Authenticity Isn’t a Tactic, It’s the Whole Damn Strategy with Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing at Atlassian

This episode is equal parts spicy comms truth and high-functioning marketing chaos (with a little ADHD sparkle on top).

We’re joined by Ashley Faus, Atlassian’s Head of Lifecycle Marketing and the author of Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI.

We cover a lot of ground — and none of it is snackable. Modular, yes. Snackable, absolutely not.

•  Human connection vs. AI-generated sameness
•  The power of authenticity (real authenticity, not LinkedIn-polished perfection)
•  Why MQLs need to die
•  Brand vs. demand and why they're frenemies, not enemies
•  And yes, someone loses a pinky (you’ll have to listen)

This one is for the marketers who hate the word “marketer,” the comms pros tired of being called “PR,” and anyone trying to build trust while the robots learn to write press releases.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Parry: Hello everyone and welcome to episode seven of the Under Embargo Podcast. Seven is a magic number in podcast. If you make it to seven, they say the world is your oyster. Uh, I'm joined today with my co-host Beckett Chambers, um, by Ashley Foss, who is head of Lifestyle Marketing and Portfolio Atlassian at Atlassian.

Um, she's also the author of an upcoming book, which is in pre-order Land right now. We'll talk a little bit more about that, and it's called. Human-centered marketing, how to connect with audiences in the age of ai. So welcome Ashley to the show. 

[00:00:39] Ashley: It's gonna be a fun one. 

[00:00:40] Parry: So, since we just talked about the, the book, let's just, can we just start there?

'cause first of all, congrats on writing a book. I have been saying for, I don't know, 30 years that I'm gonna write a book. And guess what? I haven't done that. Uh, but you did. So can you tell me a little bit about the, um, impetus for, for writing the book and what that process was like? 

[00:00:58] Ashley: Sure. Um, [00:01:00] I'll echo the post that I put on LinkedIn recently, which was how to write a book in six months or less, and it's step one, wrestle with a problem for like 10 years.

Step two, talk about how you've solved that problem for like six years, and then step three. Oh yeah, just write the book in six months. No problem. So, uh, Perry, I feel like at this point you've done like steps one and two, you're just at the, somebody commented, they're like, oh, you're just not in the pen and paper phase yet.

And I'm like, exactly. Yeah, that's it. So, uh, the impetus was basically, you know, I see how marketing is going. I see the erosion of trust, and I see that a lot of marketers are not building audience journeys and campaigns and touch points and product demos in a way that actually builds trust to acquire, convert, and then ultimately retain and grow their customers.

And so I've been wrestling with these problems for my whole career. I think I have solved them in a way that. Is pretty elegant and makes sense. And so it was finally time to put all that down on paper. [00:02:00] And particularly as more and more, you know, AI comes on and people are writing it with it more.

They're creating video with it more. They're incorporating it into their workflows. We continue to get further and further away from the humans behind the screen and it's gonna come full circle as it does with any technology that people wanna connect with people they trust, people that. You know, they, they trust people like themselves.

They buy from people they trust. And so it's actually gonna be more important in the age of AI for us as human marketers to connect with our buyers as humans. 

[00:02:33] Becca: I literally talk about, I mean, you are saying what I go on panels and talk about all the time, and then I throw in the word authenticity like every third word in there because I think that like it's the human connection and it's like.

Real human connection, not just like the polished version of what is a perfect, you know, social media version. No, we want the real, [00:03:00] like what is a human version of, I wanna connect with what? I connect with anyway, you know, I'm preaching to the choir over here, but yes, I love, I love that you wrote a book about that because I fully agree it it in the wor in a world of ai, when we all in talk like that in the world, in the world, in the rapidly evolving world of all human lms, where we all talk with M dashes, because I have been using M dashes long before everyone started.

Shit talking the M dash. But anyway, I ad myself out of where I was going. What were we talking 

[00:03:38] Parry: about? We were talking about, oh, full 

[00:03:40] Becca: circle. 

[00:03:41] Parry: The full circle. Mm-hmm. 

[00:03:42] Becca: It's because you're, I mean, you're right. It's all gonna start to sound the sameness same. And in a world of sameness, people are gonna be like, God, can I please just connect with something that's real?

And just, you don't even have to be the smartest person in the room. You can just be [00:04:00] the most authentic person in the room. And suddenly that is gonna be what wins the day. And so the, um, attention economy is gonna shift from the loudest voice in the room to the most real voice in the room. And I think I can't wait for that.

I'm excited for the like. Full force of that. But you're right, we're already like, well on our way to that and yay for your book. Congratulations. Oh, 

[00:04:21] Ashley: thank you. 

What was the hardest part about writing the book? I'm curious, was it finding, carving out the time to do it? Was it the revisions, the editing? Like what was the the, the biggest labor, 

[00:04:33] Ashley: honestly, the biggest labor is promoting it like first.

So the writing portion wasn't actually that hard for me. I've, I've always been a pretty fluent writer in terms of like writing pretty fast. I'm, I'm good at it. If I get in the flow, like, we're gonna do it, we're gonna write, that's fine. Yeah. Um, proofing was not fun first. I was gonna say, the hardest part of writing a book is proofing the book, like.

Basically when they sent it to me and they're like, okay, you have to proof it. And I was like, you want me to [00:05:00] read this stupid thing? Like I just wrote it, can I not? And then having to go through in detail and leave comments. Um, so proofing it was definitely hard, but honestly the promotion piece of it, and I think part of this is because to Becca's point, like I'm not naturally super salesy.

If you wanna, if you agree with what I'm saying. Cool. Yeah. Buy more of it if you don't want, if you don't agree with it, fine. Don't. Yeah, and because I have never been selling anything. In the past, this idea that now suddenly I'm like, actually, yes, here is a thing to buy. Please actually buy this versus just buy into the ideas.

Mm-hmm. So, um, it feels very awkward to go on LinkedIn all the time and be like, buy my book. Buy my book, buy my book. Right. But then I have people. And these are people who've maybe followed me or engaged with me for many years and they're like, I had no idea you were writing a book. And I'm like, and that's the other truism that, yeah, the amount that you have to repeat your message, right.

For people to see it at [00:06:00] all, let alone remember it, let alone think it applies to them, let alone actually take action on it. Like you have to say it a lot. And in my opinion, I've just been beating people over the head with it. And I still have people who. I know, and they're like, oh, I'll buy it right now.

And they literally go buy it. And I'm like, I've been talking about this for months. Yeah, totally. But they just, they haven't seen it, or it hasn't quite sunk in or, or, you know, whatever the thing is. So it's been, it's been a really interesting shift to actually sell my own thing versus doing marketing for a product.

Um, but yeah, Perry, I would say the proofing and the promotion have actually been much more difficult than the writing. 

Quick question. Did you use AI in any capacity to write the book about ai? 

[00:06:44] Ashley: I did not. So my publisher actually at this point has a no AI policy. Um, and funny enough, the thing that held me back from writing the book in the past is that I felt very strongly that I wanted to write it.

So I didn't wanna have a ghost writer write it. And [00:07:00] I, I didn't want to use AI to write it. So it's super interesting because my book is a hundred percent human written. All of the promotion that I'm doing is a hundred percent human promotion. On the flip side, you've got someone like Christopher Pin, he's actually using all of his source material to have an A book that is a hundred percent AI written.

Oh, wow. And so it's like, it's been super interesting to kind of see. Yeah. And I have some other friends who have published that did work with ghost writers in, you know, various capacities. So it's a super interesting thing to see. Again, the core ideas, like the actual words on the paper are no longer the valuable thing.

It's all the ideas and research and experience behind them how the words get to the paper is not, like, that's not the hard part anymore. And it, it used to be human ghost writers, which were very expensive. Now it could be an AI ghostwriter, but it is really interesting to see that shift. Um, but yeah, I do call that out in the book that like.

I wrote this, A human edited it. Yeah. [00:08:00] And there is actually zero AI used in the book. 

[00:08:03] Parry: I think it's hilarious that Chris Penn is doing that. I'm friends with Chris, by the way. I've known him for years and years and years. But like, that's a perfect project for Chris. He's like, oh, a 

[00:08:11] Ashley: hundred percent. 

I mean, he's so into the goddamn weeds with ai.

It's bananas. And the fact that he is doing that is outstanding. Um, I didn't mean to cut you off, Becca, if I did. 

[00:08:19] Becca: No, no, no. I don't. I mean, if you did, I don't remember, because that's the joy of hanging out with the A DHD, or I'll interrupt you and then you can interrupt me and I won't remember. So yeah.

[00:08:31] Parry: Yeah. One of the funny things about us, Ashley, is we both are a little touched with the A DHD, so sometimes these conversations go far afield, but in my view, that's what makes them sometimes entertaining because. You know, some of these things are fairly formulaic and it's like I ask you a question, you give me an answer, and sometimes you have two not to just like take the thing in a whole different direction and it gets a lot more fun.

[00:08:55] Ashley: I mean, this goes well. 'cause one of my superpowers is connecting the dots. So I'll bring [00:09:00] something back from like the very beginning and people are like, oh, we did talk about that. And I'm like, oh, I got you there. Good. It's just hanging out in the back of the mind. I'll, I'll bring it back. I'll randomly throw it in at the right time.

[00:09:10] Becca: Well I've, speaking of a DHD synapses, so I was, I saw, uh, I mean we are connected on LinkedIn obviously, and so I see your content. Speaking of content. I was gonna say, that's 

[00:09:22] Ashley: actually very surprising giving, you know, the algorithm doing what it's doing, so I'm That's good to know that you see it. I see you.

I see your stuff. 

[00:09:29] Becca: Yeah. Well you are also a top LinkedIn Top Voice. Are you our, she might be our first Top Voice Perry on our show. Are you our first top 

[00:09:38] Parry: Robin Daniels? Oh, right. 

[00:09:40] Becca: Robin's a top voice. No, you're not. Our first top Voice, 

[00:09:43] Parry: voice. Voice, yes. Sorry. You're 

[00:09:44] Becca: Second voice. You're our first. Female top voice.

You could take that perfect. There together. We can, we 

[00:09:51] Ashley: can, we can just 

[00:09:51] Becca: keep throwing birds. Go get it. It. You're number two. So I, now I lost my train of thought. God, it, I need to eat [00:10:00] lunch, you guys. 

[00:10:00] Parry: All right. While you're losing that train of thought, when is the book coming out? How do people get it? Like, tell us about that.

[00:10:07] Ashley: All the things. So the Kindle version is available now. You can get that on Amazon. The physical book comes out on May 27th. You can get that from the Kogan page website with the Code Kogan, page 25 to get a discount and free shipping. Um, and then it's in a variety of different bookstores, Barnes Noble and, you know, whatnot.

So yeah, you, if you search human-centered marketing, Ashley Foss, you should come up with the book. Um, you can also follow me on LinkedIn. I've got. Multiple links all over the place. If, if you haven't seen it yet, it'll come up tomorrow. Fear not. So wherever books are sold multiple ways by the book, wherever books are sold.

[00:10:43] Becca: And that's perfect timing. 'cause I feel like when this episode airs, we'll be right around then. So, or right before then. Anyway, by the book. I'm, I mean, I wanna read the book sounds like right at my alley, and then I can quote you when I'm ranting about this to other people and be like, see, I'm not the [00:11:00] only one who believes in this.

There are two of us. 

[00:11:02] Parry: See, I'm, she wrote a book. I'm a true influencer, Becca. 'cause she's sending me a book in advance. 

[00:11:08] Becca: OMG. Yeah. I am such a loser. 

[00:11:12] Parry: Yeah, 

[00:11:12] Ashley: that's right. Well, Becca, I'll send you, I'm happy to send you a book as well. Um, and you're the Bay Area, so you could come to the launch party if you want and then you can over's head like, we can turn this.

[00:11:27] Becca: This episode's gonna go like we thought. 

[00:11:30] Parry: Can I 

[00:11:30] Becca: take a picture of you signing it? You know what, Perry? I just one up you. 

[00:11:34] Parry: And that concludes episode seven of the Under Embargo podcast. 

[00:11:40] Becca: Who's an influencer now? Perry. Yo. Okay. Back to my A DHD synapse from before when I was reading your content. I myself am a content person who is.

A marketer and uses stupid [00:12:00] words like snackable content. And I was reading your post and you know, I used the phrase snackable content. 'cause that's the phrase that everybody before me used. Right? Like, and that's where we come up with the vernacular that we use. And you're like, we need to use the term modular instead.

And you explained why. And it's like, yes, a hundred percent, like duh. And I just wanted to call that out as I will from here forth. Be using the term modular content instead of snackable content. And you taught me a new life lesson, so thank you. 

[00:12:41] Ashley: So wait, am I winning the influencer battle now? You did. I 

[00:12:44] Becca: influenced to say a whole word, mic drop.

[00:12:49] Parry: And that again, concludes this episode Embargo. 

[00:12:55] Becca: So, I mean, really, I, I learned something and feel smarter for reading your [00:13:00] content, so thank you for that. Oh, 

[00:13:01] Ashley: thank you. I love that. I, you know, it's funny, the snackable thing has always just irked me and anytime somebody asks. They always, there's like an affectation in the voice.

People are like, we just need to make it snackable. I mean, totally. What it's happening, like for the, for the people who are only listening to this on audio, I'm like waving my shoulders, but you know. You know, yes. The body language where it's like qui, there's a personified, 

[00:13:29] Becca: there's a tone. Yeah. 

[00:13:30] Ashley: And it just irks me so much because it feels very belittling to both the.

The person who's reading it like all the way, I just No, no, no, no. And as like a bodybuilder person, a snack for me is like a protein shake or beef jerky, but half a chicken breast. So, so this idea that snackable is, is like a quippy thing. I'm like, not in my world. In my world, that's how I get my protein in.

Like there's zero [00:14:00] fun to be had with the snacks 

[00:14:02] Becca: in my house. And you're right, that like. It needs to be modular in the sense that it could be snackable. Like it could be one little goldfish, or it could be a chicken breast, or it could be a slice of lasagna, or it could be a whole freaking Thanksgiving table full of food.

Right? And so it needs to be modular and. Amen to that. Love it. I was a 

[00:14:25] Parry: fellow bodybuilder myself. Um, as I'm sure you guys were aware, um, I used to call it, I, I've called it finger food for the longest time, but I used it in a derogatory way. When I, when I first started using that was when USA today started having a little infographic on the front page of their paper for the first time.

It was like the easiest little thing to look at, see it, get a little piece of data, and I called that finger food, which is what it was. It was pandering essentially, to. A very fleeting and low attention span audience. Um, but I've, I've still used that term in non derogatory ways just because it's k kind of fit [00:15:00] into the parlance of things like snackable content and fleeting attention spans and all of that.

But, um, I think I'm gonna stop using finger food as well, and I'm just gonna use wheat grass. Now I'm gonna say a chicken. Let's just do some chicken breast content. And, and I think then people will, will feel like, all right, this is wholesome, this is nutritious, this is providing the value, the sustenance that I need to thrive.

Protein. 

[00:15:22] Becca: Let's 

[00:15:22] Ashley: get our, 

[00:15:23] Parry: let's move on from stackable content and food and wheatgrass, and talk a little bit about your role at Atlassian. You've been there for. A good chunk of time now. Um, and your role has evolved actually over time. Can you talk a little bit about how you started and, and how you got where you are now?

[00:15:39] Ashley: So funny enough that I'm talking to y'all and your podcast being under embargo and that kept popping up on my calendar and say like, as the little reminder, but it cuts off. On the calendar, so I only get the preview that's basically like under embar and I'm like, what did I agree to That's under embargo like, so I actually started on the [00:16:00] comms and PR team at Atlassian when I joined a little over seven years ago, and that's actually one of the weaker areas of my skillset.

I've primarily worked. Pros, like the two of you, uh, um, in agencies or in-house. And so it was a little funny that I ended up getting hired into that team when I first started at Atlassian. But the under embargo thing still triggers me where I'm like, this is serious time guys. We trigger, um, a a at a prior company I was at a startup, and when it got acquired.

I got the call at like 9:00 AM on a Saturday. Hey, we gotta prep some stuff. And it's, you know, under embargo, it's very sensitive and all of that kind of stuff. So, um, but yeah, over time I think fun. You know, Becca, you talk about like the A DHD thing and for me it's the sticking my nose in everybody else's business.

So I'm more of a marketing generalist. I like to connect the dots. I just. Fundamentally don't understand how you can do marketing in silos. [00:17:00] To me, all of it is integrated. It all goes together. It all works together. I get it that you need to have a mix of specialists and generalists, and you need to have separate roles and responsibilities so that you're not tripping over each other, but like.

Fundamentally, I think that it's all integrated. And so I, I would get into a role and then I'd be like, oh, I should maybe talk to this other team because I think these things go together. And then I would eventually end up solving problems more in their house. Can I help you with that? Yeah. Should you come sit with us?

And I'm like, yeah, let's, let's go sit over there. And so that's how I've ended up doing kind of a stint in, um. The kind of comms PR side. I went to Integrated Media, which basically worked across, uh, events, comms, social media, and kind of more of the brand content or editorial. Um, I worked in our product marketing org and then now I sit in our lifecycle org, um, which includes a lot of skills on the kind of.

Demand gen side and then things like growth expansion and that kind of thing. So it's been [00:18:00] fun to kind of make my way across the different teams, but the way that happened was basically sticking my nose in everyone else's business until they were eventually, like, maybe you come sit with us for a while.

[00:18:12] Parry: Yeah. That's interesting. Um, so do you work now with, uh, with PR teams internally? 

[00:18:18] Ashley: I do, I do. So, um, we have, and again, Atlassian's a large company, so we've got quite a few, uh, you know, comms and PR folks and you know, I'll differentiate between those two. I know Perry, where you're like, PR does not stand for press release, uh, which, which we all agree with, but obviously there's different skill sets within the comms, overarching comms umbrella.

So, um, yeah, I get to get a chance to work with folks across kind of the spectrum in comms and PR as well. 

[00:18:47] Becca: Oh, I'm sorry. You understand that? Um, not all comms people are PR people. 

[00:18:53] Ashley: That's shocking. I do, I do understand this. Yes. Media relations is like a whole separate [00:19:00] skillset set under the comms umbrella.

I, I, yes. There you go. This is what I now one 

[00:19:05] Becca: Becca's heart. Oh God. It's like the vein of my existence that everyone's like, are, aren't you the PR lady? I'm like, of all of the comms things. PR is like my least impressive skill. So no, I'm not the PR lady. Please. 

[00:19:20] Parry: Mm-hmm. And that's why we get along so well. We bring different skill sets to the table.

Mm-hmm. That's right. Um, can you talk a little bit about, uh, so I know you've done a lot of things. You've wore many hats, you've poked your, your nose into other folks' business all across the way, and that's kind of how you've become the generalist that you are. Um. Can you talk a little bit about what you've seen as the evolution of brand as a part of your role?

So, you know, there's, there's pr, there's comms, there's marketing, there's product marketing. Where does brand fit into this whole thing and how do you view that 

[00:19:55] Ashley: this? I would say my thinking on this continues to evolve because I think [00:20:00] there's what it is from a theory standpoint, which is, you know, brand exists in the minds of the audience and it is their overall.

Perception, feeling trust of the brand, you know, brand in this case the company and the products. And so every experience, every visual, every audio cue, every touchpoint contributes to that perception. And so in that way, all of these individual tactical things build the brand. That's kinda like I fully buy into that from an overarching theory standpoint, I think where things.

Become hard is when you start getting into measurement, attribution, um, investment and roles and responsibilities. And so depending on the size of the company from a roles and responsibilities standpoint, it might actually make sense for you to basically split, here's all the things for buy intent and use [00:21:00] intent that are, you know, buy the product, upgrade in the product, use the product, buy the services.

Attend your office hours, whatever, and all of the things that are more around trust intent or affinity intent or true learn intent. Um, and so in that case, comms would actually kind of sit in that side of the house because it really is about building that trust, affinity and in some cases kind of that true learn intent where it doesn't actually require the audience to buy or own the product or service that the company sells.

Yeah. But. As I just said, you can't divorce those things. You don't build trust in some silo, and then you don't buy without trust. But you don't build trust by just going on and on about the product features. Yeah. But what is the goal of the trust if it is not to monetize? Right. Right. Like you have to have those things going together.

Yeah. So, um, [00:22:00] all this to say, I, I, I think brand is very important. I think. How it shows up in those kind of three areas, from kind of the theory or the audience standpoint, from a monetization and investment and measurement standpoint, and then from like a team structure, roles and responsibilities standpoint.

All of that is. Highly dependent on the context and the company and the skills and all of that. 

[00:22:24] Parry: Yeah. Every company's a snowflake in that, in that sense. I asked Robin Daniels a question I I'm asking most of our guests. It turns out this kind of question, um, about how the role of marketing is under a lot of scrutiny.

First of all, um, there are, you know, marketing roles that are toning over eight. 18 months or so. Um, and part of that is this sort of existential battle between the, the revenue numbers and the brand marketers and these two people are, are like at loggerheads trying to, trying to be the same person when.

Most people naturally are not, I guess is what, is what I'm saying, [00:23:00] that most people tend to go one way or the other. Well, they don't have same or came up one way or the other. Don't have same goals. Yeah. How do you, how do you reconcile that? I mean, I, I guess it boils down to like dollars versus affinity.

Um, ultimately, and I guess to your point, you can't divorce the two, so I guess your answer to this would be that you've gotta do both. Like you can't just. You can't build a brand without, um, also focusing on the, the bean counters, right? 

[00:23:23] Ashley: Yeah. You, you do have to do both. And I think the struggle is, um, I was talking about this on LinkedIn today actually.

Somebody was like, why, why is marketing under much more scrutiny than other parts of the business? Is it because we spend money? Is it because we are tasked with growing the business? Is it because of contributing to revenue, et cetera? And one of the things that I called out is. You know, with the rise of digital marketing, there is a misconception that we can and should track everything, measure everything, and then attribute every dollar basically one-to-one.

Yeah. And that's why we're having this whole brand versus demand [00:24:00] debate, because demand tends to think on a short term conversion horizon. So in the short term, we have to convert, and that's what they're tasked with doing. You, you cannot do that without all the elements that brand does on the long term trust horizons.

Right? And you can measure brand, but you measure it in a different way. And so for as long as you keep trying to measure brand in the same way that you measure demand, even though the time horizons are different and the outcomes are different, that's how you end up with this. And so, and, and it's hard too because even from a brand perspective.

People talk about running a brand campaign and it's ads, it's digital ads, and so you think, oh, because the tactic to execute is almost exactly the same as the tactic to execute from a conversion standpoint, they must be measured the same way. Mm-hmm. Even though substance of the strategy or you know, at a conceptual level, the core of the idea is not at all the same, even [00:25:00] though they may have shared tactics.

Right. So I think that's another. Really hard thing to differentiate between brand versus demand. It's like you can measure brand and this idea that brand is not measurable is incorrect. I mean, even, even on the CFO side of the house, the balance sheet has a line item for brand equity. If you were gonna go sell the company, or if you're valuing the company on the open market, brand equity is a line item.

So the finance side of the house recognizes brand as a thing. How we ended up in this brand versus demand conversation and marketing. I dunno why we're trying amongst ourselves guys, it's 

[00:25:35] Becca: because the pressure to deliver in quarter, that's why it's because it is the, I have to see the revenue this quarter and brand's not gonna show me anything for four quarters or I can't measure this, the outcome of this until 18 months from now.

So, Biocom's team, I mean, I can't tell you how many people have been laid off from my teams. Because of this reason, because of [00:26:00] all of the activities that we busted our asses for and did a plus work, can't be measured for another 12 months. Right? And it's just like, well, 

[00:26:09] Parry: we gotta 

[00:26:09] Becca: deliver back to private equity now.

So sorry. Demand, 

[00:26:13] Parry: demand is a sprint and brand is a marathon is really what it. Boils down to when you think about it, and it sucks to be on the marathon team because boy you, you can't see the results quick enough. You can see somebody busting ass across that sprint finish line though, and you can measure how fast their time was.

You know what I mean? But 

[00:26:31] Becca: why in some many, most organizations, brand and comms should not report into marketing. They do not have the same goals. Marketing the CMO, who is. Being told you need to hit these numbers by the end of the quarter, should not be making the decisions for the people who are trying to measure brand 12 months down the road or who are making decisions based on, you know, uh, something [00:27:00] that's happening in the news that day.

Right. So I just think that they are such different. You are, when you're a marketer, your stakeholder are the customers. And when you are a comms. Person, your stakeholder are all of the people all of the time. And you know, there are, uh, sometimes those goals are at odds with each other and they cannot be all at, you know, I'm head of marketing now and I will still say that, that sometimes those goals are at odds with each other.

So, uh, I don't know. I'll, that's a hill I'll die on all day long. 

[00:27:32] Parry: How, how do you react to that, Ashley? I'm curious. 

[00:27:35] Ashley: Yeah. So I know Perry, you and I have gone head to head of like, who should, who should report to who? Like, actually I think marketing should report into comms, or I think, you know, comms should report into the CCMO or CEO.

Yeah, basically the C-suite. I, again, I think this is highly dependent on who the leader is in the seat, who their stakeholders are internally, and how big the company is as well. [00:28:00] So, um. Becca, like I think having someone like you in seat as a head of marketing where you understand that, that there's the shorter term, and I mean I would even go so far, this comes up all the time of like should, should A CMO report to A CRO?

Or like, does the chief sales officer Trump the chief marketing officer, whatever it is, right? Like. Sales is on an even shorter horizon, right? Like sales is trying to hit their monthly quotas or their quarterly quotas. Marketing is trying to hit at the quarterly or the yearly. And then obviously things like comms or brand or you know, the are, are looking beyond that.

You know, they, they may do a measure measurement every 12 to 18 months where they'll do a brand study or perception study or recall study, something like that at the 12 to 18 month mark. But they know they are really building for. Five years, 10 years, that a hundred year company. So, um, I, I think it's less, there's [00:29:00] a right structure and it's more like does the leader, whether that's a CRO, A CMO, a Chief Comms Officer, and A-C-M-O-C-R-O-C-C-O, however many other C-Suite folks we've got in there.

Right. Um. Get it and like, do they understand or do you actually need to pull that out separately to demonstrate the, the equivalence? Yeah. Like the equal role that they each play. Right. Like there's this concept that one of my engineering colleagues introduced me to called, um, basically Conway's Law. And it's paraphrasing it, but it's basically that, um, the.

Outputs will reflect the systems in which they were built. So basically, if the team is structured in a certain way, this concept of shipping your org chart shows up in the market. And so one way to combat that is to reorganize your team. If you're [00:30:00] trying to ship something to the market in a certain, reorganize your team to reflect that output.

Because teams tend to ship their org. And so this idea that like, well, if we need to have. Kind of that brand or reputation or long-term influence and perception and relationships at an equal footing to the short-term. ROI driven, um, conversion mindset. Then you should have leaders who are on equal footing.

That's one way to basically kind of reverse Conway at. Um, so I, I think it's hard and I, I have not been in a position to hire for this type of thing or to, yeah, choose of like, should I be a CMO or should I be a CCO or should I be a CRO, right? Like. But I think it's a really hard question if you're, especially if you're dealing with people on the other side of the table who do not understand and they're just constantly hammering on like.

And, and even the monthly numbers of like, are we hitting quota this month? And it's like, you're telling me because one deal slipped one day, it doesn't [00:31:00] count even though they signed it on, you know, May 2nd instead of on April 30th. Like, come on, we, that example we realized is stupid. But if cutoff date to review everything is Yeah.

May 1st, then it doesn't count in the April numbers, even though you know you, you missed it even though maybe it closed a day later or something like that, right? So if you, if you're only dealing with people with that short term mindset, it is very hard. That's 

[00:31:28] Becca: a lot comes outta to the CO too, right? Like I think especially for a communications person like that, beca that started to become, the thing that was like most important to me in interviews is like, does the CEO value comms?

Because if they don't, then you know that that organization is just gonna get buried under marketing as like. The PR team and that's all they see you as are like press release jockeys and that's what you do all day and there is no value to the, are you like strategic advisors within this company, which is what the comms team should be.

But anyway, sorry [00:32:00] Perry, go ahead. 

[00:32:00] Parry: No, it's okay. I have two questions that are related to Atlassian. One of them is. Am I re recalling this correctly, that you guys are a work from anywhere organization? Is that fair? 

[00:32:09] Ashley: We are. Yeah. Yeah. Our policy is called Team Anywhere. Yeah, 

[00:32:13] Parry: team Anywhere. Oh, awesome. And, and are you fully remote or do you guys, do you go into the office occasionally or what's your 

[00:32:18] Ashley: Yeah, so I, I actually, I'm in the Bay Area.

We have two offices here. We've got one in San Francisco and then one in, uh, mountain View, which is South Bay for, yeah. Listeners. I mean, Becca would know, but, uh, yeah. For you Perry, you're like, I don't know, bay Area geography. Oh, I guess I lived in San Francisco for 11 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so I primarily work from home, but because I'm so close to both of our offices, I will occasionally go in.

Um, but I'm not required to go in. And there are people who do go in every day. They like it, you know, there's lunch and there's wifi, and you know, if they've got kids or pets or, you know, partners at home might be. Not ideal for them to work from, from home, but yeah, I work primarily, uh, remotely. 

[00:32:58] Parry: See, that's the perfect scenario, isn't it?

I [00:33:00] mean, if you want to work remotely, you may, if you want to go to the office and have some lunch totally, and chat with people at the water cooler, you may do that as well. Like that's the ideal. 

[00:33:09] Ashley: I don't know why this 

[00:33:09] Parry: is hard. 

[00:33:10] Ashley: Well, and we use the offices a lot for offsites. So if, if I wanna bring my whole team together, I might bring them to San Francisco or Mountain View or Austin or wherever.

And that's actually super helpful because you can guarantee that there's coffee, there's good lighting, there's enough whiteboards, there's enough stickies, you have good wifi and you don't have to, you know, there's parking and all of that. You to organize it actually. Yeah. So a lot of turnkey. That's awesome.

Offite. Yeah, the offices tend to get used for offsites primarily, which is excellent. 'cause again. Again, just from a business standpoint too, we have so many employees. To house them all permanently in an office would be very expensive. And then we would have to go offsite for an offsite, so you'd have to pay for that additional space.

And now it's like, nope, the employees have the choice. We have a good, and, you know, reasonably priced [00:34:00] place to go for our offsites. And then for the folks who wanna come in, they have that option. So yeah. Perry, I think like I, and I know you're on a whole thing of like, what is this nonsense about? Like why would you commute three hours?

And I totally agree with you, and we've, I think we've done a really good job. 

[00:34:14] Parry: No, I think you, you guys are the future. You're living what the future of work is, which is one word, flexibility. Work. Work. But in the Bay Area. 

[00:34:23] Becca: Everyone's going back to work. Like it is crazy. It's so weird to me. I mean, almost everybody that I know is back in the office now.

Like just all of a sudden, boom, everyone's back to at least three days. I mean, I'm back in the office three days of work, uh, three days a week, which I never thought would happen. And almost all of my friends, like Apple, Google, uh, meta like. I mean, those are all the big companies, but even the small comp, I mean especially the small companies back in the office.

Yeah, super interesting. 'cause I didn't think that would happen in the Bay Area for sure. 

[00:34:54] Ashley: I think that when the market comes out of its [00:35:00] current, I, I feel like we go through this, you know, it's an employer's market versus an employee's market. Yeah. And I think, you know, obviously right now we're in an employer's market and.

I, I assume the pendulum will swing back to more flexibility once we eventually, as the cycle does go back into an employee market. So, yeah, I think that it's interesting too though, with the rise of like fractional rules, so many people going into consulting or freelancing or, you know, solo entrepreneurship like.

I, I think the market is changing a lot and obviously especially with ai, um, I've seen a lot of debates on LinkedIn about whether the future is actually smaller in-house teams and more fractional or freelance or consulting, you know, agency vendors because you can have a mix of ai, human providers and then a core, basically strategy or manager layer internally and.

Uh, that's a, it feels a bit dystopian if [00:36:00] you're on the employer side to be like, haha, we're gonna fire all your teams and just hire ai. Mm-hmm. But it's like, well on the, on the employee side, like the, the labor side, you are seeing a lot of people opt out of in-house and going Yeah. Fractional or consulting or whatever.

So I, I just feel like there's a lot changing, um, to where it's, it's, it's an interesting time. I agree that like people are going back to the office, but then also. More leaning more on vendors. Like you're not gonna have your vendors sit in your office. So, but I'm 

[00:36:29] Becca: unclear about whether all of the people who are going fractional are choosing.

I mean, I know many who are choosing fractional because they wanna be fractional, but there are some who are doing it because they are having trouble finding full-time jobs. So, for sure, that is my other question is like, there is this, everyone's going to work for themselves. Situation, but how much of that is just because the job market is so f right now, 

[00:36:54] Parry: inhospitable work, uh, climate, I think is the answer to that.

And I think that's also the answer to the other question [00:37:00] about why people are going back to the office. 

[00:37:01] Ashley: Yeah, I mean, I 

[00:37:02] Parry: think, I think what we're dealing with here is a little bit of what is called a, I guess an extinction burst. You know, like the, the old way of thinking is about to, not to be a downer, this is one last gas trying to like preserve the way it always has been done.

Um, and I think once the, once the worm has turned and the employee. E is in the driver's seat relative to the market. I think then all of the, um, all the insanity we're seeing is, is going to dissipate into the ether. And I say good, good riddance to that. But I do wanna ask one more question about ai and then I think we're getting close to rapid.

I was gonna say it's, it's almost time for the rapid 

[00:37:37] Becca: fires. Rapid. All right. Go ahead, go do your ai. So, 

[00:37:40] Parry: um, I see a lot of CMOs and marketing people, even today, just as a matter of fact, I pinged Chris, uh, Penn about. Um, A CMO of who was like, look, I've been trying to get smart on, you know, Chatt, GPT, and I've, I'm trying to like, plan, you know, put aside the time to like, get my team up to figure out like how we can improve our [00:38:00] workflows with ai.

Like, I know that there's so much I could be doing, does anybody know who can step in and like, help us figure out, sit down with our teams, figure out the workflows, help us figure out where we can save oodles of time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Um. Does that describe you or are you already ahead of that curve?

Um, and if so, can you talk through kind of what your posture is relative to AI in your workflows? 

[00:38:23] Ashley: Sure. I would say that I do not have it all figured out. I think the, and, and I would actually, I think saying, who can come in and help us find all of the places to save oodles of time or, um, make, make our workflows, ai, you know, like that kind of mindset of doing it all in one go.

I actually think that's the wrong mindset to approach it with. I think building in buffer time as you go and saying, okay, employees like. Again, I'll take writing a blog post, right? Like that's the classic thing that AI can just write all your blog posts for you and you're like, okay, well it's not actually that simple.

And so what [00:39:00] I, the approach I've taken with my team is I'm gonna build in extra buffer time. Take, you know the transcripts, like getting a machine generated transcript is a perfect use case that takes zero effort. It's cheap and like fast and cool. You can literally just hit a button and it's like, give me the AI generated transcript or like clean up transcript.

That's step one. That takes no time, right? Then I say, okay, get it to try to generate a blog post for you. Is that blog post good? Is it worth your time to edit that blog post? If not, could you have done a better job prompting? LLM to give you a better blog post 'cause you've done better inputs. So push the button, see what happens.

If it's crap, go back and try giving it better inputs. Then see what happens. Okay. Is that output worth your time to edit? No. Fine. Trash it all. You as the human, you need to do the research and write it and edit it, and all of that kinda stuff. Right. But telling them like. Use these tools. Tell me which tool you're [00:40:00] using.

Tell me how you used it. Tell me if it worked. Show me the output and like tell the rest of the team. I think that's the other thing. People are so, so afraid to experiment because they're afraid they're gonna get shamed for it. And then if they, if they say like, well, I used AI to write this because I was trying to go fast, but then the output is crap, then you're like.

Well, now you've wasted time. And it's like, no, did you learn something? So I actually wasted several hours trying to test some different tools to get, um, slides, like slide design made. And I used a whole bunch of tools and I wasted like a day trying to get this done. And I took screenshots and I wrote up an internal blog post and I was like, I tried to get AI to help me do slides.

Like here's the tools that. 

[00:40:43] Becca: We're a complete non-starter. Did you find any of that work? 'cause I've wasted days doing that myself. 

[00:40:49] Ashley: Yeah. And it's, and basically the, the TL DR, which I assume is your assessment, and Chris actually I talked to Chris Penn about this and he was like, well here's the deal. It's actually really hard 'cause they're different models for images versus [00:41:00] words and you were trying to use word generators for images.

And I was just like, that's actually super helpful, right? Like, thank you. Um, but I, I wasted my own time and then told everybody here's what I did. Right? So. I actually think the wrong approach is to come in and say like, let's do an audit and figure out what AI can do for us and teach us how to do it, and instead try to build in smaller buffers of.

If a blog post should normally only take half a day. Okay. Build in a full day so that somebody can go through and either test different tools, test different prompts, or test, you know, editing if, if the, if it's good, but it still needs edits, right? So that's, that's my approach is definitely more of a, a smaller build in the buffer experiment.

And then also. You can waste time, but make it not wasted by writing it up or making a little loom video to tell everyone what you did so that they don't waste their time on this same tactic, or they can build on whatever. If you did [00:42:00] steps one through three, maybe they can do steps four, five, and six, and then the next person can do seven through 10, right?

Instead of one person trying to do all 10 steps by themselves to work. No, that 

[00:42:09] Parry: makes sense. See, I on the other hand, just went all in. Like, this isn't even actually me. You're talking to my AI digital twin, but it's so compelling. Yeah. I, I, I put the time in, I wrote the prompts, I talked to Chris about how to make myself look very convincing and how to have the cadence of a, of a really, uh, sort of charismatic, handsome man.

And here I am. It's worked out well here. You 

[00:42:31] Ashley: Yeah. The real question is though, can you drink a glass of water? Because I was watching one of his. Uh, videos and he was like, do random things like drink a glass of water or check your phone or like, adjust your glasses. Like, that's the thing that AI can't do because it's not predictable.

Yeah. I 

[00:42:47] Parry: unfortunately have no, like 

[00:42:49] Ashley: every podcast, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna drink a glass of water. Like, great, that's funny, but I'm, 

[00:42:54] Parry: I'd like to prove it to you. But I unfortunately have no hand. So you 

[00:42:57] Ashley: have no hands? Yes. 'cause you know as ai, [00:43:00] I 

[00:43:00] Parry: have no hands. Yep. Alright, so I think this concludes the main portion of our show, but we're going to move on now to the rapid fire portion.

Will be quarterbacking. 

[00:43:10] Becca: Let me get my questions for you. Are you ready? Okay. Let me drink my water 

[00:43:15] Ashley: as 

[00:43:15] Becca: they get your, oh, she's real. Look at her there. She's her proof of life. Gimme flesh. She's real. Okay. Got my water. Alright. What is a myth or misconception about communications or marketing that drives you crazy?

[00:43:30] Ashley: I think a current one, one current thing that I'm on a whole rant about is that all marketers are the same. So like the number of questions I get, they're like, can you help me go viral on TikTok? No, I cannot. That's not what I do. Um, can you help me go viral on Instagram? No. No. Also not what I do. There are people who can help you do that, but they're like, but I thought you do marketing.

Mm-hmm. And it's like set in this like derogatory way. So like, no, all marketers are not the same. And I know it's. Similar for communications folks as well. Like we, we have [00:44:00] niche skills guys. 

[00:44:01] Becca: Yeah, totally. And even like people on Instagram who do Instagram probably still can't make it go viral on Instagram.

So, um, okay. You get to erase one corporate buzzword from existence. What is it? 

[00:44:14] Ashley: M qls. Haha. No more. I hate them. Nobody can agree what they are. There's a human behind the screen, not an MQL on a spreadsheet. I just, no, I cannot. We're done with M qls a 

[00:44:27] Becca: thousand percent. Didn't Robin Daniels say the same thing?

[00:44:29] Parry: What? I think he might've. I think he might've said Robin Daniels might've said the same thing. I'm not positive. We have to go back and check the tape of episode number. 

[00:44:37] Ashley: Check the tape. No, Robin, we're on a roll man. We got the top voice situation. We got the kill MQL situation. Yep. 

[00:44:45] Becca: Um. You are about to give a presentation in front of 50,000 people.

What is your walkout song? 

[00:44:53] Ashley: Ooh, this is like the hardest thing. Yeah. I dunno man. I dunno. Okay, so one [00:45:00] thing that's been on repeat, and this is my gym playlist, so I'm just gonna go with this one, is this song called Champion and. It just, it's just great. It's like I'm a champion and Oh man, who is it by? Can I, do I have time?

I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna look this up right quick. Champion. Do I know it? Is it like a popular song? I dunno. It came up Spotify, speaking of algorithms. Did a very good job with this. All right. Where are you at Champion. There's this song, there's also Champion by, I think it's Carrie Underwood, which I do like that song too.

But this one, Naomi and Burn Boy. 

[00:45:34] Parry: Bird boy nickname in college. 

[00:45:36] Ashley: They, 

[00:45:38] Parry: no, not true. 

[00:45:38] Ashley: Are you? I was gonna, I was like, are you serious? Wait, 

[00:45:41] Parry: that is a joke. 

[00:45:42] Ashley: That would've been awesome though. Uh, but yeah, it's called Champion, uh, but it's kind of a like, you know, hype up, like, we got this, we're strong, we've been training, we're ready.

So let's go with that, because it's been on repeat in my head. That's your 

[00:45:55] Becca: dopamine song lately? That's what I call it. Exactly. Yeah. All right. I like it. I'll go check [00:46:00] it out. Um, alright, uh, you get to use one emoji for the rest of your life. What is it 

[00:46:08] Parry: the rest of your life? 

[00:46:08] Becca: I 

[00:46:09] Ashley: think it's gonna be the emo, the thinking emoji where it's like, 

[00:46:12] Parry: hmm.

[00:46:13] Ashley: That one is, it's, I use it a lot on LinkedIn and in my Slack messages, and it's quite versatile because you can do it as like, hmm. Or like, hmm, sarcastic, or you can do it as like. Fun, right? Like, I did this thing, huh. So it's a very versatile emoji. So I think, I think the thinking one where it's like the, the hand on the chin, I think is, I think that's gonna be the one.

[00:46:34] Parry: Now I can see why, where you get your acting chops that we didn't even talk about. Your right. Everybody's like, how does 

[00:46:38] Ashley: this have anything to do with anything? I'm like, oh, let me tell you that you 

[00:46:41] Parry: heard one emoji into a a, a cornucopia of awesomeness. 

[00:46:46] Becca: I appreciate people that can see the versatility in emojis, by the way.

Mm-hmm. So, yes. Yeah. 

[00:46:52] Ashley: It's, you know, it's context dependent for sure. 

[00:46:56] Becca: Okay. You, if you had to give a TED [00:47:00] talk on anything but marketing, what would it be? 

[00:47:04] Ashley: This, again, is very difficult. I call myself a marketer, writer, speaker by day, and singer, actor and fitness fe by night. So it could either be. Singing or fitness or lately baking.

I've nerded out about some baking things, but actually let's go ahead and go with singing and I'll actually go on the importance of the mechanics of breathing, and that is so important in a variety of areas of life, both professionally, personally, fitness. So let's go. Let's go with that. Let's go with like five breathing techniques from a singer that'll help you in your everyday life.

Love it. Thank you. My TED Talks, 

[00:47:41] Becca: that's also like your perfect LinkedIn post right there. How learning how to breathe taught me to be a better marketer. Right, exactly. 

[00:47:49] Ashley: I, so I actually did like a little tutorial on this because, um, some, I think it was Erin BSO was talking about the millennial paw and she was like, why is it so long?

And I was like, actually. [00:48:00] Fun fact, like here's this super nerdy thing. And then apparently, and I learned about the Gen Z shake, and I basically framed it like, what's the Gen Z shake? Gen Z shake is apparently they start talk, like they'll film a selfie. Yeah. And they'll start talking and then put the phone down into the like holder.

And so it, it shakes the phone as they like adjust it. And so I framed it up as like. It's a generational, you know, diss, like I have to answer this generational diss, but also I'm a professional so I have to make it B2B. So like. It was. And then obviously I'm very nerdy, so it was just like the perfect storm for this video.

[00:48:35] Parry: The Gen Z shake. Damn. I gotta, I gotta look into that one a little bit. Go 

[00:48:38] Ashley: now. It's so, I'm not on TikTok, but obviously TikTok ends up on Instagram and on LinkedIn. Tell us 

[00:48:45] Becca: olds 

[00:48:45] Ashley: get it. Yeah, as olds. And so if you go look at what the youths are doing, if you look at the videos. 

[00:48:52] Becca: You'll 

[00:48:52] Ashley: notice they hello fellow 

[00:48:54] Becca: youths.

This podcast is for like 65 plus. Now retirement home. 

[00:48:59] Ashley: I'm like [00:49:00] shaking my, my cane at the youths, right? Mine's just 

[00:49:03] Parry: advanced age. That's my shaking problem, 

[00:49:06] Ashley: dude. Perry, you're bringing it back. Now you can be like, oh, I'm so, I'm so fancy because my shakes are. The cramp. 

[00:49:17] Becca: You're not. How was your nickname in college?

Crampy shakes, cramp. 

[00:49:22] Ashley: Busted. You're ahead of your time, Perry. That's right. Ahead of your time. 

[00:49:25] Parry: Yep. 

[00:49:26] Becca: All 

[00:49:26] Ashley: right. Fair. The last question, it's your turn. This might be the 

[00:49:29] Parry: last time we use this question. We, I mean, I think this may have run its course, but we will find that. All right, Ashley, 

[00:49:35] Ashley: let's go. 

[00:49:36] Parry: Things are about to get real.

You can have hiccups. Hiccups around the clock for full three months. You can't shake it. You can't outrun it, you can't sleep it away. You're gonna have hiccups around the clock, or you have to sever your own pinky. Are you gonna deal with the hiccups for three months around the clock or are you getting rid of a pinky?[00:50:00] 

[00:50:01] Ashley: This is a hard choice. 

[00:50:03] Parry: How much 

[00:50:03] Ashley: do I really need? Which pinky? Like can I sever my left pinky? Do I need either one? You get to pick, 

[00:50:09] Parry: you can choose. I mean, that's the beauty of this is you can choose which limb to sever. 

[00:50:14] Ashley: I, you know, I think I might have to stick with the hiccups though, because three months, like if I, and again, I mean to be fair, how long am I living?

Do I have a terminal illness? Like, do I only have three months to live? I don't need a whole, I don't need my left pinky for the three months. I, I, I, this you're asking the overthinker here, I'm gonna analyze this. I might have to make a spreadsheet about this, but gut reaction, I'm gonna say I'm, I think I'm going back towards the hiccups.

Just suck it up. You're gonna keep the hiccups. Three months. Get it done. Just get it done. What if I get an infection for where I've severed my limb and now I have an infection? Like 

[00:50:53] Parry: I know. And what are you gonna do? High four. High four people. 

[00:50:56] Ashley: You can't high four. But if it's in my left hand, I don't. High five with my left [00:51:00] hand.

[00:51:00] Parry: Yeah, we'll lose that. 

[00:51:01] Ashley: Really? I'm gonna need, what am I do high four with? I don't know. 

[00:51:06] Parry: So Becca is chopping off her pinky as have about half of our guests. They say they are chopping the pinky off instead of the hiccups.

[00:51:17] Ashley: It gives like existential, it's so revealing. Existential question. You know 

[00:51:22] Becca: what there was revealing another one that came up that was also very good, that was similar about shark being eaten by a shark at a certain age and I feel like that one was very interesting, Perry. I asked my mom and my sister about that one and they both thought it was nuts that you guys had a different response than I did.

They both were like, easy answer for sure. Eaten by a shot. 

[00:51:43] Parry: So the question is, would you. I forget exactly what it is, but it's roughly like if you 

[00:51:47] Becca: knew you were gonna get eaten by a shark. Yeah. But you would live to 95 and be Oh, and you would get to a hundred million dollars. Yeah. And you would live to 95, but you knew you were gonna get eaten by a shark at 95.

[00:51:58] Parry: You will live to 95. [00:52:00] You will also be eaten ruthlessly to death by a shark at the age of 95. But between now and then. You are showered in ungodly riches, and you can live your life between now and 95, the easiest you possibly could imagine all the wealth, all the, the finer things in life, but at 95 and you will live to 95, you will be devoured by a shark.

What do you do? 

[00:52:23] Ashley: Yeah, I think I'd get eaten by the shark. Yeah, that's girl. Yeah, totally. I could never live a moment in peace. It's only gonna take, look, it's only gonna take like five minutes max. Either they're gonna pull you under and you drown. Five minutes shredded. You know, you shredded for the. No. See, you are thinking of the time that it takes, the, that the shark experiences, you're not thinking about the time that you experience, because I'm telling you, you're gonna pass out or drown or overthinkers.

You have an anxiety, don't you? The shark, it might take the shark [00:53:00] like an hour to shred me. Yeah. Yeah. But like, I'm not there for that. I, I, dude, max look, I, my brother-in-law is a doctor. I think I might ask him like. Bro, I, I, I get eaten by a shark, right? Like the shark is going to kill me. Mm-hmm. How long am I gonna be aware that that's happening and especially and in 95?

And if you know that's happening, dude. Maybe you use some science to, that's what I said. Maybe not be quite so present. Mm-hmm. For every day of your 95th year. Mm-hmm. Anxious 

[00:53:35] Becca: overthinkers. Get it. 

[00:53:38] Parry: Hey. High four. High four. For that answer. High. 

[00:53:39] Becca: This should be our new question because this question is money.

Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:53:44] Ashley: I think the problem is, Perry, you're thinking like the shark, me and Becca we're thinking like a 95-year-old. Although, I mean, as we discussed like all. Though, 

[00:53:53] Parry: you know, I would be worried every waking moment for the remainder of my life that I'm going to be eaten by a shark. 

[00:53:58] Ashley: You're gonna live, [00:54:00] I'm already worried every moment that I'm gonna die.

You only worry for 364 days. You're actually only worrying for 364 days. If, if, if, 'cause you know you live to 95. So after your 95th birthday, the longest time that you would worry, the max is 364 days. 

[00:54:19] Parry: I couldn't enjoy a simple sip of water today knowing that I'm gonna be eaten by a shark when I'm 95. 

[00:54:26] Ashley: I assume 

[00:54:26] Parry: water's not gonna hurt you.

Look, 

[00:54:29] Ashley: my water class is not gonna hurt you today. You know? You know what? Swims in water, 

[00:54:34] Becca: sharks, 

[00:54:34] Parry: sharks swim in water. I know that you know that. 

[00:54:38] Becca: We are unhinged you guys. Absolutely. 

[00:54:42] Ashley: That. I feel like we need an after show. That's maybe, I mean, for real. That's what I'm hearing from this Shark Graphics. 

[00:54:49] Parry: Well, this has been fantastic, Ashley.

Thank you for joining episode seven, the penultimate episode of the show. That from here is just compounded growth and excitement. Hey, uh, [00:55:00] congratulations on your new book. Um, I'm sure people will be. Ordering that book based on this show and we'll help promote that and we'd be honored to do that. I'm looking forward as an influencer to receiving a copy.

Um, and I know Becca is told she will, but I have a funny feeling. Might slip your mind as my guest, whatever, but maybe it won't, maybe it won't. Uh, in any case, it's been a delight and we're so glad that you joined us. 

[00:55:22] Ashley: Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much for having me y'all. 

[00:55:25] Parry: Thanks. Bye.