Mardig Sheridan - Strategic Envisioning

Mardig: 0:00

This is Mardig Sheridan and you're listening to One Hour to Doors.

Jon: 0:13

This is One Hour to Doors, a podcast about the business and soul of the festivals and events industry. I'm your host, john Stone. Every episode of One Hour to Doors explores the people, issues, insights and trends impacting the enterprise of bringing people and communities together in common cause. Our guest today is Mardig Sheridan. My path first crossed with Mardig around 2010 or 2011 when he was brought into my workplace as a strategy consultant to lead a multi-day workshop on strategic envisioning. Martin made a positive impression on me at that time, but as the years passed by, I slowly began to understand the full depth of what he was trying to teach us, and that slow motion learning has had an outsized influence on me in terms of developing my management and leadership styles, and has even influenced my career path. We are recording today at the brand new Totem Star Studios at historic King Street Station in Seattle. Welcome to the show, Mardig.

Mardig: 1:23

Well, hi, Jon, it's nice to be here. Good to see you again. Good to see you.

Jon: 1:28

How would you describe your profession of strategy consultant? How?

Mardig: 1:32

would I describe the profession itself? Yeah, boy, I would describe it as one that many times scares CEOs because they don't really know what they're going to run into. Ideally, a strategy consultant comes into a company and helps them see the future. Helps them see what the future is going to look like, what their customer, or anticipated or hoped for customer, is going to ultimately be looking for. The definition I use of strategy is positioning for future competitive advantage. So where's the world going to be in three to five years or, in technology, many times a shorter time frame or time horizon? Where's the world going to be? What are people going to want? How are you going to position yourself? How will you distinguish yourself and what kind of big bet will you make in terms of what do you have for that customer? That is, something that is unique to you and really desired by them.

Jon: 2:33

For the benefit of the listeners, I'll describe my first encounter with you. You were brought into our organization, which was a nonprofit arts organization at the time, but an unusually large and successful one Multi-generational history, kind of a storied history, at least in the Pacific Northwest and you were brought into a session. I think there was like maybe 15 or 20 of us. It was the CEO, it was leadership, but it was also management. It was kind of a mixture and I think you were very deliberate in setting that up. You wanted to gather as many broad and different perspectives as possible.

Mardig: 3:09

It is important. A lot of times, the executive team is of the opinion we know everything that's going on. We're really the ones that are responsible for the company. That's who you need to hear from, and while I don't necessarily want what I call kind of boots on the ground in all these sessions that can get quite unwieldy, I do want them to contribute because it's the people that are actually delivering, that are face-to-face with the customer, that deal with it every day, that many times have a very different perspective and are able to add elements of knowledge. That is very close to the customer and ultimately, that's what it's about. I mean, if you're not serving the customer, you're looking in the wrong direction.

Jon: 3:53

One of the things that stands out to me in my memory about our first working together. At that time the company had been very successful, unusually successful for an unusually long time. So you show up, here comes this martyred guy and you start, essentially, you start exercising our brains and you start causing us to try to kind of think outside of the box. And I can remember there was almost instant resistance from some chairs around the table and I paraphrase the notion that resistance is like we're successful, we've been doing things the same way for a long, long time, found success with that. Why would we want to deviate from that path? And I was thinking that way too and, like I say, it was over time that I've slowly come to understand what you were getting at. And then, some more down the line, the macro environment really started to change in our industry and all of a sudden, the things that have been serving us so well for literally generations, they weren't working so well anymore. Yeah, okay.

Mardig: 5:00

My first response to that is I give you general motors, you know, but even because they're still around, people might go well, they're still around, but they shouldn't be. Truly, they really shouldn't be. They were just too big to allow to fail. But I give you Polaroid, you know, or Kodak, or I could go on forever. That whole. We're doing fine, we've done great. This is our business model.

Mardig: 5:23

Why would we want to change? Why would we want to shift up? And that's why innovation and disruption happens in industries is because they don't look ahead and they don't get outside of that immediacy of what we're doing today that works and what we know. I mean when you know how to do something, that's kind of what you want to keep doing. So all of a sudden, there you are looking at a big bet that's very, very different, an approach that's different, a product or a service that's going to be quite different than what you're doing now, and having the faith, the confidence and the belief to make that commitment very difficult, the thing that distinguishes what I do from most strategic consultants and Mackenzie, for instance, which is quite large and well known. They will come into your organization, your company, and they will do a complete analysis of it, an evaluation of it, and then hand you, like I like to say, the three-ring notebook packed to the gills with what you should do.

Mardig: 6:28

But, you had nothing to do with that. You didn't have any input into it as the executive team, as a member of the company. They don't really rely on you other than gathering information. So they're really coming in to say this is what you should do. From the top of the hill, we're telling you this is the way to go. Well, there's no ownership around that.

Mardig: 6:47

So the way that I work with an organization is I come in and I say you know your company, your industry, your service, whatever it is you do. You know that much better than I do. But I know strategy and I know how to get you to a place where you lift yourselves up to a 30,000-foot level so that you can see over the hill, so you can see ahead of what's directly ahead of you and anticipate that and begin to make those changes. Ideally, that's the way every company should work. You should disrupt, you should have your innovation, it should be successful. You should kind of milk that and as you do, there's what's called the classic S-curve. And at the top of that S-curve, as it starts to flatten out, is where you then need to make your next move. But you have to begin thinking about what that next move is going to be long before you get to that flattening out or that, really that kind of a denouement where you begin to slide off and that happens. It's very classic.

Jon: 7:48

You're talking about like a McKenzie-type organization in that approach, not knocking it at all, but you made me remember that at this organization where we met every year, they brought in some sort of a management consultant strategy, consultant learning, growth opportunities. The company invested in that and a lot of that. I pick up a little nugget of wisdom sometimes here or there, but a lot of it. It starts to sound the same after a while. You were different and maybe it was. I don't know if it was the difference of your approach or if you just happened to be the right personality match for our organization. Maybe it was a little bit of both, but it was a very different kind of impact.

Mardig: 8:30

I think that if the consultant comes in and has an attitude of I'm kind of here to tell you the right way or to tell you what to do, or there's some kind of superior attitude about it, I don't think you can connect well with people. I think that, for me, I'm always quite entranced by companies. I mean I kind of love that you are successful, I love that you're doing what you do. My job isn't to tell you what to do. My job is to help you to tell you what to do. So it's a very different approach. I can't really come in as the authority for your business. I simply come in as an authority that will lead you to make the decisions, ultimately, that you will get behind, you will commit to, because strategy is scary. I mean, when you really get to strategy, the true essence of making those decisions, what you're saying is this doesn't even exist this way right now and we're going to have to make it be that way.

Mardig: 9:29

And there's, of course, a classic story I mean Steve Jobs is probably the easiest for people to kind of relate to. There was a time and it seems like a short time ago, and in a lot of ways it was where we all carried around little flip phones and I'm not even sure, I don't even remember if we had text in those days. It was a phone. You actually talked on it. And this was someone who, especially when he came back to Apple and he essentially said we're going to no longer be a computer company. We're going to build this device that is handheld, that people will take with them and where there will be a confluence of digital technology and it will all arrive in this handheld device.

Jon: 10:21

Mobile. One word, that was the big. They bet the farm on mobile.

Mardig: 10:25

And nobody believed it really. I mean, well, I guess some people believed it, but the idea that you would watch a movie on your phone, it was ridiculous.

Jon: 10:35

I can remember that time it was absurd. What are you talking about? Yeah, that's absurd.

Mardig: 10:40

We're just going to and you're not going to need any buttons. You know, you just touch a screen. That didn't exist. Technology didn't exist, crazy talk. So, yeah, it's to have that vision and to take a company in that direction. And for companies, for them, to make that kind of decision, either you need an authoritarian figure like a Steve Jobs which he was, yeah or you need a team of people who say we believe that's the future and we're going to go for it, right?

Jon: 11:11

One of the key lessons that I've learned from you, in slow motion, was it sounds really simple saying it, but nothing lasts forever. Matter of fact, I remember a saying that you dropped from that very first day. You said everything happens gradually and then suddenly, yeah, yeah, and ever since then. I didn't know what to make of that in the moment, but since then I see that everywhere, that phenomenon, I see it playing out. It surrounds me every single day.

Mardig: 11:41

Everywhere I go, that's playing out, and it's the good and the bad we usually wake up at suddenly. That's where we, especially if it's downhill, if it's something we don't like. That's where we wake up. And you know something? We've always known that it's true. I mean, I asked people when I used to do those kind of workshops where I would lead with that I'd say how many of you have ever said I knew that was going to happen, you know everybody raised their hands.

Mardig: 12:09

I'll say how many of you have ever said to someone if you keep doing that, this bad thing will happen. Everybody raised their hand. Then I would say something like finish this. For me the straw that broke. And everybody goes the camel's back and I say and how many camels do we have in this country? And so how long has this wisdom been known? It's really not new wisdom, it's just reframed. Sure, sure.

Jon: 12:39

What you do is very specialty work. How in the heck did you even get into this?

Mardig: 12:44

line of work. Well, as I tell people, Jon, I had no skills. You and I know there's something about me, but I came out of the music industry years ago. I'm in a long time ago now, about 50 years ago.

Jon: 13:00

Hard for you to talk about without aging yourself, isn't?

Mardig: 13:03

it. I don't like to admit this, but I was 50 years ago. It seems like only yesterday. I was playing rock and roll, but it was a great time. But I came out of that and realized that I was. I wanted to do something different and my life was being shattered constantly by another band that would break up. And I had a friend from college and he kind of pulled me into advertising. I didn't actually know what it was I was.

Mardig: 13:31

We went to I don't know if you want a story this long, but we went to see a guy who owned the Guitar Center at the time. He said I need a jingle. And my partner, steve Maietta, is his name. Steve said oh, we know how to do that, we'll make you one. And we walked out of the Guitar Center. I said, steve, I've never done a jingle. He says you're a musician, aren't you? I said, yeah, so we'll do a jingle. So we did and we take it back to him and Ray says, okay, well, this is great, I need to get on the radio. Do you guys know any advertising agencies? And Steve, my partner, says oh, we are an advertising agency. And we walked out of the store. I said Steve, what is an advertising agency, he said I don't know, but we are one now.

Mardig: 14:17

From that, literally I had to learn how to write direct produce and I was comfortable in the studio but radio commercials. And as I did that I started to acquire some clients and I started to grow this agency and it became an ad agency and I was learning by doing it. The way that really almost all professions are really learned is really you gotta kinda do it. That's how you learn. And I realized as I look back now I was doing strategy and I didn't call it then. But with a little boutique advertising agency with small clients, I was always having to figure out how to position them so that they would stand out in a world that was so much bigger. So if I had a little savings and loan with three offices, I had to position them. I had a little real estate company called Fireside Homes, which I think is still around, and I had to position them in a way that they became successful.

Mardig: 15:19

And I had a little car dealer at the time and we invented we literally invented the hassle-free loan car. We called it. There were no loan cars in those days, it didn't happen at a dealer. We invented it and all of a sudden this little Subaru dealer became like the number one dealer in the country. Wow. So I never knew that I was doing that. But that's in essence where I kinda got my chops for it and I went off in a different direction.

Mardig: 15:46

I was a film director, did other things, became a facilitator and then eventually started working and doing some consulting with little companies in Microsoft. And it was really someone at Microsoft who said to me one day he said there's a company in San Francisco and they do what's called strategic visioning and it's all visual. And he says I think you'd be good at that. And I said, well, let's go look. So we flew down to San Francisco and we went and spent two days with this company and they had all these posters Remember the posters? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I bought everything and we brought it back. And then we took his team, the Microsoft team. We took him on an offsite and every night Norberto and I would sit and we'd look at these little pamphlets they'd given us to try to figure out what we were gonna do the next day, cause we had no idea we were making it up.

Mardig: 16:44

But his organization topped everybody else that year and I started to take that and my history, my background, my advertising, all of that. I began to study and just read you know just all the guys, you know the men and women that are the gurus out there and I realized that what I was putting together was this way of thinking that I called strategic visioning. And years later, after doing a number of companies, I developed my own IP and so cause I kind of condensed it and focused on the things that were most important. Because, academically, when you learn how to do strategy at Stanford, lots of fun. There's no CEO in the world that's gonna take the time to do that. They will turn it over to a McKenzie to do that kind of depth.

Mardig: 17:35

But if you want you and the new people, like we did, you know in your organization, if you want them to make those decisions, you can't take them offline for literally weeks at a time. Right, you know to look at all the analysis, so you have to. I had to develop a methodology where, because I already have your knowledge, we don't I as a consultant, I didn't come in to need to get that knowledge. Like McKenzie, you guys already had it. All I had to do was lead you on a path that would surface what you know and then give you the platform and the technique and take you and push you. You know, not be afraid. That's part of it too, which is to not be afraid to push people.

Mardig: 18:19

And I learned that kind of at Microsoft, because I was doing this for a number of organizations at Microsoft and there's, you know, some pretty heavyweight, smart people and they can be pretty intimidating, and I realized that if I didn't go nose to nose with them they would write me off. So, and you know, talk about imposter syndrome. You know there was a part of me that went at some point someone is going to go. What do you know? You know nothing and I, in a sense, I did know nothing, but you know, see, I didn't have to know, you knew. So when I came into your organization and I had been doing it for 10 years by then when I came into your organization, I was confident because I knew you guys would figure it out.

Jon: 19:02

Well, that's the beauty of it all. You weren't in the whatever industry you want to call it. You weren't in the nonprofit industry, nonprofit sector. You weren't in the entertainment or festivals and events industry, but it didn't matter, because your methodology transcends all of that. You know, I remember one thing hearing in our sessions as some of the more senior folks they'd hear you out and say well, we hear what you're saying, mar-dig, but we're a little different, we're a pretty unique organization and we're we're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Jon: 19:33

I do remember that and I know and I understand now that that is absolutely true at the ground level, that is true in the weeds. But the higher up you move your perspective, the less and less that is true, the less and less that even matters. And from 30,000 feet there's no real material difference between a festival producer or an independent jewelry maker or a dog food manufacturer or aircraft manufacturer Doesn't really matter. The principles that you were trying your best to guide us towards, don't care about that level of detail. You've got to get.

Mardig: 20:07

You have to get higher than that, yeah, I've had CEOs who I generally interact with before I go to work with them. They said, well, you don't know anything about our industry. And I will say, isn't that great? And they kind of look at me like, what are you talking about? I say the fact that I don't know anything about your industry means you're guaranteed one person in the room who's dumb enough to ask the question. That might be the question that leads you in a new and different direction, because I don't know what you already know. That doesn't work and I am unafraid to ask you those questions. And I will say, somewhat immodestly, a number of times my ignorance of that industry and the questions that I asked and posed led the company to make the decisions that they did. That led them to successful outcomes.

Jon: 21:02

I'm wondering now. There's a saying that I've been using for a long time, that I can't remember exactly where I got it from. It might have been from you, and that is the only dumb question. Is the question not asked? Is that one of?

Mardig: 21:15

yours. That's not mine, but it is definitely. It is out there. Yeah, it is. I think that's probably been around for a long time and it's absolutely true. Oh, yeah, it's absolutely true. I used to put I had a back when I was in the, when I was producing commercials. I had a wonderful boss at the time and he had a big sign up behind his desk and the sign was dare to be dumb and I loved it and so I've used that, I appropriated that and I would tell people dare to be dumb, because that dumb question, the one that you're afraid that everybody in the room will go well, that was dumb might be the one that makes all the difference in the world.

Jon: 21:59

I know that the work that you do on any given day can be incredibly challenging in a number, in any number of ways. But even as I'm sitting here with you now and you're describing your work, you're getting excited, you're getting animated, your hands are moving around. What drives you? I mean, I presume it still excites you. You still enjoy the work, but what is it exactly that motivates you that way?

Mardig: 22:24

Well, there's a number of elements. The challenge I love the challenge. First of all, I love people. I mean I do and I love making a difference. I love helping and guiding people. I like to direct because I've done that kind of all my life and there's a wonderful magic that happens in the room when people go from self-limitation to opening it up and believing there's no limits. And watching a team of people reach that pinnacle of excitement and direction and commitment is really rewarding. I like it. Don't tell anybody, let's not tell anybody. I would do it for free.

Mardig: 23:07

If I couldn't do it for money. I'd do it for free, because it's that motivating for me to see the results and to see it happen for people. And to me it's really fun, even when people get mad at me, and I think people in your organization that were a little pissy with me yeah, absolutely. And I will tell them. I'm not here to be your friend. I want you to like me and that's good. But that's not my motivation, because if I'm doing that, I'm going to back off and you can't afford to have me back away because I'm afraid I might offend you or because you might not like me. And I know that ultimately, when they achieve and get to that place, they'll love me. Then it'll be, they'll forget all the times they were really pissed off at me and they'll love me because, man, I helped them get to a place and because they own it. And that's the difference is, when the organization owns the decision, then stuff gets done.

Jon: 24:06

Well, one of the whole points is making everybody uncomfortable. You have to be, you have to be. There's nothing comfortable about strategy and different people react differently to that.

Mardig: 24:16

The fact is is that if your strategy now, I didn't say this either and it's not exact quote, but it's from someone I highly respect in that world. He said if you walk out of a strategy session feeling comfortable about your strategy, it probably isn't a very good one.

Jon: 24:32

I've come to believe that 99% of everyone they're confusing strategy with tactics. Exactly, I use the analogy of a boat Strategy is the rudder, that's what's going to steer you to where you want to go, and then tactics, that's your propulsion, it's your means of moving right. So you have to have both. You have to have both to get to somewhere. But if you don't understand what that rudder is there's lots of different metaphors here, but you're a rudderless what happens if you're in a boat without anybody watching the rudder? You're going to tend to go in circles and after enough time of going around in circles, things are going to start looking pretty familiar. I don't know. I've seen this before. And here's the cruel irony of the way that human brain is wired Is that when things start looking familiar, how do we process that? It feels comfortable, or wired? It feels comfortable with familiarity. Comfort feels good. I think it just sets up this endless loop to where we just keep rinsing and repeating and doing the same thing. People hate change.

Mardig: 25:38

I mean, we do, we like to say, we like to claim that we like change, but we don't like change. People don't like change. I mean even good change. If you're a smoker and you quit smoking, you won't like it. Yeah, because it's uncomfortable. Steve Jobs, another Steve Jobs story.

Mardig: 25:55

The other thing about strategy Well, strategy is positioning for future competitive advantage. That's all it is. So it's deciding what that's going to be. How to get there is tactics. Now you must have all, you must have the vision and you must have the tactical plan to get there.

Mardig: 26:10

But one of the things that I always loved him for finally saying and I used to say it, but of course, when Steve Jobs said it, it became the law, Because people would ask him well, how do we know that's going to work? Can we do a survey of a group somehow figured out? He said why would I do that? How do people know what they're going to want until I show it to them, Right? So, and that's what strategy is, and that's why it's so scary, Because the thing we want to do is to keep doing what we're doing better. So they'll call a strategy session, which really is about what are your goals for next year and how are you going to increase your output? That's not strategy. There's nothing wrong with doing it, Nothing wrong with goals, nothing wrong with setting deliverables nothing. All that's a business part, but it's not strategy. Strategy is a different animal.

Jon: 27:04

It really is I remember words from you from our original sessions. You were kind of wrapping things up for a day, or you're like I'm paraphrasing here but you're like okay, so strategy is time to make a big, bold bet on what the future looks like. We're like all right, he says. And you got to think about it this way. We're like all right, and you got to do it that way. We're like all right. Then you put the capper on it. You said, and you can be dead wrong, yeah, I said silence. I just feel the air going out of the room.

Mardig: 27:36

That's the scary part. Yeah, because if you're wrong, if Steve Jobs had been wrong, there would be no apple, there'd be no apple Period. And that's a huge, I mean that's a gigantic bet. And making that big a bet? Now he was up, let's face it. He was up against a situation where there was almost a no choice thing. It was a they were apple was failing, and even part of it even.

Mardig: 27:58

That's so amusing because, as they and, by the way, the first thing they were going to make was the iPad, not the iPhone they changed it midstream. I didn't know that, yeah, and and so you want to be flexible. This isn't about we know what it is, we know what the bet is and we're going to set off and we're not going to keep checking because we might need to make adjustments in what that actual service or product looks like, and that's true. So you got to stay on top of it constantly and reevaluate to make sure that your product at service, the position, stays the same, but being sure that what you're delivering that big bet is going to be fitting that position. And as they were going forward, he also said well, he said and we're going to have to put music on the phone and they went crazy. They said, steve, the only profit center we have at Apple is the iPod. You're going to cannibalize the only thing we make money on. He said, yes, we are.

Mardig: 28:55

Because if we don't do it, someone else will imagine how frightening that was and how bold a step it was. And so when I tell people, if you're wrong, you may not have a company, I don't do that to scare them into not moving. I do that to give them the import of how important it is for them to really not be. Don't be foolish about this either. I don't want people to make a big bet decision that is unattainable I see what you're saying or that is so foolish that you would cause the demise of your company. That would be. That's not where I want to lead people, but I do want them to understand that you are in kind of an either or. If you're wrong about this, it can cost you heavily.

Jon: 29:41

Well, it's the indicator right To me, that's how you know that you're being bold enough and if it scares, the hell out of you and whether you're committed.

Mardig: 29:49

Are you really committed? You know, it's like anything. It's like I really want to lose weight Really. Well, here's what it's going to take, you know. Well, I don't know why I'm that committed. So, you know, it's like any commitment you make, if it's a big, if it's bold, if it's a strategic, and I mean it's scary, it should be scary, it is frightening. I'm always impressed. I mean I'm even impressed with, like the we're talking about music and stuff. I'm impressed with everybody that does the voice or American Idol, or AGT. I mean I was in the business and I'd probably be terrified to get up there and sing in front of you know, four mega stars with their backs to me. I mean that takes a huge amount of commitment, you know, to do something like that.

Jon: 30:36

I'd never thought about it that way, but you're right, because most of those folks are amateurs, right? I mean, yeah, what?

Mardig: 30:40

courage. It is to, you know, to go after it, to seek, you know, your dream. Well, in a sense, that's what a company is doing is seeking that dream and being willing to be judged and to be willing to, you know, to step up. It's a big thing to ask people.

Jon: 30:56

I'm glad that you described why you liked that show, because I know from seeing you occasionally on Facebook that you tend to heavily opine on shows like the Voice and whatnot.

Mardig: 31:08

As a musician, I can't help myself. I still, you know, I still play and still, you know, do all of that. I just don't do it professionally, but I do. Yes, I'm very old school as well, of course, you know. We didn't have auto tune, you know, and we didn't use machines. I mean, we actually had to come in the studio and play your instrument and sing in tune, sometimes all at the same time, because there were only two tracks or three tracks, right, you know. So that's how long ago I was in the business.

Jon: 31:42

My earlier podcast session I recorded today with a young artist named Kiddus Fecto and he's never learned a traditional instrument as we think about. He's all a computer kind of guy but he wants to. He wants to learn music. But he's actually he's young, he's just getting started, he's got great momentum for what he's doing.

Jon: 32:03

But we talked a lot about when I first started as a musician in my teenage years. Everything was pure analog, you know. As time went on and then I started doing more recording, working in studios, everything started switching to digital. So I've kind of gone through the whole transformation. Even in the concerts and festivals that I produce, everything's changed and I went through a period of time I admit this is a confession, an uncomfortable confession of mine it's a period of time when I was probably like in my mid 30s or whatever, where I was kind of like stuck in between those two worlds and I developed a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, particularly around DJs, because I've done a lot of EDM work off and on over the years and so it's kind of that question is like well, is that really? Is that real? I'm using air quotes now for the audience.

Jon: 32:45

They can't see me, and I had a snarky attitude about that, but as time has gone on, I've completely reversed that and my opinion now is who gives a crap how you're making music? The important thing is, and the beautiful thing about the time that we're living is, it's never been easier for anybody, for a child, to make music, to make sounds, to explore that, to express themselves, and that's the important part.

Mardig: 33:11

So this is talking about commitment. Well, a couple of things. My granddaughter loved music and learned to play guitar a little bit and then she recorded some things and sang some things. She was good but not committed enough to go the distance. But another, a better example, is my grandson. So he bought a guitar and he comes over to my house. This is some years ago. He comes over to my house and he asked me to play and these days I have it all set up in my office. I have my guitars, I have my sonos, I have my system.

Mardig: 33:46

And people say who do you play with? I say I play with whoever I want. I picked the song from the internet and I put it on my playlist and I figure out the chords and I play. So I put on a song and I'm playing. I played some rhythm, I played some lead and he says I want to play like you.

Mardig: 34:03

And how could I? He said could you teach me, papa? I said no, no, no, no, I'm not a teacher. But I said there's tons of great you can learn on the internet today and get it there. And he said, oh, I don't want to do that. And I said what do you want to do. He says I just want to play lead. You know, play lead guitar. I said that's not the way it works. But in that was that desire to. What I want is to be able to do the cool stuff you do, but I don't want to have to do the work to get there. And I said, and I told him real flatly, I said if you're not willing to do that, if you're not willing to make that commitment, then it's never going to happen for you and it's kind of no different. I mean, it's a commitment. And when you, when you talk about a team of people in an organization making a commitment together to take a big leap forward into the unknown, for sure that's a, that's big stuff.

Jon: 35:00

The tool doesn't make you the artist, it doesn't make you the professionalist Like you say. It's the, it's the time and the intention that you put in. But, conversely, if you're willing to make that commitment, the tools don't really matter so much.

Mardig: 35:11

Yeah, it's how. What you use to make things to create things, However you create and whatever you use to create.

Jon: 35:18

Yeah, yeah. Are you able to share a success story or two? And you're working with organizations?

Mardig: 35:27

Well, sure, about five years after I was working or during while I was working with Microsoft. It's a little harder with Microsoft because they were internal organizations, so it doesn't have as much, you know, kind of a dramatic, although I will say I worked with way back then. Msn was kind of the powerhouse you know online and they had what they called channels, so there'd be the car channel or the home channel, the cooking channel, all these channels, and I started to work with one and that one, and none of them were making money at the time, and the one that I worked with started to make money. And so other senior directors asked my guy I said, well, how did he do that? He said, well, we worked with him. So I started to go from channel to channel and of the 10 or 11 or 12 that they had, I worked with five of them, all of which made money. None of the others did so.

Mardig: 36:25

The next year the big bosses of MSN are having the group, you know, the big meeting about what we're going to do, and MSN was struggling and how we're going to make this work and asked the senior director level, partner level, that I'd worked with me. How did you manage to make money. They said, well, we did a visioning thing with this guy, you know, mardic Sheridan. We should hire him, you know, to do this for MSN. They said, oh, we don't hire outside consultants, I know. So my story ends there as far as then the other orgs you wouldn't know, the ones that I'm kind of proud of one that I love because they insured my kitties is a company called Trupanion.

Jon: 37:10

Wasn't that one of Clayton?

Mardig: 37:13

Lewis, it wasn't Clayton's company, but Clayton was in Maveron.

Mardig: 37:17

I started to consult to Maveron, the venture capital company Right yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was one of their companies and at the time they were struggling which you know, it's a startup, it's early stage insurance company for cats and dogs, right, and I went in and we did a strategy session and you know God love them. They made some decisions that were really hard decisions, especially back in those days. To insure your kitty or your puppy, they had to be, you know, young or the insurance company wouldn't insure them. So one of the things Trupanion did that was unusual is will insure your cat or dog at any age. Now your premium will be different because it'll be at your actuarial tables and you know preexisting conditions for the two years previous, but other than that, any age. Not only that, because we have an internal I don't know internal brokerage, we can make direct payments to the veterinarians so you don't have to go through this cumbersome reimbursement thing. And they made some really wonderful moves. I give them, you know, huge credit for taking those, taking that risk that they did. And then they had an exit or an IPO a couple years later and did fabulously well.

Mardig: 38:31

Now, that wasn't just me, that was me coming in and helping them strategically. And then you mentioned Clayton Lewis, who is like, he's a brilliant operational guy and he's also a good strategist, but in particular he was great at operations and he would Maveron at the time. One of the things Maveron did that venture capital companies don't do is they had me, they had Clayton to help operationally and they had a woman named Jill McGuire Ward who was an HR specialist. So they're little you know the startup companies that were. You know they're hard at work. They'd send me in and they'd pay for it For me to go in and help that company strategize. Then Clayton would come in help them operationally and Jill would come in and help them with HR.

Mardig: 39:17

And so that positioned Maveron differently from every other venture capital company, because they were basically saying we're not just bringing the money and sitting on your board, we're bringing resources to help you be successful, which then attracted more of the kinds of CEOs that would go, wow, that's a VC company that doesn't just want to give me money, sit on my board and give me hell, you know, until I'm successful, they actually bring resources. That's positioning. Guess what I mean. That's a big bet, you know, from Maveron to make that bet. The other big bet they made was consumer only, face-to-face consumer only Before that they were kind of taking anything that looked good and they positioned themselves and today you know they're strong, strong capital.

Mardig: 40:03

Yeah, yeah yeah, and that's because they said this is what we do, we're going to be the best at doing this and we're going to bring resources that nobody else uses. So that's one of my kind of happiest stories, and I still work occasionally with them today.

Jon: 40:17

Wow, yeah, you just filled in a little blank. I knew I was familiar with about half of everything you said about Maveron and Trupanion for that matter, but wow, yeah, that's fantastic.

Mardig: 40:29

They ensured my cats that were at the time were six years old and you know, bless them for doing that, because no one else would have done it.

Jon: 40:38

Just as I have been incredibly fortunate to cross paths with you over the course of my career, I had the tremendous good fortune of having Clayton Lewis as a board member in my organization, and so we worked together, and you're absolutely right the thing about if I were to describe Clayton in one sentence he has this gift, like nobody else, to take the seemingly complex, adjust the snap of a finger, distill it down to the simplest little thing. Sometimes it's hard to even wrap your mind around how simple he can make things.

Mardig: 41:11

Yeah, he's really brilliant. In that sense I've learned we're very good friends now, I'm happy to say, and still colleagues. But he would come in and, as you say, he would all the mess and he would just ffff, ffff, ffff. You know, he'd just like he'd have people just get it and be on path and know where they were going. What's that gonna look like? What are the key deliverables? What am I doing? What's my plan? You know what's my milestones here? How do I know how I'm doing?

Jon: 41:38

And, yeah, he was, he's and he would do it at least in my experience he would, because he did the same for us, you know, and in my experience he would do it extraordinarily fast and with just the most pleasant demeanor you can imagine, just always a smile on his face.

Mardig: 41:55

Yeah, he's, yeah, he's that's a good description incredibly fast.

Jon: 41:59

Yeah, yeah, you really gotta keep up I would be remiss to not ask you to talk a little bit about your musical past. Did it start

Mardig: 42:10

in Moses Lake? It did Well, of course. I mean I started playing when I was like 12 years old, you know, and I was an Air Force kid and I ended up in Moses Lake, Washington, an Air Force base there, and going to school, high school, and there were a couple of local bands that were the big bands you know locally. One of them was called the Fabulous Continentals, back in the days when you know they actually wore a suit with a little skinny tie and, you know, did steps, you know. So they're a guitar player and singer had to go away for some reason and so I was invited into the band and so I became part of the band and then, about a year later, we lost our lead singer, went to the Army.

Mardig: 42:54

There were four of us and we decided we needed to make a change, so we chose the name the Bards, and the Bards were English minstrels that would travel from town to town and sing for their supper and their lodging. So of course Shakespeare is the Bard of Avon, so of course it was the English and the Beatles and it was that time. So we became the Bards and we became quite well known in eastern Washington and eastern Oregon and kind of the rural areas, but we hadn't been to Seattle, we weren't big enough. You know, it was back in the days of the Sonics and Mary Lee and the Turnabouts and you know..

Jon: 43:37

A whole lot of stuff going on.

Mardig: 43:38

And it wasn't until we, until Pato Day, the famous Pato Day of KJR and his company ran a couple of dances against us or against the promoter who had brought us in, and Wenatchee, and no one was at their dance. Everybody was at our dance and he finally said come to the city. So we went to see, came to Seattle, and we started to play the circuit for Pato Day and then we had, we had a number of little Northwest hits and then we had an international, very medium hit I wouldn't call it a hit but it, you know, was on Cashbox and built, you know, it made it around the world and did some and it was number one in all of Washington, except for but we made it to number seven on KJR and it was a song called Never Too Much Love and Capitol Records picked it up and now we were Capitol Recording Artists, wow. And they wanted us to do more like that and we had, we had rented an old theater in Moses Lake called the Ritz Theater and we would go and we wrote an entire suite of songs, including and in those days we were quite weird and still are, probably and we did a suite of songs, including something called the Creation, and the Creation was from Genesis and a man named Jim Johnson rewrote it. So it was hyper, hyper lyrics, and it's about the beginning of the world. And we did what we called spoken word. And this is 1967. And we were. You know, people would look at us like what are you doing? Because we had these musical segues and doing this spoken word, and then we'd sing and all this.

Mardig: 45:19

And we went to LA and I won't tell you the whole story but through a series of circumstances, ran into Kurt Betcher. Kurt Betcher and Keith Olson at the time were really rising stars. Kurt had worked with Mamas and Papas, the Beach Boys. He produced Tommy Roy, produced the association. Remember the first time you ever heard of Long Comes Mary? And that went oh my God, what was that? That was Kurt. And we met him in an elevator and he invited. He said what are you doing? And we said we're pitching our tapes, our garage music. And we went to his house and he went I don't know what you guys are smoking, but bring some to the studio. And he produced what we today call the Moses Lake Recordings. You can actually hear them. We have a site called bardsmusiccom.

Jon: 46:09

I'll put a link in the episode description.

Mardig: 46:11

Oh good, and it's some oh good and yeah, and it's all there and it stands up. It is very different kind of music and so we were getting big and getting big, more famous or more known and like that, and Kurt decided he wanted to join the band, and you know this story.

Jon: 46:32

You know right where this is going to go.

Mardig: 46:33

I've never heard the story and I know exactly where it goes.

Mardig: 46:37

Mike and I were ecstatic. This brilliant, known producer was going to come and be in our band and our drummer and bass player said it'll ruin the band. No, no, no, no. We had a big argument, big fight, and the band broke up and Mike and I moved to Hollywood and where I worked at Sound City for the famous Sound City no fooling, joe Gottfried was our manager and I was what they like to call second engineer, which meant I rolled up the cords and cleaned the bathrooms, you know it set the microphones for Keith Olson. Keith, of course, went on to sell his you know his Wellfleet Wood Mac. Of course it was his first big solo production, but 38 special rinks. Rick Springfield sold over 100 million records. He's in the Hall of Fame.

Mardig: 47:31

Kurt sadly went down a different road, died years ago, died young, and that's why I was telling you this morning that Kurt tried to put together a band with Stevie Nicks, lindsay Buckingham, a Waddy Wachtel who we still see all the time, what is fabulous guitar player. And then Mike and I and Kurt and you know that lasted for a heartbeat. You know that didn't work and at that point, after a couple of years in LA, I didn't like it there, and when I got to get out of here, I had a wife and a child and living in an apartment in Hollywood and it was like enough, and so I came home and that's why, you know, I ended up had another great band, another fabulous band that, just as we were beginning to hit that pinnacle, broke up. And that's really where I said you know, I can't let my life be determined by musicians, as much as I love musicians, you know, because you are one.

Jon: 48:28

You know that story is more common than knowledge. It is, and.

Mardig: 48:34

I mean think about the bands that have been unbelievably successful. You know, crosby still is dashing young and they couldn't stay together. They couldn't. You know it's. It's, it's just the music business and on the one hand I love and adore it, on the other hand, I'm so glad that I made the decision at 25 years old. I said I can't do this anymore. And that's where I laughingly said I had no skills and ended up in the ad business.

Jon: 49:01

My successful band from my youth. We were together for about seven years and the last two years we got really really good. What was the band? Band was called Hyperlung. Where were you from? We were here in Seattle, but we were doing our and we started off as a very avant-garde, almost kind of like a noise outfit In Seattle. This is early nineties, mid nineties in Seattle.

Jon: 49:25

So it was a time unlike any other time to be here. We were based up on Capitol Hill and our day jobs were at clubs like Moe and whatnot. So we were just, we were right in the middle of it, but we got really good and we we did everything that every young person aspires to as a you know quote unquote rock and roll musician. We toured and we got to record with famous producers do pretty much the exact same thing you just discussed. And then at that time in 1997 is when it all blew up, when we imploded, and the reason was 96,. 97 is when suddenly every label in the world was setting up shop here in Seattle and they were just signing everybody.

Jon: 50:04

Yes, it was just it was a gold rush. It was exactly like a gold rush. Nobody really knew for sure what they were doing. All they knew is that it was important that they just grab as many bands as they could, and so we got approached.

Jon: 50:14

We were offered a deal with Will Records which was Don Was is one of Don Was's things at the time. So he was like, really like what you guys are doing, let's talk. And so we sat down and had a couple of meetings. But at that point, wow, I, yeah. So we had, we had, there was an offer on the table that would have allowed us to quit our day jobs and just be musicians for at least a couple of years. And at that moment there was four of us in the band. At that moment, two of us. That was exactly what, That was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That is what we had been dreaming about since youth. And the other two had never really thought about it that way before. And they're like I I don't know if I really want to do that. I like my day job and I've got a family and I don't, I don't think I want to do that. And, long story short, that we it ultimately just broke us up.

Mardig: 51:08

I know that story.

Mardig: 51:09

Right at the finish line, and and with a chance with Don was. I mean, I have a Don was story. I spent a day in the studio with Don I was doing Paul Young at the time and it was after Bonnie Raitt had after he'd done Bonnie Raitt it and I was there because I have a movie project called Be Bop Alula, the story of Gene Vincent, that I was hawking at the time and Don wanted to produce some music. So I happened to spend the day in the studio and I asked him. I said what I said Bonnie Raitt has been around forever. We've always loved her in Seattle, but now she's gigantic. And I said what did you do? What was the magic to that? He said two things. He said number one, the songs. He said you got to pick. As a producer, you need to pick the songs. And number two, he said I gave her, I gave her room to breathe, and when you listen to those albums that he did, you'll notice the space that he allowed in terms of the music, as opposed to filling every space with an instrument or something going on. There's space and that's what it and you can really hear. You really get Bonnie. You know you really. It's like you're at almost an intimate kind of experience that you have with music.

Mardig: 52:26

He was brilliant and he, yeah, he just he's still around, but he just wore out as a producer. He was just like he'd had to hit after hit after hit, did really well and went I've got to go back to music. So, yeah, well, you guys said, yeah, I mean, isn't that that you look back and you think what would happen? You know, we were the first band to record Good Time, charlie's Got the Blues, and it was on the flip side of a Capitol and we begged Capitol to release it, begged them, and they wouldn't do it. They released a insipid piece of junk that Jim Webb had written. Yeah, I did, and I mean that's and I'm glad for Danny, you know, because he deserved to have a hit with his own, his own record. But when I look back, I think what if they had actually released that and it had been the hit that it could have been? How would my life have been? Different Things happen gradually, then, suddenly, what would have happened had you guys actually moved forward with Don? What would have done was?

Jon: 53:26

Yeah, I spent. You know, I'll reveal my card. I was in the yes, let's do it camp.

Jon: 53:31

So it was devastating to me. That got, like I say, we got inches from the goal line and that game over. So I had to chip on my shoulder for a number of years after that. But one of my inclinations at that time is like, well, okay, if this is really, if we're truly done, then I just want to jump into the next thing. But I elected not to and that's actually what led me to one reel and into the things that I do now is.

Jon: 53:58

This is an interesting little side effect when we're teenagers and we decide I'm going to play guitar, I want to be in a rock band, and you have the. You have the lofty goals and they're all the same for everybody universal. You want to tour the world, you want to record in fancy recording studios with famous producers, and you want to do this and you want to do that, whatever. Don't forget girls, girls, yes, the whole thing.

Jon: 54:20

And so at that very moment, as I was mourning the loss of this project and wandering what could have been and thinking about getting into the next thing, it occurred to me and this may sound like I'm being snarky, but I'm not. This is, I'm just, I'm being transparent. I had all that list of all these things I want to do and I realized like, well, actually, I've just checked all those boxes, I've actually done all that and that was fun, but I don't like a lot of repetition, I always like to keep moving. So it's like I didn't understand where exactly did I think that I was going to go from here and I had actually done all of that stuff and was still broke.

Jon: 54:59

So that's when I kind of figured out it's like, well, I'm not going to really ever make a living at this problem, less lightning strikes, so that's when. That's one of the beautiful things about One Reel and why I was working there is that I could work. They always had something, a job for me when I was in town, but I could take three weeks off and go on a West Coast run or take a month off and we'd go somewhere else or whatever go into the studio. And so I was very familiar with the organization and I just I realized I could have just as much of an impact, or even a bigger impact, not being on the stage, but being off the stage or behind the stage and helping others, whether that be developing as an artist or putting on just the coolest damn shows that anybody's ever seen or whatnot. I could actually make a bigger impact off of the stage and make a living doing it too.

Mardig: 55:53

What you did was iconic in this city. I mean. Well, you know, and I know they did their best to kind of bring that back here this last year and good for you know, good, but you know that was, and I think that's probably why it was so hard for your folks to look at this new world and say we're up against the big ones. Yeah, the big boys.

Jon: 56:15

The 800 pound gorillas.

Mardig: 56:16

And the fact is is the customer is changing and the world is changing and the sweet little festival that everybody used to go to and love the fact and it just isn't. It still has the drop but it doesn't have the potential to support itself. I mean, it was, you know, it was a tough, it was tough to let go of. It was really hard to let go of something that was as lovely and as much a piece of Seattle, as you know, Ivars, you know, I mean, as as the fairies, as you know.

Jon: 56:48

Bumbershoot was, but here's how I've made peace with all of that. The truth is, Bumbershoot and a lot of those iconic events Summer Nights at the Pier, oh yeah, the WOMAD, Peter Gabriel's WOMAD Festival, which we did for a few years At the time that all of those were created and in their prime in terms of however you want to measure that, there weren't a lot of other options for your entertainment dollar in this town. That's what really made them as important as they were. But you fast forward, especially once you get into the 2000s.

Mardig: 57:26

I mean my God there's more options every 365 days out of the year around here, which is a beautiful thing, but and, if you think about it, it's the same with any industry, because you can start off as the one, the disruptor, the what we call a blue ocean in strategy, where you're kind of the only one and the sharks you know what's called a red ocean, and they go oh, that looks good, and then they come. And that's where, if you are not staying ahead innovatively and strategically, where you will get swamped and you will get overtaken and something new will come along with the silver bullet, and all of a sudden you're looking and you're trying to catch up instead of being in the lead.

Jon: 58:12

That's why I, generally speaking, I don't like to compete. I would rather be out in that blue ocean, which is admittedly oftentimes a much harder path to follow.

Mardig: 58:21

It's absolutely the toughest path.

Jon: 58:23

It's far more interesting to me.

Mardig: 58:25

It's one of the reasons why when I do strategy, I have I spend very little time on competitive analysis. Yeah, in a sense I don't really care. I was just going to say I don't care what the competition's doing, I care what we we the company I'm working with are going to do. That will be that will outpace them. We're not. Because if you look too deeply at them, you start to think about how can we compete with them at this, on this and about this and about this? And that's not what it is. It's much bigger strategy and the positioning is a much bigger look. You still got to know. I mean it's. You don't want to be unaware, but it's a. It's a briefer look and it's a higher level look than academics would teach you. Again, if you studied it at Harvard or Stanford, what they would teach you to do is this deep, deep, deep competitive analysis, and it's the wrong focus.

Jon: 59:15

Yeah, there's plenty of focus.

Mardig: 59:16

It's why I don't do a SWAT analysis the classic SWAT until after we're done. That's the last thing we do, oh yeah, because why would you look at your weaknesses and your strats and all of that stuff before you start?

Jon: 59:28

Yeah.

Mardig: 59:29

That would only encourage you not to do something that you think you're because you go. Well, we can't do that. You're already self editing before you even got started.

Jon: 59:36

That's really interesting. So I have to ask, before I forget here, as a guitarist finding some success in the 60s, what kind of guitar did you have? Well, I went.

Mardig: 59:48

I can only wish I had them all back. Oh, that.

Jon: 59:51

This is too painful for you, you don't need to go into it. But no, seriously, what'd you have?

Mardig: 59:54

Well, I still have my last one which was a Telecaster Hollow Body, and I still have it. I had to have a new neck made and I had to replace screws and thing you know and some stuff.

Jon: 1:00:07

But I kind of Was it new at the time.

Mardig: 1:00:09

Oh yeah, Fender gave it to me. The Hollow Body Telecaster was a brand new. This was 19, when I was with this other band that eventually broke up it's 1972. And the Fender Rep, I was in Portland and he came in with this thing and he said here, we want you to try this. And he said, if you like it, just because we are getting pretty well known, I was a pretty good guitar player. You know People, other guitar players, would come to see me. I wasn't a great but I was good. And he said if you like it, you can keep it and use it.

Mardig: 1:00:44

And I fell in love with it because the Hollow Body can give you a mellow jazz sound. It can give you a screaming. You know high treble sound. You know high end or in between.

Mardig: 1:00:55

Today, of all the guitars I have and I have some beautiful guitars it still sounds better than all the rest of them. And I learned why is because back in those days the magnets that they use for the pickups you can't get those materials anymore and because of those magnets and they're wound and they've had 50 years 50, that's scary 50 years of basically mellowing. It's an unachievable sound. So it's the only one that when I go out of town I lock up and put behind where you know if there was anything horrible happen. I couldn't replace it. But that was my last guitar. But I had some beauties along the way, including a Tal Farlow. In Phoenix they have this museum of instruments and all over the world a very special stand out and of course the Gibson Tal Farlow is there. But for me in those days it was like, oh, I wanted a guitar this year, so I'd sell the one I have and get a new one.

Mardig: 1:01:53

Yeah, I know.

Jon: 1:01:54

Were you using Fender amps at the time, of course.

Mardig: 1:01:58

Yeah, of course. So now I use a wonderful amp with a boss makes this great amp that's not too big, so it's good for the house and of course, these days there's so many things you can do with it Modeling amps.

Jon: 1:02:10

Yeah, that's fabulous.

Mardig: 1:02:11

And you know, and that's the advantage of today, I mean, look at that little baby piano over there, the Korg, and it sounds fabulous, and you can make it sound different ways.

Jon: 1:02:24

For the listeners knowing Mardig's musical background, I arranged to have this recording session today in the brand new recording studios of the Totem Star organization in Seattle. It's a beautiful space it is.

Mardig: 1:02:36

It's absolutely gorgeous. I actually would love to record in here. It's got to be fabulous. Yeah, yeah, thank you for having me. By the way, this was fun. Oh, it is.

Jon: 1:02:46

What is your favorite sound?

Mardig: 1:02:48

My favorite sound? Yeah, laughter, the joy that happens. Do you know that when you laugh, that you lose your muscle energy? Your muscles, you can't fight if you're laughing, I mean, your muscles won't allow you to.

Jon: 1:03:05

I've never heard of that?

Mardig: 1:03:06

Yeah, it's absolutely true. Have you ever laughed so hard in your stomach and you kind of sink to the ground, Of course, and you can't move? You're just in this kind of place of hilarity? It's because people that are laughing are at peace. If you're genuinely laughing I don't mean if you're laughing nasty at someone, but I mean a genuine bubble of laughter it actually makes you peaceful. It's the opposite of fight. Imagine if the world laughed more.

Jon: 1:03:35

Nobody has ever turned this question around on me, but your answer is nearly identical to my favorite sound, my favorite sound actually it's even more than a favorite sound to me, but specifically it's the sound of children laughing To me. I may just may sound a little corny or whatnot, but I've come to realize that I think the sound of children laughing is the meaning of life. Who do you think you are?

Mardig: 1:04:07

That's such a boy, that's a doozy. Yeah, that's a deep question. I heard Marianne Williamson say something that I absolutely connected to so well and I thought yeah, that's true, that's me. She says we broadcast intelligence, but we are not intelligence, and so what she was saying is that we are. Einstein said we're all one thing, that we're all made of the same stuff, and he said separateness is an illusion, that we are all really the same. Oh, who's that? Wonderful, the star scientist.

Jon: 1:04:48

Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Mardig: 1:04:51

Yes, I love him. And he says we're all stardust. And when she said, I thought, oh, who I am is what I broadcast, or what I put out, what I give, what I make of it. When I think of it that way, a lot of times I think, oh, it's like did I do that, did I say that? Did I behave that way? I guess I don't know if that answers your question, but it's like who am I? I am you, I am us, I am part of the whole.

Jon: 1:05:30

You're walking into an ice cream shop. You're going to get an ice cream cone with two scoops. What are the flavors? Vanilla.

Mardig: 1:05:39

Now the other one is pretty tough, but it's probably going to be some caramel.

Jon: 1:05:43

Yeah, which one goes on top?

Mardig: 1:05:47

Caramel.

Jon: 1:05:48

So finish with the vanilla.

Mardig: 1:05:50

I read somewhere that only like 11% of people or 18% of people, will call vanilla as their favorite ice cream, but it sells more than any other ice cream.

Jon: 1:06:03

Does that mean nobody wants to admit?

Mardig: 1:06:05

it. Well, my wife doesn't believe it. My wife I told her because I bought it. We were, I was getting vanilla. She said why are you getting vanilla? I said because I like vanilla. And she was like why it's the most popular flavor in the world. She just, you know, it was like vanilla. I said, yeah, I happen to really like vanilla. And if it's macadamia, if it's vanilla bean from, I want to say macadamia.

Jon: 1:06:27

Madagascar.

Mardig: 1:06:28

Madagascar. Yeah, yeah, now that's even better vanilla.

Jon: 1:06:31

Yeah.

Mardig: 1:06:31

Oh, that's, that's the real stuff. That's the real stuff, that's right. Mexico has good vanilla too.

Jon: 1:06:36

That's true. Thanks so much for making the time to sit with me today. Thanks for having me.

Mardig: 1:06:42

It was really fun, a nice way to to cap off the week and head into the holidays. I really appreciate the time we had fun with. Not just strategy, but also talked about music, you know, and about the world, and even even some metaphysical stuff here to wrap it up, not to mention vanilla ice cream. So Absolutely.

Jon: 1:07:00

It's been fun. And see, when I hit you up to do this, I remember the first words. I was like, well, I don't know what I would have to say about anything, but I think we've talked about a lot of good stuff.

Mardig: 1:07:09

Indeed. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.