14 and the postseason conversations have really started to come to life here Who's in who's out who's clinched all those conversations are starting to mean just a little bit more And we'll talk about the numbers of the Falcons going to the playoffs a little bit later in the show But we've got a lot to talk about today lots of inactives lots of people in the trenches that will not be playing today And as we know that's where the games are won here in the NFL Thank you guys for joining us for the Falcons pregame show presented by taking master course on Taylor It was more Derek Rackley and like I say every week we have a lot to talk about yes We do maybe a little bit more this week as far as what's gonna happen on the field But as you mentioned we are in December and every single week now every game in the national football league is important But in December when you're sitting in a position to get into the postseason every single game and win is so important And it's so important this game in particular because if the Falcons win today Their chances of going to the playoffs are way higher than if they lose if they win today They have an 83 percent chance of making it to the playoffs if they don't win today They are in the 30s a 36 percent chance of making the playoffs if they win today as 85 percent chance I mean this is a huge deal at the division matchup and also looking further down the road to the playoffs Yeah, I mean we originally were talking about the Atlanta and Atlanta and the New Orleans Saints kind of going back and forth But the same thing could be said here with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Atlanta loses this game They're now in a tie with the Buccaneers as far as their divisional record They would lose the the head that while they'd be tied at the head to head at that moment But it's just look you just look at what how important this game is you win this game You're now looking at an 85 percent chance to go to the postseason and now 36 percent if you lose the game I mean it just shows how important these games are once you get into December Yeah, and I remember speaking to Jesse Bates earlier in the year about that post-buy How you find that snowball effect of winning a lot of these games He said we're lucky that all a lot of our division Matchups happen after the buy once we kind of get our footing again And as you can see the Falcons are in the lead of the NFC South right now Bucks are trailing by one game back Saints are two games back in the division They're they've only won one division game And then of course the Panthers only team and the NFL to be eliminated from the playoffs so far And to note the Saints are playing the Panthers today So if the Saints end up getting that victory improves them to six and seven I mean you got a log jam at the top of the NFC South That's why this victory is gonna be so important if Lana could come away with a victory again against the Buccaneers put themselves at seven and six They that's why they always say everything is under their own control right now their own destiny Right they continue to win and there's no way they get left out of the postseason But you start losing and then all of a sudden all the other opportunities all the other chances The Saints probably gonna be favored to win that game against Carolina today So you don't want to give them an opportunity to jump you with a loss So it's a very important divisional game the entire division playing each other this Sunday Exciting Sunday today for sure. So let's go ahead and talk about this Bucs matchup We've seen him once we beat him once we beat him down in Florida We're trying to get that second win and stay undefeated in the NFC South But what are you learning about this team this Tampa Bay Bucs team that has changed since last time we saw yeah So it's interesting that we're getting a chance to see Bijan Robinson right there because the first matchup Remember Bijan wasn't feeling well when he woke up on Sunday morning So I believe he got one carry in that game and he spent most of the game on the sidelines with his helmet on Just kind of watching the action we know that he's been one of the most explosive playmakers for the Atlanta Falcons on offense the entire year All things that I know is that he's healthy today Yeah And so that's a big difference maker as far as when you get him in the game plan and the fact that they can they know that They could put the football football in his hands whether that's running with the football It's catching it out of the backfield and maybe it's something that Tampa Yes, they have seen it on tape, but they haven't gone against it because we did play them earlier this year They didn't get a chance to face him so they don't necessarily know right off hand what his quickness is like what his top-end speed is like What his physicality is like when he goes in between the tackles and we've seen so many times this year Taylor Well, he's stuck a foot in the ground to make a defender miss on occasion after occasion after occasion Maybe we get a chance to see him do that against Tampa today because they didn't see him in the first matchup Exactly and you can watch all this tape from the other games when they're when he's going up against your defensive scheme It makes it a little bit different a little bit easier to study him as a running back But someone that they have been studying and someone that they didn't take advantage of but they Took advantage of the things that he did wrong was Desmond Rutter. He had three turnovers against Tampa in week seven and Desmond is hoping to turn things around today and really solidify his his name as a starting quarterback in the NFC South Yeah, I mean This is one of those tapes where not only is he gonna learn from as far as what how Tampa tried to attack him the last time It's he's also gonna learn from it to say I can't cough the football up like it happened last time Remember he had the touchdown. He was running into the end zone for a touchdown They got the ball knocked loose and ended up being a turnover I mean that's seven points that gets taken off the board Lana still wins the game 1613 But you think about the change then maybe maybe this is now a you know, 20 to 13 game That's not so needing a field goal at the end of the game to win it So so many things that Desmond Rutter this entire season has tried to learn from but when they turned on the tape Because I can tell you when you're playing a team for the second time a lot of your tape study during the week is what happened in the First matchup, how did the specific players that we are gonna play on Sunday? How did they attack what we did and then you try to figure out? Okay, what worked for us and how can we accentuate that it if it didn't work Let's not put it part of the game plan for this time and let's find some new wrinkles Just to show you how close of a game that was the last time when they played in week seven Atlanta comes away with the 1613 victory. Look at some of these numbers passing yards Separated by about 11 yards first downs basically the same third down very close time of possession Almost right on the nose and both teams with nine penalties in the game for around 60 65 yards That shows why this game was so close. These two teams played a very close matchup Which team can can provide the edge in this one? I can tell you this Tampa has not been running the football all that great this year Especially in the first matchup Atlanta was able to hold them to 73 yards rushing on 20 carries That's about 3.7 yards per carry, but here's the asterisk there Remember Baker may feel that a 31-yard run in that game that Factored into that 73 yards if there's a way that this defense can tighten up and not allow him to get one of those Explosive runs now that looks like a suffocating performance in the run game And we know that Atlanta strength on the offensive side of the ball is using the run game and the play-action pass off of it So that's the advantage and you hope that at home when you're able to communicate You're not having to fight the noise that they can have that good balance They can get Bijan Robinson Tyler algae are going in the run game It's gonna open up everything else in the passing game So you mentioned Baker me feel and I want to discuss him very briefly because he has a wide receiver one that he Uses a lot and he is on an enormous tear right now Mike Evans of course And he also has Chris Godwin two guys that are hard to cover Yep, Mike Evans has been one of the most dominant and I say dominant just because his stats continue to back it up And we'll talk a little bit more because I'm gonna give you a little bit of a secret It's gonna be part of my keys toward the end of the game, but he's just been so consistent This guy is always playing. He's always on the field and when he does he makes an impact So you look at Mike Evans what he does the last game he ended up having I believe it was six catches in that game He did score a touchdown, but he didn't take over the game But he is over a thousand yards again for his tenth straight season, which is extending his NFL record But he's only had three games believe it or not where he's had over a hundred yards receiving But all three of those games have been dominant like big time 162 143 and 171 and he scored touchdowns in all those games So he's obviously one of those big focal points that Baker may feel likes to get the ball in his hands Last time Atlanta played against Tampa Baker may feel through the football 42 times He's an aggressive down-the-field style quarterback So what that means to me is if I'm Jesse Bates if I'm the rest of the guys in the secondary There's gonna be opportunities for you to get turnovers to get your hands on the football And when that opportunity presents itself, you got to take advantage It might be only one to maybe three balls that end up in harm's way You have a chance to get your hands on it But you got to make the play and if they're not able to run it effectively like they haven't been They have no problem letting him throw it 40 to 45 times and when that happens You have more opportunities not only for turnovers But also for your pass rush to get after the quarterback and Atlanta's gonna have to take advantage of that exactly Jesse Bates has five Interceptions on this season so far. That's his career best. He's on a tear right now He's on track to have his career high in every single statistical category It's been really fun to watch Jesse Bates go to work But speaking of safeties and cornerbacks There are a lot of people that are inactive for both this Tampa Bay Buccaneers team and the Atlanta Falcons Let's just go ahead and get to those bucks in active list Obviously Jamal Dean will be out in Devon White huge misses as well as Vita Vaya as well Yeah I mean those are three starters on the defensive side and we've talked a lot about Vita Vaya on our Podcast during the week and sometimes on the pregame show here. This guy can be a problem I mean he's one of the better interior defensive linemen in the national football league so strong Had the ability to compress the pocket He's been dealing with the toe injury So he's gonna be out of this game Jamal Dean one of the starting corners is gonna be out Of course Devon White who plays opposite of LaVonte David at the inside linebacker position All three of those guys are defensive starters that are gonna be out Keshon Vaughan Also a backup running back gets into the rotation is not gonna be on the field But the fact that there's three really good Difference making defensive players that are not gonna be on the field again an area where Desmond Ritter in his offense I was gonna have to take advantage of those guys not being on the field Yeah, and Jamal Dean was the second had the second most tackles against the Falcons last or in week seven Excuse me, so that's a huge miss for Dean to be out today Let's go ahead and get to the Falcons and actives because this is where the story lies Jeff Acuda out Nate Lamman out Caleb McGarry out David on Yamada drew Dalman all these guys are starters for both the Offensive side of the ball and the defensive side of the ball. This is the most injuries We've seen on an injury report so far this season. Yeah We've been talking a lot about Taylor this entire season how Atlanta has kind of avoided the injury bug if you will They've been a pretty healthy team for the most part of the season But this is kind of the first week where you see all of these starters five out of the seven guys that are inactive are Regular starters for the Atlanta Falcons and of course being on the line is a scrimmage with Caleb McGarry and drew Dalman being out With David on Yamada out those are cause for concern if you're coaching staff Not to take anything away from the guys that are gonna be filling in But there's a reason that you have starters and there's a reason that you have backups in the national football league So I was telling you right before we came on the air is that this is where coaching comes into play Sometimes you have to work to your strengths and you have to minimize your weaknesses So don't be surprised if you see a little bit of a different Play calling structure from Arthur Smith on offense knowing that he's gonna be missing one of his tackles and his center Maybe he starts doing a little bit more rollout. Maybe he starts doing some more screen passes than what we're used to Maybe he ends up going to the left side on running plays more than he ends up going to the right He talked about in his press conference this week that they felt like they had a lot of confidence in Ryan Noozle Who's gonna be filling in there's a difference between having confidence on the practice field and then that actually happening in the game But the fact that again that I said for somebody like Ryan Noozle The fact that Vita Vaya is not gonna be playing in this game is Because he is a guy that after the snap can create some issues on the defensive line And then of course the secondary you go back to earlier in a week when you saw both AJ Terrell and Jeff Acuta on the injury report I was thinking oh goodness. This could be bad and Fortunately for the Falcons that AJ Terrell was able to clear a concussion protocol and he'll be back in there But they're gonna be without Jeff Acuta Falcons know how to do this Acuta was not there early on in the season So they're gonna have to play some different guys at the corner position But again, do one of those guys get matched up against Mike Evans one-on-one with a shot down the field You know that Baker Mayfield is gonna be looking for it He's gonna be finding where's AJ Terrell and what's my matchup on the other side and if it's Mike Evans That's where he's gonna try to take advantage So if you're one of the backup corners, you got to come in Trey Flowers Clark Phillips You got to know that Mayfield is a savvy veteran He's gonna find where you are and he's gonna try to take advantage of it because we know they like to press The ball down the field. So what happens?  We'll get to that in just a second But don't be don't make this be an excuse because we're missing Jeff Acuta because we're missing Nate Lamb and on the inside That the defense starts to give up some more plays. Don't worry about it. Step up and go out there and make place There's a reason why you're on the active roster You mentioned that next man up mentality and Ryan Nielsen the defensive coordinator for the Falcons has been really prideful about having that next man up Mentality in the locker room for the defense and that especially that defensive line in that interior there But for those guys that are out here are who here is who will probably and most likely will be stepping in for them for Jeff We'll probably be Trey Flowers He stepped in for him in the beginning of the season Obviously Clark Phillips came in last week for AJ Terrell did a fabulous job But Trey is only on that side with Jeff as well Nate Lamb and it will be will be out But Tay Davis will step in for him today Obviously Nate Lamb and came in after Troy Anderson was placed on IR so now Tay Davis has a chance He hasn't played since the Dolphins game down in Miami same with Ryan Newsel He was the center for the Miami game down there for the preseason game And he will be starting again for through Dalman It's interesting that you bring that up because I remember when Troy Anderson got hurt There was like some cause for concern there like late man late Nate Lamb and a guy that we haven't seen a whole lot Is gonna come in and fill in how is the inside linebacker position gonna work? I think if you've been watching the Atlanta Falcons over the past six or seven weeks You're gonna say guess what Nate Lamb and did a pretty darn good job And now the tables have been turned a little bit now we're thinking about okay How's it gonna go without having Nate Landman in the lineup? It's next man up Maybe this is Tay Davis's opportunity to come show the world that he is a very viable inside linebacker in the national football league Same could be said for Storm Norton likely gonna be filling in for Kayla McGarry. You got to go out there and perform It's where he's why you're on the roster, so there's no reason to make excuses here Yeah, maybe the coaches make some differences in play calling, but you still got to go out there and perform Yeah with Tay Davis and a lamb and remember back in preseason It was a big question mark with when cutting down those rosters Who was gonna get that second linebacker position between Nate and Tay obviously Nate won that position behind Troy Anderson But Tay was right there They were going tip for tat all preseason long and it was really fun to watch those two work and kind of compete with each other Tay Davis gets the get some reps today. Obviously with that start, but speaking of Tay Davis saying salty on D Let's go ahead and go the keys to the game presented by Wells Fargo. Go ahead I think we've said it twice already, but go ahead. Yeah, continue to stay salty on defense I think that's they've been the driving force the reason why the Atlanta Falcons have won their last two games or defense has been played great They have not allowed a touchdown over the last nine quarters And they have not allowed a touchdown in back-to-back games The only team in the national football league to be able to say that they have not allowed a touchdown in back-to-back games this year They've really embraced that bend, but don't break. There's been some games where they give up some explosive plays The Saints got a few of them. They got down in the red zone. What happened? They didn't break they got the stops that they needed to they force the field goals So stay salty on defense. We know that Baker Mayfield is gonna take some shots down feel We know he's gonna tuck it down and he's gonna run on occasion But make sure you make the plays and if they do get down in the red zone, stop them Force a field goal. Here's what I know if teams in the national football league don't score touchdowns You got a great chance to winning even if you have your struggles on offense So if we can continue that to three games without allowing a team to score a touchdown I think it gives them a great chance to win this game Yeah, and you mentioned been don't break and you mentioned the red zone That's been the biggest story coming out of Atlanta for the last two weeks in the last two weeks the Opposing team has gotten to the red zone six times five of those times was against was the Saints They got to the red zone five times But two of those times turns into turnovers by Jesse Bates and then last week against the Jets They only made it to the red zone one time So it's gonna be really fun to watch and see with all these inactives if they're gonna be able to bend and operate Yeah, it's one of those deals where you're gonna have to have your leaders step up Kayden Ellis is gonna have to step up Jesse Bates gonna have to step up Kaleas Campbell Not just as far as production, but just leadership making sure you've got all these new faces on the right page If they can do that They're still gonna have a great chance to be able to perform on the defensive side of the ball All right, so let's talk about defending that ball. What's our second key to the game today? Yeah, it's gonna be simple here someone other than Evans And what does that mean somebody other than Mike Evans needs to beat Atlanta on defense And I'm not saying that somebody needs to beat them because it could be nobody but just don't let it be Mike Evans We talked about what he's done already this year But again his 10th straight season of being over a thousand yards and that Extends his own NFL record again coming off a hundred and sixty-two yard game last week Against Carolina and think about this six of the 12 games this year. He's had double-digit targets, right? So they continue to go in his direction. They're gonna do it again today Just make sure that it's somebody other than Mike Evans You don't want to look up and this be a seven for one sixty two and two touchdowns for Mike Evans That's not gonna spell well for Atlanta I'll probably be a competition between AJ Terrell and Mike Evans today So be able to make sure to watch out for those two doing it out and duking it out all game long But with that with Mike Evans, obviously you have another wide receiver on the other side But then you have Richard White and he's running back for the same a baby back in your team And they've really spread the ball between the air and the ground and Richard has been there all season long and the last two games Have been season highs for them in terms of rushing the ball So it's gonna be interesting especially with David on your mana out in that rush game Breaking down a little bit for the defense. It's gonna be interesting. Yeah Tampa has not been able to punch the football into the end zone a lot this year via the run game That's one area that they've struggled. They got six rushing touchdowns this year five of them are from Rashad White But they're going up against an Atlanta defense. That's only given up for rushing touchdowns Which is tied for the best in the national football league along with the Baltimore Ravens So if they can continue that even if Tampa does get down into the red zone they get close to the goal line They've been pretty good about not letting running backs get into the end zone making somebody else beat them So we'll see if they can continue that again mentioned how Baker likes to air it out to Evans and to Godwin So what's the third and final key today? Continue to win the turnover margin made strides again against the New York Jets last week They won that turnover differential three to zero. They're now improved to minus three on the season Remember, this is a team that's been kind of living at minus eight minus seven minus six this year in a turnover margin But you got Tampa that comes into this matchup oddly enough at plus five in a turnover margin And they have 18 takeaways on defense. So what does that tell me? They've got some guys in the defensive side of the ball that can and have shown that they will take the football away If you give them opportunities not just interceptions, which they've got plenty of those But also forcing fumbles and finding ways to get the ball back to Baker Mayfield So winning the turnover margin obviously is both sides of the football It's Desmond Ritter and anybody that touches the ball to have ball security, but on defense find those opportunities We talked about it Baker Mayfield is going to take those chances Go get one of those when he takes a chance downfield or if it's Rashad White running the football Jesse Bates maybe comes in with another right hook come on knocks the football out Throughout this season. So find a way to win that turnover margin once again Yeah, it's gonna be an exciting game Those are your three keys of today's game in this divisional match at the last matchup against Tampa Bay this season Hopefully the Falcons can stay undefeated in this division, but guys there's so much happening behind us right now It's like almost distracting because Mercedes Benz stadium is the place to be to do you know, Atlanta United They do Atlanta Falcons. They do SEC championship was here. I'm still not over it I don't want to talk about it, but there's so much happening here all throughout the year And so they have to convert this field for MLS to NFL to NCAA regulation so much goes into it And I actually went down with their grounds crew to learn about the conversion of this field painting And I actually got to paint a little bit of it too. So go ahead take a look Hey guys I'll paint the field I'll get you to die out of the red if you're up for it I'll show you how to do it. I shall I shall I promise So I ever see all field prep for United or Falcons and Everything outside regarding landscape home to the backyard How's that perfect? Look, I'm I'm putting my job. I'm becoming grounds crew a few moments later. Yeah twist This is not my job guys. This is not my day job So how long on average bad park Does it take to paint this field for a game? We on an overnight we can get it down to eight ten hours But we'll have everybody running around doing a bunch of different things. I Told her she can part paint the heart of the falcons. Yeah, I gotta paint the heart. I can definitely Color within the line We're gonna give him a heart. It gave the falcon life. I gave him a heart I gave him the heart of it and a life to live so he's down there on the field right now as this was that was previously Right, that wasn't today. No, cuz I saw some crooked lines going on crooked here though The room right now right you can and is what the sea is part of that historic 1918 thank you so much for joining us We spent a lot of time together over the summer just recapping that whole season for you guys Obviously, they were brought it out a little bit So what are your favorite memories from 98 or just your time here as a falcon? I mean my time here is a falcon. I mean overall It was just amazing just coming in and you think about a house that Dion said that he You know built I just wanted to come in and just like maybe just keep it up paint work here or there and just pay my part because It's the city that love to be entertained and when I got here. That's the what I thought about I wasn't just thinking about myself and how I actually played I knew what the city actually needed. I just wanted to do my part But but more importantly, I think that the land being Atlanta falcon meant a lot and it actually helped me grow Ray it's interesting that you mentioned coming on the heels of Dion Sanders and what he brought to this organization with the Flare and the confidence it and should I reset confidence again? But when I came in in 2000 it seemed like that was kind of your role was was the guy that was gonna have fun Was gonna show the utmost confidence I mean, I remember some of the battles you had in practice just going up against our receivers Just talking mess to them and everything is that something that because you came into the league with the Colts Did you have that when you were with the Colts or did that start when you came here with Atlanta? I already actually had it You know it was already in me, you know since college But as I got to groom myself and getting more and more confident and study and prepare and know my body You know a lot of things that when you start studying the game the game was really 90% mental 10% physical I had the 10% physical downs just now a mental game But actually getting the clarity and we make the game slow down But to answer that question, you know big play Ray when they started to give me that name You know it did started Indianapolis and then leading into here. That's where it actually came But the guys that was on this actual team, you know, you think about the guys that I had to face Terrell Owens the Randy Mosses, you know, I can go down the list all these different Hall of Famers and planning I had to get it in practice first. So what you talking about? We held each other accountable in practice and I'm like, you know what? I don't want to go against the scout team guy right now. No parents. Mathis get over here, you know, Tony Martin get over here I need guys that's gonna prepare me to get ready for the game, but we held each other accountable That was something special about that 98 team you mentioned practice and we talked a lot about y'all's relationship with the head coach Dan Reed's and how he came in and just really set a new tone Can you speak to that a little bit about what was so special about Dan Reed's? Well, Dan came in you know with the mindset of knowing that he had to you know, you know, root the team out a little bit and bring in The guys that's not actually buying into his system. He brought in coaching staff I mean people in the upper management and then to the players bringing in a lot of veterans that knew the game You know that actually wanted to play for each other It wasn't a lot of individualism doing we had a lot of different characters out there But at the same time we had guys that played collectively So he was bringing in guys that fit their role that knew how to play as a family Dan Reed's was a family guy first, you know, and then you know, he was able to get things out of us And we were we didn't always need Dan to get on this He brought in guys that he knew that they was gonna hold each other accountable and we held each other accountable without sensitivity You know, so if a guy got on you then they got on you just got to take it But that's just the way Dan, you know made up the team and he was a big pivotal part of what we did You know, especially that year, right? We obviously know how the 98 season concluded But what were some of the biggest memories the things that if you're looking back at things now 25 years later You can look back and say that 98 season gosh I'll never forget that moment or that moment.  I just got to be honest with you 98 I mean championship we nobody gave us the odds to beat Minnesota I mean we were big-time underdogs going into that game Nobody really believed on the outside but people inside of that building knew what we had what we had to do and the matchups You know went, you know pretty complete during that game because the way the coaches did Rich Brooks did a real good job of setting things up You know defensive coordinator and then on the offense side of Baldam Reeves and them they actually hung in there And we were losing that the second half I mean the first half and that locker room speech we came out and played and everybody just stuck together Wasn't a lot of pointing fingers in that everybody's came in is do their job Yeah, I wanted to kind of talk about that game because Ray I ended up coming here as a rookie in 2000 but back in 98 I was at the University of Minnesota, and I'm literally across the river while you are playing that game As a Minnesotan at the time like you grow up and you're kind of a Minnesota Vikings fan just by default, right? Right, and you're right like everybody in Minnesota like I'll give you an example My parents got Super Bowl tickets like in the playoffs like not after they beat the Falcons But they everybody was getting their Super Bowl tickets because nobody thought that anybody was going to beat the Minnesota Vikings with What they did so how did that halftime speech change things for you to go out and win that game They've never been in the battle before they play one game that year against Miami. There was pretty tough That was the only game they actually had lost but pretty much everybody was beat They were beating up teams and then they can do what they want They had it was averaging 40-something plus our points a game and you know looking at the film was just like looking at Horflicks and I'm like nobody's challenging these guys, you know, they have never been in a dog fight So we figured if we can get these guys in the dog fight going in right before halftime And when we came back out in that third quarter, we they they look different They didn't have the same swag and going back to what you just been saying about how Disrespectful it felt for us, but you talking about, you know parents had Super Bowl tickets already We were getting here and we've seen t-shirts already, you know fans had t-shirts It's Super Bowl, you know, I you know that whole I mean when we got that we felt Disrespected like we didn't play the game played the game in these fans I'm like wait a minute. We didn't get here just by default. I mean 14 and 2 is something special Yeah, but y'all better put some spec They say spec on our name and we was so we really went out there and then really took it personal and they you know While we were standing on the podium, too This is a good piece to while we're standing on the podium holding up the tramp championship trophy not saying this Both for me, but here comes, you know guys like Chris Carter and Randy Moss and they were weeping They were like y'all y'all took this game from us when they took now we play we beat y'all Don't be a sore loser and I was like and these are Hall of Fame guys And I really knew how they actually felt because I've been there I've been on the AFC Championship team with with against Pittsburgh with the Indianapolis coach and Knowing about losing by a Hail Mary throw and looking at Pittsburgh go play the Dallas Cowboy Yeah, I knew what he felt right now because he's a great player They did everything right that year but win that game to go to the Super Bowl and you know So that was that's what made it that much that that's so special though You talk about Randy Moss crying I remember During when we did that sit-down interview that panel discussion which is on YouTube so go ahead and watch it if you haven't watched it yet It's really great We go through it like almost every single game of that season together But one of my favorite parts is when Jamal Anderson was saying that the producers handed him the trophy and he was like Wanted me to generate some tears That's me and that I am Absolutely, and he like ran around with the trophy, but this is your for you never played in this stadium This is never a play in the new stadium. Obviously. What brings you joyer kind of brings you back And what what are you excited about today to be back here as a dirty bird, you know I mean bringing everybody back collectively having seen guys some of these guys haven't seen for 20 some odd years So it's like that that part of it, you know getting the camaraderie together and then starting to talk about different moments You know with you know the X players and then showing love to each other saying, you know, I appreciate you Thank you for you know, you know that play that did you made or you know, thank you for being that teammate a lot of us You know just having seen each other was like a lot of emotional moments You know of everybody getting together, but now we get together in this particular time You know and then looking at what the Falcons are going through at the same time of winning You know these fans are just amazing like a lot of guys coming back in town and then having the opportunity to relate with them Like everybody didn't have an opportunity to do that They just sort of dispersed after they were gone But now that everybody's here to be celebrated and doing during a heated moment right now Especially during the heated battle with Atlanta Falcons going up against Tampa today It's just it's just the perfect setup perfect game And you know, I'm not gonna go into what I did doing the Super Bowl predicting anything But I know this this game is special for us as 98 and bringing in a lot of the legends being able to come and catch up with each other and You know hats off to Nicole, you know, that's actually putting everybody together She did a real good job of you know, cuz it's a lot of guys You got a lot of different characters a lot of you know Some guys are a little bit higher than others or what they would want But you know what they know what we mean by being pre Madonna sometime, but I made it so easy for them I'm so laid-back right. I'm just so cool and the Falcons Organization did a real good job awesome job of getting everybody together and everything from A to Z since Friday all the way up through Taylor you know things have changed a little bit when Ray says that he's been so easy. He's been so Remember this is big play Ray Play Ray wasn't just always chill and easy to deal with Ray was about come get some For like an entire day between him and Jamal it was just Chaos at points, but it was so fun to recap that season. Thank you for coming here and recapping it a little bit more On air but if you do want to watch that feature It's part one and part two of part one is regular season part two is the post season They're on YouTube now. Just go ahead and watch that. It's been so fun. Thank you so much for joining us for the pregame show We'll see you next week in the studio against Carolina Panthers back-to-back divisional matchups But today it's against the bucks. Let's see if the Falcons can stay undefeated in the division


My name is Ethan and I'm eight and I want to be a surgeon when I go up.  I have diabetes, you know, the pancreas inside of you. That stops giving you insulin and insulin is something that you need to be healthy. So I was diagnosed with diabetes type one and there's a type two and my dad has it. And I basically have to check my sugar. I have to change my pump every three days and then I have to like go see the doctor every... What is it? Three months? Yes, I do get to see Ethan every three months. Ethan really embodies everything I say to patients when they're first diagnosed. Which is yes, you have diabetes, you might be sick right now because you just got diagnosed. But my job and the reason why you're here is to make sure that you never get sick and have to be in the hospital ever again. It has been nothing but great things from Dr. Newton, nurse Sarah. They know him by his first name, they know what grade he's in, they know what he likes. I mean, everything. They made it a point of knowing Ethan and I couldn't ask for anything more. I mean, it's been spectacular from the very first appointment that was set.  When I say, you have a doctor's appointment Ethan, he's like, what doctor? I'm like, are we going to Baltimore? He's like, yes, I can't wait to see Dr. Newton and nurse Sarah. She gives me a check-up and she checks to see if I'm okay and I'm healthy. Surgeons have to cut open people and stuff, that's the girls part about it. But the good part about it is saving people's lives. I want to be an endocrinologist who makes a cure for diabetes and works as hard and doctor in it. I think he will be a wonderful physician, be it a surgeon or pediatric endocrinologist.


Hi, my name is Lalitha Ampipak. I'm a senior nurse at Gation Hill at IOM Bangkok, Thailand. I first joined with IOM since 2005. Until now, I'm working over more than 17 years. As a senior nurse, my responsibility goes beyond patient care. I coordinate and manage pre-migration health assessment activities, including the medical examination for refugees, resettlement to the third country. I work at IOM with belief that every human being has a fundamental right to housing, food, education, and healthcare. Unfortunately, migrants are denied access to these rights. Ensuring everyone has equal access to the health service. It's very important for me. The COVID pandemic has highlighted the many ways in which nurses are making an impact. Nurses are frontline nurses for COVID, lesbians, and recovery. We need more nurses to leadership role, and we can inspire them for the next generation to save lives. If you are a spilling nurse who wants to help the community beyond nationality, gender, or broader, let's work together. Happy International Nurses Day!


It's interesting a lot of the best practices that are used in product management. Well one, they're not consistently used within companies. So some of the things you're going to learn about product management, you might be going even further than your small startup if you're in one right now. You might be learning things that aren't consistently applied but have been found to be best practices across the organizations overall. And then what's interesting is when we apply a lot of those principles to our overall life, we end up getting better outcomes there as well. And we want to take advantage of that. So for me personally, my mission in life is to help teams and individuals get to their next level. And I do that via corporate training, consulting and coaching. And so again, I think I told you all this stuff. I talked about my, I talk about myself as being a personal accelerator. You too can come up with nifty little words to talk about what you do. So even if you go into product, you can be like, I'm a product genius whatever. But a lot of times when you think about what you do, like product is such a great area because you might have noticed it's very broad. Have you noticed this? Product management, does it mean the same thing everywhere? No. And so that's something to really understand for yourself when you want to go into product management or understand something about it. So it could be any of those things. And, you know, when I mentioned to you, I've done a lot of coaching, I've helped people like you get into six figure incomes, making 60, 50% more than they made before, if not more, and also achieve a work-life balance. I'm curious, how many of you right now feel like you have work-life balance today? It's an astoundingly small number. So something to consider.  I don't need balance. But for others, you might be craving it. But for me personally, I found that to be really essential over the years, which might sound ironic given I worked at Amazon. But, you know, eventually you will be able to get there. And I studied cognitive science and computer science, which is all about people and machines. And I think that's part of what led me to product because I wanted to understand enough technology so that I could use it to live a better life. And that is the approach that I personally take to product is that the whole point of it, especially when we're doing digital product management, is not just to build cool stuff. So that's also awesome. But it's to build something that's useful, that's solving a problem that's meeting a human need. And so that's the approach that I take and that I recommend people take. So by the end of tonight, you will be able to start applying best practices for product management to your career and your overall life. You will have some specific ideas on how to actually become a product manager. And with all of that, you also want to better understand influence, which is one of the key attributes needed of product managers so that you can focus on the areas of highest impact, highest return on investment. So some inspiration from product management. Vision. Having a vision is key to creating a great product, create a great company, creating a great business. I want all of you to take a minute right now.  Go with me here. I can see you.  And I want you to imagine a year from now for your own life for that vision. What is it? What is it that you desire? We talked a bit about some of you want to be product managers. Some of you will just want to know more. What is that perfect life that you have a year from now? What are the attributes of the job that you are in? Do you have an amazing manager? Do you get to go home at 5 p.m.? Maybe you don't care about that. You just want to build the next coolest, biggest thing and you want to be in a company that set up to IPO.  Where are you living? Are you traveling? What are you doing overall? So now that you've taken a minute to think a bit about that, I want you to share with a partner some of the main highlights of what you expect your life to look like in a year. So each of you share for about a minute each, what are you aiming to achieve and be in a year from now? It's interesting. I was just talking this morning with one of the folks in my mastermind and she's a high level manager in a company where they're doing an offsite and she was talking about how they met and or exceeded all of their goals from last year. And so now they're in the midst of goal planning for 2018. And one of the things I said to her was, okay, well, I want you to reflect on that and reflect back to the team. One of the reasons why goal-setting and vision-setting is so important is because that's what y'all actually do. If you met or and or exceeded your goals from last year, that's the stuff you committed to. So what that means is what you're committing to now is going to be that year from now, what y'all are talking about as far as like, yeah, that's what we did. If you don't set that, then you end up meandering all around and you might not ever get to the place you truly want to go. So vision is really important and it's both in that corporate context, like I was just talking about as well and like as well as you all were craving in terms of vision-setting in those companies and as well as in your own life. So do you keep that in mind? Goal-setting overall. Now vision is like that higher level, right? That larger level, what you want to achieve. Maybe you want to move the business in a dramatic way. You want to start a company. You want to get this product manager job. You want to, I don't know, can someone think of an example of a high level vision in a company maybe you want to work at? Go green? Yeah, that's definitely something that's at that level for sure. Anyone else? You're like, I want vision, this is driven companies, but I have no idea what they're driving us toward. So I would say like that's the thing. So vision is generally not going to be the like grow the product to 50 million. That's going to be more the goal-setting. So the vision is going to be like take the world, you know, bring the world's information to everyone and make it organized. And then within that it's going to be like, and I want to grow search by 30% next year. And I want to like grow ads by 50% or a million percent because of Google or whatever. Right? But it's that kind of thing where as you get to those more concrete, like we're climbing up this ladder, we're figuring out, these are basically means goals. And these are end goals. So this is like the overall end, the overall experience we want our clients to be having, want our customers to be having, want to like bring to the problems we want to solve as a group, as a company, as a product. And then here is more like the how, getting into, okay, so I'm going to add these features. I'm going to grow this particular part. And you know, in life, obviously some of those goal-setting things, I want to have a house, I want to have a family, I want to, all of those things are concrete goals that you can set for yourself. And again, you want to, you want to ideally do both of these things because you want to make sure whatever concrete goal you're aiming for adds up to what you want. I was listening to something recently where the, the title on the video is like very provocative, like goal-setting is stupid, right? And it was like, you know, like obviously you have to click and see what's being talked about. And the reality of the video is more like, goal-setting is traditionally done in the Western world is very, you know, it's like, it's sort of like, okay, like very caveated, right? You probably still need to set goals. But one of the examples this guy used, he said, well, look, a lot of people, when they're in high school, they want to get good grades. Why? So that they can go to a good college and then they want to do well there. Why? So they could go to law school and you're like, oh, you were like, I don't know why you'd want to do that. But anyway, for those people who want to go to law school, they're like, okay, why do you want to go to law school? Because I want to be a lawyer. And then he says, oh, NPS 50% of lawyers are super depressed. And so then, you know, so in that case, right, if you're just like, okay, I want to do well, because the next thing, because the next thing, because the next thing, but then you're like, wait, what was I actually aiming for? Oh, did I want like a nice life with a nice home where I actually wasn't depressed? Maybe it's a 5050 shot with law. Maybe I should pick something else. But again, so you want to have both of those things in mind when you're setting your vision, when you're setting your goals. And so thinking about even 2018, when you're planning for that next year, what are the things, what's the way in which you're thinking about it today? Is it, you know, okay, high level, this is what I want. And here's the specific things I'm going to do to get there. You might be on either side of that, you might be more high level, you might be more concrete, make sure that you cover both. And I think that's also true when you're working in a corporation, you want to make sure that we understand the high level goal. How many of you have been on a project where you're like, I'm doing it because my boss told me to do it? Okay. And in those cases, is that rewarding and amazing and fun? Fun? Not usually. So the thing is, in those cases, if you actually knew the purpose, the higher level purpose, have you been on projects where it's more mission driven? How were those? Great. And why do you think it was easier? Yeah. Well, I love it. So he also wants the mission driven company. So he's like, passion, passion, passion. I want the mission. That's what's going to drive him. You all are going to have different things that drive you. But this is true. I mean, this is a huge effect. Just having meaning, mission can be meaning, vision can be meaning. Now that also said, if I have a very concrete task that's super hard, how do I come up with alternatives if I don't know the overall mission?  And they're like, actually, I just wanted to, I don't know, I don't know the alternative. I'm like, oh, that didn't go well. But I'm like, you know, but really it's like all we wanted to do was like get a rock sample from there or something. It's like, oh, maybe I don't need to put a man's ship up. Maybe I can just like do something else. I mean, if you know the overall thing you're aiming for, you're setting constraints, you're setting boundaries, and that's where creativity really starts to happen. So I have like a more naughty way of saying GTD. So basically it's funny. I know how many of you are familiar with getting things done. So a few of you. So there's like a methodology, it's Covey, right? I think it's Covey. It does GTD. But or David Allen, I'm sorry, David Allen does getting things done. And that methodology is if you have a two minute task, then just do it. Don't put it on the list. But if you've got something longer, put it on list, organize it, and then figure it out a later time and group things in a certain way to make it easier.  Figure out like who you can leverage, what you can leverage, what tools, what methods, just, you know, and of course GTD, you can use that as part of your methodology. But you want to make sure that you know what is all the, what are all the tactical things you need to do to get to those goals.  And if you're, I will say if you're planning, how many of you are in small companies right now? Okay. And do you, do you know, is your company planning to out execute someone? Sort of. I will say it's very dangerous in small companies to plan that to out execute people, right?  You want to have something competitive that's going to say, okay, we've got this new idea, we've got this new market, we've got this new way of approaching things. Out executing you can do, but you've got to, you've got to have like the manpower to really do it. If someone just has more ability to execute, then it's not going to be in a good place. So you want to be organized enough so that you're able to execute on all of these vision, all of these goals that you have. And the other thing, testing and learning. In a sense, I feel like this is the most important part of you managing your businesses, your products and your life. You're all likely familiar with agile, how many of you are familiar with agile as methodology? Okay.  So agile is really this methodology that says, I'm going to build the minimal amount of products often referred to as minimum viable products. I'm going to build a minimal product to test out my ideas. So a lot of times this could be just drawing on, you know, these little cards.  And I'm going to see when I show you this thing and say, okay, what button would you click? And you're like, I would close the app. And you're like, oh, okay, that's cool. Maybe I shouldn't build it. And like, and you know, then you find out, okay, what did they really want? Kind of dig in, understand the needs better. That's a form of testing. Now, the reason why you see a trailer up here is because one of my good friends was telling me how she had this vision of owning a trailer and like going off grid with a great internet connection because hello, we're in the industry. So she wanted to go, you know, into nature with this trailer and had this vision of like this awesome thing. And I said, okay, awesome. She's like the trailers, like 30 grand, like, uh-huh. And I'm like, have you ever been in one of these trailers? No. Have you ever been camping? Eh, maybe. So I'm like, wait, I think we should test out something before we go trailer shopping. I think we should maybe rent a trailer, go camping once in it. See, you know, maybe you see, oh, the amenities aren't that great in this trailer, this very expensive trailer that's now probably parked outside in a driveway because you don't know what to do with it, but you don't want to camp because that kind of sucks. So this is the kind of thing that we want to avoid. We want to avoid making large investments in things that we don't yet know. We don't know yet does this work. We don't know if that app works yet. So we want to test it out before we spend, you know, thousands or millions in building it. Similar to here, we don't want to just go all in on a 30,000, you know, price tag trailer. We want to maybe like Airbnb that stuff, right? Try it out for a bit, see if we like it, and then move on from there. So I want you to think about with the vision that you shared earlier this evening, what is one way in which you can test something that you're aiming for? What is something that you're like, it's pretty costly to change jobs. How do I test out whether I really want to do the thing I think I want to do? How do I test out, you know, wanting to move somewhere, whatever it is, something that you have as a goal you think is part of your vision that you might not be 100% sure. You're like, I think it's what I want, but I don't know. So I want you to take one minute and share with each other what's the thing you think you need to test or need to experiment, get a little more info on, and come up with some idea on how you would test it or maybe your partner can come up with something. If you're stuck, you're like, I think I need to figure this out a little more. I'm not sure how to do it yet. Work together and come up with one thing that you want to test, one way that you can test it. And one of the things that we were talking about, do you want to share about what you were thinking in terms of the I want to go here and then I want to go there, etc? Sure. So I can share. I've currently always been sales and account management. I'm very interested in getting into product management. And right now, I'm looking for opportunities in project management, because I thought that would be a good transition. And now I'm learning that that might just create extra steps in the process. And if I can take these small steps to go towards product management, that would make more sense instead of kind of going the roundabout way. And it could. I mean, and again, there's no one like obviously as talking for like two minutes is not quite sufficient information to say, yes, this is definitely the plan. Update it now. Right. Like there might be a little more to figure out, but be careful because and thank you so much for sharing because the thing is what she just described, you all have done at some point, like everybody has done it at least once in their lives where they're like, well, I just need to take this class in order to do that one in order to get this thing in order to do that. And then five years later, maybe I'll have a life that I like.  And it's kind of like that law school example that we talked about, right? I'm going to get the good grades to go to a good college that I'm going to get good grades in college to go to the good law school, then I'm going to do that. Now the thing is, and I do want to highlight this for all of you in law, despite the show, for those of you who have watched it, despite that you actually do need to go and get a degree in law. And then you need to pass the bar and it is like a very specific process in order to be a proper lawyer. And that's just how that industry works. Now for product management, that is not the case. It is not a clear shot is not one pass in order to get into product management. To use myself as an example, I was initially an engineer at Amazon. I switched into product management while there. And then fast forward, you know, however many years later, I now train Fortune 500 companies in how to be better product managers. I have, I have taught programs where people get certified in product management based on the things I'm teaching them. And yet irony, I was never certified. I just learned it, did it, did it well, and then that translated into all of this. So this is something to understand this industry works very differently. And you can take advantage of that. Now I'm not saying therefore, you know, you're like, I'm 16 want to be a product manager sounds like a plan, right? There there will be steps to this process. But be careful about whether or not you yourself are adding more hurdles as opposed to just straight going for the goal. Anyone else have something they want to share in terms of your chat or any questions on what you might want to experiment or how? Yeah, it's not a step away, but it may just be an additional step. So I mean, it is definitely the case that a lot of people in product management came out of project management that they do a lot of project management, that is for sure the case. So I understand the logic. What I'm saying is it may not be necessary, or you might be able to find a role that's like project slash product manager, like where it's already kind of both, depending on the company, where it's instead of saying, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fight to get in here in a new position that I haven't done before. And then when I'm there, I'm gonna fight to get in another position that I haven't done before. It's just more steps. And so again, it could be the path, could be even how it works out. But I will say, if she doesn't aim directly for product management now, no one's gonna say, I know you keep saying project management, but I heard that you really want product. So here's all the product jobs.  Yeah. Now I just wait, I just want to pause a second. You're like, I'm just an engineer. Do you want to CIA that or you want to share what company it is? Anyway, okay. All right. And got it. Sure. Product. Got it. Okay. All right. Got it. Okay. So I'm gonna address a few things. And if you want to talk after, that's fine too. Be careful about limiting beliefs, because whatever limiting beliefs you have, they come out in your language. You're like, I am just an engineer.  Now the thing is coming out of engineering, especially if you're going into a technical product management position. I would never say just an engineer. I would say, I'm an amazing engineer and I know all about technology and that's going to make me a better product person and here's the ways in which I contribute to products during my engineering experiences because we don't have product managers because apparently we suck at that or whatever the case is. Okay. Don't say that last part. But anyway, the other thing to understand, like to give you all some context. So obviously, you know, I did product at Google. I did like the engineering and then product at Amazon. And then we will question later what set of thinking led me to this conclusion. But when I went to Google, I was like, I wanted you engineering at Google. I was like, they only value engineers. I'm going to be an engineer again. And I was like, study, study, study, try to be able to pass the engineering interviews, like after like a year or two of doing products. So I did that I did engineering at Google. And then I was like, oh, right, but I still love products. So then switch back again. Now, in the product org at Google, they are more stringent about your computer science backgrounds than the engineering organization. So I had already been an engineer at Google getting positive reviews for a year and a half. And I was asked to provide my transcript from Dartmouth, showing all of my grades in the classes that I took to showcase how much like engineering and computer science background I had. So with that in mind, partly why I share that with you is because your engineering experience is an asset, not a liability in this case, especially, I mean, I'm assuming you're looking at product management jobs in the digital space. Yeah. Okay. And now the other thing is as far as what you have done and how you showcase it, there's going to be there's going to be a question of, you know, how do you talk about what you've done? If you have done something that can be construed as product management work, how do you talk about that? Because most of you, for those of you who are like, I want to go into product management, most of you do not technically have that title right now. But generally people come to this conclusion based on a set of experiences. Product management is a very broad field. So, you know, if you're doing project management, like we were talking about up here, project management is part of the product world. Say, you know, well, this is what I've done. It wasn't technically with that title, but here are the things that I've done within the product org and within the product realm. So I know you're going to just think on that, empathy and connection. Again, think about this as we're talking about the stuff. All right. So empathy and connection is really at the heart of product. Understanding people is so critical because you're building products for people. So you need to understand what they want.  Have you done this? Yeah, like, don't be afraid. I told, I did it on purpose. I was like, I don't think it's going to go well, but I'm going to try it anyway, just to see. And I know a handful of you have. I was sitting down with the admin, I was working on DoubleClick at the time, Google's ad serving system for all like the picture ads on the web. DoubleClick basically served most of them up. And so YouTube uses DoubleClick to serve their ad. And I was talking to the guy who administered the YouTube interface at the time. And he was onboarding all the new users. Now, the new user flow at that point, you would like make a new user. And there were 500 checkboxes that you had to either check or uncheck in order to configure a new user on the system. You might think I'm joking. No, I counted 500 plus checkboxes for new users. And they were really great. They had interdependencies that you couldn't tell what they were. They had text that would say in parentheses, do not uncheck. They would say things like, here's the AOL hack. It was great. So it's an awesome, awesome system. And I'm looking at this. I'm like, oh my God, I have to redo all of this. Cool. Got it. So then I asked the guy who's the admin, I say, okay, you've been doing this awhile. And what would you like to see? And he sits there, stares at it. He says, you see this line? Yeah. He says, I think it should say X-Wavy. I'm like, so you would copy edit 500 checkboxes. You would copy edit each line describing the 500 checkboxes so that they were a little more clear when you had to decide which ones to check. Like obviously, that is not what this guy wanted. He wanted to go in. He wanted to see if a salesperson said I needed to see this report. He wanted to be able to go in, say, check a box. Now you see it. Great. Goodbye. I'm out of the system. But he is not a product person. He is not a designer. He doesn't do that. So I need to be able to connect with him. I need to be able to understand what does he actually need? What does he actually want? What are the frustrations when he's going into that product? The frustration, yes, in parts. The copy editing of do not uncheck. Great. Pull the box out of here. Why is it here? But he is not going to make that product awesome. He needs to achieve certain goals. And I'm only going to get to understand those if I can truly empathize with where he's coming from. I'll just say Pia, since you're coming out of sales, you're like, hello, empathy connection. That's what I did all day. So again, think about those things because that's the kind of stuff when you're looking to transition, those are the things you're going to talk about. Understanding people. Yes, that was my job for X number of years. And this is how I do it. And this is how I become close with them. And this is how I get them to tell me the real deal of what they want. And then that's going to lead us to build better products together. All right. So some of the tactics of product management. Product is this trio of business design and technology. Again, assuming not the serial box version, but the more technical version that I think most of you are after. And product is at the heart of this. Now part of the thing that's really interesting about that is to be more rooted in any of these places. You might be coming from more of that technical background, more of the business, more of the design, maybe a little bit of each. But regardless of whichever one has been initially your home, you can use it to route a path into the center where you say, because I have this deep expertise in this one area, I'm bringing a better base there that I can utilize in the overall picture of product. Now at large, if we look in the sort of back out to understand that a little better, in the team perspective, you end up as a product person working with everybody. And everybody comes with their own things, their own interests, their own values, their own goals. So you've got kind of your deciders. You've got your C level folks. You've got your investors. You've got your customers. You've got your partners. These are all folks that can kind of decide things. A lot of them can decide you don't get any money. We're not buying your product. We're not funding your thing. Or of course the converse, or we want to super invest in you. We want to make this grow even more. You've got the builders. That's going to be the folks in product as well, but also designers, engineering, copywriting, social management, all of that, maybe fabricating even depending on the kinds of products you're working on. You've got the sellers, biz dev, marketing, sales, copywriting is really in between. Like all of this stuff kind of touches each other. And then your support steps. You've got admin, recruiting, shipping, HR, legal, all of these different folks who you're working with. And I will say someone from legal is going to look at your product very differently from your customer. So this is the thing that you really need to understand. What is everybody thinking? Where are they coming from? As another example, I always use this example of when I talk to someone who's doing QA versus product versus engineering, the way I'm going to talk about what matters on the project we're working on is very different. With a QA person, I'm going to talk about needs to be best in class, highest quality, needs to be whatever, have very few bugs. I'd be like, right. Of course, we always want zero. There's always more anyway. But that's the kind of stuff we're going to talk about versus for product. I'm like, we're going to make so much money. It's going to be great. We're going to grow this market and we're going to solve these problems. And it's going to really impact the world in all these ways. And with engineers, I need to often talk with them about how complex it is. And no one's ever done it before. And we need to uproot the database and put it on end and make it feelable in these ways that no one's even thought about in the history. I want to hear from one of you. When I say story, what does that bring to mind? Yeah, that's definitely part of it. For sure. Who are you? What do you want? Why do you want it? Do you think that you get very far in life without? Oh, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So we've got why, what, who. So, and this is part of, this goes back to really empathy. When a client just says, I need X, Y, Z. I need a button that's pink and it does this and it's a checkbox and it's this and it's that. And then you just say, oh, okay. I don't know why, but I'll just do it. And you deliver it. Turns out you spend a lot of time working on something nobody cares about. So if you don't understand the why, the what, the how, the who, if you don't understand these things, you're going to go down a very bad path. It's going to be very long. It's going to be kind of depressing when you're like, I did a lot of work and they're like, well, nobody cares. So this is what product is all about. Product is really about making sure that the thing that you're working on is something that matters at the end of the day. Okay. So with all that coming back to story, the who, the what, the why, the how, you know, you think you're kind of clueing into like it's all the question words and you need to be able to answer them, but you've all talked a lot about it in the context of a company, understanding the mission of the company, understanding maybe where a product is going to go, what's the target market, etc. All of that is true. But I want to also ask you what does this mean? And this is partly what you were starting to say for each of you individually. Because I will say with a company, you don't as an individual have as much control over the story, right? You don't necessarily determine what the mission is and then how it connects. So ideally, you can tell a story that does connect them. And if you can't, something needs to shift. If you have a mission at the company and you have the product you're working on and you're like, these two bear no relationship to each other, then you're going to want to investigate what's going on there. But I will say for each of you individually, you have complete control over your story. And so one of the things that's especially critical when you're thinking about transitioning into product management, the question that came up with you, right? You've got interviewers asking you, so what have you done in product management? What have you done in program management? And this is where your story is critical. You need to be able to tell the story that is both true. Okay. So I do want to emphasize this is not like story fiction. I don't know. I'm going to say whatever I want. And I like all of a sudden Tesla's in my backyard. You know, you need to tell a true story, but the framing really matters. The context that you use really matters. And it could be the thing that makes or breaks, whether or not you end up getting that position. I will tell you also the stories that you tell yourself are the stories you tell others. Talking to a client today, but I've had this conversation like a bajillion times and that's totally a number.  It's really annoying.  Like if that was coming off, that's not going to, that's not going to go well in those meetings. And they're like, no, they don't know it. I don't tell them that. Of course, I just great. We're all professional. The things you believe, the things that you repetitively tell yourself, whatever they are, they are coming out of you. They are leaking out. The secret is out.  Like everything that you're like, nobody knows. Everybody knows. They might not be telling you, but they all know it. So this is really where story becomes critical.  And then that is the thing that's going to get you or not get you to your next phase and next step. I can relate to that story. I think when you've been in a role for so long, you think that's all that I know. That's all I know. And you can kind of be a little bit too. Oh, I just did sales. No, this was really valuable. Yeah. So there are many ways to deal with this. And I'm going to tell you, I cannot go over all of them right here today. But one thing that you can do is one of many methods. It's a little bit cliched, but it's a cliche that you probably haven't actually done.  If you think about what you've done is like your best friend. Like you're talking to your best friend, you're describing what they do. And if you kind of make yourself the third party and you're like, this is a friend that I super care about and they want to like get into product management and they did sales, like how would I describe what they did? And even like write down or like record what you're saying, right? I just did blah, blah, blah, right? And then you're like, if your best friend was saying that, you'd be like, what do you mean just did? You worked your butt off for five years for 10 years, like learning all the technology, learning all the sales structures, learning how to pitch people, learning how to emphasize with them, you know, getting into all of that.   I don't even want, right?   Like that's just, it just happened. So that's the kind of thing that again, you could do that. The other thing that is also really good that I recommend, ask some of the people who are big in your life, like your friends, your family, but the ones you like, ask them and colleagues who know you really well and ask them for three words to describe you. So what are the three main words that come to mind and say you could say anything? Now again, the nice people, that's what we're only talking to them, right? So like, so the nice people, they're only going to tell you good things. So this isn't going to be the like discovery of, oh crap, I have that problem. But it's going to help you see what are the themes that are coming across. And it's always fascinating to see the things that are always repeated. There are themes to you. There are things that are still ingrained in you that you might not see them, but the folks who you're closest with, they're going to come up with words that are very similar, not the same. And so you can use that as a barometer as well. Alright, specialists versus generalists. So this keeps coming up with people that I'm talking to. So I want to highlight it here. A lot of folks I'm talking to, especially in the product phase, they talk a lot about being generalists. They're like, I don't know, I do a lot of things, like I'm good at a lot of stuff, but I don't know. Some people feel like they're more specialized and they're trying to get more general. So of late, I've heard it more the other way around. I'm curious, how many of you feel like you're specialists right now? Okay, and how many of you feel like you're generalist? Okay, so that is basically the conversations I have. You just did like the 80-20 on that, and that's basically the case. 80% or around there is basically I'm a generalist. I don't know. And then some are feeling like they're more specialist. I will tell you that the key, and the thing that I always, always, always recommend when I'm working with folks who want to get in a product is having goals. But that doesn't mean like let's go to law school forever and be depressed at the end. Like that is not what I'm saying. What I'm talking about is, is what is that thing that if the group is working on something, if you're working on a product, it's the area that you could jump in and participate in. That you are like, this is the thing that I know. Something likely that you already did. So here up here, you're like, I could sell things, whatever. We need that. Great. I can jump on in. What is that core that you're coming from? I've done a lot of engineering. I've done a lot of things in personalization and search. So if I'm working on a personalization and search product, I'm like, put me in coach. We got this. So that's the kind of stuff that you want to have a bit of specialization and then also have that rounded filter that you can work with all of those different individuals. Yeah. So I would say specialist is like some amount of niche, but not too much. Like so, you know, copywriting, marketing, sales, like engineering, something that, and it might even be more specific, but something that if, if like we had a need there, you could just jump on in. You don't need to like learn a lot about it. You could just do it. And then generalist is really that ability to work with all those folks that builders, the, you know, the deciders, all of those folks. That's where your generalist skills come in. Yeah. All right. I'm just going to keep going right now. I know, like, because I know I'm like, oh, yeah, I know. I know. I see you. I see you. All right. If you want to switch, like into product, I will say try to go internally first if you can. Otherwise, go outside. It's always a little easier to switch of roles that you're playing in a context where you've already built up a lot of street cred. So ideally, I would recommend starting there. Facional programs, going to smaller companies, like associate product manager programs, these are all ways to kind of infiltrate the field in a way that's built for it, as opposed to go to bigger, but again, any of them can work. And the rich, facial programs like the associate product manager programs tend to be at those bigger companies like Google. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.  That could be, you know, again, depending on your background and what you do, like any of these things can be a foray into the field. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to say, like some of the things when you're getting really specific for you, like we should probably take offline, but I will say in general, as you're navigating like this unknown path, networking is one of the most critical ways of connecting with people and finding opportunities. And the more your path is not traditional, the more talking to people is going to get you there. So like an associate product manager program, when you're like two years out of school, and you went to like the feeder schools into Google and things like that. And you're like, all right, great. Like I want to do this thing that's designed for new grads who've gone to these kinds of schools, et cetera. Great. That's like a path that's already defined. And if you kind of fit it, then you can go those normal routes. But the more it's like diverging from the, we have a whole structure to put you in there, then you're going to need to do more networking and more sort of creative approaches to getting a position. All right. I'm going to just keep going. You guys, if you have other questions, like I will be around after, but I'm going to quickly go through art of influence. So control. We all want it. Some of us think we have it. Others of us are older and have been through some things and seen some things. But at the end of the day, we often think we have a lot more control than we actually have. And so we want to understand where do we have no minimal some and, you know, more zero, the weather, like we can barely even tell what's happening, let alone control what's happening. So that's where we have no influence over that minimal. So like recycling, you know, you can recycle one thing here that's not necessarily going to save the whole planet and like change everything, but it's a contribution to a cause. Some control for your health, right? You can eat well, you can exercise. Still things can happen, but your control over that is much larger. So if you're eating really poorly, the correlation is that you do worse in health. And if you're not exercising at all, again, you tend to do worse versus if you're eating well and doing better. That said, sometimes you get hit by a truck like, I don't know. So you don't have total control over this, but you can take steps to make the probability higher that you will do well in your health. And then as far as the most control, it's really over yourself internally. So again, that some of the things that we started talking about some of the limiting beliefs, the things that we repeat to ourselves, we can control what are we saying? I mean, we might need some guidance on how to do that. What are the things we should be saying? But those are the kinds of things we can control. Even with our emotions, we can't control that we're having an emotion right now, like just have it, don't fight it. The more you fight it, the more it'll persist. But you can over time, as you kind of think about and feel and explore, like why are you feeling that way exploring your language, you can influence that as well. So this is where we have the most control today. I told you that we were going to use product management practices to improve your career and your life overall, that we would understand how to navigate the realm of product management at a high level. And we would understand where to focus to be able to proceed so that we can get beyond fear that we might have, right? Maybe we're afraid, like what do we do next? But it's like, wait, we have control over ourselves. We can control our story. We can control what we say both to ourselves and each other. And so that's where we can take that control as we navigate to these next steps of the past and really influence the outcome.


All right you guys so in this video we're going to talk about what do you need to be a good photographer and You don't really actually need all this stuff that's laying in front of me But I'll kind of explain that as we go along here You can see that this is a digital SLR. It's got a dirty lens there And so it's got a separate lens and it's also comes with a charger and a cable and all that kind of stuff A lot of the stuff that you're seeing to the left of your screen is optional and Lenses are actually kind of optional too because many of you are actually going to have Point and shoot camera which will have the lens built in or you'll have a cell phone camera or something else But if you have a SLR, this is what you'll have and you can see I'm putting the charger in the bag So it's really important if you have a camera I would say it's a good idea to find some kind of storage place for it So maybe you carry it in another bag But you have somewhere at home where you put all of your photography stuff together in one place that closes You want to make sure it keeps the dust out and things like that so you can see here Along those lines this lens which is sort of separate from the other lens So it's a lens that I switch out with the other one It has it's even its own little bag that I can close like that It's a little drawstring bag that comes with the lens But sometimes your lens might not come with a bag so you can put it wrap it in a t-shirt Or you can put it you can make your own bag out of a t-shirt or something like that It's always a good idea to do that Over here. You can see I'm now wrapping up the strap around the camera Switched around the sun shade and so it would fit into the bag a little better I put it in there So you want to make sure when you store the camera that you make sure the strap is not sitting on top of your LCD screen It'll scratch it up Now you can see there I just pulled out two little black circles and those are Those are ones a body cap and ones a lens cap for the back side of your lens So there you can see the body cap going on and that protects Dust and things like that or it protects the inside of the camera from dust and things like that And the same for the lens cap on the other end of the lens Now I take I to put those on just when the lens and the camera are separate from each other So I just want to have you when I have them Traveling or something like that for those of you with point and shoots or with any other kind of camera That doesn't have separating lenses don't worry about it This stuff isn't important for you But just in case you ever get there you might want to keep note of that so I carry those with me I don't necessarily use them out that often, but if I do there they are Anytime you want to store take your lens off your camera for more than five minutes You want to make sure you put something on top of it to protect from dust?  I guess it's sort of like a pouch and I'm putting some wipes in there You can see there's some pre lubricated wipes or some like sort of pre wet wipes and then there's some Optical glass cleaner, which is that blue sort of bad little square you saw go in there And there you saw a brush and some cleaning fluid now these things are all really important if your camera gets dirty Right there you just saw a second brush We're just sort of the body brush if you've seen the cleaning sections of this lesson you'll see that What the purpose for that is now I've got these two different towels here Well, I guess they're cleaning rags The one is the one on my that I'm holding right there at this very moment It's actually a dirty one that I it's an old old one that I've used It used to be a lens cleaning cloth that now I use for cleaning the body of the camera nuts I'd never touch his optical glass anymore, but it's just for the body and you can see I'm having trouble Fitting it inside my little tiny pouch there. All right, so now I think we'll be able to get that closed Now that other one sitting in the front there is actually for you cleaning lenses and I don't So I don't try not to I try to keep those two things separate Because if there's anything inside of that inside of that cleaning cloth, it can scratch your lens Now you can see I'm pulling open here a USB Reader which everybody's gonna probably need some of some kind this camera takes SD cards But in the future or in the past there have been lots of different types of cards So you might not have an SD card in particular But there's usually gonna be some way that you get the get the photos onto the computer and this camera uses an SD card reader So you have those two things and then you have that lens cleaning cloth, which is important I carry it with me because in case it rains or something like that I like to have a lens cleaning cloth so I can just wipe off the lens really quick and Hop along and take more photos see right there I have a little tiny LED flashlight and this is a total extra fancy accessory that nobody really needs But I use it a lot when I'm shooting like night photos and things like that which for what you need a little tripod You can get a much much bigger tripod But you can start with this little you know like $2 tripod that I bought like a little little camera shop the other day So there you go You've got pretty much everything you need to do everything from really basic fun photography to serious night Photography everything you need in case you hit some bad weather or your camera gets a little dusty or dirty And it all fits inside of one really nice looking little bag that I picked up in an old camera shop. So You can you don't need to have all that stuff, but it's it's gonna help you in your journey So don't feel like you have to go out and spend all the money right away But maybe this is your kind of dream kid of some day. So All right, so that's the end of this lesson We're gonna be moving on to some of the more technical aspects of shooting and get into some Techniques and things like that that will help you become a better photographer


Hey guys, what's going on? Today I'm going to be talking about Backrooms Level 69. Little funny number. Hopefully this sounds cool to you. Hopefully enjoy the video. Now we might be at 50,000 subscribers when this video goes up. I don't know I'm pre-recording it, so if we're there, thank you all so much genuinely. I have so much planned for this. It's going to be awesome. Brookly merch is going to be dropping soon. There's going to be a Brookly S&P that I'm starting for anyone to join if they want to. More information on all this stuff at the end of the video. So without wasting any more of your time, let's get into the video. Level 69 looks like a dark and empty infinite highway that has fog rolling at all times. Each side of the highway has massive concrete walls that seem to be infinite in height. And there's literally nothing else here. Like, that's it. The level is apparently so dangerous that you have to stay in the car when you spawn in. When you spawn in on this level, you'll spawn in in the car that you passed out in, in level three to get here. That's the entrance to this level, more on that later. But if you stay in this car, you'll pretty much be safe. But if you leave the car, it's dangerous. Level 69 has a very low visibility because of the fog and the darkness that's on the level since it's constantly nighttime. In order to see anything at all, you have to use either the headlights from the car or a flashlight or something. This level is pretty unique because there are specific ways that you need to navigate it. And the start of the level is pretty much the same for everyone across the board because you wake up in the car that you passed out in from level three. Even if you somehow get here without passing out in a car in level three, you'll still wake up inside of a random car whenever you enter the level. But whatever you do, like I said, do not leave the car since, you know, it's dangerous and stuff. The fog and the entities that live here seem to be kind of scared of cars except for one entity. So it's pretty much a good way to scare off things if you just stay in your car and keep driving. Now your car itself might have broken glass or broken AC or something like that. It's really just depending on the look of the person there. So if you have bad luck, then you might have car problems. And if you have good luck, you won't. Driving this car physically is pretty much just like driving a car from real life. So you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. You also don't have to worry about running out of gas because these cars don't even have fuel tanks. Nice. So you can go full speed for as long as you want, since there's really nothing in the road and you can just fly down the road at max speed. But there is always a risk of crashing into an entity or something like that. So pretty much you can either drive slow and waste a bunch of time or you can drive really fast with a chance of perishing. So pick your poison. There are also hardly any supplies on this level. So the goal is to leave as soon as possible so you don't starve. The main normal entities here are Smilers and Wretches which are extremely hostile on this level because they don't have anything else to eat. So when they see you, they start drooling and get really aggressive. Wretches are considered to be extremely dangerous here because they can break into your car if you're parked or something like that or if you crash into one, it can cause your car to fly out the road into the concrete wall. Just try to avoid them. Like imagine sitting in your car and trying to take a nap and then you wake up and see one of these things. Nice. Now this level also has a level exclusive entity called the Beans From Above. These are very mysterious and dangerous and they're pretty much one of the main reasons, if not the main reason that you should not get out of your car. Their exact body description isn't known, but their legs or arms look like spider legs or crab legs. You can't see them from the ground obviously because you'll be in a car but if you were to get out of your car, a leg might fly down from above and spear right through you and then pick you up and carry you up into the darkness. It's kind of like that thing from King Kong if you've seen that movie. There's only been a handful of survivors from an attack and they say that the legs feel cold, slick and completely solid. Oh yeah and these entities literally cannot be taken down at all. People have tried bullets, explosions, knives, nothing works on them. This level also has a weird phenomena that happens called the Whispers.  So watch out for that I guess. The easiest and most common way to enter this level is to pass out in a car on level 3 and you'll just wake up here. To exit the level it's pretty simple. You just have to drive really far on the road and eventually you're going across a tunnel that's carved into one of the sides of the concrete walls. Now you want to make sure you're either on the right or left side of the road because if you're in the middle there's a chance you might miss this tunnel and you don't want to do that trust me. So once you find the tunnel just drive through it and you can only drive there for exactly 17 hours because then at that point your car will break down and stop working.  But don't worry though the tunnel is safe there's no fog or no entities or anything like that just a normal tunnel and this tunnel will lead to level 11. So it's pretty much worth it. There's also one unconfirmed exit as well. Some people have said that if you pass out while being attacked by a being from above that you'll wake up in level 0 but I'm not going to stick around and try to test that theory.  Love to see it. That's it for the video I hope you enjoyed it. This was my first video back after being gone on vacation for like the entire month of December. So it's good to be back home and making new videos for you all. I hope you enjoyed it. Like I said at the beginning of the video we've either hit or are about to hit 50k subs. I can't tell yet because I pre-recorded this video which is just insane. Thank you all so much for all you do for me. You guys are just awesome and we're going so fast and this year's going to be awesome. I hope you guys are ready for all the stuff coming out. The goal is to hit 100k this year so I hope you're ready to see that happen. I believe in it. Like I said earlier I'm going to be releasing Brooklyn merch soon for 50k. Stay tuned for that. I'm going to be releasing the designs on here and you guys are going to get to vote on which ones you want and then you'll be able to get them. That's going to be awesome. And then I'm also in the works right now with creating a Broogly Survival SMP on Minecraft. So that's going to be over there on Tugli but I'm going to announce it on here obviously. It's going to be awesome. Anyone who wants to join can join. It's going to be a fun time. I'm going to stream it. I'm going to record it. Lots of good stuff coming on there. I'll officially announce the server when it's up and running but until then get ready for it. It's going to be awesome. I'm going to make some mid-January's the goal like the 20th or something. Stick around for that. But with all that said, thank you so much for watching. Thank you for your supports and I'll see you later.


Hello, I'm Asako Okai, UN Assistant Secretary General and the Director of Crisis Bureau of UNDP, United Nations Development Program. I am here today at the U.S. Institutes of Peace to talk about a new UNDP's framework for development solutions to crisis. Obviously there are things going worse.  This is why we came up with a new framework. We thought that the totally new thinking is needed to actually address this unprecedented crisis of our time. We defined our approach and then we basically come up with a three set of development solutions and approaches to address first to break the cycle of fragility, second to go ahead of the crisis curve, and third to invest in hope throughout the crisis. There are many examples that we achieved in scale with integrated solutions. Whether in Iraq or Yemen or Afghanistan, we have delivered in most difficult places. In Afghanistan, for instance, even after Taliban takeover, we have managed to put together the delivery system through local economies and working directly with the communities to support them. They are entrepreneurs, local businesses, or they are cash for work, all that is ongoing. This week, UNDP launched a new crisis academy, which currently comprises of the six campuses and we are expanding further. This comes from our recognition that we need to continue to be fit for purpose to respond to the complexity of the crisis of the day. We need to be crisis ready in Asia and we need to bring all forces together.