In today's episode, we talk with Josh Muccio for part two of our interview about The Pitch. Make sure you catch part one!
In today's episode, we talk with Josh Muccio for part two of our interview about The Pitch. Make sure you catch part one!
you're always that, like you're always selling yourself, you know, in every pitch you're in. So that's a constant. But that would probably be the first, my number one recommendation. And if that's all you get out of this is to think of your product or your thing that you're building from other people's point of view and how it might benefit them, I'd say you'll be good to go. There's of course more to it than that, but... Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Team. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. And in today's episode, the final episode for this year, we interview Josh Muccio. This is part two of the interview. Go and check out part one by going to spec.fm. Of course, happy new year to you all. I hope you all stay safe on New Year's Eve. I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Josh. Of course, this is part two. Josh is the founder of The Pitch, or I guess the creator. One of the creators of The Pitch. It's a podcast that is similar to The Shark Tank. We talked a little bit about it on the last episode. Of course, we're talking about pitching and how important it is to you as a developer in this interview. So check it out. Make sure you listen to part one before you go into this part. You may be a little bit confused if you listen to part two first. You can find that episode at spec.fm. Once again, we don't have a sponsor for today's episode. We will pick back up with our incredible line of sponsors in the new year. Thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea today and this year. And enjoy this interview with Josh Muccio. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See you soon. product or you pitch your thing that you're doing and you spend all of your time talking about the features of that product, your app and like how it works and all the different things it does and all the cool little buttons and windows and like cool little tricks it can do. And that is the wrong thing to put in your pitch. If somebody asks you a specific question about what it does or like what the best feature of your product does, then you answer that. But when you sell something like you, you aren't selling a pile of features. You're selling what those features allow that person, customer, whatever to do. And people are just, it's really hard to do this because like, what do you get excited about as a, as a developer? It's the things that you can do. It's the features that you're building and like you build things feature by feature, right? Sure. Yeah. And so, well, not always, but often. So, so breaking out of that can be really, really difficult. So that's why it's helpful to have somebody completely disconnected from you to kind of find a way, like how do they describe your product? Yeah. And like, and describe it that way at first, and then let the investor or the person that you're talking to, let them pry and ask questions and then you answer those questions directly. Uh, guarantee their ability to actually retain that information will be 10 times better if they ask the question and you respond versus you just feeding them that information up front. And that, that goes back to something that you said earlier too. If you're surrounding yourself with people who agree with you and you're just kind of looking at each other and saying, yeah, we're pretty good at this. Uh, and, and then you go into a pitch meeting and you're totally shot down. Right. Uh, and when I say pitch meeting again, we're, we're not just talking about pitching to investors, but just talking about pitching to investors. So, uh, and then you go into a pitch meeting just in general, anytime when you have, uh, uh, your closest group of, of confidants or, uh, in, in your professional sphere, if, if you and the developers are all in your corner and you're all stewing and brewing against the designers or against the project managers or against the boss or, uh, really against anyone, uh, and you're doing it together and you're just feeding each other's anger or frustration or, uh, or even your own pride. If you're feeding those things, then you're probably not learning. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.! then you're probably not going to get pitching down very well. That's really great advice. I mean, it's so true. I mean, one of the things we do is actually we have coaching as part of our podcast. It's like the one thing that we hawk on the show. And I don't like to hawk products on podcasts. But it's enough of our listeners express their interest in that. And so we ended up offering that as a service to people. And so we essentially are that third party for people in startups that need help crafting their pitch. And we partnered with other really smart people who know even more about this stuff than I do. And so we kind of essentially have like a class that people can go through. And we just coach them on their pitch and like selling it the way that people need to hear it and not the way they think about it in their head. And that's good. It's so... It's so... It's so fun and interesting doing these things because so often like you can tell that the breakthrough when they get it or when you tweak their pitch or come on to something that they didn't think of on their own, all of a sudden like it's not just affecting their pitch to investors. They're thinking about their business differently. They're thinking about their thing and the potential of it differently. Just by changing essentially a few words and changing... I mean, it's all kind of semantics. But when those... When those changes in words just drastic... It's... I don't even know how to describe it very well. But it happens all the time. And it's just really, really cool. And I think it hits on... There's just something fundamental about pitching and like getting better at it. It's almost like you're just becoming a better communicator. You're better able to express your feelings to other people. And that's a big deal. It's bigger than... Let me... Let's not... Let's not get past this very quickly. That is a very big deal. I think a lot of people underestimate it. Underestimate communication more specifically. And they take the facts as the only things that matter. I see this for developers all the time. I see developers who are coming out of high school and they're going into their degree program. And basically what they are taught or I guess what they believe just naturally. Or somebody is disseminating the information that your degree program will determine your career. Oh, gosh. Especially in development. A lot of people have this perspective that getting into a big job at Google is most likely you need to go to a top tier school like MIT or something. And I can tell you definitively that that's not true. Like without a doubt. Obviously. There are benefits to going to good schools. Right? And that's where that comes from. There's benefits to going to places where there are very smart people doing really interesting, really challenging things at the forefront of the field. But to think that getting yourself to a place or getting yourself into a position at a company or at a school or really anywhere in society even. To think that that is a logical sum. Of the parts is totally the wrong thought. Right? It's much more, much more about communication. What Josh is saying, I don't want people to miss this. This idea that you communicating your feelings is unimportant as a developer. I can tell you most of your raises are going to happen because of your of your relationships and because you actually perfected this art of communication with the people around you. It's not optional. It's not optional. It's not optional. If you want to be a great developer, if you want to be a great anything, this is not optional. You have to think about communication. You know, this is really interesting and perhaps not directly related, but I have to mention it. During one of the episodes of season two, which hasn't come out yet. It'll go live January 11th. Actually, the first episode, there's a female founder pitching her idea. And she comes into the room with like such confidence, such moxie, such like, I'll walk out. I'll walk out. The door, like, I don't care kind of attitude. Like my businesses is, it's so awesome that like, you're either going to invest or you're not. And it was actually so much that some of the investors actually got a little bit tiffed at her, the way she delivered that message. Intimidated almost. Yeah. You know, I don't know. Not intimidated, but kind of like weirded out by it. They, they said it just kind of gave them like the raw. wrong, I guess the wrong, well, one person said, like, I'll be honest, like I hated her in the beginning. And he says it, he says it like on the podcast. He's like, I did. I came to like her over time. And, and, but it was really interesting because there was a real, there was a moment in the recording that essentially divided the whole, the whole room of investors. And then they ended up talking in post about how, like, as a woman, and we can't talk to this cause we're guys, but I feel like it's cool to, to, to bring it up anyway. But like, that's how she kind of almost overcame whatever she felt like might be a sexism bias. She felt like if she can overcome that in like confidence in how she delivered stuff, that she'd be better off. And, and essentially that we've, we find out later, like, that's what she did. Like she was purposefully being a little bit more confident and cocky than she normally would be because she felt like she needed to do, and in the end people felt better when they found out she wasn't her personality actually wasn't that, but the bottom line, not to give too much away, but she got the deal and she absolutely crushed it. And I don't know what the take home message of that is. But one of the things that was talked about amongst the investors afterwards is they said, if that was a guy that came in here with that kind of attitude, the girl says, one of the female investors says this, you all, the other male investors, would have not thought anything of it. You would have loved him. Yeah. She said, but because it was a girl, of course, so then we're kind of getting into the sexist conversation, but it was so interesting. And so I couldn't help but think, man, like this is like, I don't know that I've heard this talked about yet. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really good picture of, of walking in and saying, Hey, I've thought about the communication, like so much so that I'm ready to, to, uh, to perform what I have thought about. Right. And not, not in a, I don't know. I wasn't there. I'm looking forward to listening to that because that'll be really interesting. But, um, you know, coming in and saying, Hey, like this isn't, I'm not, I'm not, first of all, I'm not the stereotypical thing. I'm going to get your attention. Right. And maybe, maybe she just struck gold or maybe she actually had a really good plan there. And, you know, in the long run, she was just kind of genius. Yeah. In her plan. Yeah. Um, but, but the fact that she thought about it is more than most people do. Right. The fact that she thought about how am I going to be received as a person just, uh, just by default because, because of my gender or whatever. Uh, and, and most people don't have the energy or don't take the energy to even go that far. Uh, yeah, it's really true. It's really true. It's good. Awesome. Well, this is, uh, this is really good information. I, Josh, I want you to talk about this. I want you to tell us a little bit more about the, the coaching opportunity. I know you missed, uh, you mentioned it and just so everybody knows, uh, this is, this is entirely voluntary. Uh, Josh isn't a sponsor. I'm not sponsoring the pitch. None of that is happening in the background without anybody knowing about it. Uh, but, but I do want to hear about these, about these, uh, the coaching opportunity. Cause I think a lot of people actually, uh, and I'll be interested to know, uh, how, how you would feel about, you know, a developer coming to you and saying, Hey, I'd like to just be coached on career development. And if that's a possibility. So that's interesting. We haven't coached anyone on, on career development. Um, and I don't know that we could necessarily pitch it that way, but we could talk to a developer and say like, let's, let's talk about your delivery. How do you deliver yourself? How do you, um, how do you pitch yourself? Not necessarily what is your resume look like, but what is the message behind your resume? And is it actually reflecting who you are? Is there, you know, that kind of synergy between the two? Um, because I think, I think again, like it's hard when you look at your product, just like you look at yourself, it's hard because you know, all of your intricacies, all of your features, you know, but like seeing the big vision for yourself, um, from, from the outside really takes help from somebody else outside yourself, you know? And, uh, so, you know, even if you don't work with somebody like us, um, and our new program that we're launching, um, coaching for developers, I'm just kidding. Um, you know, like just, just finding somebody to talk to, you're going to, you're going to get, you're going to find little pieces about how others see you. And, um, it'll, it might change how you pitch yourself. Um, and it can often, you know, make you think introspectively about, about yourself and who you really are. And I think that's always a good exercise, whether you're preparing for an interview or not. So, yeah, I actually read this recently, uh, speaking of coaching, uh, obviously the, the most common form of coaching that everyone is familiar with is athletic coaching, right? Um, in, in the athletic world, you know, getting to a, a state where you are a good athlete at like an average good athlete, um, the guy who is a weekend warrior and he's like the top of the team that plays, you know, at the court in the neighborhood on Saturdays. Um, you know, that's something that generally you can do on your own. You don't really, you don't really need, uh, a specialist to come in and, you know, coach your form or anything, but in general, um, to get past that level, the pro athletes, they cannot become pro athletes and they cannot maintain their professional level of athleticism without coaching because they can't, it's like a physical limitation. You're unable to see your own, uh, shortcomings, right? Uh, and there's, there's no amount of self-evaluation that can elevate your game. Um, so that, that concept applies to so much else, but specifically when you're talking about elevating your own pitch, like, man, it is a hundred percent true that somebody outside of you needs to tell you what's wrong. It's true. And I think, I think it fundamentally can also just be an insecurity thing. People, it's hard to sell yourself, right? Like, yeah, because you see the worst side of you as well as the best part of you. Um, you know, when you go to pitch or when you go into an interview, like you, you know, all of that. So pitching, I keep saying that, uh, giving the best version of yourself and like telling your story really, really well, it's just hard because your mind is clouded by all the things that you're not amazing at. Um, and I think it's also important to note that in any interview, um, like people aren't expecting perfection, you know, it, it's almost like, you know, it's almost like, you know, it's almost like, you know, it's almost helpful if you can kind of give them some of that imperfection right off the bat so that they aren't concerned about what are you hiding, you know, um, whether that's just quirks about kind of your, your delivery or like, you know, who you act, like maybe you have an obsession with, you know, I don't know, cats on the internet, like, I don't know, uh, or Star Trek, like, you know, all the old, like whatever it is, maybe you don't incorporate that into your pitch, but you, you get what I'm saying? Like, uh, and having those human, human elements, I think. Um, and so a lot of times in, in pitches, people will actually incorporate some humor or something like that, that, well, I think this is why we're seeing like so many people use, you know, Giphy or things like that along with messages is because like, that's like, it's just a human kind of way to make, you know, a very sterile messaging, you know, text, make it very human and quirky. And, um, I don't know. I think it, I think people can, can benefit, um, in pitching from being a little bit more human and a less, uh, less composed. Yeah. I a hundred percent agree with it. This is why I mentioned at the very beginning of, of today's episode, or I guess at this point we're probably in part two. Definitely. Um, so the last episode I mentioned that, uh, that Josh and I had been talking already because, you know, I say hello at the beginning of the episode, mostly for you, the listeners benefit, but the reality is Josh and I have been talking for, five or six minutes. Um, and it's going to be much easier for Josh and I to feel authentic. If we are just opening up and being honest, like transparent, you're going to hear this episode after it's been edited. There's stuff that you're going to miss out on, uh, because the editing process removes it. Um, but, but the truth is a lot of what we, uh, a lot of what we present, uh, in our day-to-day lives or in our jobs, or, you know, eventually those people who buy in, they're going to see the real you. And so if they get a glimpse of the real you, if they see something they like when they see the real you, like when they see those barriers kind of broken down, uh, perhaps they're going to be more likely to buy into that. Yeah. Cause it's all about connection, right? Like people were looking to connect with other people. And how much am I going to hate hanging out with this person at a Christmas party? Like, like that's, that's, you know, a strangely applicable concern. For some people, you know, and, and, and it's, and it's, you know, we, we often take that stuff for granted because we think everybody else is, is stone cold and just looking at the money and we're the only ones who have feelings. Yeah. We're the only humans in the room. Yeah, exactly. But it's, it's just not true. It's not true. It just isn't Jonathan. Not at all. Cool. All right. Well, we are coming to the end of the interview here. I think we've covered, do you have any, anything else that you would like to mention, Josh, that we haven't covered? Oh no. I mean, I think it's, uh, it's all, I've like, I've really enjoyed being on the show. Like this was, uh, just, it was fun. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you for coming. And thank you for, uh, for being a part and for making a really cool show. Um, January 11th, you said, correct? January 11th, the first episode will drop and I can't wait. Also, I'm a little nervous. I'm watching, uh, Josh is on camera by the way, and I am not on camera and I've been watching him every time he talks about. Uh, season two, he gets super excited. I've been watching the visual cues. Um, so it's apparently, it's apparently going to be really, really cool. So, uh, make sure you, and I assume that it's going to be coming out on the same feed that the current one is, is the season one is out on. Is that true? It definitely is. And Jonathan, we've made a different bet than you. We are going over quality for quality over quantity on our show. Uh, so much so that in, in the, not to say your shows aren't quality. That's not what I'm saying, but you pump out some serious volume. Hear Josh correctly here. Yes. Um, but our show, like we were two every other week. So you, I know you started out like two a week and then you went up to three and then listeners wanted you to kind of back off a little bit because the quality wasn't up to par. Right. Um, well, we started out at two weeks every other week, and then we went to once a week and that was a real challenge for us. Um, even getting to that. Um, because I started my first podcast, the daily hunt, which is the one we had Brian Lovin on. Um, that one actually just never went anywhere. We just couldn't get significant traction there. And I was doing a, it was a daily podcast. Uh, and it, uh, it, it made me realize that not always is quantity over better than quality. And I felt like online, like it normally is, more blog posts are better than less, more stuff, uh, is normally better. And, uh, I guess I got, um, so burned. I got burned out on that, that I said, well, the next thing I'm going to do, it's going to, the focus is going to be entirely on quality. Um, I guess in season two, we're taking that to the extreme to the point where we recorded everything in October and we're spending from October to January, you know, making these things the best they can be. So, um, you know, to be continued, I suppose, right. Well, we'll, we'll compare numbers here in a year or so and, uh, see who's winning. Wink, wink. You know what? It's what's really awesome about this though, is, is, uh, we have to, we have to not in the podcast now. Um, what's really, really great about this discussion is that the fact that both sides can be right in this, in this argument. I hope so. And, and, and, well, I, and I, I believe like many, many things have been proved, have proven this to be true, that there are some very successful, like once a month podcasts out there. Maybe not once a month. Well, I know hardcore history, for example, is, is, is seldomly released, but it's very, very. Is that the one we've heard? Four hour long episodes? Yes. Very long episodes. That guy's crazy. Uh, and, and it's really just, it's more about like just a different format. Like your, your show is going to be significantly different in terms of format, right? Yes. People, people can skip an episode of developer tea. And I've, I say this openly, uh, and, and not feel like they missed something or they can, they can say, you know what? I'm not really interested in listening, uh, to Jonathan ramble on about pitching. So I'm going to skip, I'm going to skip this. Yeah. And, um, and, and not really, you know, miss out on a lot of value. Whereas if you were to go and do that with something like cereal, you know, you're, you're going to be lost and it's not going to really work out for you. Uh, so I, I want it to be kind of, if we're looking at, if we're comparing podcasts to like TV shows, um, developer tea is, is more like Seinfeld. Like you can just kind of pick up an episode and listen to it aside from a couple of, aside from a couple of the like, uh, developer career roadmap, right? There's, they're a little bit connected to each other, but in general, what I want it to be is, is very episodic in nature in that, uh, it's, it's constrained to the episode as much as possible so that if you do want to skip it, you can. And if you want to pick up an episode in two years from now, you can go back and listen to episode number 12 and it's probably still going to be, you know, somewhat relevant. Yep. You know, as much as I would love to say that our show is the complete opposite, of that. It's not, uh, unfortunately, uh, all of our shows are kind of self-contained. Um, we, we haven't created mystery between episodes or, uh, things like that. It, I don't see how it actually could work for our format. Uh, but man, I realized here recently that like, this is going to sound weird. Cause I know a lot of people hate fiction podcasts. Um, I'm a real science fiction nut. I've just found that out the past couple of years. And, uh, so I, you've discovered that about yourself. That's great, man. Like I can, make me read a business book or, or make me read like a dry, um, self-improvement book. And like, I'll want to cry myself to sleep, like, or I will literally just fall asleep reading the book. And so then I like feel guilty because I'm like, Josh, you're like, you need to be reading. You need to, you know, keep learning and stay on top of things. Um, but then like get me into a science fiction book and I'll stay up till like one or two in the morning reading that sucker. And then, but, but it like inspires me to think about the future. And then I might actually get some reading done of those. Those business books, but like, that's just how I work. So anyway, uh, fiction podcasts, uh, like, um, Limetown is a really interesting one. Uh, Life After is one that's going on right now. It's the continuation of the message podcast. Any of these have you listened to? I haven't. No. Well, I've, I've heard of Limetown and it seems like a bunch of people who listen to serial ended up kind of crossing over into that one, but I haven't listened to any of them because as I said, very early in this podcast, uh, I, I just, I just don't have time to listen to many podcasts. Unfortunately. It's a, it's a very strange thing to be a podcaster and, uh, and to not take the time. I feel like I, I, I owe it to the world to listen to more podcasts. I totally, I totally am in the same boat, but I mean, for me, like a lot of these fiction podcasts are actually shorter and they're because they're episodic and they, uh, like they're essentially telling a story over seven episodes that could be told in two or three, but they break it up into smaller chunks and then leave you hanging. You know, a week, even though they've got the whole thing produced, they wait to release the episodes, uh, you know, usually weekly. And, uh, man, like all of, all of these fiction podcasts, like I'll either binge listen to all of them, like from start to finish. Cause I'm so hooked or, or they're the first podcast I listened to in my feet. And I realized that I think it was just today. Cause the new episode of life after came out over the weekend. So I'm looking through, I've got a plethora of podcasts I can listen to that I subscribe to. And then when I went to, was that fiction one, not because I don't like the other ones, but because I was left on a cliff cliffhanger, you mentioned, you know, mystery, creating mystery and how powerful that is. And, uh, it's just funny. Cause it's, it's not even true. Like it's a fiction podcast, but I guess I'm just a sucker for that stuff. Yeah. Uh, well, I mean, uh, I am, I watch TV. I'll admit it. Uh, I know a lot of people, a lot of people, it's trendy to, to cut the cord and to stop watching TV. Yeah. Uh, but, but, but we still, we still watch a couple of shows and yeah, we get invested in the characters. You know, we, we actually watched a couple of episodes of, of this is us recently and it's, it's, it's heavy. It's really heavy. Um, yeah, I heard about it at first at least. Yeah. Uh, I mean, it's not all heavy. Don't, don't get me wrong. It's not like a dark show by any means, but, um, it was heavier than we expected it to be, especially with, uh, with my wife, Lauren being pregnant right now. Uh, if you've seen the show, you can imagine that, that the, the first episode, um, for, for a woman who's pregnant is, uh, is a pretty emotional rollercoaster at the very least, but, um, yeah, so it totally makes sense. People, people buy into stories and that that's the power of story, right? It's going to leave you, uh, really wanting to be a part of something. Yeah. Well, if you want to really be a pro at your pitch, you'll find out how to incorporate story into your pitch too. But you know, that's kind of a thing to level up to. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Story, story is one of those, uh, is, is like an underlying, um, uh, superpower. It is. And it can take so many different forms too. It's, uh, not, not just the classic, um, you know, protagonist antagonist, uh, storyline. So, uh, have you, did you get into Stranger Things? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. We love Stranger Things. Yes. This is great. I can't wait till season two. It's coming soon. Yeah. And everybody has, uh, has their varying opinions of which direction they'll take it, but, um, I, what's your opinion? You know, I really don't, I'm not sure that I have one yet. Um, I know that they're shooting it in Atlanta, which is really cool. Uh, I used, I went to Georgia Tech, so I used to live in Atlanta. So I see every once in a while, I'll see something that kind of looks, you know, somewhat familiar and looks Atlantan to me. And I say, uh, but I'm not sure. I think that they will, uh, they'll spend some time expanding the underground or, uh, well, The upside down? Spoiler alert, but. Oh yeah. Hopefully you've seen it, but, uh, but yeah, expanding a little bit more on that concept of the upside down and, uh, and maybe adding more characters there. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. That was one big mystery for me. It was, I didn't know how many of them there were. But. Cause you can't get that from the cast list. Yes. Right. Like they could add like five characters in the upside down and it wouldn't change the cast list at all. I'm trying to figure out what I can say without giving away spoilers. Uh, well, I feel like we've, we've prefaced it. So if you, if you're, if you don't want to be spoiled on stranger things on a developer podcast, by the way, let's, let's be very clear. Uh, then, then press pause or fast forward or something, but yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, now we can wrap it up. Um, this has been a great conversation. Uh, really enjoyed, enjoyed talking with you, Josh. I do like to ask two questions to every guest that I have on the show. Okay. My first question is what do you wish more people would ask you about? Oh, this is going to sound really weird, but I wish, uh, I wish more people would ask about my kids. Uh, most of my professional network is built because of the podcast. So people don't actually see me in person. And so they don't, they don't necessarily know that I have kids and, you know, I'm not the guy posting tons of stuff about my kids on social media. So, um, but yeah, it's, it takes up such a big part of my life. It's hard for me, uh, to feel like I'm really connecting with, with people at times because they don't know my kids and we can't talk about my kids and whatever the latest thing is that they're doing. So I realized that's a total dad thing to say, you know, single, uh, guys and girls out there probably, uh, rolling their eyes, but, uh, it's, I can't help it. Uh, I'm a dad. No, I think that makes as, as, uh, a new, as a dad, well, as a future dad to be soon, soon to be dad. Um, that makes sense to me because it's, it, it, it does from the moment that you find out that it's going to happen, it starts consuming a pretty significant portion of your thought and your energy. Yes. Yeah. Oh man. And it's only beginning. I'm still trying to fathom what's going to happen when I go from two to three. Uh, I'm having a hard time with it. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Uh, so, so, well, why don't you tell us, uh, if you, if you want to share a short bit about your children. Oh, uh, put me on the spot here. Well, um, so, uh, my oldest, uh, Gia, she's, uh, four years old. She's going to preschool now and, uh, we're in the Christmas season. So she just sang some Christmas carols, uh, and it just, um, melted my little heart. What, what can I say? That's like very, that talks about their personality. Um, okay. So my youngest, uh, who's two, he, he's like your typical boy who, right? He's like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, is like running around making spaceship sounds and like crashing into things all the time and, uh, annoying his sister. And, uh, my, his sister's the older of my kids. She's four and she is the bossy, um, bossy sibling, always telling, uh, her younger brother what to do. And we're always trying to tell her not to stop. Um, oh man, I don't feel like I'm doing my kids justice here. I didn't mean to make you feel obligated to ask about my kids. Uh, Oh no, that I, I always ask this question so that we can do something that is, uh, very different unconventional from, from the average topic. Yeah. And, and everybody has a different, and you'd be surprised how many people start out by saying this is going to be weird, but yeah, right. It's, it's, everybody has a different thing that, that, that they just don't get to talk about as often as, as they want to. That's really good. Yeah. Uh, and, and so the second question that I always ask my guests is, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Uh, if you could give every developer 30 seconds of advice, what would you tell them? I would say set aside a portion of your day every day, whether you're employed or unemployed right now, um, to email the people behind the stuff that you're, uh, admiring, you know, you're like every day, you're probably finding stuff that you think is cool. Somebody working on, um, you know, uh, a great, something awesome on GitHub or whatever. And, or, or somebody on, um, you know, they write something awesome. That's trending on, uh, Y Combinator news. Is that what it's called? Hacker news. I'm sorry. Um, and like actually email that person and, and make a connection because you can use Twitter. Like you can do some of these things. I always try to use those as gateways to email as archaic as it may sound, because I find that the relationships I have with people over email are, are the strongest relationships. Of the people I meet online. And then obviously the even stronger would be if I could actually talk to them on the phone for a little bit. And so that's kind of the level up from there. If people will, you know, if they respond to my email, but I don't do it with any specific ask because normally that's what gets people to like, they don't have any interest in you. If you're asking for something right up front. Um, but you never know what those connections will mean later on down the road. Um, and I'm just not really about the LinkedIn, you know, connection. I'm not really about the connections or the Twitter follows or even the Facebook friends. I just find that once you connect with somebody over email, um, it's just, it's just a little bit stronger. It's closer to human, I think, than, than most other internet communications. So if you can set aside, you know, 20, 15 minutes of your day, um, to send two or three emails to people you respect for whatever excuse you have, um, do it. I think it'll, if you do it consistently over time, and that's, that's a principle I found that really, you know, works, uh, because of a book I read called, uh, the slight edge. Um, and it just changed my, my outlook. So I do simple things like that every day, um, that I believe over time will, will really reap. Um, um, my brain's starting to go. It's, I must be tired. Reap, reap rewards is what I was trying to say. Yeah. Let me add onto that because I think, uh, this is such a cool idea. It's, it's things, the five minutes, the 10 minutes, that you do or don't spend can make a massive impact. You know, it only takes a few minutes to send what could be a life-changing email. And you don't really know which ones are going to be the life-changing ones, right? This is actually one of the reasons why we open our phones so often is because, uh, the messages we get from other people, they very well could be the best news we've ever gotten, right? Like it's kind of an amazing thing that, uh, and, and on the flip side, it could also be very bad news, which is kind of the, the more depressing perspective on, on the subject. But, uh, on this, on the same note, you know, a lot of the opportunities that you get, or a lot of the announcements that you receive, they're coming to you digitally. And it's, it's kind of an amazing thing that we don't really recognize when it happens. But, uh, what that means is you can also participate in that. You can actually be a part of that cool stream of, uh, of good, awesome emails that are coming to people's inboxes. You know, it's, it's actually a really cool thing to receive an email that says, Hey, I just wanted to tell you that you're doing something awesome. Even as, you know, as people who are doing something that's relatively public now that enough people have listened to this show that you would think that I'm getting a significant number of emails, you'd be surprised how few people actually take the time to sit down and write an email. It's so true. It's amazing. Uh, and, and I read every single one that I get. Yeah. I love it when I get a listener email. I really do. Yeah. It's, I mean, and that may sound like lip service. It's not like it legitimately is, uh, is, is a touching thing. So, um, I would, I would add on what I was going to add on to this. First of all, a hundred percent agree. But secondly, um, if you are in a services industry, if you, if you are servicing clients, um, like, if you're in an agency, like I am at whiteboard, take some time to actually talk to your clients, uh, when they don't need something, um, send an email to a client that is, is just doing really good at what they do. And instead of them only talking to you when there's an error on their website or when they need you to send an email out or something like that, talk to them proactively and build that relationship and say, Hey, you know what? I've been thinking about you. I think that what you do is really awesome. I'm really good at it. I think that you're doing a really good job. I'm really glad we're in relationship together. I'm really glad that you decided to work with me. That kind of stuff builds such good relational. And it's not just about building relational equity because that, that treats it very coldly. It's also about the simple fact that your life is going to be better if you have good relationships with good people. It's, it's a pretty simple concept, right? Yes, it is. That's so true. That's really good. Josh, thank you so much for your time. I know we're, we're, uh, we've pushed this interview to an hour and a half. So, uh, so this is my fault or partially my fault. I think we were, we were co-conspirators on, on, on the, uh, on the pushing. Yep. Thank you so much for your time and, and thank you for, uh, for doing really cool podcasts, really great idea and for doing it with conviction. I can tell that you really believe in the work you do. So that's, it's really great to encounter other people who believe in what they do. Ah, thanks. Well, it took, it took a little while. I didn't believe in it at first. Awesome. Josh, thank you so much. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea, the final episode of 2016. I'm looking forward to 2017. Of course, we are going on two years coming up in January. Remember, January is going to be JavaScript January here on Developer Tea. We aren't going to do every single episode based on JavaScript, but there will be quite a few episodes where we discuss something JavaScript related. If you have a guest or a question that is specific to JavaScript, please let me know. You can email me at developertea at gmail.com, or you can contact me on the spec Slack community by going to spec.fm slash Slack. You can join it's free for you. And there's thousands of developers and designers, by the way, who are hanging out in that Slack channel or Slack community rather, and are just talking to each other about what they're doing that day. It's really cool. Go and check it out. Spec.fm slash Slack. Thank you again to Josh Muccio for joining me for today's episode. Make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss any of my new episodes. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. Bye. Bye.