Mardig Sheridan - Strategic Envisioning

Ever found yourself in a room with someone whose very presence changes the air, sparking a light bulb moment that shifts your career trajectory? That's the magic Mardig Sheridan brought to Jon's world, and in our latest episode, we navigate his winding path from small strategic envisioning workshops to the boardrooms of tech giants. Mardig, with his treasure trove of strategy consulting expertise, unravels the intricacies of guiding companies through the thorny thicket of change and innovation.

Strap in for a ride from strumming guitar strings to crafting ad campaigns as Mardig recounts his transformation from rising star rock musician to advertising maven and strategic savant. The journey reveals the birth of a strategic visioning methodology that reshapes how decisions are made within an organization, proving that the most profound solutions often lie within. There's something to learn about the courage to question the status quo, the boldness to challenge, and the discovery that every industry, including the competitive world of venture capital, is ripe for innovation.

As we round out this melody of strategy and storytelling, we reflect on the rhythm of commitment in achieving personal and professional peaks. The real life example of Truepanion's trailblazing strategy in pet insurance, alongside Maveron's distinct venture capital approach, provide a backdrop to a broader contemplation on positioning oneself in the marketplace in ever changing times. So, prepare for a symphonic blend of laughter, strategic revelations, and the occasional nod to the nostalgia of a beloved Fender guitar.

As discussed in this episode here is a link to The Bard's Moses Lake Recordings.

This episode was recorded at the Totem Star studios at King Street Station in Seattle. Totem Star provides access to a diverse community of young recording artists learning music and life skills through mentorship and meaningful relationships

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Jon Stone's consulting practice

Episode Transcript

Mardig (00:00):
This is Mardig Sheridan and you're listening to One Hour
to Doors.

Jon (00:13):
This is One Hour to Doors, a podcast about the business and
soul of the festivals andevents industry.
I'm your host, john Stone.
Every episode of One Hour toDoors explores the people,
issues, insights and trendsimpacting the enterprise of
bringing people and communitiestogether in common cause.

(00:34):
Our guest today is MardigSheridan.
My path first crossed withMardig around 2010 or 2011 when
he was brought into my workplaceas a strategy consultant to
lead a multi-day workshop onstrategic envisioning.
Martin made a positiveimpression on me at that time,

(00:56):
but as the years passed by, Islowly began to understand the
full depth of what he was tryingto teach us, and that slow
motion learning has had anoutsized influence on me in
terms of developing mymanagement and leadership styles
, and has even influenced mycareer path.
We are recording today at thebrand new Totem Star Studios at

(01:18):
historic King Street Station inSeattle.
Welcome to the show, Mardig.

Mardig (01:23):
Well, hi, Jon, it's nice to be here.
Good to see you again.
Good to see you.

Jon (01:28):
How would you describe your profession of strategy
consultant?
How?

Mardig (01:32):
would I describe the profession itself?
Yeah, boy, I would describe itas one that many times scares
CEOs because they don't reallyknow what they're going to run
into.
Ideally, a strategy consultantcomes into a company and helps
them see the future.
Helps them see what the futureis going to look like, what

(01:53):
their customer, or anticipatedor hoped for customer, is going
to ultimately be looking for.
The definition I use ofstrategy is positioning for
future competitive advantage.
So where's the world going tobe in three to five years or, in
technology, many times ashorter time frame or time

(02:14):
horizon?
Where's the world going to be?
What are people going to want?
How are you going to positionyourself?
How will you distinguishyourself and what kind of big
bet will you make in terms ofwhat do you have for that
customer?
That is, something that isunique to you and really desired
by them.

Jon (02:33):
For the benefit of the listeners, I'll describe my
first encounter with you.
You were brought into ourorganization, which was a
nonprofit arts organization atthe time, but an unusually large
and successful oneMulti-generational history, kind
of a storied history, at leastin the Pacific Northwest and you

(02:54):
were brought into a session.
I think there was like maybe 15or 20 of us.
It was the CEO, it wasleadership, but it was also
management.
It was kind of a mixture and Ithink you were very deliberate
in setting that up.
You wanted to gather as manybroad and different perspectives
as possible.

Mardig (03:09):
It is important.
A lot of times, the executiveteam is of the opinion we know
everything that's going on.
We're really the ones that areresponsible for the company.
That's who you need to hearfrom, and while I don't
necessarily want what I callkind of boots on the ground in
all these sessions that can getquite unwieldy, I do want them

(03:30):
to contribute because it's thepeople that are actually
delivering, that areface-to-face with the customer,
that deal with it every day,that many times have a very
different perspective and areable to add elements of
knowledge.
That is very close to thecustomer and ultimately, that's
what it's about.
I mean, if you're not servingthe customer, you're looking in

(03:52):
the wrong direction.

Jon (03:53):
One of the things that stands out to me in my memory
about our first working together.
At that time the company hadbeen very successful, unusually
successful for an unusually longtime.
So you show up, here comes thismartyred guy and you start,
essentially, you startexercising our brains and you

(04:14):
start causing us to try to kindof think outside of the box.
And I can remember there wasalmost instant resistance from
some chairs around the table andI paraphrase the notion that
resistance is like we'resuccessful, we've been doing
things the same way for a long,long time, found success with

(04:35):
that.
Why would we want to deviatefrom that path?
And I was thinking that way tooand, like I say, it was over
time that I've slowly come tounderstand what you were getting
at.
And then, some more down theline, the macro environment
really started to change in ourindustry and all of a sudden,
the things that have beenserving us so well for literally

(04:56):
generations, they weren'tworking so well anymore.
Yeah, okay.

Mardig (05:00):
My first response to that is I give you general
motors, you know, but evenbecause they're still around,
people might go well, they'restill around, but they shouldn't
be.
Truly, they really shouldn't be.
They were just too big to allowto fail.
But I give you Polaroid, youknow, or Kodak, or I could go on
forever.
That whole.
We're doing fine, we've donegreat.

(05:21):
This is our business model.
Why would we want to change?
Why would we want to shift up?
And that's why innovation anddisruption happens in industries
is because they don't lookahead and they don't get outside
of that immediacy of what we'redoing today that works and what
we know.
I mean when you know how to dosomething, that's kind of what

(05:42):
you want to keep doing.
So all of a sudden, there youare looking at a big bet that's
very, very different, anapproach that's different, a
product or a service that'sgoing to be quite different than
what you're doing now, andhaving the faith, the confidence
and the belief to make thatcommitment very difficult, the

(06:02):
thing that distinguishes what Ido from most strategic
consultants and Mackenzie, forinstance, which is quite large
and well known.
They will come into yourorganization, your company, and
they will do a complete analysisof it, an evaluation of it, and
then hand you, like I like tosay, the three-ring notebook

(06:25):
packed to the gills with whatyou should do.
But, you had nothing to do withthat.
You didn't have any input intoit as the executive team, as a
member of the company.
They don't really rely on youother than gathering information
.
So they're really coming in tosay this is what you should do.
From the top of the hill, we'retelling you this is the way to
go.
Well, there's no ownershiparound that.

(06:47):
So the way that I work with anorganization is I come in and I
say you know your company, yourindustry, your service, whatever
it is you do.
You know that much better thanI do.
But I know strategy and I knowhow to get you to a place where
you lift yourselves up to a30,000-foot level so that you

(07:08):
can see over the hill, so youcan see ahead of what's directly
ahead of you and anticipatethat and begin to make those
changes.
Ideally, that's the way everycompany should work.
You should disrupt, you shouldhave your innovation, it should
be successful.
You should kind of milk thatand as you do, there's what's
called the classic S-curve.
And at the top of that S-curve,as it starts to flatten out, is

(07:32):
where you then need to makeyour next move.
But you have to begin thinkingabout what that next move is
going to be long before you getto that flattening out or that,
really that kind of a denouementwhere you begin to slide off
and that happens.
It's very classic.

Jon (07:48):
You're talking about like a McKenzie-type organization in
that approach, not knocking itat all, but you made me remember
that at this organization wherewe met every year, they brought
in some sort of a managementconsultant strategy, consultant
learning, growth opportunities.
The company invested in thatand a lot of that.
I pick up a little nugget ofwisdom sometimes here or there,

(08:11):
but a lot of it.
It starts to sound the sameafter a while.
You were different and maybe itwas.
I don't know if it was thedifference of your approach or
if you just happened to be theright personality match for our
organization.
Maybe it was a little bit ofboth, but it was a very
different kind of impact.

Mardig (08:30):
I think that if the consultant comes in and has an
attitude of I'm kind of here totell you the right way or to
tell you what to do, or there'ssome kind of superior attitude
about it, I don't think you canconnect well with people.
I think that, for me, I'malways quite entranced by
companies.

(08:51):
I mean I kind of love that youare successful, I love that
you're doing what you do.
My job isn't to tell you whatto do.
My job is to help you to tellyou what to do.
So it's a very differentapproach.
I can't really come in as theauthority for your business.
I simply come in as anauthority that will lead you to
make the decisions, ultimately,that you will get behind, you

(09:14):
will commit to, because strategyis scary.
I mean, when you really get tostrategy, the true essence of
making those decisions, whatyou're saying is this doesn't
even exist this way right nowand we're going to have to make
it be that way.
And there's, of course, aclassic story I mean Steve Jobs
is probably the easiest forpeople to kind of relate to.

(09:36):
There was a time and it seemslike a short time ago, and in a
lot of ways it was where we allcarried around little flip
phones and I'm not even sure, Idon't even remember if we had
text in those days.
It was a phone.
You actually talked on it.
And this was someone who,especially when he came back to

(09:58):
Apple and he essentially saidwe're going to no longer be a
computer company.
We're going to build thisdevice that is handheld, that
people will take with them andwhere there will be a confluence
of digital technology and itwill all arrive in this handheld

(10:19):
device.

Jon (10:21):
Mobile.
One word, that was the big.
They bet the farm on mobile.

Mardig (10:25):
And nobody believed it really.
I mean, well, I guess somepeople believed it, but the idea
that you would watch a movie onyour phone, it was ridiculous.

Jon (10:35):
I can remember that time it was absurd.
What are you talking about?
Yeah, that's absurd.

Mardig (10:40):
We're just going to and you're not going to need any
buttons.
You know, you just touch ascreen.
That didn't exist.
Technology didn't exist, crazytalk.
So, yeah, it's to have thatvision and to take a company in
that direction.
And for companies, for them, tomake that kind of decision,
either you need an authoritarianfigure like a Steve Jobs which

(11:03):
he was, yeah or you need a teamof people who say we believe
that's the future and we'regoing to go for it, right?

Jon (11:11):
One of the key lessons that I've learned from you, in slow
motion, was it sounds reallysimple saying it, but nothing
lasts forever.
Matter of fact, I remember asaying that you dropped from
that very first day.
You said everything happensgradually and then suddenly,
yeah, yeah, and ever since then.

(11:32):
I didn't know what to make ofthat in the moment, but since
then I see that everywhere, thatphenomenon, I see it playing
out.
It surrounds me every singleday.

Mardig (11:41):
Everywhere I go, that's playing out, and it's the good
and the bad we usually wake upat suddenly.
That's where we, especially ifit's downhill, if it's something
we don't like.
That's where we wake up.
And you know something?
We've always known that it'strue.
I mean, I asked people when Iused to do those kind of
workshops where I would leadwith that I'd say how many of

(12:03):
you have ever said I knew thatwas going to happen, you know
everybody raised their hands.
I'll say how many of you haveever said to someone if you keep
doing that, this bad thing willhappen.
Everybody raised their hand.
Then I would say something likefinish this.
For me the straw that broke.
And everybody goes the camel'sback and I say and how many

(12:27):
camels do we have in thiscountry?
And so how long has this wisdombeen known?
It's really not new wisdom,it's just reframed.
Sure, sure.

Jon (12:39):
What you do is very specialty work.
How in the heck did you evenget into this?

Mardig (12:44):
line of work.
Well, as I tell people, Jon, Ihad no skills.
You and I know there'ssomething about me, but I came
out of the music industry yearsago.
I'm in a long time ago now,about 50 years ago.

Jon (13:00):
Hard for you to talk about without aging yourself, isn't?

Mardig (13:03):
it.
I don't like to admit this, butI was 50 years ago.
It seems like only yesterday.
I was playing rock and roll,but it was a great time.
But I came out of that andrealized that I was.
I wanted to do somethingdifferent and my life was being
shattered constantly by anotherband that would break up.
And I had a friend from collegeand he kind of pulled me into

(13:26):
advertising.
I didn't actually know what itwas I was.
We went to I don't know if youwant a story this long, but we
went to see a guy who owned theGuitar Center at the time.
He said I need a jingle.
And my partner, steve Maietta,is his name.
Steve said oh, we know how todo that, we'll make you one.
And we walked out of the GuitarCenter.

(13:48):
I said, steve, I've never donea jingle.
He says you're a musician,aren't you?
I said, yeah, so we'll do ajingle.
So we did and we take it backto him and Ray says, okay, well,
this is great, I need to get onthe radio.
Do you guys know anyadvertising agencies?
And Steve, my partner, says oh,we are an advertising agency.

(14:09):
And we walked out of the store.
I said Steve, what is anadvertising agency, he said I
don't know, but we are one now.
From that, literally I had tolearn how to write direct
produce and I was comfortable inthe studio but radio
commercials.
And as I did that I started toacquire some clients and I

(14:31):
started to grow this agency andit became an ad agency and I was
learning by doing it.
The way that really almost allprofessions are really learned
is really you gotta kinda do it.
That's how you learn.
And I realized as I look backnow I was doing strategy and I
didn't call it then.
But with a little boutiqueadvertising agency with small

(14:54):
clients, I was always having tofigure out how to position them
so that they would stand out ina world that was so much bigger.
So if I had a little savingsand loan with three offices, I
had to position them.
I had a little real estatecompany called Fireside Homes,
which I think is still around,and I had to position them in a

(15:17):
way that they became successful.
And I had a little car dealer atthe time and we invented we
literally invented thehassle-free loan car.
We called it.
There were no loan cars inthose days, it didn't happen at
a dealer.
We invented it and all of asudden this little Subaru dealer
became like the number onedealer in the country.

(15:38):
Wow.
So I never knew that I wasdoing that.
But that's in essence where Ikinda got my chops for it and I
went off in a differentdirection.
I was a film director, did otherthings, became a facilitator
and then eventually startedworking and doing some
consulting with little companiesin Microsoft.
And it was really someone atMicrosoft who said to me one day

(16:01):
he said there's a company inSan Francisco and they do what's
called strategic visioning andit's all visual.
And he says I think you'd begood at that.
And I said, well, let's go look.
So we flew down to SanFrancisco and we went and spent
two days with this company andthey had all these posters

(16:22):
Remember the posters?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I bought everything and webrought it back.
And then we took his team, theMicrosoft team.
We took him on an offsite andevery night Norberto and I would
sit and we'd look at theselittle pamphlets they'd given us
to try to figure out what wewere gonna do the next day,
cause we had no idea we weremaking it up.

(16:44):
But his organization toppedeverybody else that year and I
started to take that and myhistory, my background, my
advertising, all of that.
I began to study and just readyou know just all the guys, you
know the men and women that arethe gurus out there and I
realized that what I was puttingtogether was this way of

(17:08):
thinking that I called strategicvisioning.
And years later, after doing anumber of companies, I developed
my own IP and so cause I kindof condensed it and focused on
the things that were mostimportant.
Because, academically, when youlearn how to do strategy at
Stanford, lots of fun.
There's no CEO in the worldthat's gonna take the time to do

(17:31):
that.
They will turn it over to aMcKenzie to do that kind of
depth.
But if you want you and the newpeople, like we did, you know in
your organization, if you wantthem to make those decisions,
you can't take them offline forliterally weeks at a time.
Right, you know to look at allthe analysis, so you have to.
I had to develop a methodologywhere, because I already have

(17:54):
your knowledge, we don't I as aconsultant, I didn't come in to
need to get that knowledge.
Like McKenzie, you guys alreadyhad it.
All I had to do was lead you ona path that would surface what
you know and then give you theplatform and the technique and
take you and push you.
You know, not be afraid.

(18:15):
That's part of it too, which isto not be afraid to push people
.
And I learned that kind of atMicrosoft, because I was doing
this for a number oforganizations at Microsoft and
there's, you know, some prettyheavyweight, smart people and
they can be pretty intimidating,and I realized that if I didn't
go nose to nose with them theywould write me off.

(18:36):
So, and you know, talk aboutimposter syndrome.
You know there was a part of methat went at some point someone
is going to go.
What do you know?
You know nothing and I, in asense, I did know nothing, but
you know, see, I didn't have toknow, you knew.
So when I came into yourorganization and I had been
doing it for 10 years by thenwhen I came into your

(18:57):
organization, I was confidentbecause I knew you guys would
figure it out.

Jon (19:02):
Well, that's the beauty of it all.
You weren't in the whateverindustry you want to call it.
You weren't in the nonprofitindustry, nonprofit sector.
You weren't in theentertainment or festivals and
events industry, but it didn'tmatter, because your methodology
transcends all of that.
You know, I remember one thinghearing in our sessions as some

(19:22):
of the more senior folks they'dhear you out and say well, we
hear what you're saying, mar-dig, but we're a little different,
we're a pretty uniqueorganization and we're we're
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I do remember that and I knowand I understand now that that
is absolutely true at the groundlevel, that is true in the
weeds.
But the higher up you move yourperspective, the less and less

(19:44):
that is true, the less and lessthat even matters.
And from 30,000 feet there's noreal material difference
between a festival producer oran independent jewelry maker or
a dog food manufacturer oraircraft manufacturer Doesn't
really matter.
The principles that you weretrying your best to guide us
towards, don't care about thatlevel of detail.

(20:06):
You've got to get.

Mardig (20:07):
You have to get higher than that, yeah, I've had CEOs
who I generally interact withbefore I go to work with them.
They said, well, you don't knowanything about our industry.
And I will say, isn't thatgreat?
And they kind of look at melike, what are you talking about
?
I say the fact that I don'tknow anything about your
industry means you're guaranteedone person in the room who's

(20:29):
dumb enough to ask the question.
That might be the question thatleads you in a new and
different direction, because Idon't know what you already know
.
That doesn't work and I amunafraid to ask you those
questions.
And I will say, somewhatimmodestly, a number of times my
ignorance of that industry andthe questions that I asked and

(20:54):
posed led the company to makethe decisions that they did.
That led them to successfuloutcomes.

Jon (21:02):
I'm wondering now.
There's a saying that I've beenusing for a long time, that I
can't remember exactly where Igot it from.
It might have been from you,and that is the only dumb
question.
Is the question not asked?
Is that one of?

Mardig (21:15):
yours.
That's not mine, but it isdefinitely.
It is out there.
Yeah, it is.
I think that's probably beenaround for a long time and it's
absolutely true.
Oh, yeah, it's absolutely true.
I used to put I had a back whenI was in the, when I was
producing commercials.
I had a wonderful boss at thetime and he had a big sign up

(21:39):
behind his desk and the sign wasdare to be dumb and I loved it
and so I've used that, Iappropriated that and I would
tell people dare to be dumb,because that dumb question, the
one that you're afraid thateverybody in the room will go
well, that was dumb might be theone that makes all the
difference in the world.

Jon (21:59):
I know that the work that you do on any given day can be
incredibly challenging in anumber, in any number of ways.
But even as I'm sitting herewith you now and you're
describing your work, you'regetting excited, you're getting
animated, your hands are movingaround.
What drives you?
I mean, I presume it stillexcites you.
You still enjoy the work, butwhat is it exactly that

(22:22):
motivates you that way?

Mardig (22:24):
Well, there's a number of elements.
The challenge I love thechallenge.
First of all, I love people.
I mean I do and I love making adifference.
I love helping and guidingpeople.
I like to direct because I'vedone that kind of all my life
and there's a wonderful magicthat happens in the room when

(22:46):
people go from self-limitationto opening it up and believing
there's no limits.
And watching a team of peoplereach that pinnacle of
excitement and direction andcommitment is really rewarding.
I like it.
Don't tell anybody, let's nottell anybody.
I would do it for free.

(23:07):
If I couldn't do it for money.
I'd do it for free, becauseit's that motivating for me to
see the results and to see ithappen for people.
And to me it's really fun, evenwhen people get mad at me, and
I think people in yourorganization that were a little
pissy with me yeah, absolutely.
And I will tell them.

(23:29):
I'm not here to be your friend.
I want you to like me andthat's good.
But that's not my motivation,because if I'm doing that, I'm
going to back off and you can'tafford to have me back away
because I'm afraid I mightoffend you or because you might
not like me.
And I know that ultimately,when they achieve and get to
that place, they'll love me.

(23:50):
Then it'll be, they'll forgetall the times they were really
pissed off at me and they'lllove me because, man, I helped
them get to a place and becausethey own it.
And that's the difference is,when the organization owns the
decision, then stuff gets done.

Jon (24:06):
Well, one of the whole points is making everybody
uncomfortable.
You have to be, you have to be.
There's nothing comfortableabout strategy and different
people react differently to that.

Mardig (24:16):
The fact is is that if your strategy now, I didn't say
this either and it's not exactquote, but it's from someone I
highly respect in that world.
He said if you walk out of astrategy session feeling
comfortable about your strategy,it probably isn't a very good
one.

Jon (24:32):
I've come to believe that 99% of everyone they're
confusing strategy with tactics.
Exactly, I use the analogy of aboat Strategy is the rudder,
that's what's going to steer youto where you want to go, and
then tactics, that's yourpropulsion, it's your means of
moving right.
So you have to have both.

(24:52):
You have to have both to get tosomewhere.
But if you don't understandwhat that rudder is there's lots
of different metaphors here,but you're a rudderless what
happens if you're in a boatwithout anybody watching the
rudder?
You're going to tend to go incircles and after enough time of
going around in circles, thingsare going to start looking

(25:15):
pretty familiar.
I don't know.
I've seen this before.
And here's the cruel irony ofthe way that human brain is
wired Is that when things startlooking familiar, how do we
process that?
It feels comfortable, or wired?
It feels comfortable withfamiliarity.
Comfort feels good.
I think it just sets up thisendless loop to where we just
keep rinsing and repeating anddoing the same thing.

(25:36):
People hate change.

Mardig (25:38):
I mean, we do, we like to say, we like to claim that we
like change, but we don't likechange.
People don't like change.
I mean even good change.
If you're a smoker and you quitsmoking, you won't like it.
Yeah, because it'suncomfortable.
Steve Jobs, another Steve Jobsstory.
The other thing about strategyWell, strategy is positioning
for future competitive advantage.

(25:59):
That's all it is.
So it's deciding what that'sgoing to be.
How to get there is tactics.
Now you must have all, you musthave the vision and you must
have the tactical plan to getthere.
But one of the things that Ialways loved him for finally
saying and I used to say it, butof course, when Steve Jobs said
it, it became the law, Becausepeople would ask him well, how

(26:22):
do we know that's going to work?
Can we do a survey of a groupsomehow figured out?
He said why would I do that?
How do people know what they'regoing to want until I show it
to them, Right?
So, and that's what strategy is, and that's why it's so scary,
Because the thing we want to dois to keep doing what we're

(26:44):
doing better.
So they'll call a strategysession, which really is about
what are your goals for nextyear and how are you going to
increase your output?
That's not strategy.
There's nothing wrong withdoing it, Nothing wrong with
goals, nothing wrong withsetting deliverables nothing.
All that's a business part, butit's not strategy.
Strategy is a different animal.

Jon (27:04):
It really is I remember words from you from our original
sessions.
You were kind of wrappingthings up for a day, or you're
like I'm paraphrasing here butyou're like okay, so strategy is
time to make a big, bold bet onwhat the future looks like.
We're like all right, he says.
And you got to think about itthis way.
We're like all right, and yougot to do it that way.
We're like all right.

(27:25):
Then you put the capper on it.
You said, and you can be deadwrong, yeah, I said silence.
I just feel the air going outof the room.

Mardig (27:36):
That's the scary part.
Yeah, because if you're wrong,if Steve Jobs had been wrong,
there would be no apple, there'dbe no apple Period.
And that's a huge, I meanthat's a gigantic bet.
And making that big a bet?
Now he was up, let's face it.
He was up against a situationwhere there was almost a no
choice thing.
It was a they were apple wasfailing, and even part of it

(27:58):
even.
That's so amusing because, asthey and, by the way, the first
thing they were going to makewas the iPad, not the iPhone
they changed it midstream.
I didn't know that, yeah, andand so you want to be flexible.
This isn't about we know whatit is, we know what the bet is
and we're going to set off andwe're not going to keep checking
because we might need to makeadjustments in what that actual

(28:20):
service or product looks like,and that's true.
So you got to stay on top of itconstantly and reevaluate to
make sure that your product atservice, the position, stays the
same, but being sure that whatyou're delivering that big bet
is going to be fitting thatposition.
And as they were going forward,he also said well, he said and
we're going to have to put musicon the phone and they went

(28:44):
crazy.
They said, steve, the onlyprofit center we have at Apple
is the iPod.
You're going to cannibalize theonly thing we make money on.
He said, yes, we are.
Because if we don't do it,someone else will imagine how
frightening that was and howbold a step it was.
And so when I tell people, ifyou're wrong, you may not have a

(29:09):
company, I don't do that toscare them into not moving.
I do that to give them theimport of how important it is
for them to really not be.
Don't be foolish about thiseither.
I don't want people to make abig bet decision that is
unattainable I see what you'resaying or that is so foolish
that you would cause the demiseof your company.

(29:31):
That would be.
That's not where I want to leadpeople, but I do want them to
understand that you are in kindof an either or.
If you're wrong about this, itcan cost you heavily.

Jon (29:41):
Well, it's the indicator right To me, that's how you know
that you're being bold enoughand if it scares, the hell out
of you and whether you'recommitted.

Mardig (29:49):
Are you really committed ?
You know, it's like anything.
It's like I really want to loseweight Really.
Well, here's what it's going totake, you know.
Well, I don't know why I'm thatcommitted.
So, you know, it's like anycommitment you make, if it's a
big, if it's bold, if it's astrategic, and I mean it's scary
, it should be scary, it isfrightening.
I'm always impressed.

(30:10):
I mean I'm even impressed with,like the we're talking about
music and stuff.
I'm impressed with everybodythat does the voice or American
Idol, or AGT.
I mean I was in the businessand I'd probably be terrified to
get up there and sing in frontof you know, four mega stars
with their backs to me.
I mean that takes a huge amountof commitment, you know, to do

(30:34):
something like that.

Jon (30:36):
I'd never thought about it that way, but you're right,
because most of those folks areamateurs, right?
I mean, yeah, what?

Mardig (30:40):
courage.
It is to, you know, to go afterit, to seek, you know, your
dream.
Well, in a sense, that's what acompany is doing is seeking
that dream and being willing tobe judged and to be willing to,
you know, to step up.
It's a big thing to ask people.

Jon (30:56):
I'm glad that you described why you liked that show,
because I know from seeing youoccasionally on Facebook that
you tend to heavily opine onshows like the Voice and whatnot
.

Mardig (31:08):
As a musician, I can't help myself.
I still, you know, I still playand still, you know, do all of
that.
I just don't do itprofessionally, but I do.
Yes, I'm very old school aswell, of course, you know.
We didn't have auto tune, youknow, and we didn't use machines
.
I mean, we actually had to comein the studio and play your

(31:30):
instrument and sing in tune,sometimes all at the same time,
because there were only twotracks or three tracks, right,
you know.
So that's how long ago I was inthe business.

Jon (31:42):
My earlier podcast session I recorded today with a young
artist named Kiddus Fecto andhe's never learned a traditional
instrument as we think about.
He's all a computer kind of guybut he wants to.
He wants to learn music.
But he's actually he's young,he's just getting started, he's
got great momentum for what he'sdoing.

(32:03):
But we talked a lot about when Ifirst started as a musician in
my teenage years.
Everything was pure analog, youknow.
As time went on and then Istarted doing more recording,
working in studios, everythingstarted switching to digital.
So I've kind of gone throughthe whole transformation.
Even in the concerts andfestivals that I produce,
everything's changed and I wentthrough a period of time I admit

(32:25):
this is a confession, anuncomfortable confession of mine
it's a period of time when Iwas probably like in my mid 30s
or whatever, where I was kind oflike stuck in between those two
worlds and I developed a littlebit of a chip on my shoulder,
particularly around DJs, becauseI've done a lot of EDM work off
and on over the years and soit's kind of that question is
like well, is that really?
Is that real?
I'm using air quotes now forthe audience.

(32:45):
They can't see me, and I had asnarky attitude about that, but
as time has gone on, I'vecompletely reversed that and my
opinion now is who gives a craphow you're making music?
The important thing is, and thebeautiful thing about the time
that we're living is, it's neverbeen easier for anybody, for a
child, to make music, to makesounds, to explore that, to

(33:09):
express themselves, and that'sthe important part.

Mardig (33:11):
So this is talking about commitment.
Well, a couple of things.
My granddaughter loved musicand learned to play guitar a
little bit and then she recordedsome things and sang some
things.
She was good but not committedenough to go the distance.
But another, a better example,is my grandson.
So he bought a guitar and hecomes over to my house.

(33:34):
This is some years ago.
He comes over to my house andhe asked me to play and these
days I have it all set up in myoffice.
I have my guitars, I have mysonos, I have my system.
And people say who do you playwith?
I say I play with whoever Iwant.
I picked the song from theinternet and I put it on my
playlist and I figure out thechords and I play.

(33:55):
So I put on a song and I'mplaying.
I played some rhythm, I playedsome lead and he says I want to
play like you.
And how could I?
He said could you teach me,papa?
I said no, no, no, no, I'm nota teacher.
But I said there's tons ofgreat you can learn on the
internet today and get it there.
And he said, oh, I don't wantto do that.
And I said what do you want todo.

(34:16):
He says I just want to playlead.
You know, play lead guitar.
I said that's not the way itworks.
But in that was that desire to.
What I want is to be able to dothe cool stuff you do, but I
don't want to have to do thework to get there.
And I said, and I told him realflatly, I said if you're not
willing to do that, if you'renot willing to make that

(34:38):
commitment, then it's nevergoing to happen for you and it's
kind of no different.
I mean, it's a commitment.
And when you, when you talkabout a team of people in an
organization making a commitmenttogether to take a big leap
forward into the unknown, forsure that's a, that's big stuff.

Jon (35:00):
The tool doesn't make you the artist, it doesn't make you
the professionalist Like you say.
It's the, it's the time and theintention that you put in.
But, conversely, if you'rewilling to make that commitment,
the tools don't really matterso much.

Mardig (35:11):
Yeah, it's how.
What you use to make things tocreate things, However you
create and whatever you use tocreate.

Jon (35:18):
Yeah, yeah.
Are you able to share a successstory or two?
And you're working withorganizations?

Mardig (35:27):
Well, sure, about five years after I was working or
during while I was working withMicrosoft.
It's a little harder withMicrosoft because they were
internal organizations, so itdoesn't have as much, you know,
kind of a dramatic, although Iwill say I worked with way back
then.
Msn was kind of the powerhouseyou know online and they had

(35:50):
what they called channels, sothere'd be the car channel or
the home channel, the cookingchannel, all these channels, and
I started to work with one andthat one, and none of them were
making money at the time, andthe one that I worked with
started to make money.
And so other senior directorsasked my guy I said, well, how

(36:12):
did he do that?
He said, well, we worked withhim.
So I started to go from channelto channel and of the 10 or 11
or 12 that they had, I workedwith five of them, all of which
made money.
None of the others did so.
The next year the big bosses ofMSN are having the group, you
know, the big meeting about whatwe're going to do, and MSN was

(36:33):
struggling and how we're goingto make this work and asked the
senior director level, partnerlevel, that I'd worked with me.
How did you manage to makemoney.
They said, well, we did avisioning thing with this guy,
you know, mardic Sheridan.
We should hire him, you know,to do this for MSN.
They said, oh, we don't hireoutside consultants, I know.

(36:57):
So my story ends there as faras then the other orgs you
wouldn't know, the ones that I'mkind of proud of one that I
love because they insured mykitties is a company called
Trupanion.

Jon (37:10):
Wasn't that one of Clayton?

Mardig (37:13):
Lewis, it wasn't Clayton's company, but Clayton
was in Maveron.
I started to consult to Maveron,the venture capital company
Right yeah, yeah, yeah, and thatwas one of their companies and
at the time they were strugglingwhich you know, it's a startup,
it's early stage insurancecompany for cats and dogs, right
, and I went in and we did astrategy session and you know

(37:36):
God love them.
They made some decisions thatwere really hard decisions,
especially back in those days.
To insure your kitty or yourpuppy, they had to be, you know,
young or the insurance companywouldn't insure them.
So one of the things Trupaniondid that was unusual is will
insure your cat or dog at anyage.
Now your premium will bedifferent because it'll be at

(37:58):
your actuarial tables and youknow preexisting conditions for
the two years previous, butother than that, any age.
Not only that, because we havean internal I don't know
internal brokerage, we can makedirect payments to the
veterinarians so you don't haveto go through this cumbersome
reimbursement thing.
And they made some reallywonderful moves.

(38:19):
I give them, you know, hugecredit for taking those, taking
that risk that they did.
And then they had an exit or anIPO a couple years later and
did fabulously well.
Now, that wasn't just me, thatwas me coming in and helping
them strategically.
And then you mentioned ClaytonLewis, who is like, he's a
brilliant operational guy andhe's also a good strategist, but

(38:42):
in particular he was great atoperations and he would Maveron
at the time.
One of the things Maveron didthat venture capital companies
don't do is they had me, theyhad Clayton to help
operationally and they had awoman named Jill McGuire Ward
who was an HR specialist.
So they're little you know thestartup companies that were.

(39:03):
You know they're hard at work.
They'd send me in and they'dpay for it For me to go in and
help that company strategize.
Then Clayton would come in helpthem operationally and Jill
would come in and help them withHR.
And so that positioned Maverondifferently from every other
venture capital company, becausethey were basically saying

(39:24):
we're not just bringing themoney and sitting on your board,
we're bringing resources tohelp you be successful, which
then attracted more of the kindsof CEOs that would go, wow,
that's a VC company that doesn'tjust want to give me money, sit
on my board and give me hell,you know, until I'm successful,
they actually bring resources.
That's positioning.

(39:46):
Guess what I mean.
That's a big bet, you know,from Maveron to make that bet.
The other big bet they made wasconsumer only, face-to-face
consumer only Before that theywere kind of taking anything
that looked good and theypositioned themselves and today
you know they're strong, strongcapital.
Yeah, yeah yeah, and that'sbecause they said this is what

(40:06):
we do, we're going to be thebest at doing this and we're
going to bring resources thatnobody else uses.
So that's one of my kind ofhappiest stories, and I still
work occasionally with themtoday.

Jon (40:17):
Wow, yeah, you just filled in a little blank.
I knew I was familiar withabout half of everything you
said about Maveron and Trupanionfor that matter, but wow, yeah,
that's fantastic.

Mardig (40:29):
They ensured my cats that were at the time were six
years old and you know, blessthem for doing that, because no
one else would have done it.

Jon (40:38):
Just as I have been incredibly fortunate to cross
paths with you over the courseof my career, I had the
tremendous good fortune ofhaving Clayton Lewis as a board
member in my organization, andso we worked together, and
you're absolutely right thething about if I were to
describe Clayton in one sentencehe has this gift, like nobody
else, to take the seeminglycomplex, adjust the snap of a

(41:00):
finger, distill it down to thesimplest little thing.
Sometimes it's hard to evenwrap your mind around how simple
he can make things.

Mardig (41:11):
Yeah, he's really brilliant.
In that sense I've learnedwe're very good friends now, I'm
happy to say, and stillcolleagues.
But he would come in and, asyou say, he would all the mess
and he would just ffff, ffff,ffff.
You know, he'd just like he'dhave people just get it and be
on path and know where they weregoing.
What's that gonna look like?
What are the key deliverables?

(41:32):
What am I doing?
What's my plan?
You know what's my milestoneshere?
How do I know how I'm doing?

Jon (41:38):
And, yeah, he was, he's and he would do it at least in my
experience he would, because hedid the same for us, you know,
and in my experience he would doit extraordinarily fast and
with just the most pleasantdemeanor you can imagine, just
always a smile on his face.

Mardig (41:55):
Yeah, he's, yeah, he's that's a good description
incredibly fast.

Jon (41:59):
Yeah, yeah, you really gotta keep up I would be remiss
to not ask you to talk a littlebit about your musical past.
Did it start

Mardig (42:10):
in Moses Lake?
It did Well, of course.
I mean I started playing when Iwas like 12 years old, you know
, and I was an Air Force kid andI ended up in Moses Lake,
Washington, an Air Force basethere, and going to school, high
school, and there were a coupleof local bands that were the
big bands you know locally.
One of them was called theFabulous Continentals, back in

(42:31):
the days when you know theyactually wore a suit with a
little skinny tie and, you know,did steps, you know.
So they're a guitar player andsinger had to go away for some
reason and so I was invited intothe band and so I became part
of the band and then, about ayear later, we lost our lead

(42:52):
singer, went to the Army.
There were four of us and wedecided we needed to make a
change, so we chose the name theBards, and the Bards were
English minstrels that wouldtravel from town to town and
sing for their supper and theirlodging.
So of course Shakespeare is theBard of Avon, so of course it

(43:13):
was the English and the Beatlesand it was that time.
So we became the Bards and webecame quite well known in
eastern Washington and easternOregon and kind of the rural
areas, but we hadn't been toSeattle, we weren't big enough.
You know, it was back in thedays of the Sonics and Mary Lee

(43:34):
and the Turnabouts and you know.
.

Jon (43:37):
A whole lot of stuff going on.

Mardig (43:38):
And it wasn't until we, until Pato Day, the famous Pato
Day of KJR and his company ran acouple of dances against us or
against the promoter who hadbrought us in, and Wenatchee,
and no one was at their dance.
Everybody was at our dance andhe finally said come to the city
.
So we went to see, came toSeattle, and we started to play

(44:01):
the circuit for Pato Day andthen we had, we had a number of
little Northwest hits and thenwe had an international, very
medium hit I wouldn't call it ahit but it, you know, was on
Cashbox and built, you know, itmade it around the world and did
some and it was number one inall of Washington, except for

(44:22):
but we made it to number sevenon KJR and it was a song called
Never Too Much Love and CapitolRecords picked it up and now we
were Capitol Recording Artists,wow.
And they wanted us to do morelike that and we had, we had
rented an old theater in MosesLake called the Ritz Theater and
we would go and we wrote anentire suite of songs, including

(44:46):
and in those days we were quiteweird and still are, probably
and we did a suite of songs,including something called the
Creation, and the Creation wasfrom Genesis and a man named Jim
Johnson rewrote it.
So it was hyper, hyper lyrics,and it's about the beginning of
the world.
And we did what we calledspoken word.
And this is 1967.

(45:08):
And we were.
You know, people would look atus like what are you doing?
Because we had these musicalsegues and doing this spoken
word, and then we'd sing and allthis.
And we went to LA and I won'ttell you the whole story but
through a series ofcircumstances, ran into Kurt
Betcher.
Kurt Betcher and Keith Olson atthe time were really rising

(45:31):
stars.
Kurt had worked with Mamas andPapas, the Beach Boys.
He produced Tommy Roy, producedthe association.
Remember the first time youever heard of Long Comes Mary?
And that went oh my God, whatwas that?
That was Kurt.
And we met him in an elevatorand he invited.
He said what are you doing?
And we said we're pitching ourtapes, our garage music.

(45:51):
And we went to his house and hewent I don't know what you guys
are smoking, but bring some tothe studio.
And he produced what we todaycall the Moses Lake Recordings.
You can actually hear them.
We have a site calledbardsmusiccom.

Jon (46:09):
I'll put a link in the episode description.

Mardig (46:11):
Oh good, and it's some oh good and yeah, and it's all
there and it stands up.
It is very different kind ofmusic and so we were getting big
and getting big, more famous ormore known and like that, and
Kurt decided he wanted to jointhe band, and you know this

(46:31):
story.

Jon (46:32):
You know right where this is going to go.

Mardig (46:33):
I've never heard the story and I know exactly where
it goes.
Mike and I were ecstatic.
This brilliant, known producerwas going to come and be in our
band and our drummer and bassplayer said it'll ruin the band.
No, no, no, no.
We had a big argument, bigfight, and the band broke up and

(46:57):
Mike and I moved to Hollywoodand where I worked at Sound City
for the famous Sound City nofooling, joe Gottfried was our
manager and I was what they liketo call second engineer, which
meant I rolled up the cords andcleaned the bathrooms, you know
it set the microphones for KeithOlson.
Keith, of course, went on tosell his you know his Wellfleet

(47:20):
Wood Mac.
Of course it was his first bigsolo production, but 38 special
rinks.
Rick Springfield sold over 100million records.
He's in the Hall of Fame.
Kurt sadly went down a differentroad, died years ago, died
young, and that's why I wastelling you this morning that
Kurt tried to put together aband with Stevie Nicks, lindsay

(47:43):
Buckingham, a Waddy Wachtel whowe still see all the time, what
is fabulous guitar player.
And then Mike and I and Kurtand you know that lasted for a
heartbeat.
You know that didn't work andat that point, after a couple of
years in LA, I didn't like itthere, and when I got to get out
of here, I had a wife and achild and living in an apartment

(48:05):
in Hollywood and it was likeenough, and so I came home and
that's why, you know, I ended uphad another great band, another
fabulous band that, just as wewere beginning to hit that
pinnacle, broke up.
And that's really where I saidyou know, I can't let my life be
determined by musicians, asmuch as I love musicians, you

(48:26):
know, because you are one.

Jon (48:28):
You know that story is more common than knowledge.
It is, and.

Mardig (48:34):
I mean think about the bands that have been
unbelievably successful.
You know, crosby still isdashing young and they couldn't
stay together.
They couldn't.
You know it's.
It's, it's just the musicbusiness and on the one hand I
love and adore it, on the otherhand, I'm so glad that I made
the decision at 25 years old.
I said I can't do this anymore.

(48:56):
And that's where I laughinglysaid I had no skills and ended
up in the ad business.

Jon (49:01):
My successful band from my youth.
We were together for aboutseven years and the last two
years we got really really good.
What was the band?
Band was called Hyperlung.
Where were you from?
We were here in Seattle, but wewere doing our and we started
off as a very avant-garde,almost kind of like a noise
outfit In Seattle.

(49:22):
This is early nineties, midnineties in Seattle.
So it was a time unlike anyother time to be here.
We were based up on CapitolHill and our day jobs were at
clubs like Moe and whatnot.
So we were just, we were rightin the middle of it, but we got
really good and we we dideverything that every young
person aspires to as a you knowquote unquote rock and roll

(49:43):
musician.
We toured and we got to recordwith famous producers do pretty
much the exact same thing youjust discussed.
And then at that time in 1997is when it all blew up, when we
imploded, and the reason was 96,.
97 is when suddenly every labelin the world was setting up
shop here in Seattle and theywere just signing everybody.

(50:04):
Yes, it was just it was a goldrush.
It was exactly like a gold rush.
Nobody really knew for surewhat they were doing.
All they knew is that it wasimportant that they just grab as
many bands as they could, andso we got approached.
We were offered a deal with WillRecords which was Don Was is
one of Don Was's things at thetime.
So he was like, really likewhat you guys are doing, let's
talk.
And so we sat down and had acouple of meetings.

(50:26):
But at that point, wow, I, yeah.
So we had, we had, there was anoffer on the table that would
have allowed us to quit our dayjobs and just be musicians for
at least a couple of years.
And at that moment there wasfour of us in the band.
At that moment, two of us.
That was exactly what, That wasthe pot of gold at the end of

(50:47):
the rainbow.
That is what we had beendreaming about since youth.
And the other two had neverreally thought about it that way
before.
And they're like I I don't knowif I really want to do that.
I like my day job and I've gota family and I don't, I don't
think I want to do that.
And, long story short, that weit ultimately just broke us up.

Mardig (51:08):
I know that story.
Right at the finish line, andand with a chance with Don was.
I mean, I have a Don was story.
I spent a day in the studiowith Don I was doing Paul Young
at the time and it was afterBonnie Raitt had after he'd done
Bonnie Raitt it and I was therebecause I have a movie project
called Be Bop Alula, the storyof Gene Vincent, that I was

(51:29):
hawking at the time and Donwanted to produce some music.
So I happened to spend the dayin the studio and I asked him.
I said what I said Bonnie Raitthas been around forever.
We've always loved her inSeattle, but now she's gigantic.
And I said what did you do?
What was the magic to that?
He said two things.

(51:49):
He said number one, the songs.
He said you got to pick.
As a producer, you need to pickthe songs.
And number two, he said I gaveher, I gave her room to breathe,
and when you listen to thosealbums that he did, you'll
notice the space that he allowedin terms of the music, as
opposed to filling every spacewith an instrument or something

(52:13):
going on.
There's space and that's whatit and you can really hear.
You really get Bonnie.
You know you really.
It's like you're at almost anintimate kind of experience that
you have with music.
He was brilliant and he, yeah,he just he's still around, but
he just wore out as a producer.
He was just like he'd had tohit after hit after hit, did

(52:33):
really well and went I've got togo back to music.
So, yeah, well, you guys said,yeah, I mean, isn't that that
you look back and you think whatwould happen?
You know, we were the firstband to record Good Time,
charlie's Got the Blues, and itwas on the flip side of a
Capitol and we begged Capitol torelease it, begged them, and

(52:54):
they wouldn't do it.
They released a insipid pieceof junk that Jim Webb had
written.
Yeah, I did, and I mean that'sand I'm glad for Danny, you know
, because he deserved to have ahit with his own, his own record
.
But when I look back, I thinkwhat if they had actually
released that and it had beenthe hit that it could have been?

(53:16):
How would my life have been?
Different Things happengradually, then, suddenly, what
would have happened had you guysactually moved forward with Don
?
What would have done was?

Jon (53:26):
Yeah, I spent.
You know, I'll reveal my card.
I was in the yes, let's do itcamp.
So it was devastating to me.
That got, like I say, we gotinches from the goal line and
that game over.
So I had to chip on my shoulderfor a number of years after
that.
But one of my inclinations atthat time is like, well, okay,

(53:47):
if this is really, if we'retruly done, then I just want to
jump into the next thing.
But I elected not to and that'sactually what led me to one
reel and into the things that Ido now is.
This is an interesting littleside effect when we're teenagers
and we decide I'm going to playguitar, I want to be in a rock
band, and you have the.
You have the lofty goals andthey're all the same for

(54:08):
everybody universal.
You want to tour the world, youwant to record in fancy
recording studios with famousproducers, and you want to do
this and you want to do that,whatever.
Don't forget girls, girls, yes,the whole thing.
And so at that very moment, as Iwas mourning the loss of this
project and wandering what couldhave been and thinking about
getting into the next thing, itoccurred to me and this may

(54:28):
sound like I'm being snarky, butI'm not.
This is, I'm just, I'm beingtransparent.
I had all that list of allthese things I want to do and I
realized like, well, actually,I've just checked all those
boxes, I've actually done allthat and that was fun, but I
don't like a lot of repetition,I always like to keep moving.
So it's like I didn'tunderstand where exactly did I

(54:51):
think that I was going to gofrom here and I had actually
done all of that stuff and wasstill broke.
So that's when I kind of figuredout it's like, well, I'm not
going to really ever make aliving at this problem, less
lightning strikes, so that'swhen.
That's one of the beautifulthings about One Reel and why I
was working there is that Icould work.

(55:12):
They always had something, ajob for me when I was in town,
but I could take three weeks offand go on a West Coast run or
take a month off and we'd gosomewhere else or whatever go
into the studio.
And so I was very familiar withthe organization and I just I
realized I could have just asmuch of an impact, or even a

(55:33):
bigger impact, not being on thestage, but being off the stage
or behind the stage and helpingothers, whether that be
developing as an artist orputting on just the coolest damn
shows that anybody's ever seenor whatnot.
I could actually make a biggerimpact off of the stage and make
a living doing it too.

Mardig (55:53):
What you did was iconic in this city.
I mean.
Well, you know, and I know theydid their best to kind of bring
that back here this last yearand good for you know, good, but
you know that was, and I thinkthat's probably why it was so
hard for your folks to look atthis new world and say we're up
against the big ones.
Yeah, the big boys.

Jon (56:15):
The 800 pound gorillas.

Mardig (56:16):
And the fact is is the customer is changing and the
world is changing and the sweetlittle festival that everybody
used to go to and love the factand it just isn't.
It still has the drop but itdoesn't have the potential to
support itself.
I mean, it was, you know, itwas a tough, it was tough to let
go of.
It was really hard to let go ofsomething that was as lovely

(56:39):
and as much a piece of Seattle,as you know, Ivars, you know, I
mean, as as the fairies, as youknow.

Jon (56:48):
Bumbershoot was, but here's how I've made peace with all of
that.
The truth is, Bumbershoot and alot of those iconic events
Summer Nights at the Pier, ohyeah, the WOMAD, Peter Gabriel's
WOMAD Festival, which we didfor a few years At the time that
all of those were created andin their prime in terms of

(57:10):
however you want to measure that, there weren't a lot of other
options for your entertainmentdollar in this town.
That's what really made them asimportant as they were.
But you fast forward,especially once you get into the
2000s.

Mardig (57:26):
I mean my God there's more options every 365 days out
of the year around here, whichis a beautiful thing, but and,
if you think about it, it's thesame with any industry, because
you can start off as the one,the disruptor, the what we call
a blue ocean in strategy, whereyou're kind of the only one and

(57:47):
the sharks you know what'scalled a red ocean, and they go
oh, that looks good, and thenthey come.
And that's where, if you arenot staying ahead innovatively
and strategically, where youwill get swamped and you will
get overtaken and something newwill come along with the silver
bullet, and all of a suddenyou're looking and you're trying

(58:09):
to catch up instead of being inthe lead.

Jon (58:12):
That's why I, generally speaking, I don't like to
compete.
I would rather be out in thatblue ocean, which is admittedly
oftentimes a much harder path tofollow.

Mardig (58:21):
It's absolutely the toughest path.

Jon (58:23):
It's far more interesting to me.

Mardig (58:25):
It's one of the reasons why when I do strategy, I have I
spend very little time oncompetitive analysis.
Yeah, in a sense I don't reallycare.
I was just going to say I don'tcare what the competition's
doing, I care what we we thecompany I'm working with are
going to do.
That will be that will outpacethem.
We're not.
Because if you look too deeplyat them, you start to think

(58:46):
about how can we compete withthem at this, on this and about
this and about this?
And that's not what it is.
It's much bigger strategy andthe positioning is a much bigger
look.
You still got to know.
I mean it's.
You don't want to be unaware,but it's a.
It's a briefer look and it's ahigher level look than academics
would teach you.

(59:06):
Again, if you studied it atHarvard or Stanford, what they
would teach you to do is thisdeep, deep, deep competitive
analysis, and it's the wrongfocus.

Jon (59:15):
Yeah, there's plenty of focus.

Mardig (59:16):
It's why I don't do a SWAT analysis the classic SWAT
until after we're done.
That's the last thing we do, ohyeah, because why would you
look at your weaknesses and yourstrats and all of that stuff
before you start?

Jon (59:28):
Yeah.

Mardig (59:29):
That would only encourage you not to do
something that you think you'rebecause you go.
Well, we can't do that.
You're already self editingbefore you even got started.

Jon (59:36):
That's really interesting.
So I have to ask, before Iforget here, as a guitarist
finding some success in the 60s,what kind of guitar did you
have?
Well, I went.

Mardig (59:48):
I can only wish I had them all back.
Oh, that.

Jon (59:51):
This is too painful for you , you don't need to go into it.
But no, seriously, what'd youhave?

Mardig (59:54):
Well, I still have my last one which was a Telecaster
Hollow Body, and I still have it.
I had to have a new neck madeand I had to replace screws and
thing you know and some stuff.

Jon (01:00:07):
But I kind of Was it new at the time.

Mardig (01:00:09):
Oh yeah, Fender gave it to me.
The Hollow Body Telecaster wasa brand new.
This was 19, when I was withthis other band that eventually
broke up it's 1972.
And the Fender Rep, I was inPortland and he came in with
this thing and he said here, wewant you to try this.
And he said, if you like it,just because we are getting

(01:00:31):
pretty well known, I was apretty good guitar player.
You know People, other guitarplayers, would come to see me.
I wasn't a great but I was good.
And he said if you like it, youcan keep it and use it.
And I fell in love with itbecause the Hollow Body can give
you a mellow jazz sound.
It can give you a screaming.
You know high treble sound.

(01:00:52):
You know high end or in between.
Today, of all the guitars I haveand I have some beautiful
guitars it still sounds betterthan all the rest of them.
And I learned why is becauseback in those days the magnets
that they use for the pickupsyou can't get those materials
anymore and because of thosemagnets and they're wound and

(01:01:12):
they've had 50 years 50, that'sscary 50 years of basically
mellowing.
It's an unachievable sound.
So it's the only one that whenI go out of town I lock up and
put behind where you know ifthere was anything horrible
happen.
I couldn't replace it.
But that was my last guitar.
But I had some beauties alongthe way, including a Tal Farlow.

(01:01:35):
In Phoenix they have thismuseum of instruments and all
over the world a very specialstand out and of course the
Gibson Tal Farlow is there.
But for me in those days it waslike, oh, I wanted a guitar
this year, so I'd sell the one Ihave and get a new one.
Yeah, I know.

Jon (01:01:54):
Were you using Fender amps at the time, of course.

Mardig (01:01:58):
Yeah, of course.
So now I use a wonderful ampwith a boss makes this great amp
that's not too big, so it'sgood for the house and of course
, these days there's so manythings you can do with it
Modeling amps.

Jon (01:02:10):
Yeah, that's fabulous.

Mardig (01:02:11):
And you know, and that's the advantage of today, I mean,
look at that little baby pianoover there, the Korg, and it
sounds fabulous, and you canmake it sound different ways.

Jon (01:02:24):
For the listeners knowing Mardig's musical background, I
arranged to have this recordingsession today in the brand new
recording studios of the TotemStar organization in Seattle.
It's a beautiful space it is.

Mardig (01:02:36):
It's absolutely gorgeous .
I actually would love to recordin here.
It's got to be fabulous.
Yeah, yeah, thank you forhaving me.
By the way, this was fun.
Oh, it is.

Jon (01:02:46):
What is your favorite sound ?

Mardig (01:02:48):
My favorite sound?
Yeah, laughter, the joy thathappens.
Do you know that when you laugh, that you lose your muscle
energy?
Your muscles, you can't fightif you're laughing, I mean, your
muscles won't allow you to.

Jon (01:03:05):
I've never heard of that?

Mardig (01:03:06):
Yeah, it's absolutely true.
Have you ever laughed so hardin your stomach and you kind of
sink to the ground, Of course,and you can't move?
You're just in this kind ofplace of hilarity?
It's because people that arelaughing are at peace.
If you're genuinely laughing Idon't mean if you're laughing
nasty at someone, but I mean agenuine bubble of laughter it

(01:03:27):
actually makes you peaceful.
It's the opposite of fight.
Imagine if the world laughedmore.

Jon (01:03:35):
Nobody has ever turned this question around on me, but your
answer is nearly identical tomy favorite sound, my favorite
sound actually it's even morethan a favorite sound to me, but
specifically it's the sound ofchildren laughing To me.
I may just may sound a littlecorny or whatnot, but I've come
to realize that I think thesound of children laughing is

(01:03:59):
the meaning of life.
Who do you think you are?

Mardig (01:04:07):
That's such a boy, that's a doozy.
Yeah, that's a deep question.
I heard Marianne Williamson saysomething that I absolutely
connected to so well and Ithought yeah, that's true,
that's me.
She says we broadcastintelligence, but we are not
intelligence, and so what shewas saying is that we are.

(01:04:28):
Einstein said we're all onething, that we're all made of
the same stuff, and he saidseparateness is an illusion,
that we are all really the same.
Oh, who's that?
Wonderful, the star scientist.

Jon (01:04:48):
Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Mardig (01:04:51):
Yes, I love him.
And he says we're all stardust.
And when she said, I thought,oh, who I am is what I broadcast
, or what I put out, what I give, what I make of it.
When I think of it that way, alot of times I think, oh, it's
like did I do that, did I saythat?

(01:05:13):
Did I behave that way?
I guess I don't know if thatanswers your question, but it's
like who am I?
I am you, I am us, I am part ofthe whole.

Jon (01:05:30):
You're walking into an ice cream shop.
You're going to get an icecream cone with two scoops.
What are the flavors?
Vanilla.

Mardig (01:05:39):
Now the other one is pretty tough, but it's probably
going to be some caramel.

Jon (01:05:43):
Yeah, which one goes on top ?

Mardig (01:05:47):
Caramel.

Jon (01:05:48):
So finish with the vanilla.

Mardig (01:05:50):
I read somewhere that only like 11% of people or 18%
of people, will call vanilla astheir favorite ice cream, but it
sells more than any other icecream.

Jon (01:06:03):
Does that mean nobody wants to admit?

Mardig (01:06:05):
it.
Well, my wife doesn't believeit.
My wife I told her because Ibought it.
We were, I was getting vanilla.
She said why are you gettingvanilla?
I said because I like vanilla.
And she was like why it's themost popular flavor in the world
.
She just, you know, it was likevanilla.
I said, yeah, I happen toreally like vanilla.
And if it's macadamia, if it'svanilla bean from, I want to say

(01:06:26):
macadamia.

Jon (01:06:27):
Madagascar.

Mardig (01:06:28):
Madagascar.
Yeah, yeah, now that's evenbetter vanilla.

Jon (01:06:31):
Yeah.

Mardig (01:06:31):
Oh, that's, that's the real stuff.
That's the real stuff, that'sright.
Mexico has good vanilla too.

Jon (01:06:36):
That's true.
Thanks so much for making thetime to sit with me today.
Thanks for having me.

Mardig (01:06:42):
It was really fun, a nice way to to cap off the week
and head into the holidays.
I really appreciate the time wehad fun with.
Not just strategy, but alsotalked about music, you know,
and about the world, and eveneven some metaphysical stuff
here to wrap it up, not tomention vanilla ice cream.
So Absolutely.

Jon (01:07:00):
It's been fun.
And see, when I hit you up todo this, I remember the first
words.
I was like, well, I don't knowwhat I would have to say about
anything, but I think we'vetalked about a lot of good stuff
.

Mardig (01:07:09):
Indeed.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.