Terry Young's Sparks & Honey Is Mapping Culture To Forecast The Future
From a small town in Western Kentucky to becoming an entrepreneur on Madison Ave, Terry Young joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. Terry is a successful advertising entrepreneur and the CEO of Sparks & Honey
Terry Young, CEO of Sparks & Honey
From a small town in Western Kentucky to becoming an entrepreneur on Madison Ave, Terry Young joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. Terry is a successful advertising entrepreneur and the CEO of Sparks & Honey, a company identifying and mapping emerging cultural waves through the use of machine learning systems, algorithms, and human insight.
After earning his Master’s Degree in advertising, Terry started working in the digital advertising industry in 1995, when digital marketing was just getting started. A short two years later, he was running the company. Terry got the opportunity to live in China and help start-up initiatives while working for McKinsey. He also lived in Kazakhstan while in the Peace Corp where he helped small business shops with their financing and starting their businesses. Terry brings a great perspective on culture and new trends. On this episode, we also discuss:
Growing up in a small town in Kentucky
The impact of joining the Peace Corp
Rebuilding the traditional advertising model
The intersection of being gay and an entrepreneur.
How Sparks & Honey maps culture
Why predicting the future matters
Defining micro signals and macro trends
What is happening in the space industry
Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
“How do you best recommend that people in organizations ride the waves in a trend?”
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Terry Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!
Quote Of The Episode:
“I say to every person who was here … that has left, you are also leaving your shape and your mold on the company, because it is a reflection on them too.”
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Listen to this episode now:
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You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
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Anthony Pompliano Is Going Full Tilt To Invest In World-Class Blockchain And Crypto Asset Ventures
Anthony Pompliano is the Managing Partner at Full Tilt Capital, an early stage venture capital firm. Full Tilt Capital now focuses exclusively on investing in world-class companies in the blockchain and crypto asset space.
Anthony Pompliano, Managing Partner at Full Tilt Capital
Anthony Pompliano is the Managing Partner at Full Tilt Capital, an early stage venture capital firm. Full Tilt Capital focuses exclusively on investing in world-class companies in the blockchain and crypto asset space.
"Pomp" was raised in Raleigh, NC, and is one of the first south easterners that we have had on the Ambition Today podcast. He is the oldest brother of five and during his junior year of college, he was deployed to Iraq. During his deployment, he gained a unique perspective on life. His world traveling allowed him to learn about new cultures all around the world in order study human behavior. Once he returned from duty, he jumped into the world of Silicon Valley. He built two small technology businesses and worked for large tech companies like Facebook and Snapchat before starting Full Tilt Capital. Anthony brings us his knowledge, unique insight, and more on this episode of Ambition Today:
- Life lessons from being deployed to Iraq
- Building and selling his first technology business
- What it was like working for Facebook
- Full Tilt Capital's investment thesis
- How important a founders self-honesty is
- Why GPU will beat CPU's in the future
- The story of Standard American Mining
- Why Full Tilt is going all in on blockchain companies and crypto assets
- How to build a successful Angel List Syndicate
Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
"How do you think about and manage your personal brand, and also find time to get your day to day operations work done and build Full Tilt?
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Anthony Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!
Quote Of The Episode:
"You don't have to be honest with me. I want you to be, but you don't have to be. You have to be honest with yourself."
Links from this episode:
Listen to this episode now:
Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.
The Night Pokemon Go Took Over The Suburbs & The Police Came
I started writing this at 1:40am on Friday night in the suburbs of Buffalo, NY. My brother and I were just pulled up on by State Troopers in a church parking lot for being there late. This was no ordinary parking lot though. This parking lot contained a Pokemon Go gym.
I started writing this at 1:40am on Friday night in the suburbs of Buffalo, NY. My brother and I were just pulled up on by State Troopers in a church parking lot for being there late. We stopped by this parking lot on our way home. This was no ordinary parking lot though. This parking lot contained a Pokemon gym. The officer came up to us and asked for identification. We gave him our driver's license and he ask what are you doing here this late. I replied: "Officer, do you know what Augmented Reality is?". He gave me a strange look and said "nope". Fast forward a few minutes later to after my brief lesson on Augmented Reality and the new game Pokemon Go, he told us to have a nice night and left.
Prior to this encounter with the law enforcement my brother and I were outside a local Chili's restaurant, another Pokemon Go gym, when three cars pulled up simultaneously. One guy got out and screamed, there is a Squirtle around here. While he began searching for the elusive rare Pokemon by walking around the parking lot, the others who were still in their cars, began attacking the "Big Red Chili Pepper" gym. Within two minutes the gym changed from Yellow to Red (two of the teams you can join in the game) as it was overtaken by a new champion. Five minutes later, they left. If your not on the move in Pokemon Go then your not really playing Pokemon Go.
Even earlier in the evening, down the street, a different car pulled into the United States Post Office to capture another Pokemon gym. They saw our phones out, we saw their phones out and so said we said Hello to each other. It turns out that they were actually some old friends of my brothers through a friend of a friend. They exchanged numbers and agreed to re-connect again soon. Pokemon Go re-connected old friends on a sidewalk outside a United States Post Office.
Now since Friday at 1:40am when I was explaining to a State Trooper what Augmented Reality is, I know similar stories have been told thousands of times as similar situations unfolded across the world. I am sure you have heard by now that Pokemon Go is a new augmented reality app that makes you and your phone (using it's built in GPS) the main character as you walk around the real world to find and capture Pokemon. It is not the first augmented reality game but it is certainly now the most popular.
It's truly amazing just how fast this game has gone viral considering not once inside the game is there a prompt to invite a friend or get some free game items for sharing. The virality of Pokemon Go has been almost all organically social and word of mouth.
Since the mid 2000's a new world of tablets, iPhones, improved gaming systems, and more have slowly been keeping us in our routines. I love that this game get's people back outside, connecting with others on the street, and exploring the parts of the world their normal daily routines ignore. Yes, Pokemon Go could improve the whole head down toward the ground like zombies staring at our phone thing, but we will get there soon enough with improved technology. I'm looking at you Oculus, Samsung Gear VR, and Microsoft HoloLens.
I wanted to share this story and experience as it felt truly unique to me. That night in the suburbs, people were out and about exploring the world instead of sitting inside somewhere. There was an energy in the air that night in the suburbs. An energy that you can easily take for granted living in a big city that never sleeps like New York. It was refreshing, light hearted, and fun. So before others try to ruin the fun, get out there and catch some Pokemon. If you can, catch them all, and while your at it remember to pick your head up from time to time to say Hi the other people around you.
The Power Of Saying I Don't Know
How saying I don't know can cure rampant lying, faking, and hiding, which permeates every industry and every company across the globe. When stress levels hit high enough they can affect any employee in a company. At times executives and founders are the ones that encounter the most stress and can therefore be most guilty of it. It is called imposter syndrome.
Lying, faking, and hiding is rampant. It permeates every industry and every company across the globe. When stress levels hit high enough it can affect any employee in a company. At times executives and founders are the ones that encounter the most stress and can therefore be most guilty of it. It is called imposter syndrome. It turn's out that there is one simple silver bullet answer to this problem and it is saying:
I don't know.
These 27 minutes of wisdom and honesty by Meghan Messenger exemplify why Meghan is one of the best leaders out there in 2016. Harvard Business Review just named Next Jump as one of it's only three Deliberately Developmental Organizations.
It turns out that lying takes twice as much energy in your brain than telling the truth and it is done to avoid being judged. Here is what you can do instead:
- Listen: Do not default to just repeating what you have heard, actually listen.
- Internalize: Personalize what you have just heard to your own life. (Use empathy)
- Operationalize: Go execute with a real understanding.
Along with the benefit of actually understanding each unique situation your in, there is one more key advantage as well. When you say "I don't know" you open yourself up to get help and feedback from other people. This is the most powerful benefit to keeping this mentality. It will open you up to new knowledge and therefore help you grow as an individual extremely fast. Check out Meghan's video below to hear the full story and a bit more of the story behind the the power of saying I don't know .
Note: TP stands for Talking Partner. Its a program where Next Jumpers are paired off and meet daily. These partners develop relationships of trust and help each other grow through advice and support.
The Future Is Empathy
Merriam Webster simply defines Empathy as: "the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings".
Merriam Webster simply defines Empathy as:
"the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings"
Empathy requires a deeper level of realism than sympathy. It requires the ability to look from another persons perspective, not to it from your own perspective.
Monday of this week started with honoring Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. and his dream. Dr King was able to lead during his lifetime because he had a deep empathy for the other people in this world going through similar struggles. The greatest leaders of our time use empathy to gain followers and with those followers collectively solve large problems.
Today Macklemore and Ryan Lewis released a new song about the role white privilege has played in their life. The song chronicles Macklemore's recent experiences marching in Black Lives Matter protests and being a part of the hip hop community. The song shows an understanding and empathy of both sides of the table. The greatest artists of our time use empathy to create great and relatable work.
Steve Job's knew empathy in design was the path to creating groundbreaking new products. The best product designers know their customers because they are their customers. Empathy guides the creation of the product. The greatest products of our time were built by founders who had the ability to empathize with the customers they are helping.
Last week I stood in the middle of a field in Africa while a plane flew overhead and dropped bags of food to the ground. Myself and others began to run, grab as much as we could, and carried home what we had picked up to feed our families. I experienced this shockingly first person perspective while wearing a $20 Google cardboard Virtual Reality headset in my living room. I was amazed at how real it felt. You should have seen the look on my Grandfather's face when I had him try it too.
Technology enabled me and the others who tried it, to in that moment empathize immediately in a way that reading text simply never could do as powerfully or effectively. Empathy is an incredibly powerful ability. With constant new technology and the increasing free flow of information on the internet I expect empathy to grow to be a more naturally occurring and common part of society. The earliest test of this theory is and will be the attitude of Millennials as they have had the greatest exposure to new technologies and open information. In the next few years we will see if I am right, but I believe an open mind and empathy are the way of the future.
The Best CEO Speech Ever: Charlie Kim, Next Jump
Charlie Kim, founder and CEO of Next Jump, gives one of the best motivational speech's ever at the Founder Institute New York.
At the Founder Institute in New York we have incredible Mentors come every week to mentor the founders of our startup companies. Sometimes we share some of those excellent Mentor presentations. This is one of the best CEO speeches of all time.
This motivational speech was given to the Founder Institute New York by Next Jump CEO Charlie Kim on Branding & Marketing. It includes over $200,000 of free branding knowledge, takes you to the future of the information economy, and also includes lessons from the entrepreneurial ups and downs of growing a billion dollar company. Through the Next Jump Leadership Academy, an invite-only full immersion workshop designed to share and teach programs around our learnings becoming a deliberately developmental organization, Charlie Kim works with some of the best leaders in the world.
Thank You Jon Stewart
I have no idea when the first time I watched the Daily Show was. I know that I got really into it during college. It played a massive role in helping shape my political views. There is one view that has stuck with me. You do not need to pick a side.
I have no idea when the first time I watched the Daily Show was. I know that I got really into it during college. It played a massive role in helping shape my political views. There is one view that has stuck with me. You do not need to pick a side. You have the right to make your own decisions, think about each event individually, and then form your own opinion.
To often, every political event in America has a filter placed over it before it is even presented the public. Most often, the Democratic filter is placed by MSNBC and the Republican filter by Fox News. Jon Stewart went after everyone though. If someone did something that wasn't decent they were on his radar. The filter that Jon placed on the media he delivered wasn't Republican or Democratic. It was an empathetic filter. He would put himself in the shoes of who was being affected and if it needed to be done, he would call bullshit.
It seems ironic that a fake news show on Comedy Central is the one that actually most closely resembled what we used to view as journalism in this country. There is a reason for this though. Jon understood how the media works. There are plenty of people doing great journalism in America, but their voices struggle to break through the click bait, sensationalism, advertising driven media world that has been created. What Jon figured out was how to use comedy as a narrative to elevate and communicate stories that would not have other wise broken through the tradition media filters and into the public eye.
I truly hope that the narrative Jon Stewart and the Daily Show team created does not die with him leaving though the show. I do not think it will though. Off the TV it lives with all the viewers who tuned in every night and loved the show. On TV, Jon Oliver is already doing a truly incredible job carrying on the narrative on HBO with Last Week Tonight. Colbert will be taking over the Late Show on September 8th. Lastly, Trevor Noah will replace Jon Stewart on the Daily Show on September 28th.
If you haven't checked out Trevor Noah yet, you can do so on Netflix. I am confident that Noah will do a great job. He speaks 7 languages/dialects. He grew up in South Africa where his actual life was illegal due to apartheid and growing up with a white father and African mother. I personally do not know any experience which better instill's empathy in a person then traveling the world and having experiences across cultures. Noah has these experiences and on top of it is actually pretty funny.
So in the end Jon said: "Nothing ends, it’s just a continuation. It’s a pause in the conversation. So rather than saying goodbye or good night, I’m just going to say: I’m going to go get a drink. And I’m sure I’ll see you guys before I leave.”
I just wanted to say thank you Jon. I feel the same as Colbert. The world is a little bit better off for having you done your job. I'll see you at that drink you owe us soon.
You Only Live Once
Here we are at “The Starting Line”. Life is a blank slate in front of us. We only get one shot at this thing called life, and if there is one thing this generation knows
Here we are at “The Starting Line”. Life is a blank slate in front of us. We only get one shot at this thing called life, and if there is one thing this generation knows it is that we were raised to never waste a moment of it; to make the most out of every moment and follow our dreams.
YOLO. Extremely cliche but the question still remains, what will we do with our life? Our elders think that we expect too much out of life. That there is a work ethic epidemic. I disagree with that belief. What has happened is that the incentives which motivate a work ethic in younger generations has changed very rapidly in the past decade and at a pace with which many corporations and managers have failed to keep up. The world is more connected than ever, and is exponentially connecting even quicker. This is the first generation to know the existence of, to use, and to understand the repercussions of the Internet. It has always existed in our lives. Where to older generations it is simply another new thing that has come along. However, we are digital natives to this new world of technology. This means we see opportunities and have access to knowledge that our elders only dreamed of having at our age. To think that extreme alteration in mentality won’t have repercussions in the structure and organization of a workplace is naive and what those elders fail to realize is that an entire generation now has this new mentality. And yet, another sub generation still in high school has that mentality even stronger than those coming out of university. YOLO… Yes, this is a fad attributed to a rap song by Drake and true its use in pop culture has diminished its value, but it still has meaning. It’s a reminder to all people of their own mortality and it is a signal to all who are listening that we as a society are beginning to see a shift in paradigms.
In the past, older generations were paid and rewarded with the currency of money. But the future generation doesn’t see money having that same value to them. It’s value is not absent entirely, just very diminished. Younger generations prefer compensation in the form of life experience and personal time. They know “You Only Live Once”. This isn’t to say that the younger generations don’t have the will to work like their elders believe. It just means they don’t have the will to work for things they don’t believe strongly in and that won’t immediately contribute significant experience back into their lives. Time is the new commodity to be traded. In corporations of the future, flexibility could become the main corporate benefit. There is already a growing trend in the availability of flexibility to employees. More and more companies are adopting new technology which gives their employees the ability to work from home, push papers as they attend their relatives 4th of July BBQ, or send an email before they jump from the top of a cliff while living their dream of base jumping.
The companies that fail to acknowledge this shift in paradigms will pass away with those older generations. Corporations that wish to stay alive and avoid extinction will have to be as nimble and agile as these new generations are. Generation Y (born 1980's), Generation Z (born 1990's), and Generation AO (born 2000's) will each be more plugged in than their predecessor and exponentially more plugged in than the older dinosaurs who will inhabit the executive positions within the corporations that hire them. The new exchange system where money is a second best for employees, compared to the ability to gain individual experience will become the norm over time; regardless of if elder generations like it or not. The truth is that there is a new breed about to make their ascent in the modern world. We understand technology in a way that no others have before. This will be our upper hand in the world. Those who fail to embrace the new societal norm will not truly attain greatness in the world. To borrow a word from @Jason,
““Those who fail to strive for greatness will be the rice pickers and the people who do understand the new laws will be the samurais”.”
This is the Starting Line. I’ll ask you one more time. What do you plan to do with your life? I plan to get to the Finish Line. I hope to see you there…