because even where we are right now, that if you ever go to Dream Factory and go on a tour, I would encourage you to do so. Obviously, you'll be taking our studio time. But, you know, do what you've got to do. They've got some really lovely sets. And actually, when we first came to see the studio, it was those sets that was like, oh, wow, I can definitely see it. But then when we started talking about the podcast, we realised that, hold on. We need something even more just free, like airy, free and not as like colourful. But, you know, so that was more us, more us. And then like we found out of all the spaces in the studio, there's like section that was like, there's a bit neglected. Like I don't think they were really using it. And but it just once again, this was you like coming in and seeing the vision of, you know what, if you move this hair and you do a few things here and then you also worked with amazing cameraman, Benny, I think it was Benny. No, it was Carl and then Benny. I think it was a combination of the two over a couple of weeks. We ended up creating what is now my favourite set for us. Although the one that we used last week that also banged as well. Yeah, I really do love that set as well. You're going to see it. Have you already seen it? Yeah, two weeks ago. But yeah, that again was, you know, it was a decision that we had to. Yeah, but I think it just makes a difference when you believe in each other. Are you just like, OK, yeah, you're not thinking to gain something else. It's all for the gain of dream nation. And if it's possible to make those investments now to get the results in the future, then, you know, you can do it. Yeah, I'm awful. Even I know that, you know, Claude says that he basically doesn't want to work for anybody else, but anybody else that I work for as well. I say the same thing that, you know, they talk about doing a set or I'll just I'll just do this and that. I'm like. If you had the money, what would you do? And then we build around what we can afford after, you know, after that. But think big and then try and based on what you can afford and create like a smaller sized version of it until you get to that. But don't limit.  You're dreaming. That's actually on a quick note. If you do, if you are interested in sign up for Dream Factory, dream nation.co forward slash dream factory. If you go there, then there'll be information about the about Dream Factory and how you can potentially sign up and get a get some sort of a discount as well. Yes. And Claude is in trouble with me because we were going to do an event this November. About how to become a board member. But unfortunately, we're going to postpone it. You're going to postpone it due to unforeseen circumstances. They you know what, they were foreseeable. They were foreseeable. So I have things like the venue and all of that lined up. And I've even got like the the information to share the workshop, all of that. But I feel like I haven't been good at sometimes delivering on all the things that I that I want to do. And that's because as I look at my life, my responsibilities, I run this business, obviously, I have a full time job. I sit on a few boards. There's just a lot to do. And as I as I kind of continue to try and push things further and further and further, I sometimes will over commit myself. And that was that this this event was one of the situations. However, I think the most important thing is that whenever I do make mistakes, I do learn the lesson than I put a system in place to resolve it. We're going to talk about systems because I mean, have you always fighting about systems and procedures as well? But what I realized, so now to prevent me ever failing on pulling off event when I say I'm going to do it, I've now hired a new person to the team who's focused on logistics. We spent some time working out all the steps that are needed and yeah, taking things from there. So yes, it was something that I I undelivered on over promised, undelivered, but it won't happen again. And I know every so is annoyed because she has politic advertised it on multiple episodes in the past now. And if you was excited about that and it hasn't happened, you have my sincerest apology, you know, drop me a message on the IG so I can apologize to you directly for that as well, because that wasn't good. So you guys. Yeah. And that's something as well that I've been talking to called about that consistency. Because just a week ago, Claude disappeared for a day. Yes, to be fair, on the day that we're supposed to put an episode out. Yeah. So I had burnt out. Well, actually, no, I had sent me burnt out and I realized if I didn't stop right there and then I would have burnt out. So I guess it was like, you know what, I'm going to isolate myself from the world for a little bit, regain my energy and then come back, which worked because I was able to do my part by the next morning. But yeah, like it's not a good look. And once again, this this is partly that happened partly because there was certain tasks that I shouldn't be doing that I had to take on because we don't have things in place yet. So as you guys might have noticed, we are, let's say, inconsistent with it in social media clips out. It's like I could basically say we have no social media clips. Yeah. And we we understand it's actually one of the most important parts. If from my point of view, in all honesty, I think far more people are going to view us on social media than we'll ever watch a whole episode. So therefore, by us not putting this clips out, we're missing out a huge part of the the whole purpose of this podcast, ultimately. So because just for a number of reasons, we haven't been able to get them out consistently. It fell on me to do. And when that added to my plate with everything I've got to do, then it ended up taking being one thing too many. Yeah.  I can do it. Yeah. And then I couldn't have any capacity to do it either because we both have other jobs, you know, you know, we've both got all these other things going on. So it's like as much as you can. And I've learned this about myself, that I'm more of a I can be very much a if somebody if there's an issue, I'm like, right, get it on. And in that moment, I can commit to doing all these things and wholeheartedly in that moment, I will do it. And then life says, sorry, sis, you don't have the capacity. And then sometimes I'll be fighting life like I can do I can do it. And then, yeah, again, you burn out. You know, it's interesting. No one. This is and this is now where I think sometimes we see things differently because my answer to all of that is build a good system and get a good process so that it doesn't have to be painful or stressful and it can happen ideally without anybody being involved. Whereas, like I said earlier on that episode, actually, one of your strengths, but also one of your weaknesses is like getting things done now. And I want it done now. You want it done now. And your approach is I am going to apply more effort and power my way through things, which is sometimes needed. It's sometimes needed. But if you keep on doing that, then you'll burn yourself out. But not only will you burn yourself out. If you don't build a system, then it can't scale because you can do that to produce maybe like three clips per episode. Whereas I want us to get to the point where we can put out a clip every single day, if not multiple times a day. And that's not a level that you can get to where you can just power your way through that. That requires a system that requires like a process that requires having people in place to do it. So I'm often saying and this is what was happening is that I would say to have you say, trust me, I'm building the process is happening. It's going I know it's not what you want. I know it's not fast. I know all of that. And every so it's like, I hear you. But if we don't put this episode out right now, not the episode, if you don't put this clip out right now, then it's not good enough. Or we're going to we're wasting the we're wasting like this opportunity to promote and you're not getting you're not getting the awareness that we could get. And it's like the thing is you're not wrong, but neither am I. And it's they're just both needed. But it's the push and pull. It's the push and pull. Yeah, I think it's that equal ground because we need to get so in the business of social media, we need to get social media clips out. Like, even if we're working on a process or a system, we need to get social media clips out. And I think you were saying that, you know, I'm working on this whole system and I have no and I can't see what you're doing. So in my head, all I'm seeing is there are no social media clips. And Claude said he sorted it. And so I'm like, only you like, where's the social media clip? What's going on? I can imagine it's just it's a lot. And you've again, this is not you have so many other things you're doing. But at the same time, I was like, it needs to be used to go out.  I showed you all the things that actually take in place. How the system is forming. Then then you had a completely different attitude towards it. Yeah.  Yeah. Whereas a lot was happening is a stat building systems. Take time. Yeah. So this system business is definitely something I've I've learned with you. And you were like, you're basically forcing me to learn. You have no choice. I appreciate it because again, like I see myself that you know what I don't want to say it's even impatience, but I think it is I could be like, if I can see it, like this is what used to be done. I'm just like, let's just get on with it. But like life is not like that.  And, you know, but then in my head, I'm like, I don't think I'm rushing it. I'm just like, let's get on with it. But process you've so gone because like that is everything you're talking about and doing the reason why I'm so confident to be like, we're not going down that pathway is because I've done this before. And in fact, I've done this multiple times before. And I've learned the hard way that this is not how it goes. And it's a very it's a very like new entrepreneur thing to do. In that sense of like, I will win through effort and hard work and creativity. You need effort, hard work and creativity, but it can only take you so far. If you want to build something that's going to honestly be consistent, last and ideally make a lot of money, then the only thing you need to focus on the system or not only thing, but your focal points should be systems. And like, I've seen this lesson so many times through my own business, through our people's businesses, through what's the season, what fells. So that's why my mindset always goes there. OK. Yeah, I understand. And I see I see the benefits. I hope you're enjoying today's episode. If you are, please make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube or whatever platform you're listening to this podcast on. Don't forget to like this video as well. So we've got systems. We've got I'm trying to think what else was on my. Let me quickly check. We do have editors. Oh, the editors. Yeah. That's been an interesting one, because there wasn't to be fair. I know when we first. I know, I know, I know. Are you sure you want to go down here? Yeah. Why not? I love everybody I spoke to. Yeah, no, but I said they were all amazing people. OK. They all were amazing. And we did have an argument, actually, semi-argument. We've had many semi-arguments. Never like actually being female or anything like that. It's always like professional disagreements. And like, yeah, it came down to us having there were two like great editors, but they're both great for two very different reasons. And I was like leaning more towards one and usually more towards the other. Yeah. Do you know what? One of them was like amazing system systems. You know, I feel like I would even love to promote this person, but I'm just going to leave it if you want to know. You can message and we would gladly share all the people that we spoke to about editing, editing this podcast. So yeah, he was very much like you not in terms of who he is, but the way he was thinking very systematically, very much about, you know, there's a process to do things, but when it came to the actual edit, I felt it was very like, robotical. And that's the problem with systems. Is that if you don't do if you is easy for systems to become soulless? Yes. And I felt I felt to a degree it was like it it wasn't getting what we were trying to do. And then the person that I came across, who is the person that edits our podcast right now. I didn't see his work. He had never edited a podcast before, but I don't even know if you knew that, but it's all on his website, but he's a photographer and he's done campaigns and stuff like that. And the way he's shot, I was like, he really embeds himself into his work. Like I can see that if he's like, OK, this is the project. He takes time to understand the project, so he edits in that way. And it's such a you'll see how the episodes are edited, including this one is so it's so smooth. There's no, like.  And yes, I just like, you know, I fell in love with his his editing, you know, but Claude was like, that's all great, but process. And I actually hear it. And we you know, we go we're trying to streamline that now and get to understand that with the editor now because we need process is so important still. Yes, it's lovely. He knows how to edit fantastic. But in order for us to make sure we're working to the best capability and that all of us in the team are not overstretched, including the editor, we need to put in process. So yeah, it's it's combining the two and you so amazingly are going to meet him soon. I think tomorrow and and yeah, he doesn't live in London, but yeah, it's it's yeah, that's why the two need to come together. It's yeah, that's why we work well, actually, you know, it's just like, actually, that's that's interesting, because you said you're bigger picture than I come and say direct. But I guess with when it comes to the creativity, I might be I might go into Oh, this is amazing. You're like, OK, this is great, but how does this work? Yeah, it's interchanged. It is. And it's it's really helpful. And I think that's why we do, like you say, work well, so well together in that context. And I think what was also really interesting about our editor and our decision was I did say this is who I want, but I'm going to trust you on this. And when he delivered the trailer for us, like, you know what? You made the record, I would say, like so talented, so talented. He is, yeah, but now we do now see the problems of a lack of process where sometimes sometimes I'm like upload and video, like literally minutes before it needs to go live or we're getting things like not all the times that we would like, etc. And I'm mindful of, like you said, it's not just about making my life easier or your life easier. But this goes back to the resources I spoke about as a leader. I need to make sure that he's not burning himself out and that he's having a great experience of this, too. Yeah. So yeah, we do care about that. You really do like you said to me that both of us have said that we probably could edit this whole this podcast and do all the functions ourselves. But, you know, specifically with me, you said, but I don't I actually just want you to focus on the actual content, the actual journalism, you know, bringing that in. Like I don't want you to be worrying about all this other stuff because it just it takes away from it. And that was actually one of the things that I really appreciated because in my previous in one of my previous jobs, actually, I got brought in to be quite a senior role to manage a team. And it was about editorial, like editorial really. Oh, gosh, am I going to get in trouble for it? Actually, I don't care. Anyway, so I was brought in to manage a team. And I think when I initially got the job, it was looked at like they they understood my ideas. They had seen my I don't like to showcase this, but have a YouTube channel that I did years ago. Anyway, they'd seen all of that, which I was like, what? You haven't found that.  Like, we really want you to just everything you think, just give it. But then the practicality of the job, they literally stripped it all that all away from me. And they're like, we don't actually care about what you think. And in fact, you've shown that you can edit stuff. You just edit. Oh, wow. You just do this. So, you know, yeah, we know that you can do. And I was like, that's not even my job. And so when you came, there was one day you said to me, I don't want you to do any of that. I want to focus. I want you to focus on what you're actually amazing at. Like what I mean, you're amazing at all these things. But this is the thing. This is your basically your bread and butter. Do it and do it to like with an excellence. And I want you to be free to do that. I was like, wow, Claude is actually seeing, you know, the things that I can do that you believing in it. And it really, it really, really appreciated that. And I think that's also it's just encouraging.  So it has it has helped. But I think even in that, like I've never even said I'm a word of affirmations person. But I think those type of things help for me to know that. Oh, OK, the person that is is paying paying me. Moola actually believes in me, not just says, oh, not just using, but actually, like, I want you to grow in this area and be the best. So a bit rumbled, but I really appreciate that. Smart pleasure. And you are doing a fantastic job. See, he always says that, even if even if I am not. No, I don't think you would do that. I think you would call me out. I'll tell you, I'll tell you where you can be better. But like as a whole, this, we wouldn't be here. Like this episode wouldn't be happening. Everything we've done before our editor, like, literally, there would be no podcast if he wasn't here. So I'm not saying that we can't get better because we will. We will. And the long game you've been talking about, which you've been encouraging me about, which I'm like, the long game has not been something I'm looking at the time. The long game where you post things and you're consistent, but you don't see you might not see exactly the results that you are looking for in that moment. Sometimes I can be like, oh, gosh, like, this is a really great episode. I really enjoyed this. Why is it not getting a certain amount of these?  I don't care. And it's just like it takes a lot of pressure, but it also encourages me to be better. But it's like that's not common. But again, you've said that you're not focusing on what, you know, like a new you're not a new entrepreneur. You're not new to this.  That's good. So, yeah, this is a marathon, 100 percent. This is a marathon, and that's my mentality towards it. So as I've said to you, and I don't mind even people at home hearing this, the whole first year of this podcast, in my mind, it's practice. It's our warm up front. It's we're getting used to this. We're building our systems. We're getting to understand each other. I'm learning how to even be a host because, yeah, when we look back at our very first episode, it's painful. Although when you get to see things, you're probably confused. You don't know what the first episode. It was Courtney and René was our first episode. And what you would have seen in the audience is like, oh, this is this is not bad. What I'd be sorry you had to do to turn that into a good episode for people to see was insane, and I generally felt sorry for you. But then when we look at the things that we've done since then, all the most recent things, my hosting has become significantly better. And I'm like, that's going to happen across the board. I'll become a better host. You'll become a better producer. Editors will get better. Our systems will get better. Our social media will get better. Like everything is going to get better. So I was very OK and still am very OK with if we get if we get a million views like in this first year, fantastic, if we get 100, it is all it is. But what matters to me is the consistency. Can we keep on going? Can we keep on getting better? Because if we put good enough content out there for long enough, then we're going to win this game. Yeah, I agreed. I think it's a great place to, I think, end today. Thank you. That was very, oh, we went in. Yeah. Yeah. If there's anything that we've mentioned in terms of any resources or any support around building a podcast, if you want some advice, please feel free to send us a message. We're happy to point you in the right direction. But yeah, until next time, until next time. If you'd like some more inspiration while you wait for the next new episode, then check out the recommendation above. Don't forget to follow us on social media and you can send us a question or dilemma that you'd like us to answer on the podcast. This is Club Williams, you've been watching Behind the Dreams and we look forward to seeing you at the next Dream Nation event.


Being able to concisely express your ideas while empowering people to listen and inspiring them to act is one of the most valuable commodities that we have to sell as people, both personally and professionally. However, so many people just resign themselves to be in the right way. I'm just not very good at this and that's the end of that. Well, how do we get people to change their minds about their communications skills? And what are the steps that they have to take in order to improve them?   It's very hard to deal with. However, it has taught me a lot of lessons. But even all of the lessons I've learned, it doesn't take away from the fact that I have trouble, you know, saying my name, that alone, you know, talking to people about something I'm passionate about or something that I'm just interested in and it has affected pretty much every area of my life, both my personal life as well as my professional one, and even though it is awful at times, I feel like I've learned a lot of practical lessons. So this talk is called How to Talk to Humans, and I think a basis of just talking to people is a conversation, right? And so we can all agree that a conversation is the exchange of ideas, right? So person A has an opinion about something and they want to tell person B, and then person B, you know, responds to it, and then they go hack and forth until they come to a resolution, and then the conversation is over, right? And so how we approach conversations is probably about the same way every time, you know, we think of the words that we would like to use, right? And we think about how we would like to feel how we want to sound and how we want the other person to feel and react, and what we want them to say, right? It's all about us, me, me, me, I, I, I. And that is the exact wrong way to approach a conversation. You have to be thinking about the other person, you know, how do they feel? What do they want to say? The focus has to be on them, right? So how do you make the focus on them? The first thing that you have to do is listen more when you talk. So this is me. I was around three years old. I know, I'm adorable. And this is around the age that my parents told me that I began to stutter, but it's actually pretty normal. A lot of kids who are around, you know, three years old, four years old, they develop some sort of speech impediment. Generally, it's stuttering. Occasionally, it's a little bit of a list. But after, you know, two or three years, it just goes away. And also, stuttering actually runs in my family. And pretty much everybody else has been away between the ages of about 10 and 20. And so, you know, we didn't really think anything of it because it was, you know, obviously, it was going to go away. Not quite, clearly. So as I got older, and as I went through life, and I get all of the major milestones, it became extremely clear that I was going to have to deal with this or as long as it wanted to stick around. And so, like a lot of others stutterers, I developed hoping the mechanisms in order to kind of deal with, a.k.a. avoid stuttering. Something that I did was I used a lot of filler words like ah and like and those things. I would also change words because I was about to come to a word that I thought I was going to stutter on. I was like, no, no, no. I don't want to embarrass myself. So I would think of another word. I actually know a person who was very, you know, just higher level thinking. And so he read the dictionary. So he could always have another word on hand. He's very impressive and clearly had a lot of time. He's also my boyfriend. So eventually I came to a place of like, hey, if I just don't talk a whole lot, I'm probably not going to stutter because I'm not talking. This is a great idea, except it's an awful idea because it either came off as I was either, you know, uninteresting or I was not interested in the other person. And oftentimes it looked a lot like, hello, goodbye, please don't talk to me. And it came off like this. And so, you know, I had to figure out a way to be an active part of the conversations I was in. And and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and not talk a whole lot. And so I began to ask people a lot of questions, right? I would just ask them things until we hit on a topic that they just, you know, loved talking about, right? And so I would do this time and time again. And a pattern of balance. I realized that these people actually like enjoy talking to me, right? And I think it's because I was choosing to, you know, actively listen to them and be, you know, interested in the things that they have to say. So all of us here, I would say, like all the millennials and Gen Y. I believe now there's a Gen Z, apparently. We all live in a sharing society, okay? As people, our brains are wired to connect and we just have a need to be exeptic, right? And so all of the Facebooks and Twitter and all of that stuff, it allows us to be able to share ourselves with other people with pretty minimal budget, right? So as I was talking to people and, you know, hearing all of the things they had to say, I was basically just taking the sharing society offline.  But yeah, it was. So how does that look for you? It's asking a lot of questions and being actually interested in the answers. And this does two things. It shows the other person that you are both interested in them. And it also shows that you are empathetic towards them. And empathy is a pretty important key in communication. So like a lot of others cutters, I have had my fair share of therapy experiences. I was in speech therapy when I was around eight or nine years old.  And then I returned to therapy again in my late 20s. I was a freelancer. And so I had to go out there and find my own clients. And I was just having a very difficult time talking to people. I was terrified to even, you know, have coffee with people and the networking events, because I was afraid that I would sound, you know, bad and that I would be judged. And so I sought out therapy as a way to kind of overcome tutter. And so I found a therapist who was around my age. I think she was only two years older than me. And she was also a tutterer. And I went to her and I was expecting to be able to just learn some techniques that would make it a lot easier for me to avoid tuttering. Again, clearly, that's not what happened. But what I did learn from her is how to be a lot more empathetic. I had been around others before. And every time I was, I was so uncomfortable that I would just leave the room. And I couldn't go back here.  And in the beginning, it was pretty awful that as time went on, it did get easier. And it also helped me to be a lot more empathetic towards her. And as a result, I was able to open up a lot more to her about the emotional side of tuttering and how it made me feel on a day to day basis. I do not believe that there is enough empathy in everyday communication. And that's a shame because empathy is the cornerstone of connecting with other people. Empathy creates the environment for other people to share the meaningful details about themselves with you. And the therapy experience that I have is a perfect example of that. Empathy also helps you to be able to open up to the other person who you were talking to. So I began to speak on about a year and a half ago. I had to hit myself out of my shell. I know that I have said this before, but I was truly just terrified to just talk to people. And so I'm the kind of person where if I was scared of something, I'm just going to do it. I don't know how to swim, so I'm going to jump in the deep end with the sharks. Why not? What could go wrong? And so I was pretty nervous the first time I spoke because I thought that the awful things I thought about myself, I thought that other people would think those things about me and that I would have to face that. Well, it turns out that people didn't judge me. They didn't even ask, they truly embraced me. And they wanted to share clear stories of fear and vulnerability and weakness with me. And I think that's because I was willing to tell my false story. I would give these talks and these talks are pretty exhausting for me. And so after the talk was over, I obviously emotionally drained because I'm showing all of these people the very painful parts of myself. And again, I was ready to just throw it out of the room because I'm done talking now so I'm going to be alone. But I couldn't do that. People would come up after talks and tell me the ways that they were flawed or the things that they were afraid to say or ashamed of or the things that they hid from. I showed my homework abilities. And as a result of that, they were empowered to show me theirs. And that's an important point. A lot of people in this sharing society, they only talk about the good things. They only talk about like, I got a promotion, I got a raise and I'm starting a new business. They don't talk about how it's terrifying to do those things. They don't talk about how hard it is to be an entrepreneur and how incredibly lonely it is. People don't identify with perfect. They identify with being flawed. Right? So your struggles and your insecurities, those are the things that make you incredibly interesting. And that's what people are going to take with them. And so how do you talk to humans? The key is this. It's being empathetic.  Thank you for that talk. I'm curious how in a business environment, how you would translate some of these points that you're making. Because I can see a lot of what you're saying in an overall context. With your co-workers or something like that, maybe in meetings or with other clients, do you feel like these same things translate or how would you shift it? Right. Okay. So the thing I like to tell people about this is that other people are constantly telling you how to talk to them. And so the main thing that you want to do is just pay attention to the cues that other people are giving you. So an example that I have is this. The easiest thing to do is to check out like body language. And there are endless head talks on this. The body language cues that I kind of go by is I really don't want to use this phrase. But anytime people are leaning in, and there I'm now, right? I'm up here, it's never ending. And their arms are a little bit more open and to the sides. They are just a lot more open and interested in things that they have to say. I know that eye contact is another thing.  And sometimes it can be taken as like, well, I'm not interested or I don't want to talk to you. And actually it's just, no, no, no, nerves. So those are those two things. In terms of just empathy, the easiest way is to just keep on asking people open-ended questions, right? You truly do just have to listen a lot more than you talk and then kind of allow them to take the conversation to a place where they are just incredibly like open and comfortable and are having a pretty easy time just talking to you. So those are my tips. Thank you. You mentioned that the best way to show someone you're interested is by being genuinely interested. What do you want to be interested in? Which you actually aren't. It depends on the situation. If you're in a personal situation, then I tell it out of there. But if you're in a more professional setting than hard as it is to believe and as hard as that is to practice, every single person has something that is extremely fascinating about them, right? And it's just about allowing the other person to just hit to a place of being comfortable enough to just keep talking to you. And if you allow them to talk enough about the things that they are interested in, then you can kind of control the conversation from there. It's a lot easier to get people to do the things that you want them to do when they feel like actually interested and then and to be actually interested in them, you have to allow them to talk first. I've seen on reality shows like people making American art and on the show, the people who have certain problems, if they sing or they speak like in the way of lyrics, they can speak better. So does it work for you? I mean, I am like Beyonce when it comes to singing in the car. I'm in the wrong career, too bad I can't say. I'm trying to speak like in the normal talk, you can say like just singing some lyrics and you can go fast. Yeah, that's not quite how it works. But they do like teach you things like how to speak in a way that makes you more sing-songy. The problem is that it kind of takes all the inflection and personality out and I would just much rather talk and see what happens. That's all. Give her a round of applause.