You're listening to Mind Pump the world's top fitness health and entertainment podcast now in this episode We talk all about purpose now. I remember when I was younger. I used to think purpose was overrated So what's the big deal if I'm having fun enjoying myself? Why does everybody always talk about purpose? Well, we got older We all realized that the key to success in life fulfillment is in finding purpose But boy, that's a lot easier said than done So in this episode, we talk all about finding purpose and what that looks like and why it's important to find purpose in Your life now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor Paleo Valley now Paleo Valley makes some pretty incredible Supplements, but one of our favorite products from Paleo Valley are their grass-fed meat sticks This is the best jerky you've ever had in your entire life great macros of course high in protein No carbohydrates. They're not dry. 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We're also gonna throw in maps hit maps hit is a high-intensity interval training program Designed to burn a lot of body fat a lot of calories in a short period of time So you heard that correctly all three programs maps anywhere Maps suspension and then we threw in maps hit all for $99.99 all of those retail for over $290 Here's how you take advantage of this huge promotion. Just go to maps November calm that's maps MAPS November calm You know I was reading a an article by Arthur Brooks. He wrote and he writes for the Atlantic And I love reading his stuff great writer always has such a good pragmatic positive view on things But there was something really interesting In that article so number one obviously he's very well-versed in economics. It's part of what he does But he cited he was a study Where it's an economist take numbers crunch them to see How much more or less wealthy we were today versus in the past adjusted for inflation and what they found and these are just hard numbers was that that today in All categories from the the lower middle to upper class Everybody in America today adjusted for inflation Is far wealthier and has more purchasing power and just generally materially speaking much better off Here's the crazy part depressions on the rise people claim to be a more unhappy. So this is the weird part since 1988 happiness joy Purpose meaning like all those positive things have been on a slow decline since 1988 since the Reagan years You know, it's crazy about this is that we have more stuff More entertainment bigger houses the average American today lives in a thousand square feet bigger Living space than they did You know 60 or 70 years ago There are we live longer There's lower crime crime is much lower than it was in 1988 across the country. This is a fact So for all intents and purposes, you would not expect to see that that people are less Happy and yet that's what they're finding well I think it's because we are a Consumer based society now everything's based around that and we we've been advertised to that since the 30s, right? That this is what makes you happy all the commercials and ads and you know, we continue to buy all these things And I think why it's why it's worked for so long is a lot of those things do give Temporary excitement and joy, right? So I think you when you initially buy something whether it be a new car a pair of tennis shoes Whatever it is that the first purchase and then when you get them There is a little bit of excitement and joy But it's fleeting after that and then I think it just feeds into this vicious cycle of trying to fill this Empty hole because you haven't found purpose in your life And so you're trying to fill it with all these goods and when you add in that with The marketing and the advertising and the way this whole machine works It's tough to break out of that and I think what we're finding today is That we can have so much more, you know, we we've talked about this before in the podcast that You know, we're not far away From every big everybody be able to have most things Which is which is so different than what it was just a hundred years ago, right? Oh, well today somebody who's poor has Access to things that the wealthiest people of all time 200 years ago didn't have because they didn't exist. We don't need to go that far You can say something like a television correct somebody who it could be on welfare, right and struggling to get by living paycheck to pay Or not having a paycheck at all. I Think average household has one and a half TVs or two and a half TVs in their house And just you know 50 60 years ago. That was a big deal if you had one was a big deal So, I mean hunger hunger has largely been solved in modern societies the point where in America You're far more likely to die of too much food than too little food. Well, and it makes me think too I remember we were talking with Justin Ren and he's out there trying to help people that have dirty water still But what his experience was that they were some of the most happy people that he's ever been around We are searching for the answers in places where the answers don't exist is what I you know Arthur Brooks talks about and what psychologists and scientists are talking about a Sense of purpose and meaning Cannot be found with the ways that I think people are trying to find them that doesn't mean it's not good that we're innovating and Creating new products and making life easier. That's all good. It's not bad But it's not gonna solve this problem Studies show that having a sense a strong sense of purpose are very protective to your health It's you're less likely to have Alzheimer's disease you live longer if you get cancer or get very ill People with a higher with a good sense of purpose have greater far greater emotional recovery When terrible things happen to them. It's a very important overall measure of your health or factor that contributes to you know Generally speaking you're just your total health. I've personally seen this too with people who are retiring And they don't really have anything lined up after that the slow decline it turns into a rapid decline like right in front of My eyes and this happened to a few of my dad's friends. Unfortunately have passed and really it was Once one of the partners passed and they passed and they just didn't recreate that purpose to carry them on From then on out. Well, again, I think that's another narrative that we're playing out that was told to us, right? We're supposed to go to these jobs We're supposed to work really hard by the house that we live in Spend most of your life trying to pay it off put a bunch of money away in savings and retirement And then finally with retirement happens and now life is just supposed to be so now you're supposed to enjoy it Yeah, and then what you find is and I've seen the same thing too myself. I'd love to see some actually Research on this. I'm sure there's some studies to support what we're talking about. Oh, yeah There is there's a Marked spike in death and illness right after retirement and they know that that's one of the reasons why is that they think it's because people lose that Drive and purpose that they maybe had from the work or career that identity was all wrapped up in yes Purpose the reason why it's so important for first off. It makes life Bearable even easy life, you know what we're seeing now studies are showing that you have kids or people in their 20s and 30s who They have a job. They have everything They're at home or in their apartment and they're just depressed there or or flat or anxious And they can't figure out what the hell is going on But on the other end this is why it's really important a sense of purpose Makes the hard parts of life bearable. This is the most important thing because I don't care who you are I don't care how much money you have or whatever you are There is something hard is going to happen to you in your life at some point Or several things are going to happen to you that are really hard and a sense of purpose is what makes those things Bearable without a sense of purpose when you get hit in the face with something very difficult You just want to die, you know, this reminds me of my very first client When I had my own personal training studio, so you know years ago When I left the the big box gyms, you know, I did a little stint in investments and then I opened up a personal training studio and I remember Uh, my first studio was in the back of a tanning salon and there was a lady that was walking around and I introduced myself And she ended up becoming my very first client And so I started training her for a little while and anyway long story short she became a trainer And fitness became her life, but I remember when I was training her about It was about six months in and personal trainings, you know relatively expensive It's not inexpensive. I think at the time I was charging 70 or 80 dollars an hour or a session And I remember her husband and they were straight middle class, right?  He was a 18 year old kid 19 year old kid And he got hit and was killed and I can't even imagine what that must have been like um, so I was training her and that helped her quite a bit and A couple of years later she opened up and talked about it And I would ask her questions and I said, how did you get through that? You know by that point I had my son and so I you know Once you have kids if you ever hear about someone losing a kid you think Wow, I don't know how you could possibly survive that And she said my daughter is what kept me alive and so what do you mean? She goes well, I have the older sister If I didn't have her I would have had no purpose to continue going It was that that right there that pulled me through that incredibly difficult time Because I had to stay strong and sane and healthy to raise her So that sense of purpose made the most for me something that sounds Absolutely unbearable Possible or bearable because of that sense of purpose You know, I can remember when uh You know, I first figured out that what I had been driving towards most of my life Was not fulfilling Not the way I thought it was and I think there's got to be You know a percentage of people that are listening that have something similar where they maybe they think That they have found their purpose and they're driving towards it and they and then they reach it and they get there And they realize like maybe that's not what it was all supposed to be, right? You know for me. I was I was so driven by Money and and reaching a place financially Where I thought okay, I would never have to worry about money. I'd have my house I'd never have to worry about money again I'd put enough in the bank or invest enough or have enough of my savings that I will have made it and at that point I'll be happy, you know, this this will be yet And I guess a lot of that You know internal conversation didn't happen exactly like that. I think, you know I just I'm put into certain circumstances as a child when we're younger We don't have a lot of things like that. So Internally, I'm driven to change that and that's all that I'm focused So I had this tunnel vision for you know, 20 years of my life And I remember waking up, um, you know in my mid to late 20s around 27 28 Uh, and I had more money in the bank account um, I had a place where I literally didn't have to work for a while had my house and Felt that I had reached this number that I had Decided that this was it like if I once I make this much, you know And what I thought was that was going to be like kind of a lifelong pursuit for me to get there So it seemed like this was a good purpose And I remember really sitting back and kind of evaluating my life and going like what my health was in the worst I had been in at that point I had some Relate the girl that I was dating at the time had just recently cheated on me. So I was in the middle of a breakup I had just lost a best friend of mine And not to death but to us no longer being friends anymore So we were on the outs my two closest friends And I weren't spending as much time together And when I started to look at all the other things in my life I was like, wow, this is crazy This thing that I thought was so important that I was driving towards that I thought was my purpose I'd kind of reached it and when I really evaluated all the other aspects of my life I was actually at some of the unhappiest times of my life And was that there must have been a hard realization?  This isn't what it's supposed to be But then there was also for me a weight that was lifted off like I got to that place because of out of fear, right? I was I was driven towards the money thing because I was afraid of being poor And that was a story that I was telling myself in my head for so long And then once I had reached that and realized, okay, I'm not going to be poor. I'm going to be okay But this isn't what makes me happy There was kind of this relief that of this weight coming off my shoulders of oh wow now I can actually Focus on maybe what truly drives me and makes me happy and not Driving myself out of fear. And so my point is sharing that is Sometimes we're driven towards what we think is our purpose because we're still Running from something that is rooted in our childhood or that we're fearful of and because that gave me purpose I thought it was the right purpose And it wasn't until I obtained that that I realized that this isn't my purpose This is not why I was put here and this doesn't actually make me happy So a little bit of depression at first, but then it was this weight off my shoulders. Okay now Let's begin seeking what is really going to give me true purpose. Yeah, and I think that brings us to the first Probably one of the more important points, which is To practice gratitude and I think that's probably what took you out of that little depressed feeling, right? You started feeling grateful Right for figuring that out. Um, I know I've told this I haven't told this story in a long time on the podcast, but in my early 30s Now up until that point working in fitness training clients body obsessed myself Obviously, I was driven by same, you know insecurities about you know, being a skinny kid or whatever So I kind of identified with being this muscular strong, you know fit trainer and my health took a turn and you know Rebelled on me essentially and I remember I couldn't no matter what I ate. I had severe digestional issues I was losing weight. I lost almost 15 pounds in a in a couple months Which to somebody who's identifies with their body works in fitness And thinks they know it all you want to talk about an ego check I can't even stop my body from from getting skinny and feeling weak People, you know clients commenting my family asking me what's going on doctors couldn't figure it out and I went on this journey of Focusing on health rather than focusing on what I looked like So I did the whole thing right to do elimination diet and I figured out Um, I had to treat my gut issues and I stopped focusing so much on what I look like and uh, what at the end of it really what ended up happening is I ended up Really developing the voice that I have now on the podcast like how I talk about health and fitness Came from that moment and it was the gratitude that I had Because during that period of time was hard But believe it not easy right? It's not easy Eating food and it not work no matter what you do and Counter to all the things that you think are Right. I mean I'm eating all the stuff. I think it's healthy. It's just not working And I remember there was a point where I had I became grateful and I said, you know what? This is going to force me to look at things a little different It's going to force me to face things that I haven't faced Um in in terms of my relationship to exercise And to nutrition And it was that that got me out of it and and that's really important It's it's that practicing gratitude, but it's not practicing gratitude when it's obvious You know, I'm saying it's like, you know, you win the lottery or you hit a home run. I'm so grateful, you know This really only works when you're and you got to be grateful for that.  That's it You gotta be grateful when shit's hard. I can remember that too and that You know from coming back from going to school across the country and trying to figure out what I was going to do for a career And trying to please everybody around me Uh, I was very reactionary to life and and this was a thing that I realized Um, I was I hadn't found my purpose yet and and I was unhappy and I was I was pretty much like just facing whatever adversity or whatever, uh Obstacle was in front of me, uh, just based off of, uh, you know, the odds what I was going to face for that day Uh, and it was really until I started to focus Specifically on things that I was very grateful for that were in my life at the time and then Things that I really enjoyed A part of my day from my job or from the activities I was doing I started to really focus my efforts around those things that it started to reveal itself for me And so it wasn't even until I I could Corral my thoughts and sort of gain the you know, the the steering wheel and take myself to where I wanted to go But I had I had to practice gratitude I had to I had to be able to see those things that were right in front of me that were otherwise just uh invisible Oh, it's a great practice. It's like think of a challenging difficult thing that's happening to you Now, um, or maybe happen to you in the past Something that you're struggling with and it can be and it can be it can be a lot of it can be something That's really terrible. You could have lost a loved one or have a spouse that cheated on you Or you came came down with an illness that maybe to this day affects you Um and think about something you'd be grateful about about that moment and that's a really hard thing to do You know, especially if you're thinking about someone that you lost that you loved Like what am I grateful about what are you talking about? I lost my my best friend Something came out of that that you can look back at and say, you know what though? I'm grateful for this it forced me to be a better person or forced me to Value my relationships differently or forced me to change This thing about myself because that gives purpose and meaning To the difficult parts of your life that type of gratitude. That's what practicing gratitude literally means Well, I think too you have to You have to practice gratitude first before you can become fully present Because it's interesting creatures. We are right. We have these we set these goals and we're constantly focused on this destination that we want to get to Meanwhile, our life is like Full of all these little hidden gems and moments and things for us to be happy and grateful for but many times we don't stop We haven't acknowledged them. Yeah, we don't because we're we're not present. We're we're focused on the next thing we're focused on A goal or a place that we want to get And and we fail to be grateful and become present with what's right in front of us And so I think in order to be present and which we talk about on this show at nauseam In this time that it's so important with all the distraction we have In order to get there you must first learn to be grateful for the things that you do have When you are grateful for the things that you do have then you start to slow down those moments and slow down those days Like I work so hard to provide for my family because I want to be a good father but not at the Not to trade off of not being present as a dad, right? So you have to remember those things like and at we always use we talk about how Someone's death bed they never stopped and then whenever said like oh, I wish I would have Worked 10 more hours and made x amount more money. Yeah, so think about that I was thinking too about you know how you buy a car and then you see cars that are the same everywhere Like immediately and that's that's how I look at too. How I was looking at all my problems At one point I was seeing problems. I could see all kinds of problems all of a sudden spurring like every day I was like, oh my god, all this stuff is happening to me. It's all happening to me Versus when I started to start really looking at positive things that were happening and Things that that I was enjoying and man all of a sudden now those are starting to pop up there Well, and well, we start to you know, the more you practice this And it's hard, right? You guys are talking about you know, deaths in the family and these really challenging things, but The the greater the challenge the greater the reward is on the other side of it, right? So when you become really present and you practice this gratitude then you start to look at these Difficult times in your life and you recognize them as oh, wow This may present actually the most opportunity for growth and I'm grateful for this situation It completely reframes The situation that you're going through instead of it being something that is oh my god poor me.  It's like of course.  It's hard But then also recognizing like oh, wow This is also going to present one hell of an opportunity for me to grow and become a better version myself Practicing gratitude helps you when you're in those moments training for when you're in those moments If you're constantly Training yourself like that and that's why you have so many books that are written around You know things like this like the last 15 minutes before bed is sitting down and writing your five or seven or 10 Things are grateful for in the day all that is it's not like there's something magical about doing that one time It's your training yourself To think that way so so that when you get hit with adversity you get hit with these challenging moments You don't you don't dwell in them for weeks and months and spiral into depression You have the ability right away to reframe and be grateful for the situation. That's the most important point That's why it's practice. Uh, it's not um, you know remind yourself or try to be You practice it so it becomes automatic Then it becomes your go-to when things get difficult But it does take consistent practice just like if you want to get good at a squat You have to practice the squat constantly to get really good at the same thing is with with gratitude now the next one this one's interesting because studies will show that people who Volunteer okay volunteer workers people who work for charities don't get paid anything They work the hardest they tend to work the most hours oftentimes And simultaneously they have some of the highest work satisfaction yet. They're not getting paid So that brings us to the second one, which is Learn to serve others. Um, and I've experienced this Myself many many times, you know doing things for other people Not for money not for Uh, not even to get recognized but just for the sake of it like I'm doing this for this other person Even if they don't recognize it, even if other people don't see it That gives you a really really good strong Sense of of purpose and meaning. This is something that you know I've learned from friends of mine that that have done this with their kids You know, I have some friends that are very very successful and wealthy and we talk sometimes about how to Make sure your kids grow up and realize they're, you know, how lucky they are to to grow up with such nice things and to be so privileged And um, they tell me that one of the best things they did is have their children go Unlike these, you know, six month missions or whatever where they go and they build houses for people or feed people or Work for other people for free and he says they come, you know, they came back totally different I remember when I trained when I was a personal trainer I had a lot of a lot of clients that were doctors and there were a couple of them that did that I think it's called doctors without borders where they travel And they'll do work and stuff And it's totally on their time. They're not getting these are high paid very busy Surgeons and they're busy anyway. They already worked tons of hours. Anyway, and they'll take a month or two months and go fly somewhere and live in some, you know, hut or You know, share a room with a bunch of beds with other doctors Do their services for free and when they'll come back, they're tired Exhausted but they all say by far that's that is so much more meaning more meaningful than than what I do At work anyway, because they're serving other people. Yeah provides perspective. It allows you to Peer into somebody else's life that, you know, and their their struggles are no different. I mean, they're they're different, but Everybody everybody's going through life through adversity and, you know, finding their way through and if you can help somebody that's very rewarding back You know, to you being involved in helping somebody through that and I think a lot of times This is just good to break That sort of loop that we get in about thinking about our own problems our own things that are happening to us constantly It helps you to Now be able to kind of relief release release yourself from that A constant thought process and really just pour yourself into somebody else and lift them up. I also think that It's a very powerful tool So even though this isn't the intent that I think You go into this, but it's something that I've recognized over years of being in business and then also helping other entrepreneurs that want to Scale or be better at what they do is, you know, leading with a service mind first and You know, some of the best and most successful people that I've ever met understand this really well They look for things that they can do for you And if you do that without thinking like, oh, what am I going to get in return? Like you truly do it to help others and be of service to other people It does come back tenfold. It's the most amazing thing ever when you spend a life of Being that person where you're truly trying to give and help others There's a percentage of those people that will also return that favor And it's a compounding thing that you do over years and years and years equity. Yeah, absolutely It's equity. I'll never forget the first time that I went to a funeral of A man that I think really understood this and I'll never forget seeing just like Hundreds and hundreds of people That were lining up to to speak to the wife afterwards because of the life the life that he led of giving to others And it's like gets me emotional just thinking about it. How powerful that is It's like you can become the richest man in the world by working really hard and saving your money and investing well And then you die and nobody gives a shit, you know Maybe the those that are closest to you care a little bit But then nobody ever talks about you nobody ever thinks about you ever again You're you're now gone from this earth But take that same person that dedicated their life to serving others versus trying to serve themself all the time And those people will speak volumes of that person for an eternity They'll be talked about all the time about the type of life that they led It was a very powerful moment for me when I when I saw that it completely Reframed the way how I look at success and I remember thinking to myself like man And I've said this before in my interviews and it always comes off terrible because It sounds like a map like I have a massive ego or narcissistic over it like when I say that When I die You know what I would love to fill a stadium full of people and not because I'm famous but because I've impacted so many lives I've done so much for other people that they feel that they want to come there to pay their respects and When I say that it comes off as this narcissistic guy who wants to have thousands of people You know going to his funeral guns and roses Yeah, but it's really not about that what it's really about is that you know Have I led a life like that that I've truly tried to serve and help other people so much and to so many That that many people think about me when I pass pass away and I just think that Finding your purpose part of that that work is Going in to serve others and it's extremely rewarding when you piece it together. Absolutely Now the next one this one, you know studies show is actually quite important but we're going to break it down a little bit because It can mean a few different things and that's to practice Spirituality now that can mean religion It can mean connecting with nature for some people meditation And you know working on awareness for other people But the reason why this is important because is because it helps you Realize things that are bigger than you and bigger than life And I know some people think like oh, I don't you know, I don't want to worship anything or I don't worship anything That's actually false. Okay. We all worship something whatever your top value is Is what you end up worshiping so whether that be You know god or money or power or honor It's your actions reflect what you actually worship. It's what drives all your decisions Ends up being what you worship and if what you worship is something that is bigger than you something that is Perfect something that is Maybe even esoteric That can really give things a lot of purpose and meaning Versus something material Spirituality is immaterial. That's what the that's you know, if if spirituality is not something it's not something That is material, you know like worshiping money or power or sex You get those things and you realize You know now what? Spirituality is bigger than you and in lots and lots and lots of studies show that People and the studies are done on religious people mainly because that's the more classic Example of spirituality. It's the one we have lots of examples of People who are deeply religious live longer get sick less are healthier and have much more Joyful lives that report more joyful lives And a lot of it has to do with the fact that they have this spiritual practice That gives Good things meaning but even more importantly gives bad things meaning. Yeah, it's interesting if you think about it logically Uh and you know, and you're not a religious person, but you think of the idea of the perfect Version the perfect being that you could try to be like but you never really can achieve that But your whole goal in life is to sharpen what you're doing get better And and constantly grow If you look at it like that, I mean it makes a lot of sense even to somebody who may be not be that religious You know have that kind of background. Well, this follows the the last one really well, right? You So you alluded to that everybody worships something based off of what you do So even if you're not religious, you're either chasing honor power money All these things, right? But all those things are very selfish. They're all self-centered, right honor power money These are all things and they're fulfillable too, right and they all serve me Versus serving others and so the reason why I think that there's such Strong cases for why this is so good and religion is a good example of that Is because I think it lays the blueprint out for most people that don't understand how to pursue this So if you're a non-religious person, I I believe that the key to this Is is selflessness. It's it's a lot of that is recognizing that there's there's Other things other than yourself or serving yourself that is greater than you And why now and that's a great point because you think yourself well, okay. Well, what's spiritual about that? Well, it's not because Objectively speaking it doesn't make sense And so what I mean by that is if I were to sit here without a spiritual practice and say What makes the most sense? What should I do in my life? Well, I should do everything that makes me for me Right, it doesn't make sense to do things for other people like a pleasure monkey. Yeah, it's exactly. It's got to be all For me that's objectively true, right? And I could make a case for it objectively I could make a case Why are you helping those people over there giving them their your money? Or why are you devoting your time and getting tired when you could be going and having fun doing stuff for you? Life becomes very self-centered When you don't have a spiritual practice when you have a spiritual practice It's not about you anymore and now it's about other it's about whether it be god or other people It's about serving other people and you know religious leaders I know bishop baron calls it spiritual physics that The more you serve the more energy you get back the more you put out love the more love you get back It's totally true. I've never felt more. I've never felt better than exhausting myself serving others. You know, I mean It feels much better From a spiritual sense than than doing things Just for me and so in order to overcome your natural objective that natural Desire to always serve yourself spirituality helps you Overcome that. Well, why am I doing things for other people? Well, because I'm connected to everybody that might be a form of spirituality You know, everybody's connected. You hear people say that or I or I worship god and god says that this is What we do so I serve others So this is very very important to helping people find purpose and studies If you're just a science-driven person, by the way, studies prove this that spiritual practices really help lead to this Um, but again, just like the others it is a practice So just like if you want strong muscles It doesn't happen from one workout. It doesn't happen from two workouts. It doesn't happen from inconsistent workouts It happens from consistency And it happens from consistency over a long period of time Like you don't work out for a month and then stop every year or whatever you do it all the time Spirituality is like that as well. You practice it on a daily basis on a weekly basis and you do it consistently Part of that I think is goes to our next point, which is you know seeking vulnerability, you know things that make you feel Uncomfortable or that are challenging, you know It's like anything that is comes easy is never rewarding and even if it feels good for a minute It's a moment and then it's gone. It's the things that took a long time or that were challenging or challenged you You were scared. You were nervous. It was hard.  The worst that happens is I fall down I can always get back up again You begin somebody you begin to become somebody who starts to seek out All these situations where you're very vulnerable because you realize How fulfilling it is and how rewarding it is to be chasing it. Well, do you guys remember? Can you remember a time when you? opened yourself up And we're very vulnerable to your partner where you said something that maybe you Revealed something that you really don't like to reveal to anybody else because you're either ashamed Or embarrassed or because it makes you feel weak Or or not strong And then they hear it and they accept it And then they love you and you never feel closer than you do in that moment because Being vulnerable allows now now. Here's why it's vulnerable.  It's that self growth. That's what drives growth. In fact It's the definition of love, right?  You really do need to put those uncomfortable parts out and and allow What what's the unfold to unfold? Yeah, and you you you can't grow when you're comfortable nothing on the body changes nothing in the mind Or the spirit changes from Being comfortable first of all change is scary Change takes energy Growth takes all those things and it doesn't happen unless you are so uncomfortable that it has to happen Right and so this is where self growth comes from you never grow from doing things relaxed and whatever Growth comes from doing the hard stuff And even more importantly if you want to be able to do this repeatedly It's to do the hard things and love the fact that they're hard Which is you know makes things so much it makes it a practice Yeah, I was gonna ask you guys if you guys subscribe to the you know find what you love or love what you do Yeah, there's different camps right people that believe that oh seeking out something that you follow What's the quote goes if you love what you do you never have to work another day in your life, right? So trying to find something that you're in love with or trying to find love within what you do It's like millennials versus gen Z. Yeah Yeah, I mean, you know what I think if you're always seeking what's gonna what you love You're gonna be seeking a lot and you'll be bouncing from thing to thing I think the key really is to learn to love what you're doing Um, so because that's really the the the trick that's the skill Because no matter we can remember I think we confuse love with the feeling of love, right? Like oh, it's the like feel good feeling love is an action And uh, it requires um like diligence, um, and you have to be conscious about it Although it oftentimes does accompany a feeling Um, or come with this feeling if you're always seeking that feeling of love It's gonna be very hard to be consistent. It's gonna be very very hard Um to do to you you'll always be on this path of looking well Yeah, I think I think one guarantees that you find purpose and the other one doesn't So if you are trying to find love, right? I'm trying to find something that you love you may end up seeking your entire life and never find it If you learn to love what you do There's a very good chance that you'll fall into something that was your purpose. So it's a dangerous path I think that some and you know Justin's jab at the millennials, you know, I don't know if it's so much a Age thing as much as it is there is there is definitely a a group of our population That is chasing and trying to trend, right trying to find purpose And uh, you know, I I love what Gary v always says to that, you know You're too young to to find purpose right now You need to eat shit for seven years and then it'll find you right and that and that's how I feel about it Ironically, you'll find purpose like that way. Yeah. No, it's true.   I used to hate them.  I gotta fold the laundry I gotta mow the lawn.  I said, why don't I find a way To love doing this. What if I could do that? I mean, I I feel like I could Work on that. I must I'm a growth oriented person. This is what I thought about myself at least So let me see if I can do that. And so I found That switch happened and I found myself actually it was quite meditative To wash dishes and to do laundry and to to mow the lawn all of a sudden I found myself Looking forward to being able to put my headphones on turn on the lawnmower Mow the lawn pay attention to the detail rather than getting it done because I hate it so much I actually did a better job as a result of it and I actually found myself Enjoying what I was doing. It was really a mental switch more than anything. I didn't change anything else other than Then I said to myself I might as well choose to learn how to like to do this since I have to do this. Yeah, you gotta do it anyway You just hit a very very important key to that. I think which is you started to do a better job When you go into and I think of like that with the workforce because one of the things I think of most people as you're a young general young kid coming up is Struggling to find purpose is the job right that you love to do and one of the the great things about that is When you go into a job and I think about like when I used to you know Milk cows like milking cows and shoveling shit like there's nothing fun about that right this But finding a way to love what I'm doing and be good at what I'm doing ends up attracting other people I remember I got another job after that because somebody saw my work ethic And saw the the success that I was having for them that had nothing to do with me loving what I was doing But then I ended up transitioning into another job that ended up liking more And so a lot of times when you go into these situations that maybe you're not in love with it But you find a way to love it and be good at it it ends up leading to another opportunity. Oh, yeah It's uh, I mean you become good at everything that you do think about that if Think about the things that you're good at that you're really really good at It's usually things that you enjoy so imagine that switch if you could make that mental switch For what you're doing at the moment find a way to enjoy it And then what you'll find is you do better at it and then like anything it turns into a skill Boy, do you become uh, I mean dangerous in the workforce?   Yeah, no, that's a great an example I think of that as like and again, this is this is me thinking about video games, but What you learn in the hard levels like to get to the next level You have to do all of the the hard work to get to the to the one that's going to be harder Even still and so you might not even be ready for that one yet So if you're if you're trying to get to what you think is going to be your purpose So I see something out there on the horizon.  Um, when I was 12 I went to Sicily with my family and I had gone before but I was real young I think I was like two or three. So 12 is when I really remember. I was my first trip When I met my dad's family that I really remembered And um, they would tell me stories of my great-grandfather my grandfather my other grandfather and uncles and You know, they they definitely were It compared to our standards They were poor but especially when you go into my grandfather's generation And my great-grandfather's generation in Sicily were extremely poor and they were telling me stories about my great-grandfather And how much people loved to work with him. So in those days in Sicily You either work the land or you own the land very few people own the land So most people work the land and my great-grandfather one of the things he did was Help tend to these lemon orchards Sicily's known for For their lemons and they would pick lemons and put them in boxes and carry the boxes and and move them out and Workers would pull straws in order to see you could work with my great-grandfather Everybody wanted to work with my great-grandfather And the reason they they wanted to work with them and this is the stories that they told me was because He told incredible stories and jokes. So while you're working in the hot sun Picking the lemons all day long enjoyable. Yeah, he would tell these great stories And these great jokes and so everybody fought to work with him now. Here's the other side of it He also was known as Being one of the most productive workers. In fact, whoever worked with him produced more Were able to pick more lemons or whatever then they would have they not why? Because they were enjoying themselves because they found a way to love what they were doing So remind me of that story. Now the next one this one. I've heard before But it kind of does make sense and I have a personal story for this so Years ago, and I even said it earlier in this episode years ago I uh, you know, I worked in big gyms And then I transitioned and owned my own personal training studio But there's actually a period of time in between that about eight months long That I didn't work in the fitness space I had thought when I left big big box gyms, which Here's what it was like working the big box gym for me when I was a general manager I would get in at 8 or 9 a.m. And I would come home 9 or 10 p.m. And it was six days a week. It was a lot of work I made good money, but it was a lot of work now I enjoyed the hell out of it. But at this point I was, you know, thinking about starting a family I'm like, this is a lot of hours. This is really crazy Um, I know I'm good with with my words and I'm good in sales Let me see if I can do something else that's less hours and maybe Gets me more money My aunt worked uh in the banking industry and she said, you know, maybe I'll get you an interview So you can talk to my boss and see if you can get in on the investment side And you can make good money and your hour, you know, you work bankers hours, right? So nine to five or really you work nine to three or four by the way When I was the bank everybody was out of there by that time. So I said, let me give it a shot So I went in got interviewed they hired me and I did the I got my my my series six and 63 license And eventually I was going to get a series seven license and all that stuff And so I'm taking the test and doing the whole thing and I'm working in the bank and And I found myself Half the time I was in the bank Talking to people about fitness talking to people about nutrition Giving people workouts my co-workers the the people coming into the bank Like this is what I was talking about all the time and when I wasn't talking about that I was looking up at the clock waiting for lunchtime so I could take my break waiting for four o'clock so I could go home And I realized that um what I would do for free and this is the next one Is talk about fitness Think about that if you want to work in a way that serves your purpose Think to yourself. What would I what would I do for free? For me talking about fitness and health and self-improvement Is something that I did in a job that had almost nothing to do with it because I enjoyed doing it so much It's something that I would do for free. I would do this podcast For free Well, not only did we do that, but even so, you know We recently have you know, we set and did our you know set up buy sell agreements or something That's a responsible thing for us to do. You know Doug's getting old. We want to make sure in case he dies He'll outlive all of us. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the truth there The rest of us are we're going to go sooner, right? Yeah No, it's a responsible thing for us to do at this point is like, you know, what all the what ifs You know, what if somebody left what if someone passed away yada yada So we we've had to do that right and part of that goes Of getting to that place. We had to do evaluation on the businesses and You know It's pretty interesting to see like oh if we were to actually sell off what it would look like And one of the things that things that everybody said is like, you know, even if We got paid 10x of what the even the valuation is like What would you guys do and we all agreed like I'd still want a podcast I still wouldn't want to not do that. So all the money in the world Being paid out to us wouldn't make a difference on we still doing this or not That to me is a real good sign that you're aligned with what you should be doing You know, whatever Amount of money that someone could pay you for it doesn't even matter You would still do it whether you're not getting paid or you got paid all in the money of the world And you don't necessarily need to work anymore. Would you still get up and go to work? People don't realize like when we started the podcast we were all working. Okay. I I had my personal training Studio Justin was Training Adam was doing his own business and we're building a social media business On the side at that time all of us had full-time Doug Was selling insurance. We were all working Full-time and what we used to do Is we would meet first in Doug's living room and then in a tiny little cramped studio And we would meet there at like six o'clock at night or whatever after we worked So after a full day's of work and we would sit there and record till 10 o'clock at night Yeah, and we got have a blast and we got paid nothing We got paid nothing for a full year of just sitting, you know, we had no podcast experience No media experience I mean you asked us then we thought we would have been great But but the reality is the odds were way against us But one thing I remember about that was we would come in and end of the day I'm tired as soon as I walk in we start talking to mics. We're talking about health We're talking about fitness. We'll talk about, you know, self-improvement and lifting weights and all this other stuff that we love talking about and talking to each other And four hours five hours we felt like 10 minutes. It was like 10 minutes. It was gone And that was crazy to me. It's like, you know, we figure out how to monetize it It's like, you know what though that we we led with one of the other important points that we met or pointed out though Like the desired outcome was really to provide as much free valuable information.  It's like, hey, listen, there is a lot of bad information out there We've got a ton of experience and we want to shed light on that and give to all these people We'll figure out if it's meant to be a business later. I looked at it is is super valuable just for my clients I mean, I was still training all these clients and I would have these conversations with them after where you're done with our Sessions, you know, it's just it was an extension of that. It felt like to me like I'm I always like to to be available if I know something to pass it on to somebody and that's really rewarding And I felt like, you know, this is what we were doing in the beginning So it didn't feel like we were working. Right, right Now the next one this is this one kind of goes back to what you were talking about earlier adam When you said, you know, if you pass and you want a stadium full of people It's asking yourself. What is going to be your legacy? You know, how do you want to be remembered? I think this can kind of shed light a little bit in terms of what your purpose Maybe like what are the things you want to be remembered for if you were to pass away In a year. Um, is it because do you want to be remembered for You know having the the the You know biggest biceps uh being the most shredded for Being the most fit having the most money probably not it's probably Something like I'd like to be remembered by people You know, if I think off the top of my head, I like to be remember be remembered as being someone who's kind I'd like to be remembered as somebody that uh, wasn't afraid to stand up for other people I would like to be remembered by my children And my grandchildren as being Uh, somebody that led uh the way, you know, the legacy I think is important that legacy question I think it helps us Take things off that we think maybe we you know, we're driven towards and we think wait a minute Maybe that isn't my purpose. I don't really care if I'm remembered, you know by that thing right there Yeah, it's stuff with more substance You know, that's what lasts and and that's I think to like to me it speaks like integrity and And uh, that's a big one for me. I want to be remembered You know for Sort of following the the values that I I hold dear and being consistent with that and uh, and also being kind and being fair and You know those types of things that uh, I want to be a better model and example For my kids to look at you know, like where I got to So that way that that to me has way more meaning and then more legacy And then if anybody else looks at that as an example and can benefit then I'm even more happy I feel like mine summed up in one word. I want to I want to be remembered as a great leader Uh, and a lot of the things that we're talking about In order to be a great leader, uh, you need to encompass all these things We had a recent episode too about uh being a great dad's the same same thing You know the attributes that it takes I think to be a great father. I think the uh the ways to find purpose All these all these attributes. I think are are all encompassing and being a great leader If you've got this all kind of figured out, I think you'll you'll lead a life like that And others will look to you like that and I think that that's where this comes from with the whole You know narcissistic sounding uh stadium thing, right? It's like it's not uh that I I want to be famous at all Like I just I want to have let a life where others had looked up to what I had provided or given to them Like a life of service that everybody goes, you know, oh my god. He was kind. Oh my god. He was humble Oh, he was strong. He was confident. He gave me this I have all I want people to have received a ton from me and feel that way that I never asked for anything in return And then that's their way of coming there and showing up. Oh, you you end up leaving people better off than Had you not been around, right? That's the legacy. I'm talking to my grandfather Um a couple weeks ago, you know, my grandfather now is you know, he's up there in age.  He worked in factories and he's telling me this whole story And then he gets a little teary-eyed And he says, you know sally goes Right now because you know, we all were my whole family was there He goes, I look at my house and it's full with all my kids All my grandkids and even some of my great-grandkids and he goes, uh, I could die right now and I'll be very happy He goes, I this is the legacy that I left that I started And I mean incredible right and I thought to myself. Yeah, that's that sounds that sounds like a pretty damn good Good purpose Now this next one. I think it helps you Find your purpose because I know this is a challenge for some people. I think sometimes people sit around there What's my purpose? What am I doing? What's the deal? You know what can help a lot is to surround yourself with people who seem to be driven By a sense of purpose. It really does help it helps a lot contagious. It is totally contagious I mean if you surround yourself with people who Don't seem to have any direction Or sense of purpose You know, you're you probably gonna fall on the same situation or at least if you don't have a sense of purpose yet It'll be hard to find one Especially if you're around other people who don't have one Themself say you are the sum of the five people Yeah, you're an average you're an average of the people the five people you spend the most time with And I believe in that I believe that and that from everything from financially spiritually all the things that you could Talk about that those people What they make up you are an average of all of that for sure and I wish I understood that better Even younger It took me a while probably my mid 20s before this this started to come together for me And it probably took me into my 30s before I really really figured it out and evaluated it more often because it's hard You know, a lot of us are Attached to certain people for whatever reason many times by the way The things that draw us together are shit that has to do with insecurities and stuff stuff that You you are dealing with and so you're drawn to that person because you guys find that in common, right? So you guys can both Bitch about it. Yeah, it's it's true.  I think is extremely what it is Is if you if you're hanging around a bunch of people who are not purpose driven Who don't challenge you?  It's easy.   I'm not doing so bad. And you know, I'm not I know I haven't gone very far. I don't have much drive, but whatever. So these people all around me It's definitely uncomfortable to constantly be surrounded by people who are driven by purpose Because it'll challenge you to to look on yourself and it's hard When you are not feeling driven not feeling sense of purpose not doing the things that we just said in this In this podcast and then you're surrounded by people who do You know, you're surrounded by people who who have all your similar Circumstances and yet they continue to do these other things that'll make you uncomfortable So it's not necessarily easy, but it is extremely valuable So this is why it's good to surround yourself with with purpose driven people Because it'll constantly challenge you to be that person yourself Look, mind pump is recorded on video as well as audio so you can come check us out on youtube mind pump podcast You can also find all of us on instagram including dug the producer You can find dug at mind pump bug dug Justin at mind pump just and me at mind pump sal and adam at mind pump adam mind pump bug My butt bug it dug the bug. Yeah a new nickname. Yes Dug the bug dug the bug. I'm more competitive. I can't say that. I'm the best at anything in the world Right. Can you guys say that at all? No, right? No, no, right? You think I over here to think about everything. Yeah, he's like, well, let me think about kind of the best I'm pretty good at a lot. It's probably somebody else. I'm pretty good at a lot of things Let me think you're real quick. I'm also the best at being humble


Good morning, everyone. I'm just checking in if we're expecting all three subcommittee members today morning Good morning as far as I know chair what we are expecting everyone I have not seen board member right on yet. I never received confirmation, but there was no Notification that he was going to be absent today All right. Well, you can give it a minute. He is attending. He just sent me a text I need to re-send him the link. He's having trouble getting on. So we'll do that right now All right. Well, thank you. And you could probably hear in my voice.  We're at the flu. So Or I guess it's December now. So I apologize if I have to Go off mute to get some water and stuff marriage won't help maybe I think Glenn Glenn would I don't know if he's a Vice chair the committee will have somebody else to walk you Thank you, we'll see how I do if I need someone I'll I'll let you guys know It's just promoted board member, right? So when he'll be on the panel aside momentarily Chair Watts, we are ready to go whenever you Okay, thank you. All right, so I'd like to call the meeting to order at 11 o'clock to and Secretary Mandas if you could do a roll call Certainly board member right here board member Walsh here board member chair. What here But the record show all budget review subcommittee members are present Thank you. And just a reminder for committee members to mute your phones microphones when you're not using them and Now I'd like to open it up to share for item two which is public comment on non-agenda items If you wish to make a comment via zoom, please raise your hand if you are dialing in via telephone Please dial star nine to raise your hand Secretary Manas do we have any live or recorded public comments? We have no public public comments for item two Great. Thank you Now I'd like to move on to item 3.1 director Burke if you could introduce the item Thank you chair Watts members of the subcommittee item 3.1 is our miscellaneous fees miscellaneous fee update and deputy director of administration Kimberly Zanina will be making the presentation Good morning. We'll share my screen so you can see the presentation All right, can you see the presentation? Yes. Good. All right. Good morning chair Watts and members of the committee. Today we are going to revisit the proposed updates to miscellaneous fees Based on feedback from the last subcommittee meeting we wanted to provide you with more information. And so we've done that. And now we will go through I will try to keep this brief so we can stick to our half hour that we have And I will go through all of the fees that we are proposing So as background, miscellaneous fees are charges to our customers for services that are not citywide, but that are specific to a customer or a property. Excuse me. We developed these fees so that we are not spreading the cost of the services to the entire rate payer base and there are currently 79 existing miscellaneous fees. The typical calculation for developing these fees is based on staff time, vehicle costs, materials, but there are times when other methodologies are used and today we will be talking about one of those. The fees are also go through a public process. And so the last time that there was a public hearing and fees were adopted was in March of 2019. As we previously discussed, we are proposing several new fees that have been developed with this round of updates and I'll go through the fees here. And the calculations for them. So the first one is a payment plan processing fee. We have various payment plans available for demand fees. There is a downtown area payment plan and there are residential payment plans. These provide the customers with the ability to pay their fees over five years. And we are basing the processing fee on four hours of labor from a civil engineering technician to process the application and then follow up with yearly invoices. When the update to the guide to water and wastewater policy came to the BPU this last March, there was approval with that policy to create this fee to process the plans. And now that we are updating miscellaneous fees, that fee has been developed and you see it here at $320 an hour. The next fee is our manual water meter reading fee. And this is proposed for the few properties that are not on our automated meter reading system. We have 12 accounts without an automatically read meter. And while we don't have an official opt out program, we have allowed these customers to retain their meters and they are read manually. In order for them to be read manually, however, we are proposing a fee based on a meter technician having to drive to the property. Get the read for the meter for the monthly billing. And it's based on 15 minutes of labor and vehicle costs. The next fee that we're proposing is a credit card charge back fee. We have customers that pay their bill by credit card and then request a stop payment with their credit card companies before we receive the payment. And when they do this, the bank charges us $25. So we are proposing to recover this cost. The fee is only charged when customers initiate the stop payment, not when credit card company denies payment because of suspected fraud. We are also proposing a new fee when a customer is disconnected for water waste. The disconnection happens after our customer has been notified multiple times and warned that they're not complying with our water waste ordinance. This fee is based on meter technician labor and vehicle cost to drive to the property, lock off the meter and then return to the property to reestablish service. The two additional fees shown here that we are proposing are for applications for the water demand offset. When the water demand offset policy came before the full board for a recommendation in March of 2022 and then was followed that same month by approval by city council, staff reported out that there would be a fee developed for processing these applications. There are two options for the developers in the offset policy. The developer can pay the demand offset fee approved with the policy which will be applied to a city run program or they can develop their own program. If they pay the offset fee they will pay the smaller application fee shown here but if they choose to develop a program there will have to be an evaluation of the proposed program's water savings which will take significantly more staff time and then there is a much higher fee for that. The first fee is based on two hours of civil engineering technician time and the second higher fee is based on 10 hours of time by the sustainability coordinator for evaluating the proposed program. In addition to the new proposed fees that you've already seen we are asking you for your consideration of the modification to the high strength waste tipping fees. Staff hired a consultant to review and evaluate the program and with that study they developed a fee schedule. In that fee schedule there are two new categories and other categories that have proposed updates and we will look at the proposed fee schedules in the later slides. Once again we provided this for you last time we're providing it again it's just basically a summary of what was evaluated in the report just for your information. We added this slide since the last presentation we realized that there could be some confusion with the increases that are proposed in the schedule on the three-year schedule that we provided for you last time. The increases may look a little inconsistent so we wanted to just take a little time to explain that to you. We have the consultant produce a 10-year schedule which you see here but because we would like the opportunity to reevaluate the fees more regularly and because processes can change a 10-year schedule is too long so we are only proposing the first three years and then we'll bring back the additional years in the future. We thought showing you the full 10 years would provide a little more clarity on the three-year schedule. So this is the three-year schedule that is that we are proposing now and requesting a recommendation on it will increase fees over a three-year period it includes two new fees however the new fees are not new waste streams for us it was just determined with the report that it was appropriate to separate them out and develop a new fee for each of those waste streams those are the medium and low strength categories. We also wanted to provide you with a little bit of additional information because the other fees are all just one-time fees and they're just based on the one-time charge these fees are a little different because they're monthly charges and they're based on volume and so we wanted to provide you with some examples of how the customers would be affected by the billings or by the increases I'm sorry in the monthly billings. So because there are so many miscellaneous fees we just wanted to let you know that when the new and modified fees will be will be incorporated into the existing resolution when the full board considers approval this makes it much cleaner for staff and customers so they don't have to search through multiple resolutions for the various fees. We also wanted to make you aware of the public outreach that has gone on with this round of updates the first was the subcommittee meeting that we held on November 7th which was publicly noticed and we have also sent out letters to the affected customers so they are able to request any information regarding the fees and are aware of the public hearing on December 15th in addition there have been three notices published in or there will be two more published in the newspaper but there has already been one in that publishing it has my direct contact information so anyone from the public can request more info information or attend the public hearing. This is the schedule for the fee process it provides you with the publication dates the date of the original public hearing which was continued so that we could follow up with you on the feedback provided by this committee the new public hearing date and the effective date of the fees if they are approved and finally it is recommended by Santa Rosa water and the BPU budget review that the BPU budget review subcommittee recommend revisions to the Santa Rosa water miscellaneous fees and charges schedule as proposed to the Board of Public Utilities at a public hearing and with that I will take any questions that you may have. Thank you very much for the presentation and thank you for bringing it back again for us to have another look. We will now open it up for board member questions and comments and it looks like board member Walsh you have a question you have your hand raised. Well just a comment I think the presentation was put together the presentation was great in combination with the last meeting I appreciate the extra documentation and the staff that's putting this together is doing a great job also I'm concerned that last time I made some comments and it didn't to me thinking back about it didn't I didn't recognize what how good a job they're doing overall and I was just looking for a couple of documents I wanted to read but it's a great job and I think this lets us fully support the rates and any conversation in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right I just had one question has have any public members reached out since the letters have gone to them about the fees? I've had one customer reach out to me I've spent quite a bit of time on the phone with her and her husband and they have said they had some questions about the automated meter or the manual meter agency. Thank you. All right no other questions or comments? Then we will open it up for public comments on item 3.1 so if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand and if you were dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Manas do we have any live email or voicemail public comments so far? We do not. All right thank you very much. With that I would like to entertain any motion for this recommendation? I'll make a motion. All second. I move that the Board of Public Utilities Budget Review Subcommittee recommends revision to the Santa Rosa water miscellaneous fees and charges schedule as proposed by staff to the Board of Public Utilities for public hearing. Thank you so we had a motion by Board Member Walsh and a second by Board Member Wright. Secretary Manas would you take a roll call vote? Thank you Board Member Wright. Aye. Thank you Board Member Walsh. Aye. The other aye. And tier what? Aye. Let the record show this motion passed unanimously. All right well thank you very much for this meeting and its effectiveness and succinctness I think we finished in record time so with that we will adjourn at 11-16. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks folks. Thanks Kimberly. Appreciate bringing it back. You're welcome.


Tena koutou katoa nō kone aho ko Mike Hayama ho. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. My name is Mike, and that's the moon. I am from here. I am from Wellington, from Te Papa, and as Lucy said, I am the lead UX designer here. Thank you. So as Dan and Kate just shared before, what is UX in case, and you're not too familiar with what UX is, it stands for user experience, and it's about incorporating the user into your whole design process. So it goes beyond, say, graphic design or visual design, but using methodologies and processes to imbue the whole design process with the voice of the user. And as Pia mentioned earlier this morning, I thought this was a really awesome way of talking about UX. It's almost like giving institutions the tool of empathy, giving them the understanding of who the users are and what they need from you. So that's what UX is all about. And a translation. I spoke to Midania, one of our writers, who writes in Te Reo Māori, and he translated user experience design as Hea Tarai Waka Pū Manawa. And he gave the translation of creating products that provide meaningful and personally relevant experiences. Hea Tarai Waka Pū Manawa, which I thought was pretty cool. So I've got a really important question to start off with this afternoon, which is, should I wear togs? Excellent. Thank you, Dan. Should I wear togs? And what am I getting at here? What's the point? Let's move on. OK, what if I show you this picture? OK, should I wear togs? Yes, I see some nodding heads. People are like, yep, OK. At the beach, you should wear togs. That's exactly what I want to wear at the beach. What about this beach? Oh, no. Not at this beach. OK, so at a tropical beach, yes, in the sunshine, yes, but at an arctic or Antarctic beach, no, shouldn't wear togs. OK, what about here? Should I wear togs now? Or, you know that feeling of turning up somewhere and you're entirely underdressed? You know that, ooh, cringe. I expect you would feel that way if you wore togs here. Let's check out that clicker. Nope. There we go. What about at this party? Oh, yeah, pool party. I don't know why grown adults are wearing togs at a pool party, but that's OK. I expect if you were wearing togs at the pool party, that would be appropriate and cool. So what I'm getting at here is should I wear togs? Well, with such an open-ended question, the only way to really answer that is it depends. And it depends on your context. It depends on the situation. It depends on much more than just should I wear togs. Where are you? You know, why are you there? Understanding that context is how you understand if it's appropriate. And beyond that, understanding if you're digital experience, understanding if your product or what you're making or your service is appropriate, is also you need to understand that context and that wider situation in which you find yourself. Just asking is this good is not enough. It's good, but where, but why, but how, for who? And so today I'm talking about context as queen, obviously riffing off the phrase content as king. And so while we have this appreciation for our content and the importance of heroine content, you know, we see the rise of content strategists and sort of there's a lot of discussion these days around the importance of your content, I would equally argue that understanding your context is so important too. So what do I mean when I say context? Well, we often ask the question who is this for? And when you're saying you're asking that kind of question, you're talking about your users or your visitors or your target market or your segment.  We're used to asking this type of question, who? And if you're talking about what or you're asking the question what, you're talking about content. What's your story? What's your service? What's your information? That's your content. But if you're asking questions like where, when, why, how and with, you're starting to talk about context. And those are the sorts of things we'll be talking about today. And I'm arguing that you need to ask those other questions, not just who and not just what, but where, when, why, how and with to understand that context. Is that cool? Yep, cool. So this is another picture of context. So here are your users, trapped in a little grey circle. And here's your content. And the idea is that you're trying to find the place where your users meet your content through the service, through an app, through an exhibition, through a website.  And the context is the situation that envelops them all. The context of the situation where they come together. And if you get all those things right, party in the middle, yeah. So context is queen. And why do I care so much about context? Why do I, why would I even make this a talk? It's because I work in a weird one. So museums are weird. I come from a digital agency, so I've worked atopapa for about 18 months. The UX team has only been a permanent thing here for about 11 months. So I work with Kate Wondless, who was just speaking before, and with Karen Bryce, our UX UI designer. And so we've all come from digital agencies. And I think all of us can appreciate that it's been a bit of a culture shock to come to the glam sector. Don't get me wrong, working at a museum is great. We talk about 19th century portraiture, we talk about whakapapa and whanonatanga, or colonialism, or wetter, digital marketing, how to get visitors to donate. That's just what we cover often one morning. So the content we work with here is fantastic. And it's exciting. But it's also a really strange place, I would argue, to do digital, especially when you've come from a digital agency with often different ways of working with different audiences. And so I'm going to speak to you today a little bit about what it's like to sort of shift from a digital agency into an in-house digital team within a museum. Although I'm making the point that Context is Queen and museums are weird. So I'm going to focus on sort of three of these questions today, asking sort of how we're asking things like where, why and with, how we've done sort of with different projects we've worked on kind of explains this idea of Context. So first of all, where? Where are our users or our visitors? Interesting point about users. I've heard that there's only two industries that really refer to their customers as users, the digital design and the drug industry. So where are our visitors? Where are our people at? Where are our people? Where are our visitors? And what's really strange as well is that usually you would never ask this question if you work for a digital agency. If you're making a website, you wouldn't really ask where because, well, I mean, it's a website, they could be anywhere. But it's really strange to be like, well, if we're working for exhibition design, we can say very precisely where they are when they will interact with our content. And that's quite unusual for a digital team to have that kind of specificity around location. And so it leads me to this discussion of sort of the superiority of digital. I would argue that a lot of us here have this kind of implicit expectation that digital is superior somehow. We think about things like digital transformation and technological advances. We think about the way we hire movies.  If it wasn't already booked out, you know how it was really annoying to put all those video cases on the shelf still, but some of them would be booked out so you couldn't get it. You take your second choice, your third choice, you take it home. And if you weren't lucky, the video would be scratched and have those grey lines kind of going up the screen endlessly. And then you'd have to remember to take it back the next day otherwise you'd be charged massive fines. And then it got even worse with DVD rental when sometimes the DVDs were so scratched they wouldn't even play at all. And now we think about how that's changed. My wife and I, we don't have a broadcast TV. We just watch everything through the internet. Netflix, iTunes, even YouTube, you can rent movies from now. And within 20 seconds, you're watching the movie that you chose the first choice because there's no physical stock that can be depleted and there's no problems with damaged DVDs or whatever. It's not even enough time to make popcorn. And so we're so used to how digital has sort of disrupted and improved these ways of services and things we use. We think about Uber, Amazon, Netflix and so on. And so coming into a museum where I kind of implicitly had this expectation that digital does things better has been really challenged by working in the physical space of a museum. And to make that point, let's think about the Mona Lisa.  And when I was doing some research on this, I found that it was last valued or insured back in the 60s. It was valued for insurance purposes, sorry, at about $100 million US. And that in today's dollars that would be about $750 million US. So by far and away the most expensive painting on the planet. And this is what it looks like in the gallery. I haven't actually been there, but I'm sure many of you have. And what I'm told is that you're kept at bay by sort of a meter back by these bollards. And it's behind bulletproof glass. It's that painting obviously in the centre. And it's visited by 6 million people a year. More than our entire country's worth of people flock into this tiny room to see the tiny painting behind bulletproof glass kept at bay by bollards. And that really fascinates me, this idea that people still flock to see this. Even though the actual experience of seeing it is quite poor, especially given that I can google within five seconds on Wikimedia Commons bring up a high-res image of the Mona Lisa. And on my Mac screen, this is like beautiful, this image. And it's, you know, super high-res. You can get right up close to it. And yet still 6 million people go to visit the painting. And so let's do a bit of a thought experiment. Imagine you work at the Louvre and, you know, someone higher up, your boss is boss is boss, says, oh, I've been to this really cool gallery somewhere else, and I think what we need to do is ease congestion in that gallery. So we're going to take high-res images of the Mona Lisa and we're going to put them on screens. And we're going to let people sort of pinch and zoom and interact with the Mona Lisa digital version elsewhere so that we can ease the congestion in that room. Would that ease congestion? I would argue absolutely not. I would say if you gave people the digital version so that you don't have to go and see the real version, you would do nothing to dent the congestion in that room. And that leads me to a topic called the aura of the object. And this phrase was first termed by Walter Benjamin. And he speaks about how objects and artefacts and artworks have this sort of innate aura or mana which can't just be sort of replicated or transferred. You think about, say I've got that high-res image of Mona Lisa and I could get it printed at the Warehouse stationery on canvas. Would I get anywhere close to $750 million US? Like, that's a joke, right? And even if I was a master painter and I could recreate the painting, would I get anywhere close to $750 million US? Again, no. We want to see the object. We want to see the Mona Lisa. Not a copy, not even the picture but the Mona Lisa. And that's the aura of the object or the mana that belongs to these objects. And so there's this real sense of physicality in the museum around the objects and the artworks that we serve. And that's really interesting when you come from digital where that's quite intention with how we've often worked when we sort of disrupt industries and we sort of replace services and we make things better. Or can often not make things better. So here's a quote from a participant in a survey from a company called Morris Hargroves McIntyre that did some research for Tupapa early last year. And this participant told MHM, I used to think the exact opposite. That there should be touchscreens at every corner so you can always get the information. Now it would be more inclined to leave all that out so you just focus on the artwork itself. Leave out the touchscreens. I want to focus on the object. I want to think about the artwork. The touchscreens are a distraction. They're annoying me. Get them out. I want to focus on the object. I think live music is another kind of example of this idea of the importance of being in the space in the physical environment. We all have bands that we love or artists that we just follow and we have all their music. We know what they look like. We know every word. But when they come to town, we still go to see them because it's not about their music. We already had their music. It was about the physical experience of being with them, being present, seeing them in the flesh. If it was about just their content, about their music or about their look, we could find images of them online. We have their music already. It's about being in that presence of them, being in the aura and being in that physical environment. This is another participant in the same sort of study and they said one of my favourite things about places like Te Papa is the art. I'd like that to be as physical as possible. I think digital gadgets can distract from that. This is a really interesting place for us to work in in terms of the digital team where we're actually suddenly not the superior like hey, digital just makes things everything better. Think about the VHS example. Suddenly digital was like, hang on, these physical objects, these physical artworks are really important and we can't just override them. We need to focus on what digital can do only. Do what only digital can do. A really good example of this is found in Gallipoli where there's some pieces of real ammunition taken from World War I and what you can do is you can actually interact with those objects and see the CGI skeleton be impacted by the ammunition. It's interesting to get the visceral feeling of this rusted shrapnel or this exploding artillery shell and then that's augmented by this digital experience. Not surpass or not overpowered by. The presence of the objects is really potent and still there and the digital adds a layer of storytelling. When we're asking questions like where, thinking about this physical environment we work in, we need to make sure we don't assume that digital experience is a superior. Moving along. Who are our visitors with? This is another interesting question. You don't often hear a digital agency saying who are our users and when they're using the website, who sits next to them? That wouldn't be something we'd hear at a digital agency, but it's something that we consider. I'm referring to a study here from a company called IMPACS and they study cultural organisations in the US and they had a survey and they asked these people who had been to some sort of cultural organisation what's the best thing about a visit to a cultural organisation and by a factor of almost three times people said spending time with family and friends was more important and more valuable than seeing or interacting with the exhibits, the performance themselves. And so Colin Dillinshnider blogs about this sort of content and she phrased this study in terms of with this greater than what where who people are with often has a greater impact on their experience and their visit than the what they were interacting with. So more so than the interactions they have with you and your content as an institution it's the interactions that they have together as a group that can lead to a successful visit or a positive happy visit. And again Colin said cultural institutions are facilitators of shared experiences. Again referring back to that study another participant said this And the interesting thing with digital right is that it can be so immersive and so captivating and so enchanting and yet often it's made for a one-to-one relationship where we have these handheld devices that are really only made for one person to use at a time or a touchscreen or a computer with one mouse, one keyboard and are really made for one-to-one relationships and when you combine that kind of enchanting and intriguing nature with a one-to-one device you end up with something like this this is an image from an artist called Anton Giga from France and I think this is so perfectly something I feel like he made this for my presentation these people in the cultural institution cut off from the physical and the social context that they actually in because of the one-to-one relationship and the immersive nature that digital can provide. So what do we do with that? Well we make sure that we don't neglect the group we consider the group not just the user So imagine you've got six dots and they've come to your institution and they're interacting with some sort of hexagonal screen or something and this is what you might think about your user so you think about your device and your user and what do they get from you what information can you convey but there's another layer to this and that's this and how do they interact together with the experience you're creating for the group via your experience or your touch screen or your digital table So focus on the interaction between the members of the group not just on the device to user relationship and that's a bit airy-fairy what does that mean, what does that look like well we're still figuring this out too but we've got an example that's quite useful So this is Artwall this is a project that I worked on with a digital producer, Prue Donald here and a wider team supported by a much wider team and you can go see it up on level 4 and it's really great, a bit of a plug I think I'll talk about it later on too so I'll move on but this was doing some prototype testing and Kate on this was doing some prototype testing on the floor when we had Artwall, a beta version of it on a tablet and we were showing visitors what we were thinking of at the time and this group of French students came in and these five students and of course it sounds so much cooler in French and they're passing the device around really excitedly sort of posting Artworks up onto the wall and discussing and debating and having a really good time passing the tablet around for each person to have a turn and what was happening is that the technology faded into the background and it wasn't about the kiosk or the touchscreen it was about the art and the people and the technology was just facilitating that experience and so that's what we mean when we talk about how do we create an experience for the group and a social digital experience not just conveying information from a screen to a single person digital touch tables are something else we've explored recently we've done some prototyping and taken it down to the floor and the reason why these are interesting is that they are tables like this big and they can register 80 points of touch it's 8 pairs of hands and it really democratises the interaction because no one person is in control you don't have a keyboard and a mouse for one user you have a whole table where everyone can touch and the technology you choose can start to change the way the digital is served so when you're asking the question of with digital often focuses on the individual so be mindful of the group and lastly why are our visitors here now obviously this is a really big topic about motivations so we're going to be skimming this but hopefully I can give you a bit of an idea around thinking about the user journey and understanding why people have come to you can affect the product and the decisions you make so let's imagine this text conversation someone says hey what should we do today oh I hear there's this good war exhibition on it to Papa oh yeah it's free I feel it's amazing we could swing past Mojo on the way okay I'm in I'll pick you up in 10 now this is a rather pointedly glib kind of example here but what I'm trying to illustrate is that the motivations for coming to the museum theory people come here for all sorts of different reasons adults are kicking their kids out on a rainy day on school holidays people here at conferences and they're taking a break so they wander into an exhibition where routinely listed as a top 10 destination for Wellington so people drop in because it's a thing to do and what it means is that people are sometimes coming here without really understanding what content they're about to see they come in here kind of slightly unsure of what's next and I recently experienced this by going to Auckland War Memorial Museum for the first time and it's quite interesting when you walk into a new museum or a new institution and you don't actually know what you're about to see and it feels a little bit like being in a pinball machine kind of bouncing from thing to thing not quite you know expecting what's this, what's that, what's here, what's there where you're browsing this wide variety of content and not quite sure exactly what's next I think of it a little bit like being on social media and when you open up Facebook you're not actually particularly looking for a specific piece of content you're sort of just there to see what's there and it's a little bit like that sometimes when you're in a museum where you don't actually know what's next you're just kind of seeing what's there this gif never gets to an end by the way you're all slightly transfixed and I want to compare this to another digital example so I used to be a front-end dev and I built these calculators or was on a team that built these calculators and and so and I also used these recently because my wife and I purchased our first home and this is the exact opposite of sort of browsing or trawling social media where I've got a task in mind I've got this high intrinsic motivation I want to buy a house, we want to buy a house we want to figure out what our repayments are going to be and so I use this as a tool I have questions, I need answers this is a task-focused kind of digital experience and so when the UX team we talk about sort of this continuum of browsing and seeking and how some experiences are really in this mode of people are in this mode of seeking out information seeking out answers and this other mode of operating people can be in browsing mentality when they're pinballing around Facebook and so understanding what kind of mode we're operating in can really affect the decisions we make and got an example so think about the YDS journey and an example of this is actually back to Artwall now before I mentioned the immersive qualities of one-to-one relationships with a phone and how that can be a really bad thing but that's not a rule that we stick by and in fact there's an important way that we've sort of actually gone against that recently with Artwall so we refer to BYOD as bring your own device and it's something that we're interested in doing in the museum but with caution, trying to avoid this idea of people stuck in their phones and the reason why we decided to prioritise this was because of the location of where it was put so it's installed near Espresso Cafe up on level 4 and so what are people doing in Espresso Cafe and why have they come there why are people going to Espresso Cafe it's because they're tired, they need a break they probably need a coffee they're probably just needing to refresh and rejuvenate and what do people do when they refresh and rejuvenate these days when they're bored they whip out their phone and so we were trying to leverage that idea of people being in that space being in that mode and trying to serve them art and it's been really successful as over interactions of Artwall have been on people's own devices as opposed to the kiosk on the floor and we've had an average session duration of almost six minutes of people being on their own devices engaging with Artwall so we've really tapped into a really important way of serving people content on their own devices because we've understood the why to use a journey so again when you're asking why make sure you don't neglect your user journey mapping understand why your users are here what's brought them here what are their motivations what mode of operating are they in right now and how can you use that to leverage your experience or your service so museums are weird they put an innately they innately put a strong focus on the physical and social environments and that's quite unusual for digital people museums are filled with visitors who are browsing with no clear goals they're not necessarily seeking out an answer to a question they're kind of eyes open going what's next and so we can't just lift and shift solutions that might work in other industries we really have to consider our environment our situation and our context so how is this being offered is it through a touch screen is it through a touch table is it through augmented reality is it on people's own devices where is it being offered is it in a thoroughfare in a busy part of the exhibition or is it in a quiet contemplative state understanding your user's context is imperative to making good decisions when it comes to making a digital product or an experience think back to the Toggs example should I wear Toggs, that's not enough we have to ask where so we're at a beach, not just any beach at a tropical beach so Toggs are appropriate but why are you there, I'm at a wedding so maybe Toggs are no longer appropriate so maybe you shouldn't wear Toggs at the tropical beach but who are you with I'm with Dan, it's Dan's wedding everyone's got a friend like Dan and you can totally wear Toggs at Dan's wedding at the tropical beach so asking the where, the why, the with keeps changing the appropriateness or the success measures that you've got so keep asking those questions where, when, why, how and with so to understand your users and to understand how your content fits in their lives you must understand their context so context is queen and bloody weird nama hinoe, thanks