John: Welcome to Episode 8 of the Green Apple Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and for sharing with your friends and for referring other accountants that are known for their hobbies, because that’s how this gets better and better. Just more guests with a variety of passions. This week’s guest is a friend of mine and is known for several things, to be honest. I mean, he was Louie Anderson’s tour manager for a year, he wrote a published book, he played an inning of minor league baseball, he even interviewed the Dalai Lama. I mean you name it, Dave has done it. I try to cram it all into this episode but I’m sure we won’t even touch half of it. Let me give him a short introduction.

After starting his career as an accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dave Gilbertson has served in a variety of senior executive roles within the private equity, strategy consulting, and software spaces. He graduated from Georgetown University, and then later the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, and is currently the Vice President of Corporate Strategy for Kronos Software. Thanks, Dave, for being on the show.

Dave: Absolutely, happy to join. I’m honored. Thank you for inviting me, John. I’ve heard the rest of your podcast and was honored to be asked to join this one.

John: Well, honored is not the word for it, that’s for sure. You drew the short straw and you’re here, so that’s how it works. It’s so cool to catch up with you as well. I mean I’ve known you for, gosh, 15, 16 years now?

Dave: That’s right, 16 years.

John: We’re getting old, that’s for sure.

Dave: I had the distinct pleasure of going to you. I’ve heard you talk about that first trip to the improv in LA during the PwC training session and I had the distinct honor, or pleasure — I won’t say honor, I’ll say pleasure, of going and meeting Vince Morris. We both met him at the same time. We saw Jim Carrey. I think it’s clearly sparked a real interest for both of us in the stand-up comedy world.

John: Yeah, definitely, man, and you can vouch for that story because you were in that car. That was hilarious.

Dave: We’re on our way out the door, ogling Jim Carrey’s both car and girlfriend, when I looked back and there was no John. There he’s sitting at the bar talking with one of the comics who –

John: Yeah, I’m talking to a dude about comedy. You guys were out there looking at girls. But I’m like, “No, I want to talk to comedians.”

Dave: I knew you were gone to stand-up.

John: That was a life-changing four weeks. I mean, thank you, PwC. Thank you.

Dave: It actually was. Yeah, it was for me as well. It definitely opened both of our eyes to the broader world out there. You and I both grew up in a small town. I grew up in North Dakota and I always heard about stand-up and I was a huge fan of stand-up comedy growing up, but I’d never actually experienced it in person until you and I went to the comedy club that night. It led to everything I think you and I both pursued since then.

John: Yeah, I mean it was one of those things where on TV they edit the stuff. I was like, “Wait, what? You guys have been tricking me for 24 years? Bunch of jerks…”

Dave: That’s right, yeah. We’re accountants, we don’t edit.

John: Yeah, it’s black and white. It is what it is, until you get into an audit and you’re like, “What do you want the number to be? Let’s just go home and sleep.”

Dave: That’s right, yeah.

John: We’ve obviously both started at PricewaterhouseCoopers, but you’ve gone on to — where do you work now? What are you up to?

Dave: I did, yeah. I have definitely taken a twisted path since you and I spoke. Right now, I head up our corporate strategy efforts for a software company called Kronos. We do time and attendance software and reports management software. Very global company, private company, about a billion dollars or so in revenues. I help the team map out where we’re going to head over the next few years, and then get a bit involved in global operations. Shortly after you and I worked together, I actually left Pricewaterhouse to go and work with venture capital firms for private equity for a few years before going to business school. I used that accounting base to really expand on most of my professional career since then. But then there’s always been this other side.

John: The other side.

Dave: The other side, yeah, I refer to it, where I keep getting pulled back into frankly just screwy stuff. You know what? It’s stuff that I absolutely love. Stand-up comedy was a good example. After being with this private equity firm for a few years, I was traveling the world and was on the road every single week. We’ve gone back to North Dakota for Christmas one year when I ran into Louie Anderson, one of my stand-up comedy heroes. I actually ran into Pamela Anderson right before that at the airport.

John: Was it alphabetical? What was going on?

Dave: It was. The pendulum swung all the way back to Louie Anderson.

John: Right.

Dave: We had a flight delay, I struck up a conversation, and man, and he could not have been nicer. You fast forward a little while and I ended up helping him out with the book called The F Word: How to Survive Your Family. After leaving the private equity firm, I decided to go out on the road with him and served as his manager and tour manager shortly after he left the Family Feud. It really just opened up this entertainment opportunity and experience in addition to finding someone who’s still one of my closest friend.

John: Louie is a great guy. Louie is awesome.

Dave: Yes. Actually, I had you open for him a couple of times in different casinos around the country and in Atlantic City, which give me a lot of pride to connect all those dots together. Although it’s just stemming from that training session that we had with Pricewaterhouse –

John: I remember when we did that – because we did a show in Connecticut and then we had to drive from Connecticut down to Atlantic City in the middle of the night, and that might’ve been the funniest drive in a car maybe of all time. It was unbelievable how hilarious it was.

Dave: It was definitely interesting. Shortly after that, I started doing some stand-up on my own, not nearly to the degree you took it, but I just wanted to get up on stage and experience it.

John: Sure.

Dave: While I was in business school, actually I went to business school right after that time with Louie, and it turned in to just a fantastic experience, and frankly a humbling experience, right? A pretty big business school and a lot of really high achievers, pretty arrogant folks, they get very humbled when those really confident, really smart folks get up on stage and nobody laughs.

John: Yeah.

Dave: In turn I felt like there were a lot of learnings for my professional career from that experience just in terms of how you deal with an audience, how you present an argument if you want to think of it that way, to actually turn people into your side, to make people like you. Just to have a charisma that comes through on stage, that’s a really hard and valuable skillset to learn. I ended up taking that into my professional world as a strategy consultant and then doing mergers and acquisitions and corporate strategy. I’ve run in a few companies in that time and every step of the way, communication is at the heart of any kind of effectiveness or anything I can inspire in my team members. The heart of that communication came from that time in the stand-up comedy world.

John: Yeah, I mean I remember you calling and going over sets and some joke ideas and whatever. It’s so humbling because the only way you learn is by doing it.

Dave: That’s right.

John: You can’t practice on your own.

Dave: And being really bad at it.

John: Yes, exactly. I think it’s so cool that you did, man. I commend you for that. It’s probably one of the hardest things that you’ll ever do in your life.

Dave: That’s right, stand-up comedy and parenting.

John: Yes. Actually, it probably prepares you well for parenting.

Dave: It did a little bit although — well, I guess it did, frankly, no qualifiers. It just did. I was going to say the audience. To make someone laugh is a lot tougher in parenting but audiences everywhere are tough.

John: Right. That’s so funny, man. That’s so funny. When you were managing Louie, what was the most rewarding experience that you had from that?

Dave: I don’t know if it was a single moment. I break up that time into three different buckets. The first and probably the most valuable bucket was that Louie really showed me that somebody who’s very successful, whether a comedian or just successful in their career, in their life can still be, and in some way it should be, one of the nicest people you could ever come across. He’s been a celebrity for a long time, right? He’s coming up on his 30th anniversary of his first Tonight Show episode.

John: With Carson.

Dave: Yes, that was back in the Carson days. He’s been a celebrity for a long time. He’s also such a very recognizable guy. I can’t tell you how many random places we’ve been in where the last thing you would want to be is recognized or on whether you’re just in a bad mood that day or you just want to get through a casino to your car or get your fast food and go or at a restaurant where we’re in a really deep conversation and people come up. I can’t tell you the number of scenarios I’ve been with him like that, and I have never seen him be anything but absolutely amazing that everybody that came up to him. I think it taught me a great lesson that you can be very successful in your career and still be very grateful for what you’ve got and —

John: Right. You hear that tax partners? There you go.

Dave: Exactly, yeah. I’d say that is one of the biggest lessons I took away from that time. The second lesson, you’d ask about are there points in time that stood out? I would say these are the totally random experiences that you get when you’re a part of the comedy world at that level, whether it’s seeing the real backstage –

John: Yeah, it’s kind of scary. It’s ugly.

Dave: Yes, parts of it are kind of scary but it’s just fascinating. You get in all these scenarios where, like I get a call once on it was like a Friday and the guy said, “Hey I’m a producer with Hollywood Squares, we’re a square short this weekend do you think Louie can make it?” When else are you ever going to hear a phrase “we’re a square short can Louie make it?”

This was the most random thing. I was on an elevator, we’re doing a show, and he was doing his charity show for Larry King’s heart charity…

John: Oh, I remember this story, this is so great. Yeah.

Dave: The headliners for the event were Louie Anderson and James Brown. What I said of course, thinking that I was funny was, “You got the hardest working man in show business and the laziest man in show business.” He thought it was very funny, too.

John: Yeah probably because he didn’t hear you.

Dave: So we end up in this elevator where we got Larry King, James Brown, Louie Anderson, Peter Mac, who’s a really famous author, Daniel Snyder the head of the Red Skins, the owner of the Red Skins, and Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx.

John: And you.

Dave: And me. You’ve got multiple billions of dollars’ worth of collective net worth plus me in the elevator and nobody can figure out how to make it go to the right floor. It was the most hilarious thing. Larry King just took over. He just goes absolutely nuts, takes over, starts commanding me to push the right button. I’m pushing the buttons and it’s going up instead of going down. He’s getting frustrated with me. The whole time I’m thinking, this is what feels like the start of a joke.

John: Right.

Dave: Larry King, James Brown, and Louie Anderson walk in an elevator.

John: Right. That’s awesome.

Dave: That’s the second. There’s a bunch more like that, just totally random things that would never happen in real life that just seems to happen when you’re part of the comedy world at that level.

John: Yeah that’s so cool, man. I forgot about that Larry King story until you brought it up and I was like, “Oh, man, that’s so funny.” I remember when it happened because you called me a couple of days later.

Dave: Yeah, exactly. I had to tell somebody who understood.

John: Yeah, I was like, “I could see that happening.” That’s crazy talk. That is so funny, man. One thing that I’ve never asked you ever is how did you even get into accounting, because you’re like me. What did you trip on?

Dave: You know what? I guess it goes back to growing up in North Dakota where I knew I always had more of a business mind and so I knew that at some point I wanted to run businesses but I had really few role models that I could look to that were successful in business. One of the few I had was an aunt and uncle that had their own accounting firm. They live in Seattle and so we didn’t see them too often, but when we did it was clear that they were very successful. They had always both said that accounting is just a great baseline to really, deeply understand a business. If you could understand a business from the numbers up, you’ll always be able to understand what’s going on with the business and where they’re headed.

I just always kind of took that to heart. I didn’t really know what it meant. When I was looking for colleges, I thought, “Well, you know, I’m always pretty comfortable with math and I’d love to explore that more just to figure out how you can tell a business story or understand what a business is doing just through their financials. That was really the path that got me there. I went to Georgetown University where we had an undergrad business school. I could be an accounting major there. I actually learned a lot of schools that I looked at that had specific accounting major. Then I had never even heard of PricewaterhouseCoopers or that whole world of big public accounting, but after getting there I was exposed to the recruiting process and that’s what set me in the path to going into public accounting route.

John: Yeah. That’s so great man. It was from when you were young, having a role model to follow. That’s interesting.

Dave: Yeah, absolutely.

John: Then in Georgetown, that had to be fun. I know you had a lot of cool experiences there, too because you were, sort of, working for a radio station back home. You were able to get a couple of media passes to certain things.

Dave: Yeah, or at least fake my way in. That was one of the most bizarre things. That was really where I found my interest. Apparently, they just walk up to absolutely anybody and start talking.

John: Yeah. Wasn’t there a Dalai Lama story or a president? I don’t know, I can’t remember.

Dave: Yeah, all of them. First of all, going to Georgetown which is located in Washington, D.C. from North Dakota was fantastic, huge culture shock, gigantic culture shock. I just took it for what it’s worth and explored anything that I could find and then again, in North Dakota I wasn’t really exposed to actually meeting these people that you would see on the news and stuff. The only time many interesting was coming to campus, I just figured out a way to be able to meet them. Most people would do the normal thing, lining up and hoping they shake their hands or something. I just figured out where their car was going to get parked. I looked at people getting in, figure out how they got in.

It started out when the Dalai Lama came, I saw Tom Brokaw walking up the street, because he was going to host an event for the Dalai Lama. I run up and I figured, he’s from South Dakota, I’m from North Dakota, we got a whole thing going on, and he’ll probably talk to me. I start talking to him and as we’re talking, Ted Kennedy rolls up, literally. Ted Kennedy starts taking to Tom Brokaw and basically just talking over me, the Dalai Lama pulls up all these little Lamas are screwing around the car, getting him out of the car and stuff. All of a sudden, I’m here in the middle, everybody’s walking in. It’s Tom Brokaw, the Dalai Lama, Ted Kennedy, and me.

John: Right. If only James Brown jumped out of the bushes like, “Are you everywhere?”

Dave: I kind of took that away from that experience and I thought, “That was really interesting, that would be cool to do again.” I’ve also been a big fan of politics. What I’ve realized is that in Washington, D.C., they have – and I think the statute of limitations is off so I can give you my two cents.

John: I think the secret service wants to have a little chat with you.

Dave: But I realized that, these are obvious in Washington, D.C., they always have cocktail parties at exactly the same time and they’re always in the same location right in Capitol Hill. I wanted to meet these politicians because I was interested. I would go and walk up to the table for a cocktail party that was being hosted and say that I was with Senator Kerry’s office – at that time there were two Senator Kerrys. Just in case I happen to run into someone from the wrong Senator Kerry, I could say, “Oh, no, I’m with the other one.”

John: Is that a C or a K?

Dave: Right.

John: It’s awesome.

Dave: It got me in and I’ve met most of the US Senate that way, just bizarre.

John: Man, I tell you what. That innocent North Dakota – “I didn’t know? I didn’t you could do that?”

Dave: Right, yeah. That’s what I figured, I can always plead ignorance and I’m frankly pretty convincing at being ignorant.

John: It’s not a lot of acting involved.

Dave: No, it’s not a stretch. It really was an odd dichotomy where I’ve taken that background and those experiences, and that just frankly comfort level of going and talking to folks and then going into public accounting environment.

John: Yeah, I mean when you walk into an audit, it’s like, “I don’t get – are you the CEO?” whatever. That doesn’t faze me, you know.

Dave: Right.

John: That’s so great man. Do any of these stories, your stand-ups background, any of the other crazy shenanigans that you’ve been up to, do you talk about these things at work? Do they just sort of trickle out? Or keep them close to the vest?

Dave: I’ve tried to be very strategic about how they trickle out.

John: Right.

Dave: At work and so far it’s worked really well. I think in almost all environments, especially if they’re stressful environments; they’re helped by some humor. That part of my background I wear on my sleeve that comes through in most interactions. Part of it is creating a crowd, right? So it’s not all interactions, but most interactions that trying to keep things a little bit lighter when things get tensed – or especially when things get tensed, has helped a lot. In terms of the stories themselves, I allow them to trickle out a bit. I put some of these parts of my background at strategic places in my resume so when I’m interviewing for jobs — it has gotten me a bunch of interviews just because they want to meet the person that interviewed the Dalai Lama. Another part of my background, I’ve played one inning of minor league baseball.

John: Right, right field, right?

Dave: Yeah, I played one inning at right field. I was later able to get one vote for the hall of fame. I put that in my resume and just that alone has gotten me so many interviews, I can’t even begin to tell you. At the end of the day, it just humanizes what can be a very kind of robotic interaction or an awkward interaction. When I start working with the folks, I try to establish credibility first and be the friendly, helpful, strategic leader or colleague, depending on the situation. But once people get to know me, I’ll let loose with a few folks with some of these stories and then let that trickle out. If they want to ask me about that, they can. If not, that’s great too. It doesn’t usually take long for some of this stuff to trickle out. I also have in my office some of the mementoes from some of these things I’ve got a framed copy of my book that came out of my minor league baseball experience. Some of the mementoes from the time with Louie, or a picture of me on stage, just to humanize – I do have more pictures of my family, so…

John: Threw them right here on the corner.

Dave: Yeah. In hopes that it humanizes me and it shows to other colleagues that I’m working with that there’s a real person behind the numbers, or behind the strategy, or behind the finance. It’s done nothing but help.

John: That’s so interesting too that you said, you’ve obviously established your credibility first, but by showing who you are and what your passions are outside of work, that doesn’t diminish that credibility at all. If anything, it probably enhances it, because then your co-worker relationship are even stronger then.

Dave: Yeah, I hope so. I think it makes you more approachable. I hope it makes you more approachable.

John: Right, unless you pull out a tape recorder and want to interview them, and they’re probably like, “Okay, whoa, hold on.”

Dave: Right, exactly.

John: Right. You actually have these on your resume. You have framed pictures of things in your office. I mean, you’re really going full bore with this, which I think is so fantastic.

Dave: But again, when you’re talking to me day to day, you wouldn’t necessarily know that. Again, I’ll let some of those stories drop every once in a while, but it’s not something that pops up. If they ask about it, that’s great; but if not, that’s okay too.

John: Absolutely, it’s not. Every single conversation doesn’t start with, “So I’m Dave Gilbertson, did I mention I played at one inning of minor league baseball? Okay, yeah, so anyway…”

Dave: Or when I was talking to Larry King last.

John: Right, exactly. But it is something that at least shows a little bit of color to what’s normally a gray world, so you’re just bringing a little bit of that. It’s not like you’re trying to keep a secret which I think is fantastic.

Dave: That’s certainly the hope.

John: One thing that I’ve always struggled with and thought about is, when it comes to creating this people sharing at work what their hobbies and passions are, employee engagement if you will, is that on the organization itself or the individual, or somewhere in the middle?

Dave: You know what I’m going to answer the question in kind of a roundabout way. If you think about what people were talking about a lot, say five years ago, it was work-life balance. How do you achieve that work-life balance? If you think about it, you actually rarely see that discussion happen these days. It’s more about how you can meld your work and life together. I’m convinced that the mobile phone is a big reason why that’s the case. If you think five years ago, you couldn’t do your work in any other place other than your work. You’re spending a million hours in the office and that means you’re not spending time at home. That shouldn’t be the case today, right? You should be able to blend your work and life together much more.

I actually think it makes it a lot harder to answer the question of whose responsibility is it to build up an environment where you got really engaged employees that are comfortable sharing all these things about you. I think a part of that responsibility lies on employees and on their leaders to live those values and live that culture of blending life and work together every day, and it’s up to the senior leadership at a lot of organizations to create a culture that engenders that kind of openness and encourages it, and yet is totally accepting of people that just aren’t comfortable that level of detail about their personal life.

John: Sure.

Dave: I think it’s got to be a mix of both, but you’ve got to have an open enough environment where you get that level of comfort. I’ve been very fortunate that at Kronos, where I’m at right now, we’ve got that. We’ve been named the best place to work in Boston; we’ve been named the best place to work in a number of other locations around the globe. A big part of that reason is because people are open to be as expressive about and embracing of their personal lives as they want to or not if that’s something they’re not comfortable with.

John: Yeah. I just thought Kronos got those awards because that’s where you started working. I was like, “Clearly, it’s a Dave Gilbertson effect.”

Dave: I wish.

Josh: I wish. Those are all excellent points, that the leadership can really crack it open, but it’s still up to the individual to share or not share to the level that they feel comfortable. It frustrates me sometimes when I hear people say, “Oh, well, you know, it’s not the kind of place or whatever…” it’s like, “Yeah, but you still go to lunch. I mean you can still kind of share a little bit.”

Dave: Exactly, yeah.

John: Even if you have the ruling fist ruling you, you still can bring little things up. But like you brought up earlier, establish that credibility first. That’s the thing that I never did in jobs. But man, I was hilarious.

Dave: Right to step two.

John: Right, exactly. I was like, “What? There’s a step one?” I think that’s definitely something that is really important for people to see is that even if the environment isn’t super fertile for that, there’s still a little bit. There are others amongst you that feel the same way. Get your own mini revolution, if you will, quietly.

Dave: Yeah.

John: Because I mean, there are quite a few barriers that people do feel when they’re to share or not share. I mean, you were so open, what made you feel like you had no barriers, really?

Dave: My wife asked me the same question.

John: Right, is it because you’re good at playing dumb, is that why?

Dave: Honestly, I don’t know. For me, at least, part of it is just where I came from. Growing up in North Dakota, I’ve always felt like it’s pretty hard to have much of an ego when you’re coming from a place like that because you’re all kind of in it together. When it’s forty below zero, you are in it together.

John: Yes, yes.

Dave: Once I started getting into the working world, I started taking a look at what I am inspired by, what I really enjoy, and what I don’t enjoy. Frankly, some of the stuff that I don’t enjoy is the stuff that is really frustrating for most people. It’s difficult working our actions. It’s really strong aggressiveness, arguing, or all those things. What I realized is that a lot of those inactions come from a place of fear. If you can eliminate that, and say “You know what? I’m just not worried about negative consequences. I’m not worried about putting myself out there and potentially getting hurt, because if I do get hurt, you know what? I’ll dust myself off and I’ll go on to the next thing. I put my stuff out there, and if it’s not embraced, I’ll move on to the next.” You get a little bit of a warrior mentality, part of it is confidence that you’ll figure stuff out and things will eventually work out in the end. That, at least for me, helped tremendously to say, “You know what? I’ll put myself out there and it’s not embraced, that’s okay. If it is, that’s even better.”

Dave: I will say though that I do customize my approach with people depending on the culture and depending on where I’m at geographically. This goes back to the stand-up days, right where you learn how to read a crowd. This summer I was given some speeches on our corporate strategy was talking to I think touched little over a thousand people around the globe and would give the same speech in Hong Kong, or India, or London, a bunch of different locations around the world. I absolutely adjusted my approach based on the culture that I was speaking in, just purely out of courtesy and in trying to understand the audience a bit more. I maybe wouldn’t do the jokes that I’m very comfortable doing in the US in China because I know that not might be embraced in that culture. There is a big piece of reading the audience that I learned from stand-up comedy that I think has been important as I try to customize my approach around the globe.

John: Yeah, I mean that’s an excellent example of a skillset that you were mining, if you will, and polishing on the side that you were able to bring to work. Another point that’s great is that some of these hobbies and passions actually translate to skills that you can bring to work with you that other people don’t have. I mean, other people don’t have that experience. That really helps you stand out and become more effective in the work that you’re trying to do. I mean, that’s great.

Dave: It actually has. I think that’s been one of the biggest tangible professional benefits from all these ‘screwy’ stuff experience. When I have college kids or kids of friends come in and ask for advice on what kind of career path they should map out, I usually start by saying, I couldn’t replicate the career path I’ve taken if I wanted to. It helps to have a goal in mind, but I was never really specific on the how. I said that’s an important takeaway because I have gotten into a point now where experience from a communication standpoint whether it’s writing a book, or speaking by phone or conference calls, which was helped a lot by my time in the radio, or by moving an audience by being up in front of them, which was helped by the time in stand-up comedy — all of those have combined to have a big benefit in my professional life that definitely wouldn’t have happened if I wouldn’t have sought that out.

John: I think it’s so cool that despite being associated with me, your career keeps moving onward and upward.

Dave: That’s one other aspect my non-professional career that we haven’t talked about is, was also the first member of the John Garrett fan club when you left PwC and left the working world to explore stand-up comedy.

John: Yeah because you were like, “Yeah go do it”, while you sat in your comfy PwC chair and had your health benefits and your everything, “Yeah John you’ll be great” and you turn around and snicker and, “Oh man I can’t believe he’s going to do it.”

Dave: Right. You were serious about that?

John: Right. What? No, you’ve been always so supportive and it’s definitely much appreciated, and this has been so great that I get to share our friendship and some of the stories that I get to hear with everybody on the greenapple podcast. There are pictures on the website of you and Louie, so everybody go to greenapplepodcast.com, as well a link to his book, and some other cool things. Be sure and share that. I feel like everyone’s gotten a chance to get to know you. But as you know, we don’t get to know you fully, until you do my 17 rapid fire questions. We’re going to put you in the hot seat and see how it goes, so here we go.

John: We have Star Wars or Star Trek?

Dave: Star Wars.

John: Sudoku or crossword puzzle?

Dave: Sudoku.

John: Favorite band.

Dave: This is a totally random one, but my dad is a piano player. Growing up, he played piano bar and pretty much anybody that my dad is playing with, I will sit and listen to.

John: Wow that’s fantastic, so not your dad, but anybody playing with your dad.

Dave: No. He is a fantastic musician.

John: Yeah, I was just trying to help you get a save there, pens or pencils.

Dave: Pens.

John: Oh, no mistakes. Look at you, man; balance sheet or income statement?

Dave: Balance sheet. Who would answer income statement?

John: Well you know I was going to say cash flow just to make you cry; boxers or briefs?

Dave: Boxer briefs.

John: Oh, nice; favorite number.

Dave: Seven.

John: Favorite sports team.

Dave: The Red Sox.

John: Next one, very important. Right click or left click.

Dave: I’ve always been a left click.

John: PC or Mac?

Dave: Mac.

John: Movie that makes you cry?

Dave: Field of Dreams.

John: That’s a solid answer, favorite color?

Dave: Purple.

John: Least favorite color.

Dave: Orange.

John: Favorite ice cream flavor.

Dave: Oh, man, Pepperidge Farm’s ice cream, specifically, Pepperidge Farm’s ice cream chocolate peanut butter cup.

John: Is Pepperidge Farm out of the Dakotas?

Dave: It’s actually out of Massachusetts where we live.

John: Oh okay, nice, favorite actor or actress.

Dave: Well, that’s a good question. I’m going to say Louie Anderson. We don’t think of him as an actor but I don’t want to tease too much.

John: There was a –

Dave: There’s going to be an America where he was a fantastic actor. I think within the next six months you’re going to be coming back to me and saying, “Wow, there’s resurgence there with Louie as an actor.” Can’t give away what it’s for but just a little teasing.

John: Is Hollywood Squares got an open square?

Dave: Oh no, this is big. This is really big. It is going to be hysterical.

John: Oh, great, so cool, looking forward to that. Jeans or khakis?

Dave: Always jeans.

John: Favorite thing you own.

Dave: This is the one question of your seventeen that I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of weeks since we talked. You know what? I finally decided that there is not a single thing that I own that I couldn’t absolutely be without. What I really cherish are my family and my memories.

John: Yeah, those are great answers.

Dave: Right, if I think if I’m on my death bed saying, “Oh, I’m really proud of having this” it will have been proud of having all the memories I’ve created with my family.

John: So your family. The favorite thing you own is your family. No, I’m just kidding, “and don’t you forget it kids.”

Dave: That’s right. Five-year old and a two-year-old, they own us.

John: Yeah, that’s probably true, actually. You’ve negative equity in this, this is not good. Very cool, Dave, thank you so much for being a part of this and sharing your cool stories with everyone.

Dave: Absolutely, John. I’m happy to be a green apple in a red apple world.

John: Oh, good answer, man, solid. Wow that was a lot in one episode. Like Dave said, once you establish your credibility, you can open up as much as you’re comfortable with so people see that there’s a person behind that super accountant façade that we put on. Make sure to greenapplepodcast.com for some pictures of Dave with Louie Anderson and a link to his book, Baseball in the Bad Lands: Stale Beers and Stale Careers. Now go out and be a green apple.