Mick Batyske Episode Transcript

 Monte Barnard: [00:00:15] welcome to Live Rich. Have Fun. Save the World, a podcast focused on reimagining how we define success by myself, Monty Bernard and the CEO of Expensify, David Verrett. So today on the show, we have Jamie, A-list deejay and entrepreneur, he's collaborated with the likes of Kanye West, LeBron James and Will Smith. He'll be teaching a class later this summer on your personal brand, meeting your passion via bright live dotcom. In this episode, we discussed diversifying creativity, fatherhood and redeveloping what work means. Covid is everything everyone's always talking about. I know you probably sick of talking about it. I'm sick of talking about it and living through it, obviously, as we all are, as a D.J., as an entrepreneur, as someone who has their irons and a lot of different fires. How are you changing your business, changing your scope, changing your approach to day to day life with this man? [00:01:14][58.9]

Mick Batyske: [00:01:15] Oh, wow. Every possible way. There's no right or wrong answer to it. Like in some days it feels like I have all the right answers. Some days I know I have all the wrong answers, which is also like the Mindstate MindShift thing. Live entertainment was a huge portion of what it is that I offer the world that's been on all announcer shit almost a year, which is a wild thing, but it's a fun way to, like, reinvent virtual entertainment. It's been pretty fun during this process. I've enjoyed connecting with fans in a new way. Maybe you don't connect with different fans or maybe you don't connect with fans where you're actually getting a synthetic version of what they're doing in front of you. Actually, I've changed my live that I'm actually literally talking almost the entire way through the entire set and engaging with the comments and the people coming in and out of the room. You know, as you said, you're a performer as well. You can't really do that song in a performance in a live venue. Can that be really weird? I've gotten to the point now where you do it between the songs, but you don't really do it in the songs. And if I see two people in my chat commenting about a song and making a suggestion, I'll shut them out, change the song. I make it a really interactive experience because that helps me as well with my creativity when I'm deejaying, either trying to play music for me or I try to play music for the audience. And I try to obviously, depending on where people are coming to see me, do me. Then I play 80 percent, maybe 20 percent then because the synergy, it's pretty aligned. If I have a grand jury, like 80 percent of them, 10 or 20 percent of my vision, and I give my version of what it is that you want when I'm standing in my kitchen. I love my kitchen, pretty kitchen, but it gets really boring deejaying. And then, yeah, I had to find some other unique ways to connect with people you can't look across and see people. And the two things that I've leniency or I only play music I love, I'm not playing any shit that doesn't make my heart in my brain happy. And as you know, I mean a couple of times a couple of sponsor happy hours for brands that I'm proud of. It's just like they had really bad songs, but I happy to it. But when I'm playing for my own volition, I'm playing stuff that makes me feel artistically credible. OK, money is not an issue for it's strictly about the art at this point. It's kind of back to basics mentality. In other aspect of it is is yeah. Let's not only make this more interesting for me by engaging with the audience in a way I've never engaged with them before, but let's give them the experience they never had. DGCA request fans are never spoken to any performer. What to do. I have these people are trained well. We were having a literal musical conversation. I've been on song for someone reference to Sam who have a song that I don't even know was that was a sample. And I'm gonna look it up on Joe Sample. Well, I'm deejaying or my colleagues, but they're right on iTunes. You said that and had and it was so weird going on to items in twenty thirty one and getting the sample, dropping it in while they're still talking about the sample in the chat. And the whole thing happened because of the communication between people who love music. And that's what I really like. And I'm trying to figure out when the word does come back, which is sooner than later. Now finally, how do I keep a little bit of that magic? [00:04:16][180.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:04:17] I interesting. Yeah, that adds a whole nother fold of the dynamic. You're right. Whereas the banter in between songs was just that. It was banter. Right. You would say stuff, you get the crowd going. I don't know. I tell them we got merch in the back and shit like that. In a way we need a place to crash, you know, or like just get them involved and keep on that level. But when it becomes an actual facet of the performance and that's killer man, when you're finding the actual sample and creating and being able to take that and see it from a different perspective and have that interaction, that is a totally different level. And I am really curious to see as DJs and then other bands are doing these live streams and incorporating that into their portfolio, so to speak, it is going to be really interesting to see what kind of weird virtual reality meets real matrix music interaction experience that we're going to find in twenty, twenty one and beyond forty said July or fall. But I mean, I know you must have plenty of homies as well that maybe are falling on harder times that aren't able to really kind of shake up their approach and are really struggling with that. I know I do for sure. [00:05:19][62.1]

Mick Batyske: [00:05:20] One thing I've always been involved with, I've always management career is just kind of how I make you guys in the first place. I've always been more of an entrepreneur. And what happens to Vijay versus the DJ who wants to do other things. So I've always focused my career in that regard. And because of that, that gave me a bunch of other skills and relationships that I was able to lean on and figure out, especially during this process. No playing around for a long time, but, you know, sped it up a little bit during this process. Obviously, I've done a lot of angel investing over the years, so been very nice, very nice to a potentially get away and also just expand network to help others learn from them. It's just all wins, really. Yeah, even if you lose your still win, that's been a really interesting lesson. I'm actually in the process now of starting up with a brand advisory company, which is going to be launching sooner than later. I'm not sure when this is going to air, but it'll be like it's the next day, right before March, which would be really fine. And in fact, it's going to be named after my son's middle name because everything I do revolves around my son. As you just saw before we started taping, my whole life revolves around that young man. And so I started like naming advisory company after him kind of makes it a north star for me. And a lot of his work really hard not fuck it up there. You just leave him a little something with his name on it, or at least his middle name. And worst case, it fails. And he has a domain name that you could do something else with some other thing. So it's always [00:06:44][83.6]

Monte Barnard: [00:06:44] nice and nice. I was watching some of your talks, a couple of your different things you have online. And I really liked your concept of creating a brand that's an epicenter of your passions and really finding where those things coalesce, where they have crossed paths. People are doing a lot of different stuff and having that fire under their ass from covid. I love that you take away that phrase an epicenter of your passions. That's why I started this podcast with our CEO. I'm a musician. I was a podcast before this. I moved over, started working at the lovely startup known as Expensify and thought, you know what, Expensify needs a podcast. So trying to work that in, but not really spoke to me. And as starting a brand company, hopefully a brain consultation firm, as you mentioned, hopefully that again dovetails in with things coming back online. You can really take that and run with it, man. [00:07:29][44.4]

Mick Batyske: [00:07:29] It's all the things I'm really good at rolled into one. And I do every single day I call at somebody for something to help somebody with something or network or thoughts or coffee or whatever it is. And yes, I could have access to my brain or you can pay me just a little so I can have a good 13 more years. And he's 18 and that's kind of where I'm at. [00:07:49][19.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:07:49] Nice. I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about some of the stuff in your storied career. I got to ask about Michelle Obama's party man. Was she drinking white wine, requesting journey or was she. [00:07:59][9.6]

Mick Batyske: [00:08:01] It wasn't even a party. It was an event. It's so crazy now, especially to the fact that the last four years and even fuck the last month. Yeah. How crazy. Should have gotten in the same sphere. But she had an organization four years ago for a lot longer than four years ago to encourage kids to be healthy and be healthy and be fit, be the best versions of themselves, unlike Melania's thing, would be best, which isn't even grammatically correct. So that is that was a joke. It's really call it the best. She has the logo, but it's like a progression in spaceports, like they both started things that just should not have been started. And the best. They're both more sickle-cell. Yeah, it's so weird, but I still don't think space was real. [00:08:47][45.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:08:47] I don't know who we're fighting against. We're going to fight the Russians in space. Sounds cool for a Stallone movie in the eighties, but I don't think it's necessary. [00:08:54][6.5]

Mick Batyske: [00:08:55] But so anyway, so she had a charity event for her. I don't even remember the name of the organization at this point so long ago, but not so long ago. But she had to be four years ago. Five years ago, my son was already born. It was really interesting. I got a call from a friend of mine who does a lot of stuff in that space, and he said, I have an event for you. Do you want to do it? And I'm like, it's like no access. And I'm like, when is it like a day where it is the expression like turn, you know, is it the acid? That was literally what was the most basic way? So I ended up being in Norfolk, Virginia, and a gym. I want to say to the college or maybe in high school, but I think it was a small college, but I don't remember I was deejaying and all these kids in the audience and I remember other people in my life maybe and I think maybe like a Ashanti, it was some actress like great and some singer and me. And she finally came on the stage and I remember playing her walking music, playing her walk off music. I got to meet her. I figured, like, it's a picture and it was awesome. It ended up being one of the light changing events for me, because when you add that to a client list, it gives you a lot of cachet to say other things. The best part of doing that for her and not actually even remember the event for me, but I did it and I have a picture to prove I did go. I don't think the money was a lot, aside from the symbolic and obviously like holistic reasons you to do that for every possible reason. The best part was whenever anybody would ask me to do some procedural involving a deejay gig ever, it was just really fucking stupid. I would just be like Michelle Obama so that people would just shut the fuck up. The big corporate event, I was like, do you have insurance? And I was just like, I don't know what it is. You know, it was some girl that didn't like she just started she had a whole book of banders. And I was like, I'm not really like a vendor. I'm not like the guys bringing in the food. But there's not things like the service elevator and union insurance, it's a different part of the world on that side of live events. There's the back in-house people and they have to have all these unionized things. And you can't touch things. It's that world. Yeah, that's not my world. And it's like the talent. But she didn't know that. So they really wanted this insurance thing. And I'm like, I don't know what they did. I called Geico and I just remember writing that sentence Michelle Obama did. It was like the only thing [00:11:25][150.1]

Monte Barnard: [00:11:27] that'll get an endorsement. Michelle Obama was cool. [00:11:29][2.1]

Mick Batyske: [00:11:29] It did the gig and I didn't have to give them a chance. And since that day, I've never had to have Insurance. [00:11:35][5.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:11:36] although for your new endeavor, come in March, I don't know, man. D.J. Insurance could be in that portfolio of services. When you do live deejaying, I imagine you work with companies like Live Nation, with companies that are more on the larger scale. Do you still do independent stuff off the side? What's your relationship with that? [00:11:53][16.7]

Mick Batyske: [00:11:53] If any man do everything, man. For me, it doesn't really matter. Do people have money? Do I like them to like me? Will it be fine? Will that advance my career? Will that make people happy? You can go out on a million different ways. Yeah, that's how I tend to do it. If it's less fun. But more money. Sure. If it's a lot of fun and I have very little budget, we can still discuss it because I'm an artist at the beginning before everything else. And I love doing the things too. I'll take a flier on something somewhere I've never been, somewhere I always wanted to go. I'm a real big people person. I just like working with people and people that I like and people that are normal. And as most people who work with me will tell you, most of my clients become real life friends and people. When they're in Brooklyn, they come over my house pretty covid and vice versa. And it just becomes more of a community. And that's how I choose to do my business. That's what I work for Everyone ery time. I don't have any I have no qualms. [00:12:48][54.9]

DB: [00:12:49] So I would definitely be eager to hear. How do you think there should be supported, not just the covid times, but like this post covid post Trump era, like what do we need to do? [00:12:56][6.9]

Mick Batyske: [00:12:56] The first thing we need to do is get the world back open so live entertainers can start performing again in their normal environments, at their normal rates. The first and foremost thing and I just I thought it was really interesting and somewhat disappointing, though most people are just ignorant of the realities that I saw a lot more stuff from save our restaurants, our save our symphony. We say things that are more traditional. But there wasn't nearly that sort of momentum for saving live entertainment, as it related to bands and deejays is obviously pretty upset about that simply because I've seen trains that people enjoy live music with my example of what I do over the course of my life time. And yeah, I fully believe we need to save the local coffee shop and we need to save the local deli and the local fish restaurant and all that. Of course we do. But we also need to save some of these live venues where people perform that we need to save some of the larger venues that bigger shows come through, because it's not just because it's the guy who cleans the bathroom is the ticket person at the front doors, the security that these venues have employed for twenty, thirty years. He has a lot with the NBA teams and they were trying to figure out what they're going to do. And we don't just have to figure out how to pay the players. We have to figure out the concession people and the security guards and ushers and all that. And I think that's very important. It gets lost in the romance of let's order some fancy fucking caviar at to our house. That's restaurant. OK, that's great. But there's a lot of other people that also need that as well. And I think that kind of got a little bit swept under the rug. Another way of answering your question would be it would drive me nuts and it still does to this day. And we're not out of the woods yet with this pandemic. When I just see people not following scientific protocol to get the world back, whether that's our government or it's just the people we see walking down the street with us, or now it's all the anti vaccine people who are just like freaking out left and right with no scientific proof, whether they're extremists or not. Every time somebody literally works on the street, what I'm asking to infect somebody else. And every time somebody just watching some Fox News bullshit and something else happens, it sets them back three months. And that keeps happening and happening. There is a point where, honestly, I was really psychologically fucked by it because I was literally like, damn, how am I going to support my kid? And with all this going on and or whenever I see anything ignorant, it was upsetting to pandemic back one second or one minute or one hour. One day. I would literally project my whole life on that person. Every time one hundred or a thousand people do, that exact act will probably one day more from the world opening back up again. And every day the world is back up again is a day that myself and musicians like you and all sorts of other people can do what we need to do to support our families. It's a really weird thing. I don't think people really think about the consequences of their actions. [00:15:45][168.7]

DB: [00:15:46] Yeah, I like how you connected the daily active. Wearing a mask or getting a vaccine or whatever it is is like that's necessary to reopen. Our stages like to get people back to work, and I think that you're right, this connection between the real world consequences of these decisions is lost, especially in the past year, where it's like, oh, it's my freedom or whatever it is. And like, this is your freedom. You're right. You can choose to fuck over these other people if you want to. And that's what you're deciding. And I think that's a bad choice. [00:16:13][27.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:16:14] Yeah, being free to be an asshole is not any better than not being that you're still being an asshole at the end of the day. And to your point, Nick, like the one to many approach is obviously there are more people working in restaurants than there are active live touring musicians, DJs, entertainers. There's definitely more. And you see that effect. But then on the inverse side, it's hard to quantify, I think, from the government level, what kind of impact live music has on people's just well-being, on their happiness, on it being a part of our culture, saying like, oh, there are a small percentage of people out there that are being fucked over by the pandemic because they can't play shows, they can't work their shows, they can't produce shows, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But it's really hard to quantify that. And when it comes down to it, I mean, the government just works on dimes and dollars, but it's great that acts like save our stages and other endeavors and other grassroots movements have really been showing that, hey, this is something that's part of the fabric of our culture, part of the fabric of who we are as a country, as a people. And it doesn't need to be protected. Just because you can't quantify exactly how much money is pumping into the economy doesn't mean it's not worth more than just the damn. Hopefully we're changing the tide, the chapters turning, and we're going to be able to see that in the next year. The support will be there. Hopefully we can't just rely on everyday fans. We got to rely, unfortunately, on our lovely, lovely government. So, again, hopefully these things will start to look better. But yeah, I can [00:17:33][79.8]

Mick Batyske: [00:17:34] tell you they're going to take all that space. Sports money is in the rocks. That has been. [00:17:40][6.0]

[00:17:40] I want to see that space for money come into the light show next time I see you to the magical. Yeah, I want to see D.J. Mick at the Moda Center with the Space Force best level funding of light and audio. [00:17:52][12.6]

Mick Batyske: [00:17:55] We're going to do all that. [00:17:55][0.4]

[00:17:56] So actually going backwards a bit. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts when a pandemic is happening, shutting down like your father and you're like, fuck, I'm going to support my family for the next indefinite future while my entire industry is shut down. Sounds like it was pretty stressful. How did you grapple with it? [00:18:10][14.3]

Mick Batyske: [00:18:11] It's still stressful to this day, to be honest with you, in every way, economically, like how do I reconfigure the deck? How do I put this puzzle together in a different way to really make it work? And thankfully, I've been able to kind of figure that out to absolutely go much better. But it also absolutely got much worse. And I'm grateful. And one thing I was saying earlier was I've had a five year plan every year, move forward one year instead of a five year plan. And now it's this year plan and it's kind of cool. It's like that whole turn into a diamond mentality. And when you have to do it, you have to do it. And I'm fortunate that I've laid the groundwork for other things I'm working on to really start to actualize them. I think the return on them is going to happen this year. Next year. They didn't have it wasn't like the virus. And I was just able to press the button, but it definitely got my ass in gear a little bit to move things forward. I do think that's going to be really interesting for the next four decades of my life. It definitely didn't make twenty, twenty eight years that the other thing is really just with schools shut down and everything else still, it's never been more important for me to rediscover and redevelop how I work. But I'm also now doing it with having a kid after the week. But when I have them here, half the week is a full time room. I'm not going out with his friends. He's not going to school. There's not many. There's not a babysitter. It's just me and him. So how do I continue to expand and develop and do all the things I need to do while being a full time? I'm a full time daddy. I'm not with his mom. I'm still the president's life on those days, too, whether it's time or financially, like one hundred percent, a hundred percent support my kid financially, even on the days I don't have him. So I'm absolutely full time down that way. But for me, it's just like, how do you find ways to work while you're still giving him the quality time he needs? And what I found was it actually rejuvenated me in a lot of ways because it taught me to like a let some things that don't matter go enjoy some of the small things. Like right now I have as I'm looking at you guys, I have a nest came up with him. I'm watching him upstairs eating his lunch, having that little thing in front of you all the time. When you're working, it just pushes you to go to corporate America. They have a boss that sits in a corner or the corner office looks out their window like I have a boss looking at me through front of me or nest. And they say things, motherfucker, don't fuck this up. And it's like, if you really say that, you're grounded. So it's cool. It's a built in motivational compass. [00:20:30][139.8]

Monte Barnard: [00:20:31] I've also noticed in the last year you've been investing a little bit into your podcast. I've been checking that out. And that is some some sick shit. Man, you got some pretty heavy hitters on there. I want to talk about your podcast, why you started that, where you want to go with it, what you see there. [00:20:43][12.2]

Mick Batyske: [00:20:44] Well, it's something I've been meaning for a long time, and I didn't have time to do it because traveling things of that nature. But with everything slowed down, I had a little bit of time and I. Vested early on anchor, which got bought by Spotify to run their Spotify, but the part me and those guys for years have been like, What are you doing, man? Do a podcast like we're right here and you can be right there one day. One day I'm going to do it. It's like Anchor and Expensify right next to each other on my phone. I got one of mine and we finally decided that and we finally did it. And I partnered with Maxim magazine to present a really nice media boost that would show some really great guests and very fortunate that in, yes, season one is done. And we're reporting season two right now. And what I really try to focus on, honestly, is people who do things like me, but in all different industries. I to me am a very amateur, hyphenated person. I try to be an official card carrying member of a bunch of different things and try to do most of them, if not all of them. And it's a struggle, but I do enough of them well to make it all work. And I think that most people today, especially post pandemic, are trying to create multiple different viruses or just opportunities for themselves off the beaten path of what the traditional thing is. I like talking to a celebrity chef who's doing other stuff, too. I like talking to DJs that are doing other things as well. I like talking to actors that have different things going on. Everybody has either different things going on besides their main thing or they had different things they did originally that inform how they now do their main thing. I like that that diversity of train, of thought of what it is that people doing. [00:22:21][97.5]

DB: [00:22:22] That's pretty interesting. So I think inside the company we really talk a lot about specialization versus journalism. And I think in my experience, the career, I think like a really good journalist is better at everything than a really good specialist. Is that anything? Because I think that most people specialize. They tell themselves to specialize, to learn more about a particular thing. But in reality, I think people specialize to justify learning less about everything else. So I like this concept. You have this covid has forced a degree of journalism inside Hustle's just to make things happen. And the people who are diversifying their skill sets are those that are going to come through better. [00:22:55][33.6]

Mick Batyske: [00:22:56] I have to comment on that one being when I was in school, I went to school, got a marketing degree, I went back to school, I got an MBA and my whole philosophy throughout that entire process was give me the BS and give me some real life shit to versus give me the A's. And I'm going to sit in a study all day like just studying. I realized early on as a freshman, I had a college radio show that went to six in the morning and then I started doing off campus parties. And then I ended up teaching for a bunch of like rap groups in Ohio where I grew up. And, you know, it kept me out of the dorm several hours a day. I started a hip hop newspaper. All of these things took way too much of my time. Getting straight A's was not possibly getting B's was possible. I was smart enough to be at Applebee's while doing these other things, but I got to college experiences. And one, I got Real World College and I got academic college at the exact same time. And the same thing happened when I was in grad school as well. I guess you would say I was a generalist at college. That's cool. And you put it together, but you guys still do things at a high level, like I can get an F in college I did in college. I expect that to work. And you can't put an F or a D or even a C minus level in your passions. Expect that where you come out the gate with a strong eighty five to eighty seven, you're going to hit some of your goals for sure and everything that you do. The other thing that it's like a really big step pet peeve of mine and I talk about this a lot when I do speeches or workshops or to talk to people. I hate how companies and you guys don't do this. But I know a lot of companies nowadays aren't doing this. But historically, a lot did. And there are still a lot to do this now. They segment the creatives from the other workers. And I just think as a person who understands business but has never had to work within a restricted business structure, within an office or within a building or something like that, which I'm proud of so far. But we'll see where the world coast. I've always felt that it had to be very specialized. Now is everybody has all these ideas and everyone's called on for their suggestions and their thoughts. You know that if you're the accounting guy and you have to sit on the shitty floor with the shitty windows and you're sitting in a shitty cubicle, but the guys above you are the graphic design guys. They now all the open air desks and the beautiful windows and the foosball table and the computer. What does that say as far as how we value your creativity, how we value your input and how we value your thought process beyond your one finite skill that we hired you for? I'm treated like I only have one skill and my skill doesn't involve any sort of inspiration or aspiration. Then why the fuck would I give you more than that? But if I'm told that I can be just as creative and I am just as creative as always, all these other people, I just use my creativity differently. I think those people are able to give their employers and give their work teammates such a different, better, more impactful version of themselves. And so I really think that people need to embrace their inner creative, regardless of whether or not you're linked in description, says your job titles creative at all, because you live in a world now where you have to be today, no matter what it is that you do. [00:25:51][174.8]

DB: [00:25:51] Yeah, I think the idea, in fact, of. I think labeling a job as creative or non creative, I think is kind of an anachronism anymore, I think for the best companies, I think they recognize that everyone there is doing an innovative, creative role in a different facet of it. And I think the best creativity I don't know, creativity, I think is proportional, not just to the number of minds, a number of neurons, but the number of connections between those neurons. And so I think that if you have 10 people, but they're all sitting at different desks and don't collaborate, you are not getting the same level of collaboration of like 10 people applying their creativity to a single problem. But maintaining that sort of open conversation between the accountants, the designers, the engineers or whatever it is, it requires a real commitment to inclusion. And I'd be actually very curious for your thoughts on this in terms of how have you found it easiest or best to collaborate with traditional non creatives? Because I find it's very hard to have esthetic conversation that's purely subjective or it's just like I feel is good or bad or I don't know, like I don't feel qualified to share an esthetic opinion. But our approach towards that is like, OK, whatever you want to do, define what problem you're trying to discuss. Because even if it's an esthetic problem, at least I have some way to grapple with this conversation as opposed to just I like it or don't like it. [00:27:05][73.9]

Mick Batyske: [00:27:06] I think it's a matter of finding common ground with the person. First of all, especially in your situation, you're obviously hiring people that are more intuitive or better than certain things to do, things you can't do, or you would have just done that as well. And so it's a matter of a trusting that the people that you hired are excellent at what it is they do, and secondly, that they have the communication skills to distill it to you. Because I think when you reach a real proficiency, whatever it is that you do, you should be able to simplify it for the people that don't do it. The biggest compliment I get in my stats are like you make it look so easy. And for me, I actually love in general when people think, gee, I can do that. And that's easy. I just did a couple of buttons. I have spikes. I could do that. And I used to piss me off a really long time. But now I realize it's just because we make it look easy, because we put in our Malcolm Gladwell 10000 hours or in my case, probably significantly mind at this point. And that is very true. So I would rather be able to make what I do look easy and try to explain it in that way versus I don't want to explain the technical aspects of what I can tell you what I do. I tell people I do two things. I make people happy and I make people move. That's what I do as a DJ. That's how I define D.J. I can make you happy. Additionally, I can make you move. And those two things actually don't even have to be happening. At the same time, I love doing events where people don't dance. I love doing events or I'm just setting aside and sitting in on Beyonce or setting something like that, because that to me is even harder. If you can impact a room of people creatively, artistically, without a dance floor, they still need liquor, liquor. So, you know, that to me is even harder. But again, we make it look easy in a corporate structure. It's first of all, it's like having some empathy, too, for the people who make it look easy. Oh, I'm up here building twenty nine page documents or spreadsheets and that guy is just down there, headphones on, trading emojis all day for the company. That's not easy. That's a real thing. And so you have to have the respect for what everybody does and then find those commentators to understand that language. And the companies that really excel at creating that communication are the ones that I said really went, [00:29:10][124.1]

Monte Barnard: [00:29:11] I can agree with that 100 percent cultivating a skill, whether it be deejaying, whether it be any skill under the sun, whether it be valuable in a corporate setting or something that you just enjoy. And you find that passion in a large part of cultivating that skill that gets overlooked is being able to communicate what you're doing in a way that people can understand it without having to master it themselves, and thereby they find the value in that. Unfortunately, we had to fire John, our emoji guy. He was just really not pulling his headphones, too many headphones. The guy was they were tired. They weren't innovative. Yeah. [00:29:41][29.9]

Mick Batyske: [00:29:42] Those are the people that use windows. Computers. [00:29:43][0.4]

DB: [00:29:44] Yeah, exactly. [00:29:44][0.2]

Mick Batyske: [00:29:45] The guy we got when I would take a meeting with somebody did a gig and I would sit there and it would be like that that like the really bad office with the Windows computer and some other weird stuff going on, like bad bottled water, like the Sony or something going on. But it's like I could read the reviews. This is my point of contact with this guy, like, oh, God, I'm like totally inspired by what you said about trying to like, you make it look easy, but you can also explain it to your client. So in that you're talking to Joe the Windows. Ninety five guy with Clippy, loud and proud on his desktop. And so, like, how do you get through to that guy? How do you figure out, like he's hiring you and how do you get to a point where like this is what I want to do, this is how I'm going to do it. You help first and foremost that they're hiring you because they want you in the first place, that your reputation precedes you. So you have a little bit of clout and it's skin in the game before you even start. Secondly, it's like any other conversation you have with the human on Earth. You just try to find some sort of common ground with them. I've done everything I can to I'm a communication standpoint to create some sort of rapport with people like pictures of kids on their desks. Stupid fucking trophy from their bowling shirt, Nancy. Of them, you name it, if I could find some way to create some goodwill with you, I will. For me, the thing I actually do, that's the easiest thing to do. And most teachers don't do it. But I do is I ask them, what's your favorite song? Is this like martial arts at the event? If someone being like a dick to me that has the ability to affect my paycheck, if you're being a you're being a dick to be a dick. But if you're being a dick in the confines of you could affect my relationship with the client or the brand or whatever from me, the greatest thing I'll do is give them chairs with my whatever glass of red wine and beer that night and ask them, what do you like to hear? Who are your favorite artists? How can I make your night? The most days, ninety nine point nine percent of it is never going to ask somebody that unless it's the person writing the check for me. I enjoy the creative and trying to figure out how to incorporate that. I don't say necessarily what's your favorite song? I say, what type of music do you like? What were your favorite artists? So that gives me a little bit more leeway to pull back and try to find something to shut them up. It keeps my brain going, keeps me in it, because I could easily zone out because I've done so many things and then it makes them happy. You never know who that person is or who that person knows. And they could make a minimum. You're better at maximum. You gain some new clients. So it's a great strategy and it's a good is a degree of difficulty. It's Kobe or Jordan with their eyes closed or something like that. It gives you a little bit of a [00:32:15][149.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:32:15] yeah, everyone's got a key. Everyone, especially with music. And that's in my experience, everyone's got some key, some way to get into that subconscious, whether they know it or not. Open them up. And there's a lot of beautiful things you can say about music of all genres. But everybody has a key. That's a universal thing we can all connect with at a human level. Is that what's your style? What's your favorite song? What kind of vibe are you looking for? Whether it be the amount of alcohol they have for their system, the type of event it is, the type of debt they had, there is that unspoken variable of music that whatever it is for that person, there is a key out there. It's a matter of finding it. It sounds like you've definitely nail that down. [00:32:52][36.5]

Mick Batyske: [00:32:53] Yeah, I look at deejaying and I see a huge similarity between my marketing background and my ability to an audience. I think deejaying is the world's biggest fucking consumer behavior. Exocet. My job is to make you do what I want you to do. And I can do that in nine different ways on how I feel that day when you guys launched your company, you create new variations of the app. You have to get it in many different people as you can from all cultures, all walks of life, all ages. And you want to try to make them all speak the same language, which is the language and the DNA as Expensify. And that's the same thing when I'm deejaying on the dance floor. There's somebody that's twenty. There's something that's forty or something that's white and black. And there's women and as men and there's really drunk people and it's people that haven't had a drink yet. How can I talk to all of you at the same time? What's the little thing I could do for this? What's the thing I can do for this? How can I activate all these ideas at the same time without anybody knowing that I'm doing that, then find something to bring everybody together. And that's ultimately what happens at the end of the night when everybody's on the dance floor together, which is the same thing as creating an audience for your product or your company or your app or whatever it is like. You need to just identify all of these different variations of people and find a way to bring them into your world and be a believer in what you're doing and also do it all together. You could also look at the like human resources standpoint as far as in a business way. So these are the things that I like to talk about when it when I do my speaking things. I think deejaying gives you that ability to be intuitively to do that and thoroughly enjoy that aspect of what I do for me is a very cerebral game. [00:34:30][97.2]

DB: [00:34:31] And that's interesting. That is a term sort of activity. I never really thought about the goal metric of success of a DJ. It's like if the goal is to have everyone dance for at the end of the day, but probably everyone takes a different path. They're the music that gets half the crowd going or a quarter of the crowd going. But it's like even though the rest is off. And then you shifted into something else. I'm reminded of the saying when you started meeting, ask everyone their name just because getting anyone to say anything at all dramatically increases the likelihood of them participating later on, even if it's easy and so popular, like I imagine in your spot. Another you're talking about this. You play like some kind of music that's going to appeal to each subset independently. And then your goal is to get them all activated such that towards the end you can bring them together, but you can't just go straight for probably the kill at the start. [00:35:14][43.7]

Mick Batyske: [00:35:15] No. Yeah, and that's the whole thing. Until you make another really interesting point, Jane is also very similar to the stock market in a lot of ways, and that people want to buy a stock and want to just to go straight up forever. And if you buy enough things and you diversify enough, you'll win in the long run. More than likely. But it's going to be many, many valleys and peaks and ups and downs. And I think that's the way just to go to because what you want is those moments of impact to have actual impact. If you take the world's most beautiful girl, like at some point you get jaded to the fact that your girlfriend or your wife is so beautiful because you see her every single day and you go on a trip for two weeks and you come back and you're like, holy fuck, you're. Just I totally didn't realize I'm living with this every day like it's the same thing with music. The biggest mistake I see is just making I assume this applies to all sorts of attributes of creativity, is they just come out the gate with a 20 to hottest records in the world. And basically they think they're going like this. But what it really does is move my hands. And I know people are going to see this video a flat lie because it all blends together and you're not really bringing an energy yet. You're keeping the energy consistently the same with records that are designed to build the energy up. You're having no momentum. You're having no growth. Your curve is not growing. It's really staying the same. And so how are you going to get people to another level when you're not even showing them any difference? But if you give people two or three of those records and then you bring them down, then you hit them another one, it had so much more impact. And the impact it's not just a one plus one is two a cycle. One plus one is 10. If you play the right record at the right time and that's how you build a room, that's how you really build anything, I think you could probably take that mindstate and apply it across many different things. But yeah, you have to bring them down so you can go up. You have to just like like you have to be sad. So you feel happy the next day. If you be happy all the time, you'd be on. I don't know what drug you'd be on but taken. But you have to have balance at everything in order to feel. I'm not saying we need to make people low, but you also have to give breaks when you're driving. You don't just get on the freeway and go seventy five the entire time. There are times you have to slow down just in order to speed up again and think about that. That could be your career trajectory. That's absolutely parenting. That's absolutely marriage. It's absolutely how you create a job that it's absolutely the lifecycle of a startup that is really the end of her life. I've done stuff where it's close to the end and we haven't hit that deep yet, but we're about ready to go. I got just stop the song stand. I don't think something's wrong. Turns out I probably use that as a as an excuse once I get something like that. I learned that. And then you just drop like the song of our song and it hits ten times harder because a little gap. I learned that actually through a big stoic and I'm a big obstacle is the way kind of mentality. It's on the back of my mind. I always have a couple of songs I haven't played yet for If Shit Hits the fan, meaning if somebody tripped on a chord back and House speaker goes out, which would you wouldn't thing happened with the level of the shit I do with a tap, or if the computer crashes and you have to stall people for forty five seconds to reboot or God knows whatever, like the CEO gets on stage. No offense David, I would never be in ruins. You have to have these things in your back pocket and it's cool because it's actually the same thing that actually happens sometimes when you're using live on Instagram they cut you off because you played a song in a copyright issue. You got to jump back on like kind of resets the room. It gives you a little bit more of a bump and a little bit more of energy as good. A good reset is good now. [00:38:43][207.4]

DB: [00:38:43] So it's interesting that while you were saying that I was thinking about public speaking is certainly a challenging art, and especially on some of the most fascinating topics of accounting, it can be tricky to keep the crowd. And so I've actually found some of these dry, dull accounting conferences as fuck really loud, makes everyone just take notice that happen at this boring conference, like who is this guy? And I think that idea of resetting the room is a really important thing. It doesn't even matter what it is. I love this idea of faking a technical glitch in order to create that moment. And that opportunity is a really clever approach. [00:39:15][31.8]

Mick Batyske: [00:39:16] There's a reason it every big conference anybody ever went to. There's Jim, quick type guy, the first in the morning, the first day, because you need those guys who are going to go there and you get you like you said, everybody has to say you have to have some sort of thing. Right. You can't start the day with the person who came here four times and why they're survivors like, no, that's not the nine a.m. that's the 2:00 p.m. Post coffee keynote. You have to start with the right thing. Yeah, I remember one time I actually gave a talk somewhere where was I want to see Canada and I was supposed to give my talk, which is creativity, branding, the kind of what we're talking about now. And I got stuck in traffic and it was raining and I got there late and I had to shift my slot. And they actually had me laded after somebody who was literally talking about being like a four time cancer survivor. I came in at the end of the speech and then they had somebody go between us and then my speech right after that. And my speech killed because it was like the people were in a good emotional space in my speech because I don't remember what the woman talked about between if she was awesome, too. But context is also very important. It's the same thing with Jane. You can't play the most energetic song. Like if you're doing a wedding, you can't play like the mom and son dance and then play some crazy trap record. That's weird. Like, it's too jarring. And I was like, God. But that traffic jam there for a reason because it's out, out. And so you guys really like Biggie crying in the audience, thinking about family members that they've lost and stuff like that. I would have felt completely fell flat. [00:40:46][89.8]

DB: [00:40:48] But it does really make me rethink our corporate policy of starting on every party with Skrillex. [00:40:52][4.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:40:53] Every time, every time he does it. [00:40:55][1.9]

DB: [00:40:56] So going back to you mentioned COVID forced you to adapt and you're like saying this kind of coal out of diamond approach. And what are some of the things that you had muling in the back of your mind that suddenly, like now it was go time you just had to hit the button on them? [00:41:08][11.9]

Mick Batyske: [00:41:09] A the one, like I said, was a podcast that I'm super excited about. And we're going to eventually take a variation of the tools and techniques and tips that enabled me to have my career and kind of combine it with some of the lessons with me from the podcast. And I'd like to turn that into a book. So that's going to be really fun. I was saying a little bit earlier, till I'm actually starting a brand advisory company because I've always wanted to do that. It's going to be named after my son's middle name, which is the name Smile's, but his middle name, Xavier. So it'll be called Xavier Poe. And that's going to launch in March where I'm able to help everybody. Some artists, the startups, we're just talking to their problems, advising them on everything from maybe creating strategy to logos to increasing their net worth. All the things that I've done for all the companies I've invested in over the last five years. I've done that for free as an investor. But now I could do it for other people as well. And that's something I'm really passionate about and it's something I've been doing behind the scenes deals like daily, whether it's a text or a coffee meeting or now is the moment very exciting to get that aspect of my business up and running, because I'll be able to do that from anywhere in the world doing whatever it is that I'm doing at that time. And that's kind of like my really big focus for the spring is getting that up and running, because that to me is a longevity plan, something that I want to be my kid. [00:42:17][68.0]

DB: [00:42:18] Yeah, I think it's also interesting to kind of diversifying fits in that theme of covid forces us to diversify our skill sets and our revenue streams and all of this. And so now in the next pandemic hits to be that much better prepared. Let's hope not. But yeah. Yeah, for sure. I have some thoughts on that that are not even focused right now. [00:42:34][16.1]

Monte Barnard: [00:42:36] I do want to read that book though, man. I was just thinking earlier when you were talking about tying the concept of deejaying and sets in that dynamic and building that into the kind of the corporate world and what that looks like. I was just thinking, man, this guy should write a book, so keep an eye out for that. [00:42:47][11.6]

DB: [00:42:48] Yeah. On this idea of the ebbs and flows and building up the momentum, I loved how you're presenting this as it exists in so many different domains. And actually you said it's like, oh yeah, this lulls and build up and then pulling back such that you can build up again. You mentioned parenting and I'd be curious to expand on that. How do you think that affects parenting? [00:43:04][16.0]

Mick Batyske: [00:43:04] Yeah, I see the pandemic is almost tied to that. There is no linear curve anymore. It's just sometimes you got to just sit down. Like I allow so many things in my parenting that I never allowed previously, because if not, there's just no way I can get anything done. So I'm watching my kid right now play with Nintendo or Legos at 3:00 in the afternoon when he should be doing homework. I'm totally fine with that. Why? Because I get to talk to you guys and this is really great for my business. And now I'm going to go upstairs later. We're going to read two books. And you just it just shows you that parenting now is the same motto of every company that finally decided that everybody works. We don't care how you get the job done as long as you get the job done. So the next day when I log in, your shit done and I could do my job. That's how I like it. I don't care when we read the book. I don't care when you do your school homework. I don't care what order we watch the story. And I don't care when you play with toys. I don't care if you want to have waffles for dinner and you want to have a hot dog for breakfast just as long as it all gets done in the course of the day and it fits the lifestyle. What we need to accomplish that day, I'm totally here for it. And I would not have told you that a year ago. I know this has been like this because. Why? Because some dude in eighteen hundred and twenty three said waffles are for breakfast, not for dinner. And why it doesn't really matter. There's no checking to all the matters. At the end of the day you get to the same place and we got to the same place faster. Better having a lot more fun than we ever did traditionally. So I don't really see why. Or just like in corporate America, we weren't. We're never going to go back to the opposite, where they're going to go back more frequently. I don't see why somebody like parents or hacks that I've evolved in over the last year or two won't stay. [00:44:41][96.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:44:42] That's brilliant. That's brilliant. And to that point, speaking to that point internally here at Expensify, we have two rules. That one is get shit done. And the second rule is don't ruin it for anybody else. And that's pretty much how we live our lives here. That's how we measure our success in a number of ways. So we can definitely vibe with that. But I'm moving towards the name of the podcast, The Namesake. We always like to ask our guests how they perceive their living rich, having fun and saving the world. What are those three concepts mean to you? [00:45:11][28.9]

Mick Batyske: [00:45:12] Well, I mean, jeez, that's what we do. I write the original first responders working. It's funny. There is a lot of thing. We're entertainers. We're actually bringing people so much joy to be in a pandemic and people would post all these things about just are saving the world right now during the pandemic. People neglect your emotional health in the joy of feeling good. That's what entertainment does, is Michael J. Deejay's in the same boat as re watching the holiday season of Out You Have Time Now and things like that or whatever people did during the pandemic. You have to do things to build up your emotional health, especially during treacherous times. Or what does every e-mail say during these unprecedented times? I started with that shit. So as far as saving the world, I just think in general the nature of what it is I do. If you zoom out on the actual technical version of saving the world, I think we're helping people feel good. And when people feel good, you know, I'm not saying we're more important than doctors or ambulance drivers or if the ambulance drivers actually take like that. I just I heard some really funny stories that I can't tell you on this podcast. So I think that just in entertainment in general makes people feel good. And I think the more that people feel that the world will be so that's our version of seeing the world as far as like living rich from a financial perspective. I have no idea at that point, but maybe one day. But I have realized that this pandemic has taught me nothing that you're taught that Rich is the economics economic distinction. And in many ways it is right. But in many ways, richest health, riches, time, relationships. And you have people that when you realize you can't see all the people you want to see over the last year, but there's people that you care about, care about you. That's a very rich that's a rich people problem. Right. And when you realize that you made do the pandemic without getting it and you do without getting covid or you realize that you're still alive, I'm about to be forty three and I've never had that bit of health problem in my life like that's living rich when I think about maybe economically it wasn't as great this year because I'm used to, but the time that I've had to work on things with my son that I've never had as much consecutive time with my son. Like I used to say, it's so funny. I used to say that if I was rich and I didn't have to work this hard and be on all these planes and do all that stuff, if I had the money, I would just chill with my kid. And now, like, here it is. I literally got that last. I got the opportunity to chill with my kid. And so that to me is and I still spend some time the day before and don't get me wrong, but like, every time I tell you right now, it's just it's one hundred. And that's really like living, which I told my kids today. I was like complaining or something. I like to get coffee. You're going to one day look back your kindergarten here and be like that time. Dad is fucking awesome because we're never gonna have time. Are we going to two hours of Legos every night? Yeah, we just laugh and I'm drinking my wine. He's drinking. This is apple juice. We have some music on. I let him play for the actual record on the turntable. We're doing like Legos. We have a basketball on. He's starting understand sports now. This is the golden time. Know there's not a zillion dollars in the world that could buy that exact moment for me. And so that to me is true in our living room. [00:48:14][182.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:48:15] I love it. I love it. We'll leave it there next time. I want to have you on for a part two. I still want to hear that Princeton mashed potatoes story. We definitely got to dove into that next time. David, let's go grab some waffles. We say definitely. But thanks so much for joining us. [00:48:29][14.2]

Mick Batyske: [00:48:30] Can I shut out, Nick, real quick for connecting all of this in the first place? A hundred percent love that guy, he's the reason I have a great relationship with him for this place. I now get to know you guys. And that was just awesome human. I was one shot him, took her. [00:48:43][13.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:48:43] You're the man. All right. We will catch you next time. We're going to go grab some waffles and we'll talk soon, buddy. Thanks again. [00:48:49][5.4]

Mick Batyske: [00:48:49] Thank you so much. Appreciate it. [00:48:51][1.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:48:52] Live Rich, have fun. Save the World is brought to you by Expensify, hosted by David Barrett and Monty Bernard engineered and produced by Monty Bernard. Theme song by D.J MC. Please rate review and subscribe to Live Rich. Have Fun. Save the World on Spotify, Apple podcasts or ever you happen to be listening. [00:48:52][0.0]

[2870.7]