Happiness Tokenized! Revealing the ethos behind The Laughing Otter, find out how Woodstock, Live Aid , mental health and how the human power powers this movement. In conversation with Jeff Bogensberger about how this social impact project is more than meets the eye, the impact it has and where its going. An episode that screams Power to the People and how its happening. Tune in NOW.
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Transcript
The Laughing Otter - Jeff
Participants:
• JP (CMO of AdLunam)
• Jeff Bogensberger (Founder of The Laughing Otter)
JP
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Welcome to this episode. Episode of Driving into Crypto. This is JP from AdLunam Inc. bringing you everything about Web3. On today's episode, we have the CEO and founder of The Laughing Otter. It's a unique program, and I'm extremely curious to find out more about who they are, what they do, and how they're changing the world with laughter, one person at a time. So before we begin, I'd like to remind you everyone in the room, the QnA session will be open towards the end of the program. If you have any questions that you would like to ask the speaker, you can raise your hand or you can tweet that into the speaker directly or to AdLunam Inc.
JP
The second part is views expressed on this program are meant for education purposes only and it's not to be confused for financial advice right further from here. Yes, if we do get off. Yes, if we do get cut off. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to remind you, please visit the AdLunam Inc. Twitter handle for the link to jump back into the show. We know that this does happen sometimes on rare occasion, but in case you're floundering about, where do we find the next link to jump back onto the program? This is where it's at. All right, so without further ado, once again, Jeff, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.
Jeff
Yeah, well, thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to the conversation. I know you guys are doing a lot of great things in this space, so I'm really looking forward to this.
JP
Awesome. Jeff, thank you for being here. Looking forward to this as well. Was very curious when my team reached out to you about the laughing Otter. So before we go more into what the Laughing Otter does, tell us a little about who you are, what you do, and what got you into the Web3 space.
Jeff
Okay, so I'm originally from Canada, but I now live in Australia. I've been in and around startups and business now for close to 30 years. And what I'm doing now with the Laughing Otter and what got me into web3 is the Laughing Otter is primarily a social impact project around improving mental health and the lives of children around the world. And what got me excited about Web3, although the technology is just fantastic and there's brilliant people everywhere building stuff, it was the emotionally charged community of hundreds of millions of people who believe that now is the time for change and it's time to make the world a fairer, cleaner, kinder world. And it's that emotion and the great people in Web3 that really gets me excited.
JP
Okay, that's extremely deep. Jeff, thank you for sharing that part, but tell us a little about what got you inspired to start The Laughing Otter. I mean, as much as the name suggests something jovial, something, of course, that is positive, something to look forward to. I'm really curious to know what's the story behind you starting up The Laughing Otter.
Jeff
Okay, what happened was about two years ago, a friend of mine took his life. And when I looked around after that happened, I realized that everybody was hurting. The last ten years have been really hard on everyone, and it's been everything from Trump to Brexit to me too, to Black Lives Matter. Refugees, climate change. There were so many really important but very emotionally charged conversations that people were enduring. And then you layer COVID on top of all that, and then just the normal, just the everyday 24/7 news, the negative impacts of social media feeds, all of these things were just pounding on people. And I just saw an opportunity. There's got to be a better way. And there's got to be something that reminds people that our neighbors are actually pretty awesome people. And there's a lot of fun to be had in this world if we can just get out of this rut of listening to the bullshit that people like to feed us, that we all are supposed to hate each other, we're all supposed to be scared of each other, all of these things.
Jeff
So all of these emotions, when my friend took his life, kind of came to the surface, and I went, you know what? The last third of my career is not going to be about just making people money for the sake of making money. There's got to be more to my life than this. So I started the laughing, and now I layered the children part on it because, one, I've always had a soft spot for kids. I became a father late in life, and I developed a real empathy for other parents. I can't imagine the hell it must be to be a father or a mother. And the only reason your kid stops crying is because they're so hungry and sick, and they only stop from weakness. It just eats me up inside. So all of that and then you layer that to mental health. Most people will agree if you look after kids first, they don't develop mental health issues later on.
Jeff
So these were all kind of the negative kind of emotions that are quite real and raw in me that pushed me to saying, okay, you know what? Let's just do something that's a lot of fun because I'm also the class clown. My brothers and I, we have a simple saying that drives just about everything we do, and that is, life doesn't have to be this fucking hard. There's enough food, water, resources that nobody in this world should ever have to suffer. So why do we make it so hard? Why aren't we all just having a ton of that's? All of that combined is the spirit behind the Laughing Otter.
JP
Well, that's pretty deep, Jeff, thank you for sharing that story because first off, congratulations on being a dad. I'm certain that is, of course, one of the brightest rays of sunshine, a huge motivator for a lot of people who want to make the world a better place. Most parents want to do it primarily so that they have a better environment for the children tomorrow. Right? And I'm also sorry to hear about your friend. The ray of sunshine that comes out of that. Is that at least you're in their memory, right? This was a huge motivator to start the laughing Otter because it seems you guys are on a great track from the intent that you have about putting it out there. And now I'm really curious to know two things, right? The first one, you have so many social initiatives that do this in a very real world situation without having a large influence of technology in it.
JP
But there's an even smaller number that chooses web3 to make that happen, to drive that forward. Firstly, what was that point in which web3 became your medium, your technology driver, your technology backbone to take this initiative forward?
Jeff
I can tell you it was around:Jeff
The next day, just coincidentally, I had to drive about 4 hours down the coast and back in a day. So I was in the car by myself for 8, 9 hours and I listened to every podcast and webinar and YouTube video I could on this magical world of Web3. And by the time I reached my destination, I was shaking. Like literally shaking, going, holy shit, I got to be a part of this. The Laughing Otter has to be a part of this. There is something very special going on. And by the time I got home, I woke my wife up and I said, you got to hear this. You got to understand that all of this NFT blockchain crypto stuff, it's all wonderful. But what is really amazing is the people. It's the people that are driving this. And then that was about 15 months ago, and since then, I've just went crazy meeting as many people as I can, learning what I can.
Jeff
And the way I now describe Web3 is I tell people who kind of discount it, and I say, no, you can't discount this. I said, imagine the civil rights movements and anti-war movement of the 60s if the hippies were armed with cutting edge technology, the Internet, personal financial drivers and trillions of dollars investment. That's the type of technological and disruptive social change that is going to emerge out of Web3. History is going to look back on this era that all of us on this call are a part of and it's super exciting. History is going to look back on us and they're going to label this as a social era and an era of social change as much as an era of technological advancement. And that's what gets me excited. That day when I was in that car and that phone call changed my life.
Jeff
And obviously I'm biased because I love the Laughing Otter of where we're going, but millions of kids and people all over the world are going to be happy that I had that phone call and I had that drive to make.
JP
Wow, this is a spectacular moment. And as you're relating that, I can feel that energy and that point with you, because a lot of people first look at Web3 as purely the aspect of my first insight was the fact that I bought Bitcoin. And that's a normal response, right? We expect that. But I have to have the vision to be able to see that this is a people driven, completely decentralized, empowering technology that's taken over, that's empowering people once again to take control of what they can do. Using the backbone of the entire Internet is something else altogether. And you having come to that realization just after that conversation, if you want to give the guy a shout out, please do, Jeff. He deserves it.
Jeff
Yeah, actually, I haven't spoken to him since, but there's a DAO. To be honest, I can't even remember his name. But it is late here. It's midnight late for me. I'm an old man. Their DAO is called Ocean floor. It's a music industry attempt at changing, like, really disrupting an industry that really needs a lot of help. So, yeah, they're called Ocean floor. I don't even know because I haven't spoken to him since I don't even know if he I don't think he even knows the impact that hour long phone call had. Someday I'll reach out to him again once I figure out who he was.
JP
As soon as I have this link out, then I'm going to send it to you. And when you do find out more details about him. Do send it to him. It is phenomenal to be able to give anybody the feedback that they've had such a huge impact. But for him to have helped you get into the vision of pushing this movement, finding out, yes, there is a channel where this movement can go forward. Hats off to know. Jeff, I'm deeply moved when you tell me this aspect of the story. And I'm certain that while it got you to that point, it got you to that realization. The Mrs was woken up in the middle of the night and shared this vision. I'm certain that she saw that too. But I know that there would be more people that you had to bring on board. Right.
JP
And in doing so, share the idea, share the concept and get people to take part of that and build a community. Right? How was that for you? Was that challenging for you? Tell us a little about what that experience was like.
Jeff
Absolutely. It's challenging and it still is challenging. The difficulty that I face is my business model and vision is mostly around building a brand which is a little bit more ambiguous than we're building X to solve Y. And this is the mechanics on how it works. And people tend to like that more definitive description of what you're doing, whereas I'm kind of going the other direction. I'm not going ground up, I'm going top down where my vision is to create a global brand that's synonymous with improving mental health in the lives of children and then having the flexibility to go with whatever direction web three goes. And really outside of Web3 as well, like there's traditional revenue channels that are built into the Laughing Otter and having the flexibility of, say, the company that I model the strategy after is like there's no real correlation between an ice hockey team, a makeup bag and a cruise other than a really strong brand overarching it.
Jeff
And that's my vision. And I had a meeting today with a tech company who's building some web3 components for Disney. I said, See, did he get it now? And he is yeah, no, I get so that's the challenge for some people, but it tends to be more on the traditional business side of things where people and the traditional investors that go, they ask the same kind of archaic questions. It doesn't fit that. But when I talk to Web3 people and business owners, they go, oh wow, I get it. That's going to be huge. There has been that challenge like any startup, I've been challenged with resources and funding and stuff like that and being time poor. But really the next couple of months are going to see really the acceleration of two years of hard work and it’ll just get easier from there.
JP
Certainly it does start with and if you've worked with startups before, of course the momentum just getting to that point of momentum is the first challenge. And if you are able to bring your group of ambassadors, bring those people who are believers in what you are doing and have them also expand their time, bandwidth and energy to spread the word first, right? And get more people on board, then of course, it does become easy in a way, but when it comes to building a community, that is, of course, a huge challenge. So thank you for sharing that particular aspect with it. Where do you see the Laughing Otter going with this and what do you want it to do?
Jeff
Well, I don't think small. I want the Laughing Otter to be a globally recognized brand that's synonymous with helping children and improving mental health and giving people positive reasons to connect, be happier and just be a beacon of positivity in a world that there's tons and tons of people and billions of people who are awesome people on the micro level. But there's no real singular place where people can go. I'm having a bad day. I'll go to Laughingautter.com or I'll go to this event or whatever and feel better. So I just want that. That's my goal. And in doing so, the idea is that I want to help millions of kids. I want to help millions of people who get to the point of my mate. If I ever hear the story that the Laughing Otter made somebody step away from the ledge, well, I'll cry for weeks.
Jeff
That's it.
JP
Indeed.
Jeff
sive concert like they did in:Jeff
That's my goal. I'm a drummer and a huge music fan. That would be the ultimate. Now, whether I get to that point, I don't know, maybe it's just the concert in the local park or something, but every entrepreneur has that kind of vision in their mind of that one singular event that helps, that beacon that keeps you going every day, that's mine. That's where I want to see.
JP
Indeed, the moment you said Live Aid and a Secret here as well. I am from that generation that absolutely loved the fact that it had a concert. You're spot on when you say it changed so much when it came to hunger in Africa because you had and I'm saying this for those in the room that may have they don't have a context or reference to what library Aid was about, but that was the one singular event that was momentous. You had literally every single music star on that stage singing those songs. Right. And it was from Michael Jackson to Lionel Ritchie. Jeff, help me out here. These are top.
Jeff
The big one is like everybody always talks about Queen's performance, but I read recently the stats on it was that 50% of the world watched that concert. Actually, two concerts, one in Philly. Yeah. And that's pre internet.
JP
Right.
Jeff
That's pretty amazing. But it did. If you're my vintage in high school on TV, you saw photo after photo, video after video of starving children, and Live Aid changed that. The hunger in Ethiopia went away, and for a long time, Ethiopia was one of the fastest growing economies in the world. They've digressed a little bit now with some social unrest, but still much stronger country than it ever was, all because of one concert. And then you go back a generation before Woodstock. There's conversations that we're having today that are directly related to that. That drives a lot of what I'm doing, is just trying to recreate that global movement. And this time, another inspiration I have is Greta Thomberg, that 16 year old well, she's older now, but that girl from Sweden has done more for climate change than all the government organizations in the world.
Jeff
Just because she was able to rally passion and emotion to make change and say, Enough's enough. And I have trouble traveling in places like Southeast Asia. Nothing against the people, they're fantastic people. But when I see 16 year old girls subject to human trafficking and molestation, I don't have a nice vacation. It bothers the living shit out of me. Excuse me. I just want to change to whatever level, make some change.
JP
Sure. I'm glad that you started The Laughing Otter because it does put a spotlight on that we face socially. Right. And indeed, it is something that a lot more of us need to take cognizant of. One of the things, as you said, you wanted to expand, you had Live Aid, then Woodstock, of course, and both of them were massive movements aired on television. There was tremendous the names live on, the legends live on. One of the things is that there's such a strong connection to that name, to that event, to people still talking about it from that particular generation. Right. The reference to the laughing order. I'm certain that there's a story to that. Why the Laughing Otter? Because you try to create that picture and it does come up as a cartoony laughing animal. Right. But why did you choose that one?
Jeff
That's my years of sales and marketing. I knew that I needed a character that can be used in the same way that Disney uses Mickey Mouse or that can be licensed merchandise turned into videos, animations. For example, right now I have an illustrator and an educator writing a series of children's books based on the UN 17 sustainability goals and the Laughing Otter and all.
JP
Yes, you did.
Jeff
So the Laughing Otter and all his pals are involved in these stories. So when I was trying to figure out what to brand what I was doing, it was really simple. I Googled top ten cutest animals in the world and the sea otter came up and the description was a playful community animal. And I went, Shit, that's perfect.
JP
Wow.
Jeff
And then it just so happened that thelaughingotter.com was still available, which finding, I know it's not as important anymore, but I guess I'm still old school, it's nice to have a.com and it was available and I thought, well, that's some sort of a sign. And then I had someone design the logo and since then I've had hundreds of people comment on how the otter I had no idea the otter was that popular of animal. But people say all the time, to me, the sea otter is my favorite animal. Fantastic. It really lends itself. It's fun, it's playful, there's nothing controversial about it. If animal can be controversial, like it's just like who's going to say, well, gee, I hate sea otters. If you hate a sea otter, you probably need some counseling.
JP
Indeed. Yeah. I think it's interesting when you put it that way, because I think of all the animals, right? I mean, you have teddy bears and then you know that grizzlies aren't good for you. You have so many others, but never I don't think anyone has looked at the order, but more insightfully. And I'm glad you picked this one. It is that it is a community, fun loving animal, right? And that's tremendous. So more power to you, Jeff, more power to you.
Jeff
ative, sometimes it takes you:Jeff
But then when you hit the thousandth time, you go, yes, that's it, I got it.
JP
That's the one. Indeed. Indeed. Okay, Jeff, I'm curious now. Right? We started with talking about what was the motivation behind starting the Laughing Otter. We looked at the journey that it took. We look at where it wants to go. Tell us a little about something that you're doing on the ground, putting that smile on somebody's face, pulling that person back off the edge. Tell us a little about what you're doing with your team.
Jeff
Okay, so it all starts, I know it needs some work, but the hub of the Laughing Otter is thelaughingotter.com and it's nothing but positive stories. For example, one of my favorites that was on there a little while ago is a story of a homeless, a man in New York who built a music studio for homeless people where they can come in and play music and record know to me there is a theme here. I do like music. So that one made me smile. And I've had a lot of people say to me, gee, I really like your website. I was on there for half an hour reading these articles because it's the only place I'm seeing where I can find genuine things to make me happy. Like everything else I read is the opposite. One of my mates summed it up well with Twitter. He goes, I'm on Twitter for 10 seconds and I am pissed off at the world.
Jeff
I was like, yeah, me too. That's the core of the and what we're building onto the content is just going to get a lot more robust with everything from positive stories, videos, memes, to games, trivia, recipes, whatever the community kind of drives us to, as well as an NFT for good marketplace. I'm in the process of partnering with a number of not for profits where we'll design NFTs for them and then raise money for those organizations that'll be on there and then it'll be where it goes. The goal is to also have multiple skins of the Laughing Otter. So there'll be the Laughing Otter kind of core, but there'll also be Laughing Otter music, the Laughing Otter business, the Laughing Otter travel Laughing Otter outdoors. So that same vision and same thing, but it'll just be a little bit more niche so people can find stuff that they're more interested in.
Jeff
I mentioned the series of children's books. Anything like that is good. We're also doing a series of adult coloring books, which from all reports are very therapeutic for stress relief and stuff like that. I'm in discussion more on a local level right now as we grow. Just logistics, there's some events that we're holding. One cool thing that my little guy has got me back into is the Love of Lego. And they have a show here in Australia, I think it's in other countries too. It's called reached out. It's like a reality show where they build amazing stuff out of Lego. And I've reached out to a few of the contestants, and we're talking about doing some masterclass for Lego fanatics who want to come and learn from these absolute superstars of Lego building. So little stuff like that starting to grow. I've been around business for long enough that I know how to build a business that's got longevity.
Jeff
I don't want to build the Laughing Otter as something that exists today. In three months or three years from now, somebody buys it for X amount of dollars and everybody makes some money and whatever. My goal would be that 100 years from now, laughing Otter still exists and it's still helping people and it's still helping children and it's still improving mental health. So I'm doing this systematically, very systematically, so that I can have controlled growth with the proper infrastructure in place to support that growth so that nobody ever loses money on the Laughing Otter. The stakeholders, investors, will grow with the company. There's lots of stuff going on and a lot of conversations I'm having. I had a meeting today with the chair of the Australian Comedian Institute. So very connected in the comics world. We're talking about holding some events with that and just tapping into all these really funny people.
Jeff
Ozies are pretty funny when you move here. GC's guys are funny. Yeah. There are a lot of fires burning all over the world that over the next two months I'm raising some money, which is going well. Come July 1, I'll be able to throw fuel on all these fires and really accelerate everything.
JP
Excellent. This brings me into a thought. Right? So on the show before, we've had certain companies that have looked at the social aspect and the ability tokenize, right? And some of them have been about the environment, some of them have been about clean the environment, lowering carbon credits, looking at sustainability. And then, of course, you have this one, which is human powered. Right. Do you see in the next few years more people taking the social initiative and projects like yours more seriously, looking at the investment being in people and that being a continued driver, as opposed to, just as you said, invest in a company three years from now, make a successful exit with an exponential growth. Do you see that as a trend from where you stand?
Jeff
Yeah, absolutely. Within web3 and in the world at large, the amount of investment that's going into, what are they ESG projects, the demand from consumers for social enterprises and B Corporations, it's huge. In my entire career, I have never felt in my life that I have the right product with the right vision and the right strategy at the right time, more than I feel right now. And it's based on 30 years of experience, because exactly what you just asked me, the world is demanding change. And you know what's going to. Drive it. It didn't ten years ago, and it's going to drive it again. This time is the US elections. And this isn't a political statement. This isn't a political statement at all. I don't care what side of the aisle that people are on, but it is going to be so polarizing and so disgusting.
Jeff
AI is not going to help it because the parties are going to just use it to just sling mud at each other like crazy, right? The world is going to go, these people who control us, these people who have this power with zero ethics, it's over. And web3 is driving that. A big part of web3 is going, enough is enough. I was having a conversation today and I said to one, were just talking and I asked the table, I said, has anybody ever heard the term unbanked? And they're all people, my vintage all people who have been around 30 years of business, I got my MBA and I was like, that no, I never really heard that term. And I said, neither did I until I joined web three. I never heard the term on bank. It makes complete sense. But this idea of 2 billion people or whatever it is, that don't have bank accounts and have no access to improving their financial situation, the fact that that term and the desire to change that is now front and center is just one of the many things that are happening in the mental health space.
Jeff
You got everyone from, well, just the one chef that just took his life, the famous guy.
JP
It's on the tip of my tongue.
Jeff
It's jock something, I think, anyway. But everyone from him to the royal family to actors to musicians and sports stars, they're all speaking out openly about the challenges of mental health. And people are speaking about all sorts of social issues with so much more freedom than they ever have. It's not taboo anymore to say that something isn't right. And what that drives it drives investment. Social change will happen quicker if people see that it's profitable, just like recycling. Recycling would never have to reach the state that it is now if it wasn't for recycling companies figuring out, actually, we can make a lot of money doing this. Whether that's right or wrong, I don't care if it means that kids get food in their belly, well, sure, make it profitable. And really, to be honest, the laughing otter isn't a charity. I want to create the ultimate profit for purpose business.
Jeff
I want to make money profit for purpose. It just means that instead of making money by doing something that has very little value to society, I want to make money by helping, by making a difference. And that creates a self fulfilling prophecy. I make some money, I make a big impact. The laughing otter makes some money, it gives back, makes a social impact, which then becomes widely shared, which grows the community, which means you can make more money, becomes this ever growing snowball effect. That's what other companies are seeing, too. So it's absolutely a movement right now, the amount of companies that want to tag themselves as a B Corp. Company or an ESG company or a social enterprise, and even companies getting tax breaks by getting tax offsets based on what social good they do. These are all whether it's driven by greed or God is irrelevant to me.
Jeff
If it means that we're making the world a better place. Well, fantastic.
JP
Well, there's a bit of Gordon Gecko that comes to mind where he says greed is good, right? In some way, shape or form. It is a powerful motivator. You move by greed, you move by fear, though I would like to think it's, you either move by love or you move by fear, right? And at the same time, positioning a company with a clear intent that it is a social cause, but there is profit that's to be gained from it is a more real indicator of how people should or can continue to give, can continue to be part of the community. Right. I wanted to draw back to one of the things that you just highlighted in this, right? So the first thing was and this is staring at me because I had to look out, was it Anthony Bourdain that you were talking about, the chef?
Jeff
No, I thought that's who you were going for just recently. And maybe it's a British guy. I think he's British, maybe he's Australian and he's just on Australian TV. It just happened within the last week. It was really recent. So yeah, that was a few years ago, but I thought that's who you might have been thinking of.
JP
Yeah, indeed. Indeed. All right. Okay. But coming back to that, I like the fact that in this particular conversation where we're more aware of mental health, we're more aware that it is something that you don't take lightly. Because for people of our vintage
JP
We Kind of had that statement going, laugh and the world laughs with you, but cry and I'll give you something to cry about. Right. I think a lot of us grew up with that. No, you sweep it under the carpet. You don't wear your heart on your sleeve. You have a different persona in public. You keep it hidden, right? And then a few years down the line, you just can't take the pressure anymore. And it manifests itself in very different forms for very different people. While people may look at some of that as how do we put this? They may look at some of that as, hey, no, you know what? You just have tough up, right? Don't be a crybaby. You just have tough up. But to be able to say that there is something wrong, to be able to say, know, I don't know how to deal with.
JP
This is no longer a sign of weakness. And I want to resonate with what you're saying, Jeff that to the people in the room especially right. You can say that and you can say that publicly, and people will reach out. And if nobody else does, we let's just put that out there. And of course, ladies and gentlemen, those of you that are here, you know that the laughing order exists purely to be able to help you alleviate that. Jeff sorry, I just felt moved and.
Jeff
Thought I should you're absolutely that phrase you use, that I'll give you something to cry about. That was my mom's favorite, but yeah, in my hometown. I grew up in northern Ontario, Canada. You know, you don't you like you never talked out. But to highlight this, I went home. Actually, no, I didn't go home. A mate of mine that I went to high school with happened to be in Australia. We hooked up and he was telling were just like, sharing stories about everybody that we grew up with and everything. And he said, oh, did you hear about MEF's dad? And I said no. And he said, yeah, he killed himself. And that's horrible. This was a family, like, this will highlight it, I guess, the extreme. These guys, like the dad and three sons, they cut wood for a living for firewood. So these guys, they could chop 100 cords of wood in a day kind of thing.
Jeff
They were tough as nails family. But that's the kind of scenario where this guy could never have MEF's. Dad could never have reached out to, like it just wouldn't have what's when you say what's a beautiful movement that's happening is. People aren't seeing reaching out for help as a sign of weakness. They're seeing it as a sign of courage. Having the courage to admit that you need help is one of the bravest things that you can ever do. It doesn't even have to be. I had a job where I was managing 75 people. I used to say that all the time. The bravest thing that you can do is admit that you need help. Because I kind of learned that when I was a commercial fisherman off the west coast of Canada. Because if you didn't admit that you needed help, somebody could die. Like, if you were trying to figure it out yourself instead of being brave and saying, I don't know how to do this, it was incredibly dangerous, even though you would get yelled at and whatever.
Jeff
It was a lunatic place to work, environment to work. But having the courage to reach out and admit you need help is one of the bravest things that people can do. And so if you're hurting, if you know somebody's hurting, do not feel that you're weak, because this world is not easy and everybody needs help at some point. So feel free, know that it takes a brave person to ask for help. Reach out.
JP
Reach out. Yeah, indeed. Reach out, indeed. I know that we're coming to the close of the show, so, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question that you'd like to ask or if you'd like to raise a hand or just ask for help, visit thelaughingotter.com, you can tweet to our speaker. We tweet it to and tweet it to AdLunam Inc. We'll get back to you. We'll reach out to you, whatever it is. Right? And if you have questions, by all means, please keep them handy. Send them across to our team so we can take those up. Jeff, this is definitely something that needs more time, and I would like to pick up on this thread of speaking about mental health and finding ways in which to do that. And it's given me an idea to have a show in the future that we focus on that and invite you as a panelist with few others in the space that are doing something for something different, something offbeat from the regular things that you see in web3 in itself.
JP
So certainly we're going to carry this conversation forward right now, the last two questions that I have in terms of on the show. So the first one, of course, is it takes a lot to have the experience to get up and start something, and it takes more to stay committed to that cause. Right. So the first one is, what keeps you committed to the Laughing Otter every day? I know you put a brief flashlight on it, but I'd like to ask you to put a spotlight on it. What is it that keeps you committed to being in this space every day?
Jeff
Well, this one's easy. It's just too much fun. Okay. I get to meet people from I literally have conversations with fantastic people who want to change the world every single day on every single continent, except for maybe the one that's got penguins on it. Every other continent, every single day, I am exchanging conversations with and it's all positive. People are so open. They want to collaborate. They want to work together. There's just so many people who just want to change the world. And what I love from an entrepreneurial standpoint is everybody is so open to new ideas. Whereas in the corporate world and much of my career, people were so close to new ideas. And that's what keeps me going. It's just so much fun. I love this stuff. Even the conversation we're having, this is great fun. And I know that there's people from all over the world listening.
Jeff
What a wonderful way to spend time.
JP
ht. I'm certain it's close to:Jeff
We're ahead of the curve.
JP
All right. Okay, Jeff, my final question to you right. And this is something that we ask all our guests on the show because we would like to get some of the insight into their secret sauce. Right? What is your personal philosophy? What's a message that you live by? What's a code that you live by?
Jeff
There's probably a couple. One I already mentioned. Life doesn't have to be this fucking hard. And so I am one that my parents are the hardest two workers I've ever known in my life, and I can work as hard as they do. But one thing I do different and my brothers do different is we stop and smell the roses. That's one mantra. From a business standpoint. I just have a couple of things that are kind of my war cries that my staff would get sick of me saying. And the biggest one is if it's worth doing it today. Just don't talk about doing things. Just do it. And life and business, there's no watershed moment like they have in the movies. Like all of a sudden this decision was made and the company all of a sudden makes a bazillion dollars. The reality is it's a series of pull a lever, see what happens, make an assessment, adjust and pull another lever.
Jeff
So just keep doing things. And as long as you're better today than you were yesterday, then you're moving forward. And by the end of the month, you're 30 times, 30 of those days better. But if you sit there and you just have meetings and you just talk about things, then you're never going to better. So those are kind of the big drivers that just keep me going. Being Canadian, I'm big hockey fan. And one thing when you're playing hockey that you always hear is just keep your legs moving. Because if you stop skating, then it takes more energy to get skating again. But you can keep the momentum going. And so whenever I get really tired or when I'm having a tough day, I say that little line in my head, just keep your legs moving. Just keep doing something. And as long as you keep your legs moving, things will work.
::JP
Indeed. Indeed. Just progress and keep moving forward. Okay, I hear you. Jeff. One last point for everybody in the room. If somebody wants to have a program with the Laughing Otter, what should they do?
::Jeff
Yeah, just reach out to me. My whole business model and the whole business model of The Laughing Otter is about partnerships, collaboration. So if you have a product or service that's making the world a better place, making people happier, especially if it's helping children's, if you're a not for profit, if you're an artist, a musician, a comedian, the Laughing Otter is designed to have a lot of entrepreneurial flexibility and entrepreneurial creativity built into it. So I'm open for any suggestions. As long as it falls under the umbrella of making the world a happier better place and helping children get a fair start in life, which that can be anything. What I'm saying resonates with you. I want to hear from anybody who wants to move this vision forward. There's a few people who are helping me now and we have a little reminder to ourselves someday in the next few years we're going to be standing on stage at Wimbley Stadium looking out at the crowd going, we fucking did this.
::Jeff
And as a result,:::JP
Yeah. Awesome. Jeff, thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you for sharing your insight. More power to the Laughing Order and your entire team. Thank you so much once again for being on the show today.
::Jeff
It's been fantastic. And yeah, thank you for helping get the word out. So yeah, I really appreciate it.
::JP
Awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in on the show. We'll be back next week at the same time at the same place with guests that are doing spectacular stuff the same way Jeff has. Remember to check out our handle at AdLunam Inc. I know that if you have sent questions across that you'd like to have answered from today's show, reach out to Jeff or reach out to AdLunam Inc. and we'll get those answered for you quick. Heads up. The co-founders of AdLunam Nadja Bester is speaking at the CV Summit in Africa. So if you're in Cape Town, drop in and you can say hello or attend that conference on the 8th and the 9th May. Both our co-founders, Jason Fernandes and Nadja Bester, will be in Dubai at the Crypto 306 Conference and they will be speaking there as well.
::JP
So you can drop in. Those of you that are from Dubai, you can drop in and say hi to them there as well. Or if you have questions you want to know more about us, we're glad to meet you. From all of you who are part of the AdLunam community, and of course those from the Laughing Otter community as well who are on the show today. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being on the show. See you next week at the same time, same place. This is JP from AdLunam Inc. bringing you everything about web3. Cheers.
