There's no such thing as smart.

There's no such thing as smart.

You either have a fixed mindset or growth mindset.

You're either a novice or an expert.

You might have been born with a big brain. Congratulations. But that doesn't mean you're naturally more intelligent than the kid next to you in the library studying eight hours a day when you only study for one.

As a father, this concept of who is smart and who isn't has become very important to me. How do we go about praising our children without hindering them?

How does this apply to the workplace and in our personal relationships?

After listening to the latest episode of the Art of Charm with Dr. Carl Dweck, I've realized that I tend to give a lot of surface level praise: "You're really smart. You have the talent. He's a genius, She's a genius. Everyone on my team is a genius!"

I feel foolish. Because a teams success has nothing to do with how smart you are, how talented you are, in the end, it all comes down to handwork. There's simply no substitute for for a junk yard dog mentality. 

What's even more interesting is that it took me 26 years on earth to have this honest conversation with myself about how I communicate with other people. Especially young children. Then again, I've always been told that I'm "great" at communicating. So it wasn't something I really thought I needed to work on until I become a father. What's even funnier is: The things I'm learning about communicating with children are just as applicable to adults. 

So how should we praise?

According to dr. Carol Dweck we should focus on praising the process. Praising the hard work that went into the accomplishment. The good strategy they used, their perseverance, their improvement. She says that doing this will put people into a growth mindset and equip them with the values that they need to be successful.

Allow me to paraphrase: If you want someone to be independent, you need to praise them for the traits they display that allow them to stand on their own two feet. Praise the process, not the result.

Makes sense to me.

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artwork: https://dribbble.com/shots/1629146-How-Love-Works

Falling in love at work

I just finishing watching Mandy Len Carton's Ted Talk on Falling in love. She was a small-time blogger who participated in a educational study about love, wrote a piece about how her and her significant other fell in love in the laboratory, and the article ended up making it into the New York Times.

You can read it here: To fall in love with anyone, do this.

Talk about clickbait! It's no surprise she admits the title of the article was the only part of the post she didn't write.

The Ted Talk isn't on Youtube yet so I can't embed it, but if you have 13 min to spare, check it out here: Falling in love is the easy part.

The reason this is so interesting to me is because I'm curious to know if these 36 questions would be applicable and even beneficial for startup teams to ask one another.

I was in a Fraternity and even then, you basically just do a bunch of "secret" stuff that helps you get to know each other on a more intimate level. (Shared experiences creating a bond of significant meaning)

As I go through the current job hunting process I find myself having conflicting feelings about how long the process can take. On one side of the coin it's just my ego getting wrapped up in the process, "why is it taking so long for me to find the right fit?" When I've only been back and actively seeking new gigs for a month. The other truth that I understand and agree with is that it would be foolish to hire and invest in someone without attempting to get to know the person as much as possible.

When we first started OnlyTheBeat.com, I would literally let anyone join the team as long as I felt they were as excited about it as I was. That turned out to be a huge mistake. And one of the biggest lessons I've learned over the last 3 and a half years hiring writers.

There has to be some sort of interview process that breaks down walls and allows you to get to know a person...you know, like, more personally. (We now have a 3 step process that includes providing a "Your Story" writing example)

But where do you draw the line?

At one of my recent employers where I got to interview candidates we had an interview question, "what is the hardest decision you've ever had to make?" And I was thrilled that I got it ask this in an interview one time...Only to have the other people in the room interviewing with me laugh nervously and add "he means the hardest decision in the work place of course!"

No I didn't.

I meant the hardest decision you've ever had to make. How did you make it. That's literally more important to me than anything else we might have asked. It tells you so much about a person and what they value, what they've lost, and how they've bounced back.

And I get it, some people want to keep work and their personal lives separate, but if you don't want to open up about your personal life, then what are we really doing here? The meaning that we derive from our relationships dictates the meaning in our lives, and if you're going to spend 1/3 of your day with someone, don't you want to get to know them on a deeper personal level before you spend all that time with them?

This is a real interview: Agency Wants Its Next Art Director to Be Cool, So the Interview Will Be Over Two Days in Vegas

Now that's what I'm talking about. Except I think 3 or 4 days in Vegas would REALLY allow you to see who that person is. You can survive Vegas for 48 hours and still be at 70-80% if you know you're being watched, but come hour 73 or 84, you better believe you're going to have some insight into who the other person is and how they handle stress. Lol.

I don't necessarily like the title of the article, I don't think it has to do with being cool. I think it has more to do with putting someone out into the wild and seeing how they react to precarious situations, which is, like, all day everyday in real life.

And again, there it is.

Real life. Real people.

Real recognize real.

It's the same reason Donald Trump is getting so much love, because he is way too real.

But people are responding to it because even if it is preposterous and ridiculous, at least it isn't clearly, obviously, and insanely fake. It doesn't sound good, but it doesn't sound like he's lying either.

(Uneducated, insensitive, and making things up, well, that's another story, he definitely makes a bunch of BS up).

It's just more like insanely too real. Which makes for great entertainment. (key word, entertainment).

So here are the 36 questions from the love experiment.

It's also worth noting that at the end, if you are doing this with someone in the pursuit of love, you're supposed to finish by staring into each others eyes for four minutes without speaking:

Set I

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Set II

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Set III

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “

26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

OKAY PHEW.

Those were intense. But if we're working together at a startup...shouldn't we know a lot of these things about our coworkers?...Aren't these questions two startup founders have unintentionally asked one another during their conversations before deciding to start a company together? I sure hope so...Because starting a company together IS like getting married!

If you want to look at it from the opposite side of the table, I think I'd have a hard time investing in a startup where the founders didn't know what their co-founder felt was "too serious to be joked about" (question #32).

No where in this list of questions is anyone asked to reveal anything about their sex life or answer questions of a sexual nature...but the question remains...do you think they're too personal for the work place? Or would you adopt something like this for your own startup, pairing co-workers together one evening to sit down and have a heart to heart? Would you ask these questions in an interview?

Even if the person ended up not being a good fit for the team, or taking a job elsewhere, I have a hard time believing you wouldn't walk away with a new friend.

Better Than a Pitch

I get pitched a lot.

20-30 promos a day. Track submissions, contact form submissions, messages from publicists to my personal Facebook inbox, and the worst, in public places.

There are a ton of good articles out there on the internet about "How to write a better pitch email." If you want advice about how to write a better pitch email, great, Google "How to write a better pitch email" and read everything you can.

(Want a quicker path to success? Simply be genuine and use empathy to determine what matters most to the person to you're emailing, steer the conversation in that direction, find out what motivates them.)

Here's an even better idea...before you go out and read 100 articles about how to craft a better pitch email, determine which writer you are going to reach out to.

That's right, not which publication or blog, but the specific writer.

If you send me an email pitching me a new song, my typical response is something along the lines of:

Hey XYZ, 

Thanks for sending over the new track...But honestly, I'm not the best person to reach out to, you'd be better off befriending a writer on the team that posts about a similar genre as the track you want reviewed. Or, go find a writer who has already covered your artist and hit them up :)  

Good luck! 

Yes I am the CEO of Onlythebeat.com and yes I am ultimately the gatekeeper on content...but I need you to pitch writers that have covered the same topics before, the same artists. I need you to make the connection for yourself. Especially if you're a publicist working with a specific artist...If you haven't searched the site to see if we've covered your artist before, then you're just making life harder on yourself by cold-pitching me instead of contacting someone who's already clearly passionate about your artist.

Here's another way to think about it....If you didn't know President Obama, you wouldn't email President Obama to get the email address of his Chief of Staff.

You will be 100 times more successful reaching out to one of my House Music writers than pitching me a single House Music track because I don't have time to do the track write up. If you wanted to catch my eye then reach out to me about doing exclusive video content with your artist (or yourself) when you're in Seattle. I like the sound of that. Until then, really try to think about who in the organization would benefit the most from doing the thing that you're asking for, contact them.

And always follow up until you get a no.

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When Will Marketers Talk About Attention, Not Impressions?

I came across a blog post from Gary Vaynerchuk this week that I've been waiting to share with you. His blog post covers a topic that he actually discusses quite frequently, the idea of attention rather than impressions.

The advertising/marketing community, or anyone that really knows what they're doing, for example a small business owner who manages their own PPC ads, knows that the system is flawed. They know that 10%, 20%, even up to 50% of their digital marketing budget is going to circle the toilet bowl; wasted due to improper reporting, fraud, and a variety of other flaws in the marketing/advertising ecosystem that we're too quick to sweep under the rug. Or as Gary says:

"The entire marketing world is obsessed with impressions. You might hear someone say "40,000 people saw this video." But the truth is, they didn't. They didn't because as soon as the ad came up in video form, they clicked away to a new tab to look at something they actually wanted to see. But they count as an impression. They count as "seeing it."

And he's right.

We're too quick to accept impressions as a industry wide metric because it allows us to keep reporting these massive numbers to our clients who in turn continue to pay us.

But we should be smarter than that. And people like Gary are smarter than that.

If you're video got viewed 1 million times, but no one watched more than 10% of it, you probably missed the mark with the creative.

We need to measure attention because the simple fact is attention (read as: time focused) has become our most precious commodity.

1) The way we spend our time 2) Who we spend it with...those are the two most important things that will determine the outcome of our lives.

And it's not like it's rocket science to get the attention data, it's sitting there for you in google your Google Analytics.

But before we get any deeper, the purpose of this particular post is to share Gary's article with you as well as my response, a comment on his site that I've taken a screen shot of and shared below.

Read: When Will Marketers Talk About Attention, Not Impressions?

My comment:

The reality is: The reason YouTube is such a success is because the content lives and dies by the sword of attention. People either watch your videos or they don't. If advertisers and marketers would approach their creative with the same intensity (mindset), they'd be more apt to produce higher quality work. Ultimately saving clients money in the long run while building a stronger brand (advertisements....shouldn't look like ads anymore). We see this happening already on the creative side with brands like Red Bull that just seem to get it. I mean, come on, they literally just show us dope clips from extreme sports athletes to sell us an energy drink that even THEY admit tastes horrible unless chilled to the perfect temperature. And we also see brands like Taco Bell extorting every last oz out of social media attention hotspots to further their cause. Taco Bell is disgusting. But I still like/respect the brand. I have no idea why. A little reminder that we don't think rationally 100% of the time. And that the correct use of media truly can sway the public.

Finally, if you're an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur and you haven't seen this video....thank me later. Stop what you're doing or set aside 45 minutes this weekend for a life changing (SUPER REAL) one-way conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk.

Gary Vaynerchuk | USC Entrepreneur Talk | 2015

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Twitter, Isis, and the unintended consequences of changing the world

What do you do when the most important work you've ever done is hijacked from you and used for evil?

Imagine toiling for years, Chinese food, dim lights, late nights, and painstaking decisions about whether or not to pivot. Imagine pouring everything you have into a project that you fundamentally believe is going to change the world, only to have its ethos ripped away and twisted by the users into a dark and powerful tool of hate.

An article from the associated press ran in today's Seattle Times detailing the destruction of ancient history in Syria by the Islamic state. They're saying it's the "most brutal, systematic destruction of ancient sites since World War II." Not only are they destroying some of the world's oldest and most historic mosques, churches, and archaeological sites, the Islamic military state is beheading people who dedicated their lives to preserving our shared history. Isis is a hot button topic. I don't think I need to go any further into detail to get your blood boiling. It bothers me deeply that human are stilling killing one another over religious differences, and I have no idea how this is going to play out on a global scale.

Now imagine that you are one of the founders of Twitter. You've created a product that I love. A product that I use daily. A product that's been used to overthrow governments, lead revolutions, and champion justice. You've also created a product that terrorists use to post pictures of Nutella chocolate in attempt to recruit new members. Apparently having a fondness for Nutella is an axiom of humanity, we simply cannot refuse the delicious combination of hazelnuts and chocolate.

And it bothers me. It really bothers me that I'm using the same app as a terrorist. I know that's irrational. I use the app for news while they use it to spread hate...but it still bothers me. I also want to acknowledge It's unfair of me to pick on Twitter, almost any social networking app can and is (most likely) being used by 'terrorists.'

Where do we draw the line when it comes to free speech on the internet? Especially when the 1st Amendment sets the precedent for protecting the rights of the people who created the company and product but not those who are using the product to galvanize a segment of the global population that is willing to kill themselves to see our Constitution burned and our Country in ruins? Dramatic, I know. Our laws of the land aren't simple, and they're even harder to enforce on the internet. For an internal example all we have to do is take a glance at Reddit and ask ourselves: "How much hate are we going to allow ourselves to perpetuate when when know it's having a detrimental effect on our society?" This leads into a much longer conversation about who gets to make that call, why they get to, and how it will be done. And it's conversation I'm confident will continue to play out as long as humans and the internet co-exist.

Twitter has done an amazing job responding to this situation. Cracking down on accounts associated with Isis and continuing to cull thousands more. But the facts stand that The Islamic State "has been astonishingly successful at spreading its message using 21st-century social media," moving to new social platforms like Diaspora according to ROYT.org.

Terrorism is an extreme case. And I'll admit that I've used it to grab your attention.

Getting back to business 

Being able to foresee unintended consequences is one of the big differences between bourgeoning and veteran entrepreneurs. Luckily it is a process that can be learned through meticulous practice and repetition. Your brain is a muscle and one that needs to be flexed. Especially in the arena of business.

Forcing yourself to sit down and think about the potential unintended consequences of your product will help you discover holes in your business plan as well as ideas for product improvement and new streams of revenue. The challenging part is that we live in a global economy, but we don't always feel the forces of the global economy until it's too late and disaster has already struck. Entrepreneurs will need to become increasingly educated, up-to-date, and empathetic in order to use their imagination to fill in the gaps about any potential repercussions of their business decisions. And keeping your finger on the pulse of the world, that's really hard. Capitalism doesn't care about empathy, but todays consumers do. And we're seeing it reflected in the market all the time. Consumers are voting with their dollars, choosing to support brands that support their employees, healthy lifestyles, and different humanitarian causes around the world. For the first time in a long time, it feels like empathy has become a part of the equation again. This makes it even more important to operate your business with integrity and stick to your values. Every decision you make will be scrutinized, and remember, it's always the interim.

I'm the first one to admit that keeping up with the world's business can be overwhelming. I feel like I have so much to learn and I wish I learned it all yesterday. Unfortunately that's just not possible, and accepting that reality has brought me peace of mind.

We have to have focus in life in order to be successful. Or as John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on fire says, "F.O.C.U.S: Follow one course until success." You shouldn't spend two hours a day reading about the fish markets in Japan if you aren't in the fish business. But you can choose to set aside 10 minutes each day to study something new and give it 100% of your focus. One thing at a time, one day at a time.

Magical things will start to happen for you when you start approaching your life with this mindset: "Have I given the task at hand 100% of my focus? And if I have, has it moved me one step closer to accomplishing my goal?" Even if you only spend 10 minutes a day on a task, it's an extremely empowering feeling to be able to answer "Yes" to both of those questions.

We're always trying to bite off more than we can chew. We live in a society that condones instant gratification and we forget that so many of our most revolutionary discoveries came from painstakingly boring, routine tasks that took deadly intense focus (for example, Pickering’s Harem, a group of women who worked at the Harvard Observatory combing through hundreds of thousands of photos of stars in order to produce data that lead to the empirical foundation of astronomical theory). The good news? None of us are tasked with solving the mysteries of the universe (I just like to think about them in my free time).

My advice for entrepreneurs is to adopt the compound effect. Do little things each day that add up over time to give you a slight advantage. Do 100 pushups a day. Set aside 5 minutes to mediate. And in regards to keeping your find on the pulse of the global economy? Listen to APM's Marketplace podcast everyday. It's a small, easy win that will have a huge impact on the way you think about business and the global economy. Not to mention, it will make you a more interesting person.

I really want to stress that I'm not saying entrepreneurs should spend an in-proportionate amount of time thinking about unintended consequences of every business decision they make. It would be preposterous to suggest that you spend your days fretting over the ways that your product could be used for evil. But taking some calculated time at the beginning of a new project to suss out the potential pitfalls and unintended consequences of a new venture? Now that sounds like a seasoned professional to me.

So how can you learn to foresee the unintended consequences of your product or business decisions? Well, If you want to create a new product or service that disrupts the market, you're going to need to be able to think like a hacker. Here are some questions you might want to consider:

• Who did I build this product for and why? 
• Who else will see value in what I've created?
• Does this product help people see the commonalities in one another? Or the differences?  
• Who will spot an opportunity for manipulation? And if I do see an opportunity: How can I block it? Can I add a feature that will enhance security? Can I get people to pay for this added feature? 
• How can my product can be manipulated? 
• Am I accounting for advances in technology? 
• Is my security as good as it needs to be? 
• Is identity verification going to be central to the success of the product? 
• Does my business model depend on the success and/or failure of other businesses? And if so, who and what does their business model depend on. 
• What kind of influence could climate change have on my business? War? 
• Am I building this product for one specific group of people? Or a global community?
• What are my values, and where will I draw the line with censorship? 
• Do I have the time and money necessary to fight back against the inevitable misuse of my product? 

The good news? This will become easier over time as you continue to repeat the process and ask yourself the hard questions. It is the process of asking those hard questions that will open your mind to new ways of thinking, new information, and ultimately, make you a better entrepreneur.

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Room at the top

There’s always a spot for the best in the market.

Not the most expensive, but the one that most ideally suits the needs of those that care.

It's easy to get lost in the chaos of mediocre, of discount, of close and cheap. But if you're the best, among the people who care to find and talk about the best, no market is too crowded.

The hard part is figuring out what 'best' means.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

What does it mean to be the best?

And does your answer to this question mean anything to the people that you're trying to market your product to? Stop look at the cat gif up there and pay attention :P

The good news and the bad news 

The good news and the bad news is that the definition of what "best" means in a market is always changing. That's why all of us in marketing and SEO still have a job....because things change. And I hope to god that if you work in marketing/seo you're not one of those people that "fears change." Thankfully trends change, and although many are cyclical, this change creates a space in our marketing landscape for big wins...and big losses.

If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, things have never been better. Yes, your competition may be smarter, but the playing field is even and you have every resource at your disposal to run a successful business. Find you niche and go after it like a bat out of hell. 

Only The Beat

I am launching a new website this Friday May 25th at 1pm (PST). The website is called www.OnlyTheBeat.com and is focused on delivering exclusive news, event & track reviews, and opinion articles about electronic dance music. Clicking the link above will take you to our splash page that currently has a clock counting down to our actual launch, as well as links to social media

The internet has made it possible for anyone to create a site like Only The Beat, but we're following through, and I'm proud of that. Content is king in the competitive landscape of electronic dance music blogs and I believe that as our talent writers pump out articulate opinion articles, our video-centric post-event review approach will have a huge effect on our popularity. The site is a constant work in progress and we're launching with plans to roll out new features over the next few months; all the while using the feedback from our users to continually improve their experience.  

Click here to see on of our recent video's from the Fedde Le Grand Show in Scottsdale, AZ http://vimeo.com/41172412

In my mind, and as Chief Editor, I see it as something of electronic dance music specific Mashable...but taken to the next level. The site runs off of Wordpress, which is amazing because it allows writers access to the back end of the site but can limit their authority. Making it easy for them to upload their own content before I approve it and assign it as a featured article, or not. I am unbelievably thrilled with the Design which was actually done by my two good friends and co-owners of the site. Amongst their many other ventures (including an attempt at a new condiment for pizza), they actually run their own web-development company called Quantize Creative, and have made a name for themselves producing quality sites for some big name DJ's. We have optimized the site for all mobile and tablet user experiences and are currently discussing ideas for an app, but,  I don't want to create an app unless I believe it's truly a game changer. For those of you are unfamiliar with electronic dance music, check out the song below. It's something I've had on repeat today and will definitely be posting a review about on the site.  

Go to the site, like us on facbeook. Check out the content and give us your feedback. I will be posting more about what I have learned from this experience as the process moves forward. I'll even share some of my techniques for building a social media audience presence as we are actually starting from ground zero. Should get interesting....

How Are You Adding Value?

Another list from Seth Godin and another dose of inspiration....Ask yourselves these questions:

Why would someone choose my product over my competitors? (why would someone visit my blog, over yours?) 

How is my product adding value to someones life? (Is my blog interesting? inspiring? useful?) 

What problem is my product solving for my customers (Am I delivering you content that you enjoy?)

Why would you come back? 

These are all questions that we need to ask ourselves each time that we set a goal. Define the "why". Whether it's your personal motives or you are searching for the motive behind your customers purchase, you need to define what is driving you. 

1. The first step is to stop Googling things like, "how to make money online." Not because you shouldn't want to make money online, but because the stuff you're going to find by doing that is going to help you lose money online. Sort of liking asking a casino owner how to make money in Vegas...
2. Don't pay anyone for simple and proven instructions on how to achieve this goal. In particular, don't pay anyone to teach you how to write or sell manuals or ebooks about how to make money online.
3. Get rich slow.
4. Focus on the scarce resource online: attention. If you try to invent a way to take cheap attention and turn it into cash, you will fail. The attention you want isn't cheap, it's difficult to get via SEO and it rarely scales. Instead, figure out how to earn expensive attention.
5. In addition to attention, focus on trust. Trust is even more scarce than attention.
6. Don't worry so much about the 'online' part. Instead, figure out how to create value. The online part will take care of itself.
7. Don't quit your day job. Start evenings and weekends and figure it out with small failures.
8. Build a public reputation. A good one, and be sure that you deserve it, and that it will hold up to scrutiny.
9. Obsessively specialize. No niche is too small if it's yours.
10. Connect the disconnected.
11. Lead.
12. Build an online legacy that increases in value daily.
13. Make money offline. If you can figure out how to create value face to face, it's a lot easier to figure out how to do the same digitally. The web isn't magic, it's merely efficient.
14. Become the best in the world at something that people value. Easier said than done, worth more than you might think.
15. Hang out with people who aren't looking for shortcuts. Learn from them.
16. Fail. Fail often and fail cheaply. This is the very best gift the web has given to people who want to bootstrap their way into a new business.
17. Make money in the small and then relentlessly scale.
18. Don't chase yesterday's online fad.
19. Think big, act with intention and don't get bogged down in personalities. If it's not on your agenda, why are you wasting time on it?
20. Learn. Ceaselessly. Learn to code, to write persuasively, to understand new technologies, to bring out the best in your team, to find underused resources and to spot patterns.
21. This is not a zero sum game. The more you add to your community, the bigger your piece gets.