Hi, from North Street Studios, downtown Des Moines. You are Live from the Path. Hello, everybody. It's a beautiful night, Monday night here in Des Moines. You are listening to Live from the Path. My name is Ben Foos-Tai. I'm your host. And you are on Des Moines Amplified.com. Thanks so much for being here tonight. We do have a, again, last week I said the show had a good chance at things going well. Well, tonight's hit and miss, but there's some redeeming qualities on it, and I think we might be able to save it. We do have a special guest in the studio. We'll get to him in just a second.

On the docket today here in the first hour, we'll talk to our guest, get some interesting discussion about working in office, office politics, and how maybe your Christian witness fits into that, because that's just as much a relationship issue as a lot of things. So we'll get through. We'll talk through that. Matt, I've got some questions. Something's been on my mind this week. And, Dan, this is at you. I'm not sure. I'm in. Yeah, we'll talk about it. It might be more of a technical Bible question.

But just hanging out there, the question is what to do with the Old Testament. So we'll talk about that a little bit later. We also got, let's see, we got our church question of the week. That'll be coming up in the second hour. And that has to do with people that don't currently follow Christ and the accommodations of the church for that. And we're also going to do a question and answer starting at the top of the second hour. So, you know, if you guys are out there listening, go ahead and start thinking of your questions.

When will we have time to discuss your pancake recipe? What do you mean? This was my solution. If you remember last week, we switched to this new studio. And they've got some bright lights above. And I'm severely balding. And it was shining bright.

So I tried to wear a hat last week. And there's a hole in the hat. So you could see it pretty easy. What would you say best gets out grass stains? I don't know. Vinegar? Are you insinuating that I'm a housewife? Is that what you're saying?

Talk to me. I won't be treated this way. I'm running out of things to compare your Aunt Jemima cap to. Dude, it's running light. If I was going for a non-glare, I don't know if I'd go with white. Well, but if my head was the glare, for some reason all I could think of is, Bindarelli, Bindarelli, night and day is Bindarelli, do the tissues, do the mopping.

Are you friends with woodland creatures that tend to help you do everyday tasks? Let's hear your whistle. No, don't tempt me. Because I whistle something fierce. From your mouth, right? I don't know what to make of what you said. That is not my wife's bandana.

Doggone it. Actually, it is my wife's bandana. I don't own a bandana. I would certainly hope so. I think we rest our case. I'd like to see the situation where you walked in and said, I will take this white bandana, please.

By the way, are the daisies fresh? Do you deliver children in that bandana? Doggone it. Hey, what if I did? That's manly. Don't know nothing about birth and no babies. Midwiferyism is manly.

I heard it's illegal. It might very well be. I feel like some fried okra. All right. This is why you're not allowed to talk, Dan. But I do. For these exact reasons, fried okra.

Unbelievable. With us in the studio tonight is Tim Johnson. He is a member of Pathway Church. If we were to keep some sort of membership tally, he would qualify. He also is the, what's the appropriate title? Something of? Chief Accomplishment Officer.

He is the Chief Accomplishment Officer. Did I say cheap? Can you whistle? Indeed you did. I did. I said cheap. Yeah.

I don't think. Chief. Okay. Chief. Chief. He's clarifying. It's not cheap to deal with him.

Those hooked on phonics classes really worked well for you, didn't they? Are you reasonably priced, though? I mean, are you economically sound? I fall into market value. So what did you say? Is your worth what you're paid? Yes.

Okay, there it is. He sounds like a politician. Yeah, they sound as ambiguous as your job title. Anyway, he is the Chief. At least we know what Ben does during the day. He's the Chief Accomplishment Officer of Carpe Factum, which is, of course, Latin for seize the factum, or French for this is not my bathrobe.

I was warned about you boys. By who? The rest of Pathway Church? I don't know who you've been talking to. Hopefully it's not that carpet salesman that sold Dan that shirt. We have a great relationship. You and the carpet salesman?

Yes. That would be my sister company carpet fact. I'd like it to look nice with a nice throw rug, and I'd like to be able to play Scrabble on it. What do you have? Triple arms gore. They don't like my shirts.

They have poor taste. No, that's not true. I'm very entertained by those shirts. Maybe it's the fact that I can't pull them off. I could not wear that shirt. Obviously, I can't either. You and the Davenport got them covered.

That way I can take a nap and no one knows it. I just had to blend in. I can't imagine what you do when the retirement castle puts on their yearly sale. You can't believe what I got. They said they throw in these teeth for free. I don't know what I'm going to do with these. That hurts.

Well, so now that we've had our chance to poke at it, Tim, what is carpe factum? Carpe factum is Latin for seize the accomplishment. So I'm a primary manager, help companies get from point A to point B without hurting themselves. I know you well enough that you probably make them hurt themselves and laugh. Only a little. What would be a good example of a situation where they would have you come in? If, say, they had a systems project or right now I'm doing a government compliance project.

I've done product distribution. I've done a lot of different things, training videos, you name it. Do you ever star in a training video? I actually have starred in the training video. I don't suppose that you have a copy of said video. Did you ever see the Oompa Loompas? Hold on a second.

Funny story about said training video. Hit me. It was for HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability Act. Very boring legislation, by the way. We decided to do the entire training video like an episode of cops. I see. And so I was not only the director, I was the head police officer guy.

So I still have the uniform in my closet. I've got two daughters who will be dating someday. It's insurance. I understand completely. So in what situation did the cops show up? Someone overlooked medical files and made a run for it? Well, someone was sharing medical information they shouldn't have been sharing.

I see. So we made up little scenarios kind of like we do on cops. Nice. It was fun, yeah. We had a good time. You know, frankly, this kind of sounds like you set this up for your own grandeur reward here. You made up a story and then appointed yourself director and then kept the fashion budget at the end.

How do you get your job? What qualifications do I need to do this? It is Iowa's film office. Just rife with corruption. I would like to have a film called, Look, Mike is the Greatest, and then I will accept all the spoils at the end. By the way, I will be directing and solely starring in this film, and I will do all the credit. You have the best job in the world.

I did share the credits. We actually had a large cast. A lot of the employees in the company were in the cast. They had a great time. This was for a specific corporation. It was an in-house thing. They were trying to become HIPAA compliant.

They needed to train about 3,000 employees across the nation very quickly. So they just said training video was the best way to do that. Yeah, that's cool. So you couldn't sell that to another corporation? No. It's like a specific part of that. It's proprietary for that one corporation.

Did you get to keep a copy of the video? Yes, I have it. Do you watch it randomly? I haven't watched it in years. I also have the blooper reel. If you would have brought that, we could have showed. I can just imagine Tim sitting in his house at 2 in the morning, half crying, going, I was spot on.

They love me. You know what? No one will ever share medical information in that establishment again. I wasn't drinking tonight, officer. I wanted to. I wanted to share that information, but Tim's got me. So how do you get to where you are?

My car. Was Tim, was little Timmy, you know, seven years old thinking, man, when I grew up, I'm going to be like project manager, carpe factum. Oh, heavens no. Nobody is insane enough to want to grow up to be a project manager. We actually refer to it as the accidental profession. You couldn't do anything else. Yeah.

Well, people ask me how I got to this. I'm like, well, I was out walking in the woods one day and I reached for the raw meat, got caught in the net. And here I am. He's got another one. Yeah. So it's a cult. Maybe that was for the video, how to snare a project manager.

Yes. A current project they were working on. You've got to catch them when they're vulnerable, like in the middle of the woods looking for raw meat. So how does somebody know you exist? I mean, let's say, you know, I have my large corporation and I want to get something done. I mean, is it mostly through relationships you have through the community here? But you travel a lot, too.

So you've gotten out there. Yeah, I've got relationships throughout the Midwest, so that helps. I've had a rather longstanding client down in Kansas City, which has been wonderful to work with. So it's been great, a lot of fun projects with them. I guess just to clarify, Dan, if you were to run some sort of large corporation that, you know, kicked out a good, what would you be producing? What does the Dan Hudson factory produce? Bobbleheads.

Of what? Of me. Just you specifically? Mostly. I think they'd sell good enough, I wouldn't keep up. You sound like you have Tim's job. I'm going to start a company.

Can you make me a video? We'll call it The Hood. I'll have some bobbleheads with me and a police uniform and some baseball, and it'll just be different. It'll be like Barbie, but it'll be bobble. Like a normal bobble or like a life-size Dan bobble? Ooh, that'd be a little too much. I'm thinking normal so you can put it on a desk.

Then you can collect, you know, I'll make sets so you can collect all 24. You can call it The Contradictory Dan. You'll say, Dan, did you want to go on an exercise program? And I'll do this. And I'll say, Dan, would you like a big slushie from the Wendy's? And he'll say, yes, I will. By The Contradictory Dan.

I was eating just roughly 30 minutes ago. I'll take one Contradictory Dan. That's a 99-cent Frosty. Those are good, though. They're small. Don't tell my family. Are they on?

No. Nope. They're at a swim meet. Is that when you go for the Frosty when the family's out? What's this debit for 99 cents at the Wendy's? Actually, we had one last night. And I was like, that was so good.

I should have another. I should have one by myself. Or no one's around. Actually, that's when I tend to buy ice cream. This weight loss is working really well. No wonder the sofa cover fits you so well. Exactly.

Ooh, have you had the snack-sized McFlurry? No. Olsen says good things about it. Really? Yeah. Olsen, we need to get into this joint, this shop down here. Like, if they're done for good.

Stools, signs. Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in there. $1.79. Ooh, no, that's twice the price of the… Ooh, 99 cents. That's not snack price at all. $0.99.

I suppose when you're dealing in big Monopoly money like Olsen, you can treat yourself to whatever you want. Yeah. So here's what I did this week. I have to wash my clothes at the car wash because of where I work. They will stain my washer. Oh, gotcha.

And so I take my clothes to the… Hold on a minute. What were you thinking? Dan? I was just like… I have no idea. Okay, my good one.

Sorry. I don't know. I was interested to know what was going through Dan's end. Nothing. I was just… It was kind of like a… Are you done yet?

Can we go home? It's time to go home. I need a project manager to help me kind of process. Seize the fact of good day. Seize this. So I take my clothes to the car wash and I spray them down with a degreaser or whatever, you know.

And then I wring them out and then I take them home and dry them. And this time I thought… Well, it's actually the first time I've done it. I haven't had to ever do it. I usually let them go for a while. But I decide about three minutes into my drive home, I'm going to dry these jeans out my window.

And I thought there could be either this… This is either the time that this is useful or there will be a time in the future when it's useful to know whether this is going to work or not, you know. And so I hang the jeans out, out the side of the driver's side window. And I've made two mistakes here. One, wet jeans are heavy and loud and they clank back on the car. And so I think something is breaking in the car.

Like I'm fairly certain that the wheel has popped off. I mean, it's bad. Two, I forgot to wring out the waist belt. And so I've hung it by the waist belt in the window. So the legs are indeed drying, but all the water is running down the waist belt onto me. So you like lowered the window, stuck it out, and then put the window back up? Yeah.

Yeah. And I held it onto one hand just in case this plan… It wasn't well thought out. I thought, well, there could be many caveats to this. I better just hold on to them just in case, you know. And surprisingly enough, what I was looking for on the way back home was a look of astonishment from anybody.

And no one seemed to mind. Like I got no… I was expecting to get a thumbs up or a point or what's wrong with that man? And I got nothing. Everyone seemed perfectly okay with it. Was it like, oh, that's Mike? Well, I don't know.

Maybe. My car's not that recognizable. But then what I began to think on was, is it illegal to do this kind of thing? I mean, if a guy can hang a two-by-four out the back of his truck with a red flag on it, I should very well be able to hang a pair of jeans out my window. Tim was a cop. Tim, is that illegal?

We've got the uniform. We've got the video to prove it. We've got the video to prove it. We've got the video to prove it. We've got the video to prove it. And then accompanying it with another crazy behavior to make them believe I was some kind of methamphetamine addict.

Like if I was eating the steering wheel or constantly readjusting the rearview mirror. You know what I mean? Something obsessive-compulsive that would lead someone to believe there's something more than meets the eye here. But just a guy driving down the road with a pair of jeans out his window, that seems perfectly reasonable. Yeah, stuff happens.

I think there's circumstances. We'll be like, yo, I've been there. Were you wearing other pants? This is my story. And so I'm just going to give the details on how I see fish. Well, I see. Because that would have something to do with it, too.

Well, they can't tell whether you have pants on in a car. You get down to your skivvies and you wash your… Oh, okay. I was wearing other pants at the time. Because that would be, you know… Well, by your logic here, that means I was washing them in my skivvies, so I would have been in my undies, in the car wash bay, spraying down my pants.

I know. I was trying to figure that out. Now, that should most certainly bring some attention. So do you change your clothes at work? No. Home. So you go home, change your clothes, then you go to the car.

Yeah, and then I band them up, and then I take them to the car wash and spray them down. Oh, like a whole bunch at a time? Yeah, I take that… It's not a daily thing. No, I can't. No, I…

How do you afford that? No. That's part of the operation. Oh, a couple weeks. This is the first time I've done it, but this is the first time where I've been afraid to put it in a washer, because it's usually my own washer, and I don't care what happens to my own washer, but we're staying at the in-laws, and I don't want to ruin their

washers. It's not like I've made laundromats? Well, that's the thing. I feel like I'd be bringing that on other people. And plus, you have to use some pretty heavy detergent to get this stuff out. And so the degreaser for engines is what does it. So if you were a project manager, how would you tell someone to accomplish this task in

a much better way? I don't know. Ask the lady in the bandana. Oh, touche. Here's what I would do. I would get a little lemon juice and pre-treat the sting. Hang it out the window of your car for three or four miles, get it really worked up, and

then take a little almond paste or something, scrape it in with a toothbrush, give it a few licks. Human saliva does wonders. Have you ever seen a kid lick a napkin and get their kid with it? Works. So anyway. Dad's spit is a universal cleaner.

Exactly. No fact. Well, there you go. So anyway, and then kind of pound it in, give it a slight wash off. A rain will do you, but if you can hit the car wash, you're great. And then put a little dryer sheet on it, rub it in, hit on. I've done that before.

Ben and I used to stick dryer sheets in the vents in the car, figuring it would pump out a good smelling… It works. It's effective, yeah. It's fantastic. You turn the heat on in the wintertime, right through the dryer sheet. It covers up everything that it'll shit.

It smells nice. But Mike, let me… Hmm. So one of the… I don't know, accusations may be not the right word, but the chat is insinuating that you make poor life choices so that you have a story to tell on the radio. Now listen.

It's not like I said I bought a half a dinosaur costume and ran around the mall biting people. Now that would be a poor life choice for a good story. But I believe that this was a good idea, and I thought it would come in useful later, just for the same fact that I know that I can put my clothes in the dishwasher, and it will do almost the exact same job that the washing machine will. I did that because I wanted to know if my washing machine broke down, could I use the dishwasher? And it indeed works.

And it gives them a nice shine. Sometimes. Sometimes it leaves spots. And it's because I bought the cheaper detergent. Mistake. Have you ever used the liquid dishwashing soap? Like palm olive?

In the dishwasher? Like you're supposed to put it on a normal sink? Yeah. Yeah, you can't use it very much. No, I've not done that. I did that. Why? It overdoes it and makes two-meter bubbles? Yes.

No, I've never done that. I think they've ruined you with those prepackaged squares. Well, but they're a different thing, because it's all pre-measured and stuff. But I mean, one day we were out, and I thought, well, I'll throw some of this in there. And it was just like, yeah, that was a bad choice. Hmm. No, I don't think I've ever done that.

Was that a painful look because of, well, you're damn, you're stupid, or because, yeah, I've done that too? No, it was really that you're stupid. Yeah, that's the normal look. That's the normal Daniel stupid look I get quite often. Well, it's been a while since we've had small group together, so. Are you saying that out loud?

I'm not in practice. Have you ever left the washing machine lid open? Yeah, it just doesn't do anything. No. It's just depressing. I thought it was like Boba Monster its way out, and it didn't do it. I was really disappointed.

Whatever. I make good choices. I don't know who's saying such a thing. I got an idea. There's a couple. There's a couple. There's more than one?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's agreed. Man. Tim Johnson, did you write three books? I have written three books. Okay, hold on. So here's what I got.

I got SWAT, Seize the Accomplishment. Yes. Gust, the tailwind of office politics. Yes. By the way, you really can't get this from the website. On Amazon, you can't get it either, but he's got a picture on the back, and he looks like the guy that works for Willy Wonka to try to buy the Everlasting Gobstopper.

Who? What was the guy's name, Mike? Who? Here, look at him. Look at this picture of Tim Johnson back there. He kind of shows up fast. Not a cane that's an umbrella.

I'll have you know. The guy with the monocle? Yeah. Yeah, what's his name? Criddle Clink. No. Wrong show.

Hold on. I'm looking. Wait a minute. What says Advanced Praise for Gust on the back? Did you? Yes. When you publish a book, you give the manuscript to people in hopes that they will say nice

things about it that you can actually put on the cover. You couldn't print mine stuff because it wasn't very nice. Who are you again? Yeah. Why would I put you on my book? One guy says you'll enjoy this quick read. What is he trying to say?

It is a quick read. All three books are stories. I like stories. I know. Could you tell us a story? Is there pictures in here? Give us in 25 words.

Give us in 125 words. No one's going to pay for the book, Daniel. Well, don't give us the end. Make it a cliffhanger. The end? It is a slug worth. That's what it is.

Slug worth. Slug worth. Yeah. Thank you. Totally blanking out on that. Looks like slug worth. Okay.

Sorry. Go on. Why would I want to buy this book? Put it that way. Why would you? No. Why would a normal person?

He's running a bobblehead factory. Listen, I've got a bobblehead factory. Things aren't looking good. He's playing with all of them and it won't sell anybody. Do you love Dan? Yes, yes, yes. I love me in uniform.

Whenever you have two or more people in any organization, company, church, factory, you name it, you're going to have politics. No two people go the same direction all the time. So it's just a great way of knowing how to influence people. Manipulate people? I was going to say influence or manipulate. There's a fine line.

There is. Which one of your books will tell me how to do it correctly? I want Dan to stop wearing those shirts. How can we get what we want? What can I do? Try to find what will motivate Dan to quit wearing those shirts. Stop wearing those shirts or I'm going to steal them from you and burn them.

No, cash. Cash. Frosties. Or Frosties. What's your price, Dan? What does it cost on a weekly basis to get you to stop wearing those shirts? Yeah.

What would it take? What if Ben and I decided what you were going to wear every day? Within reason. I mean, not a chicken suit or a scuba gear. I mean, if I wanted to pick up… Maybe a painted on tuxedo. Maybe.

Wait a minute. Paint it on? Rick Gray does body paint. Paint it on just the top. These guys weren't coming to Pathway when the pink bunny suit was… That's true. Yeah, that's true.

And that would fit you. You should have brought that tonight. No. Do you have that in your closet, too? I'm never going to Tim's office. Tim says, I really like that shirt. No, it's in my closet.

And weren't you Jesus, too? What? Weren't you Jesus? No, that was great. I was Satan. I was thinking Rick was Satan. No.

You are a good Satan. Thanks for sharing the community conversation with us, fellas. You're just like the Satan in the movie, Passion. Well, I try to give people chills, and I accomplish that. I also scare small woodland creatures. Then Ben befriends them. That's called a nine millimeter.

And then they swab the floor like only a lonely housemate could. That's why they let me be in the nursery once in a month. You have no friends. Let's traumatize the children. The new young parents never come back. It's week three. So, what was the price, Dan?

Oh, but see, you have to decide which shirts are distasteful. Let's say all of them. I have a lot of shirts. Yeah. If I have one fetish in life, I like to buy shirts. Were you running out of plain colors, and you thought, I'll branch out of it? They're boring.

Agreed. You're a guy that likes to walk out of the front door with a little pizzazz on them. I mean, I'm kind of small, and it's significant. I want to stick out a little. Sure. Sharp-dressed man. I wouldn't go that far.

I'm Dan. I'm here for Jesus. Whiz-bang. I got salvation over here. I got fun over here. I bring the whole package. You do look like you could sell watches.

Like, not good watches. Yeah. You know what? It doesn't say anything in the Bible about the Lord wearing a fancy robe. It's just a regular old piece of cloth. I think you're trying to… Is this in a robe?

It doesn't say that he doesn't wear a fancy robe. He could have been a Whiz-bang. In Dan's defense, though, it takes a special shirt to show off that svelte race car figure. Exactly. I totally agree. I have to say, I have a shirt identical to the one you're wearing. I should have worn it.

You should have called it. How embarrassing. I know. That's awkward. Of all the things in Tim Johnson's closet, that one's coming out. Good will. Honey, it's time to get rid of some stuff.

I'm dressing like Dan. He's wearing his cop uniform to church this Sunday. Okay. I only wear that. Never mind. This is what we're going to do. Every morning, someone's going to stake out Tim's house, and we're going to radio to Dan

what he's wearing, and then we're going to put him in it, and then we're going to send him to cross his path at some point in the day. Hey, Tim, don't say anything more. And then you're going to creepily move on with your day, and Tim will all day wonder, what have I done with my life? Can I wear the wig? Yes, you can wear the wig.

You know what you could do? You could start a TV show where it's just called, What Would Dan Wear? And then he comes to your house, and he goes, oh, yeah, I'd wear that. And then you take it out. They already have that show. It's called What Not to Wear. Yeah, but those are people who throw away everything and buy you new.

If Dan likes it, then it goes. He's the hidden guest, but they don't tell him what's up. Like, Dan, we need you to tell people what in the closet to keep. And then he shows up and picks out all these things, and Dan leaves, and they go, all right, get rid of it. And at the end of every show, you see Dan in the dumpster picking it all up, taking it with him.

Because I'm sure. Free shirts. You'll never believe what I found. This one's like, shoots and letters. It's a gift from God. Hey, half a Frusty. By the way, there is a collectible gust of the tailwind of office politics in paperback

on Amazon. Now, the regular new price, $14.95. Yes. The one with your signature on it is selling for five cents less at $14.90. Oh, well, you know, I mentioned that whole market value thing to you earlier. Is Gus the newest of the three? No, actually, the newest of the three is SWOT.

Okay. Okay. And that one is about systems thinking. So, cause and effect, basically. What, like, was there a particular thing that inspired you to write that one? Really, that's kind of how I live my life is I like to look at the relationships between things.

So, if I want this kind of behavior out of someone, what do I need to do to get that? Manipulate. Yeah, exactly. You say that like it's a bad thing. That's how I would use it, yeah. He manipulated me very positively. That's not usually how it goes.

He had me right where he wanted me. Actually, in that context, SWOT seems like, without the guy in the front, it seems like a violent book. How to get people to do what you want. SWOT. I'd buy that book. You need to retitle this.

How to work with little people. Actually, the guy in the front is scary. Anyway, sorry. Sorry. But you digress. Cause and effect. Positive manipulation.

Go. Anyway, like I said, all three of my books are stories. So, this one, the reason for the cover is I actually spent time as a SWOT photographer. Training photographer for the SWOT team. How did you get that job? People love me. That sounds awesome.

Manipulation. Dude, I live in a house full of females. I need a testosterone rush somehow. Can we, Ben and Dan, work for you? Do you have room for underlings? Me and Dan would like to go in and- We'll let you manipulate us.

Yeah. In fact, Dan. I will. No underlings. But, you know, as a guy who likes office politics, I could certainly use minions. Do you need us to- We can create drama.

Yeah. I'll see. Allergic to drama. I am. Again, let me go back. I'm in a house full of females. I have developed an intense allergy to drama.

I've got a pre-teen in the house now. Oh, yes. Yeah. He's been there. Done that. Your day's coming, boys. I was-

Is it legal to sell things? Better get this manipulation book down quickly. Maybe. I'm pretty sure we could be good employees of yours. You could do something, and then I would pull you aside later and say, Dan is too stupid to help on this one. Yeah.

That'd be politics. I'll have read the book, though, and I will be able to cut you off. What would you say? I would say, no, I'm not. Manipulate him, Dan. I'd be the bear man. No, I'm not.

You have three characters, right? There's four. Three. Well, there are three types of politicians, and- Is everybody one of the three? Yeah. You know, they might gravitate from one to the other, but most of the people-

Let's take it. Get rid of Mike. Most of the people, you know, fall. I would flatten your tires. He's a troublemaker. See? He's violent.

You're going to get far. I am. I am a troublemaker. Again, you say that like it's a bad thing. I'm writing this down. Manipulative troublemaker, positive. You belong on Oprah.

So what are the four types? Three. Oh, three. Three. Did Dan say four? Yes. He manipulated me into saying four.

That works well. I told you he doesn't belong on this project. Okay, three. They're just not good enough for the secret one. Anyway, three types of office politicians. Snakes, ostriches, bears. Snakes are the backstabbers, the credit stealers.

Like I would try to do. Yes, exactly. Okay, I'm with you. That your mama just didn't raise you right. Dang it. Yeah. I bemoan my own mother.

Sorry, mama. Yeah. You're out of the will. She always liked him best anyway. Picture of man eating soup next to Bible. All mine. Please eat something.

You've been up there for 30 years. The Lord gets it. Take a bite. Moving right along. The ostrich is the one who avoids all office politics. They're like, back, back. You're all evil.

And they usually don't think it's stuck in the middle because they're avoiding it. Yeah. I mean, they just make matters worse. Yeah. Now, actually, you know, there's something the snake and the ostrich have in common, and that's their motivation. It's all about self.

The snake isn't there for self-promotion. The ostrich isn't there for self-preservation. Sure. Like the Dan Hudson bubble head factory? We all get along. Hey, Dan. Dan.

We had a meeting today. Everyone thought it went well. What do you guys all think? Well, wait. So, but is the ostrich, the guy that avoids politics, this isn't the guy that's trying to stay above the fray? No.

Or is it the same guy? No. No. The ostrich is a bad avoidance. Okay. Okay. You know, you cannot avoid office politics altogether.

They will come back to bite you. But that's the guy who puts the blanket over his head because there's a monster in the room thinking the monster won't see them. How many monsters do you deal with at work? Dun, dun, dun. Story time. Look around.

Look around. Case in point. I assume the bear is the winner here. The bear is the winner. Yes. I chose the bear for a couple of reasons. First of all is a bear in the wild.

The bear in the wild generally is looking out for something beyond themselves. You know, they don't just wake up one morning, look at their planner or their little smartphone and say, ooh, mall camper. I can do that before lunch. Weehee. They're only going to attack if, you know, their food source, their cubs, their home, their livelihood is threatened.

So it's something greater than themselves that they're looking at. The other reason I chose bear is of all the mammals, they tend to have the keenest sense of smell so they can sniff out danger proactively rather than wait and be blindsided by office politics. Yeah. Or at the zoo, they can smell like miles away. Yeah.

I mean, it's crazy. Now, okay, I have two questions on that. One, do bears get along with other bears? Yeah, generally. Unless they stink. Well, yeah, and there may be situations where bears do disagree, though, because they might have different objectives.

I mean, do you have to have ostriches and snakes to make the bear even relevant? Not necessarily. You can have workplaces that get along fairly well, and that's primarily because most people are playing nice and doing the bear politics. They're trying to be very proactive with influencing, not manipulating. Here's a licorice, Steve. I'll give you a little chocolate bar.

Okay, if we need some manipulating done, Dan is out. I'll give you a chocolate bar. They used to drive Sean Engeldinger crazy because he got into the Sears. This is after being a private businessman for years. And they had like, we'll give you a little chocolate hug, you know, if you get your little quota or whatever. I mean, just, he just, and then one day he shows up with a whole bag and goes, I know

where you get them. He just started handing them out to people. He just totally destroyed their games. I mean, just mocked them. I was going to say, like, that's the kind of stuff, like, I worked in an office building.