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John Garrett [00:00:00]:
Hey, this is John Garrett. I’m passionate about making work more human, especially in this age of AI. I don’t just host this podcast, I also help organizations put people first through my keynote speaking, coaching, and What’s Your “And”? implementation programs. To learn more or to connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram, I invite you to join the movement at whatsyourand.com. Now let’s jump into this week’s conversation.

Joe Pope [00:00:21]:
This is Joe Pope, and when I’m not home brewing beer and smoking meats, I’m talking with John Garrett on What’s Your “And”?.

John Garrett [00:00:34]:
Welcome to episode 711 of What’s Your “And”?. This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. And to put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “And”—those things above and beyond your technical skills. It’s the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work. It’s the answer to the question of who else are you beyond the job title? And if you like what the show’s about, be sure to check out the award-winning bestselling book on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes Noble Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture. And I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such great reviews on Amazon.

John Garrett [00:01:24]:
Thank you so much for those. It’s silly how much that matters. And more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it. If you want me to read it to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your And on Audible or wherever you get your audiobooks. Please don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week. This week is no different with my guest, Joe Pope. He’s a partner and director of business development at Hinge, a marketing, branding, and research agency for professional services firms.

John Garrett [00:01:54]:
Now, he’s with me here today. Joe, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?.

Joe Pope [00:01:58]:
I am so excited to be in episode 711 as a lifelong Slurpee enthusiast. John, this is truly a connection unlike any other.

John Garrett [00:02:07]:
There you go. It’s meant to be. This is destiny.

Joe Pope [00:02:09]:
This is amazing. Destiny. Destiny brought us together.

John Garrett [00:02:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I have 17 rapid-fire questions that get to know Joe on another level here, and maybe we’ll play with that one. What’s your favorite flavor of Slurpee?

Joe Pope [00:02:22]:
Oh, Coke. Original Coke. I think it’s the one also that never seems to be broken in the machine. Something about the Coke flavor always works.

John Garrett [00:02:30]:
It’s always ready. How about a favorite color?

Joe Pope [00:02:32]:
Oh, yellow, which is actually an interesting choice for, I guess, men. But in general, yellow was always kind of resonated with me. And the real throwback to that was that I felt that yellow looked really cool on skateboards when I was a kid.

John Garrett [00:02:47]:
Oh yeah.

Joe Pope [00:02:47]:
Like it just was like something different. It like stood out. And then when it left a streak on the poles and all that type of stuff when you’re grinding and so forth. And so Yeah. Yellow is the color.

John Garrett [00:02:57]:
No, I like it. How about a least favorite color?

Joe Pope [00:02:59]:
I don’t know. I guess I’m not a color hater.

John Garrett [00:03:02]:
Okay. Just in case they’re listening, I’ll just.

Joe Pope [00:03:04]:
Make fun of this green that Hinge chose for our first book, Spiraling Up. It’s like this, like pea soup color. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m not a big pea soup guy.

John Garrett [00:03:12]:
Yeah, sure.

Joe Pope [00:03:12]:
We’ll go with that.

John Garrett [00:03:13]:
No, that counts. That counts. Are you more early bird or night owl?

Joe Pope [00:03:16]:
Oh, I’d rather be up early. That’s, that’s a big switchover. When you’re younger, of course, it’s, it’s up all night. But you know that I’ve got two children. The earlier I wake up, the more time I get to myself.

John Garrett [00:03:27]:
Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:03:28]:
Yeah. So that’s the move.

John Garrett [00:03:29]:
That’s for sure. How about puzzles? Sudoku, crossword, maybe a jigsaw puzzle?

Joe Pope [00:03:34]:
It’s crossword all the way. When I was doing more commuting, popping open the Washington Post’s online crossword puzzle and doing that in transit is— was a good move.

John Garrett [00:03:43]:
There you go. Yeah. Learn some new words. All good.

Joe Pope [00:03:46]:
That’s right. For me to botch and trip over during sales calls.

John Garrett [00:03:51]:
That’s not how you pronounce it, Joe. But anyway, good try.

Joe Pope [00:03:54]:
They don’t know because I’m smiling and I’m just going to keep moving on.

John Garrett [00:03:56]:
Here we go. We’re just moving along. You don’t know where I’m from. How about a favorite actor or an actress?

Joe Pope [00:04:03]:
Glen Powell. You know, something about Glen Powell these days is just, you know, when I saw him flying a jet around in Top Gun: Maverick, which was criminally robbed of the Best Picture, I will go.

John Garrett [00:04:15]:
To I will go to my— my grave saying that, right?

Joe Pope [00:04:17]:
I saw that movie like— I thought.

John Garrett [00:04:18]:
The same about Dumb and Dumber back in the day. But, you know, hey, like, it’s same, same, same. Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:04:25]:
Glen Powell, I was actually— I was watching his new show on Hulu, which somehow they took the Peyton and Eli Manning bit where Eli dressed up and went to Penn State. And I’m sure we’ll talk about Penn State in this episode at some point.

John Garrett [00:04:37]:
Sure.

Joe Pope [00:04:38]:
But he was Chad Powers and he wore— and he went to an open tryout. So Glen Powell did this and turned it into a TV show. And I watched the first 2 episodes last night and I was like, this is not bad. I’m entertained. And it’s entirely because of Glen Powell. It has nothing to do with anybody else. So that guy, that guy can’t do any wrong right now. That’s probably the actor.

John Garrett [00:04:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. How about toilet paper roll? You go over or under?

Joe Pope [00:05:01]:
Over. When you go under, for some reason, when you try to pull it, it doesn’t pull as clean. And I know we’re talking about bathroom habits right now, right?

John Garrett [00:05:07]:
No, totally.

Joe Pope [00:05:08]:
But over— and but I think a lot of this, and this is a take, depends on how you have the toilet paper roll either stuck to the wall or whatever the— mounted, right? So the type of mount makes a difference as well. You need that clean break. So any sort of mount where it’s too loose, where your child can take it and decide to flush the entirety of it down the toilet, plug cause you 2 hours of your own pain and suffering to clean it out. I’m not talking from experience, right?

John Garrett [00:05:39]:
I mean, just maybe hypothetically, like, hypothetically.

Joe Pope [00:05:42]:
If your child, your 3-and-a-half-year-old, were to do that, right?

John Garrett [00:05:46]:
That’s amazing. Uh, you’ve clearly thought about that a lot.

Joe Pope [00:05:49]:
I was ready for that question.

John Garrett [00:05:50]:
Oh, you very much were. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Joe Pope [00:05:53]:
Star Wars. Star Wars. Well, it can be a little controversial now with some of the more recent movies.

John Garrett [00:05:58]:
Yeah, the original 3, let’s just say.

Joe Pope [00:06:00]:
Like, it’s— yeah, original 3 or some— the second movie, Empire, is one probably top 10 movies.

John Garrett [00:06:05]:
It’s amazing. So good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, your computer, PC or Mac?

Joe Pope [00:06:09]:
Mac all the way.

John Garrett [00:06:10]:
Yeah, that’s what I figured. You’re the creator.

Joe Pope [00:06:12]:
Yeah, Mac. We got the watch, we got the phone, we got the MacBook Pro.

John Garrett [00:06:16]:
Did they chip your neck? Did they implant the chip? Or, uh, like, how do they— is that next? Like, what’s like the tattoo?

Joe Pope [00:06:22]:
It’s probably next, especially that I’ve got the AirPods.

John Garrett [00:06:25]:
AirPods.

Joe Pope [00:06:27]:
I’m very, I’m very invested in the Mac ecosystem.

John Garrett [00:06:31]:
There we go. Uh, how about ice cream? You go in a cup or in a cone?

Joe Pope [00:06:35]:
Cup. But I will say, as somebody who’s lactose intolerant, ice cream has— we have a love-hate relationship, as in I love to eat it and then my body hates that I’ve eaten it.

John Garrett [00:06:46]:
Yeah, I can hear you on that. Like, they get creative though. Like, they got some new vegan types.

Joe Pope [00:06:52]:
Like, the ones that are like oats, like almonds and stuff, is actually pretty good.

John Garrett [00:06:55]:
Yeah, yeah, the oat milk especially. Yeah, I agree on that. Do you have a favorite animal? Any animal at all?

Joe Pope [00:07:01]:
Horse, particularly thoroughbred horses. I have a random obsession with reading books about typically like racehorses of the past years and so forth, like in like where I’m actually like following the— everybody watches the Triple Crown, or usually everybody watches it, you know, the idea knows about it. Yeah, knows about it, right? But I’m like one of those weirdos who like studies the horses coming in to the Triple Crown so I can pretend to know what I’m talking about at whatever event I’m at where the Triple Crown is.

John Garrett [00:07:29]:
Like me with college football recruits, it’s like, oh, Oh, I know where they went to high school, like what they went to high school with. It’s like, what? Like, why do you know this?

Joe Pope [00:07:38]:
You’re in the 24/7 message board.

John Garrett [00:07:41]:
Well, not in the message board, but like, at least know about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Pope [00:07:44]:
Okay.

John Garrett [00:07:44]:
I’m not messing. Yeah, that’s crazy. Yeah. Are you more talk or text?

Joe Pope [00:07:51]:
Good question. I would much rather talk to people, but text has become such a necessary evil. And I will tell you that I have been numerous times accused of being a mean texter. So I will always do pleasantries. Yo, so good Good to see you, blah, blah, blah. When you have a phone call or a YouTube or not YouTube, a FaceTime or things along those lines. But when I text people, it’s usually like, where are you at?

John Garrett [00:08:16]:
No pleasantries. No, none.

Joe Pope [00:08:18]:
No no pleasantries, period, punctuation, none of that. And then somebody will be like, good morning to you too. And I’m like, all right, well, I.

John Garrett [00:08:26]:
Didn’T know we were doing that. Um, right, exactly.

Joe Pope [00:08:30]:
Call me then. I’ll happily give you— Yeah, right, then call me.

John Garrett [00:08:32]:
And then if you need a little pep, that’s funny. How about, uh, this is a hot take: pineapple pineapple on pizza, yes or no?

Joe Pope [00:08:38]:
Definitely not.

John Garrett [00:08:39]:
Definitely not. Okay, definitely not.

Joe Pope [00:08:41]:
I am not a pineapple on pizza person. The texture and the general fact that, you know, warm pineapple I’m not a fan of, or cold pineapple I’m not a fan of on the flavor of pizza. Okay, now I like pineapple slices as a standalone, like where you’re just eating it out. Yeah, right, where it’s part of a fruit bowl or things along those lines. Yeah, but no, a Hawaiian pizza is 2 thumbs down from this guy.

John Garrett [00:09:05]:
It’s probably somebody that has their toilet paper under. That’s probably what’s right.

Joe Pope [00:09:08]:
Psychopath, right?

John Garrett [00:09:11]:
How about— and since you’re in the marketing world, you go print or digital?

Joe Pope [00:09:14]:
Oh, it’s got to be digital, although I still read actual books. So that’s like the one thing I go out— like your book, for example. Yeah, got myself an Amazon copy of that and, uh, and was rocking and rolling with the— something about sitting there with a book is always nice, but Yeah. As somebody in, in marketing, unfortunately the era of just sending leaflets to people doesn’t quite work, especially in the business-to-business sense.

John Garrett [00:09:37]:
Right, right. No, I hear you. How about a favorite number?

Joe Pope [00:09:41]:
9.

John Garrett [00:09:41]:
Yeah. Is there a reason?

Joe Pope [00:09:43]:
Yeah, really interesting one. So Little League baseball. I grew up in the era of Cal Ripken.

John Garrett [00:09:48]:
Oh, yeah.

Joe Pope [00:09:49]:
The, the Northern Virginia, Maryland DMV area. Sure. Cal Ripken wore number 8. And so everybody wanted to be number 8. And as a logical person, the next number that would be available that was closest to Cal again, was number 9. And then that was my Little League number. And then if you know anything about the Baltimore Orioles, a gentleman named Brady Anderson also wore number 9. And randomly, likely because he was juicing all hell, he hit like 45 home runs in one random year.

Joe Pope [00:10:16]:
And I used to tell everybody, yeah, 9, just like Brady Anderson. And then of course, then he fell.

John Garrett [00:10:21]:
Off a cliff because they found out he was juicing. Yeah, exactly.

Joe Pope [00:10:26]:
By the way, I don’t know if he was ever actually accused of that. So Brady, if you hear this on what’s your end, please do not sue me. I’m just going with what I thought was likely because you gained 50 pounds. You looked much different. Right.

John Garrett [00:10:39]:
And never hit double-digit home runs after. But what are the odds? That’s hilarious. How about a favorite season? Summer, winter, spring, or fall?

Joe Pope [00:10:47]:
I would say my favorite season is probably fall for similar reasons to you, in that it is the football era of things are cooling down. I live in the Mid-Atlantic, so it’s no longer a swamp here. It is a swamp in DC, obviously. It’s no longer a swamp in terms of the feels of the heat and humidity that you get here. Perfect time for brewing beer outside, smoking meats. I think we’re going to get into some of that. Yeah, I’m a big fall guy.

John Garrett [00:11:14]:
And the last one, favorite thing you own?

Joe Pope [00:11:16]:
I’d probably say currently it’s my truck. I have a GMC Yukon.

John Garrett [00:11:21]:
Okay.

Joe Pope [00:11:21]:
Big large SUV that I purchased for cash that was saved for years because I knew I wanted to have this big large SUV that I haul all the kids, haul the trailers, you know, off-road with it, do all those types of things. And so for years and years and years, I just continued to drive my old 2008 Honda Pilot that was, you know, 200-something thousand miles. Like, I maintain it myself, I do all those kinds of things, and I drove it pretty much into the ground. Like, you know, I went through 2 timing belts.

John Garrett [00:11:51]:
Oh my gosh.

Joe Pope [00:11:53]:
All of this thought that like eventually I’ll buy a car for cash, and that way when the— I’m talking with the sales guy, they’re going to be like, Well, how are you going to, how are you going to pay for this? And be like, well, I’m going to write a check. So like, there was like the idea that it took me so long to get there and, you know, the effort and the thought, like I’ve researched cars forever, blah, blah, blah. And then I walked in there and walked out and I was like, yeah, that was, that was a life accomplishment. I, I took on the dealer and won.

John Garrett [00:12:20]:
Right.

Joe Pope [00:12:21]:
Yeah.

John Garrett [00:12:21]:
Yeah. You feel like a celebrity. Like it’s like, I’m just, I’m paying cash. Like what?

Joe Pope [00:12:26]:
Like it’s the dumbest thing.

John Garrett [00:12:28]:
Exactly. Get this Don’t on camera. be saying this. I’m paying cash.

Joe Pope [00:12:34]:
They were not nearly as impressed as I thought they’d be.

John Garrett [00:12:37]:
They were like, oh, okay, cool.

Joe Pope [00:12:38]:
They were just like, cool, whatever, trust fund kid. I’m like, no, that’s not what it was. Right?

John Garrett [00:12:43]:
That’s hilarious. So yeah, so let’s talk brewing beer, smoking meats. Like, I guess how the brewing beer gets started. Was that from when you were a kid? No, I’m just teasing.

Joe Pope [00:12:53]:
Well, Dad and I had an interesting upbringing together.

John Garrett [00:12:56]:
Right, right. No, but how’d that get started? I mean, where you’re like, hey, I could just make this.

Joe Pope [00:13:00]:
Yeah, so let’s go back to college. In college, I was a biology pre-medicine major, and so one of the things that I always enjoyed was the lab side of you this, know, organic chemistry lab and biology labs and things along those lines, like the science pieces of that. I enjoyed that far more than eventually the thought or process of being a doctor, which is part of the reason why I’m not a doctor.

John Garrett [00:13:27]:
I just want to stay in labs all day. Like, I just want to hang out here.

Joe Pope [00:13:31]:
Yeah. I mean, seriously, that was by far more enjoyable. I also really enjoyed drinking beer in college, which a lot of other people might— This tracks.

John Garrett [00:13:39]:
This tracks. Okay. Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:13:41]:
There was a gentleman, a good friend of mine. He’s tragically— he passed away a few years ago, but his name was William Pierce, and he was a jack of all trades. He did a lot of just random things. Like, one of those things was he taught himself how to brew beer, and he kind of brought that over to our— well, I won’t call it a frat house, but it was a very frat-like house. And we started doing like the extract kits and things along those lines, mostly out of this like thought process that it would be cheaper than going to the Kroger down the street and purchasing 30-packs. We can make our own beer, right? We got to the point where we actually converted a water heater into basically a keg-like device.

John Garrett [00:14:23]:
Like a 50-gallon keg?

Joe Pope [00:14:25]:
Oh yeah, that’s awesome. And I will tell you, the beer sucked. It was terrible. I mean, like, best practices for hygiene purposes, none of that stuff was happening. So I did that a bunch at the— my last— I was in college for the better part of a decade. We’ll leave that detail out. But those last few years when I was finishing up my degree in Richmond, I went to Virginia Commonwealth we messed around with that. Fast forward about 7 or 8 years later, and I have a good friend of mine, Drew Wiles, who is one of the owners of Solace Brewing Company in Northern Virginia.

Joe Pope [00:14:59]:
And he was a chemistry major in college. He worked at a children’s hospital in D.C., and then he and a couple of his buddies started up Solace. Like, he completely pivoted, right? And he taught himself how to be an enterprise-level brewer. Similar kind of background and experience to me where it’s like, you know, I went to school for something completely different and now I’m taking this. And sure. And I followed really closely along with like how he went through that. And I would always— he’d give me tours and like I got to see a lot of the different devices. And now Solace is one of the biggest breweries in Northern Virginia.

John Garrett [00:15:28]:
That’s awesome.

Joe Pope [00:15:29]:
But like it really like reinvigorated my interest in this. Yeah. So myself and my brother-in-law’s younger brother, we kind of got together and we’re like, let’s just start doing this more. Like we— I did this previously. Seamus, my brother-in-law’s younger brother. At this point, I call him my brother-in-law.

John Garrett [00:15:47]:
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Pope [00:15:48]:
I’ve known him majority of his life at this point.

John Garrett [00:15:50]:
Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:15:51]:
So we went and got some nicer equipment and just started that process about 2 and a half years ago. And, you know, at this point we’ve brewed 30-something beers, 20, 30-something beers. Yeah. We’ve experimented across the spectrum. You know, if you’ve ever gotten into brewing beer, you’d know that the type of beer that most people drink, the American domestic lagers and things like that, they’re actually some of the hardest beers to brew. For homebrewers because how you need to have them ferment and age is in a very cold environment. then So basically you got to buy or dedicate freezer space or refrigerator space in order to make this. So we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve been messing around like converting old freezer chests into places to keep our beer, to keep it cold as it’s, as it’s doing its thing once you make it.

Joe Pope [00:16:36]:
So yeah, we’ve put a good amount of time and investment into it.

John Garrett [00:16:39]:
Yeah. So do you have a favorite beer that you’ve made or a couple of favorites?

Joe Pope [00:16:43]:
Yeah, yeah. We give them funny names too. I can send you some images if you want to overlay them, but we made a German pilsner that we named the German Pavilion Pils, which was a knockoff from the World Showcase in Epcot. And so we did a label that was very German Pavilion. If you’re going to Epcot, by the way, the first thing you should do is just go to Germany and get the biggest stein of beer you possibly can.

John Garrett [00:17:06]:
Right. Yes.

Joe Pope [00:17:07]:
So that one was delicious. That was one of the few beers that I actually brought to Drew at Solace and said, hey, you should try this. I think this is worthy of your palate. Sure. He was like, sure, dude.

John Garrett [00:17:17]:
And he pours it in the plant.

Joe Pope [00:17:19]:
It’s like, all right, you’re good, man.

John Garrett [00:17:22]:
Right?

Joe Pope [00:17:23]:
Yeah, yeah. That one was really solid. And then the most recent one was that we absolutely knocked out of the park was a Pacifico. This is like a pale lager or a Mexican-style lager. Oh, okay. And we made kind of a darker version of that. So, you know, like Modelo has the Negro and Dos Equis has the Amber. So we took the Pacifico recipe, which is available and made an amber version of it, which Pacifico does not make.

Joe Pope [00:17:48]:
And so that was our summer beer. Like, we made 5 gallons of that and smoked it in like 3 weeks. Yeah. Wow. Because it was like, you know, this is— you squeeze a little lime juice into it. Yeah. So I think we’re going to run that one back. That one was really solid.

Joe Pope [00:18:02]:
We called it Pope-cifico.

John Garrett [00:18:05]:
There you go. There you go. I like it. That’s awesome. And is this something that you share with colleagues and clients? Do they know this side of you?

Joe Pope [00:18:13]:
A little bit. Yeah. I mean, I, so I do business development and relationship building and I am pretty known to take a barstool approach. You know, it’s like wherever the topics take us and I’ll be pretty comfortable talking about a lot of different things. Yeah, I bring a poor Jeopardy enthusiast mindset to things like I’ve got a boatload of random facts that certainly we.

John Garrett [00:18:33]:
Could do answer in the form of a question also. Yeah, exactly.

Joe Pope [00:18:37]:
What, what is the thing that I’m going to talk to you about?

John Garrett [00:18:39]:
Right.

Joe Pope [00:18:41]:
So yeah, no, I think that I’ve definitely brought it to conversations. And certainly anytime I see somebody who has like an interest in things like being a sommelier or things along those lines, you know, there’s— I think there’s actually a version of that that’s for beer.

John Garrett [00:18:56]:
Oh yeah, there is.

Joe Pope [00:18:58]:
Yeah. So, but like anytime I see or hear things along those lines, uh, it’s a topic that I’ll bring up just to help make connections because relationships are key, right? We all know that, especially in the professional services space, which is where my agency focuses, right? By developing these connections, it just makes it so much easier for them to not say no to me. No, I’m just kidding. Right?

John Garrett [00:19:21]:
Yeah. But I mean, how much does it matter that you find out people’s ends or, you know, you know that about, you know, colleagues and/or clients?

Joe Pope [00:19:30]:
I think it’s so important. Like, to me, it’s when people are just the cyborgs of the world and they come into conversations and it’s like, this is the thing I’m trying to accomplish. That I’m leaving the conversation, I frankly, I just don’t enjoy dealing with those folks. And a lot of times I’ll try to bring that out of people. That’s how I make my connections, right? It’s— I’m not the most eloquent speaker. You know, I’ll try to throw my thesaurus edition of words, which I’m misusing, into every conversation. But like, I’m such a play off of emotions type person. I’ll tell you, like, I sucked at my job before the Zoom era.

Joe Pope [00:20:09]:
And the reason for that is now I can react to people’s faces. Everybody’s, everybody’s in this setting where we’re looking at each other and talking and interacting. I’m so much better in person than I am on a phone call, for example. But when Zoom came in, boy, did I like— did I feel like my career took off. It certainly benefited Hinge as the person who was selling for Hinge.

John Garrett [00:20:27]:
Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:20:28]:
I think being able to really have a good connection with people, how they talk, how their faces look, what they’re interested in, what they’re not interested in is super important. Yeah.

John Garrett [00:20:36]:
And also too, like, you know, if people have normal backgrounds that are just, you you know, not the blurred or the fake or the whatever background. Now you’ve been in each other’s homes. Like I get to see like the things that are important to you, like the artwork or the, you know, you see your cabinet.

Joe Pope [00:20:50]:
Well, I have a 12-year whiskey behind me.

John Garrett [00:20:53]:
Exactly. For example, right behind you, you know, you got my Notre Dame helmet right here. You know, like it’s, it’s like, like things like this, my book or whatever, you know, some, you know, and so it’s like, oh, well, what’s that all about? You know, and then conversation starters and, you know, I guess, like how much does it matter internally, you know, as a leader, as a partner at Hinge, how much does it matter that your people have an and and that you know about it?

Joe Pope [00:21:16]:
I think in any agency-type world, and that’s what Hinge is, right? We’re a marketing, branding, research agency. There are the stresses of things like deadlines, expectations, things along those lines. And Hinge, we really much— we very much position ourselves as a strategic partner, which I think everybody says, but then you actually have to like go and do that. And we do, like, we regularly go above and beyond in terms of having conversations, things along those lines. And that all turns into time. And when time can sometimes stack up, you run into stresses and challenges and things along those lines. We, uh, Hinge actually created our own company holiday called Hinge Has Your Back Day. And one of those things that we ask our team to do on Hinge Has Your Back Day is to go do their and.

Joe Pope [00:22:02]:
What do you want to do? Like, what do you enjoy? You are forbidden from being on email. If you want to join chat, please do. Right. Like bring everybody in. We’ll do some Zoom. We’ll put up some Instagram videos. Cool. Whatever.

Joe Pope [00:22:13]:
Right. But no, I mean, like, so I’ll regularly, you know, go either go play golf or, uh, you know, go to a brewery or things along those lines. We’ve had a few years of that now. And that’s pretty much always like what I choose to do on that day.

John Garrett [00:22:24]:
That’s awesome. I mean, what a simple way to just like a day off, you know, during the week, obviously it’s not a weekend day, you know, it’s like a day off rando and, you know, go do your thing and then “Tell us about it,” because that’s where the magic is, is that boomerang. Because it’s not everyone going and doing their awesome thing in a vacuum. It’s, “No, no, we want to know what are those things that you did on Hinge Has Your Back Day.” And I guess from that, all of a sudden, I imagine people learn, “Oh, I do that too,” or “I don’t even know what that is.” All those conversations now are very human, and that’s really cool, man. What a simple way. And it’s not like Hinge went bankrupt and broke. Like, one day off, “Well, we can’t go.”.

Joe Pope [00:23:07]:
Right, right.

John Garrett [00:23:08]:
It’s like, no, actually the opposite, because, you know, people are more dedicated, they’re going to work better, they’re going to work with each other better. Everything good happens from that.

Joe Pope [00:23:15]:
That’s right.

John Garrett [00:23:16]:
What a great example, man. I love that so much. And, uh, how much is it on the leaders to, to live it, or how much is it on the staff to just embrace it and start it amongst their peers?

Joe Pope [00:23:28]:
Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of having an and and like bringing it to the rest of the group and so forth, I, I it is— I think it’s a culture piece. And, you know, culture is usually established by an attitude. And I think, remember, the Titans coined it as attitude reflects leadership. So having leaders that care to push that type of culture forward and then living it, because again, like, how a leader acts is certainly always going to then portray itself further down the line, is important. So, you know,— but I mean, I joined Hinge as a, as just a regular team member. And, you know, here 8 years later, I’m buying in and, you know, now an owner and a partner and so forth. But that was established by the owners who I came in with. You know, a gentleman, Lee Fredrickson, was Hinge’s managing partner for a decade plus.

Joe Pope [00:24:19]:
And, you know, he was a big proponent of the psychology. He’s actually a behavioral psychologist by training, actually. Yeah, he was a big proponent of this behavior, this psychology of what employer brand is, things along those lines. And we, We try to live that as an agency. We are an agency that shouldn’t suck to work with. Like we, that’s part of our ideals. We want to be fun. We want to be smart.

Joe Pope [00:24:42]:
We want to be connected. Like all of these types of words that, you know, you certainly got plenty of people who say them on their websites, but you know, how do you live that?

John Garrett [00:24:52]:
Yeah. And I would imagine it’s so much easier to live that and be that when, you know, you’re doing it internally, you can’t be internally the opposite of that. Oh, expect everyone on your team to just flip the switch when you go client-facing. It’s like, no, no, like, that’s crazy. That’s cool to hear, man. That’s, that’s so awesome. And so do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening where they’re like, hey, I have an and, and I don’t think anyone cares because it has nothing to do with my job?

Joe Pope [00:25:20]:
Yeah. I mean, I think one of the ways that I truly found success as a professional was when I in a sense, stopped caring about people caring about how they might perceive the things I care about. That’s a terrible way to say that, but like the idea that what makes me me, when I started to wear that on my sleeves and show off who I am, like, so for example, today on LinkedIn, my top performing LinkedIn post this year, by the way, was tied to Taylor Swift.

John Garrett [00:25:50]:
There you go.

Joe Pope [00:25:51]:
Not to give away when this episode’s going to be posted, but her new album came out today. Today, and I put up a post about my first listen rankings of Taylor Swift on LinkedIn. And yes, I’m a Taylor Swift fan. And, you know, of course I’ve already gotten, you know, more impressions from that than I did for my latest podcast short that I put up. But like, you know, hey, LinkedIn is here for Taylor content, and I am here to provide— shamelessly provide Taylor content.

John Garrett [00:26:15]:
There you go.

Joe Pope [00:26:16]:
When I started being more of a human as a professional, I found more and more success. And I think that’s If we’re going to shorten it down, that’s probably the piece of advice I’d give to others. Now, of course, there’s limits to that. And John, when you joined our podcast Spiraling Up, we talked about some of those limits. Like, you should be able to share your and, but if your and is something like ridiculous, like you like to not wear clothing and walk around your street, maybe that’s not something we should talk about.

John Garrett [00:26:42]:
Or illegal, you know, like don’t lead with that, right? You know, like type of thing with the legal ands. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And, and, you know, and there’s a time and a place, you know, when, when to do it and when to share and when not, like, look, we got to buckle down. We got this massive project that’s due at midnight, like get it done, but all the goodwill and all the, you know, the love and connection that we’ve built up through the year allows us to buckle down at this time and get it done without needing to worry about splintering.

Joe Pope [00:27:13]:
Yeah. And that’s that agency kind of mindset I was talking about is why Hinge kind of pushed that as part of our larger ethos is because we need to be able to buckle down sometimes. Like, there could be a crisis, not one we caused, but somebody comes to the table and they’re like, please help us, we need a steady hand right now. And sometimes that takes time, sometimes that takes, you know, just being a good voice to be responsive. And we all have things going on, right? So being able to really, like, trust and lean on each other— so much easier to trust somebody who you know more about. Out, right?

John Garrett [00:27:45]:
No, I love that so much, man. And, uh, and I, I love how you dropped ethos in there. Well played. I caught that crossword, man.

Joe Pope [00:27:52]:
I think I used it properly.

John Garrett [00:27:53]:
Yeah, I think you did too. So, uh, there we go. Uh, well, this has been so much fun, Joe, but I feel like it’s only fair since I peppered you with questions at the beginning that we turn the tables, make this the Joe Pope podcast. You’re going solo on this one. It’s no Spiraling Up where they got the handlers with you.

Joe Pope [00:28:09]:
Yeah, I got it. I got those shackles on me in the form of Austin and Mary Bland.

John Garrett [00:28:13]:
Yeah, exactly. So now they’re, they’re gone, so it’s just so let it rip. I’m in the hot seat. Whatever questions you have for me, I’m all yours.

Joe Pope [00:28:19]:
Yeah, well, thank you. This is an opportunity I’ve been greatly looking forward to. All right, John, what are your thoughts on Notre Dame’s season thus far?

John Garrett [00:28:31]:
It’s a, a little bit disappointing, but you know, a loss to Miami by 3, and if Miami wins the ACC, not a bad loss. And Texas A&M by 1, If Texas A&M goes to the SEC Championship game, also not a bad loss. So I think we’re fine. I think we’ve come back from that and just destroyed everybody since. So, you know, the resiliency of the team to bounce back is because it could have easily just spun out of control. So, yeah, I mean, I’m excited. A lot of young guys getting playing time with a couple of guys hurt and whatever. You know, I think C.J.

John Garrett [00:29:07]:
Carr is amazing as a quarterback and he’s really, really, really good. And so we’ve hopefully got him for maybe one, I mean, definitely one, maybe two years. And so then, you know, let’s build on that. And, you know, but I still think Notre Dame makes the playoffs and all that. And, you know, yeah, out of the gate, but, you know, last year was the same thing. You know, you lose to Northern Illinois in week 2, everyone writes Notre Dame off. Suddenly we’re in the national championship game. So, you know, it’s like, you know, it’s a long season and college football is very different than the college football that I fell in love with when I was growing up.

Joe Pope [00:29:44]:
Is that a good or bad thing from your perspective?

John Garrett [00:29:46]:
You know, I’m not excited about it, but I’m able to stomach it because Notre Dame’s willing to play. So like, if it was Northwestern or Stanford, you know, if Notre Dame went that route, then I’d be like, oh man, this is terrible.

Joe Pope [00:30:03]:
John, so if you could change one thing about college football right now, what would it be?

John Garrett [00:30:06]:
I think that the transfer portal, I think I’m totally cool with NIL and players getting some paid. It was happening before. Alabama didn’t accidentally get all the best players every year on accident. So that’s why. But I think the transferring without having to sit out— now, if your coach gets fired or leaves, then maybe there’s a loophole. But these guys that are on their 4th school in 6 years, they have the credits of a sophomore. It’s like, this is terrible. This isn’t good for the athlete because they forget that, oh, my legs might explode at any play and then I’m done.

John Garrett [00:30:58]:
What are you going to do after that? So remembering that you’re here for an education also. The top 0.1% of the 0.1% go on to the NFL and make the gazillions. But there’s the everybody else where, you know, now what are you doing?

Joe Pope [00:31:16]:
I’m in alignment with you on that. I think the transfer portal’s become a bit of an unruly mess. I think one transfer and sitting out the one year makes a lot of sense. And my exception would be, like you said, a coach, but I would also add a position coach because I think that’s also extremely important in college. That if your coach leaves or your position coach leaves, you should be able to transfer without sitting out because that’s who you’re making your commitment to, to go to these schools and to learn from these folks who are going to— supposed to teach you and guide you to whatever your next step in life is. And, you know, it’s 1 or less percent are going to the NFL. So like, this is supposed to be a part of the experience. And I think that’s probably the type of thing that needs to be done there.

Joe Pope [00:31:57]:
I’d also— I’m a hater of the conferences. Because, you know, your Big Tens and your SECs, they’re, they’re who destroyed this. Them and their connections with the media groups that drove so much money into certain groups. And that’s how you end up with the ACC including California schools.

John Garrett [00:32:13]:
Yeah, well, the Big Ten with Rutgers to USC and UCLA.

Joe Pope [00:32:16]:
Big Ten having 15 different, 17 different schools in it. It killed the old Big East of basketball, which was by far like, was amazing.

John Garrett [00:32:24]:
Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:32:24]:
Group.

John Garrett [00:32:25]:
Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:32:25]:
That early 2000s, late yeah, ’90s. Oh man.

John Garrett [00:32:28]:
Amazing.

Joe Pope [00:32:29]:
Right?

John Garrett [00:32:29]:
Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:32:30]:
And the Big East, because those basketball schools were all these Catholic programs that didn’t have D1-level football programs, they had to go hide off in the Northeast. And then of course UConn, who I’m a huge fan of Connecticut basketball, they came crawling back because they’re like, please save us, we’re falling apart. And thank God they did because then they won 2 national championships in a row with Dan Hurley.

John Garrett [00:32:51]:
Yeah, no, they’ve certainly turned it around on the men’s side for sure. I mean, the women’s was always buzzing.

Joe Pope [00:32:56]:
They’ve always been really solid.

John Garrett [00:32:57]:
Yeah.

Joe Pope [00:32:57]:
Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate you playing some rapid fire. I guess my last college football question for you, cause I know that is your end, is who is the most overrated coach in college football?

John Garrett [00:33:08]:
Well, I mean, I might have a bias on this, but I think Lincoln Riley. I mean, I, you know, USC is the rival of Notre Dame anyway. So, you know, probably whoever’s coaching USC, I would say, but yeah, I just, I just, I mean, You have Caleb Williams, who supposedly was a generational talent, and, you know, you don’t even sniff a national championship game. And it’s, it’s, you know, sure, you can score a whole lot of points, but your defense is non-existent. I mean, it’s a Big 12 defense, barely. Like, I mean, it’s even worse than that. So, you know, I would say that. I mean, there’s certainly plenty of other candidates that we could have in the running if it was a multiple choice.

John Garrett [00:33:48]:
You know, here’s 2 or 3 others. But yeah, but I, you know, I think Lincoln Riley And but, but his buyout is so huge that I don’t know if it’s worth, you know, I mean, I just laugh because, you know, Notre Dame has Marcus Freeman and we hit the lottery on that one. So and he’s also just a really great human, unbelievable person. I’ve been around him many, many times and he’s just a really cool, good, good guy.

Joe Pope [00:34:14]:
So what I agree with that you all hit the lottery with him. I remember when they announced him as the full-time coach, they did. Notre Dame did this really cool video.— I vividly remember this. And I remember thinking to myself, I was like, well, Brian Kelly was an asshole. And I thought that’s who you would go with, by the way. And then they end up with this guy who I’m like, I’ll run through a wall for this dude. Right? Let’s go. Let’s go.

John Garrett [00:34:39]:
Right?

Joe Pope [00:34:40]:
Yeah. I think you all lucked up big time. And that absolutely is why you went to the national championship last year and took out my favorite team, who I guess you could have a coach in the running for most overrated in James Franklin. Though I would have arguments against that. You took them out in the Final Four.

John Garrett [00:34:58]:
Right? No, I mean, yeah, we’re good and we’re going to be good for a while. And, you know, the recruits are coming. And what I’m really proud of too is that the school does it right. Like, I’ve seen how the sausage is made behind the scenes. And if you’re not going to class, you’re not here, you’re not on the field. It’s that easy.

Joe Pope [00:35:13]:
That’s right.

John Garrett [00:35:13]:
And we have guys that are graduating, like all of them, even the ones that are transferring for their last year. Here, they’ve got a Notre Dame degree, and then they go and, you know, transfer out and go play somewhere else. Go, because we have young guys that are coming in that are better and going to play. So absolutely, go play somewhere else, but you’ve got the Notre Dame degree, and that’s why you came here. And that’s what we recruit on, is 4 for 40. You give 4 years to Notre Dame, and you’re going to have the next 40 set.

Joe Pope [00:35:36]:
You know, that’s awesome. Yeah, it makes it easy to be a fan of a program like that. And I think when you have organizations that do it right— I mean, everybody’s got some warts every now and then, right? It’s been big college football and so forth. But, you know, you compare that type of mindset to some of these other programs that are, you know, they were previously just paying people under the table and now they’re outwardly paying them over the table, but not necessarily caring about things like degrees and being a quality human and things along those lines. That makes it such a part of this reason why we all fell in love with the sport in the first place, right? The pageantry of it, the experience of it, and so forth.

John Garrett [00:36:14]:
And I mean, you know, I mean, we had a player graduated, transferred to Boise State, came back, you know, Notre Dame-Boise State plate. And then he had a concussion, so he wasn’t able to play. But Marcus Freeman talked about it in the press conference of like, these aren’t cars that you sell and get rid of. Like, these are human beings and you care about them and their families and all this. And, you know, so he was talking about Jayden Mickey of like, you know, I care about this guy. Like, you know, like, I actually— he texted, you know, Coach Freeman of like, hey, you know, I’m okay. Like, you know, because Coach Freeman reached out and was like, hey, I heard heard you had this scary incident, you know, like, and all that. And so, you know, those are the sort of things that, that matter, and they matter in college football, they matter in business.

John Garrett [00:36:55]:
And, you know, that’s what you guys are doing there at Hinge as well. You know, Hinge has your back day. I mean, it’s in the name. I mean, you don’t even have to guess why we do this. It’s because you’re not going to do it on your own, so we’re making you shut this down.

Joe Pope [00:37:06]:
We’re going to make you do it.

John Garrett [00:37:07]:
Yeah, exactly. We’re going to make you human and go do it. So, uh, I love it, man. Well, thank you so much, Joe, for having me on your show and for being a part of my show and, and also part of all the things. This is Meta. Um, but, uh, but it’s so cool having you be a part of What’s Your “And”?.

Joe Pope [00:37:22]:
Yeah, I really appreciated the opportunity, John. We enjoyed you so much on our show. The fact that you turned around and said, hey, come on anytime, I was like, yep, I’ll take that offer.

John Garrett [00:37:33]:
Yeah, absolutely, man. And everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Joe with his beer and, and outside of work and having fun and all the things, you know, maybe connect with him on social media so you can get some more Taylor Swift updates, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there. And while you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture, and don’t forget to read the book. So thanks again for subscribing on Apple Podcasts or whatever app you use, and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread: that who you are is so much more than what you do.