# Q&A: Get to Know Blake

An episode of [The Science of Personality Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1517116280), 11 Nov 2025, 1 h 16 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1134107/episodes/18171194-q-a-get-to-know-blake.mp3

In the latest episode of The Science of Personality, Blake is joined by special guest host Valerie Stone, Hogan's marketing director, who interviews Blake to discuss his life, his role at Hogan, and his career journey. Many listeners probably noticed that there was not a new episode last week, and that was for a couple of reasons. The primary reason is that Ryne has had an extensive international travel schedule in the second half of 2025. The other reason is that this time of year is extremely busy at Hogan as we look to wrap up the year. But that got me thinking. How well do you, our listeners, know Ryne and Blake? In this special episode you get an in-depth look at Blake's life, and a similar episode featuring Ryne will be published in the coming weeks. Cheers!

## Transcript

[0:15] SPEAKER_01: I can take away nature.
[0:37] SPEAKER_01: Podcast the impact of personality of life.
[0:41] SPEAKER_01: Nature of human nature.
[0:47] SPEAKER_02: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Science of Personality Podcast, episode 137.
[0:52] SPEAKER_02: Today, we're going to do something a little bit different.
[0:55] SPEAKER_02: Many of you probably noticed that we didn't release a new episode last week, and that was for a couple of reasons.
[1:00] SPEAKER_02: The primary reason is that Ryan is a wild international travel schedule in the second half of 2025.
[1:06] SPEAKER_02: The other reason is that this time of year is extremely busy at Hogan as we look to wrap up the year.
[1:12] SPEAKER_02: But that got me thinking, how well do you, our listeners, know Ryan and me?
[1:17] SPEAKER_02: Sure, you can make a lot of assumptions based on our large catalog of episodes.
[1:22] SPEAKER_02: For instance, it's no secret that Ryan and I are sports fans.
[1:25] SPEAKER_02: There's at least one sports reference in every episode, whether we plan it or not.
[1:29] SPEAKER_02: But our listeners have been on this journey with us for more than five years.
[1:33] SPEAKER_02: So we thought it would be fun to do a couple of episodes where our audience gets to know more about us as people, where we come from, what our personal and professional journey has looked like, how we got to Hogan, and what we do at Hogan that doesn't involve the podcast.
[1:48] SPEAKER_02: With that, the format of today's episode is going to look a little different.
[1:53] SPEAKER_02: First, I'd like to introduce you to our special guest host for this episode, Hogan's marketing director, Valerie Stone.
[2:00] SPEAKER_02: If you work directly with Hogan at all, there's a good chance you've communicated with Valerie in some capacity, whether directly or indirectly.
[2:08] SPEAKER_02: In her role as guest host, she is actually going to interview me.
[2:12] SPEAKER_02: Although this might be a different format than you're used to, we hope that it gives you a glimpse behind the curtain and an in-depth look at my life, my job, and my career as a whole.
[2:22] SPEAKER_02: But before we get to this conversation, if you wish to give us any ideas for upcoming episodes or you want to ask Reiner me a question, shoot us an email at hello at the science of personality.com or follow the science of personality on LinkedIn.
[2:36] SPEAKER_02: Now, let's get to it.
[2:39] SPEAKER_02: Valerie, welcome to the podcast.
[2:41] SPEAKER_02: Is there anything you'd like to share with our audience before we get started?
[2:45] SPEAKER_04: Hi, Blake.
[2:46] SPEAKER_04: Uh thanks for inviting me to be a part of this.
[2:48] SPEAKER_04: Um I'm so glad to be here.
[2:50] SPEAKER_04: Um, like you said, I'm Hogan's marketing director, and I just celebrated my 13th Hogan anniversary this week, actually.
[2:56] SPEAKER_02: Well, congrats.
[2:57] SPEAKER_04: Thank you, thank you.
[2:58] SPEAKER_04: I've been here for a while.
[2:59] SPEAKER_04: Uh throughout my career here at Hogan, I've worked with our distributor network all across the globe, um, our sales and consulting teams, our global learning team, and just have been a part of some really interesting and exciting things that we've done here.
[3:13] SPEAKER_04: And I truly believe that what we do by advancing the science of personality and leadership plays a vital role in making people's lives better.
[3:21] SPEAKER_04: So I look forward to many more years to come.
[3:23] SPEAKER_04: Um, and on a personal note, I'm married.
[3:25] SPEAKER_04: Um, I have a three-year-old daughter.
[3:27] SPEAKER_04: My husband is actually our podcast producer too, and he wrote and recorded the original music for this podcast.
[3:33] SPEAKER_04: So that's a fun little tidbit.
[3:36] SPEAKER_04: Um, from an education perspective, um, I have a bachelor's in marketing from Oklahoma State University, uh, which you will also um soon to hear that is also Blake's almond water as well.
[3:47] SPEAKER_04: So don't yeah, we've got that in common.
[3:50] SPEAKER_04: Um Blake and I have worked together for going on uh 11 years.
[3:54] SPEAKER_04: Is that right?
[3:55] SPEAKER_04: Um so yeah, this is fun for me to be here today and uh you know help the audience get to know you just a little bit more, Blake.
[4:02] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I'll try to do my best because to you all out there, Valerie is technically my boss.
[4:07] SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna try not to say anything too crazy.
[4:11] SPEAKER_04: Right, that's right.
[4:13] SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, Val, what do you have for me?
[4:16] SPEAKER_04: All right.
[4:16] SPEAKER_04: Well, let's start about just your upbringing, where you came from.
[4:20] SPEAKER_04: Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
[4:22] SPEAKER_04: And what was what was life like growing up and what were some of your interests?
[4:26] SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, so I grew up, I mean, I've probably mentioned this before, but I grew up in rural Oklahoma.
[4:31] SPEAKER_02: So small town called Beaver, Oklahoma.
[4:34] SPEAKER_02: It's basically, if you look on a map or look up the Dust Bowl, it's right in the epicenter of where the Dust Bowl happened.
[4:41] SPEAKER_02: And my grandparents actually lived through it.
[4:44] SPEAKER_06: Oh, wow.
[4:45] SPEAKER_02: Um I was also fortunate to have a really good upbringing, uh, really good family environment.
[4:50] SPEAKER_02: Uh I have uh an older brother, he's 11 years older than me.
[4:53] SPEAKER_02: I have an older sister who's nine years older.
[4:56] SPEAKER_02: Um, one might call me a mistake.
[5:00] SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm told I was I was told I was a blessing from God by my parents.
[5:08] SPEAKER_02: So uh that was the nice way that they could put it.
[5:12] SPEAKER_02: But growing up, you know, I surprised everyone, I played a lot of sports.
[5:16] SPEAKER_02: Uh I was kind of a jack of all trades, but a master of none, just somewhat average to maybe slightly above average at everything, but not not good, but not bad either, if that if that makes sense.
[5:30] SPEAKER_02: But I played, you know, football, basketball, baseball.
[5:34] SPEAKER_02: Uh I ran track a couple years, I ran cross country a couple years, um, I even played a year of tennis.
[5:41] SPEAKER_02: Um, so I kind of did just about everything you could.
[5:44] SPEAKER_02: Again, not great in any of them, uh, but uh loved playing, uh still love sports.
[5:50] SPEAKER_02: Um, and the only one I can really do this these days is play golf.
[5:55] SPEAKER_04: But um did you have any that were favorites?
[5:58] SPEAKER_02: I mean, growing up early on, basketball was technically my favorite and probably is the one that I understand the most when I watch it.
[6:09] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, I kind of have a pretty good feel for what's going on.
[6:12] SPEAKER_04: Well, that was like era of the bulls, right?
[6:15] SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, yeah.
[6:16] SPEAKER_02: And if if anybody remembers our first episode, Ryan and I gushed about the 1990s uh Bulls teams, but now you know I'm I'm a huge Oklahoma City Thunder fan, and for those who paid attention, we just won the NBA championship.
[6:30] SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
[6:33] SPEAKER_02: And I grew up loving uh Oklahoma State University, so I knew I always wanted to go there, and so I did.
[6:40] SPEAKER_02: And I'll I'll just say I I took the scenic route through college, but uh uh I started in 2001, uh, but you know, took a little time off and eventually graduated with a degree in journalism and broadcasting in 2008.
[6:55] SPEAKER_02: So that's really kind of you know, from from birth to to um getting through college, that's really kind of what it looked like.
[7:05] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, very cool.
[7:06] SPEAKER_04: It's nice to understand a little bit more about uh, you know, where you came from.
[7:12] SPEAKER_04: So you mentioned that you got your degree in journalism and broadcasting at Oklahoma State.
[7:16] SPEAKER_04: Uh, so what got you interested in that area of study?
[7:20] SPEAKER_02: Well, it's kind of interesting how these things work out.
[7:23] SPEAKER_02: First off, because strangely, my mom kept telling me as I was about to leave for college, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but she kept telling me that that HR was a growing field, you know?
[7:37] SPEAKER_02: So strange coincidence, but I went into college with an open mind regarding my major.
[7:43] SPEAKER_02: But there was this one point where I was probably, I don't know, two and a half to three years into college, and I was a business major at the time.
[7:54] SPEAKER_02: And I kind of needed an elective.
[7:56] SPEAKER_02: It was that time around enrollment, and you know, you're about to go talk to your advisor and figure out what you want.
[8:02] SPEAKER_02: And I ended up taking an elective course that was called Media and Society, which basically is the first course one would take if they're getting into journalism and broadcasting.
[8:16] SPEAKER_02: So the funny thing is, is I literally chose this course because A, a friend had taken it and said, it's not difficult, but you have to show up.
[8:26] SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, okay.
[8:27] SPEAKER_04: It's a low bar, you can do that.
[8:31] SPEAKER_02: B it was a 12 30 p.m.
[8:34] SPEAKER_02: class, which really catered to my lifestyle at that time of my life.
[8:39] SPEAKER_02: Uh and honestly, if I be if if I'm being perfectly honest, uh, you know, it if I could work starting at noon, I'd probably work that uh that schedule like noon to eight and skip a lunch or something like that.
[8:53] SPEAKER_02: But um, and then also the the final reason was it was only five minutes from my house, so I could literally roll out of bed at 1220, throw on some clothes, and get to class in time.
[9:04] SPEAKER_02: Uh, but but no, that was you know, that was kind of what got me into it.
[9:09] SPEAKER_02: But up until taking that class, I would say I was an average student, not because I wasn't capable, but I was kind of busy having fun.
[9:19] SPEAKER_02: Um, surprise, surprise.
[9:21] SPEAKER_02: But you know, that class, what happened there is it covered four key areas.
[9:27] SPEAKER_02: So, like the first one was kind of your standard print journalism, which really is a thing of the past at this point.
[9:36] SPEAKER_02: Um, and then they transition into uh the second area, which is your broadcast journalism.
[9:42] SPEAKER_02: So this was like radio and TV journalism.
[9:46] SPEAKER_02: So this is these are the people probably for Hogan uh users, you know, maybe those the high recognition type people who like to hear and see themselves.
[9:56] SPEAKER_02: Um and we'll get into the you know, you're probably like, well, you you're a podcast host, so is that you we'll get into that later.
[10:03] SPEAKER_02: Um and and then so it transitioned to advertising, uh, which is still a thing, but it looks a little bit different than it did back then.
[10:14] SPEAKER_02: Um and then the final thing that happened, so I was, you know, I was paying attention, I was enjoying it, but then the final thing they covered in this course was public relations, and that's kind of when my ears started to perk up because for the first time in college, things really started to make sense for me.
[10:34] SPEAKER_02: And so from that point forward, even though I I did, like I mentioned earlier, I took a little bit of time off from school, not long after taking that class.
[10:43] SPEAKER_02: Um, but I was pretty certain that that was gonna be the best career fit for me.
[10:48] SPEAKER_02: And after that, I went from you know, this average student to kind of being the person who was setting the curve in the class more often than not.
[10:57] SPEAKER_03: Um it really clicked for you.
[10:59] SPEAKER_02: It it really did.
[11:00] SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I I knew nothing of it prior to that.
[11:05] SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm glad I was listening that day and showed up.
[11:08] SPEAKER_02: But uh I owe so much to that friend of mine who brought that class to my attention.
[11:12] SPEAKER_02: So that's that's kind of how it all happened.
[11:14] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, very cool.
[11:16] SPEAKER_04: Uh a fun little side note.
[11:18] SPEAKER_04: I also started out, and I don't even think you know this, Blake, but as I was trying to find my path, I uh did a little stint in the Oklahoma State uh School of Journalism and Broadcasting myself, thinking I would go into radio, and then I yeah, so we may have crossed paths and didn't even know it.
[11:35] SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, so very cool.
[11:38] SPEAKER_04: So, you know, you worked through college.
[11:41] SPEAKER_04: What did it look like coming out of college?
[11:42] SPEAKER_04: And can you tell the listeners about what the job search looked like and and what your first job was like?
[11:48] SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, this is this is interesting.
[11:51] SPEAKER_02: This is actually one of the fun parts of the story.
[11:53] SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I mentioned I took the scenic route through college.
[11:57] SPEAKER_02: Um saying that, you know, since I did start in 2001, I didn't finish till 2008.
[12:04] SPEAKER_02: Well, it was the summer of 2008, so August.
[12:07] SPEAKER_02: I was trying to, I had to finish the Spanish two class that I had to drive from Tulsa to, I was already living in Tulsa.
[12:14] SPEAKER_02: I was driving uh back and forth from Tulsa to Stillwater every day for like four weeks.
[12:19] SPEAKER_04: Which is about for people who don't know between Tulsa and Stillwater is about how far.
[12:24] SPEAKER_02: Uh, an hour and change, just a little bit.
[12:28] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, two plus hours on the road every day, Monday through I think it was Monday through Friday for four weeks, and I finally finished in August of 2008.
[12:41] SPEAKER_02: And at that point, I'm like, I I I just asked my dad, I was like, hey, okay, it's uh this has been a journey.
[12:48] SPEAKER_02: Can I take a just a month to kind of you know get you know get you know settled, get ready to go out on the job search?
[12:56] SPEAKER_02: Just give me a month to kind of relax, unwind a little bit after all this these courses and everything.
[13:03] SPEAKER_02: And then what happened in September of 2008?
[13:07] SPEAKER_02: The Great Recession.
[13:08] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so not a great time to be looking for a job.
[13:12] SPEAKER_02: And honestly, even let's say that the recession didn't happen, there weren't a ton of jobs available in public relations or or PR as we call it, and so there were even less once the recession hit.
[13:29] SPEAKER_02: And you know, in fact, most of the people I studied PR with in college never got a PR job and still don't to this day.
[13:38] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they since there weren't that many open, but people still need to find a job.
[13:43] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you know, they went into other things like you know, sales maybe, or like marketing was another avenue that that worked.
[13:52] SPEAKER_02: Um so the first job, luckily, there was a job open at Oklahoma State University that I applied for, and I was a finalist for.
[14:04] SPEAKER_02: I was almost certain I was gonna get this job.
[14:07] SPEAKER_02: But what happened is like I had a great final interview with me and one other person, and I was going into that final interview, and they said, Wow, yeah, because we had to prepare a PowerPoint, which you know how much I hate PowerPoints.
[14:24] SPEAKER_04: I can imagine, I can imagine what this looks like.
[14:27] SPEAKER_02: So I go in there and apparently I was the other person had gone first, and I was second, and they said, Wow, they said, You're yeah, you're we are we already interviewed the other finalist today, and bless his heart, he showed up and his PowerPoint didn't work, and so I'm thinking, ha, great, as long as my PowerPoint works, I'm good.
[14:52] SPEAKER_02: And then they said, But wow, did he do a great job with no PowerPoint?
[14:58] SPEAKER_02: Like he just adapted really well to the situation.
[15:00] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I still felt pretty good about my chances, had a good interview, and did not get the job.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: So I called my mom, who was actually working at Oklahoma State in the library at the time.
[15:14] SPEAKER_02: She was super excited, thinking I was gonna get the job, we were gonna have lunch every day or whatever.
[15:20] SPEAKER_04: Mom's dream, right?
[15:21] SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
[15:23] SPEAKER_02: And so um I called her and I let her know, and she was upset, of course.
[15:27] SPEAKER_02: And you know, we get off the phone and she called me back about 30 minutes later and said, Hey, there's there's this PR firm in Tulsa named it, she's like it's Schnake Turnbo Frank or whatever.
[15:41] SPEAKER_02: Turns out it's a firm called Schnacky Turnbo Frank, and she said there was an internship available and it was paid.
[15:49] SPEAKER_02: And she said, Hey, maybe try this.
[15:51] SPEAKER_02: You know, just you know, this could give you something to do until you you find a full-time job.
[15:58] SPEAKER_02: And so I applied this.
[16:00] SPEAKER_02: It was strange timing because it was like mid-October, not whenever or early October, not when places are typically looking for interns.
[16:11] SPEAKER_02: And I went ahead and applied, and they called me that day to schedule an interview, like the next day.
[16:17] SPEAKER_02: And what really was happening, what was going on there that I didn't know is that they had a couple of interns already that that they hired at the beginning of that cycle who weren't really their course load in college was a little too heavy for them to be able to work that much, and they they needed the help.
[16:36] SPEAKER_02: Okay, and I was able to work full time.
[16:38] SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'll work 40 hours a week, you know.
[16:41] SPEAKER_02: This perfectly fine.
[16:43] SPEAKER_02: Uh so I walked in the building in downtown Tulsa where this place is, and they were on the 15th floor, which is the top floor.
[16:51] SPEAKER_02: And as soon as I stepped off the elevator and took a look around, I told myself, I was like, this is where I'm supposed to be.
[16:56] SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was just flashy, everything looked nice, you know, like in the movies or whatever.
[17:04] SPEAKER_02: And so um, I went through the interview, and the woman interviewing me said, you know, we'd like to hire interns from within to eventually be full-time employees.
[17:14] SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, if the timing's right and they're good enough.
[17:18] SPEAKER_02: Well, that's what she said, but my ears heard you're going to work here full time.
[17:26] SPEAKER_04: That might but be what we call uh fantasized talent in other terms, maybe.
[17:31] SPEAKER_02: It was, it was, and but I I was so hungry and ready to get the career rolling, and you know, you get your foot in the door in a place like this, and it at the at the time, and it it's still you know one of the top PR agencies in the state of Oklahoma, but you know, there's others that have grown up, but most of the people who run these these big firms now in Oklahoma came through Schnocky Turnbo Frank at some point.
[18:02] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, yeah.
[18:03] SPEAKER_04: If you're not from Tulsa, you may not know, but yeah, Schnocky Turnbow is is a big name in you know in the PR world.
[18:11] SPEAKER_04: So yeah, that's a very cool internship to get straight out of college.
[18:16] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was uh I mean the stars really did kind of align there.
[18:21] SPEAKER_02: And so I I finished up that intern um, you know, from starting in October, and then I was only there like a month, and they already asked me, they said, Hey, you want to stick around for spring?
[18:33] SPEAKER_02: We've only had you for you know, we're not we're we're not gonna have you that long.
[18:37] SPEAKER_02: We'd like for you to stay around for the spring, but I had to kind of, you know, I at that point I'm like still needing some help, you know, I'm getting paid, but not really enough to fully make ends meet.
[18:49] SPEAKER_02: So I had to kind of get clearance from like my dad, like, you know, can I get a little help here?
[18:54] SPEAKER_02: You know, and he was like, No, you're in a good spot.
[18:56] SPEAKER_02: Stay.
[18:56] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, keep keep doing your thing.
[18:58] SPEAKER_02: I I trust that you're doing the right thing.
[19:01] SPEAKER_02: And then they asked me to stay on for the summer.
[19:04] SPEAKER_02: So we ended up having like a nine-month internship because they knew that there was a person leaving that was gonna open up a position for me.
[19:13] SPEAKER_02: And so I was just they were waiting on that to happen.
[19:16] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
[19:17] SPEAKER_02: And so that's really where I started.
[19:21] SPEAKER_02: Um, I guess August of 09 officially as a full-time person, but I stayed at the firm for five years, but that's where I pretty much learned everything I know about PR.
[19:33] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um like the the I want to mention a couple people because like Becky Frank, who was a partner and she was the chair and CEO, is someone I really admired.
[19:43] SPEAKER_02: Um, because I had never uh had a female boss before.
[19:47] SPEAKER_02: And wow, she was just like this incredible person to learn from.
[19:50] SPEAKER_02: And from that point on, I've actually preferred having female bosses.
[19:54] SPEAKER_02: Um, there was uh Russ Florence, uh, who was a partner at the firm, and what I kind of learned from him was like the biggest thing I got from him was how to stay calm when you should be anything but calm.
[20:07] SPEAKER_02: I mean, like dealing with crisis situations where like people literally had died, yeah, and it was my job to stay kind of steady and cool-headed in those situations.
[20:17] SPEAKER_02: So he helped me with things like that.
[20:19] SPEAKER_02: Um, I was lucky enough to work with the original founder, Chuck Schnocky.
[20:23] SPEAKER_02: Um, he founded the firm in 1970.
[20:26] SPEAKER_02: He's a genius when it comes to PR, but he passed away about nine or ten months um into my time at Schnocky.
[20:35] SPEAKER_02: And uh, but fortunately I had some time to learn from him.
[20:38] SPEAKER_02: But my biggest mentor was actually Steve Turnbow, who was like a legend in PR in Oklahoma.
[20:43] SPEAKER_02: And he and Chuck merged their firms together.
[20:46] SPEAKER_02: But Chuck was like the the brains behind the scenes, while Turnbow was like the the front-facing person, and he was always the guy you could pick him out in the room because he'd have the flashy suit and this big bright bow tie and just this huge smile.
[21:02] SPEAKER_02: And he was just, I mean, he ended up being like uh a father figure to me, and and all the other people kind of my age working at the firm, and he would invite us in on like Friday at at four, we'd shut the door in his office, he'd he'd say we'd have the kids in for happy hour.
[21:20] SPEAKER_02: And so we go in and just kind of talk about the week and things like that.
[21:24] SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, he passed a couple years ago, but but that's really what it looked like coming out of college for me.
[21:31] SPEAKER_04: Interesting.
[21:33] SPEAKER_04: So just a question.
[21:34] SPEAKER_04: So you said, you know, you kind of took the scenic route in college, and then it sounds like whenever you got this internship, you know, we talked about that the class that you took that really clicked for you.
[21:46] SPEAKER_04: What what was it?
[21:47] SPEAKER_04: I mean, it it sounds like you just kind of hit the ground running at Schnocky and you know, they saw something in you too.
[21:53] SPEAKER_04: What do you think, what do you think that was where there there was a shift from from how you were in college to this internship?
[22:01] SPEAKER_02: Well, there were probably a couple of things because you you really there's a few things required for the skill or like the required skill set you need to be in PR.
[22:14] SPEAKER_02: Like you really do need to be a pretty strong writer, but you also kind of have to be good in front of people and like in the in the conference room or you know when you're pitching um something to a client or prospective client.
[22:30] SPEAKER_02: And I was I I had I was capable of both of those things.
[22:35] SPEAKER_02: I I developed into a pretty decent writer, and so that really kind of got me in the door.
[22:41] SPEAKER_02: They actually made me take a writing test um to get in for the internship.
[22:46] SPEAKER_02: It's my worst nightmare.
[22:48] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I I told them I actually fun fact, they give you two assignments and you have like a debt, like a timeline, and I had 45 minutes to write a press release and edit a press release and send it back.
[23:02] SPEAKER_02: Well, I actually had a a classmate of mine queued up, and she was the best editor that I knew.
[23:10] SPEAKER_02: So as soon as they send me the stuff, I sent her the press release to edit it.
[23:15] SPEAKER_02: And I spent all 45 minutes writing the press release, and she sent me back her edits, and I sent it all on, so I technically cheated.
[23:22] SPEAKER_04: Well, maybe or delegate.
[23:26] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, maybe delegate.
[23:28] SPEAKER_02: Uh, but but then um the other thing is I was looking for opportunities to build or to to develop business for the firm, even as an intern, and got us in at one of the most prominent country clubs to do our our sales pitch, and I was there alongside the the partners, you know, Steve Turnbow, Russ Florence, and Becky Frank.
[23:51] SPEAKER_02: And I'm there as the intern.
[23:53] SPEAKER_02: They'd never had an intern who had successfully secured a prospect meeting before.
[23:59] SPEAKER_03: Oh wow, that's pretty cool.
[24:00] SPEAKER_02: So I think things like that kind of set me apart.
[24:03] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[24:05] SPEAKER_04: So we mentioned you joined Hogan uh about 11 years ago back in 2014.
[24:11] SPEAKER_04: So tell us from Schnocky, like how did you get from what you were doing as at your internship and then working at Schnocky?
[24:18] SPEAKER_04: How did you go from there to landing at Hogan, a personality assessment company?
[24:23] SPEAKER_04: How did you how did you land here?
[24:25] SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it could strangely save uh the love of music, uh which is kind of a funny way because it really started at an Eddie Vedder concert back, I think 2012 or 2013, somewhere around there.
[24:42] SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember it was cold.
[24:44] SPEAKER_02: That's what that's what I remember.
[24:46] SPEAKER_06: Okay.
[24:46] SPEAKER_02: But so I I grew up a couple blocks away, you know, out in the tiny little town from the person who was running the marketing department at Hogan in 2013 or so, whatever.
[24:56] SPEAKER_02: And I happened to run into her at that concert, and then I ran into her again right after the concert at a nearby pub.
[25:04] SPEAKER_02: Uh, and as we were catching up, I mentioned I was working at a PR agency.
[25:10] SPEAKER_02: And that was that.
[25:12] SPEAKER_02: Go your separate ways.
[25:14] SPEAKER_02: And then several months had passed, and I just get this random message from her asking, hey, would you be interested in joining Hogan's marketing team as a in a in a public relations role?
[25:27] SPEAKER_02: And at the time, I wasn't really that interested, but I guess they uh and Valerie, you might even remember, but she had mentioned, I think, a PR firm that Hogan had been working with that wasn't necessarily meeting expectations.
[25:46] SPEAKER_02: And so I think well, I think her her thought there was just like, why not bring this in-house if we know a person who could maybe do this?
[25:55] SPEAKER_02: But I wasn't interested at the time though, because a client that I had at Schnocky had actually hired me to be the marketing director, and I was pretty new to that job and didn't want to uh you know it didn't feel right to leave, yeah.
[26:14] SPEAKER_02: But um after a while I started to realize that there was something off at this job, and what I I didn't realize then that I know now is that my values didn't align with this job, it was a financial institution, yeah.
[26:35] SPEAKER_02: And so I after a while after a few more months, I reached back out to her and said, Hey, are you still interested in this?
[26:44] SPEAKER_02: And I it took off from there.
[26:47] SPEAKER_02: We met like a week later for happy hour, and then it was like I took the assessments like the next day, and then I think the next week I was interviewing with you all, yeah, the marketing team.
[27:00] SPEAKER_03: I remember that, yeah.
[27:02] SPEAKER_02: And um, which is kind of intimidating.
[27:05] SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm sitting around this table uh and all these people are just peppering me with questions, but you know, I think I guess I had the right answers because um shortly after I got the job offer, and honestly, I wasted zero time accepting it.
[27:21] SPEAKER_02: Uh I didn't even try to negotiate in my current role.
[27:24] SPEAKER_02: I was that wasn't even part of the equation because I A, the values didn't align.
[27:29] SPEAKER_02: And B, although I was joining a marketing team, I wasn't getting to do necessarily the PR work in my role there.
[27:38] SPEAKER_02: And so I wasn't fulfilling that kind of passion that I had.
[27:42] SPEAKER_04: So that makes sense.
[27:44] SPEAKER_02: So on December 1, 2014, I officially started at Hogan.
[27:48] SPEAKER_04: Interesting.
[27:50] SPEAKER_04: And now, you know, now you know so much more about values and you know, um, what your assessment assessment results uh reveal to you about what your values are and drivers and what motivates you.
[28:03] SPEAKER_04: And it's interesting because sometimes those things are just feelings whenever you're in a place that doesn't feel right.
[28:08] SPEAKER_04: You can't really put your finger on it, but it just something doesn't mesh.
[28:12] SPEAKER_04: And it's so it's so interesting to have this kind of insight that we have um through our own personality assessments, and that you can point back to maybe that's what it was that felt off.
[28:22] SPEAKER_02: Well, if you think about a financial institution, like obviously one core value that you would you would kind of want would be commerce, right?
[28:30] SPEAKER_02: And I'm super low.
[28:32] SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, I mean like way low on commerce.
[28:35] SPEAKER_02: Um, sure, yeah, I like to make a decent living, but that's not what I'm about, you know?
[28:40] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, and I think the other one was that the people who worked there, although they were great people, had been there for years and years, and so I think there was also this kind of high tradition, okay, which I am really super low there too.
[28:56] SPEAKER_02: And I think part of that also staying there forever, they had that security, and I'm super low there.
[29:03] SPEAKER_02: I mean, just none of it none of it synced up with me.
[29:06] SPEAKER_04: And this is why we recommend everyone uses personality assessments in talent decisions, makes a difference, yeah.
[29:14] SPEAKER_02: I because I think I had the right like HPI to be in that role, but my MVPI wouldn't have aligned at all had I had I known.
[29:24] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, for sure.
[29:26] SPEAKER_04: So, what was it like to come to an organization so steeped in personality psychology when you had no prior experience in this field?
[29:34] SPEAKER_02: Uh well I didn't know, yeah, I I knew nothing about it.
[29:39] SPEAKER_02: I think and and I'm still like this to this to this day, but I was really wanting a challenge.
[29:49] SPEAKER_02: And the the thought of knowing that I was gonna be working at a place where the work that I do was going to not just be like seen on the local level or more like state, regional level, but more so on the national and global stage.
[30:10] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was really appealing to me.
[30:13] SPEAKER_02: And I told everybody that yes, of course I can do this, but I didn't know.
[30:19] SPEAKER_02: I wasn't sure.
[30:21] SPEAKER_02: Um, that was a gamble I was willing to take, though.
[30:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um I didn't care whether it was personality or tires or whatever.
[30:29] SPEAKER_02: If it was a PR role and it was something new that that got me out of my comfort zone a little bit and gave me a new challenge, I was all for it back then.
[30:37] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you know, now I just love where I am, so I'm not looking for that new challenge.
[30:41] SPEAKER_02: I I I like finding new challenges within Hogan.
[30:45] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
[30:47] SPEAKER_04: So uh you joined Hogan as the public relations manager, which is technically your primary role today.
[30:53] SPEAKER_04: Uh, listener, you may not know this.
[30:56] SPEAKER_04: He doesn't just co-host the podcast.
[30:58] SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, he does have a pretty um intense day-to-day role.
[31:03] SPEAKER_04: So can you talk a little bit more about your PR role and what that involves on a daily basis?
[31:10] SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, so I think one thing that people probably should realize is that there is some overlap between PR and marketing, um, just kind of naturally.
[31:22] SPEAKER_02: But really, PR is a different animal.
[31:25] SPEAKER_02: It's a it's it's something different.
[31:29] SPEAKER_02: So when I started Hogan, my job really I kind of had to start from scratch.
[31:34] SPEAKER_02: I had to build a foundation, and so what that involved was kind of learning the industry that I really didn't know.
[31:43] SPEAKER_02: And I also had to kind of do my research on the people who it were in the media who covered the industry.
[31:52] SPEAKER_02: Um, so being unfamiliar with anything related to personality psychology or talent management or HR, um, I I just had a lot to learn.
[32:04] SPEAKER_02: And what I found out pretty early on is that Hogan did have a lot of respect within the industry, particularly in the US, um in the media, but it just kind of it was like there was a it was like an engine that needed a spark plug.
[32:21] SPEAKER_06: Right.
[32:21] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I think I was the spark plug for it.
[32:25] SPEAKER_02: Um, or at least I like to think.
[32:26] SPEAKER_02: Hopefully that's not the fantasized talent.
[32:28] SPEAKER_04: Um you played a role for sure, yeah.
[32:32] SPEAKER_02: And also at the time, whenever I joined, uh, we were in the process of building the brand new headquarters in downtown Tulsa.
[32:41] SPEAKER_02: So that was a pretty big opportunity opportunity for me to raise the profile of Hogan and Tulsa, where actually a lot of people didn't really know who we are.
[32:51] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
[32:51] SPEAKER_02: Which was strange because now today I think people in Tulsa, they see our building, of course.
[32:59] SPEAKER_02: Um, but they know a lot more about it.
[33:01] SPEAKER_02: In fact, it's I I've even heard people like say, Oh, you work at Hogan, gosh, I would really love to work there.
[33:08] SPEAKER_02: Like, what's it, you know?
[33:10] SPEAKER_02: So it's a very much desired spot to land for people in Tulsa.
[33:15] SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
[33:17] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[33:18] SPEAKER_02: And so with this new headquarters and having been in Tulsa's inner PR and media circles for you know five, six years leading up to it, it was really the perfect kind of first project for me to tackle in that first year.
[33:32] SPEAKER_02: But that's one project, and then you have your grand opening, and it's uh next, we gotta what's what's next on your plate.
[33:40] SPEAKER_02: So as the years went by, uh kind of we started to really grow Hogan's presence on the the local, national, global levels more so than prior.
[33:49] SPEAKER_02: Um, but it kind of became clear that we could do more, and that I was gonna need some help because I was, you know, the one man show.
[33:58] SPEAKER_02: So I'd like to mention Allison Howell here.
[34:02] SPEAKER_02: She's our at the time, whenever we were kind of going through these discussions, she was the marketing director and she's now our VP of market innovation.
[34:13] SPEAKER_02: But she was starting to do some research on PR firms in Europe because that was the place we were wanting to kind of uh raise more awareness and raise the Hogan profile in Europe.
[34:24] SPEAKER_02: And so we eventually entered a relationship with Hopscotch EU in 2019, which is one of Europe's top PR agencies.
[34:34] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, fast forward to 2023, Hopscotch even started an operation in uh North America slash South America, and we added them to the team as well.
[34:48] SPEAKER_02: And now today, I guess my job as the PR manager really involves working closely with both of those teams.
[34:55] SPEAKER_02: And I want to say, like, it's just such a delight to have so many people who can help ramp up Hogan's profile, yeah, and also speak the same language as me.
[35:06] SPEAKER_02: And Valerie, you're seeing a lot more of that now than you have in the past couple of years as you've taken on the role of the marketing director.
[35:13] SPEAKER_02: Um, but with with them, you know, we communicate daily about new opportunities.
[35:18] SPEAKER_02: I mean, just earlier we were preparing something for the Guardian.
[35:21] SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh so we're I mean, we've done so much and covered so much ground in the past six years or so.
[35:30] SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh I think my approach to working with the people at Hopscotch is pretty methodical, intentional, and thoughtful.
[35:38] SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, there's a couple things I learned when working in an agency environment.
[35:42] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I try to do my best to apply those things in my work with hopscotch.
[35:48] SPEAKER_02: And the first is that the PR world it moves so fast, and deadlines are really important.
[35:54] SPEAKER_04: That surprised me.
[35:56] SPEAKER_04: I I mean coming in to these meetings with you and kind of my first real exposure to PR and the way the world works from that side of the marketing house, I I've you know, I didn't realize that it was truly that quick and we move that fast.
[36:11] SPEAKER_04: We'll have an idea pitched in the morning, and by you know, early afternoon we've got something out there, so it's crazy.
[36:18] SPEAKER_02: Literally happened today.
[36:19] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it happens all the time.
[36:21] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's strangely it's been happening on Fridays a lot.
[36:23] SPEAKER_02: We're recording Friday.
[36:25] SPEAKER_05: That's true.
[36:26] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was just I was sending stuff uh literally an hour ago um back to Hopscotch, uh that that hopefully we we get some coverage on um in the hope, hopefully by the time that this this episode publishes.
[36:40] SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, the PR world moves fast and and deadlines are important, and you have to be really reactive with journalists because if you are, you're gonna be more likely to A, get favorable coverage and B get more coverage in the future.
[36:54] SPEAKER_02: So that's why turning things around quickly is such a top priority.
[36:58] SPEAKER_02: And the second thing I really focus on is with Hopscotch is kind of being easy to work with because my favorite clients when I was at the A at Shanaki, they were the ones who A had realistic expectations, and most important, yeah, but most importantly, and and you see the rapport that we have with them.
[37:20] SPEAKER_02: You want to be nice and easy to work with.
[37:23] SPEAKER_02: And I like my goal is I never want anybody at Hopscotch to dread our weekly calls.
[37:28] SPEAKER_06: Right.
[37:28] SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
[37:29] SPEAKER_02: Yep.
[37:29] SPEAKER_02: I never want them to go into the weekend worried about anything related to Hogan.
[37:33] SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't like on Fridays, I want them to be like everything with Blake and what we're doing with Hogan is all good.
[37:42] SPEAKER_02: And so if they enjoy working for us, I think it just makes them work harder for us.
[37:47] SPEAKER_02: So I guess long story short, that's my my primary role as PR manager.
[37:52] SPEAKER_02: But you know, I also do some other things like you know, facilitate presentation training and social media training for our consultants.
[37:59] SPEAKER_02: And honestly, I'll just I'm happy to do whatever y'all tell me to do or ask me to do, whatever it is.
[38:07] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so that leads me to my next question.
[38:10] SPEAKER_04: Uh kind of leads us straight into it.
[38:14] SPEAKER_04: Let's talk about your your personality a little bit.
[38:16] SPEAKER_04: What do you think um about your personality scores best suits you to be successful as RPR manager?
[38:24] SPEAKER_02: Well, that's interesting because I think well, sociability is is one, you know, if you're if you're gonna have to be communicating with people um on a regular basis, I think that uh that helps.
[38:41] SPEAKER_02: Mischievous, honestly, I think helps a little bit.
[38:44] SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna talk a little bit about that probably later, but um it's uh you kind of need to you need you're wanting someone to do a thing.
[38:58] SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying I'm trying to like you know I'm not trying to like pull the wool over anyone's eyes, but you know that there there are things if done correctly that mischievous, you can tap into it and it will help you kind of accomplish your goals that you're really trying to accomplish.
[39:16] SPEAKER_02: Um so that but then I also think my high adjustment score helps with like the the quick turnarounds and things like that.
[39:28] SPEAKER_02: I don't panic, I just realize a thing needs to be done and it will get done.
[39:35] SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, and also kind of going back to what you were talking about earlier, where sometimes you're dealing with uh crisis situations and you have to be the calm one in the room.
[39:46] SPEAKER_04: So, you know, I think that that comes into play for sure.
[39:49] SPEAKER_04: I mean, we we try to avoid crisis situations as much as possible, but that's part of the job.
[39:54] SPEAKER_04: And so I can definitely see how adjustment plays a role there.
[39:57] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you have this you have the saying that there's there's no crises in personality assessment.
[40:03] SPEAKER_02: But if there are, it Blake's dealing with them.
[40:06] SPEAKER_02: Right.
[40:06] SPEAKER_02: Talking Blake.
[40:09] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[40:10] SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, I think we'll talk a little bit more about um, you know, your deregulars and things like that uh coming up.
[40:17] SPEAKER_04: But let's talk a little about about before the podcast started.
[40:20] SPEAKER_04: Um so we started in 2020 and you started doing a lot of feedbacks, a lot of Hogan feedbacks in your spare time, I guess for fun, um, you know, just kind of after getting certified and and getting to know the tool a little bit more.
[40:33] SPEAKER_04: Um so what got you interested in doing that, especially when you were never asked to do that in the first place?
[40:37] SPEAKER_04: You've kind of become our our resident, at least on the marketing team, you've kind of become our our resident um feedback provider whenever we have those opportunities come across.
[40:46] SPEAKER_04: So tell me a little bit more about what got you interested in that.
[40:49] SPEAKER_02: Well, so I went through Hogan certification twice, technically.
[40:54] SPEAKER_02: The first time I did was in the spring of 2015, uh, probably four or five months after I started at Hogan.
[41:02] SPEAKER_02: And honestly, I wasn't ready.
[41:05] SPEAKER_02: Like it was pretty tough for me.
[41:06] SPEAKER_02: I didn't, I like I said, I have zero background in personality psychology.
[41:10] SPEAKER_02: Um but it was in 2018.
[41:15] SPEAKER_02: So we were looking, you know, we if anybody who's been through Hogan certification knows that we when we talk about the Hogan Development Survey, the HDS, the dark side, we we show some videos, and there were some videos that we had that we would play in certification at the time, but it was they were kind of getting old, needed needed uh a tune-up, we needed to do something a little bit different.
[41:39] SPEAKER_02: So I I took on the challenge, you know.
[41:42] SPEAKER_02: Like I said, I'll I'll kind of do anything I'm asked to do or told to do.
[41:47] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I do.
[41:48] SPEAKER_02: Uh I took on the challenge of of like taking the first crack at writing the scripts for the new HDS videos.
[41:55] SPEAKER_02: And at around the same time, it kind of coincided with some we were doing some internal uh certification courses at Hogan HQ that that summer of 2018.
[42:10] SPEAKER_02: And we also around that same time we we launched the advanced interpretation and advanced feedback courses.
[42:19] SPEAKER_02: I wanted to go through all of them again, or all both the read, like the the the standard Hogan certification, and then I was like, okay, I'm through that.
[42:27] SPEAKER_02: I want to go through the two advanced courses as well.
[42:32] SPEAKER_02: And so things really started to click.
[42:35] SPEAKER_02: And I started to get more fascinated with personality psychology at that time.
[42:40] SPEAKER_02: So that's when I started doing feedbacks kind of for friends and family at first, and then we did some work, just some pro bono work here in Tulsa with uh Tulsa's Young Professionals group.
[42:53] SPEAKER_06: Okay.
[42:54] SPEAKER_02: Uh type rows, as they call them.
[42:56] SPEAKER_02: And so I volunteered to do some because we were putting like a lot of people through the assessment.
[43:02] SPEAKER_02: They needed kind of an all hands on deck to kind of get people experienced.
[43:06] SPEAKER_02: So I volunteered to do several of those and um did a lot of those through the you know, in the past six, seven years, whatever.
[43:17] SPEAKER_02: And then I mean I the ones I do the most today are new people to hopscotch, uh the PR firm that we work with that I mentioned earlier.
[43:28] SPEAKER_02: And so I mean, I did one a week ago.
[43:33] SPEAKER_02: Um so that's what I've done, but if I had to guess, I've probably done somewhere between like 150 to 200 feedback sessions in the the past six, seven years.
[43:42] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really cool.
[43:43] SPEAKER_02: And my I I still love doing it, like it's fun to be able to understand something that's so complex.
[43:51] SPEAKER_02: And I I gotta shout out, I gotta give a shout out to uh Jackie Somm, um who you know, people you hear her voice.
[44:00] SPEAKER_02: On the intro and everything.
[44:02] SPEAKER_02: And she's been on the podcast several times.
[44:04] SPEAKER_02: But you know, she facilitated the certification course that I went through in 2018.
[44:09] SPEAKER_02: And she also helped me fine-tune those HDS video scripts.
[44:14] SPEAKER_02: And so hearing her explain things really did help me tremendously.
[44:19] SPEAKER_02: So I'd have I have to give a shout out to her.
[44:21] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[44:22] SPEAKER_04: Very cool.
[44:23] SPEAKER_04: Well, and you also do a lot of feedbacks for journalists too.
[44:27] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[44:28] SPEAKER_04: You know, whenever we get those media opportunities, how do you think um how do you think that helps?
[44:33] SPEAKER_04: You know, whenever we we get those media opportunities and you get a chance to speak directly with a journalist about the the assessments.
[44:41] SPEAKER_04: How do you think that that helps?
[44:43] SPEAKER_02: Well, sometimes it doesn't.
[44:47] SPEAKER_02: I'll explain.
[44:48] SPEAKER_02: Um well the reason I was saying that is I'll first I'll answer your question as to why it helps.
[44:55] SPEAKER_02: I think because of my background in journalism and broadcasting, I'm I'm kind of wired a little bit more like them and kind of understand, or at least I understand kind of how they're wired.
[45:10] SPEAKER_02: And having as a PR person, having to work closely with media throughout my entire career, it it it's more, it's I'm more in my comfort zone, strangely, with journalists, you know, and PR people because we're we understand the same things.
[45:25] SPEAKER_02: Um the reason I said that sometimes it doesn't is I remember there was uh there was an Irish journalist that uh who I spoke with or did a feedback for.
[45:37] SPEAKER_02: And I think it it we went through it, and I think it was the the value section.
[45:44] SPEAKER_02: I think she realized she didn't want to be a journalist anymore.
[45:46] SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?
[45:47] SPEAKER_02: Wow, because she changed, and and the same thing happened with one of the hopscotch people back like five years ago.
[45:56] SPEAKER_02: Um, and he still reaches out to me to this day to ask me because he he changed his career path completely.
[46:02] SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, I mean, not anything related to PR.
[46:06] SPEAKER_02: Like he got into like transportation or something.
[46:08] SPEAKER_02: I don't interesting.
[46:10] SPEAKER_02: It was strange.
[46:11] SPEAKER_02: Um, and he still reaches out to me and asks about certain things, like, hey, you know, what what do you see in my here's my situation?
[46:20] SPEAKER_02: Can you look at my results and tell me what's going on here?
[46:23] SPEAKER_02: I mean, so I mean I'm still I guess I'm this guy's coach.
[46:27] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
[46:28] SPEAKER_04: Well, well, I have seen it play out just with our hopscotch teams too.
[46:33] SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, they're a they're an external contractor that we work with.
[46:38] SPEAKER_04: They have plenty of other clients, but they speak Hogan and they understand their own uh personality assessments and they've done team sessions, and so I see it play out every time we we talk to them.
[46:48] SPEAKER_04: We, you know, we're we're making the the references to scales and different things that are going on with team dynamics because they understand our language.
[46:57] SPEAKER_04: So I've seen, you know, just firsthand how it's kind of helped us, you know, we're we're trying to accomplish a mission together.
[47:06] SPEAKER_04: And sometimes that's hard to get aligned and get on the same page whenever you're working with external teams.
[47:12] SPEAKER_04: And um I really feel like this common language of the assessments really have tied us together in a lot of ways.
[47:20] SPEAKER_04: And um just, you know, I think it helps people as well to just kind of see the difference that it can make.
[47:25] SPEAKER_04: I mean, you just told a story about somebody who completely changed careers because he realized that uh, you know, it he wasn't in the right field, and it it really does speak to how um, you know, how impactful the insight is that you can get from these assessments.
[47:41] SPEAKER_04: And so um, you know, to be able to join forces with these other teams to kind of bring that message to the world, it's really cool to kind of watch how it all like kind of just helps us um unite and align behind a common mission.
[47:53] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you probably notice it more so than I do because I'm probably too close to it.
[47:58] SPEAKER_02: You know, you're I mean, even though you're on like the weekly calls and stuff, you're probably noticing it more than I am because I I am working so closely with them, but I do think it comes across also a lot in the writing, like coming from like pre-feedback to post feedback, it's it's a game changer.
[48:17] SPEAKER_02: They they it the light bulb kind of clicks a little bit for sure.
[48:22] SPEAKER_04: So let's talk about derailers for a little bit.
[48:25] SPEAKER_04: So Hogan is known for its focus on derailers.
[48:28] SPEAKER_04: Can you share about what you learned about your own dark side personality characteristics and how do you see them play out?
[48:34] SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, for our loyal listeners.
[48:36] SPEAKER_02: Should you be asking?
[48:37] SPEAKER_04: Should I should you be asking me that question about how I see that you you will be able to shed some light on it?
[48:43] SPEAKER_02: But you know, I I mean for our loyal listeners, I think it was it was last year, we had Kelsey Closing on from our solutions partners team, and she actually did a a feedback session here on the podcast with my results.
[48:56] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I took the I mean, we updated our norms like in 2023, and so these were the fresh norms.
[49:03] SPEAKER_02: I took the assessments all over again.
[49:06] SPEAKER_02: And you know, if we're really looking at like my high-risk derailleurs, there are three that kind of stand out, and one that actually spiked considerably in recent years that's kind of basically almost high risk.
[49:22] SPEAKER_02: Um, but the big three are mischievous at a 98, uh Colorful at a 90, and dutiful, which dropped slightly, uh, is at an 89.
[49:32] SPEAKER_02: Um I don't I don't know what happened there.
[49:35] SPEAKER_02: Maybe, maybe there was just one, maybe there was an item that who knows.
[49:39] SPEAKER_02: I maybe something happened that day, and I was like, well, I'm not that dutable.
[49:42] SPEAKER_04: Like, don't try to don't try to uh describe it.
[49:44] SPEAKER_04: We're in marketing.
[49:45] SPEAKER_04: Okay, let's leave that to the data scientists on the side of the house.
[49:49] SPEAKER_02: Well, uh okay, so if we're looking at my mischievous side, um, and this is about strategic self-awareness, so I kind of have to know what's going on here.
[49:59] SPEAKER_02: And so I've put a lot of thought into this.
[50:01] SPEAKER_02: My mischievous side, it comes out when I'm bored.
[50:03] SPEAKER_02: So, like even back when I were in the office full-time, I was kind of the guy doing the pranks, you know, signed a person up for the church of Scientology.
[50:11] SPEAKER_02: And no offense to anybody who if you're a Scientologist, no offense to you, but this person was not looking to go down that path.
[50:18] SPEAKER_02: Um, but unfortunately, uh that wasn't her choice.
[50:23] SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, however, you know, like I said, there's kind of a bright side to that dark side tendency that helps me in my role in PR.
[50:32] SPEAKER_02: Um it if you're not overdoing it, I think it can help build relationships, um, or at least get the gets it gets the relationship rolling.
[50:42] SPEAKER_02: But then you kind of really have to be a little bit more genuine, you know, and but it it can kind of get your foot in the door.
[50:49] SPEAKER_02: Um on the colorful side, that actually went up some from the time prior because I'm at a 90 now.
[50:57] SPEAKER_02: Um I think that surfaces more in situations where I'm feeling pretty comfortable and able to be my true self.
[51:07] SPEAKER_02: You know, I know Ryan and I have done an episode on like the myth of authenticity and how it's not always wise to be your authentic self at work, but to go about your daily life and not really be your authentic self, that can kind of be boring.
[51:22] SPEAKER_02: So I guess, and maybe y'all are seeing the colorful side right now since I'm the one on the spot.
[51:27] SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I think so.
[51:29] SPEAKER_02: Um, I think the marketing team probably sees this more so than and my friends probably see it quite a bit too.
[51:36] SPEAKER_02: Um, so those are the first two, you know, one shows up when I'm bored, um, and the other one uh shows up when I'm comfortable.
[51:45] SPEAKER_02: But the dutiful side takes over whenever I'm either stressed out or B, I'm aware of the seriousness of the situation.
[51:53] SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
[51:54] SPEAKER_02: Um, so although dutiful is a derailler for a reason and it shouldn't be overdone, I think it's kind of that necessary counterweight for my mischievous and colorful derailers.
[52:08] SPEAKER_02: Um and Valerie, you can speak to the dutiful side of me.
[52:13] SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, you're like, you're gonna be I know you're gonna get done because you're high dutiful.
[52:18] SPEAKER_02: Do you want to tell anybody about that?
[52:20] SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah.
[52:20] SPEAKER_04: I mean, I've you I've heard you use the words uh good soldier.
[52:25] SPEAKER_04: You know I'm a good soldier.
[52:26] SPEAKER_04: So there are times where you know everybody experiences this in their jobs, no matter what it is.
[52:32] SPEAKER_04: There are times you kind of have to do some things that maybe you just don't want to do, but it has to get done.
[52:37] SPEAKER_04: And I actually appreciate that about your personality, and but also the fact that I can call it out, you can call it out, you can recognize maybe whenever it's you know kind of um, you know, I guess derailing.
[52:51] SPEAKER_04: Um, but I do I see it play out where it kind of is that counterweight, like you're saying, and and bringing down your mischievous and your colorful.
[52:58] SPEAKER_04: But um, yeah, Blake is is kind of game, you know, you're kind of you're kind of just ready to ready to jump in if there's something that needs to get done, um, if there's a conversation that needs to happen, you know, whatever the case may be.
[53:13] SPEAKER_04: And so that's where I see it play out quite a bit.
[53:16] SPEAKER_04: And um in that sense, it it's a positive.
[53:20] SPEAKER_04: So, you know, we do talk about that a lot.
[53:22] SPEAKER_04: There's you know, the the dark side or some of these derailing person or you know, um tendencies that people might have, there might be some bright sides to that.
[53:32] SPEAKER_04: And the key there is the self-awareness aspect, like you were saying before.
[53:36] SPEAKER_04: So, you know, the fact that you're self-aware about um, you know, being high on on dutiful, I think does help you navigate and helps me as your boss navigate some of these things too.
[53:48] SPEAKER_02: Well, hopefully, hopefully it helps, and hopefully I'm not overdoing it too much.
[53:52] SPEAKER_02: But uh the one last thing on the skeptical side at the 84, because that's all new to me.
[53:57] SPEAKER_02: Um I had to think about this one a little bit because I my assumption here is that this might be due to just kind of like the political and or like geopolitical landscape.
[54:11] SPEAKER_02: And so my guess is I think this comes out more outside of work.
[54:18] SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting, is what my my guess is because I don't feel like that at work necessarily.
[54:24] SPEAKER_02: Um, I got too many other things going on, you know.
[54:27] SPEAKER_02: Like, but um, but yeah, I that's my assumption, is it it's probably something that's happening outside of work.
[54:33] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I don't feel like I see that too much.
[54:35] SPEAKER_04: Um, and I'm high skeptical, so I would be looking for it, I think.
[54:40] SPEAKER_04: Uh all right, well, let's talk about the podcast a little bit, just where you know, um how it evolved.
[54:46] SPEAKER_04: I know you guys, I remember you guys had talked about it for a long time.
[54:50] SPEAKER_04: Um, but how did it go from just an idea to where it is today?
[54:53] SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, I mean, I guess if one looked at when we launched the podcast, there yeah, that was June of 2020.
[54:59] SPEAKER_02: So obviously, yeah.
[55:02] SPEAKER_02: Oh, you started this because of COVID.
[55:05] SPEAKER_02: Um, that's not entirely true.
[55:08] SPEAKER_02: Um, we actually started flirting with the idea, I think, in the summer of 2019, maybe even before that.
[55:15] SPEAKER_02: And we didn't know COVID was even going to be a thing.
[55:18] SPEAKER_02: But I do specifically remember in December of 2019, I think, you know, whenever we kind of have everybody in town, and I think the marketing team, we all met to talk about the podcast, and I kind of facilitated the the brainstorming session with you know to talk about what the format might look like if we were to do this for Hogan.
[55:40] SPEAKER_02: And so we talked about things like what episode topics, you know, could we cover, you know, how long should the episodes be?
[55:49] SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, what's it gonna look like from start to finish in in a particular episode?
[55:55] SPEAKER_02: You know, we talked about how often we should do it.
[55:56] SPEAKER_02: You know, we do it every two weeks, that's what we landed on, and also kind of how to get things up and running from a technical standpoint.
[56:03] SPEAKER_02: Like you need a platform to launch it that gets it out on all the different like Spotify and things like that.
[56:09] SPEAKER_02: And then the weird thing that happened, this is where I mentioned earlier, they were like, Oh, you you must be high recognition because you host a podcast.
[56:18] SPEAKER_02: Not true, because we transitioned to a discussion about who would host it.
[56:23] SPEAKER_02: I remember and I remember, yeah, you're you're this is is this ringing any bells, Valerie?
[56:28] SPEAKER_02: And I remember saying, Well, Ryan is a no-brainer to host if he's willing, right?
[56:33] SPEAKER_02: But he's gonna need a co-host.
[56:35] SPEAKER_02: So who would be a good fit?
[56:37] SPEAKER_02: Who at Hogan should we consider?
[56:38] SPEAKER_02: I'm asking this to the group, and that was a huge mistake, a fun mistake, but it's yeah.
[56:47] SPEAKER_02: Uh so the group's like like they literally stared back at me with this strange look, like as if they were all on the same page and were shocked that I wasn't.
[56:58] SPEAKER_02: And I think it was it was either you or I it was maybe it was Allison, might have been you.
[57:02] SPEAKER_02: They just looked at me and simply said, Well, you right.
[57:06] SPEAKER_04: I think it was me.
[57:08] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it was it was one, yeah.
[57:10] SPEAKER_02: I knew it was one of you two.
[57:11] SPEAKER_02: And I literally went into that meeting with zero expectation or desire to be designated as Ride's co-host, but the high dutiful showed up, you know.
[57:23] SPEAKER_02: I do what I'm told.
[57:25] SPEAKER_02: Uh, so then we were we were off for the holidays, and you know, when you come back from a holiday break, things are busy.
[57:33] SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then COVID happens and we're in this whole new world.
[57:38] SPEAKER_02: Um, so I think once we were able to adjust to the new way of work, we just dusted off that plan and launched the podcast on June 3rd, 2020.
[57:49] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[57:50] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I remember all of that very well.
[57:52] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[57:53] SPEAKER_04: I remember us saying to you, well, what about you?
[57:57] SPEAKER_04: And you just kind of looking at us like a deer in the headlights.
[58:00] SPEAKER_04: Like, I honestly that's not what I was what I was trying to get at here.
[58:05] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[58:06] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was I mean, in hindsight, it's hey, I'm glad it worked out the way it did, but because it's fun, but it it wasn't what I was planning for, it wasn't part of the plan.
[58:19] SPEAKER_04: Right.
[58:20] SPEAKER_04: I will say, and listeners, you have probably heard this.
[58:23] SPEAKER_04: Um, we we mentioned Jackie, she's the the voice on the intro of the podcast, but she also refers to Blake as our resident storyteller.
[58:31] SPEAKER_04: So I think that was the catalyst.
[58:33] SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, Blake would always well, Blake, you can tell.
[58:36] SPEAKER_04: Why why do you think you got the title of resident storyteller?
[58:41] SPEAKER_02: I don't because I think if anybody will just sit around and listen, I'm willing to tell them a story.
[58:45] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[58:46] SPEAKER_02: I I also have like I I think one thing that shows up in my learning approach, uh, subscales is good memory.
[58:54] SPEAKER_02: I like I think I'm a four out of four there.
[58:56] SPEAKER_02: So I tend to remember I things pretty vividly.
[59:01] SPEAKER_02: That's one strength I have.
[59:03] SPEAKER_02: And I think I just have a bank of stories that I just I don't know that I mean I I don't think I even realize that I'm cataloging them in my brain.
[59:17] SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's just where it comes out.
[59:19] SPEAKER_02: Because if anybody's willing to stop and listen for a second, I I've got something to tell them.
[59:24] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I think that's where us as a marketing team, when that came up, we were like, well, you, you would be great as a co-host, just is because we have been uh we have been an audience to your mini stories over the years.
[59:37] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I used to tell stories in the old office called prairie tales, just about like times growing up in small town Oklahoma.
[59:43] SPEAKER_04: So in like full-scale like whiteboard drawings and everything included.
[59:49] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[59:50] SPEAKER_02: I love a whiteboard.
[59:51] SPEAKER_02: I know.
[59:52] SPEAKER_04: I know that's hilarious.
[59:53] SPEAKER_04: Oh, memories.
[59:55] SPEAKER_04: Um, all right.
[59:55] SPEAKER_04: Well, let's talk a little bit about your relationship and rapport with Ryan.
[59:59] SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, what was it like before the podcast, and what is it like today after five years, more than five years of doing this?
[1:00:07] SPEAKER_02: Well, Ryan and I got along pretty well from the start whenever he uh came to Hogan as the chief science officer.
[1:00:14] SPEAKER_02: So that was in 2017 or 2018, somewhere around there.
[1:00:20] SPEAKER_02: And so we're, I mean, we're both the same age.
[1:00:23] SPEAKER_02: We both enjoy sports, and uh we have a pretty similar sense of humor, I would say, um, or lack thereof, whatever however you want to put it.
[1:00:34] SPEAKER_02: The uh but before COVID, you know, we'd go to lunch once or twice a week, not for work, but just for the fun of it.
[1:00:42] SPEAKER_02: Um so we had it, we knew each other pretty well before launching the podcast.
[1:00:48] SPEAKER_02: So that probably helped us find a rhythm a little quicker.
[1:00:52] SPEAKER_02: But that said, I'm not I'm not trying to pretend that we're experts by any means.
[1:00:56] SPEAKER_02: Like, no matter how well you know a person, it takes time to develop a cadence when hosting a podcast.
[1:01:03] SPEAKER_02: So our early episodes, they have to be painful to listen to.
[1:01:09] SPEAKER_02: And I say have to be because a little fact for our listeners that you might not know is that I don't listen to the episodes after we record them.
[1:01:20] SPEAKER_02: In fact, in fact, Valerie, you told me about the Halloween music uh for the season that that your husband Jeremiah did.
[1:01:29] SPEAKER_02: Uh you were like, what do you think of the Halloween music?
[1:01:33] SPEAKER_02: I was like, um, I don't know.
[1:01:36] SPEAKER_02: So I had to go and listen.
[1:01:37] SPEAKER_03: So, but um usually, why don't you listen?
[1:01:41] SPEAKER_02: I can't stand my own voice.
[1:01:42] SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, I can't.
[1:01:44] SPEAKER_02: So I definitely won't listen to this.
[1:01:46] SPEAKER_03: I think everybody feels like that.
[1:01:48] SPEAKER_03: Not their own voice, about their own voice.
[1:01:50] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but thankfully, I mean, your husband Jeremiah, you know, he he I I trust he's listening to it, you know.
[1:01:58] SPEAKER_02: I yeah, he's got this.
[1:02:01] SPEAKER_02: Or and you know, sometimes uh Ryan will listen to them.
[1:02:05] SPEAKER_02: Honestly, I think he listens to him at like one and a half times speed, you know, so he can get through him a little quicker.
[1:02:12] SPEAKER_02: Um so but so back to but like in close with to wrap this one up, you know, overall Ryan and I like we're we're friends outside of work, you know, like outside the podcast.
[1:02:26] SPEAKER_02: So I mean it wouldn't be uncommon for you know someone to find us playing golf together in Tulsa, um, you know, if our work schedules allow it to happen.
[1:02:35] SPEAKER_02: So um he's traveling so much, but and he's a baseball coach, but yeah, we we like to hit the golf course every now and again.
[1:02:42] SPEAKER_04: That's fun.
[1:02:43] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[1:02:43] SPEAKER_04: Well, speaking of, before I get to the last question here, um, I'm sure the listeners are curious about your life outside of Hogan.
[1:02:50] SPEAKER_04: So, what are some of your hobbies or passions and what do you do on the weekends or while you're on vacation?
[1:02:55] SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I just mentioned golf.
[1:02:57] SPEAKER_02: So um I wouldn't consider myself a great golfer by any means, but for our listeners, and you know, he wouldn't admit this, but I'm gonna say it now.
[1:03:07] SPEAKER_02: Ryan is actually really good at golf.
[1:03:10] SPEAKER_02: He would be, I I would be I'm curious how good he would be if he could play more than just a handful of times a year.
[1:03:18] SPEAKER_03: Like if he was able to get him off the road and he can play some golf, yeah.
[1:03:23] SPEAKER_02: Play every weekend, he would be a scratch golfer.
[1:03:26] SPEAKER_02: He's he's very good.
[1:03:28] SPEAKER_02: He's he's he's a good athlete, you can tell.
[1:03:31] SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm also an avid archer, which is one thing maybe people didn't know.
[1:03:36] SPEAKER_02: Uh fun fact, I won the 1994 Oklahoma State Archery Championship.
[1:03:42] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
[1:03:43] SPEAKER_02: I also a fun fact, I was the only kid who entered the competition.
[1:03:49] SPEAKER_04: Uh key fact, actually.
[1:03:53] SPEAKER_02: But I will say my score was higher than the national champion that year.
[1:03:58] SPEAKER_02: Now, the reason that I was not the national champion that year was uh I was actually grounded for something.
[1:04:05] SPEAKER_02: Oh so my mom wouldn't let me participate in the national championship, and I was heartbroken.
[1:04:12] SPEAKER_02: And uh my dad actually won in his his category, so he won the national championship.
[1:04:18] SPEAKER_02: I would have won if I would have shot the same score I did at the state championship.
[1:04:23] SPEAKER_02: Um, but I guess my high mischievous side got the best of me uh a week or so in advance, and uh that that never happened.
[1:04:30] SPEAKER_04: So um what could have been had you only known?
[1:04:34] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:04:35] SPEAKER_02: So I I actually took like a 25-year break from Ry, and then I picked up a bow again about two years ago, and now I shoot 50 to 100 arrows a day, probably three times a week.
[1:04:46] SPEAKER_02: Um let's see, I'm also a big uh American football fan.
[1:04:52] SPEAKER_02: Um, sorry to our our actual football fans out there across the globe, but uh I focus on American football and particularly Oklahoma State University football, which has kind of been tough to watch the past couple of years, but uh we're we're we'll we'll get back.
[1:05:07] SPEAKER_02: Um but I guess most importantly, in 2021, I met a stunningly gorgeous woman named Linda who I proposed to in 2023, uh married in 2024, and she's just an amazing woman, love of my life, best friend.
[1:05:25] SPEAKER_02: I just I got super lucky, never been married before.
[1:05:29] SPEAKER_02: Um, and just hopefully never again.
[1:05:32] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right, exactly.
[1:05:34] SPEAKER_02: But so that said, she she pretty much dictates what I do on the weekends and on vacation.
[1:05:39] SPEAKER_02: Um I'm mostly kidding.
[1:05:41] SPEAKER_02: Uh so but we enjoy hiking.
[1:05:44] SPEAKER_02: We're actually, I mentioned today's Friday, we're going hiking in the morning.
[1:05:47] SPEAKER_02: Um, hopefully we won't have been eaten by a mountain lion um by the time this publishes on Tuesday.
[1:05:54] SPEAKER_02: But uh we like uh also like gardening.
[1:05:57] SPEAKER_02: Uh I like fishing and she actually.
[1:06:00] SPEAKER_02: Actually enjoys it too, you know.
[1:06:01] SPEAKER_02: Whenever we go out, we just went fishing in Arkansas a couple weeks ago.
[1:06:05] SPEAKER_02: Um, so basically anything that gets us outside when it's nice weather.
[1:06:10] SPEAKER_02: Uh we love to travel, like so.
[1:06:13] SPEAKER_02: We spent two weeks in Italy and Greece back in June.
[1:06:16] SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, hit you know, Rome, uh Lake Como.
[1:06:21] SPEAKER_02: Uh, we went to Florence, we went to Athens, and we went to Milos.
[1:06:25] SPEAKER_02: Uh, so it was just a fantastic trip.
[1:06:28] SPEAKER_02: Uh we like to uh spend time with our families on both her side and my side.
[1:06:34] SPEAKER_02: Like we have our families are pretty close.
[1:06:36] SPEAKER_02: Uh, and hers are all from Tulsa, and uh mine are within an hour of Tulsa.
[1:06:43] SPEAKER_02: And so I just couldn't ask for a better partner in life, just an awesome, lovely woman.
[1:06:47] SPEAKER_02: And I finally I can't forget to mention our furry family.
[1:06:52] SPEAKER_02: We have three dogs, Piper, Staley, and Sydney.
[1:06:55] SPEAKER_02: Uh, Piper is a vocal five-pound Yorkoo who my wife brought into the family.
[1:07:01] SPEAKER_02: Uh, she's the feisty one.
[1:07:03] SPEAKER_02: Uh Staley uh is a Jack Russell Terrier who is possibly the spawn of Satan.
[1:07:09] SPEAKER_03: Uh Met Staley.
[1:07:12] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you met Staley.
[1:07:13] SPEAKER_02: Staley used to go to the office with me whenever he was a puppy.
[1:07:16] SPEAKER_02: Uh, so he's kind of the mean grumpy.
[1:07:19] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:07:20] SPEAKER_02: Uh and then Sydney, she's a border collie uh mix who I rescued back in 2018.
[1:07:26] SPEAKER_02: Uh that dog is by far the smartest and sweetest dog I have ever been around.
[1:07:32] SPEAKER_02: Like, and she is just as loyal as they come.
[1:07:34] SPEAKER_02: I mean, that dog is I mean, she's good with kids, she's good, but she's also pretty protective if there's strangers or near the house.
[1:07:42] SPEAKER_02: She's on a high alert, but just I mean, and you could teach this.
[1:07:47] SPEAKER_02: In fact, I mean Piper, the Yorka Pooh, like we have a doggy door, so when we're out of town, we open it up and they can go in and out while we're gone.
[1:07:56] SPEAKER_02: And Piper never could figure out how to go through the doggy door.
[1:08:00] SPEAKER_02: We come back from Arkansas a few weeks ago from a long weekend there.
[1:08:04] SPEAKER_02: And Sydney taught Piper how to use the doggy door while we were gone.
[1:08:08] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:08:09] SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
[1:08:10] SPEAKER_02: So, needless to say, we definitely have our hands full because you never know what's going on.
[1:08:13] SPEAKER_02: So that's that's me outside of work.
[1:08:16] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think that's nice for listeners who have known you for this long to actually hear a little bit more about what you're like and what your life is like, you know, outside of outside of the podcast and outside of work.
[1:08:27] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[1:08:27] SPEAKER_04: So for my last question here, um, and by the way, thanks for inviting me on here.
[1:08:32] SPEAKER_04: This has been kind of fun.
[1:08:33] SPEAKER_02: This has been a lot of fun, yeah.
[1:08:35] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[1:08:35] SPEAKER_04: So looking back at your career so far, what would you say is an accomplishment that you're the most proud of?
[1:08:42] SPEAKER_04: And uh what goals are you excited to pursue in the future at Hogan and beyond?
[1:08:47] SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we've mentioned I'm super low on recognition.
[1:08:49] SPEAKER_02: So this gets a little bit uncomfortable for me.
[1:08:52] SPEAKER_02: Uh in fact, this whole conversation, I mean, it's it's it's been easy.
[1:08:57] SPEAKER_02: Valerie, you made it easy.
[1:09:00] SPEAKER_04: But it helps that we've known each other for 11 years, I think.
[1:09:03] SPEAKER_02: Speaking of rapport, yeah, I would definitely rather be the interviewer than the interviewee.
[1:09:08] SPEAKER_02: But uh if I had to pick one thing, it's probably the Time magazine piece back in 2015 that featured Hogan prominently.
[1:09:18] SPEAKER_02: Because I was still pretty new to Hogan at the time, and I'm sure some people weren't exactly sure what they were paying me for, you know.
[1:09:27] SPEAKER_02: So landing that coverage kind of changed the entire dynamic and kind of showed some value, I think.
[1:09:33] SPEAKER_02: So, like to put it in perspective, back in 2015, the media landscape was pretty different, and like yeah, print publications were still somewhat relevant, and basically Time Magazine ran a short uh form assessment that our data science team put together and was featured on a page by itself, and it kind of had a little scoring chart, and so it there's a full page of just Hogan's items, like you know, it says it's our stuff.
[1:10:06] SPEAKER_02: And I looked it up at the time, and a full page ad back then for Time magazine was$500,000.
[1:10:13] SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, wow, and so Hogan got that for free because I was kind of willing to go above and beyond when working with that journalist.
[1:10:21] SPEAKER_02: Uh, I was willing to get her whatever she wanted as quickly and efficiently as I possibly could.
[1:10:27] SPEAKER_02: So that's probably what I'm most proud of from an accomplishment standpoint.
[1:10:33] SPEAKER_02: But I would say a couple of goals for the future would be you know, I'd like to double our audience size and downloads in like the next two years.
[1:10:41] SPEAKER_02: That's that's number one.
[1:10:43] SPEAKER_02: And I and again, we're going to videos soon, so I think there's an opportunity to to do that.
[1:10:49] SPEAKER_02: And hopefully, you know, we're reluctant.
[1:10:52] SPEAKER_02: Ryan and I are like, gosh, we really got to do the video.
[1:10:54] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're gonna do it, people.
[1:10:55] SPEAKER_02: Just wait, it's coming.
[1:10:56] SPEAKER_04: Hashtag high dotiful.
[1:10:58] SPEAKER_02: Yep.
[1:10:58] SPEAKER_02: Um, and from a PR perspective, I just want to see us grow kind of in some other markets, you know, keep expanding our global footprint because like, yeah, Hogan's products are available in what I don't know, is it 60, 70 countries now uh or more?
[1:11:13] SPEAKER_02: But that does that up.
[1:11:15] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'd have to that it keeps growing.
[1:11:18] SPEAKER_04: I think it's I think it's 60 something markets, not quite countries.
[1:11:22] SPEAKER_04: I think we're more in like 40 something countries, but that's just a little slight clarification point.
[1:11:27] SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, yeah, but that doesn't mean our brand from a PR perspective is represented in all those places as as best as it could be.
[1:11:36] SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm just not the type of person who's content with the status quo.
[1:11:40] SPEAKER_02: Like if we're and hopefully, you know, I I know Dr.
[1:11:44] SPEAKER_02: Hogan doesn't listen to this, but this would be kind of where I'd be channeling him, you know.
[1:11:48] SPEAKER_02: Like, if we're going to beat our competition, there's a lot of people out there in our industry.
[1:11:53] SPEAKER_02: We have to continue this upward trajectory, and you know, good enough isn't good enough for me, and it never will be.
[1:12:00] SPEAKER_02: And if we don't kick our competition's ass, then they will kick our ass.
[1:12:03] SPEAKER_02: And that is simply unacceptable.
[1:12:05] SPEAKER_02: So that's those are my goals.
[1:12:08] SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, it's just keep going forward, but don't don't settle for for just being good enough.
[1:12:16] SPEAKER_02: We we can always do better.
[1:12:18] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, love that.
[1:12:19] SPEAKER_04: Well, and I'll just add to that from my perspective, um, just an accomplishment that I think you should be proud of is just the our global presence has just grown so much since you've been in this role.
[1:12:30] SPEAKER_04: And obviously, you know, with the the partnership that we have with Hopscotch, our PR firm, um, helping to reach those goals, but um, you know, it's it's not an easy task.
[1:12:40] SPEAKER_04: It's a it's a loud and busy world out there.
[1:12:44] SPEAKER_04: So to be able to cut through that noise, and I've said it a couple times since we've talked today, but you know, we're really trying to get a message out to the world that what these personality assessments can do, what Hogan's personality assessments can do, can really change the game for people and you know make a difference with leadership.
[1:13:02] SPEAKER_04: And we're all affected by leadership.
[1:13:04] SPEAKER_04: So, you know, in a in a broad sense, we're we truly are making the world a better place through through these uh, you know, personality assessments and what they can provide for people and the self-awareness that they can provide.
[1:13:15] SPEAKER_04: So the fact that PR gets to play a role in that to spread that message.
[1:13:20] SPEAKER_04: You've done such a great job of really just kind of creating a system for how we get the word out, and just the the way we've been able to expand across the globe has been really cool to see from the seat that I sit in.
[1:13:33] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I honestly like I I firmly believe like okay, a couple things.
[1:13:39] SPEAKER_02: I firmly believe that we're we're the best in the world at what we do.
[1:13:44] SPEAKER_02: I also 100% believe that from a if you're gonna have a job in PR in the state of Oklahoma, I've got the best one.
[1:13:54] SPEAKER_02: Like, and because I don't know of many other companies that are headquartered in Oklahoma that have the the reach from a a PR perspective than than we do.
[1:14:08] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's I have to kind of put that in perspective and remind myself of that.
[1:14:13] SPEAKER_02: You know, what we're doing is pretty darn cool.
[1:14:16] SPEAKER_02: And whenever we're landing in places like the Wall Street Journal or you know, yeah, the Times.
[1:14:22] SPEAKER_02: We just had we were like Ryan was quoted in in the Times out of the UK, you know, that's huge.
[1:14:27] SPEAKER_02: Um that's stuff typical companies out of Tulsa, Oklahoma don't get that kind of coverage, yeah.
[1:14:35] SPEAKER_02: And that's fun for me.
[1:14:37] SPEAKER_02: That is really fun for me.
[1:14:39] SPEAKER_02: So that's I guess if there's any way to wrap it up, like that's what I'm most thankful for.
[1:14:46] SPEAKER_02: I I I love my job.
[1:14:47] SPEAKER_02: I'll I'll be here until y'all you know kick me out.
[1:14:51] SPEAKER_04: So it's good, good, good to know.
[1:14:53] SPEAKER_04: We'll we'll keep you around.
[1:14:54] SPEAKER_02: All right, thank you.
[1:14:55] SPEAKER_04: Well, and actually, we didn't talk about this part.
[1:14:58] SPEAKER_04: How do we how do we wrap this up?
[1:15:00] SPEAKER_04: Maybe this is usually what you do, but since I'm in your seat today, how about I end this the the final little uh conclusion here?
[1:15:07] SPEAKER_04: And that does it for the Science of Personality Podcast, episode 137.
[1:15:11] SPEAKER_04: Be sure to join us in two weeks for another fun and positive episode.
[1:15:15] SPEAKER_04: Cheers, everybody.
[1:15:20] SPEAKER_01: This has been the Science of Personality Podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessment.
[1:15:25] SPEAKER_01: You can access all episodes on our website, science of personality dot com, or on the streaming service of your choice.
[1:15:32] SPEAKER_01: See you next time.

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