#263 Jeff Charney

Jeff Charney [00:00:00]:
For a long time, I thought I was in the advertising business. I thought I was in the marketing business. I thought I was in the technology business. I thought I was in the creativity business. But I'm not in any of those businesses, Jeffrey. I'm not. I'm in the history business. And I sound— it's not like sounding arrogant at all, but if you're in the history business, every day you go in, you are trying to make history.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:23]:
Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today is a special episode with Jeffrey Charney. Jeff grew up in rural South Carolina and went on to become a 2-time Chief Marketing Officer of the Year across firms like Progressive Insurance, Aflac, and QVC, helping shape some of the most enduring characters and concepts in modern marketing history, including the Aflac Duck, Flo, Dr. Rick, and many more. But this conversation is less about Jeff's resume than the patterns and philosophies underneath.

Jeff Charney [00:01:02]:
Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:02]:
it, seeing around corners, advocating for real creativity and risk-taking, and pursuing things that have never been done before. After leaving Progressive, that instinct took him to founding Make History, building his digital twin Madison, and now working with neuroscientist Dr. Julius Friedrichsen at Alt AI on a new approach to artificial intelligence inspired by the human brain rather than by language models to vastly increase the efficiency and capability of AI as we understand it today. In our conversation, we explore why concepts endure while ideas expire, what meeting Muhammad Ali taught Jeff about people, the brand-bot-brain beyond trajectory, why he walked away from Progressive at the very top of his career, whether creativity and taste can be encoded into AI, why understanding how our brains work will teach us about building more efficient and explainable intelligence, and why the tallest nails get hammered first. We also talk about time, discomfort, relevance, family, legacy, and why Jeff believes he's never really been in the marketing business at all, but rather in the business of history. Jeff is one of the most creative, highly intentional, and deeply caring people I've gotten to know, and it is a real privilege to call him a friend and have him on the podcast today. So please enjoy my conversation with Jeff Charney. Lay of the Land is brought to you and is proudly sponsored by Seriti Partners.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:30]:
As a wealth management firm, Serity Partners shares Lay of the Land's same dedication to serving local business owners, and the Serity Partners Cleveland team understands the challenges that entrepreneurs and founders face here in Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, and beyond. Wealth comes with complexity and increased demands on time and resources. It is easy to become overwhelmed. Serity Partners clients benefit from a unified team of local specialists who coordinate across both business and personal needs. With Serity Partners' commitment to transparency and putting clients' needs first, complexity can become clarity. To learn more, please visit seritypartners.com or call 216-464-6266 today. Serity Partners, proud to be recognized as one of the top financial advisory firms in the country. Every morning now, uh, I walk into my office and I'm greeted by the sight of an abnormally large nail, which you have gifted me, and I enjoy seeing as this daily reminder.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:35]:
A reminder of what exactly we'll unpack here, but it's a fun physical world item to ground yourself in certain ideals and mentalities, which the nail comes to represent. And I thought the nail itself would be a fun place to start as its ethos sort of permeates many of the things that we've talked about together over the the course of just getting to know each other. And I think we'll lay a good foundation for a lot of what we'll talk about here today. And so just kind of wanted to start with what this nail represents to you.

Jeff Charney [00:04:12]:
Well, first of all, Geoffrey, I am in caged animal mode. I've been waiting for this for a long, long time. And I also look at that nail. For people who don't know what we're talking about, this is the nail I gave Geoffrey. And I look at this every day as well. And the nail, you know, is, is, is, is fun. It's better than the normal swag that people give, obviously. But what the nail represents goes back to an ancient Japanese proverb that says the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

Jeff Charney [00:04:42]:
And what does that mean? The tallest nail gets hammered. What does it mean? It means that you got to do something that has never been done before. And when you do something, you're pushing the limits of AI, you're pushing limits of creativity, you're pushing limits of advertising, marketing, you're a tall nail. And you're standing out there and trying to do something that hasn't been done before, and people are going to hammer you down. And you got to just brace yourself and get ready for it and relish it because that's who you are. You're a disruptor. And if you're a disruptor, you're going to get hammered down. I was 6'5.

Jeff Charney [00:05:15]:
I had hair before I started, and now I've been hammered so hard that I don't have that anymore. So it's just a fun way to look at things. And it reminds me, all of us, if I had the chance to give everybody a nail, I would. But you got to be very brave to be in the business we're in.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:33]:
What is the business that we are in?

Jeff Charney [00:05:35]:
Again, Geoffrey, that is a great question. That is the question for me. And for a long time, I thought I was in the advertising business. I thought I was in the marketing business. I thought I was in the technology business. I thought I was in the creativity business, but I'm not in any of those businesses, Geoffrey. I'm not. I'm in the history business and I sound, it's not like sounding arrogant at all, but if you're in the history business, every day you go in, you are trying to make history.

Jeff Charney [00:06:03]:
That is the name of my business, Make History, you know, without the vowels. Because if you take away the vowels, A, E, I, O, what's left is you.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:15]:
Is you.

Jeff Charney [00:06:16]:
And you are the one that should be in that history business. You're the only one standing in the way of being in the history business. If you really understand that premise of being in the history business, stick with the rest of the interview. If not, leave, because you're not going to understand what I'm talking about if you're not understanding what it means to be in the history business.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:36]:
So to help people understand, I think when a lot of folks hear about the proverbial Jeff Charney, you know, the brand that precedes you as a person, Which I know we'll spend some time on, the intentionality with which you think about brand and perception. But to the rest of the world, it may sort of feel, you know, resume-driven, almost like thinking about Chief Marketing Officer Progressive or the creative manifestation of Flow and the Affleck duck. But what I've really enjoyed about getting to know you is that we've spent honestly maybe zero time at all ever talking about that. and a whole lot more about your operating philosophies, your attention to the present, your ambitions for the future, your curiosity about other people than we really ever have about the past. And so I'm interested in like your roots. Who, you know, who was Geoffrey Charney before you became, you know, Jeff Charney?

Jeff Charney [00:07:37]:
And it's funny, you mentioned Geoffrey versus Jeff and If my mother were alive, may she rest in peace, she would be so upset with people calling me Jeff Charney because Jeff— Jeffrey Charney sounds a little— Jeffrey Charney and we're corporate America. Jeff Charney sounds a little better. But my mother said Jeff sounds like a doll. She says that sounds like a doll. Jeff, Jeff. So people that are really close to me, people who grew up with me, my wife, my kids, my family call me Jeffrey. But in shorthand, I went by Jeff because It's just easier to say. People don't— Jeffrey Charney.

Jeff Charney [00:08:12]:
And again, Jeffrey, you, you go by Jeffrey. So now I am really— I'm not the artist formerly known as Jeff. I've just always been Jeffrey. I've always been Jeffrey. And I grew up, you know, rural South Carolina, not the best place of all to grow up as a creative, but it was a great background for me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:28]:
Great background. You always had this creative energy?

Jeff Charney [00:08:34]:
Oh, always, man. I just, I remember, um, Always had the creative energy. And what got me into marketing, Jeffrey, is a true story. There was a woman who I was crushed and really severely crushing on. I mean, just crazy. You got to realize I was 16 years old. She was there. I loved her from afar.

Jeff Charney [00:08:55]:
She was my dream person. She was captain cheerleaders. I was captain cheerleaders, homecoming queen. I had no business being in her league. And I remember thinking about asking her out and I went to ask her out after weeks and weeks telling my dad I was going to ask her out and all this stuff. Heart beating, heart beating, heart beating. Finally go to ask her out and she kind of looks right through me. And it wasn't, she was sweet and she was like, just, I knew it wasn't going to happen.

Jeff Charney [00:09:21]:
And I came home, I was so dejected, so dejected. And my dad, my dad was from Brooklyn, New York and said, Jeffrey, you know, come on, man. Get it, you know, snap out of it. Snap out of it. You gotta, you can't lose your edge. And I just didn't listen to him and I was out for vengeance. And it was sad. It was sad because she ran, she was running for student body council and all this stuff.

Jeff Charney [00:09:40]:
And I was running against her and I put everything into it. I came up with all this creative stuff. Fred and Barney say, vote for Charney with your last breath. Vote for Jeff. Keep Jeff off the street. All these crazy things that I did. I went and shook everybody's hand. I wrote a speech.

Jeff Charney [00:09:56]:
It was probably the best speech of my life ever, ever. And I remember giving that speech. And she gave her speech, which was off the shelf. She didn't have to. She was beautiful. She was just stunning. She gave a great, a decent speech. When I got up, I've never felt more confident, never felt more confident because I had a campaign.

Jeff Charney [00:10:13]:
I marketed myself really well and I had a great speech and I won. And it was not like I should have won, but they voted right after the speeches. So it was great, but it really got me and said, look, if I can use marketing You know, out of vengeance, imagine what I could do to use marketing for the greater good of society, of life. And that's what I really, after then I said, look, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go after it. I'm going to go after it again and again and again. So that's how I got into marketing and I've never, never stopped since 16 years old.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:46]:
Well, with your interest in marketing, at what point does that converge with the making of history?

Jeff Charney [00:10:53]:
Marketing is everything. Everything is marketing, but you got to have the talent as well. You got to work at that talent. And I remember when I was a kid, I was in 4th grade, I'm studying for a spelling bee. Nobody studies for a spelling bee like I studied for a spelling bee. I was relentless with it. And I remember driving up to my school, my mother, I was in the backseat, I was in the 4th grade. I said, Mommy, you think I could win that spelling bee? You think I win? And she just took a big drag out of her cigarette, cool cigarette, Rolled down the window, let it out, and said, Jeffrey, why not? You've done the work.

Jeff Charney [00:11:32]:
Why not? You've done the work. And I walked in. It wasn't the most motivational thing for a little kid to hear, especially when I was going against— she didn't tell me I was going against 5th and 6th and 7th graders, but I'd done the work. It made sense to me. I internalized it coming in there and I won because it wasn't that difficult because I'd done the work. But to go back to your question, if you do the work, if you're in the marketing world and if you're showing up for work every day for 3 decades, you might as well, if you're going to show up, you might as well shoot for something bigger than just a job. You might as well shoot for history. And if it's something like Flow, which is People, it's a historic thing.

Jeff Charney [00:12:16]:
It's great, but it's history to me. If it's the Aflac Duck, that's history to me. If it's Dr. Rick, we all become our parents. It's history. It doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter anymore. And even in my garage, I have a saying.

Jeff Charney [00:12:31]:
It's in there. It's a, I have it literally every day I drive in, park the past, park the past, drive the future. That's past. It's history. You got to keep going and going and going and see what's around corners. Long-winded answer. a short question, but it all makes, it all should make sense if you're going to do the work, if you're going to have the talent, if you're going to have the drive, you got to, you might as well be there and make, try to make history. And I've, and I didn't realize that even in corporate America for the longest time until I left.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:00]:
What was obfuscated by being within corporate America?

Jeff Charney [00:13:04]:
I mean, it's just, I worked for the greatest companies of all time. I worked with the greatest people of all time. But it's corporate America. I was probably a square peg, round hole, being as creative guy who always wears black, has a tattoo on his neck, just interesting things that probably doesn't fit exactly the mold of what you think of IBM. And I didn't work for IBM by any means, but it didn't fit that mold. But I had people who let me go. They let me go in every way possible. But still, I'm working with companies that were 75,000 people, 100,000 people.

Jeff Charney [00:13:36]:
You got to fit within some kind of norm. And people let me go. They took the chains off of me. I took the chains off of the people I work with. I really unleashed companies, but still you got to play within some of the rules. And I've always gone close to the edge, Jeffrey, but not over the edge. I mean, if you go close to the edge like this, you kind of unnerve people. If you're back here, you're too conservative.

Jeff Charney [00:13:57]:
If you go over the edge, you're fired. And I don't want to be fired. So you just had to pull back a little bit. You can't go in 5th gear all the time, but the people I work with let me go in 5th gear as much as I can. But you're in corporate America and you can't do everything you always wanted to do.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:15]:
Well, one of the things I've always found pretty interesting about your story in just the conversations we've had is that you didn't step away from corporate America because things were going Badly, but arguably, you know, you kind of like a Seinfeld, you know, we're walking away at peak performance and just why you would opt to do that.

Jeff Charney [00:14:42]:
Again, Jeffrey, it goes back to my dad. My dad was from Brooklyn, New York. My mother was from Greenwood, South Carolina. We were a Jewish family in a very, you know, Southern Baptist town. We were different. We were, I've always been different. And my dad was a teacher and he kind of, you know, just a distributive education teacher, taught kids how to market themselves that weren't going to DECA. He taught kids how to market themselves.

Jeff Charney [00:15:05]:
And I remember him just being coming home and he was just very upset with the brand new principal he had. And he said, Jeffrey, when you were on top, because he should have left years ago. He should not have waited for the brand new principal. But Jeffrey, when you were on top, man, that's when you dropped the microphone. And you know you're on top. And I was peaking. I just won Chief Marketing Officer of the Year for the second time. I had a $2 billion budget and I kept hearing those words from my dad, drop the microphone when you are on top, because if not, you don't know what's going to happen.

Jeff Charney [00:15:39]:
I wasn't worried about that, but it's just like when you're on top, drop it, say goodbye and pivot and pivot to the thing that's next. And I saw what was coming. I saw what was coming. It was right in front of me. AI was was coming and I knew that I could move a little faster without having corporate America holding me back a little bit. Not that much, but holding me back a little bit. And I knew this was coming and it was the perfect time. And I'm telling you, anybody listen to my dad, Alan Charney from Brooklyn, New York, drop the microphone when you're on top.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:10]:
Lay of the Land is brought to you and is proudly sponsored by Roundstone Insurance headquartered in Rocky River, Ohio. Roundstone shares Lay of the Land's same passion for bold ideas and lasting impact from our community's entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders. Since 2005, Roundstone has pioneered a self-funded captive health insurance model that delivers robust savings for small and medium-sized businesses. They are part of the solution to rising healthcare costs, helping employers offer affordable, high-quality care while driving job creation and economic growth throughout Northeast Ohio. Like many of the voices featured on Lay of the Land, including Roundstone's founder and CEO, Mike Schroeder, Roundstone believes entrepreneurship, innovation, and community to be the cornerstones of progress. To learn more about how Roundstone is transforming employee health benefits by empowering employers to save thousands in per-employee, per-year healthcare costs, please visit roundstoneinsurance.com. Roundstone Insurance, built for entrepreneurs, Backed by innovation, committed to Cleveland. And we'll talk a little bit about what's coming next.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:17]:
And I don't mean to harp on the past, but I am very interested in part of the past.

Jeff Charney [00:17:23]:
Park the past, drive the future, man. Park the past, drive the future, man.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:26]:
Yeah, but the, the, the, the operating philosophy that you've had and how it's evolved and just like what, what was your creative process within corporate America? Like what allowed for you to create characters that we all know and that have endured?

Jeff Charney [00:17:44]:
First of all, Jeffrey, you gotta almost start before you just go right into the execution, execution and driving creativity and brainstorming and all these things. You have to have your own operating principles, just like your own operating philosophy. And my hierarchy started with 4 6-letter words, change, Which is really hard for people, really hard for people to change. If you change, you have growth, which is the second 6-letter word. And if you have growth, you get better. And if you get better every day, man, it's a beautiful thing. But most people don't change, growth, and better every day. They don't get better every day.

Jeff Charney [00:18:20]:
It's probably at most, it's maybe 100 days out of 365 at best. But if you get better every day, you can do great things and then you can provide for your Most important 6-letter word, the family. So it's change, growth, better, and your family. And your family is the most important of all that. And people don't realize that. They just get so caught up in their own world. So that's the highest level, Jeffrey. So just to understand that first, 6-letter words.

Jeff Charney [00:18:49]:
And today, you also got to work with people that will, second part, to make history. And if you're going to make history, how much time is going to be involved to make history? H, you know, T, if you will. Then you got how much creativity is going to be involved. And finally, will it result in relevance? Will you be relevant? Will your company be relevant? So broad, then go, you know, that's the 35,000, then go to 15,000. Who are you going to work with and who are people going to let you roll? And do these things. And finally, when you show up, when it goes execution mode, you better show up. You show up. I don't mince words.

Jeff Charney [00:19:33]:
I show up, I get to work. And those 3 things, my 3 O's, you gotta outwork, which everybody can do. You can outwork anybody, guys. You can outwork anybody. Second, outcreate, which I've been doing this since I was 16 years old. I've been doing it way before then. Nobody can out-create me. Put a line here.

Jeff Charney [00:19:52]:
You got to out-create. And third, you got to outthink. You have to outthink all those hierarchies. Look at your own hierarchy. Look at what's most important to you. Look who you're going to work with and look what you have to bring to it. And if you've got all 3 of those things, you're— and people get you, which some people don't get me. It's hard to get me.

Jeff Charney [00:20:10]:
I'm an acquired taste. But once you do, man, and you have your own operating philosophy, it's just you can go, you can go and you can make history. Does that make sense? Yes.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:25]:
And I'd like to use that foundation to understand, like, in a practical example, like, how did you know when to kill an idea?

Jeff Charney [00:20:36]:
Well, first of all, I don't, you know, ideas, ideas are cheap. It's concepts that matter. It's not ideas. And one of the few guys that, if you looked, if you asked every CMO, asked 100 CMOs out there, give me, if you look at content, context, characters, creativity, and concept, those 5 things. If you look at all those Cs, they would rank content number 1. They may do context. They're never going to look at concept as number 1. I looked at concept as number 1.

Jeff Charney [00:21:08]:
Concepts last forever. They make history. Ideas, content is daily. I mean, it's execution. Who cares? So first of all, you got to go for concepts. Concepts. Relevance starts with relevance. Years ago, Simpsons House.

Jeff Charney [00:21:25]:
I'm a Simpsons freak. This was the 10th anniversary of The Simpsons. Now it's 40 years, 40 years of The Simpsons. And I'd watched every episode of The Simpsons. I was working for a home builder, the most boring business you could ever think of. I said, we're going to build the Simpsons house. It's relevance. It's a concept.

Jeff Charney [00:21:42]:
The Simpsons house. I watched a '96 episode. I hired a person to build the Simpsons house. People went crazy. But it's just, you don't kill ideas. You just wait for the right concept. And they don't have to always come from me, but people that are conceptual thinkers will come with it over and over and over again. I could go through Dr.

Jeff Charney [00:22:01]:
Rick, one more concept. I'm in Rocky River on a road where my kids are bicycling. I see a car going 60 miles an hour down this 25-mile-an-hour road. I'm a freak. I'm running after this car. He's at the stop sign. I'm screaming at the car saying a few expletives and saying, dude, you got to slow down. My kids are riding their bikes.

Jeff Charney [00:22:29]:
And the guy just kind of wasn't really paying attention to me, kind of flipped me off. And I walked back and I said, man, that's exactly what my dad said on River Drive, River Drive in South Carolina. Now I'm on 11 River in Rocky River. And it just made me think like that concept, I've become my parents, is what started parentamorphosis, which was that concept and what started Dr. Rick. If you have a great concept, Short answer. I made the long answer short. I made a short answer long, but it's just concepts are king.

Jeff Charney [00:23:04]:
Concepts are king, man. And ideas aren't, content isn't, context isn't. Concepts rule. They rule. And that's what has made me so different than other CMOs because they value ideas.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:19]:
Well, there's sort of this like fun tension, I think, between the ideas that have lasted the longest are most likely to continue to persist, but that at the same time, you're interested in things that have never been done before.

Jeff Charney [00:23:35]:
Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:35]:
And what, like, why are you drawn to the things without precedent rather than the things with?

Jeff Charney [00:23:43]:
I think that again goes back to if you're going to, if you're going to work for a company, Make it easier on yourself to, you know, the concept between the flow is, you know, heaven versus hell. It's heaven, you know, heavenly creature flow, positive versus hell shopping for insurance. The concept of we all become our parents. I mean, I think to me, if you're going to put things out there rather than churn your team up over and over again, coming up with the newest, newest, newest, newest, you're going to exhaust your team. You're going to exhaust your agencies. Give things that last. So you can continue, those things continue to work. Flow has been around for 18 years.

Jeff Charney [00:24:19]:
The Athlete been around for 26 years. You know, We All Become Our Parents been around for 10 years. Those things continue to roll and make history, and then you can concentrate on other things rather than having to reinvent the wheel every year. A lot of companies reinvent the wheel every year. It's just not, it's not a consistent business model. Get things that work. They're working really well. You get more money.

Jeff Charney [00:24:40]:
They're working really well. You get more money to make other things work well. Does that make sense? I mean, just, just, and, and just keep looking at what's next. You got things that are working. You're not worried about your campaigns. You're worried about what's next. You can see around corners much easier than people say, oh, my campaign's not working. Oh my gosh, they're working.

Jeff Charney [00:24:58]:
So you can sit back and make them work better and then see around corners.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:03]:
Yeah. But I'm always sort of drawn to this idea that To the degree you can see around corners, you can leverage the best of what other people have already figured out in like a study of history, which is different than like lingering in it. But I mean, were there people that you have worked with or you wanted to work with or looked up to that like helped craft your operating philosophy or like who helped shape this mentality of yours?

Jeff Charney [00:25:33]:
Well, first of all, I've always had great mentors at work. One of the guys that years ago that gave me an opportunity was a guy named Bruce Keritz at Kaufman and Broad. It was a big home builder. And he was like saying, hey, Charney, if you come in— I was working in PR at the time. He said, if you come in, man, if you're as good as I think you are, if you're as creative as you appear to be, dude, in a couple months you'll be my CMO. I mean, a couple years you'll be my CMO. Couple of years, you'll be my CMO. You'll graduate from communications to marketing and you control more things in that area in a couple of years.

Jeff Charney [00:26:08]:
Literally a couple of months later, he calls me and says, hey, Charlie, this is your brass ring. This is your brass ring. I'm giving you that brass ring. You are as creative as you want, and I'm going to give you that brass ring. And then today you're the new CMO. I walked down to his office to get that brass ring. The other CMO was coming back to let him go, which was unfortunate. I hate that.

Jeff Charney [00:26:30]:
I hate that. But he gave me that opportunity. He believed in me. And he said, I'm going to France. Carpenter Bro was a big builder in France. I'm going to leave you. I'm going to go to France and I'm going to let you figure it out because I'm gone for a month. And he just believed in me and let me roll.

Jeff Charney [00:26:44]:
Every mentor I've had, every boss I've had has just been wonderful, wonderful to really instill that in me. But people like Steve Jobs, Obviously not a good guy, but a very high bar. I followed him. I read about him before he was cool. Muhammad Ali, which was just another disruptor. I look, I study everybody. I study everybody and everything. But those 2 people really, as a young kid, had the most impact on me, Jobs and Ali.

Jeff Charney [00:27:12]:
And I had a chance to almost, I had a chance to meet Ali and had a chance to almost work for Steve Jobs. But the timing wasn't right. But you look at these people and you go for it and you say, I got to figure this thing out.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:25]:
What was it about Ali? Just curious.

Jeff Charney [00:27:28]:
Ali was just a disruptor. You're talking about a tall nail that gets hammered down. Nobody could hammer him down. Nobody could hammer him down. He showed up and he showed up. And again, polarizing figure. But years ago, I was in California. I lived in California for 16 years.

Jeff Charney [00:27:43]:
I was at Gladstone's. And I was with a whole group of people, 5 people, and I see Ali walk in with his daughters and it was like, oh my God, there's Muhammad. This is my idol. I've literally studied his marketing. I've studied everything about him. I got to go up to him. There's security around him. He's eating in a little private area.

Jeff Charney [00:27:59]:
His daughters are there. People say, do not go up to him, Charlie. Don't embarrass us. Don't embarrass us by going up to him. And I just walked over. He could see I had hair at the point, at that point in my life. He could see my wide eyes and people were like, security was like, no, no, no. And then he said, come.

Jeff Charney [00:28:15]:
He could see, he could feel that. And I sat down with him, which is like when my idol, I sat down with him and his daughters were wonderful. They let, you know, he talked to, he wasn't, he wasn't as in perfect condition, but he knew what I was talking about. I told him that's why one of the reasons I got in marketing because of him. That's one of the reasons I'm a disruptor because of him. And he was just awesome. And then the sad thing about it, we were having a great conversation and there was 4 people. The 5 people that were with me, 4 or 5 people that were with me, then they came up and tried to get pictures with him.

Jeff Charney [00:28:42]:
And he said, look, I'm done. And I realized like, you can't, you, you gotta raise your hand. You, I raised my hand and then other people said, look, I'm gonna follow him. I'm gonna go get a picture with Ali. He didn't, he didn't wanna do that. We all got pictures with him, but it wasn't what he wanted and it wasn't what I wanted. And it's just frustrating a little bit.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:58]:
So let's, let's talk about now the, the moment that we are in, uh, what, what, you saw coming, sort of grounded in AI? I mean, one of the things that's kind of fun and certainly unique, if anyone is having an ongoing conversation with you, is that at some point they might be introduced to Madison. And I think Madison might be a good broach to talk about a bit of what you saw coming and just how you've explored it creatively, because it's pretty It's pretty, it's pretty cool to, to see.

Jeff Charney [00:29:32]:
Well, just if you think about, again, I look at my life and I'm wearing a sweatshirt here. This is brand, bot, and brain. And I look at my, you know, my, my professional career in those 4, but really there's background, there's the brand, there's the bot, and there's the brain, and then there's beyond. So I look at, look at my, my, my future life in those 5, 5 areas. And if I look at AI. I mean, you could see it coming before ChatGPT. ChatGPT's only been around a short time. You could feel that AI, there was a train coming.

Jeff Charney [00:30:03]:
And it wasn't that I was trying to leave Progressive because I was on top, but I could just see this thing coming. I had to give a year's notice to Progressive to tell them, look, I'm going to do something. And then I just, and I worked my tail off until midnight that year and I sat down at my desk And said, what am I going to do now? I didn't have it perfect. And I sat down and I wrote, you know, all these things. And I finally wrote the word make, M-A-K-E-H-I-S-T-R-O-Y. Oh, I wrote it all out.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:35]:
Yeah.

Jeff Charney [00:30:35]:
And then I proceeded to take the A-E-I-O and I said, make history, make history. And then when AI was so big, I said, look, I have worked my tail off, Jeffrey, and everybody out there that's ever been a concept guy or been trying to crack the code of creativity. I'd worked my tail off for years. Things that, you know, coming up with Dr. Rick, with me and a team coming up with that, or the Aflac, working with the Aflac Duck or working with Flo, it takes forever. It takes months, months to get a campaign in the market. How can I do that? How can I stop hurting my head so much? I've been doing it so long. I need to come up with a digital twin of myself.

Jeff Charney [00:31:13]:
And this was, you know, 4 years ago, 5 years ago when, 4 years ago when they were There were no digital twins. I found this great programmer, incredible programmer, incredible gifted, you know, youngest, you know, he won Amazon, you know, coder of the year at 15. He won it at 16 as well. Brilliant kid that sat with me and said, look, we're going to come up with a digital twin of you so you don't have to hurt your head anymore. All those things you did in 6 months, it took you 6 months, you can now do in 6 minutes. It was agony. I tell people, do not try this at home. If I had to do it over again, I would do it, but I would— it was really, really hard and it took years, but we got it.

Jeff Charney [00:31:55]:
Madison is not only as good as me, sometimes Madison's better than me, but it's not perfect. But Madison is really my ace employee, the employee I always wanted, the assistant I always wanted, the person I always wanted. Madison is up 24/7. Madison can listen to me brainstorm. Madison can bounce off of me and Madison's killing it, killing it. And I wanted to sell Madison. I wanted to sell. I did it for money.

Jeff Charney [00:32:21]:
I wanted to jump on that AI train at the fastest point in life. Madison was working great. People were talking to me. I was talking to people, had some offers for Madison. And then it's a bigger thing. I'll tell you who I met in a second. We can go into that. But I started looking at this and saying, gosh, do I want to have the Charty Creative Suite out there? Because if it's misused, if Madison's misused by somebody, they're going to say, oh my God, who came up with this? It's like Norton Antivirus.

Jeff Charney [00:32:50]:
Virus stuff is not— they're going to blame me. My brand's going to be around it. I'm going to have to sit there and convince all these people why Madison is better than the conceptual, because nobody's using concepts type stuff. So it was very easy. for Madison to win. But then I said, look, do I want to do this? Do I want to sell it or do I want to hold onto it? And for a couple reasons, I held onto it and I still have Madison and Madison does everything for me right now. So, which is everything for me and it's incredible.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:18]:
Right. And it's literally not an exaggeration, real conversations back and forth with Madison. I mean, one of the things that I wanted to ask you about, and it's not really related to the business, side of it. It is more kind of these prime questions about AI right now, but I think you would have really interesting perspective just given how you think about creativity. I mean, do you actually feel that taste can be encoded?

Jeff Charney [00:33:46]:
No, it, it, it, it can get close. It can get close. It can't be encoded. You're, it's never, and that was interesting because One of the reasons why I didn't sell Madison at that time, because it's just like I didn't feel I wanted to hawk Madison to the world. I didn't want to be that salesman for Madison. I didn't want to work for people that I really didn't believe in, even though the money was great. But along the way, I met a guy, a guy named Dr. Julius Friedrichsen from Iceland, and he came to my house when the women's Final Four, South Carolina was in Cleveland, Cleveland was the Final Four and South Carolina was there.

Jeff Charney [00:34:22]:
He came to my house and he said, look, Madison's incredible, man. It's incredible. It's the best I've ever seen. And we've spent hours and hours talking about it. He said, but Madison will never be you. It will never be human because it's based on large language. It's based on language. It's not even based on the brain.

Jeff Charney [00:34:41]:
And it kind of blew my mind at the time. This was a couple years ago. Like, what do you mean it's not based on the brain? It kind of follows the brain. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. It's not based on the brain at all. It's based on language. It's brute force.

Jeff Charney [00:34:51]:
It is cumbersome. It hurts your head. It hurts the environment. It's using so much energy, so much power, so much water. It's not great, Jeff. And if it was based in the brain, it would be better. It could have taste. It could have all these things, but it's not.

Jeff Charney [00:35:09]:
And it just floored me. And that, in addition to all the things I said before, I said, look, I got to put Madison over here. To where ultimately this guy, he's the number one clinical neuro— but number one rated clinical neuroscientist in the world. Not rated, but he's written 260 papers. I believe he is. He runs a big research department at my alma mater, University of South Carolina. He's brilliant. He's brilliant.

Jeff Charney [00:35:34]:
He said, timeout, I'll see if I can help you. And people always say, I'll see if I can help you. They don't really follow up. He followed up. We kept talking and talking and talking, and we realized that brain-based AI, if you really can really crack the code of the biggest invention of our lifetime, if you could do that, you got something huge. And that's why we started another company called Alt AI. Alt means everything, and this will change everything if we're right. And we are right.

Jeff Charney [00:36:03]:
But to answer your question, it can't, it can't right now, but it It will in the future if we follow what we're doing with Alt AI.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:11]:
It could exhibit creativity.

Jeff Charney [00:36:14]:
It could. It could. It gives you what is out there and what I've done, all the things. This was all based on me. It wasn't based on my company. It's based on what I've done and my philosophies and all these different things, but it still can only go so far. It can be kind of creative. You think it's creative, you think it's learning you, You think you're, oh my gosh, it knows me, it knows me, it knows me.

Jeff Charney [00:36:36]:
It's just following patterns. It's just pattern recognition. It's not true brain-based creativity. This is the original LLM. It's 3 pounds within your head, between your head, 20 watts of power for a week, 2 AA batteries versus megawatts of data. The world doesn't need that. I want to be associated with something that is making AI better. Versus just, you know, taking on the environment, taking on, you know, jobs and taking on all these things.

Jeff Charney [00:37:08]:
And our AI will help people with aphasia, Alzheimer's, dementia, all these things. It's just, it's a very special, I'm so fortunate to have met Julius. I'm so fortunate to have gotten into AI when I got into AI. And I'm so fortunate to be at Creativity to push the creative limits of what creativity will be. But we're scarce. We're scarce. We keep it, we keep it, you know, that's why I'm a little cautious about what I say, but we're scarcity model does work, you know?

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:34]:
So I mean, I think a lot of folks would be curious, you know, what is Jeff Charny up to today? What, why of all the things you could be working on, is this the thing? And I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Jeff Charney [00:37:51]:
Look, I'm so fortunate. We, I'm so fortunate in life. I have so much gratitude. I have a great family. I have a great life. I have a just a wonderful thing. I've made my career by trying to make history, but I think there's even something bigger than history and it's legacy. It's legacy.

Jeff Charney [00:38:06]:
And I'm not saying like I need to be, my name needs to be on buildings and things like that. I'm just working toward history. And if you look at AI, again, as I said before, the biggest innovation of our lifetime, there's never going to be anything bigger, Jeffrey. There's not going to be anything bigger in my lifetime than AI. And if I can make AI better, and smarter and more efficient and more trustworthy. Because you can't right now, AI can't be explained. Explainability is really an issue. Interpretability is an issue and efficiency is an issue.

Jeff Charney [00:38:34]:
And if I could put explainability, interpretability, and efficiency together and make it better for our brains, for aphasia, dementia, Alzheimer's, there's a legacy thing I'm working for. And that's really what I'm fortunate that I don't have to work for the every day just to make ends meet, but why would I not work for something that will make history and ultimately be something that will leave a legacy? But it's not an ego thing. It's just something I'm committed to. I've afforded that opportunity to myself because I'm young in my own head. I'm very young.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:15]:
Where do you feel Like one of the things, it's sort of, I think, tragic in some ways, but has been the lack of positive storytelling around this particular kind of technological breakthrough and the good that it could be for society as opposed to more of the Luddite framing of the pernicious implications it might have. Like what, what do you, where does your skillset here matter the most? What, what are the stories that you're trying to tell with Alt AI?

Jeff Charney [00:39:54]:
Well, again, it just goes back to, first of all, for people that don't know AI as much, and I said before, you can't explain it. You can't explain it. You don't, it's like taking your car in to get it fixed and you say, what's wrong with my car? I don't know. Why is it hallucinating? I don't know. And people don't know that. So if you can crack that code, and if you look at how the brain operates, the brain, we studied Julius and his team at University of South Carolina, 10 to 15 people at University of South Carolina have studied brains for 25 years. 25 years. Every kind of damaged brain, unfortunately, they have looked at.

Jeff Charney [00:40:28]:
And the key to this is studying damaged brains. You study damaged brains, you take damaged brains over here, and I'm making it very simplified. There's More things you can read about it. Damaged brain over here, and then you damage an LLM over here, an existing LLM, damage it just like the brain is damaged. And you see patterns and you see if the brain is damaged, if anybody's had a stroke or aphasia or any of these type things, you know that when some part of the brain is damaged, the rest of the brain goes to rescue that, try to do anything it can do to make that go away. And it's the same thing you're thinking about what causes damage in the brain. And if you damage the LLM, how does some parts of the LLM that you don't need, all those parameters, trillions of parameters, if you don't need all those trillions of parameters, it could be more efficient. I know it's simplistic.

Jeff Charney [00:41:15]:
Read our papers. They're out there on the web. You can find them. There's a Bloom paper, a patented Bloom paper that talks about this, but damage brains, damage LLMs, and greater efficiency. Which is really what we want right now because it's scary out there. I'm not trying to be a harbinger. I talked about this 3 years ago. These data centers are going to pop up in Ohio.

Jeff Charney [00:41:39]:
They're going to pop up everywhere and it's fine, but why not be more efficient? Why not have something you can explain? And why not have something that's more trustworthy? Because right now you cannot use AI in medicine. I love the Cleveland Clinic, but I wouldn't trust AI on the operating room table. Because it just, it's not, it's going to, if it hallucinates, I'm dead. You know, I'm not, it's not a question. I think, and I think with this, even with clinical trials, not only are we helping foundation models be more efficient, we're also looking, going back to that 2-letter word, digital twin, we're creating digital twins of people with aphasia, dementia, and Alzheimer's. And if you can do that, you can really help clinical trials go a lot faster because clinical trials, take years and years and years. And if you have digital twins of people with brain disorders, it's much easier to move through those digital twins than to go through real people. I know it's a long answer.

Jeff Charney [00:42:35]:
Alt-AI is something, it is a grand slam, it's a moonshot, but it's real. It's real. People look at it as a moonshot. We thought it was even years ago when we started it, but it's real now. The tests we're getting are showing Very promising. They're showing incredible efficiency, incredible explainability, and real help to society. But we kind of keep it quiet because I don't really— I don't do many of these podcasts. You're a friend of mine.

Jeff Charney [00:43:01]:
I wanted to do this, but I don't do many of these because it's what we're sitting on is gold for the world, which is awesome. And it'll be a time where we will start looking for partners. And we're at that time right now. We've gotten a lot of testing done. It shows incredible promise. And we're looking for the right partner that is really looking in the history business versus just making the money business.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:25]:
So to the degree you can speak to it, I mean, what do you feel you've proven here? And I guess also why the pace of AI is so extraordinary. You know, a lot happens in the 3 years that you've been quiet on the matter. Why have you waited so long to talk about it and what can you finally share?

Jeff Charney [00:43:50]:
Again, Jeffrey, I'm not a ready, fire, aim guy. I'm a ready, aim, fire guy. I really, you got it. And I, even with Madison, I probably went out a little too quickly with Madison and people didn't understand it. They still liked it. It was great, but I went out a little too quickly. I went a ready, aim, fire. We have worked this.

Jeff Charney [00:44:11]:
You wouldn't believe how much time it takes, how many papers. We've written 8 papers on this that we haven't even released. We released 2 of them at this point. We have 6 more to go to really talk about this. And we wanted to get those papers right. We wanted to get this technology right. We wanted to get simulations right. It's not even simulations to real simulations, right? And realistically, what we're showing is huge percentages of efficiency Which even if it's 10%, 20%, whatever it is, that's huge dollars.

Jeff Charney [00:44:43]:
That's huge help to society. And I'm not at liberty to talk about it now, but I will at the right time when we release some of these papers out and when we start going through a few more, one more little bit of aiming and firing that we'll get. But it's already showing greater, greater efficiency. We want to make it the greatest efficiency. And we can test it on, you know, big, you know, pretty, you know, 15 billion, 35 billion parameter models. But we test on trillion parameter models. That's when it gets expensive, really expensive GPUs. And that's why we really are looking for that right partner.

Jeff Charney [00:45:22]:
We have 25 years of data on broken brains that people want. You know, the big, the big foundation models have, you know, data that we want. and GPU power that we want. And those 2 come together, it's going to, that's when it's going to be like, people are going to say, holy crap, this is, this is pretty, alt AI is changing everything.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:41]:
But it's still, I mean, the holy grail, the idea that, that you had explained, which just resonated with me, that at least I think directionally speaks to it is, right, the, the amount of, of energy that it takes to operate a human brain is comparable to like a light bulb. And with all this AI and the data center buildout, we're talking about city-scale levels of energy to emulate what the brain does.

Jeff Charney [00:46:11]:
The brain is the most efficient.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:12]:
Orders of magnitude less.

Jeff Charney [00:46:14]:
Yeah, it's the most efficient, Jeffrey. You said it best. Light bulb power, 2 AA batteries for a week. It's nothing. And it's a beautiful, it's the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful parts of our body that is like, it's the original LLM. You can't speak without the brain starting it? Why didn't it start with the brain versus language? Language is a sea of numbers, a fog of numbers, a fog of numbers. How do you deal with that? And every time you do a prompt, when I use a lot of prompts, Madison was very energy— it was an energy guzzler. Every prompt took time, it took water, it took power.

Jeff Charney [00:46:47]:
And this, if we get it right, we can make it more efficient. That's where, that's why I put Madison down, which some people like, why did you do that, Charney, to go for this new? For Alt AI, it just felt right to me and I had the prerogative to do it and the time of my life to do it. I wouldn't recommend it for everybody, but I can afford to wait on Alt AI to be successful and it'll make Madison more successful too, which will be brain-based versus, and it will be more creative and it will have taste and it will have all those things that I have really spent my life doing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:25]:
Is this the tallest nail in your career? When you think about all of the attention societally really that's on this problem space right now, I mean, ultimately what you're working towards relies on evidence-based work here, right?

Jeff Charney [00:47:45]:
Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:45]:
Yeah.

Jeff Charney [00:47:46]:
This is, again, I wish Julius was on too because he could really speak to it as much as we can say at this point because we don't want to say too much, but This will be the one that people will say, you know, what is— I mean, it was great to push for, to see digital coming. It's great to see the internet coming years ago. It was great to see, you know, all the different things about digital marketing. Oh my gosh, that was a big thing. You know, internet stuff was a big thing. You know, this is way— AI is a big thing. This is much bigger. And this is one that people will look at me and say, I don't get it.

Jeff Charney [00:48:25]:
I don't get it. And I don't know what he's doing here. But that's fine. That's fine. I'm not looking to create, you know, if you don't, if you got too many friends, if you, if everybody loves you, that's great. But you got to have some enemies a little bit if you're going to really make history. I'm just telling you, if you're, if you're everybody's friend, great, but you're not going to make history. People are going to doubt you and they're going to beat you down as much as you can, and you just got to be steadfast in what you're doing.

Jeff Charney [00:48:55]:
And that's what I've always done in all these different little things I've seen along the way. Because there's something, superintelligence is right around the corner. Agents will be much better with AltAI, with brain-based superintelligence, much easier to find there. But what's after superintelligence? we're looking at that as well in addition to what we're working on in present.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:18]:
So what are some of the other more salient things that you've kept with you along the way?

Jeff Charney [00:49:27]:
I think, I mean, really, it's really more, again, the one thing I would say is that you can't, I would always be one of these guys that would drive a Mack truck through people's brain. So the Hyundai could fit, you know, because you just drive that Mack truck so the Hyundai will fit. And oh, that's not so bad. That what Charlie was, that's not bad. I think the thing with most people, uncomfortability stands in their way. It stands in their way in the biggest way possible. And there's things that I don't want to do in my life, but I've tried everything except for skydiving, which I should, but I got 5 kids. I'm not doing that.

Jeff Charney [00:50:01]:
But other than that, I have tried everything possible. I have been open to everything possible. And that's what holds people back, that uncomfortability. Like, why are you doing this, Jeff? Why would you— could you play golf? I don't play golf. You go to the country club. I'm not a country club guy. I'm not a fisherman. Like, why are you doing this? You don't have to work.

Jeff Charney [00:50:18]:
But I want to tackle the uncomfortableness of things. And that's what holds people back. It really does hold people back. And it makes me sad. It makes me sad that people are always talking about— they introduce me and talk about what I've done in the past. Hey, you haven't seen anything yet. You haven't seen anything yet because the things I have now, nothing is holding me back. I am an uncaged animal.

Jeff Charney [00:50:41]:
There are no chains on me. And it's just amazing what we can be capable of if you tackle that uncomfortability. What are things, Jeff, Jeffrey, what are you doing that, like, I look at, I mean, what makes you uncomfortable, man? And how do you conquer it? Because You know, what do you do? What makes you uncomfortable? That question made you uncomfortable.

Jeffrey Stern [00:51:05]:
Yeah, no, sure. Yeah. The turning the tables always takes me a little back. I am, my preference is much more to ask questions than to, you know, pontificate out loud. But I take that challenge all the time. I mean, I think The reality is that it just requires entering the uncomfortable to realize that it's not so bad most of the time. And you can become sort of comfortable in the uncomfortable. No, I love that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:51:45]:
And once that clicks, then you can just be— uncomfortable isn't a bad thing.

Jeff Charney [00:51:52]:
It's a great thing. And I think that really is it because I look at Geoffrey, it's like now it's literally, it's 11:14. It's 11:14. Again, I know this is going to come out at a certain time, but it's 11:14. It's going to be 11:15 in 30 seconds, 32 seconds. We're not getting 11:14 back. Yeah. Again, wearing 2 watches, I just want— time is so important.

Jeff Charney [00:52:18]:
And I look at, we've Talk about Roman Stoic Seneca. It's not that we— everybody says, oh, life is so short. Life is long, man. I mean, 74, 71 years globally, the average person lives 71 years. That's a long time. It's just that what Seneca said and what Roman Stoicism says is that it's not that it's short, it's just that we're wasting time. We're wasting time and we're wasting time with people that say they're brave. They're not that brave.

Jeff Charney [00:52:53]:
They're wasting time with people that are scared of the uncomfortable. We're wasting time with things that don't really matter. The luxuries of modern life. I mean, all these time, people, projects that you're just hitting your head over. I don't have to, fortunately, I don't have to do that anymore. I'm doing things that I want to do and things that will benefit me, even if it never, something never comes of it. I died trying. It's just like not saying make history or be history, but every day you have a chance to make history and time is, we're not getting it back.

Jeff Charney [00:53:27]:
Money you can get back, you're not getting the time back.

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:30]:
Yeah.

Jeff Charney [00:53:30]:
And realize, really, I mean, literally look at your watch and realize that every minute, every second is precious. And And I do, I do. But my family is also really important to me as well, Jeffrey. I'm not just— when I'm working, when I show up at work, my desk and I have nobody pushing me, I show up. When I show up with my kids, I show up. When I show up with my dog, I show up. I show up. When you show up, you show up.

Jeff Charney [00:53:58]:
But my family is so important to me. And I'm telling you, if you don't have a family to support you, you can't do the things I do. I have a wife that's incredible. I have a family of 5 kids that are just The best, and I put just as much effort into my family as I do into my craft, and that my family is my craft. And the family's going to be there when you take your last breath. Jeffrey, I love you, man, but you won't be there. The people I work with won't be there. And you got to realize that time is fleeting.

Jeff Charney [00:54:24]:
When that sets out of it, you got to definitely do things for your family. And I love what I'm doing for my family these days too, because I can really devote that time to my family.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:34]:
Yeah. Well, all the more grateful for you taking the time here. I mean, one of the questions that I've asked almost everyone is about success and what it means to them and how it's evolved. And I'm sure it relates to the making of history, but I mean, how do you think about what that means?

Jeff Charney [00:55:02]:
I think that success to me is having your family be proud of you. It's not anything. It's like your family understand what you're trying to do and your kids saying, man, that's— again, kids are— I got 5 of them and having them look at me and say, hey, he really tried, man. He tried and he tried to be the best at what he was doing. The best is a tough word. He tried for greatness. He tried for history. And just to have that, to look at your family and say they could be proud of you.

Jeff Charney [00:55:31]:
And again, going back to my family, I put everything from my son's name, Zalen, who is just a great— that name is a creative name, to my other son, one of the sons, Jayden, which means Hebrew name meaning God is looking, is discerning, this kind of— that name to things I do, how I met my wife and how I proposed to my wife, which was just crazy creative, to my son who just got married, what I did for them. It's just like you can put that creativity, you can put that historic creative back in their shoes and they kind of live with it and they believe it because it affects them. But everything I give to the campaigns I've done and the work I've done, I try to give to my family, even my dog. His name's Cassius Clay. Cassius Clay. He's a wonderful dog. And it's just that all of it comes full circle. If you can, Jeffrey, and it just, even if it doesn't please them, they don't really know what I'm doing.

Jeff Charney [00:56:28]:
I entertain myself by everything being somewhat intentional. You have to raise your hand. You have to do things that you're comfortable with. And I have a family that is comfortable with me and comfortable with the uncomfortable too. They really can be uncomfortable around me. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:45]:
How did you propose to your wife?

Jeff Charney [00:56:47]:
My wife is the best, by the way. And we were, I was in Seattle and we were art freaks, art freaks at the time. We were trying to, we were young, we were trying to buy art. And I said, you know, she was flying into Seattle to see me. I didn't even pick her up. I said, run to this gallery, come to this gallery in Seattle. And I told her before, I said, I really want to buy this piece of art. And, but you got to get there before 7 before it closes.

Jeff Charney [00:57:09]:
I had worked with the gallery and I'd painted a gigantic, literally 6-foot painting about a beautiful white painting where I painted it. And she always said, we'll have such a great life, Jeffrey. And I wrote, we'll have such a great life. Will you marry me on this painting that I worked on forever? And I'll send you a picture of it so your viewers can see it. But it was incredible. And I said, look, we're going to look at 3 different Put up 3 different paintings. One I kind of like, 2 I don't like, the 3rd one I like, but don't tell them you like it too much because I got to negotiate. I negotiated.

Jeff Charney [00:57:44]:
So she looked at one room, she looked at one painting, took the other painting, and then I had gone to the gallery before and painted an entire black wall, entire black wall, put the white painting on there, had it in a shroud, pulled it off, and it said, you know, we'll have such a great life, Courtney, will you marry me? And she just dropped to her knees. And the gallery people left and it was just a wonderful thing. And I'm just saying, you have to, it's a memory we'll have for the rest of history. And, um, and she was very personal and she probably doesn't like me talking about this, but it was just something as personal as hanging in our room today. And, um, it's, you got one chance, you got one chance at this life, man. Just make every minute, every second, every creative decision count. I mean, I mean, I'm not just saying that. You have to.

Jeff Charney [00:58:29]:
And that was one that, but I do it in everything I do. If it's a grad party, if it's a bar mitzvah, if it's whatever it is, I'm just trying to add that little bit of Madison to it now. It's easy for me to do it now because Madison helps me and I can just throw it at everything right now. But I encourage others to do that too. Just, you got one chance.

Jeffrey Stern [00:58:52]:
Yeah. You know, care. care about it.

Jeff Charney [00:58:55]:
You got to, Jeffrey. I know I'm going to talk to you about proposing at some point and I want to help you with that. When you're ready, man, I don't want to make you turn red, which you are right now. But if you're going to propose, I'll help you. If you're going to write a note as a groomsman or whatever, or best man, I'll help you, man, because it's just have fun with it. Have fun and out-create, out-create, man. Out-create.

Jeffrey Stern [00:59:19]:
What, what creative has inspired you the most? What, what do you sort of admire?

Jeff Charney [00:59:24]:
I think they're— when, when I think right now, nothing, man. Nothing. It's really upsetting to me ever since. I mean, I'm really hard on creative. I'm hard on movies. I'm hard on film. There's nothing out there right now that's inspired me. And it just makes me sad, you know, over everything from the Super Bowl with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

Jeff Charney [00:59:42]:
You know, it's been a slow, slow, slow, you know, March of death in branding and advertising. And it makes me sad, but I think the stuff that still inspires me is things like what Apple did years ago, Think Different, 1984. Those are the things I look at that are historic that people are still trying to grasp and claw to get there. But those are things, those campaigns are things that just won't be done before. And Nike, what Nike did years and years ago, the product isn't so great, but the advertising and marketing was. and is. But those 2 things have inspired me and those are the things I'm trying to beat. The things I'm trying to beat today are not what we're doing in marketing today.

Jeff Charney [01:00:29]:
Unfortunately, people have gotten very nervous and they're not that brave. They're not embracing this tall nail philosophy. They're embracing, I'm going to survive philosophy and I'm going to make it work for everybody, which polarization everything you want. Flow is polarizing. At Home with Baker is polarizing. You know, you want things that are a little polarizing and go close to the edge, but don't go over. And I don't, I don't see much out there that I'm loving these days. Unfortunately, some of the AI stuff is good, but it's not great.

Jeffrey Stern [01:00:59]:
Is the black inspired by Apple and Jobs as well, or?

Jeff Charney [01:01:02]:
No, I have—

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:03]:
you do always wear black.

Jeff Charney [01:01:04]:
I've always, like, my whole closet is black and it's just, it's this one One very simple thing that I do not have to worry about that decision in the morning. I just put on, and really I have my own, I don't even wear other people's brands anymore. I have my own brands. I've got a ton of stuff that I wear that is really just personal to me, but it's just one less decision I don't, it's not inspired by anybody. Turtlenecks are what he was inspired by, but I've always just worn black and that's always one less decision I have to worry about.

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:40]:
Is there something you wish we've, we would talk about that we haven't yet? I know, I know your mind can go in a bunch of directions here.

Jeff Charney [01:01:47]:
No, I'm just telling you, I think that realistically, one thing I would say that you should do, and this is a weird one, and I've said this for a long, long time, is sometimes, Jeffrey, you've never been fired, right? Have you ever been fired?

Jeffrey Stern [01:02:04]:
Have I ever been fired? I haven't been fired.

Jeff Charney [01:02:06]:
That's a beautiful thing. I got fired in South Carolina many, many years ago when I was going to be a sophomore in college. I was working in the meat department at Bowen's Supermarket. Bowen's Supermarket. Mr. Bowen called me in there and said, Jeffrey, today's going to be your last day, my friend. You're going to be your last day. You and Robert just cutting up too much.

Jeff Charney [01:02:26]:
You guys are having too much fun. You're going back to college. You're going back to college in a week, and I want you to drive away. I want you to tell your parents, You're fired and you're not coming back tomorrow. And I was kind of snickering like, oh my gosh, I don't have to deal with you ever again. I'm just, I'm leaving, you know, whatever. But then I drove home and it made me sad. It made me sad.

Jeff Charney [01:02:45]:
I had to go tell my parents I got fired. And ever since then, Jeffrey, um, there are times when 6 months when I feel that I'm just doing mediocre work, 9 months, 6 months, 2 weeks, whatever, I will stand in front of that mirror and really summon up my best Mr. Bowen. Who said, and really get that feeling like, I'm Jeffrey, Jeff Charty, you're fired. Jeffrey Charty, you're fired. And I will like think about that and I'll feel that terrible, terrible, terrible feeling. And then I'll say, I'll rescue myself and I say, okay, but Jeffrey, you can save your job if you go in tomorrow as Jeff Charty, you're replacing Jeffrey Charty. You replace yourself.

Jeff Charney [01:03:29]:
And I tell you, I fire myself constantly and I don't wait for Mr. Bowen to do it. I don't wait for somebody else to do it. I do it. And my teams, when I was doing it, like, what's Charlie up to today? What is he going a little crazy today? He just fired himself. They all knew. They all knew that I fired myself because I was just renewed. And I'm telling you, fire yourself constantly.

Jeff Charney [01:03:49]:
And really, if you're not hitting things at the crest of the wave, man, you better look for that crest of the wave. The Kelly Slater philosophy. If you're missing that crest of the wave, Yeah. You've missed it. I think I'm on the crest of the wave right now with brain-based, which people don't even know what I'm talking about, but I think that will be the next crest. I think people will be talking about it many years from now. If they don't, hey, I'm talking about it and I believe in it. If people don't adopt it because it's been a lot, hey, it's their prerogative, their prerogative.

Jeff Charney [01:04:18]:
But fire yourself and really try to hit things at the crest of the wave. Relevance is so important in marketing. If I'm not relevant, Geoffrey, take your right hand and punch me out. Take me out, man. If I'm not relevant, take me out because we're all searching for relevance. We're all searching for legacy and we'll get there. We'll get there. And again, this is a new season for me.

Jeff Charney [01:04:43]:
I look at life as seasons. I look at, man, this is a brand new season and I'm telling you, I'm ready. I'm ready. It's like the best way to describe branding in my mind, Is when you're 0 and 0. When you're 0 and 0. Right now I'm 0 and 0. Football season's coming, man. College football season's coming.

Jeff Charney [01:05:01]:
Professional football season's coming. There's no better feeling in branding than 0 and 0. I wake up every day and I feel that same way. Not fake. I wake up and feel that way and I'm just ready to take on the world. I'm in that caged animal mode and ready to go. Ready to go. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [01:05:19]:
Yeah. In this sort of new chapter.

Jeff Charney [01:05:26]:
Yes.

Jeffrey Stern [01:05:26]:
How do you balance that with, I feel like in the world of the internet and social media and just kind of the ephemeralization of attention and shorter form and just like, how do you How do you maintain relevance in a real way?

Jeff Charney [01:05:49]:
I mean, that's a big question, Geoffrey. It's got to be, you have to look at relevance, which is the most important word in marketing. It really is. Relevance is the most important word and you got to really live. It's like I look at music. I'm a big music person. If you ask me, one of my favorite songs is Live Your Life by T.I., which is not, this is one of the songs, You got to live that life. You got to really be ingrained in this, man.

Jeff Charney [01:06:16]:
It's just like, it's got to be every part of your body has got to believe that.

Jeffrey Stern [01:06:22]:
Authenticity.

Jeff Charney [01:06:23]:
Authenticity and be real, be true to who you are. Don't change who you are. Be who you are and be who you are every day. And I'm a guy that just is driven. I've always been overly ambitious, not in a a terrible way, not in clawing over people's backs and bones to get there, but I'm a driven person and I want to be— if I'm going to live here on this world in this life, why not me? Why not me that people one day will say, hey, that Jeff Charney, I knew what he was doing. Why not us? Why not us? Why not you, Jeffrey? I know what you're involved in. Why not people out there? Why not you? Because my mother said it years ago and I never let it out of my, you know, when I was sick, when I was 4th grade, she said it and, uh, I never forget about it. And, uh, so I just think you got it.

Jeff Charney [01:07:16]:
It's, it's part of your, it's kind of every being of your body, every corpuscle in your body, every vein in your body's gotta believe that. And you can't, you can't be swayed by other people think what other people think, which is, which is hard.

Jeffrey Stern [01:07:28]:
Yeah.

Jeff Charney [01:07:28]:
Which is really hard.

Jeffrey Stern [01:07:29]:
Why, why not? We're, we're in the history-making business.

Jeff Charney [01:07:32]:
We are, Jeffrey. I mean, and just, and don't even really look at like, Notre Dame, play like a champion every day. I look at my Make History. I wear, you know, this is not my Make History. Make History is on this sweatshirt, but I wear, you know, literally I wear my own stuff every day. And we're in the history business. If you stayed for the end of this, I know it's been a long— I've been rambling a little too much. I hate talking about myself.

Jeff Charney [01:07:57]:
But if you stay and you take one thing from this, if you're in the history business, man, nothing will stop you. It will mess with your head. It will mess with your family. And you got to have a family that buys into it and you got to be really brave, but it will change you. It will change you. It's changed me. And I was kind of in that business even in corporate America, but I realized even more getting out that, God, I've always been in this and it works. It works.

Jeff Charney [01:08:26]:
And relevance will create legacy. It will create legacy. And even in my own head, it'll create it. I'm just kidding around. But Just stay tuned. You'll hear more. And sometimes you won't hear more because that's just, I'm not trying to beat my chest on this because I don't need to beat my chest. I know what I'm doing and my family knows what I'm doing and hopefully certain people will know what I'm doing later on.

Jeffrey Stern [01:08:52]:
Well, part of the whole inspiration and ethos of this podcast is how do you go about raising the collective ambition for a local community of entrepreneurs. And I think what you've spoken to will really resonate. So I appreciate you taking the time for, I know it's not your favorite activity either, but to just reflect and share a bit more about how you think about any of this.

Jeff Charney [01:09:20]:
Well, I think you, Jeffrey, just know that Charnese is a very tough language to understand. And if you have to relisten to this podcast or do whatever you can to try to You know, see the reason behind the rhyme and the rhyme behind the reason. There is reason behind the rhyme and rhyme behind the reason to everything I say. But people sometimes don't understand Charnese. But if you do see me on the street, if you see me in Cleveland, I love this town. I love this town. I've lived all over, lived in California, I lived in Boston, I lived in Atlanta. I've lived, you know, all these different places, Seattle.

Jeff Charney [01:09:50]:
And this is the greatest place. There's great people here. And it's just a, it's a town that is nothing, A misunderstood brand just like I am. We're all misunderstood brands. And I'm telling you, I love it here. And, um, it's Cleveland. We're gonna put Cleveland on the map in a, in a big way. I know you will, Jeffrey.

Jeff Charney [01:10:07]:
2 Jeffreys gonna put 'em on the map at the same time. And just, uh, I did. When you're, when you're, when you win it all, Jeffrey, look, look like Jerry Maguire and look at, you know, look out there and say, give me at least a look, Jeffrey, when you start, when you take over the world. And I'm, I'm seeing it. And also the people in Cleveland, go, man. Go, go, go. You've got even more runway than I have. Just go, man.

Jeffrey Stern [01:10:27]:
Well, I definitely appreciate that.

Jeff Charney [01:10:29]:
Drop, drop, drop the microphone. You drop, you can drop the nail, you know, drop the nail.

Jeffrey Stern [01:10:34]:
Drop the nail. Yep. Got a, got a ways to go for that. That's a perfect place to wrap it.

Jeff Charney [01:10:41]:
It really will. Thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [01:10:42]:
Thank you.

Jeff Charney [01:10:42]:
And thank you, man. Thank you for getting me. Thanks for staying with me. And thanks for trying to navigate, uh, what is very Chinese, is very difficult to navigate. Thank you, man.

Jeffrey Stern [01:10:52]:
No, I really appreciate it. And yeah, well, as it says in your garage, we'll park your past and drive to the future here.

Jeff Charney [01:11:01]:
Let's go. That is the way to close, Jeff. I look at it every day and just go, man. Go and drive fast. Don't even— just keep going a little bit above the speed limit, but not too much over because you don't want to get tickets, but people will give you tickets, but just keep going, man. Okay? Keep driving.

Jeffrey Stern [01:11:18]:
Right on.

Jeff Charney [01:11:18]:
And thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [01:11:19]:
Thank you again.

Jeff Charney [01:11:19]:
Thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [01:11:24]:
All right. That is— That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.fm or find us on Twitter at @TheLayOfTheLand or @SternJefe, J-E-F-E. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show.

Jeffrey Stern [01:12:04]:
We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of The Future of the Land podcast was developed in collaboration with The Up Company, LLC. At the time of this recording, unless otherwise indicated, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the company which appear on this show. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.