I'm available for life coaching: Livestream with Stephen Rose, Founder of Praxey, Inc
Stephen Rose has founded a new company - Praxey, a communication technology for entrepreneurs. I'll be making myself available for life coaching, but it has applications far broader than this. We'll be discussing both. http://www.staresattheworld.com/life-coaching/
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Hey folks, I am here right now with Stephen Rose, the founder of Praxi.
And, well, what is Praxi?
You know, maybe you caught Aaron Clary's post about this.
Well, that's what I'm going to break this down, this live stream down into three portions.
The first, the brief introduction I'm going to give, then I'm going to talk about what I'm doing with Praxi, and then we're going to talk a bit more about the potential of this service, what you guys might see, the use that you guys might get out of Praxi, depending on what sort of business you're into.
So to start off with, the main reason we're doing this is you guys are, you are, you all know about the nonsense we're dealing with from YouTube.
You know, a year ago, I had my PayPal severely limited for no particular reason.
Praxi is a new one of these technologies.
Okay, it's a new PayPal, Skype, you name it.
And, you know, Stephen, he's one of us.
Okay.
He is Make America great again for crying out loud.
We need our guys doing these, founding these things.
So that's a big part of why I'm doing this right now.
And so, Stephen, can you give us a bit of a background on a brief introduction on what Praxi is?
Yeah, really quick, the concept, it's a one-on-one video chatting app.
You can also do audio only that you install on your phone, and it works just like Skype.
When somebody calls you, your phone will ring.
But the difference is it's all toll calls.
So if somebody calls you, if you are available and you answer it, there's payment already attached.
You have already said, I'm charging X amount per call minimum.
I'm charging X amount per minute.
And the person has already entered their card into our system and will be charged at the end of the call.
So you don't have to do anything except talk.
So it basically gives people a way to say to the world, I have a skill, I have an education, I have experience in some field, or I'm a content creator and I'm making myself available at a certain price.
My time is worth money.
It's valuable.
I will talk to anyone who wants to call me, but I ask for a certain amount of money for the time that I spend.
And there's a lot of different uses for this.
We can go into Davis, but that's sort of the basic introduction or overview of the concept.
So it's just Skype for toll calling, really.
Yeah, and it's much quicker and easier to set up than, like, it's a 1-900 number for the internet age where there's video enabled, if that's useful to you.
It's much easier to set up.
I see a lot of potential with it.
And so when I heard about it, I was trying to think of what I can bring to the market there.
Because I think there's a huge market for contractors, computer repair, like that stuff.
And in my case, so it says it right down there in the title, is I've been contacted by a couple of people over the years about doing life coaching for them.
And this is something now I'm very, you know, you guys know I'm very cynical about a lot of therapy out there, a lot of self-help.
A lot of people, they don't apply that.
Okay, like the best self-help book is the one that people buy every single edition rather than actually improving their life and moving on.
So it is something I'm hesitant about, but I've had some good results.
And so that's the primary thrust I'm doing with Praxi.
I don't know if it's going to take off, but if basically what you're doing, see, if you want to send me a message on Twitter or email or Facebook or whatever, you know, like I'll get back to you.
I don't want to be, you know, it's like, I'm not going to refuse to talk to you unless you pay me.
But with the Praxi thing and with the life coaching thing, basically what you're doing is you're paying for my undivided attention.
You're paying for me to sit my ass down and give you my full attention.
You know when you're going to get a response back from me, et cetera, et cetera.
Just because, quite frankly, time is limited.
And I wish I had all the time in the world, but I don't.
And so I guess that's, yeah, that's the main thing I'm doing with it.
If you're looking for somebody, if you have something in your life that you're trying to dig yourself out of a pit, if you're trying to, you know, whatever, you know, that's what I'm hoping to use it for.
And if that sounds useful to you guys, then, you know, there's a link down below.
I have a page set up on my website.
But there's, see, here's the thing.
If you are, like I said, I don't want to charge time for just hanging out, but that's not the only way you can use it.
There's some other way you want to contact me and you want to pay for it.
You know, I'm charging a buck a minute.
You know, usually the life coaching lasts about half an hour, so it's 30 minutes.
There's an initial fee, like you pay for the first five minutes, and then it's a buck for every additional minute.
So yeah, that's what I'm doing with it.
And maybe it'll take off.
Maybe there's some of you that want that service or maybe not.
But the big thing with me is I like the idea of Praxi.
And I think there's a lot of you guys out there that you might have your own businesses that you could use with it.
So Stephen, why don't you talk about some of the potential applications?
What I'm doing is a very niche thing with it.
I don't think it's mostly going to be life coaches on Praxi.
I think there's a lot of other potential for it.
Yeah, I mean, the potential use cases are really vast.
I have a list of several dozen that I've come up with that may or may not work.
And it's like you said with yours, it's an experiment.
You're going to put yourself out there and make yourself available and see what people use it for.
Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.
Maybe you modify it, maybe change the message.
And it's just an iterative process, I think, of trying to find a way, finding a way to talk to you.
For example, you write books, you have a blog, podcast, videos.
What is it that people would want to talk to you about?
Maybe they want to give you feedback.
But there's so many other possible uses for this.
And really the message I want to deliver to your viewers is to think about the business that you're in right now and however it is you make money and ask yourself,
would there be a demand for your customers or related clients that affect your business to pay for someone's time for a video chat or audio call on demand?
That I think at this point is probably the best way to look at it where you already have an existing customer base and you think, how can I have an add-on service?
So maybe it's premium customer service.
If you have a local trade business, maybe you're offering your customers something that differentiates you and sets you apart from all the other competition.
I mean, if you have a local, whatever, HVAC service or plumbing business or really anything where generally people will pay you and you have an initial fee to come out, and you might say, well, I don't want to let them call me because I want them to pay to come out.
But the thing is, if you offer that and no one else does, yes, some people will call you remotely and maybe then won't have you come out, but other people might call you remotely because they just want to have a talk to someone remote.
And then now you're in in a certain sense.
And if you can build up their confidence in you and you're there, you know, you get that initial contact with them, then they might be a follow-on ad service.
Like then, if they do have work to do, they have already you've given them that new way of reaching out to you that other people in your field haven't because they have, don't know about this technology.
So, I mean, I just want to.
Like right now, it's a bit of a solution looking for a problem right now.
To a certain extent, that's correct.
You know, I mean, I had but you know, I was going to say, I see a lot of potential with this.
Again, like my brother-in-law is a plumber, and you know, he doesn't spend most of his time fixing toilets, he spends a lot of his time just doing weird stuff.
Like this one time, a guy hired him to put heated pipes in his driveway so he didn't have to shovel it.
And that winter he found out all the deer were congregated on his front lawn.
So he gets a lot of weird stuff like that.
And I'm going to recommend this to him because, like, the thing is that money talks.
You know, as Bekloff has pointed out on his live stream, that when he has advertisers, it's you guys listening, you're the product.
You know, like, but if you guys are backing the podcast, you're the customer.
Right.
And so, like, if I phone up a plumber and say, and you know, I'm talking on the phone, he's not making any money.
Right.
Okay.
Like, he does want my business, but he's not fully engaged.
Where areas, something like this?
You know, if you phone up the plumber with Praxi, now he's getting money.
Okay, so now he's fully engaged.
And that's kind of what I'm saying with the life coaching thing: I'm like, if you're paying me, I'm fully engaged.
You know, where areas, if you ask me a really weird question and it would take like a half hour to write out a response and you're not paying me, I'm just going to say, go check out the Ruch V form.
The answer's on there.
So that's the solution that Praxi is offering.
It basically works exactly like a Skype call connected with a 1-900 number.
And so the customer puts in their credit card information, phones you up, and you give them your dedicated attention to whatever it is.
And this is with audio and with video.
Yeah, you nailed it.
I mean, it's really like, you know, a lot of times when you're trying to call somebody and you need a piece of information or you need to tap into their expertise or knowledge or experience, but you have nothing to offer them.
You know, I make these calls sometime and it's like, I want to pay you.
You know, I honestly do not mind paying you for your time.
I hate getting spam calls.
I hate getting calls where I'm not benefiting, but there's no real mechanism for me to do that.
So you end up basically pleading with the person, hoping that they're in a good mood, hoping that they have spare time.
But the whole time you just feel like they're just trying to get you off the phone.
And it's like, but when, but when you pay, the chemistry of the call changes.
Now they want to help you.
They want to make it worth their while.
They know that you're paying them.
And there is a service called Clarity FM, which is somewhat similar, although it's not on-demand calling, and it's only for entrepreneurs.
And I've used that.
And I can tell you, there's, you know, when you talk to somebody on the phone who you're paying for their time, it's almost like an interesting study in human psychology because when you pay for something, the person appreciates it and you appreciate it.
And you feel like it's just a very pleasant conversation.
It's like, wow, you feel like you've made a friend in a certain sense.
Not saying the person is your friend, but they treat you like a friend because as people who believe in the free market, there's nothing more civilizing than commerce.
We love commerce.
And so this is really a way to, the bigger picture here is really a way for people to talk to each other.
Whatever problems you're facing in your life, whether it be professional, your relationships, even just problems with you worried about the state of the world.
And there are other people out there who are thinking about this, worrying about these issues, and to reach out and connect can really, it can be therapeutic, if nothing else, but it could also yield really good insights that you might otherwise struggle to try to get to and then on your own and make mistakes.
And so, you know, having the ability to pay people, you know, this is something I always think about with the complaints people make about the mainstream media, which is, you know, they're obviously, yeah, they mislead us and stuff.
But the response is like.
You know what?
That's it.
You're the product for the mainstream media.
Exactly.
You turn on the news, and this is just a delivery vehicle for advertisements.
Exactly.
And so the goal of it, you know, shoot, who is it?
Who is it?
That's stupid.
South Park.
South Park kind of pointed this out on their Gamergate season that really it's all about advertisements and corporate dominance.
And if you're not paying for it, you're the product.
And so the goal of the mainstream media is primarily to attract as many viewers as possible.
So they don't want to be offensive.
They don't want to tell you, they just want to get as many eyeballs as they possibly can.
And then once they've captured those eyeballs, primarily for the ads, then you're going to get the ideological subversion because just a little bit of coloring there, and it's going to completely distort the view of the world.
And it boils down to the fact that you are, you're the product when you watch the late night news.
Yeah, people.
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Oh, I mean, it's going to go on.
You know, like people are talking about Marmoset mindsets.
Listen, I was a little bit down on Cernovich when there was all of that infighting going on back in December.
I really was not impressed with any of that.
But here's the thing.
And, you know, and I'm generally down on the self-help industry because a lot of it is just helping losers stay losers.
But, all right, guerrilla mindset.
You know, when you shell out the money and you buy the damn book, and if you actually want to improve yourself, then, you know, it's that commitment that you bought the book, you've paid money for it, and you get a psychological commitment at that point.
I mean, a lot, like a lot of what's in the book, you could just go and find that on the internet if you want it.
But, you know, he's put it together in the book and you've just paid money for it.
So now you're going to get your dollars worth out of it.
And you're more likely to actually apply it at that point.
So there is that, yeah, it's not to be completely mercenary, and I refuse to talk to anybody unless they give me shekels, but there is that psychological commitment that you as the buyer get.
And when somebody's getting money for something, if they aren't a complete scam artist, they're going to be trying to give you your dollars worth.
Okay, it's very humbling to receive money for a science fiction novel or for the Arenes Insight videos or for the life coaching that I do or for anything else.
I'm thinking life coaching is the main vehicle, but if you guys just want to contact me and you want to contact me through this and really have my attention, yeah, I'm open to that as well.
And so, yeah, and I'm hoping this takes off, and I'm hoping that people can think of other possibilities of what they can do with it.
Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot of potential applications, and I'm going on different shows like yours and putting it out there and basically saying it's a tool.
You know, the initial impetus for the idea, I had a real, I had an aha moment, you know, when I came up with the idea for this business because basically I was, you know, I bought a dining room set and I scratched the table and I wanted to try to fix it myself.
And I watched these YouTube videos and I thought I could do it, but I thought, you know, I would really like to talk to a professional who's done this many times just to get a final sign-off on my plan to do the burn-in, you know, which is a very like specialized kind of craft thing.
And I wasn't confident enough to do it.
And so I ended up paying someone 200 bucks to come out.
But I really think if I'd had this, somebody who I could call and just show my table, show the tools I was going to use, explain what I was going to do, I could have solved it for 20 bucks, 30 bucks.
I don't know.
And he could have sat at home and just exactly.
He could have sat at home and coached me through it, you know, or even just signed off on my plan.
Or maybe he'd said, no, that varnish doesn't match, or you should try this or something like that.
But then, so I was thinking about how could I do this for like just real hardcore trades like plumbing and stuff.
But then I thought, just make a tool, just make a general tool.
And my customer is not the person using, my customer is not the person who's calling.
My customer is people like you, entrepreneurs, where I can go to you and say, look, this is a new technology.
If you can use it, great.
Like you said, it's sort of a solution in search of a problem.
Although I do have some problems that it can be used.
And there's plenty of applicable problems.
Exactly.
And there are many already existing specialized apps that do this for a specific industry, like telemedicine or other specific industries, but they're really offering the same service, which is a pay-for-time.
And so I was just like, oh, just, I mean, the way I'd like to think of it is like Craigslist in reverse.
You know, Craigslist existed, and then there's all these derivative businesses that were built on some of the stuff they did, but were more specialized and better executed on those.
But with paid calling, it seems like it's going the opposite direction.
First, they have these specialized apps, but ultimately they're all offering the same.
So it just seems like it'll eventually settle into a single platform where if you want to pay for your time, you go on there.
And so when that's yeah, and you pay for the video call and you save the ride out there, you save a lot of time is saved.
It just makes things a lot easier and more efficient.
And so where, as I understand it, where you're at right now is so you've got the technology.
It's up there.
It's running right now.
And you need the customers.
You need the activity.
Yeah, I mean, I would definitely encourage people, if you have an idea about how this could be applied, feel free to contact me.
We could even potentially do a marketing project together if it seems like it would work and it makes sense to me.
But I'm reaching out to a lot of different people and saying, you know, just try it.
There's no risk here.
And there's so many ways you can try this on a very limited basis without going all out and expecting it's going to, you know, and making a huge investment.
Try it on a limited basis.
You know, if you're a home inspector, for example, I talk to somebody I know who's a home inspector, and he's like, I get calls after I do the home inspections all the time.
And you don't want to say no because they're your customers.
But then again, I've already done their inspection and it's like six months or a year later.
And so this would give him a way, for example, to say to them, look, or just even put on his marketing.
I'm available on Praxi if you want to call me.
And I think people would understand.
It's like he's a busy person, his time.
But this would be a way for him.
He charges, I don't know what they charge, but he charges $500 for their home.
Exactly.
But if there's some sort of follow-up issue, he doesn't need to inspect the whole damn house.
He just needs to turn on the proxy, do the video of it, and he charges, I don't know, 50 bucks or something.
Yeah.
And you could say, well, why wouldn't they, you just use Skype and invoice them?
And the answer is it's just one step too much.
I mean, you could theoretically do that.
You could say, look, I'm available.
So let's say someone calls you, say, oh, by the way, I'm available on Skype.
If you want to talk, I charge $2 a minute.
It's just one step too much.
But now you can tell someone, look, I'm available on Praxi.
I can do follow-up.
And once you're outside of maybe the 30-day warranty period, I would love to help you out, but just give me a call on Praxi.
They go on there.
They have already agreed to it.
They've put the credit card in.
So it's seamless on your end.
You don't have to do this awkward, okay, negotiate the rate, send them an invoice.
Once they call, the payments there.
And so it just removes just a couple steps that I think now can, the whole nice thing about the 900 number industry, and it's analogous.
It's not the same because technology has changed things a lot compared to the 900 number industry.
But the whole thing that was nice about it is you already were getting a phone bill.
And so when you dialed 1900, it showed up on your phone bill.
So the service provider didn't have to collect your credit card.
And it's similar in this way.
It's an easy way to kind of divert work that doesn't really yield you anything, but you don't want to necessarily say no to, where you can say, okay, just call me on Praxy.
And then they realize, oh, he's charging.
Okay.
And maybe they call you anyway.
But it's just a way to sort of divert some of those calls.
And that's just one example.
Yeah.
So, and I'm going to ask a bit of a favor from the audience.
I mean, like, if you guys want to phone me, that's great.
I love money.
But if you have an idea for yourself or you know anybody that's a contractor, again, it's, are we going to let the left take over this?
Here's the thing.
The left do all of this, this takeover of the tech industry through really sneaky methodologies because they're down for it.
You know, whereas we're just going to be upfront and say, hey, this guy's got a good thing going.
If you've got a buddy that's a contractor, point them towards it.
Oh, and there's a detail that this should be mentioned as well.
The first 30 seconds are free because sometimes you have a really bad connection.
And you implemented that in specifically for that.
Yeah, the first 30 seconds is a grace period.
And that's just if the connection is bad or there's no audio or something, you can cut it off.
And if there's a minimum charge for the call, you wouldn't get charged.
And that might change.
We'll keep updated on the terms of use.
Might even extend that to a minute, just depending on what kind of feedback people have as far as, you know, it's video conferencing.
Speeds are getting faster and faster.
So you can usually in the U.S., you can make a video call from your 4G LTE and it's pretty good quality.
But that's not always the case.
So in those cases, Wi-Fi, just go use a Wi-Fi and try to call back.
But yeah, that's one thing people should know about the 30-second.
Also, sometimes if you call once, it will not connect.
And so you just try to call again, and the second time will go through.
Some of these technical issues we're working through and hopefully will be resolved in the next couple months.
I mean, it works pretty well.
Because you don't know exactly the way people are going to be using it is you can't completely predict that.
And so, yeah, you need some feedback from people saying, well, I had this issue or I would like this added on, et cetera.
Right.
And one thing I would want to caution people about too is that I've had a lot of people come sign on to offer services, but I would caution people not to expect to sign on, and all of a sudden you're going to get these calls because it's still very nascent.
The best situation, like I said earlier, is if you already have customers or if you have a very clear way of marketing it yourself, where maybe you have an IT business, like, oh, this is perfect.
I can tell my client customers who come in, I fix their computer, and when I give them it back, I give them a card, which I have them install the app and say, look, if you, I mean, how many IT problems do you face where it's like you just struggle with it, and it would be great to talk to somebody on the phone?
I mean, my parents call me like three or four times a year with some huge issue they're having, and I try to walk through the fix.
I'm not even an IT person, but if they didn't have me, would they pay 30 bucks for that?
Of course they would.
I mean, they spend hours on it.
They don't, you know, like older people, a lot of times they're not tech savvy.
So situations like that, it's just a brand new service you can offer if you're an IT repair tech person.
I mean, any kind of repair business, this is great, you know.
And that's actually a perfect example as well, where if you just phone up the 1-800 number for tech service, like with computer problems, there's going to you get some trained monkey over in India that just says, you know, well, reboot your computer, did it reboot?
Now do that.
And they run you through 45 minutes of stuff you already did before you make the call.
Right.
And whereas if you get an independent guy that knows computers and you can just say that to him, it's like, all right, listen, I've rebooted it.
And you're paying him so you actually have his attention.
And so that 45 minutes that you wasted with the 1-800 number, what's that worth to you, you know, as a customer?
You know, would you rather waste 45 minutes or would you rather pay somebody that knows what they're doing to get you to the problem faster?
Yeah, I mean, a lot of customer service, it's sort of a loss, you know, a cost center.
So they're not really trying to equality.
I mean, they've already made the sale.
They know they have to have it.
So they put it in there.
But like I talked to an HVAC guy yesterday, and he was saying, and there actually used to be a similar service like this called Fountain, which was specifically for home improvement.
It was bought out and just as a weird interesting story, but it was phased out by the company that bought it soon afterwards.
So he used to take a lot of calls, and he said, you know, other HVAC people would call him because the problem is if they had, if they were relatively new and they would call the manufacturers of these units, the manufacturer's hotline is just reading back the manual, you know, so they would call him and he has a lot more experience and he could like explain how to, whatever it is, how to install it.
So the thing is, this is another example of this: the manual.
Who writes the manual for these tech devices that you have?
Well, lawyers, right?
That's building it.
They take the dumbest guy on that team who's all thumbs and does nothing but cause problems.
They're like, all right, you, you go write the manual.
Get out of our hair and go write the manual.
So, yeah, the manual is, you know, the manual is not the best source.
It's the expert that knows the least is the manual.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I mean, abstracting that into just more, even just more conceptual, what you're dealing with is cultivation of like information.
And it seems to me there's types of information which, if you were being, if you were having revenue, a stream of revenue coming off of them, there would be an incentive to really produce good information, which otherwise you wouldn't be done.
Like the example I always think of is my city paper has like things to do around town and it's just sort of a throwaway.
You know, anyone can get on there.
They don't spend a lot of time on it because it's just off the side of someone's desk.
But if you went to and said, hey, why don't you like set up this hotline on Praxi where people can call, get restaurant reviews, talk to people who've been to different restaurants or what's coming up, now all of a sudden, again, it's like you're getting paid.
You see that money coming in.
So you have a real interest in making sure that people are getting value.
And there's a lot of different situations where it seems to me that that would exist, where the internet has made so much information available for free that, but sometimes if you don't find a way to hedge it in and charge for access, you're not actually going to produce good information.
And so I'm just trying to find ways.
I mean, I'll be interested if Praxi takes off to see different kinds of ways people can use this to create value and have a sustainable business because they're incentivized.
People are calling them.
So they're, you know, I don't know.
I honestly don't know how people will use it.
I'm interested to see.
Well, you know what?
It strikes me it's very much related to the two directions that society is moving in.
On the one hand, we have the globalist centralization phenomenon, the corporate phenomenon, where there actually is no responsibility.
Nobody at the corporation is responsible for what's going on.
And when you phone them to ask why doesn't my stupid phone work, you get the lowest guy on the totem pole that doesn't know anything whatsoever.
And so that's the one force, which I think we're all fighting against.
It's very depersonalizing, dehumanizing, atomizing.
And then you have the traditionalist responsibility, individuals, but also hierarchy and authority.
And so I don't think this is reaching it all.
Praxi, what you're doing is you're reaching out to an authority that's going to be responsible.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So rather than throwing your money into the corporation, which just slides into an abyss, you don't know where it goes.
You're putting your money and your attention and your resources into an authoritative expert on something, and you know what you're getting.
Somebody that's invested in making you, the customer, happy.
Yeah, I mean, you nailed it.
I mean, that's really like, you know, if there's any sense of mission that I feel, and I don't want to try to sell that I'm like on a mission, right?
I'm trying to make money.
I'm trying to build a business, but it's kind of like definitely what you said, and I touched on it earlier, which is to talk to people.
You know, is we are living, and you talk about this on your show a lot, in a world where the traditional, the foundations of society are crumbling and changing.
And I feel like a lot of people are very atomized and they're looking.
And what do you see?
You know, what's on the national news, federal, you know, the world stage, and that's people are obsessed with it and they lose touch of the individuals around them and the individuals.
And so this is kind of like a way to say, you know, to have those connections with people where, yes, they're helping you and you're feeling like you're connecting.
And that's why I think for people who have online presences like you, it could even go beyond, and I mentioned this to you off the air.
It could even go beyond like, I want help from you, but I actually just want to meet you.
I've been watching your videos for years, you know, and I have never talked to you except for last week when I reached first to reach out to you.
And it's like, there have been times I watched your videos and I was like, that's really interesting.
And it's like, if you had said, I'm available, you know, you can call me and I want to support your show.
You know, it's like I call you, I say, that was, all right, maybe I relate to you.
Oh, you know, something similar happened to me.
And like, and it's, we have a short conversation.
And guess what?
Now I'm like super loyal to you because now it's like I've vested time.
I vested money.
I've talked to you.
I feel like I'm I feel like I'm part of your team.
I'm like, you know, I feel like maybe I've influenced your content.
I've influenced your thinking.
Like, so this is a way, and I talk whenever I talk to people who have really big audiences, a lot of times they say something similar to what you were talking about, which is they want to scale.
You know, it's not worth my time.
But I'd say, like, look, this is your base.
You know, let them call you because once somebody talks to you, they pay for your time.
They are going to be so dedicated and loyal.
They're going to be buying your books more.
They're going to be consuming your content more.
So yeah, I mean, I just think like, like I said, there's really like a feel that comes when you're paying for someone's time.
They know it.
And it's just a real respect that you don't get a lot of times these days where there's not, I mean, you know, everyone gives you the cold, everyone you don't know who's not your friend is just like these days, you know, there's no love.
You know, we're in a it's like it's a it's I don't know if it's a contradiction or not, but see, part of the reason we have these depersonalizing forces that are ruling over us is because this is where we give our time and our attention and our money.
And at the same time, we expect everything for free.
You know, we're used to getting like the, you know, the internet's free and you pay your basic cable bill, but then you get free television, unlimited, and all of this.
And the thing is, yeah, all that attention and money is going to these depersonalizing forces.
And it's like you vote with your dollar.
Right.
And yeah, so I'm primarily doing this as life coach because I want people, again, if you want to contact me, I'm not going to snub you and say, call me on Praxi, but if you want me to get up and pay attention to you, you know, then, you know, Praxi is a bloody good way of doing that.
So, I'm tossing it out there as the life coaching is the main thing.
Even my girlfriend has suggested that I consider becoming a padre in the military.
Well, the problem is I couldn't keep doing this if I were to, but maybe that's something I can offer a value that people get something out of.
Or maybe, again, for me, I don't exactly know how it's going to go, how people will want to use it, but it's there for whatever.
Yeah.
And just to follow up on that point you made about, you know, you get what you pay for.
You know, you don't like to tell people that, but because it's, you know, it's people don't like to pay for stuff.
But back in the day, you know, you had a church, you had your local institutions, and you're participating in that, and then you would give money to them.
Exactly.
Isn't going to refuse to speak to you if you're broke.
Exactly.
But if I have money tithe to the church.
Exactly.
And nowadays, people, people, we have these online communities, which you're definitely part of.
But, you know, it's still the money needs to be there for them to survive and thrive.
So this is just, I mean, there's other, like, Patreon is a big one.
I don't know if you're on, are you on Patreon, Davis?
Yeah, yeah, I'm doing the Patreon until I get kicked off.
So Patreon.
Again, this is kind of how I introduced it.
Until I get kicked off.
You know, I've had my PayPal messed with.
You know, we, all of this nonsense that went on with YouTube and ads and whatnot is, you know, like my issue with the ads wasn't that, oh, oh, no, my shekels.
My issue was that this is just the first step into kicking all of us off YouTube.
You know, there is this progressive censorship.
And it's the people that control these networks, you know, Skype.
You know, right now there's no threat of us being kicked off of Skype, but how long is that going to last?
Right.
I mean, we're talking about a service here, which, like, I mean, it's just a business service, right?
But it's the business services that are just absolutely crucial to living life these days.
You know, I've talked about common carriers before.
And we've got some laws protecting you from with the phones and the utility company.
They can't cut off your electricity because they don't like your political views.
You know, but the other services, Twitter, Skype, Patreon, PayPal.
Facebook.
Yeah.
And you know what?
If you have a Facebook and you're running a business, but that is a crucial part of your business, isn't it?
You know, even if it's just selling, I don't know, pottery.
Good lord, you're selling pottery.
But then on your Facebook, you said something that the YouTube, that the Facebooks didn't like, and so you get kicked off.
And now what about your pottery page?
You can't log in there and update on what's going on.
And that becomes a very crucial service.
So on the one hand, yeah, this is just a business, but it is, it's not just a business.
It's never just a business.
You know, Henry Ford was just trying to make cars, but he also was changing the world by creating the car.
Yeah.
I mean, I named it Praxi after praxeology.
I'm a huge, huge advocate of Austrian economics.
And when I was trying to come up with a name, I thought Praxi would be a good name because what is praxeology?
It's really, I mean, it's what's it what distinguishes Austrian economics from traditional classical economics is treated as the belief in the individual subjective value.
You know, we believe individuals act, I mean, human action, that's the name of Mises' Magnus Opus, human actions.
The axiomatic truth of Austrian economics is humans act purposely in the world.
And so, Praxi, the idea here is like when you act in the world, you try to act through your best knowledge.
And there are other people out there who can help you make a better decision.
So, Praxi, it's like purposeful action, like go out and get the knowledge, get the information, get the help, and then you will have you, it will be worth your while because the money will be well spent, you know.
But hopefully, people will see that.
You know, the concern I have is that people always, like you were saying, you know, they get stuff for free.
And so, like there's a saying that the voter is not the person making the decisions in elections.
The voter is the football being tossed back and forth.
You know, and that's if you're not acting with intention, if you're just responding to everything and you expect everything for free, you become the football.
Okay, you become the ball bouncing around the pinball machine.
Right.
Whereas if you take authorship, you take responsibility.
And I mean, again, this is it's a it's a small thing that we're talking about here, but it's it's part of a larger pattern.
If you expect everything for free, you're going to get third-rate shoddy goods.
Exactly.
And you go out and say, I'm going to pay to talk to somebody that knows what the hell they're doing, you know, and I'm you are actually taking responsibility as much as the expert is taking responsibility there.
Right.
I mean, be a sovereign, you know, be a sovereign of your life.
And in the market, the consumer is sovereign.
If you're not paying, then you're not driving it.
You're someone else's, like you said, you're the football.
Someone else is going to be manipulating you, going to be distorting you, not giving you the truth.
Step up and pay, and you'll see how people, when you're the sovereign, people respond, you know, like your, you know, like your, whatever you want to call it, the subjects, I guess is the word, you know, and it's a good feeling to pay for stuff, I think.
You know, obviously you can't pay everything anyone asks, but and a lot of times these are not like big transactions, especially like on Praxi, you know, maybe $20 here.
How much do you say you're charging to $30 for 30 minutes?
Yeah, generally.
Right.
So, I mean, what's that in the larger scheme?
That's not even a night out sometimes, you know.
And if somebody calls you and you give them even one really profound thing that they think about in regards to their current situation, $30 is a ridiculous bargain.
If it's a matter of I didn't take this job or I made this correct move in my career or I was able to address this situation, my relationship for 30 bucks, you know, and so I mean, of course, the onus becomes on you to give them that insight, but it's a second set of eyes sometimes.
Right.
You know, it's yeah, this is this is why people, this is supposedly why people go to therapists is because sometimes you need a second set of eyes pointing out the pattern that you've just been absolutely blind to.
And of course, it's up to it's up to the individual to make a meaningful change.
You know, I can tell you what I see, but I can't force you to do anything about it.
But you know what?
Like the sort of people that subscribe to my YouTube channel are not the sort of people that just want to bounce through life.
So I'm not too worried about that.
With the life coaching I've done, I've seen change in these people's lives.
These guys have, you know, gone from being in a really bad situation to, you know, getting into a better situation and generally moving forward with everything.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's a rare thing to find someone who will listen to you, who will, who will give you your undivided attention.
I mean, even I was thinking of this commercial.
I pitched it to a friend of mine.
He thought it was a really bad idea, but it's basically a commercial for Praxi.
In one screen, you have a girl talking to her girlfriend on the phone, and the girlfriend is like watching cable, like sort of going, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
She's like, you know, watching TV, like playing with her cat.
And then on the other one, you have a guy, you know, or a girl calling a girl on Praxi, and she's the girl who she's calling is sitting there taking notes, focusing, full concentration.
And my friend didn't like it because he thought it doesn't sell well to play that your friends aren't paying attention to.
What this is, this is, have you ever seen that movie, What Women Want with Mel Gibson?
A long time ago, yeah.
Yeah, where you can start, he basically gets a superpower where he can hear what women think.
Right.
And he proposes an ad for Advil, where the woman's just like, no, I have a headache, honey, because she doesn't want to have sex.
And she takes Advil.
And like the catch line is Advil.
You don't have to take it for headaches.
Because the woman was just thinking this while she was sitting there.
That's the ad you just described.
It's completely bang on, except it's totally will not sell to that demographic.
Yeah, you know, because you know what sells beauty bloggers, okay?
This is a huge thing, like these how to put on lipstick tutorial girls.
Yeah.
You know what?
They could make a lot of money off of Praxi.
Okay.
And I mean, it's, it sounds ridiculous to me, you know, wanting advice on how to put on lipstick.
Like, who the hell cares?
But you know what?
Girls want advice on something like that.
So that right there would be a great opportunity.
Totally.
And I'm trying to reach out to like people who have hairstyling channels, makeup channels.
You know, it'd be great.
I think Michelle Fon could make all kinds of money, even guys who have fashion channels.
But, you know, there's a lot of times these people have a lot of followers.
And I don't know if you've gotten into this yet, but they have agents and the, you know, and you try to set up like a customized marketing with them.
Or I mean, eventually some person will who does it will let see the opportunity, hopefully, and jump on it.
But my efforts thus far have not yielded anything tangible as far as that.
Which is ironically the whole point of your service is to break through.
What do they call them in Gulliver's Traples?
The flappers?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
They call it the people like the basically you'd have the monarch just sitting around bored, you know, tweeting on their iPhone.
And the flapper was the servant that would flap a fan at them if somebody who actually had something useful to say had come up.
And so that's basically anybody in a position of power is going to be surrounded by flappers because, you know, like, guess what?
Donald Trump doesn't have time to take all of our phone calls.
Right.
And so that's kind of the point of Praxi: this is how you break through the flappers and get somebody's attention.
So that's the irony.
If Praxi already existed, you could just pay them to hear about this product and boom.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, I think about that all the time when I'm trying to make sales pitches.
It's like, I just want you to listen.
Okay.
You don't have to agree with it.
You don't have to accept it, but just hear me out.
And you try to make cold calling.
And when you're starting a business, it's just like, you know, nobody is giving you the time of day.
And it's like, maybe you could actually benefit, but you need to take the time to listen.
But how do you incentivize them to do that?
And yeah, like in a world where everyone has a proxy account, it's you can imagine someone starting in a business and they allocate 10% to market research calling around and it's just a business expense.
Like we are going to call people, pay them for their time, and they can at the end of the call say, I'm sorry, still can't help you.
But probably what they would do is instead of just brushing you off or saying, you know, it's a stupid idea or whatever, they would say, here's what you need to do.
You know, they would want to give some value in return.
They wouldn't want to just say no.
And so this is what I get back to about it being a really humanizing process to pay because a person wants to deliver value.
And, you know, so many people these days are just, it seems like shouting into the void.
But if you have people who are on both sides of the spectrum, very ideological, knowing that they potentially could get a call and someone could say, like, look, this is, then it's just, the rhetoric softens, I think.
And that can be only for the good, you know, as far as impacting the world.
Yeah.
And hey, and we've even got Beckloff in the comments.
And like he said, if you're either the customer or you're the product, you know, and with these, even with these makeup channels, you know, if you're just, if you're a girl, if you're a girl just watching these videos, you're the product.
And the real customer is the, well, first the YouTube Benjamins, but the makeup companies become the customer.
Right.
Whereas if you phone the girl and say, like, what should I wear?
And by the way, there's actually a whole science to this.
I did this one girl who completely swears by Japanese cosmetics.
There's a whole thing to all of this.
And so if you're calling, if the girl calls that girl and pays her, she's not going to say, yeah, buy L'Oreal.
She's going to say, actually, the Japanese ones are really good.
And that's what you should pick up.
And you can order them here.
Yeah, there's an agency problem that exists a lot of times.
Anybody who takes free phone calls is it's a lost leader.
They're taking it for a reason.
They want to upsell you.
They want to, you know, whatever it is.
And there are many occasions where you don't want, you would want to pay.
I mean, a smart consumer would want to pay.
My brother got his garage door repaired earlier a few months ago.
And he was like, they came out and I think they gave him some ridiculous estimate.
He's like, I would have benefited just to have called a garage repairman in another city who has no incentive, who I'm paying.
So he's going to give me it straight, you know, and he would have, and he's built it in as a business model.
I'm giving it to you straight.
You know, instead of, oh, we'll come out, you know, we'll, we'll, you know, but he has no, he has no way of making that sale.
So he just, you know.
And, you know, that's when you're like with what with what I do, with the writing and the YouTubing, it's a bit of a balancing act where like I try and be as genuine as possible.
And like I am concerned about you guys, the audience.
That's why I've disabled advertising on my YouTube videos.
Is just everything that's going on.
It's partly a protest against YouTube, but if you won't get into it, the thing is that if I were solely dedicated, if I were a lot smarter and solely dedicated to making money, you know, I would modulate what I spoke about.
And there's a lot of YouTubers that do that.
I'm not going to name names right now.
Right.
And so you get a dumbed down message.
You get a corporate message.
You get a message that advertisers are okay with.
Right.
And again, that's the same thing.
Should the girl buy the L'Oreal lipstick or should she order the really good stuff from Japan?
Well, who's paying her for the advice?
Is L'Oreal paying her or is the customer paying her?
Yep, that's it.
You know, I mean, that's it's it's a tough, it's a tough message, you know, that you get what you pay for.
And obviously, you don't always get what you pay for.
Sometimes you overpay, but generally speaking, the market responds to incentives.
And so we, in this new world, we have where so much is like so much free information is out there, but you say, what's the quality, you know, and who's paying to produce it?
And, you know, so that's why I love reviews on the website as well.
Yeah, but I mean, even those, oh, on Praxi, yeah, there's reviews.
Yeah, on Praxi.
I was going to say, that's why I love Aaron Clary's consulting company name, Asshole Consulting, because it's like, you know, I am going to, like, I'm going to tell you, you're going to think I'm an asshole, but you're going to hear what no one else will say.
Well, and you know, Praxi is great for him because he gets the asshole consulting emails and we get great videos out of it.
But if you have a more detailed question, you want to run a bunch of questions by Aaron, Praxi is perfect for that.
Yeah, and like you said, it's also the dynamic, the one-on-one focused attention that you don't get if he's just reading it on a YouTube response.
Well, you know, I think we pretty much covered all of it.
I'll tell you what, Stephen, I would love to have you on for just a live stream sometime where we don't really talk about Praxi.
I don't know if you want to do it because you are running a business and you don't necessarily want to be too political if you're running a business.
But I'll let you make that assessment for yourself.
And I would love to have you on.
Yeah, no, I mean, I'm happy to come on.
I mean, I could tell you like my political philosophy.
I mean, I'm an anarchist.
I'm a free market anarchist, pretty hardcore.
And I know I've seen some of your videos about, particularly the one about libertarianism.
And I totally get where you're coming from.
I'm more than willing to come on and talk about it.
I probably won't be as outspoken as I once was because of the business, but I'll definitely, I will not like, I will not like mislead anyone as to my views.
Like, I'm very happy to do that if you want.
All righty.
And yeah, and I don't like being extreme for the sake of being extreme.
I mean, that's the other way you can make money is just become an absolute parody of an extremist and rant about everything.
The amazing atheist, for example, you know, it's all of the shenanigans with him, they don't detract from his business model.
They actually add to his business model.
But, you know, all of that said, we should close this off.
Folks, thank you for listening.
I hope it was like, you know, we're mainly talking about the product, but I hope it was an interesting live stream all the time.
Can I add one more thing?
Is if anyone has any ideas or wants to contact me, just send me an email at admin at praxy.com.
Or you can call me on Praxi at admin.
There's a nominal charge 10 cents a minute, but you can call me real time or it's just send me an email and let me know your thoughts.
Yes, so the website is praxy, p-r-a-x-e-y.com.
And I forgot to put that into the into the, I'll edit the description after the video.
You can download the app.
It's on Google Play Store and on the Apple Store as well.
Yeah, it just goes right onto your phone and it works just like Skype.
And so like I'm using it on my Android.
It's not even hooked up.
It just, the damn thing won't hook up in Canada.
And I can't find anybody on Praxy to explain me why it won't.
Not yet.
Maybe after this call.
I have my BlackBerry that actually works the phone and I have my mini computer Android.
And so yeah, you just download it onto the phone.
You set up your account, your information on there, and boom, you phone people just like Skype.
Yeah, and it rings even when your phone's resting or in the kill state.
So yeah, guys, check it out.
Link to the life coaching page I put up on my website.
But of course, if there's if you think there's something you can get of value from paying to talk to me, I'm down to talk to you.
But at the same time, you're also, you can send me an email.
I will respond to emails.
Okay.
Not saying, you know, I would refuse to speak to you or anything like that.
But yeah, I think that covers everything.
Guys, thanks for listening.
Stephen, thank you very much for being on.
Thank you for putting this service together.
Thank you.
I've enjoyed talking to you and hope to talk to you again soon.
