From Ideas to Impact: Creative Strategies and Relationship Building with Vinnie Potestivo

Hello my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at A&I we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home.

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Foreign thanks for joining us today.

Yo, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Listen, as you can tell in my voice listeners, I'm pumped about this episode. We, I'm so excited about this. So Vinny, so how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah, I am, I am. Ear to ear this conversation for y' all listening to it, this will be at least 10x your expectations, I promise. And some of that will take brand to the 10x monetization to the 10x. But hi, I'm an Emmy award, which is nice to say finally after 25 years of being in TV, an Emmy Award winning media advisor, I got my start in talent development at MTV in the late 90s working with artists to get into MTV films and then ultimately the exploitation of their stories known as reality television. Osborne's Newlyweds, Punked, Pimp My Ride, trl. I have, I have stories to share and intimate access and insights into the deals that all of those people had. And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're a podcaster, I'm gonna tell you one thing. You have one thing that none of those people had when I met them, which is you own your content. So if you're, if you're podcaster and you're creating content, congratulations, God bless you. And I am 100% subscribed to the direction you're going in. Now I hang out on LinkedIn. I try to help founder led companies, talent people who identify as talent brands. I Help them identify how to create content, leverage it on media platforms. I try to make that content something that they can own so I can show them how to leverage it into tv, film, and. And other media platforms. And I'm really honored to be here. And. But this is. This. This is a result of two people who are passionate about making sure that. That people who put their name on the line, their voice out there, that they're getting paid, that they're covered, that they're protected. And I'm really excited about where this conversation is going to go. So thanks for having me here, bud.

Yeah, me too. And listen, everybody, check out Vinny's podcast as well. We're going to put links to all of his content in the. In the description. He was even generous enough to have me on the show one time earlier this year. So this is. This is a long time coming. I'm excited for this. And today what we're going to focus on is the idea of creative cooperation, because in negotiation, we talk about the importance of creativity all the time. And Vinny has such an interesting background when it comes to working with creatives to create something brand new, but then also monetizing that so we can go through the entire creative negotiation cycle to come up with the idea and then talk about the contractual side, too. And, Vinny, let's get this party started hot, because my wife Whit is going to see Beyonce in Houston, and you have a. A Beyonce story. So let's just start off with that story before we get into the rest.

My queen bee story, by the way, it's a good concert. I saw it here in Jersey. It's worth every single minute. And it's the. It's the concert. I recorded them. I've never felt older. There's not as. I had my phone out the entire time. Like, I didn't, you know, because when you see Beyonce, there's so. There's such a perfect version of who she is to remind yourself that she's human, that she breathes, that she looks off came that she fixes her hair just to just that. That gentle reminder. Sometimes it's good for the heart and soul in this world of content where all we see is the final edit and she's someone who really, I know, has put the work in to not have to perfect the image, to perfect the image. She is the image. That's what makes that image perfect. She doesn't wait till the end for the photoshopping to add in the dancers or extra lighting or extra ugarts. A Whole lot of nada. She brings that with her. And I preface that by saying, I was a casting associate at MTV in the late 90s, and one of my jobs was to support MTV Films. MTV Films decided they were going to create Carmen A Hip Hopper. And I got a phone call one day that it was going to the director of Carmen. The Hip Hopper was coming to the Times Square Studios, and we were going to be interviewing and auditioning Beyonce for it. So it was me, Beyonce, and the person I was most starstruck about, Robert Townsend, who, like, literally formed my entire comedic career and, like, introduced me to Eddie Mur. Eddie Murphy Raw, by the way, got me through college. So, like, meeting Robert Townsend, this was like a neck. This was. This was who I needed to impress. And I have a story version of this. I'll truncate it. I had a story version where. Where Beyonce reads her lines, and I'm. I'm too fidgety in the room. I'm trying to be a cameraman. All of a sudden, I. I'm, like, doing these weird MTV pans and zooms. Robert takes my hand, and he pulls me maybe, like, six inches from Beyonce's face. And he's like, vin, I don't. I don't need to see that she can act. I just need to see her eye contact. He goes, all I want you to do is stay 6 inches from her face and just show her eye contact, and Beyonce can take it from the top. And then we did it again. It was perfect. Was like unison. Like, I couldn't believe how in sync that was. And. And I was torn because I was like, I can't believe I took away a moment from Beyonce's audition. Like, the auditions are not a time for a cameraman, a casting assistant, to get the note. I felt devastated that I. I did something in the room that would have even. It's funny to think of that. I could have done anything that would detract from the energy that is Beyonce. What I realize now is when you have clarity, when you have goals, you don't need to micromanage. There's no constructive criticism. There's no line reads when you're very crystal clear about what you want. And what Robert did was tell the room he needs a tight shot of Beyonce's eyes, and Beyonce needs to be focusing on a single thing. That's what he wanted in this framework. And none of those notes were even meant for me. I realized that, too. He was literally talking to another 1% creative who doesn't need to be told the minute details to accomplish the goals. Instead, he reiterated his goal. I land on that version of the story now, 20 years later, after telling it my entire life, saying, I took away energy from what I was trying to make a successful thing. And it's the power of cooperation. It's the power of clarity. And that room was magnetic that day. And it was a moment. I mean, as you can imagine, not many people will get to audition Beyonce in her lifetime. And certainly when you have a star come in and out of a session like that, and your job creatively is to accomplish what we accomplished, it's. It's life changing. And what she did with that role is even more important to me. Like, I've read articles where she talks about the importance of character development, because this is the first time she's ever had a lead in a film. She's carrying. It's Carmen to Hip Hopper. She's playing Carmen. And it's in these rehearsals, and it's in recording this film that she creates the identity of Sasha Fierce, the version of Beyonce that she steps into when she goes on stage. In those moments where she might not believe she's capable of or needs to show up the way she knows she's capable of, but it just doesn't. Just might not have it in her. She gave that power. She gave that power to another authority that she could step into. And. And as an actor back then, I thought that was powerful. Now when I see how consistent she's been able to show up, it's like, of course, because there's you, you, you. That space by that space between those two characters, let's call it grace. And that's where she's living. And I learned this from being a casting assistant at mtv. What a sick life experience.

That is amazing. I'm literally getting chills hearing this. And I know for me, as I encapsulate this and bring this to Whitney, because I always want her to think that I'm cool, because she doesn't think I'm that cool. When I say, listen, my friend made Beyonce, okay, so Beyonce made me, by.

The way, I'll have you know.

But I love bringing this back to the creativity, the cooperative creativity. But also, you brought up a really important word, and that is clarity. And I think that is one element of creativity that's often overlooked, because if we tell people, go in a room and be creative, that can be an overwhelming type of experience because the opportunities are endless, which makes us feel empowered initially. But then when you realize the opportunities are endless, then it leads to decision fatigue, it leads to fear of missing out, fear of a better option option. And it can be really debilitating at time. And so when it comes to clarity, can you tell us the value of clarity when it comes to the creative process? Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description.

To learn more and we will be.

Right back after this.

Oh, sure. Right. So. So create. If creativity is the act of taking what is an internal thought and getting it into the real life, if that's what creativity is, if creativity is, I have an idea. I need this idea to exist outside of my head. So I need to communicate this to someone who's going to support it, possibly, possibly create it, but definitely promote it. The idea of cooperation, the idea of clarity exists for the sake of goals. And if the goals are short, the wins are short. If the goals are long term, the wins are long term. I think of two franchises I was a part of at MTV in my time. The Challenge and While and out. And no part of the challenge was ever about the cast. It was always about the emotional, physical challenge that the generation that's watching television, specifically mtv, goes through. And now, now if you watch that show, there have been iterations and iterations of the challenges, by the way, I think arguably we'd all say it's definitely got increasingly more challenging in a lot of unique ways. While N out was never about the end of the episode, it was never about who is the funniest, what's the funniest rhetor, what's the best episode possible. It was always about launching talent. It was always about being a platform to give people an opportunity to get their jokes seen and heard that weren't being seen by the mainstream. And I know that, I know that for a fact. I was there when Nick pitched the show. In fact. In fact, just again, take to focus on goals and to focus on clarity. Nick. Nick Cannon pitched. We hired mtv Hired Nick Cannon from Nickelodeon to mtv. If you remember, back in the day, that was kind of the design of those Networks, right? Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, right. That was the goal that they wanted us to kind of cycle people through so that the advertiser would. Advertisers would grab the 20 Plus, MTV would capture teenagers and Nickelodeon would sort of be there for the younger generation. Nick came to MTV at a. A point in time where Carson was at a peak and Carson was looking to leave trl. We almost had Nick Cannon hosting trl, but Nick didn't want to get stuck as a host hosting a daily show where someone else had already made a platform from it. He knew that he was capable of creating a show, that prop that brought people closer to what his goal was of getting on television, which, to be honest, was getting more representation, more conversation, more culture and community. We might have had some representation on the network, maybe, but did not have culture and community the way that, that. The way that comedy can usher into a network. Nick pitched the show on paper. MTV passed. He was dating Christina Milian back in the day. It was Christmas break. The two of them spent some money and time recording a pilot episode that they shot themselves and came back and then re pitched it to us with the goal of it being a launch pad for comedians that were not on our channel. And that's when the TV executives saw it. They saw the energy, the camaraderie, the community, the culture and the comedy component of what it was. So, so, so sometimes, you know, understanding the goal is half the battle. I think the other half is getting people to see the goal. And if there's one thing I've learned, and Nick is a great example of it, is like you surround yourself with people who want you to be. Because as a creative, your success a lot of times is determined by the people who want to see you be successful. If they want you to be successful, you will be successful. If they do not, they will find ways to make it turbulent. And if you want to acknowledge that or not, there's plenty of tools I can give you there. But that's where goal setting happens. And I think that's where I can look back and say some of the TV franchise, Housewives of New Jersey also, like some of the franchises I've been a part of that are so, so deep into cycles are. Are about story engines. I don't want to get all creative and use weird jargon. Story engines, I refer story engines are. Is the thing that connects two people together. So like Kim Kardashian has a story engine with her mom, Chris. Right. So that story engine is always going to produce some type of storyline, the relationship between daughter and mother. That's always. That story engine will produce something that's from the way of looking at sustainability from a storytelling perspective on television. One of the devices that we looked in, so, so having that type of clarity that those are the types of conversations we have in development that would turn around to me and say, what are the story engines? What are our four or five story engines since we all know the Kardashians. You've got. You got parent, sibling, you've got sibling, sibling, you've got all the siblings versus one of the parents. You've got two unique par. You've got two unique sets of siblings.

A lot of story.

And then the family versus the media. A lot of story engines to play with that, that help build the sustainability of these creative projects. And when you're pulling from story engines long term goals, it's going to yield long term results.

Man, my head is about to explode, Vinny, because like with every paragraph there is just brand new information for me. And I know this is the same thing that's happening for the audience. And so I just want to synthesize this as everybody is having their own brain gasms right now. Please remember, you don't need to have a full understanding of the entertainment industry in order to appreciate the brilliance of this. Because in this, in this little session right now, let's just talk about the. Talking about Nick Cannon, for example, pitching Wild N Out, which was incredibly successful franchise. The first pitch failed because he pitched on paper in what I would consider to be the traditional way. All right, this is the idea for the show. But persistence is part of the persuasive process and we're going to use a creative angle to persuade. In this case, you can't appreciate it on paper. You need to see it. So I'm going to invest my own money to create a more persuasive pitch for you. Now you can see it. That's one thing that we can keep in mind. So when we're trying to convey a message to somebody else, sometimes they need to see it in a different way for them to fully appreciate it. Another gem that you dropped that I think is it can be easily overlooked is the fact that you said if the people, the representatives within the company want you to be successful, then you'll be successful. Because I think a lot of times people would say, oh, this is all insider baseball or, you know, all of These things, it's. But we have to remember this is just how humans work. Relationships drive these things. So how are people successful? The relationships matter. And so as much as there is importance behind being creative, there's also an equal amount of importance to having those relationships, because that you can be creative, you can have a great idea. But we all have seen people who have had great ideas but couldn't get it done for whatever reason. And part of that is because they don't have the right relationships in place. And so what we're recognizing is that in the entertainment industry, there are multiple angles that you need to approach things from. From. In order to be successful. Yes, you need to have a great idea, but in the world and in Hollywood in particular, everybody's got great ideas. So what differentiates you? And sometimes it's the relationships. So we need to negotiate from multiple angles to create those strong relationships that are going to be willing to work with you in your creative endeavors.

Oh, yeah. And yeah, absolutely. There's a great example. In 2006, Fat Man Scoop and his then wife Shonda created a podcast called man and Wife. And it was, for the first time ever, a married couple talking about sex. You're talking to a guy who watched MTV in the late 90s with Dr. Drew and. And Adam Carolla, I think, are the. Those are the informative voices of sex and sex ed to my life. Two men, by the way, that I do look like. But I could not have anything less in common with myth. And I found it to be polarizing by a married couple talking about being open, being shot, having an opinion, and the respect of each other. I remember saying to Scoop, because, by the way, in 2006, podcasts were gated by technology. If you had access to a microphone, you were more prone to do something in the podcast space. So a lot of actors and people who had access to radio networks and stations like that would use in the off time. And I'll never forget, he went into the studio and he recorded it with his wife. I said, scoop, this is like you and your wife talking about sex. Like, I don't think the two of you should be in a. In an audio booth talking about sex the way that you guys are talking about it. Bring the microphone into your bed. And I kind of want to, like, I want you to be a little bit more comfortable. Take me to the. Take me to the place in your relationship where you have these honest conversations. I don't want it necessarily. I don't feel like it needs to be distilled. For the sake of audio clarity, you know, to be done in a booth. And we spent a day at the house. He had the equipment. He. Because he was doing music videos, so he had the equipment. We, by the way, we tried an episode in the Sounds so Honeymoonish. We tried it in the kitchen, we tried it in the bathroom. We tried it in the bedroom. The bedroom worked so well that they recorded every episode from the bedroom. We took the bed and put it on stage, and the bed became. They toured by doing this. I pitched the show to mtv. MTV didn't see this as being a viable conversation for our audience, but I was passionate about these very specific two people having this conversation on at least one of our 15 networks. MTV, MTV2, MTVU, MTV Trace. Like we were MTV.com, we were booming at that point. So. So I went downstairs to new business and I said, there's a podcast. It's looking to get a website built. If we can give them a hundred thousand dollars to help build the podcast website, we can get the podcast when we can be part of this conversation. What other artist is talking about sex who's married to someone who is trained, who has a license to talk about sex ed? In the way all the pieces just felt so perfect. We got $100,000 because the 17th floor, you know, saw, by the way, meaning a different department at MTV understood the value of it, which I knew was the first step I needed. Because once you got that pocketbook open, it is so easy to get another 100 and another hundred and a week later, I went back to production and I said, look, we bought the website. MTV.com is vested in it. If we don't do the show scared tactics, someone else is. You want another network to take our show that we're gonna make, we're gonna make. There are already superstars on our network. Gosh, Gosh, what an unfortunate circumstance. What are we gonna do now? I guess we. And I knew it. And that's how it took. And again, that's because it's finding the right people and those gigantic companies that you want to work for. Apple, Spotify, mtv, NBC. Finding the right group of people who want to see that success all the way through champion you. Finding those champions on the inside. That's the. I know I. I didn't think about this. And maybe you meant for me to come on this on my own, but maybe I was a. I was. I was definitely a champion of people at mtv. I was a person who. Who whispered into Nick Cannon's ear and I said, Yo, Nick, you're asking for all the ways that people are getting paid, and they're telling you, here's your executive producer fee, here's your actor fee. But they're not telling you, like, if your show does better than X per viewers, maybe you can get an incentive for increased viewership fee, or you haven't asked for a location fee yet, or you submitted a tape. That tape technically is a video, and the video is something you can get paid for where the idea isn't. So there could be a way to monetize the actual content. Not the media idea, but the actual content of media. That's something. Ironically, regardless of your scope or taste for media, that is more relevant now in the workspace than ever. In the 90s, talent development was celebrities, actors, musicians, artists. Talent development as we know it now go to LinkedIn. It is us, CEOs, CMOs, we the people, the employees, not even the employers. We, you know, are the talent that are being developed. So you want to know the importance of. I look at those celebrities, how they get paid for their name, image, likeness, and those celebrity contracts that tend to fit only for celebrities. And I realize how people who are creative or creators, because of design of their jobs or by the seats that they sit in in their companies are now called to do that. They have the rights to those protections as well. And I get excited about that because that's where there's money to be made and. And that's. That's where building the personal brand out of the gate is the most rewarding.

Absolutely. Okay, so let me. Let me do this, Vinny. What I'm going to do is do a quick synopsis of the last points that you made, just highlighting some negotiation points. And then I'd like to transition to talking about nil, talking about creative deal options. And then, like you said, we the people can utilize some of these everyday lives.

Sure.

So first when we were talking about the. The podcast with Fat Man Scoop. Fantastic. I had to get this joke in, you know, in Hamilton where they say, you want to be in the room where it happens. That's what you wanted to do. You wanted to be in the room where it happens. And the head was the magic. So I think that's great. One of the things that this highlights is the value of options when it comes to power. Power comes from our optionality. So in negotiation, we talk about our batna, our best alternative to a negotiated agreement. So when you first pitched it, they weren't interested that specific department. That's fine. I've got other options. I'm going to go with somebody else who can see it. And so by having those other options, you didn't feel the need to have any inappropriate compromises because you could just go with somebody else. I think that's really important to make sure that as we are negotiating, we're always considering what our plan B, C, D and so on will be. If we can't get a deal here, the next thing is you use the foot in the door technique. You didn't ask for millions of dollars up front. You said, hey, just 100k, let's. Let's just get this started. We can do it. Okay, Right. And so it's like, all right, yeah, let's do that. But you knew that once you got the pocketbook open, it'll be easier to get more. So it starts with that little ask. And so this is the foot in the door technique. Hey, you know, let's just have a conversation. That's step one. Hey, just a little bit of money. Step two, and then you keep coming back. And then, then it busts open the opportunities. And then the last one, persuasion wise, let's just simply describe it. You use the carrot and the hey, so if we do this, we could make a lot of money. That's the carrot. This is a positive thing. But on the other side, if we don't do this, somebody else will do it. That triggers fear of missing out. And listen, even if I don't want to have this, I don't want the other person to have it. We're using the rules of the sandbox again, right? I don't want the other person to have it. So again, just the story that you provided on how you got this podcast into life is another masterclass in negotiation. So I wanted to make sure people didn't miss out on those. Those particular elements of it.

Yeah. Thank you. I love the way that you're processing this because. Exactly as I intended to be. As well. If. If these insights are not as actionable as you think they are, reach out to me and ask me how, how to connect this on LinkedIn. Reach out how to connect the story to what you're going through now. You know what I learned from the celebrities that I worked with @ MTV? Because to your point, I wanted to be in that room because everyone needed to go through MTV to get to the youth audience. The youth audience is what I wanted to be connected to. So Diddy had to go through mtv. Ashton Kutcher had to go through MTV with punk, Ozzy Osborne, had to go again and Sharon through MTV to yet again reintroduce. Reintroduce themselves. So I realized that if I could perch myself at that location, that if I wouldn't need to run around the world looking for the top 1 percenters. By the way, I talked earlier about how I found you, and you are part of the alchemy of my success. When I go to LinkedIn, I look for your content because I know I'm going to write something theoretically based on what you're talking about. I want to be cooperative in our space while being innovative. Right? So I want to be cooperative. I want to react because I love that because I'm an audience member, you want to know anything more than anything. If there's like you could put me in any seat in the entire stage. A moderator, star, cameraman, spotlight operator, audience front row. I love being in front of talent. I love spotting it. I love seeing it. It's the movies that make me cry. When a kid taps into his. Their inner ability and they, they do something for their first time, they didn't know they were a basketball hoop or something, oh man, that would bring me down to tears and a heartbeat. And I can do that now with us adults because. Because we weren't taught to be creative in school, because we had different, you know, disciplines or specialties. And for some reason or another, that element of communicating was removed. And now because of tech, I can help. And also, and also precaution with precaution. Right. So I'm, I'm all about being mindful. There's no part of my SEO strategy that waits till the end to put in the words that I want my life to be, be discovered by and led by from a personal brand perspective. This again, what I learned from Beyonce, Diddy, Ashton, all of these people are solopreneurs at first. They don't have a big company. They have a big presence. Right. But they don't have a big company, one or two. And they're. No one's working directly for them. They have managers in this. How to scale. You have to be cooperative. You have to understand the goals of the network. Some of that can be in the data. Some of that data is acceptable, some of sometimes it's not in the data. And that's actually the best. I love when MTV would say, we, we're missing this data set. How do we get this audience to mtv? And I would go out and find people that would bring stories, culture and community and content and opportunities and other types of celebrities and other types of personalities that weren't on that network yet. But it was their name, their image, their likeness that I was always leveraging. I just started laughing. I almost got in trouble. I did get in trouble. Spring break and I had to book a celebrity that would specifically attract. What we were looking for was a large Latina crowd to come to MTV to really be able to celebrate and not just a one off, but someone who would really have impact. And I booked Sofia Vergara, I thought at a point in time in 2004 or 5 where her English was not as good as it is now and was seen on the show. And I can understand why some of my executives reacted the way they did, but I didn't care. You asked me to create a moment that would send shockwaves to a culture and community. And I am not going to pass up on the opportunity to put someone on television. Just because you don't understand them doesn't mean that we don't understand them them. And part of I have to do is cooperate. I have to make sure. So, so we come up with the idea of subtitles or we, we, we accompanied her, her appearance with another artist who'd be able, you know, they'd be able to like play off of each other and, and open it up so that it, it was something that didn't not get seen by the light of day because it wasn't what people understood. That's the fringe. That's to me where cooperation happens. And I would only have known it was Sophia Gara and she was the one. I only knew it because of her publicist, because there was one publicist that I trusted to call on who always delivered talent to mtv, specifically to that audience where we were trying to get more representation on the, on the network. And that's where to be honest, diversity turns into inclusivity. And, and in the, in the practice of casting, I realize how important the people who are, are, are referring talent to me. Even to your point of, even to the point earlier of like when I know I go on LinkedIn and I know I'm looking forward to content, I'm able to pull it and trust it. You know, these are sources that I can say yes to in my life. I don't have to question and I can move, I can move unconsciously. That's, it's really powerful when you're able to tap in trust and you're working with people who are protected. I think that's a really for me an ideal way to partner and collaborate in this turbulent yet Rewarding world of creativity.

Oh, again, this is great because I love this, the story where you're saying, yes, we want to bring in Sophia for this. Fantastic. And then people aren't comfortable, and so they might say no. And so it appears as though this is a binary choice, yes or no. But really, we're utilizing the third option, which is creative and collaborative negotiation. We're saying, okay, your interest and your concerns have legitimacy. My interests and my concerns have legitimacy as well. So let's work together to address all of these things while working toward that collective goal, too. And so it wasn't that you just pushed through and said, no, they don't understand. We're doing it my way, this exact same way. No, we cannot do that. We have to take their concerns into consideration. And then, then you make an event that is more inclusive and potentially more successful because you incorporate the ideas from other people who see the world differently from you. I think this, this is really great.

Well, I had to. I made the mistake of not doing that on one or two bookings, and I was asked to take that person off the show. And I realized that I can make an impact, and that impact has to be recorded now, but that impact might come a couple of years from now, and I. I became okay with that. If I could get it on tape, if I can get it in, if I can get my foot in the door and start the conversation, I know I can come back and continue it, Right?

Oh, man, this is good. I know we've been here for like an hour, you and me, before. I know it's going to be shorter for the audience, but I could not stop talking to you, brother. I will have you back on because this is so fascinating. And besides the master class and negotiation that you've given us, the storytelling is amazing.

You know, it's a good place to learn. I'll tell you, I learned from the best. I really, truly did. They made my life possible. They make our life possible. They teach us the wins, the fails, the things that should happen and the things that could happen. I learned from the best.

Yeah, no, I appreciate this. And listeners, we're, of course we're going to have all of Benny's content, his socials, Follow him on LinkedIn because the posts that he makes are really, really great. So make sure you follow him there. But again, before you go, Vinny, I want to give you an opportunity to shout out some of the work that you're doing, and let's give him one little piece of encour before they hit the road.

Oh, yeah, man. How about this? Just get guest, get, get guest, get out there and guest, get on someone's podcast. Podcasting isn't owned by a company. There's no part of the publicly traded world of media that's even touching podcasting. We the people own podcasts. I trust us the people who have control over the content. And. And I found myself in a whole new way, through a whole new lens. Wins by allowing myself to show up as a guest. And I'm humbled to be here with you, Kwame. My podcast is called I have a Podcast. You could check it out at I have a podcast dot com. Join my LinkedIn newsletter at VPE TV. I have a podcast. And if you have a podcaster know someone or just have a podcast that you love and can use a little bit of a level up and amp up, reach out to me. Because I look for podcasters that I'm constantly identifying and amplifying, trying to get, get our voices out there so we have sustainable impact. It's all about sustainability long term win. So thank you for this space, bud.

Yeah, my pleasure. And thank you again for, for sharing your expertise. Really appreciate it. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is, is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you. And I will see you in the next next episode. I'll catch you later.