Editing The Pen Addict 298/transcript (section)

== Cortex Podcast ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's the big one. And I don't always listen to it. But there's usually some topics that really speak to me because both of you all talk about working for yourself and getting things done and things like that. And as we – you and I spoke about last week, you started this journal and you brought it up to Grey on the show. And I was actually surprised at a few of his responses. I thought he was going to eviscerate you. Yeah, me too. At some point. I was pretty surprised as well. And then he's like, by the way, I've done this too. So if you're interested more in like in journaling from – I don't want to take your words but from Grey's words, from a more task-based perspective, this is worth listening to. Do you have any – you want to chime in on this real quick? I've wanted to just give a little bit of background about this topic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I wanted to bring it up on Cortex as a thing that I was wanting to talk about, right? I wanted to talk about the hows and whys of the journaling that I'm doing. But I thought to myself, I can't – like in full disclosure, there was no way I could bring it up before me and you had the opportunity to talk about it, right? Because I felt like if I would have just like thrown out on Cortex that I'm journaling but I'd never had the conversation here, it would have just – I would have felt like I was cheating on you or something. So I made it very specific that I would talk about my journal on this show before I would mention it on Cortex. So that was just like a funny thing that just happened in my brain. I just felt like it wouldn't have been fair if I would have just mentioned on that show that I'm doing a journal but not on here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. So it was pretty cool. Y'all go listen to it. The only question I was left with, and this is where my not listening regularly to the show comes in, Gray has designed some of his own paper. It's digital paper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is it just like background stuff?

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's some kind of format that he has created like a digital paper to use in like GoodNotes or something that he keeps promising to share because people want it but he hasn't done it and I don't know why. But yeah, he's created some kind of like specific paper format for his journal planning thing that he's been doing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Shocker. Yeah. There is no existing system that can accurately work for him.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Definitely not. All right. So I wanted to throw that in there in case anyone wanted to go listen to more nerdery.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is good extended listening from last week's episode of this show. Where I really kind of delve into the why I'm doing it more than kind of here I was talking about the practicals.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. So yeah, it was pretty good. I giggled several times especially at Gray. All right, Myke, I have a lot to say. Yeah, you do. About the Baltimore Pen Show. So why don't we get to it after hearing from our good friends at Casper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a great idea. Today's show is brought to you by Casper, the company focused on sleep, who are dedicated to making sure that you are exceptionally comfortable one night at a time. You spend a third of your life sleeping. That's a lot of time. Like if you spend a third of your life doing one specific thing, like, you know, the rest of your time you're doing like you're awake, you're doing whatever. But just a pure thing. You are in your bed for one third of your life. So don't you want to make sure that it is the best, most enjoyable and lovely experience that it can possibly be? Sure you do. And that's why you need Casper. Their mattresses are perfectly designed for human beings with engineering to soothe and support your natural geometry. Casper's got all the right support. In all the right places. So what goes into making a Casper mattress so comfortable? Well, they combine multiple supportive memory foams for a quality mattress that will give you just the right sink and bounce. Their mattresses are designed and developed in the U.S. And they have a breathable design to help keep you, help keep your temperature regulated throughout the night, which you want. You don't want to be too hot. You don't want to be too cold. And that's what the Casper mattresses can help with. They have an average rating of 4.8 stars with online reviews. And they've had over 20,000 of them. So it's very clear that Casper is becoming the Internet's favorite mattress. They will deliver directly to your door in an impossibly small box. And if for any reason you don't love it, Casper has a hassle-free return policy, which is a 100-night risk-free sleep-on-it trial. So you can be sure of your mattress purchase from the Internet because you get 100 nights to sleep on it before you make your final decision. And if you don't like it within that time period, you can return it for free. Very, very simple. Now, Brad Dowdy, my understanding is when you need a little bit of time to yourself, you go and hunker down on the Casper mattress. Is that right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was a very kind way to say when you've been kicked out of the bedroom for snoring too loud. You go hunker down on the Casper mattress in the guest bedroom, and it's always enjoyable. It's always fantastic. I prefer it over my regular mattress. I'd be okay just sleeping in there. But, you know, it doesn't work that way. That's a bad idea. That's not good. That's not good for your overall marriage, I think. But no, but the nights I do sleep on the Casper are usually really good. It's a great mattress. I love the packaging. I love that it keeps me cool and comfortable and a good night's sleep. So, yeah, it's fantastic. Love it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can get $50 towards select mattress purchases by going to casper.com slash penaddict and using penaddict at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Once more, that is casper.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict for $50 towards select purchases. Our thanks to Casper for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, by way of chance, our podcast is recorded on Wednesday, which gives me like a day of podcasting pen show prep. And then I get to talk about it almost right when I return. It's like a good fit. It's not broken up too much. I can get the whole show experience, you know, between shows and fill you in on the details. And last week, I was talking about how excited I was for the show. And I hope it lived up to the hype and no pressure, Bert. Bert Ozer, who puts on the show, Baltimore Pen Show. And I had high hopes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this show met or exceeded every single one of them. I mean, I think it's fair to say this is one of the best pen shows I've ever been to. Wow. Right from the jump, we're going to go ahead and drop that on this show. So, there's lots of things that go into that, which we'll talk about as we kind of go through this. But I just kind of want to talk through the show from the different things I did, different events I did, different people I met. And kind of paint a picture of how this show was because it was really so much fun. And I wish everyone could be at this show just to experience what all of us lucky ones that got to go there got to experience. And I didn't put this in the show notes. But some were not so lucky because we did have a huge weather event Thursday night, Friday, most of the day.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That prevented people from getting to the show a lot of those days, a lot of high winds, snow up north. And it was just kind of a travel nightmare on Friday. But somehow, the show didn't skip a beat. Like, we had a good crowd on Friday, big crowd on Saturday, and then, like, the perfect crowd on Sunday to just kind of chill and go through the day. The knock presence. This was my first knock show of the year where I brought and manned all the knock goods at the knock co booth. So, the way the show's set up, there's one large ballroom. This is a new hotel for Baltimore, so I don't know the previous setup. One large ballroom, then one small ballroom off to the side. So, I was in the small ballroom off to the side. It was me, Pay It Forward table, Van Espen, Jimmy Dolov, Story Supply, Independent. So, it was a nice room. There was some more. Oh, the Baltimore Urban Sketchers were right behind us. So, that was a cool group. So, you know, we dubbed it the cool kids room because the small room always gets dubbed something, right? Because you feel left out of the big room. But I don't think we missed a beat being in that side room, certainly from Knox's perspective. Business was as good as any other large show that I've done before. Like, overall, our sales were right there with Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco. Baltimore slid right in, like, didn't miss a beat. Like, it's pretty consistent what we can do at a pin show. And this one was right there, which I had no idea what to expect. But it was really, really good. So, from a business perspective, very successful show. From a personal perspective, I want to talk about the fun stuff we did. And then we'll circle back around to the actual show itself.