The Josh Boone Show

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Today Josh talks with Kenda Macdonald about marketing, trauma, cognitive biases, and the state of American culture over a copious amount of whiskey and tequila.

Kenda is an international public speaker, a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, and the author of the best-selling book "Hack the Buyer Brain."

She is the founder and CEO of Automation Ninjas, a world-class, award-winning agency specializing in behavioral marketing automation.

With a degree in Forensic Psychology from the University of London, she operates at the unique intersection of marketing, neuroscience, and buyer psychology.

Some of the topics we dove into are:

• The beauty and harsh realities of small businesses.
• Cultivating and crafting great experiences.
• Consumer purchasing and evolution of the brain.
• Imposter syndrome, forensic psychology, stereotyping, and behavioral patterns.
• ADHD, childhood trauma, self-worth, suicide attempts, and the treadmill of overachieving.
• American culture, gun rights, the rise of conspiracy theories, Trump, and tribalism.
• Propaganda, disinformation, and institutional gaslighting.
• And lots, lots more.

Connect with Kenda:

• Website: AutomationNinjas.com
• LinkedIn: @the-marketing-automation-expert

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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Today Josh talks with Matthew Caruana about depression, suicide, resilience, and purpose.

Matthew is a speaker, youth advocate, and suicide survivor. He attempted suicide at the age of 16, which left him a paraplegic, but ultimately led him to find his passion and purpose in life.

Now Matthew is a speaker at schools, colleges, and mental health conferences internationally, and has been featured on ABC News, The Daily Telegraph, and more. His goal is to share his story and the lessons he has learned to inspire and guide millions of youth in overcoming their own drug abuse, depression, and anxiety to live a life of happiness, passion, and purpose.

Some of the topics we dive into are:

• Alienation and addiction.
• Social media and self-worth.
• Depression and anxiety, and our relationship to them as we age.
• The aftermath of a suicide attempt.
• Hope and overcoming the fear of vulnerability.
• The effects of art and music on our mental health.
• The roles of medications and adversity.
• The tight rope of supporting a suicidal person in your life.
• Resilience and escaping the downward spiral of depression.
• Love, trust, and purpose.

Connect with Matthew – Website: MattCaruana.com LinkedIn: @Matt-Caruana Instagram: @MattShares

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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Today Josh speaks with Terry B. McDougall about courage, fear, corporate leadership, and living a fulfilling life.

Terry is an executive coach, speaker, and best-selling author of Winning the Game of Work

After more than 30 years of corporate business experience leading marketing efforts in senior management roles, Terry chose to become a coach to concentrate on helping leaders step fully into their potential to lead satisfying careers.

Some of the other topics we dive into are:

• The external trappings of success.
• The negative feedback loops of work stress and pain avoidance.
• Childhood trauma, high achievers, and external validation.
• Unhealthy coping mechanisms, setting governors and detoxing from corporate life.
• The operating costs of poor leadership.
• Fear detachment and the illusion of job security.
• Self-moderation and critical self-talk.
• The future of work in the corporate world.
• Courage, anxiety, and letting go.
• And so much more.

Connect with Terry:

• Website: TerryBMcDougall.com
• LinkedIn: @TerryBMcDougall
• Book: Winning The Game of Work

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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Today Josh speaks with Sam McNerney about the growing conspiratorial culture in the West, its further detachment from reality, free will, and the implications of us potentially living in a simulation.

Some of the other things we dive into are:

• How marketers are like alchemists.
• QAnon as a marketing campaign.
• The root of cults and religion.
• Mental illness and mental viruses.
• The differences between marketing, storytelling, and being persuasive.
• What is our relationship to brands?
• The philosophical differences between chains and small businesses.
• Existentialism, secularism, and simulated realities.
• Mental health, religion, submission, and control.
• The Matrix, free will, and purpose.
• Does it matter if we live in a simulation?
• And so much more.

Sam McNerney is an applied behavioral scientist, market researcher, and brand strategist based in Brooklyn, New York. He has worked with brands such as Walmart, Procter & Gamble, and CitiBank.

As a writer, he has interviewed business and academic leaders including Arianna Huffington, Andrew Yang, Jonathan Haidt, and Charles Murray – and his essays have been featured in publications like The Washington Post, Psychology Today, and Scientific American.

Now as an independent consumer insights specialist, he specializes in using surveys to help businesses answer questions about their customers that unlock the greatest value.

Connect with Sam:

• Website: SamMcNerney.com
• Twitter: @SamMcNerney

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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Today Josh speaks with Seth Erickson. Seth is an entrepreneur, author, and storyteller.

He recently published his book, How to Hack Humans, an unfiltered take on the neuroscience and psychology of storytelling, and how startups can use storytelling to grow and communicate their value to investors and the market at large.

He is currently a Partner at Storify Agency, where he helps startups personally craft their story and tell it in a way that resonates.

Prior to Storify, he was CEO of Kodis Agency, an award-winning marketing agency, for over 17 years, where he worked with brands such as Redbox and MTV.

Some of the other topics we dove into are:

• Personal branding and authenticity.
• Social anxiety and introversion.
• The neuroscience and evolutionary history of storytelling.
• Overcoming tribalism and accepting outside perspectives.
• Losing your identity in relationships.
• Taking personal responsibility, and learning to accept yourself.
• Using filters to find like-minded partners.
• And so much more.

Connect with Seth:

• Website: StorifyAgency.com
• LinkedIn: @SethErickson
• Get a free chapter of Seth's book, How to Hack Humans.

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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Today Josh speaks with Dr. Mark Vorderbruggen about food, health, and sustainability.

Mark is a chemist, ethnobotanist, author, speaker, and foraging expert. He has a Masters in Medicinal Chemistry, a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

For over 18 years he worked as a research chemist in the oil industry using his knowledge of natural products to develop environmentally-friendly replacements for traditional oil field chemicals.

In 2008 he started what would become one of the top foraging websites online, Foraging Texas, and has since become nationally recognized as an expert in wild edible and medicinal plants. In 2016 he released the book "Foraging", published as part of the popular Idiot’s Guide series under Penguin Random House.

Currently, he is the co-founder of Medicine Man Plant Co, where Mark has applied his decades of research and experience as a chemist to formulate blends of these traditional medicinal herbs and mushrooms with the most scientific backing.

Some of the topics we dive into are: 

• Dynamic ecosystems, and the co-evolution of plants with humans.
• The 80/20 on how to identify and forage edible plants.
• The prehistoric root causes for the obesity, diabetes, and chronic illness epidemic in modern times.
• Topsoil depletion and the micronutrients we're missing in modern diets.
• Our detachment from nature and its downstream effects.
• Forest bathing and outdoor therapy for ADHD.
• The benefits of juggling and throwing things.
• Medicinal mushrooms, cancer, and the immune system.
• How to grow your own Lions Mane and other medicinal mushrooms.
• The pharmaceutical industry and misaligned incentives.
• The lack of integrity in the nootropics and supplements industry.
• How to re-establish permaculture in your backyard.

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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There's an artist on Instagram called DrFakenstein, and he does weird short meme videos, like having Snoop Doug's face on a little girl. That is known as a deep fake, and while the memes are hilarious, there are much more nefarious uses for this technology.

What happens when this is weaponized, and used for extensive PR assassinations, or false flag operations by government agencies around the world?

What happens then when the far-left or far-right starts habitually doxxing and attacking people over false accusations?

Do we continue to spiral into chaos, or do we sign all digital media with some sort of blockchain certificate of authenticity?

And let's say there's massive data breaches, and someone gets access to a celebrity or politician's iCloud account, all there photos and videos – or someone pulls an Edward Snowden and releases tens of thousands of government documents – what if 99% of that is real, but 1% is secretly-doctored and that's what the media runs with?

Even if the truth surfaces, the damage is largely done, as the retraction is gonna be buried in the news cycle – and in fact, it'll become a conspiracy theory that the retraction itself is the real fake news.

How do we protect ourselves from being hacked, both in our data, and in our world-views?

That's some of what we dive into today with our guest Jay Smith.

Jay is a Digital Forensic Analyst, Private Investigator, US Army Veteran, and White Hat Hacker based in Louisville, KY – with a degree in psychology from the University of Louisville, and is now an instructor in Digital Forensics and Security at Loyola University.

He currently operates Alliance Investigation Group, where he merges private Investigation services with modern cyber security methodologies to offer support, protection and education to individuals, families and small businesses.

And that is what fascinated me about Jay is how he operates at the intersection of all of these areas and has a uniquely holistic perspective on the current digital landscape.

Some of the topics we dive into are:

• The threat of deep fakes.
• TikTok, misinformation, doxing, and open-source intelligence.
• Anti-doxing legislation and it's implications.
• The weaponization of Reddit.
• Gen Z and their relationship to online identity.
• The long-term effects of social media, echo chambers, and self-referential feedback loops.
• The threat of social credit scores.
• Decentralization, blockchain, and dispersing the power of data.
• Wall Street Bets, Gamestop, and the hypocrisy of the financial institutions.
• The psychology of social engineering.
• The 80/20 of online security and what you can do to protect yourself.
• The illusion of anonymity and permanence of data.
• The emotional weight of working as a private investigator.
• Tribalism and the rise of the binary world.
• And much more.

Links from this episode:

• DrFakenstein on Instagram
• Mail Out Out
• Kevin Rose podcast with founder of Arweave

Connect with Jay:

• LinkedIn: @jaysmith502
• Website: AllianceInvestigationGroup.com

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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In 1999 the Star Wars film "The Phantom Menace" released and garnered widespread acclaim amongst fans. But ever since, people gradually started seeing the movie in a very different light; the enthusiasm waned, and the critical perception diminished significantly.

This is a common phenomenon that is like a collectively unconscious lens that distorts through nostalgia. That collective experience is known now as “The Phantom Menace Effect.”

And ugh. Well, history repeats itself... and my guest and I today observed a similar phenomenon this year with the Japanese Evangelion franchise's final film release.  

Evangelion fans largely seem to love this new adaption at first in spite of the movie embodying the very things that the series originally intended to deconstruct and destroy. And just like in 1999 with Star Wars fans, this seems like another instance of The Phantom Menace Effect. It makes you question, if they legitimately enjoy this adaption — what did they even like about the original to begin with?

And in this is episode we're going to use this experience as a case study to discuss some larger topics:

• The journey of an artist.
• Creative decline.
• The lifecycle and segments of cult fandoms.
• Deconstructing what's causing The Phantom Menace Effect.

My guest today is Mikel Dever. Mikel is a writer and film director with a Master's degree in Film & Television Production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is also well known online as GoatJesus, where his YouTube channel garners millions of views for his meta-analysis on Japanese animation, most extensively on the Evangelion franchise.

Outside of that, we also dive into:

• The structure and process of filmmaking.
• Embracing pain & failure.
• The struggle of dealing with criticism and online harassment as a creator.
• Childhood trauma.
• Self-hatred, imposter syndrome, and staying true to yourself as an artist.
• George Lucas, and the derailment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
• The poison of success, and the death of creativity.
• And much more.

This is a condensed form of the conversation that Mikel and I had focused more on the larger general themes and less on the specifics of the plot of the final movie and this series. If you want the "Evangelion fan" extended version, check it out on YouTube here.

Connect with Mikel on YouTube: @GoatJesus

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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Norm MacDonald did an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit in 2018, and when asked what life's purpose is he said:

"Well, it depends on your view I suppose but it's been my experience is that life's purpose is to suffer. To abide the inevitable pain and to bear it in a noble way."

For many, particularly in the West, there's this notion that if someone "pays their dues," then one day they'll be able to do what they truly want to do.  Their entire life they've been running, even chasing this horizon of retirement: the "dream" of just sitting on a beach all day. Then they can relax. In reality, this societally-shared concept of earned paradise is often a coping mechanism to avoid the uncomfortable work of confronting your current situation.

• What if that mindset is ironically guaranteeing an unhappy life?
• What is the cash value of living your life in a way that fulfills you right now vs. betting the farm on something 20-40+ years down the line, which is both untested and not guaranteed?
• Could true retirement exist within a flexible lifestyle? 
• What is 30 years of the compound interest of increased happiness worth?

My guest today is Chris Giuseppini.

Chris is a cinematographer, entrepreneur, and founder of Sondor Media. He's helped YouTube influencers increase their reach by 100,000 subscribers and 2 million views in under a month, worked on videos that advertised for legendary video and photographic technology players, Sony, Canon, and Fujifilm. Now, with his own brand, Chris is taking his experiences working with some of the most fascinating video influencers to help entrepreneurs grow their business through authentic, powerful storytelling.

Some of the topics we dove into:

• The path of least resistance when creating content.
• How to be vulnerable while connecting your personal passions to your professional content.
• Finding the right online platform for your content that resonates.
• Emotional investment with client work.
• Creative risks, split testing, and the positive downstream effects of failure.
• How to ask provocative questions to get to know someone quickly.
• Breaking through tribalism.
• How creativity and innovation are wasteful processes.
• The new rich, retirement, and the arrival fallacy.
• Life as a series of split-tests and sprints.
• Boredom, dopamine-fasting, and cultivating resiliency.
• Why you should embrace seasonality in your life.
• Lifestyle-creep, freedom, and minimizing responsibilities.
• The subjective nature of status, influence, and imposter syndrome.

Connect with Chris:

• Website: SondorMedia.com
• LinkedIn: @ChrisGPresents

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify

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As a rule of thumb, the most “successful” people I know are depressed and brutal on themselves. These are people with extreme wealth and by all accounts innovators and high-performers in their fields.

This isn’t just my experience; a recent study by UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco detailed the personality, mood, and human factors that are common among entrepreneurs in which:

• Self-reported mental health concerns were present across 72% of the entrepreneurs in this sample, a proportion that was significantly higher than that of the comparison group.
• 49% reported having one or more lifelong mental health conditions, 32% reported having two or more lifelong #mental health conditions.
• The entrepreneurs were significantly more likely to report a history of depression (30%), ADHD (29%), substance use conditions (12%) and bipolar diagnosis (11%) than were comparison participants.
• 5.4% of the entrepreneur participants were suicidal, more than double the control group (2%).

This cultivates a subterranean culture of isolation that breeds further anxiety, depression, and self-hatred – especially among young professionals who already overwhelmingly struggle with imposter syndrome.

As you'll hear in this discussion, I am one of the 32% of entrepreneurs with two or more mental health conditions. As someone diagnosed with ADHD, generalized anxiety, and bipolar II, it's something I cope with on a daily basis both in my professional and personal life.

George Kapernaros is a marketing consultant based in Athens, Greece with a degree in Political Science & International Relations. His innovative work is at the intersection of behavioral marketing, retention, and applied conversion psychology, which he has applied to over 200 product launches and multi-million dollar campaigns.

Some of the topics we discussed further:

• Are entrepreneurs more likely to have ADHD?
• How business partners expose strengths and weaknesses.
• The struggle of dealing with imposter syndrome.
• Marcus Aurelius, stoic stress testing, and behemoth to-do lists.
• Childhood influences, over-achievement, and abusive self-talk.
• Is balance even achievable as an entrepreneur?
• Self-moderation, and the momentum trap.
• Implanted aspirations, and what is a "free" life?
• Risk-taking, and the illusion of security.
• Consuming vs creating, and scarcity vs growth mindsets.
• Turnover, mindless corporate growth, and the compound interest of bad decisions.
• The struggle of passion projects vs maintaining cash flow.
• What you can learn from studying comic books, conmen, and cults.
• Marketing, the randomness of success, and the importance of testing your beliefs.
• The butterfly effect of stress, caffeine, nootropics, and health optimization.
• AI, UBI, and jobs of the future.
• The looming issue of climate change, and how to prepare for the disruptions ahead.

Connect with George:

• Website: GeorgeKapernaros.com
• LinkedIn: @George-Kapernaros

Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify