In this episode we'll talk about the difficult relationship designers have with money, why and when it matters how you label yourself and finally we'll answer the question are you just a sum of what you make? And here's the guest for this episode. Hi, my name is Christo and this is the Service Design Show. If you want to create more impact and change the world for the better as a service designer then you've come to the right place. Hi, my name is Marc Fontaine and this is the Service Design Show. On this show you get the chance to learn from some of the world's best service designers. We talk about topics ranging from design thinking, creative leadership, organizational change and customer experience. If these are the topics you're interested in be sure to note that we bring a brand new video every week so if you don't want to miss anything click that subscribe button. My guest in this episode is Christo. Christ is the CEO of Blind which is a brand strategy design consultancy in Santa Monica, California, USA. But Christ also heads The Future which I consider to be one of the most inspiring and influential YouTube channels on the crossover between business and design. For the next 30 minutes Christ and I will be talking about the difficult relationship designers have with money.  So that was it for the introduction and now let's jump straight into the interview with Christ. Welcome to the show Christ. Thanks for having me Marc. Awesome to have you. Like I said I don't think a lot of service designers will know you but you have an awesome YouTube channel or it's bigger than the YouTube channel. I mentioned it as one of the most inspiring and influential channels on the crossover between business and design right? Would you say the same? Is that the domain you're in? Yes, that is the domain that we're in. We're in that intersection between business needs and design needs and somewhere in the middle is this happy place that we live in. A happy place. Exactly. The reason why I invited you is I think every part of the design community needs to have more business so also the service design community. So let's see how we can bring it in. Chris as new as maybe you are to the design service design community have you actually been in touch with service design? Is that a term that's been alive in your scene? I would not necessarily refer to what we do as service design but that's a very appropriate description and we've been servicing clients with design for the last 22 years. That's how long we've been in business. You know there are so many people following your work and what you do. Do you see the term service design popping up or are people really still focused in related to the future on graphic design, motion design, that kind of stuff or do you see that evolving? I've not seen that term pop up except for on this show so I don't know how it's going to evolve but it seems like most people describe themselves as graphic designer, motion designer, animator, visual effects artist, something like that. You know for me that's so brilliant. There are so many design communities living like in their own bubbles. We should create more cross-section bridges. Let's move on because you got yourself into the service design show and part of that is co-creation and I explained to you how this format works. You gave me three really cool topics and let's just start off right. Are you ready? Let's do it. Okay. So ready. Let's do it. So the first one and it's already a big one. It's called the relationship with money. Do you have a question starter that goes along with this one? Okay. All right. So I'm going to hold this up there. So can you see this? I can read. How can we? But what's the question that you'll make out of this? The question is how can we change our relationship with money? People in the creative service space in the design or service design space have an uncomfortable relationship with money. We're afraid to talk about it. We're afraid to charge what we're worth and when we don't get paid we wonder like what happened. So if we can learn how to couple business with the creative service side of what we do, I think we're going to be a lot more successful. We're going to be happier, healthier and wealthier. So let's break this down into a couple of components. Let's go. Unless you want to. Okay. So let's go. Let's go. So first is the idea of we have, we hold a lot of guilt for charging money for things that we love to do. Now if you're asked most creative people, what do you do in your spare time? Where I draw, I design, I sketch, I make logos. So it feels really wrong internally for us to charge something that we derive so much pleasure from. What we don't realize is the other person that is talking to us sees this as all magical. This is something that they cannot do obviously. And so they're willing to part with their money to have you solve a creative problem using all the skills and experiences that you have. And so we need to put this aside. I've spoken to a well-known author, his name is Blair Ends, and he talks about this and he says that, do you want to have a hobby or do you want to have a business? Yeah. And a business is one where you can grow with it. It's sustainable. It pays you a fair amount of money. You can put money away for savings in case there's a rainy day where the work dries up and then you can provide for you and your loved ones.  We provide a service that's desirable and valuable for other people or two other people. Next up is the idea about talking about money. It is very uncomfortable talking about money with clients. And we will often, and I say this, designers are the best negotiators against themselves. So you think of a budget because your clients will say, how much is the cost to fill in the blank? Yeah. How much is the cost to produce a 30 second video? Right?   That's enough to buy lots of things. And is what I'm doing worth that much? So you start negotiating yourself down. You start saying, well, 30 is too much. I mean, they'll never approve that. So then we get into, maybe we can ask for $1850, like $18,500.  It's going to cost $18,500. And then your client is automatically going to do this because they're trained to do this. They're going to grimace and say, hmm, that's a lot more than I wanted to pay. Could you do it for $9,000? Now you're thinking, if I say no to this project, when's the next one going to come in? And all the self-doubt, imposter syndrome starts kicking in. You start thinking about, I'm not worth it. Do you even have skills? Is what I do warrant this kind of price point? This happens all the time, right? So we have to change this relationship. Go ahead. Well, referring back to your first point, and that is, we're not used, we feel uncomfortable charging for the things we love to do. Are we considering the things that we do charge for, that they should hurt in the day? It doesn't seem to be work when it's not hurting you. What do you mean? Well, we often say in the studio, it's really hard for our clients to see the value because the work we do looks so much fun. And work shouldn't be fun. So how can they charge us this when they're having so much fun? Oh, that's very interesting. Well, I look at a movie that's released, say, by Pixar. Beautiful 90 minutes worth of animation. And you realize how expensive and how long it takes to make that. It does look very fun. So it's my job to make it look good, to make it look effortless. When a company like Apple releases a new product, we don't think about the two and a half years of R&D that went into it, the manufacturing issues that have overcome. We just want to see something that's elegant. It's beautiful and that works well. So this is where you get into the, you don't need to know how the sausage is made. You just want to enjoy a good sausage and that's it. That's interesting because maybe there's an interesting difference between the graphic design world and the service design world. For instance, a lot of our work happens in co-creationship with clients, a lot of workshops, a lot of research studies, while maybe the graphic design world is still sort of an isolated studio practice. And would there be a difference? I don't know. I mean, there are a lot of really great designers that are really experienced, masters of design. And you can come in and talk to them. And they can sketch out something that's amazing on a napkin, the infamous napkin sketch. And then the client would be prone to react and say, well, that only took you five minutes to do. And then the response would, it took me a lifetime to get to this point. Pick out some right. Yes. And I would challenge you to go and talk to somebody else and have them work on something and have them come up with a thoughtful solution as the one I came up with. And call me in a couple of weeks when they come back. It's a solution. So there's this equation in that time equals value. And I think it's the inverse of that. So somebody, a client generally thinks that the longer something takes to produce, the more valuable it is. My counter to that is, well, do you have a lot of time to waste? Do you have a lot of time to spare? Wouldn't you rather get the solution that you want now versus later? And in fact, in many industries, if you want to have a product done quicker, they charge you a rush fee of 2x or 4x. So my ability to make something quicker is actually more valuable to you because now you can focus on your business. You can launch your product. You can release the new marketing materials. Or you can do whatever you need to do so you're not focused on this thing. Let's get back to, I'm really curious. Have you found out at which point in our lives are we sort of indoctrinated that it's wrong to charge money for the things we love to do? At which point does it go straight? That's a really good question. I have never been asked that question before, so I have to think about that. Oh, OK. And let me just, while I buy myself some time, let me just turn the question back on you for a second and ask you, because we're from different cultures. Where do you think it is in your culture and the way that you grew up that it was indoctrinated in you that you shouldn't charge money for things that you take pleasure in doing? I sort of think that it's a derivative from the other things that people are used to charging money for. And that's basically the business schools, the traditional business schools. Those are the things that people are used to charge money for. And you sort of, at that moment, don't put yourself into the same bucket. And then it automatically becomes harder to see the value of your work and charge for that. OK. OK, I've had enough time to think. Does it make sense? Yeah, yeah, sort of. It makes sense to me. It seems very logical. But I also paid to get my design education actually paid at that time the same tuition that somebody that goes to Stanford pays. Yeah. A private art school education in America is very expensive. Now, here's where I think the problem is. And I don't know where we can attach a moment in time. But I do think it's something like this. We separate our activities. We segregate our lives, right? There's a time for work and a time for play. So when you're playing video games, you don't think of that as work or contributing to your career or the advancement of your intellect. We think. So when we play, we shut off those parts and we say, well, this is some other kind of activity. But when we're studying for an exam for a test or we're doing a lot of research and writing thesis papers, we feel like that is work and that's valuable. Yeah. OK. So this is the problem. Because professional athletes play all day long. And they're some of the most highest paid people. Professional actors, singers, songwriters, people who enjoy doing this kind of thing, make a tremendous amount of money. But for some reason, and I believe this is self-imposed rules that no person in society wrote and made a decree to say, if you're in the service design space, this is considered playing. You should not charge a professional rate for it. This is a disservice to yourself, a self-imposed rule. And the good news about this is we can change that. We wrote the rules. We can rewrite them or we can undo them. These are self-imposed. And so I think of this as if I'm at the highest form of what I do. If I'm the LeBron James of identity design, I should be paid an equivalent amount of money. Before we move on to the next topic, I think you just touched upon something really important. And that is maybe role models. Having role models and seeing that there is the opportunity to charge a serious, I don't know, whatever you want to call it, money gives you the confidence to actually do so. Yeah. Yeah. Are there role models? Yes, there are. There are fewer today than there were in the 80s or the 90s. I remember stories of people like Saul Bass being flown in or Massimo Vignelli being flown in via helicopter to meet with the CEOs of large corporations and being paid six, sometimes seven figures to do an identity design. Yeah, yeah. And I think the problem is a couple of things. One is the proliferation and accessibility of graphic design as a profession to so many people. So the supply of designers, the supply of service designers in the marketplace has grown exponentially while the number of clients has remained relatively same. So the demand for this work is the same while the supply has probably grown 200,000% it, right? Because in the 80s and the 90s, there were a few notable designers. And then the desktop revolution came and now everybody has access to these design tools and the barrier has been removed. And then schools turn out the graphic designers all year long and what's happening. So the market is really big. So it's a very hungry market and very few people that want to buy the services. And what happens is if you were at the top, you're getting pressure from the bottom. They're creeping up on you. So there's individuals, small agencies, medium-sized agencies and big agencies and they're all feeling the pressure to compete in the price space. But there are a few companies out there that are able to command a price premium. Companies like Pentagram, Lander and Associates that do large identity design for seven figures. Before we do a whole episode on money, which might be a really interesting thing to do, let's move on to topic number two. Okay, what is it? Labels slash definitions. Okay. Labels and definitions are always a tricky one. Okay. So I think this is the one I'm gonna hold up. All right. What if? What if? So my question is, what if we're able to change how we define ourselves? What would happen? What if we're able to change the labels that we define ourselves with and what would happen? Now, I've been recently thinking about this. How I describe myself drastically impacts my worldview and my own self-worth. So let me just tell a short story here. So I started my company in 1995 and I've been mostly walking around with this label. I'm a graphic designer, not a service designer. I'm a graphic designer. And I was actually very happy, content and proud to call myself a graphic designer. It was a term that I could use to describe myself and what I do at parties and functions with people who know nothing about design. They're like, oh, graphic design. I kind of know what you do. Got it. And then more recently, I started to realize what problems do graphic designers solve? What problems do graphic designers solve? So if you apply the same logic, what kind of problems does an interior designer solve? Well, interior design problems. Sure. What problems does a user experience designer solve? User experience. So then does a graphic designer only solve graphic problems? And for a lot of your audience, maybe they will say yes, graphic problems, identity, quote, unquote branding, logo design, brochure, marketing materials, anything that has a graphic problem to solve. But then I realized with that label, with that label, it boxes my thinking into what else it is I can do. And as I'm growing as a person and as a business person, one who wants to be able to consult my clients at the highest level, well, what if they have a marketing problem? Sure. What if they have a web problem or a customer experience problem or a culture problem? What if they have an organizational problem or an efficiency problem? And then I'm not looking for any of those things. So if I walk into a room and say, I'm a graphic designer, I'm looking for a graphic problem. So there are a lot of problems to solve, but the only ones I tune into are graphic problems and those are small. Those are small relative to the bigger problem. And we get into very spirited debates with our community and the people that I coach sometimes where they say, well, why won't clients pay me more for the logo? Because you make the logo all important.  So I think if we really want to have meaningful change, if we want to grow internally, externally, we should look for bigger problems to solve. Now, you might start with clearing out your library of design books and putting in books about mindset, about philosophy, psychology, marketing, sales, organization, those are the kinds of things that maybe you can fill your mind with. But until you change that internal filter, you're going to only be looking at cool books, design icons, more examples of things for you to borrow and be inspired by. Again, I'm so happy that you are in this episode because I find it so interesting that the graphic design world, for me, those are craftsmen. And what you are talking about are really craftsmen that have a strong passion for, let's call it the product, the end deliverable, right? And from what I've been seeing the last 10 years in the service design community, people sort of struggle to actually find their craft. There are sort of, we're designing the journey and nobody knows what that is. So we are sort of from a design perspective on the opposite sides. And also on this side where people don't actually design or produce an end deliverable, people are struggling with a label they're giving themselves. What is that the service that I'm producing? So coming back to your thing, do you think consider labels to be functional at all? They can be. The reason why we have labels to begin with is because we need to give somebody else a quick idea or concept about what we do or who we are in the world. That's why we have labels to begin with. That's a consumer electronics product. That's professional grade. It's like the mental models, right? It is a mental model. It's a shorthand so that somebody understands.  And depending on who it is, I might give them different answers because I'm not trying to overwhelm them. I'm not trying to browbeat them, but if I go and I say, I'm a business design consultant, they're like, what? I never even heard of that term. What does that even mean? So do you make something or how does that work? And sometimes you're just not in the mood to sit down and go through the list of what it is that you do to explain it to people. However, I do believe there are professional organizations that are supposed to represent and be an advocate for graphic design to be an advocacy for graphic design that should be changing the dialogue around this altogether. And the dialogue to sort of not letting go of the end product but focusing on the bigger problem. Yeah. Right? That's right. That's right. And it also has to start in school. Why isn't it happening? Or why is it going so slowly? Why is it going so slowly? Okay, I have some theories on this. One, change is very difficult for people.  Why don't you pick up four business books and put down one design book? Yeah. Because change, it's very uncomfortable for us. And the other thing too is that institutions move really, really slowly. It's really interesting to me. Through the power of the internet and what's happening, ideas can move much faster but I just think people aren't willing to embrace this concept. And they're still really comfortable, I think, in the position that they are. They are. Even if they're broke, they're still comfortable. It's really weird. Broke, I mean, as in, can't afford it, not like a broken human being. Broken human being, man. Where are we heading to? Right. So let's put the pieces together, literally, because this is the final topic and it's called, one plus one is three. Okay, let's see. Tension rises. Shoot. There we go. Okay. All right. All right. Tension here. Why? I was debating between when will and why, but I'm gonna start with why. Why does one plus one equals three matter to you? Now this seems like funny math to me. The logic doesn't make sense. One plus one is three. Let me explain. Okay. The thing is, I want to say this is you are more than the sum of the things that you make. You're more than the sum of the things that you make. So if you just look at yourself as a maker, you're leaving a lot off the table in terms of how you define yourself. And you've already said it, Mark, about focusing too much on the deliverables, the tangibles, and focusing too much on craftsmanship. I put out this tweet and it seemed to catch the attention of a few people, people who follow me. And the tweet was something like this. It says, you pay for the strategic thinking the design is the souvenir. Okay. Now when we understand that, then we say, well, it took me one minute to make the sketch. I gave that to you for free. I'm charging you for the thinking. And this is something that's, I think for a lot of people, a new concept. Because it's like, how do you put a price tag? How do you put value on thinking? Cause everybody's got ideas. Everybody's got an opinion. And we know that opinions are kind of worthless, right? Yeah. The lowest form of knowledge. That's right. So I am the sum of my entire life experiences and those things that I used to do in play that were misunderstood by friends and family as being worthless uses of my time turn out actually to be quite valuable. Allow me to explain.  I love skateboarding and the whole skateboarding design culture, which also tied into my love for comic books.  I also love watching mixed martial arts, things like the UFC and the pride championship. I loved all these things, but I wasn't going to become a professional fighter. I was not good enough to become an illustrator and I'm not good enough to become a professional skateboarder. But what do I do with all these things? What I do is when I'm talking to a client, I'm able to tap into different subcultures and understand it from the inside out. So it's when I was speaking to some of our clients from the Spike TV network when they had the UFC all of a sudden I'm like, whoa, wait a minute here. Now I'm able to draw upon my experiences.  So I can speak to it in a much more informed way than my client even at that point in time, even knew. So I was able to win them over by speaking so passionately and authentically about something I cared a lot about. And is that something, I'm not sure, but is that something that you think designers sort of hide away? They see that they're the other life and they don't use it to their advantage? Possibly. But a lot of me is interested in this other concept that my definition of creativity isn't about whether you can draw or sketch or even if you have good taste. Creativity to me is your ability to connect disparate ideas. So when you can see a car, like an egg container or a rocket ship, like a pair of glasses or something, you're able to bridge two things together and find this kind of magical moment, this bridge between the two, that nobody else can see. So the problem here is we, again, we need to change the way we think about creativity and not as a thing of craftsmanship or typography or point size, but one where we're able to connect disparate ideas, things that don't necessarily belong together. So when I'm talking to somebody, if I'm talking to you or if I'm talking to a student of mine, they have a problem that they need to have solved. And I'm trying to find something that's familiar to them so that I can bridge that to something that's not familiar to them. And when I'm able to do so, then I make them, I help them see the new idea as it relates to the old idea. And there's a classic example of this, something that I saw Tony Robbins talk about in building rapport with people. He said that, and I'm not a religious person, but he's like, okay, so Jesus with his disciples or yeah, his disciples, they wanted to spread the idea of Christianity. And these were fishermen, they're craftspeople, they were leather worker, they were farmers, they herded goats, and they knew nothing about sales strategy or marketing or anything like that. You might be surprised. So of course, you might be right. So Jesus used the metaphor to connect something that they knew with something that they didn't know. He said, you must become Fisher of men. So you need to figure out a way to bring people in to the idea and spread the idea of Christianity. And you can use the strategies you've learned as a fisherman and understand how to bring people in. So that's how you're able to connect. So that's how, I mean, there's a very valuable lesson there. And that's really about empathizing with the people you're working with and working for, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and I think this has been a topic on the recent episodes of the show that we're sort of, at least in this community, we're sort of advocating empathy for the end user, for the customer, but we often forget, for instance, the clients we're working for and our co-workers, getting them along our journey and our path. Basically what you're saying is the same. Step into the shoes that you are of the person you actually want something from. Right. So if I may, I'm gonna introduce one more concept for you. Let's go. You okay? Yeah, let's do it. Is your head gonna melt or are you all right? No, no, I'm good. Okay, now most of us really lack empathy, unfortunately. We think we're the heroes. So when the client calls us and says, I need help with this thing, we're like, yes. And like we're Superman, we're gonna tear off my shirt, I'm gonna fly in, I'm gonna swoop in, I'm gonna help you. I'm the hero.   And for many years, I taught sequential design and I'm a student of formulas. And one of the most formulaic industries in the world is the movie business. The stories are very formulaic and I think we broke it down to that there are only seven types of stories that are in popular culture. But all stories have one thing in common and there's a story formula here. So the story formula goes something like this and this is something I've been able to teach my five-year-old kids. This is how it goes. Every story needs this, otherwise it's broken. Somebody wants something and can't get it. They go through a series of trials and tribulations instead of getting what they want, they get what they need. And what they need is to learn a lesson. What they want is an external need or an external desire. So they want a new girlfriend, more money, more power, more wealth. What they need to learn to do is to be kinder or to recognize the efforts of others or whatever it is. They need to overcome something. Now that's a lot for somebody to remember. So it can be boiled down into three words actually. Character, want and obstacle. Every story needs an interesting character. They need to want to have something.  So then they're gonna have an obstacle. So what you realize is when you enter a conversation with your client, you are not the character. It's not about what you want and the obstacle that's getting in your way. It's what your clients want and what's the obstacle getting in their way. So when you understand this, so now we have to have an interesting character. Characters that are generic aren't interesting in the story. So I want to learn more about you, your business, Mr. and Mrs. Client. I want to understand how you operate. Why do you start this company? What are your challenges? What is your story? What is your story? What is motivating you? All these kinds of things. And now you want something. You want to grow your business. You want to increase market share. Maybe you feel like your external identity doesn't match the value in your beliefs anymore. You've outgrown that definition. And now something's getting in your way. You don't have the skills to do it. You don't know the people to do this or there's technological concerns that you don't. You don't know how to figure out. So I'm going to help you. So in this story, I'm just the guide. Exactly, yeah. You are the hero. And so you teach this to your client and then what you ultimately teach them is the story structure that they're actually not the hero either. They're clients. They're customers or the heroes. And we need to understand that. If we want to service our customers better, we need to understand what their story is and what their wants are. And so it's like a transfer of service. Man, this happens all the time turning into inception. This is going inception all over me, man. Well, you have your totem, right? All right.  Let's recap this final third point. And this was like change your mindset related to who you are by extracting that from the things you do, you make. Yes. Something like that, right? Yes. All right. You have to realize the expression of your thinking is not what you're selling, not the expression. That's the tangible thing that everybody can put their hands on. It's easy to talk about. What you're selling is your creative process and your thinking. So many questions in my head, but we're going to move on. Because, Chris, now it's your time to actually ask the people who are watching or viewing or listening, I wanted to say. Not as many as on your channel, but there are some who are listening and viewing this episode. It's our question you have for them. I know you didn't prepare this one, so. Yeah, I have several questions for them, actually. And we're going to keep it kind of thematically linked to some of the things we talked about. I want to ask you guys, what do you want? And to spend some time thinking about your own goals. So an exercise that I use to help the people I coach is something like this. Spend 10 to 15 minutes, wall yourself off from distractions. If you listen to music and you like music, turn that on if you need a glass of wine, do that. But just to separate yourself from all the stress and the normal day-to-day grind that you're in. And ask yourself, what do I want in the next one to 10 years? And spend 10 to 15 minutes and write down as many things as possible. Try to get that list to be as big as possible. So maybe 40 or 50 items. Why is it 50? Because this, the first 10 are going to be the obvious things, things you already know about yourself. The next 10 are going to be somewhat challenging to you. Like now you're really stretching. The next 10, between the 30 to 50 things that you write down are really going to shake you up and make you really think about what is it that's truly driving you? The next thing you're gonna do is after you've created this really long list is to put a number next to each item. How long will it take you to achieve each of these things? So you can write down one, three, five or 10. So anything that's a one year goal are the things that you're probably concerned with the most right now. They're the easy wins. They're the confidence boosters. And then there are the three year goals, the five year goals, and then the 10 year goals. And what we need to do is to make sure there's a balance sheet, if you will, of things that are in each one of these time categories. If your list is full of one year goals, the problem is you have no long-term vision. You're doing a lot of busy work and not really thinking about where is this all going? And sadly, I think a lot of people are mostly concerned with the one year goals. And the problem is this. Now, if you think about the future, if you think about your life when you're 40, 50, 60 years old and that idea scares you, if you become anxious thinking about the future, it's because you don't have clear goals. If you have really clear goals, you look towards the future with anticipation. And that's why I wake up every single day, every single week, every single month, super charged to do what it is I need to get done because it's very clear in my mind what the future looks like for me and the people that work for me. So that's an exercise that you guys can do. I'll be super, super interested about the comments on this episode. So I encourage everyone, I'm going to do this exercise. I'm going to do this exercise promise and I'll see what happens. I'm quite scared to actually do this, but we'll see. There's great. There's one more component to this. There's one more component to it.  So what you want to do is to select four goals from each one of the time categories. Four goals. And that's what you should share. So you take four from the one year goal, four from the three year goal, four from the five and four from the 10 year goal. And then what you need to do is write a detailed. How do we pick? You'll know. Because you'll pick the most important goals to you. All right.  If you have to pick four, naturally you prioritize the highest things, right? And then you're gonna write a detailed description about each one and write, why do you want this? If you don't have a good answer, remove that and add a different item. Why do you want this? Is it for yourself? Is it to help other people? Is it because you want to win some accolades? Whatever it is. I'm not here to judge, just write it down. And if it feels like a good enough reason to motivate you to go out there and get that, then keep it. That's what you should share in the comments below. How often do you review your list? You should review them every single day. Do you? All the most successful, yes. All the most successful people have a good accounting of where they're at, where they're going because they're making adjustments all the time. And I'll give you one example. We knew we had a goal of hitting 200,000 subscribers on YouTube by the end of this year. And I did the calculation because I read the books and I go and I apply it right away. So you turn from being a student to a practitioner when you put thought into action and that's really, really important. So I went to my team because part of the book said, you must know your goals and everybody that's working with you must know your goals so they can help you achieve it. The problem with poor leaders who are managers really is they don't communicate what's up here to the team.  So I went to the team and said, guys, our goal is to hit 200,000 subscribers. Our current subscribers is this number. In order to get there, we need to average 350 subscribers per day and they looked at me like, oh my God, that is a lot of people to subscribe. I said, that's right. Now that's not the end of it. What do we need to do in terms of value that we can create that 350 new human beings are gonna jump on our channel and do something that most people don't do, hit the subscribe button. So then we go back and review the content and we get rid of the things that we think are frivolous and we start working on the things that matter and we watch and pay attention very carefully. So some days we only get 200 subscribers. That's when I'm like on the team like, let's turn the volume up. What do we do wrong? Why isn't this content connecting? What else do we need to do? I want ideas people. Then we get it back to 500 and then we're good again. So having very clear goals allows your entire team to focus on what's important and get rid of what is not. Well, the metrics just help you to understand if you're heading in the right direction. Right. Chris, so this was the sort of the end of the official part of the interview. This has become an extended episode. So thanks for that. Thanks for making the time. It was also having a look into the graphic design, scene, community. Thanks for being on the other side of the camera, Chris. It is my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me. So what is your biggest takeaway from this episode with Chris? Share your thoughts and ideas down below in the comments. And don't forget to check out one of the most inspiring and influential business and design channels on YouTube, The Future. If you'd like to learn more, check out some of the past episodes or head over to learn.servicesignshow.com where you'll find courses by leading service design experts that dig deeper into the topics we talk about on the show. That was it for now. I'll see you in two weeks time with a brand new episode. Thanks for watching and I'll see you then.


Hello, and welcome to this session in which we would look at an example for changes in accounting principle. Changes in accounting principle is covered on the CPA exam as well as in your intermediate accounting courses. So you have to be comfortable with this topic. What is changes in accounting principle? It means going from one acceptable gap method, so you're going from one gap to another acceptable gap method. An example will be going from weighted average to FIFO or going from the percentage of completion for revenue recognition to the completed contract method, the old gap method. So let's take a look at this example and try to answer several questions. Again, I'm giving you this in a form of a simulation, a CPA exam simulation or an exercise. This also could be a multiple choice question. Adam Company began operation and they choose the weighted average method for pricing inventory. So this is the old method, the weighted average. In 20x3, they decided to switch to FIFO. The weighted average is a gap, FIFO is gap. Below is a pre-tax income for the following years, X1, X2, X3, and we're going to be assuming a 21% tax rate. So you might be asked to compute the following. What is Adam's net income in 20x3? So simply put, what should they do? How should they report income in 20x3? What is the cumulative effect on the change in the accounting principle? You might be asked to only complete the income statement for 20x3 and you want to show the cumulative effect. How do we show the cumulative effect? And where do we show the cumulative effect? Or you could be asked, how do we show the comparative income statement for the past three years? Or you might be asked, let's assume they want to republish their financial statement for the past three years to have comparative financial statement, X1, X2, X3. What do we have to do under those circumstances? So by answering those three questions, we will have a good idea about how to deal with changing from one accounting principle, which is a gap acceptable principle to another gap acceptable principle. Before we answer the questions, I would like to remind you whether you are an accounting student or a CPA candidate to take a look at my website farhatlectures.com. I don't replace your CPA review course if you are using one. I'm a useful addition. I don't replace your accounting course. My motto is saving CPA candidate and accounting student one at a time by providing resources such as lectures, multiple choice through false and exercises that's going to help you do better. My CPA resources are aligned with your Becker, Roger, Wiley and Gleam, so it's very easy to go back and forth between my material and your CPA review course. I also give you access to 1500 previously released AICPA questions in their original format plus detailed solution. This is a partial list of all the accounting courses that I cover. If you have not connected with me on LinkedIn, please do so. Take a look at my LinkedIn recommendation. Like this recording, share it with other. It helps me a lot. Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. Please connect with me on Instagram as I'm trying to grow my followers. So assume an attacks rate of 21%. What should be Adam's net income for 20x3? 20x3 is when they switch and their income, pre-tax income under 50440, weighted average which method, which number do we use? We use the new method 440 times 21%. So let's go ahead and do that. So I'm going to take my calculator, take 440,000 times .21.  My net income will be 440 minus 92,400. And this will be my new net income. And this is how I would report my net income in 20x3. The second question is, what's the cumulative effect on the change in accounting principle? So if you're only showing 20x3, if that's all what you are showing, what's going to happen is you're going to have to compute the cumulative effect and show it in retained earnings. So the cumulative effect, if you're only showing 20x3, will show in retained earnings. First, let's compute the cumulative effect. Well, for 20x1, you have a difference of 30,000. So your net income is higher by 30,000. In 20x2, you have a difference of 40,000. So in total, your net income should have been higher by 70,000. And we're going to be assuming 21% tax rate for the prior two years. Well, what's going to happen is we're going to take 70,000 times .21. Let's do that 70,000 times .21. And that's going to give us 14,700 in taxes. So we're going to take 70,000, 70,000, which is the cumulative change.  And that's going to give us 55,300. So 555,300 will increase the beginning retained earnings. We'll be in adjustment to beginning retained earnings. So the point is, if you're only showing 20x3, what you have to do, you have to compute the cumulative change and show it in beginning retained earnings. So it doesn't affect the income statement. That's for this question. How about how do we show the comparative income statement for the past three years? If we're showing comparative income statement, then what we have to do for x1, x2, and x3, if we're showing comparative, then we have to use the 500,000 times .21%. The 420 times 21%, the 440 times 21%. So if we're showing comparative, for them to be comparative, they all have to be using the same method, 5.0. So those are the three things that you need to be aware of. So this is how you deal with changes in accounting principle. Very important topic. Remember, if you're showing only one year, you have to compute the cumulative effect and the cumulative effect, like in number two, goes into retained earning net of taxes. If you're showing comparative, you have to go back and change the comparative. Now be careful. Don't mix up changes in accounting principle versus changes in estimate. In changes in estimate, you don't have to go back and change anything. So what we did in this situation, we did retrospectively. We went back and we changed the figures. We changed the figures. And obviously, I don't have to mention this. You have to disclose this information in your notes if you have any changes in accounting principle. That's obvious. What should you do now? Go to farhatlectures.com, work additional multiple choice questions, additional exercises that's going to help you do better. Invest in yourself, invest in your career. The CPA exam is a long-term investment. Take it seriously. Good luck, study hard, and of course, stay safe.


Mommy yes, sweetie. Why don't they fix the house? Which house?  This is literally toxic masculine. It's not it's toxic I'm trying to help you. Are you? Yes, I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to see you from any more of this This doesn't hurt me. I'm learning a lot at you. No, I'm trying to help Thank you for your knowledge. I'm not trying to be some jack-ass guy like mansplains things. I'm just trying to get it But you need to wait Okay, so I really don't want to do this like I really don't but like I think we need to break up Okay, that's kind of coming out of nowhere. Why yeah, it's just I feel like you're holding me back a little bit You have guys nights all the time. What do you mean? You do everything you could ever want Yeah, but like I just want to live my college life to the fullest and like I don't want to have any regrets You know, do Brad and Matt have something to do with this? What? No, I can make my own decisions, Jessica Well, I don't know about that because they just broke up with their girlfriends like two days ago Well, I'm my own person Jessica. So why don't you stop playing the victim? I just want to be on my own Why can't you just respect that because you're letting other people make decisions for you? You know what? I'm glad I'm breaking up with you It really does make me laugh when toxic masculine men get offended When girls like effeminate men because like I don't understand like it's not that difficult to wrap your head around the fact that women like men Who don't see femininity as bad you see femininity as bad?  I'm not going to have to emotionally coax Of you.  I want a guy who isn't afraid to talk about the shit that's happened in his life That's not like that's the bare minimum That's the bare minimum Like what do you have to bring to the table fishing cargo shorts? anger issues What no, thank you What would you rate yourself on a scale of one to ten? I'm a ten ten. Yeah, that's like flawless though Yeah, I am flawless So let me just say you should definitely shoot your shot No matter what Because well, I mean like if someone's married or in a relationship, obviously don't do that But you should shoot your shot and see where things go. So basically I met this guy to party We were getting along everything seemed cool. We were flirting and So I ended up adding him on Facebook Well, then since I didn't get a message or anything I was like, you know what I'm gonna message him even though it seems like I'm the one that's more interested because I added him Little stupid dating things that you think about and so we messaged back and forth for a couple of days So I decided I'm gonna ask him to hang out. What do I have to lose? So I ask him to hang out and he ghosted me Which is fine. He was 25. I'm 31. Maybe that's why who knows But I think men are better than women She's kidding. No, I'm not they provide for us and we must obey them because they are our masters Just dropped off the kids and now headed to meet the guy I matched on Tinder If you do not agree with her settlement, what do you think she should have gotten? The reason why I ask is because there seems to be an uproar in guy world because she's getting 3.5 million dollars a year. Now. I don't know how many years. She's getting it But I think it tapers off keep in mind dr. Dre's worth 820 million dollars They've been married for 24 years. So they've been together longer than that They have two kids She gave up her career as an attorney and she was there when beats dropped Like that's what put him over the top. She didn't come in at the end of everything So I'm confused on why y'all so mad explained to me. I'm listening Thought it to take quite about this, but I don't think I can any longer Montgomery County, Tennessee judges court officers Agents the states Guardian ad litems District attorneys police officers Sheriff's departments Engaging and conspiring to violate the rights of others citizens Engaging in felonious activities helping their clients do so under the color of law Getting away with it stripping families apart Violating the constitutional rights of children all so you can have more federal grant money when you pick a winner If these people knew that when they hired an attorney in the state or any state that they were becoming a ward of The state and you were just allowing them that comfort They wouldn't hire you in the first place I fucking love single moms.  I could be blue. I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful I could be purple. I could be anything you like. I could be brown. I could be blue I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful. I could be purple. I could be anything you like I could be brown. I could be blue. I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful I could be purple. I could be anything you like. I could be brown. I could be blue I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful. I could be purple. I could be anything you like I could be brown. I could be blue. I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful I could be purple. I could be anything you like. I could be brown. I could be blue. I could be violet


Welcome to the final episode about crystals. Today's lesson will be split into two parts. We're going to start today's lesson by talking about organite, and then we're going to move on to what I call the crystal movement. To discuss organite, first we must discuss the basics of organ energy. Simply put, organ is energy. In fact, it's another name for the multi-named etheric energy that is everywhere and embodies all things. Reiki energy, Prana, biomagnetic energy, Chi, soft electrons, and life force energy are all names for the same thing. An organ matrix, or organite crystal device, is a device that provides assistance with working with these etheric energies. Organite both releases organ energy when stimulated by other forms of energy, and has the capacity to change organ energy from one state to another. It is especially suited for dissolving negative energy in an area and converting it to balanced, healthy energy. This makes it especially useful in a wide range of applications, from alternative health, radionics, and other traditional metaphysics. Where did organite come from? Well, in the 1930s and 40s, Dr. Wilhelm Reich was able to detect and measure the existence of etheric energy, which he called organ, using a modified geiger counter. He determined that by stacking alternating layers of fiberglass, which is an organic substance, and steel wool, an inorganic substance, you could attract and collect organ energy of both positive and negative polarities. He called the positive energy POR and the negative energy DOR, which stands for positive organ and deadly organ. He began constructing a device that was able to successfully heal his patients of various ailments, including various forms of cancer, by having them sit inside the box for periods of time. In 1986, scientists at the University of Malberg in Germany published the results of a blind study, which showed that 30-minute organ accumulator treatments caused a consistent psychopsychological effect. They published that their investigations displayed evidence for the assumption that the properties of organ accumulators and its effect on humans factually exists. Reich's work continued into the 60s by a really open-minded Russian scientist named Dr. Nikolay Kozirev, among others, who also scientifically proved that such unseen energies do exist all around us. This work led to the Soviet military using torsion field sciences in their military defense applications, which shows that amazing discoveries that can change the world can both be used for the light, as well as the dark. In continuing this work, modern science has taken it to whole new levels in trying to figure out the nature of dark matter, zero-point energy, and the vacuum flux, and these are all discussions for another time. In 2000, organ accumulators came into being when Don and Carol Croft discovered through much research that mixing organic fiberglass resin and metal chips poured into a small mold like paper cups and muffin pans would produce a substance which would attract etheric energy. Then, by putting crystals into the mix, you get something even more amazing. Carol Croft, who was incredibly gifted in sensing etheric energies, found that adding a quartz crystal to the organite would cause the organite to not just attract all kinds of energy, but rebalance and transmute all of the negative energy into positive. As we learn in crystals one, this is because the molecular structure of quartz is incredibly stable and harmonically aligned with the geometry of the universe. Organic substances attract and hold a scalar charge, while metallic substances tend to repel it. Basically, organite pulls in bioenergy, and while energy is inside the device, metal particles and organic resin both push and pull on it in all directions at the same time. This puts friction on the energy, where the crystal will begin to create order from chaos by aligning the structure of the energy into a more positively aligned pattern. Crystals and gems all have their uses that we've looked at, and organite does too. Organite is good for putting in an area that is needing a transmutation of a lot of negative energy into positive energy, and depending on what that situation is, you may need lots or very little. There's actually one final thing I'd like to bring up about organite, which is actually called tower busting. It has been widely experienced that the widespread use of cell phone towers create a thick blanket of DOR or negative organ energy around the areas between them. This saturates our homes and communities with negative energies that promote drought, negativity, fear, and so on. I'm not saying that the towers are causing the negativity of the world, but perhaps just stimulating or intensifying it. However, it has been experienced that this can be remedied by placing or burying organite at the base of a cell phone tower. Thousands of aware and selfless beautiful people in the world have begun doing this and slowly helping out in what is being called the organite gifting movement. And this is happening all over the world, and we need your help as well. To find out more about organite, check out www.organite.info, where it talks about the science behind it and the gifting movement and how to get involved yourself. Or check out the link in the comments to an article by my friend Trey, who makes organite and has written a big explanation about how and why it worked. Now we're going to move on to the crystal movement. Now, I realize from the title you might be thinking, what? Is this some kind of new movement like zeitgeist or occupy only baser on crystals? Well, not really. But if we follow through with this, this shift in consciousness could be an incredibly smooth process. Crystals, being conscious, don't just like sitting around in the same spot all the time. They like to travel, just as most people do. Crystals move about when they want to. They change owners, jump out of your pocket and flat out abandon you when the time is right for them. If you are in tune, you will be able to know when a crystal is ready to move to someone or somewhere else. Just like people, when we are done with a task, it might be a time to move on to something new. Crystals are the same way. I've had many experiences where a crystal of mine that I loved decided to leave, stay somewhere else, be with someone else, or just flat out vanish on me. It's all fine though, because that's where it went, which means that's where it needs to be. The crystal movement is about the movement of crystals across the world and into the hands of the people. It's time for crystals to help the human race find ourselves and return to a higher state of awareness and frequency by bringing in pure and high frequencies that we need. All over the world, people are beginning to give crystals and move them around. They are giving them as gifts for holidays and birthdays. One thing I've started doing is actually carrying around a little bag of crystals with me all the time to hand out to people that I encounter as I go about my day. When a person who's down on their luck asks you for some spare change or a cigarette, you can reply, Sorry, I don't have any change, but I'd love to share a crystal with you. And then briefly describe what it is this particular crystal does, if you know, and wish them safe journeys on the path that they are walking. I encourage everyone to try just doing that. What you're doing is literally giving out a little pocket of love or abundance or insight, and who knows what will manifest into their life. It feels absolutely incredible. It's so good to share crystal magic with people and to see their eyes light up when they are holding their brand new rose quartz or kyanite or whatever. Ultimately, it's just spreading goodness. If you're shy and don't necessarily want to hand them out to strangers, you could also just leave them wherever you go. Jim Carrey said that he used to go around and write, Have a great day on $20 bills and leave them around the city for others. You can do that with crystals. Can you imagine the feeling of stopping to tie your shoe and finding a beautiful piece of rose quartz just saying, Take me. Now imagine being able to give that to others. Love and gratefulness are such powerful and incredible emotions and frequencies, and love will be the force that brings us together. Now, we have mainly been focusing on what smaller crystals can do. Pocket stones are wonderful on an individual basis, but now let's come up with some ideas that we could do with larger crystals. Large crystals are very powerful. You can do a lot with large crystals, and you can help a lot of people if you put them in the right places. For example, putting large geodes for healing and love in hospitals could help many, many people recover incredibly quickly. Crystals around your home can influence our aid in your family life. Putting crystals in the classroom could help students both learn and grow more as individuals and communities. We could install large crystals of abundance and love into homeless shelters, and who knows what could happen. Even smaller businesses can benefit with some crystals around the office or work environment. I feel it's very important that we start investing in crystals in fast, not because of the economic reasons, but because of what it will do for us and what beauty and love it could bring into our lives. So how do we do this? This is probably something that needs some organization, and we need to follow through. On the Spirit Science website, we've been partnering and working with many people who work with crystals. Our friend Kiko makes chakra necklaces, which you can get through the site. We're also working with my friend Trey, who makes Organite to help get as many of these Organite devices out to the world as possible. How about bigger crystals? We feel this is have to going to work on a community basis. Obviously, not many people have hundreds of dollars to bring crystals to share with their communities or workspaces, or local hospitals, shelters, and schools. However, collectively we do. I encourage everyone who is on board with this to share these videos and information with all of those around you, and look into collectively pooling your resources into bringing some powerful, energetic fountains into your environment. Not only will this bring in a lot of good energy, but it will also create a lot of love connections between the individuals who are sharing the experience of getting crystals together. And if you do put crystals in a home or place or environment, take a picture of it and send it to us. We could put it up on the website and show how the crystal movement is doing. And that takes us to the end of the crystal special. But this is only the beginning of our exploration with crystals. Now it's up to you to do something with it. So let's go out and share some love with the world. See you next time.