This episode might be a little bit different from most podcasts you listen to in that you're going to have to actually work in order to benefit from it.

I get it. You're already bitten down to a nub, and you just want to crack open a cold one and listen to a couple of guys run their mouths for awhile. Well, there will be time for that in future episodes, but I think you'll be glad you put on your thinking cap and really listen in to this one.

Today we hear from John Foster, a man I met at an event where he was speaking on the topic of angel investing. After his talk, I approached him and asked if he would be willing to speak about angel investing on my new podcast, the one you're listening to now.

He said absolutely, he'd love to do it, and we were able to make it happen!

We begin with the audio of John's YouTube presentation, "Zero to Austrian in 18 Minutes"; then go right into the interview talking about angel investing.

I knew next to nothing about angel investing, outside of what I'd seen on Shark Tank, before I recorded this interview. And it turns out that Shark Tank, ahem, exaggerates the actual angel investing scenario for dramatic effect.

I promise you'll come away from today's episode with a genuine knowledge of what angel investing is. You might even find yourself snickering at your friends who are raving about the crazy antics they recently saw on an episode of Shark Tank!

Here are a few of the questions I was able to ask John about angel investing:

-Is there some connection between your company and angel investing? Are you really giving middle-schoolers MBA’s?

-What exactly is angel investing?

-How did you get get into angel investing?

-What does the private company ecosystem look like and where does angel investing fit in?

-What about accelerators and incubators?

-What sort of companies do angels want to invest in?

-What does the process look like? Is it basically like Shark Tank?

-What about just getting a loan from your local bank? What about grants?

-How do entrepreneurs get into this game? What should they look for? What are their chances?

-Is the recent increase in interest rates having any effect on the space?

-What’s with Silicon Valley Bank blowing up? Does that impact startups?

Resources mentioned:Middle School MBA

Scott Adams: How to Fail At Everything...

About the guest:

John Foster is president and founder of Middle School MBA, an Ed-Tech company disrupting the business/entrepreneurship space.

John received his BS, Chem Eng, and MBA from LSU and was kindly employed for the next thirty-three years by Freeport-McMoRan, Stauffer Chemical, Rhone-Poulenc, and Innophos, Inc.

His industrial career failed its way through process engineering, plant operations, business management, M&A, and corporate strategy; finally failing big enough to exit.

He founded Middle School MBA to teach kids the lowdown on business, economics, and entrepreneurship, hoping they might fail bigger and sooner.

Download my bundle of FREE audiobooks to listen in your car, at the gym, while walking the dog, or wherever you happen to listen to audiobooks!

Titles include As a Man Thinketh, Success and Failure, and Obvious Adams.

Just visit my home page and tell me where to send the audios!

https://jamesdnewcomb.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Outwitting the Devil Audiobook

Read and/or listen to Napoleon Hill's unknown book titled Outwitting the Devil. Edited and...

Napoleon Hill's forgotten classic Outwitting the Devil is now available FOR FREE in audio format - narrated by James D. Newcomb.

Visit Energeia.LIVE to gain access to the recordings!

When Sana and I lived in Vietnam, one of our favorite places to eat for a special occasion was a restaurant in Hanoi called Pizza 4 P's. Just say it out loud, and you understand the double meaning of it.

Wonderful food and atmosphere, and it was always an amazing dining experience - if we were lucky enough to get a table. The place was regularly sold out.

Well Sana and I were recently discussing the 4 P's concept that is often used in marketing and sales strategies: Product, Price, Promotion, Place.

And after giving it some thought, I realized there are a few more P words that I would use specific to the content creation niche. My specialty is podcasting, but I think it would apply to anyone that creates something, then hits a button that says "publish".

Those 4 P words are:

1. Purpose
2. People
3. Process
4. Perform

Sana and I had some thoughts on these four words, so we sat down to record a podcast about it.

It turns out we got through two of them before we realized we run the risk of being long-winded and wearing out our listeners.

I mean, there's only 3 of them, but even the most stalwart fans have their limits. So we must respect their time.

So in this episode, you'll hear us discuss Purpose and People. And in the next one, we'll discuss Process and Perform.

Give it a listen, and see if these 4 P's can bring some much-needed peace in your life and business.

Mentioned in this episode:

Outwitting the Devil Audiobook

Read and/or listen to Napoleon Hill's unknown book titled Outwitting the Devil. Edited and narrated by Energeia.LIVE founder James D. Newcomb. Go to https://energeia.live to access your free copy!

Outwitting the Devil Downloads

How free are we, really? We're taught that the United States is founded on freedom, but beyond a superficial understanding of the word, we really don't think that much about what real freedom is.

In today's episode, we'll explore this idea in detail. Our guest is Laura Davidson, an Oxford-trained scholar who recently published The Logic of Freedom: Free Will, Human Nature, and the Rational Argument for a Genuinely Free World.

The book is not bedtime story material for a 9 year old child. But it is both very well-written, and in such a way that it causes the reader to think twice about the most basic concept we're taught from the earliest age: Freedom.

Laura's book, and in a smaller way, this podcast will make you think about freedom, likely in ways you've never thought about before.

-What free will is - and isn't

-Thoughts on another dimension of consciousness that coexists alongside our "day to day" existence

-How dictators use the media and even peer pressure to maintain their ill-intended rule over others

-Why governments are antithetical to freedom, and why the founders of the U.S. wanted as little government as possible

There is of course more to it - and Laura and I only scratched the surface of her book in our short time together, but we made the most of what we had.

The Logic of Freedom by Laura Davidson