Midterms, Ukraine, TikTok Takers, and Novels with @MikeAndes - Episode 002

Cheers.

We should have food. That's a whole different subcategory of YouTube. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode with Mike Andes and me, Lee Park. And we still don't really have a name yet, but we're back for episode number two.

Rolling with C Suite Unfiltered.

C Suite Unfiltered.

It's a bit of a tongue twister. There's a lot of consonants a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what we're rolling with for now. We'll see how it goes. That's. That's, you know, if it changes, it changes. But we're going to make a separate YouTube channel for you guys to check it out. We'll put content there. I'll be kind of. Actually, Mike's let me take the reins on that one.

Call it Friday Night Jam. Since we're going to do these at what, 7 o' clock every Friday night?

7 o' clock on a Friday. I'll drag my wife to them. So that way we can spend time together on the weekends.

Cool. Well, there's one thing that's not on my notes that I actually thought I'd start with. We've had a very hectic week and we both showed up actually late at the exact same time. You and I are both very punctual people, but when we show up late at the same time, that's fine. Like it works. But. Yeah. You didn't even notice.

You got a haircut.

Oh, I got a haircut.

Let's go. Did you have a part in that? Yeah.

So I got a haircut. Oh, dude. Let's go.

When did you get that?

Right before the round table.

Are you serious?

Last night. Last night. Yeah, I got it.

Oh, man. I didn't know this. You're so right too.

So I got a haircut.

It's figured for equip Expo, you have.

To like, shoot a quick expo. I gotta make sure I look good, you know?

Have you shown Liz?

No, I was gonna surprise her because I probably won't see her until Tuesday morning when we leave for equip. So let's go. Yeah. So I thought it was about time. Been two years. I've had my hairline for two years and I was. I wanted to cut it earlier this year. I was really thinking, like, I don't want to have long hair through summer. But I was really close. Sarah measured my hair and basically I was like, I could go a little bit longer and then donate it. So it's long enough. So I'll So I'll donate it to Wigs for Kids, actually, which is a really cool organization. That's awes. Yeah. So I'm stoked about that. But it feels so good trying to.

Make your hair now a charitable organization. So you're like, yeah, I'm growing my hair out for charity.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right?

Yeah. Well, I know Liz hated my hair long.

She's gonna love it, dude. She's gonna love it.

Yeah. So I'm excited. It feels really good to have short hair again. Let's go. Sweet. Well, let's jump in. So a couple of topics we wanted to go over. First one is it's midterm season, so we got some interesting stats. Actually saw from Yahoo on Twitter. So up for grabs in the 2022 midterm elections. Obviously all the House seats. Right. That's every two years. How many Senate seats do you think are up for grabs right now?

I have no idea. I want to say 70 something.

35. So it's not like a historical high, but still a third. I mean, that's good. That's good turnover.

I'm so disconnected from midterms.

Yeah. Yeah. Like most people are.

I'm so disconnected.

But I saw a Yahoo Finance tweet thread and I was like, this would be interesting. There's a couple of cool metrics I wanted to.

To.

So 35 senators. So that's, you know, a third. That's pretty big. But this number really threw me off.

This is this.

I was not expecting this. States electing new governors. How many states are electing a new governor this year?

That's a question. I'm just going to guess, like 15.

36.

No.

36 states are electing new governors. That's kind of wild.

It's crazy retiring, like getting old.

Yeah. Is every state different? Like, I think every state.

Like, I don't know this for fact. I know you can be more than one term, like you can be a. For a long time because there's. Governors have been around for like 15 years.

But are all state governments the same term length for all governments? I just thought that was a wild stat. Yeah, I feel like that's really going to.

Everyone just gave up.

Yeah.

We're done. This is going downhill fast. Fail while you can. That's what happened.

So that just seemed like really big turnover to me. The fact that 36 of 50 states are doing new.

It's a brutal job. Like, honestly, 2020 and 2021, I would not have. Would have been the governor because, like, all of a sudden people realize who their governor was.

Yeah.

All of a sudden they're like making the decision whether or not you can work or not. Like, I wouldn't want to be that person.

Yeah.

All of a sudden they came a big deal.

Yeah. Washington state, they stormed the governor's house.

During COVID I don't blame them.

Like a very, very, very politically charged group. But.

Yeah, I know. But my goodness.

So. So is he retiring?

I don't know. I don't think so.

No. I feel like we would have seen stuff. We would have seen stuff in Washington. So I see signs for all the local people all over. So I feel like we would have seen some governor stuff. So. Yeah. Big turnover basically in the governor races. So Yahoo said that could honestly cause. Because this is a Yahoo Finance thread, they said that could cause some instability in the markets just with that many states making changes if the, if there is a shift, whether red or blue, 36 governors. I don't. There wasn't a statement in there of if it was like a historical high, but they did say it's a very high number. So they're expecting just interstate commerce in the markets to bounce because of that. It just seems pretty unstable.

And it's pretty common though. So like if you look at historically over time in the markets app, like the six months after midterms, they do pretty well because the new regime, if they, especially if it swings, they want to like prove a point.

Yeah.

And so they'll do. They'll do a lot of economic, you know, accommodations to make sure that happens.

Yeah, yeah. So this was an interesting part in that thread that I liked and this is verbatim. I'll read it. It said Yahoo Finance tweeted it has historically outperformed the S&P 500 in the 12 month period, a midterm run election with an average return of 16.3%. Right. So the 12 month period after a midterm.

Yeah.

However, they shared that tweet with this graphic and I guess it's kind of a warning warning for Yahoo because all the experts are saying recession is coming. Recession is coming. The last time The S&P 500 index produced negative returns during the 12 months after a midterm election was when, I'll ask you when.

2006 or seven? Before way back. What like 80s?

Way back?

40S?

Yeah. 1939 at the end of the Great Depression in the start of World War II was the last time the S&P 500 index produced negative returns after midterms. So I think what Yahoo is doing There is like, here's a really positive thing. But also this graphic is just a warning that it could be bad. It's going to be a bloodbath. Is, is my read on their, their thread. So.

Okay, so we should have a bet.

Yeah.

This. What's going to happen between now and the end of the year with the S P500? Does it go up 10% or down 10% from here? I'm gonna go up.

Yeah, I'll take down.

You're gonna take down?

Yeah, I might as well, dude. I mean, I feel like the odds though aren't fair. Like if we're putting a $10 bet and I win.

Yeah, I should only get $4 and you definitely get six.

Yeah, yeah, like, exactly. Something like that. So I just thought that was interesting that they shared that stat along with like, hey, it performs really well. But also, and then you have the Wall Street Journal CEO basically is like, it's. The recession is here and it's coming. It's just someone's inflating it. Someone's making it seem like it's not here.

Yeah. Now I like, I like Google. My new favorite thing to do is take people that they quote on headlines and Google their name. Because randomly these names pop up as like newsworthy people to quote. And when you search their names, there's almost always some sort of back end thing they're trying to push. For example, with the whole war in Ukraine, the people saying like there's gonna be nuclear war. Look at what, who they are. They have a lot of ties to the, the whole military complex, industrial complex. So it's like, well, yeah, they would have some incentive to make sure that we go into a big war.

But that's my new favorite thing to do. It's just like, just for the sheer fun of it. Especially like JP Morgan and stuff like that. Okay. Like, so they're like, oh, it's going to go down 50% more. Well, yeah, they just did a huge short or they sold a massive position. Of course they want to prove their investors they're smart and let it go down more. So I don't know, there's just, I'm just jaded. But I don't, I don't know, man. I don't know. End of the year, I think it would go up a little bit. Yeah, I think so.

I'll take down. I don't know.

You go into nuclear war, Russia, then, then everything is toast.

Now this is interesting. I was, I wasn't planning on bringing this up, but I just Saw it before I walked in here. So I follow YouTube channel. I kind of turned them. You onto them as well as breaking Points. Their whole thing is their tagline is like. And supporting us is a screw you to mainstream media. Right. They're very independent. Their two main anchors are Sauger and Crystal, and basically she's moderate left, he's moderate right. They really balance each other out. And both of them are from kind of school of hard knocks political upbringing. They don't rally to their party, they don't rally to their base. They just look for the facts. And they did a poll with their audience, 15,000 respondents in their audience. And it said, are you nervous that Russia may create a nuclear war with the West? 64% said yes. And it's a pretty moderate audience. Like, they're definitely a third party. Like, I don't think most of their audience would align left or right, but I also don't think they'd like, align middle right or moderate. Like, they're politically educated, but they're not just gonna align with a party.

Yeah.

So I thought that was kind of interesting.

Yeah.

I. It made me kind of nervous. I was like, whoa. That many people actually think this could happen.

Yeah. Yeah. And the president. United States says that we could go in an Armageddon. Like, definitely gets people on edge.

I guess I'm not educated enough about the history for me to. To talk about geopolitics a lot.

Right.

I. If I say anything, it's basically regurgitating things I've heard, and I don't really have a stance outside of those things. But, like, I definitely feel like there's a compromise somewhere in between here that could avoid a lot of this. And it's obviously like, Putin's been backed in a corner. Do we really want to have to use the nuclear arsenal to make a point? Or do we just go in and say, look, you get Crimea, you know, Ukraine doesn't join NATO, whatever. Like, make some sort of compromise here. What's the point of just constantly doing this? Because now it's become a political agenda and a lot of just, you know, finger waving and just positioning ourselves as like the moral high road of, like, supporting this country. That it's like, look, there's. There's a. There's two sides to every coin. And there's a lot of history behind this whole war too. It's not like it just popped up in February.

Yeah.

So I guess I'm not super educated enough to have my own philosophy on it.

Yeah. Like to bring up breaking Points again, I guess. Sagar did a piece on Putin and like, what is his real motivation behind the war?

Very interesting. I've heard some of this stuff.

Yeah, it's really interesting because basically he breaks it down and this is the 101 version. Obviously he's very well read Saga's report on this, but basically he's saying it's like his last ditch effort to bring back the glory of the Russia he grew up in. Like, people don't realize Putin, he was 40.

He was 40 when the, the whole thing fell apart.

Yeah, when the USSR fell apart. And he was like, he, he always glorified the ussr. If you look at his upbringing, if you look at his history, if you look at everything about his life, it led to that moment.

But see, no one can talk about that. Like, that's the thing is like, it's like, oh, you. You're for Russia. It's like, no, like, we're like, it's not like that. So I think it just, it's just kind of allows you that even on like places like Twitter, like you can't even have a real good discussion about these things because people are just going to immediately take left or right or, you know, one extreme or the other. And it's like, look, there's always a compromise and if you constantly think extreme, that's what is the result of like Hitler and like the crazy things we saw in World War II. So if we want to go that direction, let's keep doing that. And I think what is worrisome is when the west writes a blank check to Ukraine's is this, Go fight them. That's worrisome to me. And that's like. Cause like there's parts of World War I that were created from like Austria and Germany and all this stuff. Like, you can't, you can't bring in major powers and do like these technically somewhat moderated and small, you know, skirmishes, like, so I don't know, that gets dangerous in terms of bringing the whole world into a war.

Yeah, that's interesting. We went on a weird tangent there. They started with midterms, but I love it. So cool. Let's switch it up. There's a big trend on TikTok. I know we talked about Be Real last time, but I just like to kind of follow the trends of.

Sarah brought that one up, man. Be real.

Shout out. Be real.

I actually saw. It was, it was hilarious. This comedy group in Australia, I see their post sometimes on Instagram and they were like getting robbed in 2022. And it was basically a guy. He's like, give me your phone and wallet. He pulls on his phone and it dings. He's like, you want to be in my B roll real quick? He's like, no, do a silly one. So that's. That's modern day social media. That's how addicted we are to our phones. But yeah, TikTok, I've seen this trend and it's. My summation is take it or double it.

Oh, yes, I've seen this.

Yeah, super cool. So it might be a guy with like a dollar or. I saw one that was really funny. A guy did this at a baseball game and he had one hot dog. And what you do is you go up to a random person and you say, do you. Will you take this one hot dog or this $1 bill, or do you want me to double it and give it to the next person?

Yeah, right.

And it's really interesting because, like the hot dog one, I think he got up to like 32 hot dogs. It was like 1, 2, 4, right? And then just went up 32. And it's just like, it's just a hilarious idea. And then when they do it with money, it's really cool because then like, you know, the person who, you know, gets up to like, I saw one go up to like almost $2000. And then like, the person was like, I'm like, so down on my luck and like hit hard times. Like, this changes my whole life. Like, that's really cool. But then I thought to get more into a philosophical conversation, is are all people categorized in two groups, takers and givers? So I know you can have like, you know, left brain, right brain, you know, you have introvert, extrovert. But like I was thinking about that is, can we do another class? Like, are more people geared towards being a taker or more people geared towards being like, givers?

I think a lot of it would be probably based on what you were raised. Well, yes, right. But like, are you asking the question, is most people givers or most people takers, or is that an actual binary decision?

I guess the question is, yeah, do you think that's a valid classification for people? Like, you could put most people into one of two categories and then the follow up would be, do you believe most people are takers or most people are givers?

I think that we are trending towards more takers. I think that.

That everyone is givers and takers in different areas. So, for example, in a healthy relationship, you might be a giver financially, but then they are a taker from, like, providing the family for. Providing. Providing for the family emotionally or psychologically. So there's just. There's different ways to give and take, I feel. And so, for example, even when we look at, like, what I just said, like, it could potentially be wrong. So I said, like, we're trending towards taking. Yes, we're taking, but the reason we're doing that is because a politician wants a vote and they. So they're also taking. Right. And so eventually the thing is, if everyone's trying to take, there is nothing to give. And that's when you start racking up debt. And so debt is just, I feel, a measurement of people wanting to take and not give, and eventually that system breaks.

Yeah. Yeah. I think my philosophy would be that everyone, from beginning of time, whenever you want to believe the human race started war, takers because we're self interested. Right. It's how do I provide for myself, for my family? But even providing for my family, it's the. The same philosopher philosophical trope of, like, would you steal bread to feed your family? Like, stealing is a crime, but you're feeding your family. And I think, like, everyone's a taker. But when you see, like, those TikTok trends, it's cool, because are those people just doing it because, like, they're on social media and they don't want the bad rep, or are they like, no, I like, I don't need eight bucks. Double it. Give someone 16. I don't know. I just thought it was kind of interesting because we classify people in two groups all the time.

Back to something we talked about on a podcast months ago, and that is the reason the person doubles it and gives it to the next person is because the feeling they get in exchange for that is greater than the value of the money they would have received. So eight bucks, it's like, okay, do I value the $8 or would I value more? Giving 16 to someone else? And that feeling is the exchange of value that they get. So there's never an exchange of like, that where it's like, oh, like, they gave a lot. No, no. They exchanged the dollars for the feeling they received in having that passed along. So it's always equal in exchange of value.

Yeah, I just think we've had a lot of situations recently.

Which we will divulge one day. That's what this PO may shift into, where we share more of the drama.

Around one year ago.

Yeah, it'll be one year delayed, so tune in next year. But Yeah, I just think we've had some pretty tense situations that you've been dealing with personally that myself, Liz, have been helping me with. And it feels like sometimes when, you know, I can't think of a good analogy, but sometimes when it really just comes down to it, like you really see, like, is someone willing to like give? Are they willing to bend? Are they willing to compromise? And then you see others that are like, they stay on their ground. They're like, no, I'm taking. It's just interesting. I don't know. Tick tock trend philosophy people. Let's see, last topic I had for today was just kind of open ended really. Novels. So my wife is a big reader. She's trying to get me into fiction.

She's reading a book right now.

We're not that interesting. You're not that interesting. So she's getting me into reading actually. Like obviously we have the Audible Pro. Audible. Audible program.

Yeah.

And I listen to a lot of books, a lot of business books, good stories, leadership books. But I don't sit and read a lot. So do you read? When was the last novel you read?

Dude, I have not read a novel in years and years and years. I have no desire.

No desire whatsoever. I think I've said it before. Like I've got, I got ruined going through pre med when it came to reading in general, right? So like listening is the only way I would ever digest anything and the only way I would do a novel. If I need to escape, like I need to like mentally check out. And I don't really have the need to do that right now. But like I definitely see the value. Like on a flight, just, you know, like tune out. Yeah, right. Like it happened when I was flying Australia recently and I was like, I didn't have WI fi. I thought I was going to have WI fi get on 13 hour flight, no WI fi. I'm like, what am I going to do? And so like in that moment, yeah, maybe like an escapism I would look at that. But I haven't read a novel since. The last one I couldn't remember would have been eighth grade. Ninth grade. Eighth grade. Eighth grade. So that would have been, what was it? The Tale of Two Cities.

Okay.

Is that a novel? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I read Fahrenheit 451 in eighth grade.

4.

Well, you know that is Fahrenheit 451.

I have no idea.

Oh, classic American novelist.

I'm just now getting into.

I'm horrible at reading.

It's a dystopian future, book based in the future, dystopian future. And this, the main character is basically prescribed with, like, burning all the books. Like, basically there's this power and they don't want knowledge out there. So it's his. His internal battle of, like, saving books versus burning versus not, you know, getting killed versus, like, spreading knowledge that maybe could help them get out of the dystopian society that they live in.

So I think I've been using my right brain too much because, like, this is my problem. Novels. I am always thinking in terms of, like, I am not. This is not happening. And I can't step into the story enough to be like, wow, I've lost that ability now. It's like, okay, I'm reading this story and, like, this is the real world. And I think if I ever could step back. And I remember, like, I remember reading like, Chronicles of a Narnia.

Yeah.

And just being like, I was scared to go into my room, like, which is going to get me. Like, I remember that and, like, the feeling. That's so cool because it kind of like blends a really more interesting world, the one you're living in. But now I'm probably just like two rights, like, on my head and just been like, oh, well, that's in the book.

See, I think it's a good exercise for you, which I think it is for me, which is why I'm leaning into it.

It's too long, dude. It's like golfing. You play golf? You're looking like an entire day of. If you're gonna play 18 holes, if you're gonna read a book, you're looking at what, how long it takes to read. About 10 hours. 10 hours to read a book, bro.

Yeah.

That's a lot.

Hey, hey. You gotta.

You don't even.

Let me tell you my numbers. Oh. How many. How many novels do you think I've read cover to cover this year?

This year?

Yeah.

I'm assuming this is some sort of 20, 22 goal.

No, not at all.

Okay, so it's low.

Three. Yeah. Two. I'm on my third. But that's like, I take the time, like, because I'm not a reader, I'm taking the time to, like, I want to sit and read. So weirdly. Yeah, I know. We. We flew recently and I crushed like, 150 pages on one of my flights.

That's Good.

Like a 300 page book. And it was great because it, like, sucked me and I could like, zone out. I didn't, you know, you're not thinking about being on a flight, being uncomfortable. So I don't know. I think it's good. Obviously there's tons of studies on the benefits, but I think for me it's like I want to be able to as well. Like I'm in a sales role, so. Right. Being able to storytell, being able to use different vocabulary, being able to see from other people's perspectives. Right. I think that's kind of some of the benefit that I've seen and it is entertaining. I've actually, the two books I read, I really enjoyed.

See, I hated college so much when it came to pre med in terms of like learning information I did not want to know. I think it permanently scarred me from reading because I, even though I pushed myself to do it so much because I wanted to become a doctor, but like there was no passion in reading. I need the information for the test. That was it.

Yeah.

And so now every time I literally read more than three sentences, it like hurts my head. I don't want to do it. Including emails. So if any writes long email, it's first sentence, last sentence, skim the middle and we're out.

It's like if we ever hand you a document at work, I just.

You just flip.

You flip. It's like so annoying to the person that hands it to you.

Can you tell it?

They put hours into it and you grab it. No, it doesn't bother me. Like I, I, when do I hand you documents? I know, I know you don't like them. That's why I don't hand them to you. But like when people hand you stuff, you just flip.

I just say summarize this. That's the way to do it.

Like we just bang this out in a meeting real quick.

Like just we were born to communicate with our mouth, not with written word. That became later down the road, I.

Guess, but, but written word outlasts you, right? Like whatever. Like your YouTube channel. Like Gary Vee says that. Right. Like this is my like magnum opus for my kids, for my family. This is my future is like on my videos.

Yeah.

So I think, I mean, yes, that's spoken word, but now it's like more of, you know, the digital age. But I think written word has the same power as video and audio now with modern technology.

Well, we're talking about creating content versus consuming content at that point. Because if you're consuming the content, I guess you could theoretically say you have the thoughts and you have the ideas of that forever, but I don't know how long lasting the Opinions of those things are, like, the. The gains of that, I don't know.

Yeah, but I'm not talking about the gains. I'm talking about the fact that it's impactful beyond your life. Because you said, like, we're made to communicate with our mouths, which I agree. But, like, your written word or your recorded word, I guess, would outlast you and your time. Like you said in a podcast, writing.

A book is just as painful as reading.

Yeah. When are you gonna write a book?

Well, I mean, that was painful, dude. I still remember coming back from my flight, and I knew that by the time I landed, I had to finish the book.

Yeah.

And it was basically done, but I had to, like, revise a few things. Dude, that was so painful. I never want to do that. Like, Alex Hormozi taking months and months, write a book. Kudos to him. He deserves a bazillion dollars for writing that book, because I could never do that.

But he's, like, so intentional about every single word. And I think, which. Which he has honed and has. Knows his craft. But I think for you, it's like P4P. You've done so many times. You've talked about so many times. There's so many videos, there's so many other resources. The book is just a supplementary, a supplement. Like the. If P4P were a puzzle. The book is just one piece, and you have the videos and you have the training, and you have the software. And then also, here's a book.

I do have a book idea.

Yeah.

I have a bunch of audio books.

I have a ton of book title.

Ideas, a bunch of audio titles, audio notes. What's your title?

Oh, I mean, I have tiles. I have titles for a lot of things I don't see.

I'm an idea guy with a title for this podcast.

Yeah, well, C Suite, unfiltered. You know, it's getting there. No, I'm. I am a serial idea guy. So, like, if I. If I look at, like, my, like, high school career, my college career, I was never the, like, quintessential leader to, like, get in front and, like, rally the troops and go. I'd be like, here's an idea. Here's how we're gonna implement it. And then I just, like, walk away. And then I would let the people that know how to implement it just do it. So that's my thing. Like when you say something or Liz says something, or like, I have an idea. I'm like, that could be a book title. That could be a podcast. Oh, man one titled Liz and I have talked. We want to co author a book. And the working title right now is Encouragement and Coffee. An Operator's Guide to Leadership.

That'd be good.

That's good. We can put a bow on it right there.

Let's go. Cool. Well, there's the pod. Episode two. Episode two, C Suite Unfiltered. Still hard to see. Same.

And, I mean, we can change it to working title.

All right. Working title.

Working Title. We'll see you guys next week.

Peace.