How To Get A Return on Authenticity with Melinda Wittstock

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap em in bacon for business owners, marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business. Pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week, our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

All right, welcome back to Bacon Wrapped Business. This is Brad Costanzo. And if you are one of my brand new listeners and you're just now tuning in because you saw the topic or you saw the guest on the show and you're like, I gotta listen to this or just the topic of bacon pulled you in and you're like, let's see what this is all about. This is my platform for interviewing some amazing guests who are doing really cool things that I want to talk to and I want to find out more about what is working out there, what's trending, and what are some of the things that we all need to stay on top of. Because as an entrepreneur, an investor, a consultant who is working with all types of businesses and run businesses myself, I always know that it's so important to really sharpen the saw and keep on top of what's working now. So that's what this show is all about. If you haven't subscribed, go ahead and, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Whether you're in itunes, Stitcher, or if you're on the website listening, by the way, at any time, if you have a question for me and you'd like to get an answer or you'd like to get my insight on any aspect of your business. If you're stuck, revenues or sales are plateauing and you're just not quite sure how to get over that hump, you can feel free to reach out to me@askbradbaconrappedbusiness.com and potentially if you've got.

An issue that I think would be great to solve on the air to discuss, we'll either discuss that or I might even invite you on to be a guest. So you can always email me@askbradaconrappedbusiness.com and we'll go from there. So today I am interviewing Melinda Wittstock. Now, I met Melinda a few weeks ago at the New Media Summit hosted by friend and fellow podcaster Steve from Reinvention Radio. And I was honored to be what was called an icon of influence, as was Melinda. So he brought in other new media influencers, people who have shows, people who have audiences, and we got to share what was working best.

In this world, what they call new media. And I got to spend time with Melinda and we talked a lot about, about some of the stuff she's doing with her company.

But.

But I invited her to be on the show because I was really curious. So Melinda is a serial entrepreneur. She is a social media sensei, a total tech geek and an award winning journalist. And she's all about this authentic connection and what she calls evolved leadership, which is a very, very big trending topic in the world of business today, the concept of conscious capitalism. And she's also the CEO and founder of Verifeed, which is a social intelligence company where she and her team are really hard at work creating what she calls a social media alexa in your pocket, which leverages artificial intelligence to take all the pain and guesswork out of your social engagement. And she's also launching a podcast and writing a book on female entrepreneurship, which I'm a big supporter of, and we're going to dive in today about what she calls how to grow, measure, and get a predictable return on authenticity from your social media. And I'm very curious about this because it's not something I've given a ton of thought to, but I realize it's important. So without any further ado, Melinda, welcome to bacon wrapped business.

Hey, Brad. I am so excited about it and I've got to make sure because I'm sitting at home here right now and I've got a golden retriever and every time I say the word bacon, tail.

Starts wagging, he starts barking.

Absolutely. Yeah. She's salivating at this podcast. She's like, where's the bacon?

Yeah, exactly. I love it. I have to do the same thing with my dog, too. I'll say bacon and then you'll hear a little jingle because his. His little. He'll start looking up and you'll hear his tag jingle. But no, it's great to have you. I remember when we were sitting around at lunch and we were talking about some of the things you kind of had my ears perk up with, talking about, you know, verified what it does in social intelligence and the return on authenticity. And I don't know if I know enough to ask pointed question. So let me ask you like this. What you talking about, Melinda?

Yeah, what am I talking about?

What you talking about, Willis?

Exactly. So tell me about this. You know, authenticity is becoming a bit of a buzzword, which is unfortunate because it is really important in establishing any kind of Emotional connection with a customer or a client. And, you know, you think back to the old days when, you know, salesperson went around and really developed a great, loyal, lasting relationship with a customer. And maybe that happened on the golf course, you know, or maybe that happened over a martini lunch, you know, in the old madman days. But whatever the case is, that kind of relationship happened and technology came along. And I love technology, obviously, I run a technology company. But a lot of stuff got lost with that because I think we all thought we could cut corners and not have to necessarily develop that relationship with our customers. And so, you know, we're all sort of heavily automated in terms of how we, you know, in our funnels and autoresponders and all these great tools, which are really awesome, but sometimes in all of that, we can lose that connection or think that we can cut corners. And just like, literally, it's the equivalent on social media where I see a lot of people go out there and it's kind of like they're standing on a crowded street corner, like on Broadway, Broadway and like, Manhattan, and just shouting, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And like, nobody cares. Really. Nobody cares. What they care about is whether you care about them enough to kind of show yourself to be an authentic human being and ask questions like, show genuine interest in your customers. And so we've gotten to the point now where we can actually see from these millions of social conversations that we analyze on a daily basis that brands and businesses and, like, icons of influence like you, who show up, like, in this really authentic way, crush it. I mean, like, they just do better than anybody else.

Thanks. So what I mean, and I hear authenticity being shared a lot, and it seems almost like a moving target in this nebulous subject, which is, you know, I mean, obviously, don't try to fake it till you make it. There's a lot of little, you know, colloquialisms that I can think of, but. Well, let me ask you that. Let me ask you this. Like, who's doing a great job out there that in your eyes, that you think is just doing a tremendous job of being really authentic? And it's whether it's a brand or whether it's a personal brand, like an influencer. But who are some of the people that, you know, can. We can kind of, like, tangibly use this as an example?

Yeah. Well, so a great example and a really famous one, of course, is Gary Vaynerchuk, who just is who he is. There's no kind of trying to be anyone else and of course, he was one of the first people to really build a business entirely based on personal interaction with people on social media. And not everyone spends the kind of time that Gary does doing this. But, you know, in the early days of building Wine Library, I mean, like, literally, painstakingly, like at replied to every single person on Twitter, spent a lot of time making all his customers feel really special. Like, over delivering to them on a really personal level, asking them questions about, you know, what kept them up at night, what was bugging them, you know, like just that kind of personalized touch. Now, not everybody can be Gary because not everybody can spend like 24, 7 or even really wants to. But there are some really important clues in terms of who he is. He's just himself and, you know, his unvarnished self. But more to the point, he authentically cares about his customers.

You're supposed to do that. Hold on, let me write that down. I didn't know you were supposed to do that.

Yeah, right. Like, I mean, he does. And so the thing that we try and solve is, okay, so how can the regular person be Gary Vaynerchuk.

And personalize at scale using technology? And a really big part of the authenticity piece is not so much that as a person, you have to like, you know, put out there every single bad thing that ever happened to you. Or, like, you know, like air, dirty laundry or like that. Like, I think sometimes people confuse authenticity with that.

It really is, I think. And how we define it at Verified is about knowing your true purpose and your true mission being very much in alignment with that.

Being very. Being transparent, like, showing, lifting the, you know, opening the kimono a little bit in the. In the process of your business, but really much more around the. Why, like, why do you do what you do? What's important to you? What makes your heart sing? Who are you like, as a person? Because at the end of the day.

People buy from other people. They don't buy from a faceless brand logo or. Right. Like, and so you need to give them something to show them that you are a human being, because that's where that kind of emotional bond or trusted connection can happen.

Okay.

And so the way that we look at this at Verified is actually, I'm going to say it this way. Like, you know, we sell, you know, B2B or B2C. And I think it's not really so much about selling anymore because I think now it's more about attracting. So rather than pursuing people, it's more like, if you're out there Being really authentic. Authentic, you're. And really true to your mission. You're gonna attract people who buy into your why. And, and I think this is really important because instead of B2C, it's now C to B.

Okay?

The consumers hold all the cards. And you know what? They've been trained to do that. And they've been trained to do it primarily. Like, I think the best example of who trained them to do this was Amazon. Because think about it, you go on Amazon and it's like, oh, if you like this, you'll also like this. If you like this, you'll also like this. And the beginning of that kind of matching algorithm was the beginning of this personalization at scale, where it's almost like you have your own concierge now. And that's true of anything. If you listen to say like as I do, I'm a Spotify freak. So because I'm a big music person and you know, I'm always. They always seem to know what song at what moment to suggest to me and like, very rarely get it wrong. And so the consumer has come to expect that. And so if you show up and you don't do that, even if it just doesn't resonate, like, it's just, it feels odd.

And I think it's also because we all put so much out there about ourselves on social media, and so everyone kind of assumes, well, I this about myself. So you should know me.

It's odd to think that, oh, this major brand is going to know me, Melinda Wittstock. But you know what? They can, because the technology and the data exists to allow them to know me, to know you, to know anybody. And so if this technology exists, why not? Like, if I spend a lot of time listening to who I think my customers are, I'm going to be able to them better. I'm going to ask them questions that are relevant. I'm going to send them content that's actually really helpful because I've listened to them. They're more likely to listen to me.

Okay, so let me ask you a couple, a couple things come to mind. A couple questions. So with verifeed. So first of all, is Verifeed a. Is it a service that you provide? Is it like a service coaching, consulting, where you're actually working with the business owners on this? Or is it a, like a software or is it a technology? What exactly is verifeed? How would you describe it?

Okay, so. Yes. Okay.

A little bit of both.

Yeah, a little bit of both. I mean, Right now, primarily what we do is it's a technology enabled service and it's a great way to grow a technology company. It's partly by design and honestly partly not. When you're bootstrapping a company, you want to get really close to your customers, even if ultimately It's a traditional SaaS company. Our software as a service company, which it is.

In heart and spirit. But you know, in this period right now, we're only about a year and a half old and we have these amazing algorithms and technology which really alone don't.

Close the circle or the loop or whatever because you still need that kind of human touch. So all the data in the world doesn't mean anything unless it's actionable to people. So we do all this stuff with our technology to help people find their customers, find their influencers. And we do that just by really social listening and segmenting of people. We can understand them not just by demographics, but also by their hobbies, their interests, their challenges. We're even getting better now at being able to infer customer purchasing intent. And so it's a very sophisticated technology. But then we go to work and we use that technology to help the customer personally directly in shaping the messaging and interaction strategies on social media that are actually going to drive conversions and real results. So it is very hybrid. And that said, you alluded to it in your introduction. Our social media alexa in your pocket. And that really is going to be a means it's a mobile app and it will be and ultimately a plugin as well.

What'll that do? Like what would the mobile app do?

Yeah, yeah. So really it's the answer to everyone being able to be a Gary Vaynerchuk. So like to be able to personalize at scale to like hundreds of thousands or millions of people is like impossible. So it kind of helps you to work smart, to get the right masters to the right person at the right time. So if you think of it this way, on one side the technology is doing what we're already doing is helping you find your true tribe. Like who are all the people out there who want what you're selling, but they don't know you yet? So say for instance, one of our clients was a dog food company and it turns out that most of their followers didn't even own dogs.

What?

Yeah, because they were tuning it. They were, you know, they were following this dog food company because the dog food company was posting all these photos of cute dogs which like even non dog owners like to look at and they didn't know they were wasting their time and energy interacting with the wrong people.

Right, interesting.

Okay, so we're able to kind of discern not only who is your true tribe, but are they the right tribe and how influential are they, like what kind of message or what are they kind of looking for from you? So the technology is doing all that in the background to find you, your true tribe, your true customers, segment those customers, understand them, and also look at who's the most influential just by virtue of like how frequently they're posting on social media. Are they influencing the people you want to influence? And on. So that's one side of it. On the other side of it, and where the artificial intelligence gets very interesting. Assuming that you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, an innovator, a thought leader, and you really need to grow, you really need to grow your tribe and you want to find those people, but at the same time, you really need to be able to personalize your messages to be effective. This artificial intelligence is going to kind of not only get to know you in terms of your goals and all of that, but get to know your voice so it can start to pre write messages for you and interact for you to though in an authentic way to those folks that you want to reach so you can just work smarter. So hence social media Alexa in your pocket.

I like it. So who are some of the companies that you. Well, let me ask you this. The people that you're who can get the most out of verified or that you've done the most work with, are they individual personal brands, consultants, coaches, and people who are using much more personality in the marketing or like versus like a physical product brand or somebody where people aren't buying the expertise of somebody else who have. So the two questions there would be who have you kind of worked the most with in the past and is there one of them that is even more better suited for this or not?

Yeah, so that's a great question. And, and we tend to love to work with companies that have a social purpose or mission. So we mentioned sort of the evolved enterprise sort of model, which is increasingly also a predictor of fast growth and even increased company valuation. And there's a reason, I mean, millennials are really driving this and influencing all other generations as well, because people are making purchasing decisions based on whether they actually the mission of the company and whether the company is doing something good for society. I mean, this is becoming more and more and more like a big thing. And I mean, one of the reasons I like to work with people like that because it's close to my heart and I like to be, you know, one of the reasons for being an entrepreneur in the first place is to do what you love. And so that kind of makes my heart sing. And also companies that have that mission have just a better chance of really connecting really well with their customers around something that's bigger than just a transaction. It's much more kind of transformational than transactional. And that's a big thing for me. As for like the types of companies, really it's anybody.

We like to work with companies that are scalable because they can take more advantage of the inherent network effects that exist in social media. So like say for instance, we could blow it up for a coach, but then they'd have more demand than they could, could cope with unless they have.

Like an online coaching scalable system. Well, and it's interesting because like this whole authenticity in the marketing thing for me, I'm at an interesting point in some of the things that I'm doing. So I just acquired one business that I'm not the face of and I am not an expert in. I don't even have an interest in, to be quite honest. And I'm acquiring a second business that is also very similar. Like.

I will never be on video. I will never be the face of the company. I will never create content. Personally. These are, one of them is a, is a physical product and then one of them is more of an authority based site on something that I know nothing about nor do I really care to, but, but I'm looking, you know, there's a lot of things I can kind of do in the background, but I've already kind of come up against this, which is.

And I think there's probably a lot of people out there, especially who are selling physical products who are like, I don't want to put myself out there. Like I don't want to create videos and audios and personal content. I don't want to personally build a relationship with the customers where they get to know Brad or they get to know somebody else. And I'm.

But I, yeah, I know exactly where you're going with that. I mean, that's a great question because.

It can be scary for lots of reasons. But one of them is that it can be not scalable. Like you can get locked in if your brand value is entirely around you, then suddenly as an entrepreneur you're not replaceable. Like say one day you want to sell your company so you want your brand to transcend your Personality or you. And I mean, this is, this is a big issue. And I mean, going back to an earlier question, you said, well, who's doing a great job? So obviously Gary Vaynerchuk is very. Has gone the personal route like he is VaynerMedia. But if you look at something like say Jessica Alba's Honest Company.

True.

Now this is a really interesting thing because, I mean, she's this famous person, but she's not out there so much as Honest Company has developed a way on social media of interacting in a really authentic way. And so they've developed a voice for the brand. It's not a face, but it is an authentic voice. Even someone like Denny's, like Denny's is really authentic and kind of aligned. Like if you look at their social media, if you look at their Facebook page, they respond to every single person and they talk as you'd expect someone who eats at Denny's to talk. Like they'll say, hey, shove this pie in your pie face. You know, like stuff like that, right? Yeah, they're very authentic. So there is a way to do it. And that's one of the things that we help people with. Like, exactly that. And.

That'S why in our opinion, to do social 3.0 really well, it is a combination of the technology and the human smarts and the strategic thinking and creative thinking to really think holistically about all these things. Otherwise it just ends up being a point solution doesn't quite work. And so we like to work pretty closely with people, really hold their hands at that very high strategic level and be really kind of holistic, looking at about what are their short term goals as well as like much longer term like that. Like, if you're thinking, man, someday I want to sell my business, right? I like, how can I, how can I not get in my own way on that?

Right, exactly. So verified. How does it work? Like, do you guys have a set price for everybody? Does it depend. What's your business model like that somebody. If one of my listeners, here's this. I mean, what's it look like?

Yeah, and so it really, it depends. There's your few kind of variables, right. But they're pretty much set packages of what we do. And we're priced kind of like a retainer and great. So the lowest we go. And actually right now we have a really cool offer if anyone's interested. It's like only 1500 bucks a month. We normally start at about 5000. And so up through October 15th.

We'Re at that price which is awesome. And you get your influencers and your customer target list and your kind of engagement playbook and you get some one on one time with me. And that tends to be what we do now when we work for bigger brands like, you know, big companies, they often have. It's a lot more expensive because they have a number of social profiles, they have a huge amount of data.

And the data cost is very real to us, both in terms of hosting and also licensing that data, whether we're like taking on the entire Twitter fire hose or whatever. So it can really run the gamut. The highest we've ever charged anyone is about 10,000amonth. And that's for really enterprise level. But most of our folks come in between 1500 and 2500amonth.

Okay, perfect, Perfect. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Now one of the other questions I like to ask every one of my guests is, you know, based on your business right now or your life or whatever, what's kind of a nut you're trying to crack?

Whether it's, whether it's like, you know, trying to get more. Just trying to get more awareness and customers and clients to verified, or whether it's a person you're trying to hire or, or a skill you're trying to learn or master or capital you're trying to raise. What's that nut that Melinda's trying to grab?

Oh my God. There's always like more than one. I mean, that's the sad thing about entrepreneurship, right? Like I was gonna say, like, how long do you have? And I'll give you my list, but like actually really top of mind right now are really two things for us.

I am, I don't know if you've ever read Rocket Fuel or Traction.

Those are great. Absolutely. I had Mark Winters, the co author of Rocket Fuel, on the podcast. He's great.

Okay, so then you know what I mean when I say I'm looking for my integrator? I really need that person. I, I have gotten very good at understanding what my skills are and what they're not. And I'm a big believer in like being clear on that and hiring your weakness. Right. And, and finding that. So I'm not the operational detail person I really am when I geek out and I get all up in our algorithm because that's all come from my head. So like, I love all that. But on a day to day thing, I mean, I look at my skills, I'm really a starter. I am a visionary. I love to, I'm very strategic. I Love to learn stuff, but you know, in the nitty gritty operational details. So. Right. Like, I need that kind of partner and that's really top of mind for me right now. So like, anybody who loves this kind of mission or whatever, but is like that who like, just like their heart sings with the kind of operational detail and like building a team and like just getting things done, like, you know, during the day, like, give me a call.

Yeah, give Brad a call first and I'll send you my scraps. Because it's funny, when I. Whenever I interviewed Mark and he even said, he goes, the funny thing is like, most entrepreneurs have that visionary. And guys, if you. I'll put a link in the show notes if this. If you want this to make more sense. But to the episode with Mark, but. But there's the visionary versus the integrator. And most entrepreneurs are visionaries and that's who we end up partnering with and working with a lot. But he goes, it's those integrators. Those are the rare birds. Those are the diamonds that they're super rare. Like, the visionaries are like 10, 20%, but those integrators are like 5% of them. And they don't realize how valuable they really are and how we're all looking for that amazing integrator. One of the things that I've been considering doing. I don't know if you know who Timothy Francis is. He's the owner of profitfactory.com but also great assistant. Oh yeah, great assistant dot com. Yeah. So I love. Because he's very much an integrator, but he's not like an integrator for hire. However, the cool thing, just to give him a plug for his business. Great assistant. They go to great lengths to match up people with just amazing assistants who may start off at the more administrative rate. But. But he even said he was like my. He goes, my assistant that I hired has become like even more of an integrator than myself. For me. And he might be somebody to kind.

Of touch base with. Yeah, hook me up. Hook me up. Because I could definitely do that. And I was thinking of going that way. I mean, what's really interesting is when you hire people, even at a very junior level, but you hire them for a real cultural and mission fit right on character. They can really grow into amazing things. And you know, two businesses ago, when I founded and was running Capital News Connection, which was a political news agency, I knew that the only way we could deliver really highly localized and kind of like almost like personalized Content across tv, radio, digital, all of it, print. The whole thing with a small team was to have journalists that were willing to really work, like in a team type way. And that's very difficult for a lot of journalists to do. So I had to hire people with no experience. I hired a bunch of interns, and, you know, one of them now is the executive producer of Face the Nation. You know, another one is like Katie Couric's. But these people all came in as interns with. With no experience, but were hired on character. And it's a great way to go. And I should really, like, follow my own advice there because.

Having people come in and do these different kind of more detailed integrator type functions and just see who acts up is actually a really good way to go for a more early stage company. And we're pretty early stage. I've been through this from idea to exit a couple times, and there's different challenges at different stages of a company. My other big one, obviously, is access to capital. And one of the reasons I'm writing the book and doing the podcast on female entrepreneurship is still remains really difficult for women to get, like, sufficient capital and, like, what are the reasons for that? So that's fascinating one for me.

I love it.

Fascinating and painful.

Yes, exactly.

You can all send checks. Yeah. Cool.

Well, I'll definitely make that connection with tim@greatassistant.com and I'll put my thinking cap on for you for the other stuff as well as my listeners.

Right.

So when is your. When do you think your show is gonna launch? I know you've got one pretty soon.

Like in a couple weeks.

So, like, where will people go to find it?

And so it will. It will be. Oh, my God, you'll know. I mean, it's gonna be like, all over the place. So obviously, you know, it's daily. It's gonna be on itunes. Stitcher. You know, it's a whole bit. It's called Wings of Inspired Business Soar to Superhero Success. Love it. And Wings is really interesting thing. I was playing around with the name because I wanted to get this sense of kind of really, like, lift off. Like women really stepping into actually their authentic feminine kind of superpower. Not being victims, not, you know, whatever, but just actually just kind of. Yeah. Being true to themselves and kind of getting out of their own way and supporting each other. And I really wanted to be the change. Be the change that I want to see in the world, which is really women like standing up for each other a lot more and standing up for themselves, you know, like asking for what they want, not being afraid to really go forward and go for big moonshots. And one of my moonshots is to be able to be in a position to invest in 100 female founded and run startups in the next 10 years.

Oh, wow, Nice.

And, yeah. And I decided I wanted to do the podcast and the book as the first phase of that, because I think there's so many women who do these amazing things, but kind of like in silence. Like, they're not really celebrated in, like, startup culture as much, and we need to change that. So that's what I'm doing. So you'll be able to find it, like, everywhere. I'm really, really excited about it. And yeah, I'll be going to pretty heavy promotion drive soon. I've got some amazing guests lining up, like Kara golden from, from Hint Water, who has grown that business to like 100 million in a couple of years. I mean, it's amazing. Sarah Blakely from Spanx. I'm hoping she's in my book and I'm hoping that she comes on the podcast. Tina Sharkey is a big investor in the Valley, is doing this really cool company called Brandless. She founded Iville.

Oh, I've heard of that.

And JJ Virgin's gonna be on it. A bunch of really, really amazing women and. And then a lot of women that you've never heard of but should have as well, who are doing these incredible things, but again, in silence. Like, it's crazy. Like, they should be celebrated. So I want to do that.

Well, I love it and I wish you luck and I encourage everybody. I'll make sure that the link to. Well, the link to that is not up yet, but hopefully by the time this comes out, we'll have it.

Yeah, actually. Well, the URL for the podcast is going to be pretty simple. It's wingspodcast.com oh, nice. And that site's not up yet. I don't know when your show airs, but it will be pretty soon. Wingspodcast.com and you can find me on social media too, so it'll be pretty obvious.

Awesome. Well, I encourage everybody to go check that out. Melinda, thank you very much for being a guest on the episode. You did not disappoint, and you definitely satisfied a lot of the curiosity that I had that stemmed from the lunch back at the New Media Summit.

Yay. It was fun.

I agree. So I look forward to continuing this relationship, helping you out any way that I can, and look forward to watching your new Podcast just absolutely wait for it soar.

Yes, exactly.

Soar to the top of the charts.

It's gonna soar. Absolutely.

Exactly.

Well, thank you so much for having me on. It was great to talk to you. I said bacon and my dog looked up at me again. So there we go.

I love it. For all my listeners, thanks again for tuning in. And know I mentioned the my email address at the top of the show. I really would love for you to reach out and let me know any of the things that the nuts you're trying to crack and just let me know if I can't. If I don't have the answer, there's a very good chance I know the people who do. You just saw that I asked Melinda here, who, you know, what she's looking for, and I immediately was able to make a connection to somebody that I do believe can help her out. So if I can't help you, I know a guy or a girl who can.

And I love helping my listeners. Another thing you can do with that same email askbradakenratbusiness.com is send me a book or two, ideally a business, a nonfiction or an inspirational biography that you've read recently that's really inspired you. I'll tell you two that one I just finished and one I just started. Brian Grazer, the Hollywood producer and one of the founders of Imagine Entertainment with Ron Howard, wrote a book a couple years ago that a friend recommended called A Curious Mind, the Secret to Like a Big Life or something like that. Amazing book. And as a podcaster, by the way, Melinda, I highly recommend it. Somebody who's going into podcasting, check out A Curious Mind. So amazing and really inspirational about how Brian used to have these curiosity conversations with. With people from all over the world and he had some pretty good access. But he goes into the concepts of why curiosity is so important, how to cultivate it, how to leverage it, and how to really think about it. Curiosity in a way that, you know, we don't think of as top of mind. Loved it. He's actually going to be at Summit series next month in la, which I'm going to, and hopefully.

Oh, that's awesome. Oh, wow. Summit series is really cool. Yeah. You guys know about that? Sound great? No, but I. One of the. I know a couple people in that whole movement and I've been actually to the Powder Mountain.

Yeah, same here. Did you go to Baby Bathwater or.

No, actually I went to a thing called Family board meeting.

Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.

You take your kids and it was phenomenal. I took my 14 year old daughter and it's just so great. It's for entrepreneurs and their kids for how we kind of, you know, bond because often, like entrepreneurs can be working so hard. It's like, how do you balance, you know, your crazy roller coaster life with, with being a parent? And it was great. But also speaking of books, the book Stealing Fire.

Is amazing. And that, you know, that goes into a little bit of the summit movement as well.

Absolutely. I love Stealing Fire. And then the book I just started I'm on, the audiobook I'm about one chapter in is Ray Dalio's new book principles. And Ray Dalio is the founder. I believe it's the largest hedge fund out there called Bridgewater. But it's all the principles that he leads his business and his life on and he's really a fantastic guy. And I know that this book just came out and highly recommend it. So now, dear listeners, what you can do, Shoot me an email. Ask bradakenratbusiness either with your questions, the nuts you're trying to crack, or book recommendations. Send them on to me and if I pick your book, I will. I'll give you a shout out on the show. All right, Melinda, thanks for stopping by. Bacon wrapped business. And thanks to everybody else. Share the show, tag me on social media and I'll talk to you next time.