Pete Mockaitis
Alex, welcome.

Alex Neist
Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s great to be chatting with you. And I will tell you, I am a Hostage Tape customer and lover. So, first things first, for the uninitiated, what the heck is Hostage Tape?

Alex Neist
Hostage Tape is mouth tape, okay, quite simply. And for those who have never heard of mouth-taping before, what it does is it forces you to keep your mouth shut so that you breathe through your nose. It sounds absolutely wild and crazy, I know, but I promise you’re not going to suffocate.

We were born, we were made to breathe through our nose, and it seems to be something that we just lost over the last 20, 30, 40 years, especially with a lot of changes to our diets, what we’re eating, all sorts of things that have kind of changed us. And over 70% of people in this country are mouth-breathing at night when they sleep, and we shouldn’t be.

And so, mouth tape shuts your mouth, forces us to nasal-breathe the way that we were made to, and it does a whole host of things. We get more oxygen. We wake up feeling better. We don’t have mind fog. We don’t annoy the heck out of our partner. And just everything opens up and you feel like you’re 20 years old again. You feel like you found the cheat code.

This is how I explain it. It’s like when we were younger, you played Nintendo and you had that Konami code, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B-A-B-A, start. It’s like you found the cheat code from Nintendo, but for life, and now you feel like you’re 20 years old again.

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, Alex, I love so much of what you’re saying here. And it’s funny, we’ve had sleep doctors on the show, and this is actually not really a sleep episode, although that’s a freebie, huh? We’re getting some bonus goodies here, Alex.

Alex Neist
Totally.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve read in the research, because I’m such a dork for this, that mouth taping is particularly excellent for individuals with mild sleep apnea, and I was such an individual, and I was not feeling the CPAP machine, but I needed a little something. I need a little something, something, Alex, and the mouth taping and some other interventions combined did the trick, so I’m off the CPAP machine, and I’m having great sleep, and I’m a fan.

Alex Neist
So, what you’re describing right now, Pete, is a pretty common thing where, again, I’m not a doctor. Ironically, I grew up in a doctor’s family. Like, my dad was a doctor, so I come from that whole world of medicine, but I’m not a doctor, and I think CPAPs are over-prescribed to people because I think the reality is, from what I’ve seen with all of our customers, is that there’s a certain person that definitely needs it, and those are the people who are like severely overweight.

Guys who are really overweight, who’ve got excess weight in their neck and everything, that’s pushing down, they definitely need help, but I think for, like, the average guy who’s not overweight, man, it’s as simple as just keeping your mouth shut. Assuming you can breathe out of your nose and it’s not like severely impacted, it’s just keeping your mouth shut and breathing through your nose. And we don’t need a CPAP for that. We really don’t.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you.

Alex Neist
The amount of people who have used a CPAP and then now they don’t because they wear Hostage Tape, countless. But there’s also people who, they’ll use their CPAP and the Hostage Tape helps it work better because it keeps their mouth shut so that there’s no air leak.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true, especially like a nasal-only CPAP. We’re getting into the details. And if folks have sleep apnea who are not overweight, I just want to give you a shout out. I know that also happens with anatomical things, neurological things in the mix as well. But, yes, great sleep is important. We’ve covered that with a few sleep docs before, and we’ll just check that box, and mouth taping might help.

I want to talk about branding and storytelling, because, Alex, you’ve done a heck of a job. I remember my favorite CPAP influencer, and there are many, will be Uncle Nicko from SleepHQ.com. And he said it very well about you guys. He’s like, “Great job, guys! You made mouth taping cool!” He’s Australian. Apologies for the poor accent impersonation.

And it’s true, and it’s so interesting. In terms of brand, I have so many questions, but why don’t we start by, tell us the tale. What made you think, “Let’s call this thing Hostage Tape” was a good move?

Alex Neist
Yes. So, here’s the story. So, I actually went through a low point in my life and I hit rock bottom. And it was at this point of hitting rock bottom, where, my wife and I were actually separated and we divorced, and so I was living in another house at the time.

And when you go through a divorce, it’s messy, it’s crazy, assets freeze, you know, all that kind of wonderful stuff that happens. But I was in my aunt’s house. I was living in her basement at the time, okay? And I said to myself, “Okay, I need to really work on myself. How do I become a better man, a better father, a better leader, a better business owner, all those things?”

And I call it my Jocko-moment of extreme accountability, like I need to take extreme accountability for me and work on everything that I can control. And I started with my health, specifically my sleep, because I snored so bad for so many years that it pushed my wife out of the bedroom. And I explained it like this. It’s kind of like Indiana Jones running out of the temple. You got this boulder coming after you, and, at some point, it catches up to you, overtakes you, and then you don’t know what to do.

Because snoring is one of those things where it causes all these issues, it’s like an accelerant of all these other things that happen that just kind of get out of control. And then before you realize it, it’s out of control, and you just can’t fix it, and you can’t get it back. And so, that’s what had happened. And so, then I looked at my sleep, and I went, “Okay, what do I got to do to fix my sleep?” And I went down this rabbit hole of mouth tape, of all things.

And when I started the mouth tape, whenever my kids would be over, I would say, “Okay, guys, kids, if you bust into the room, and you see me, it’s going to look like I’m being held hostage, so don’t freak out, okay?” Because anybody that you see is mouth-taping, it looks really, really strange, really weird. And so, there was that part of it.

And, at the time, I didn’t know that I was going to start a mouth tape brand just yet, let alone call it Hostage Tape. But then I realized that, “Wait a minute, there’s this like double-sided coin to this here. Yes, you look like a hostage when you’ve got tape on your mouth, but we’re actually tapping into this core emotion people feel. People feel held hostage by poor sleep or their partner, and they don’t know what to do. So don’t let bad sleep hold you hostage.” That became the idea. And I was most importantly inspired by my favorite water, Liquid Death.

Pete Mockaitis
I was literally talking to your publicist about Liquid Death and branding.

Alex Neist
Yes. So, I explain this to many people, and a lot of times when we meet with retailers or anybody else that’s interested in the brand in some way, I say, “We are the Liquid Death of the sleep space.” And they go, “Oh, okay, I get it.” Because, inevitably, there’s always somebody that goes, “Wait a minute, why would you call it that? That’s really weird. That’s really polarizing.” And then I say, “Liquid Death,” and they go, “Oh, okay, I get it.”

So, it takes like a giant, like what Mike did with Liquid Death, for people to truly understand, “Oh, I get it. Okay.” Because I knew, in this day and age, Pete, it’s all about attention, right? And I saw a quote the other day, that when you think about products, things that people buy, mouth taping, it’s not a fad. It’s not one of those fads that’s like, here then gone tomorrow, because it’s based on fundamental core principles of our body, and it’s solving a clear problem. So, it’s not a fad.

And it’s gaining awareness right now. With the amount of money that we spend on marketing, more and more people are gaining awareness of it. You’re seeing it on TikTok, because we’ve had other copycats try to do what we’re doing, and more people are going, “Mouth taping. I keep seeing this. I keep seeing Hostage Tape everywhere.”

So, because that awareness is growing, what happens, it’s kind of like the 95/5 rule, right? 5% of your people are in market to buy. The other 95% are not. But for those 95% of people, when they are in market to buy, what do they do? They buy the brand that they remember. And who are they going to remember when it comes to, “Oh, yeah, I keep seeing mouth tape. You know what? I’m going to try that. I’m going to buy Hostage Tape.”

Because when you see Hostage Tape come across your feed, you never forget it. Ever. I’ve never met somebody that didn’t go, “Oh, Hostage Tape. Yeah, I’ve heard of them. They’re that mouth tapering.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s black, and it can look a little scary, and it’s intriguing. When you said polarizing, I think, I want to dig into that for a bit. Like, I remember I was telling my cousin, Carrie, that I was doing some mouth taping, and I was like, “Yeah, I love my Hostage Tape.” She said, “Wait, it’s actually called Hostage Tape? Wow, they’re really leaning into it.” And I was like, “Well said, they are really leaning into it.”

And I think that it’s so intriguing because you say polarizing, and that’s the word, because I think some might say, “Alex, hostages are no cheeky, fun, laughing matter. Right now, there are hostage situations in the world. And it almost seems like you are kind of poking fun at it a little bit.” And so, help me out there with polarizing, because I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten furious messages or if that’s just me.

Alex Neist
Oh, we get it all the time. Yeah, we get people all the time. In fact, somebody DM’d me on LinkedIn the other day who said exactly that. And I think you have to look at it like this. Like, the wonderful thing about language is that context matters. We have all these words, we have all these amazing ways to use language, and context matters. Intent matters.

So, when I use a word like hostage, Hostage Tape, look at the intent, look at the context. It’s not poking fun at those awful situations. Just like Liquid Death, how many people die and get murdered? Like, a ton of people. “Liquid Death, murder your thirst,” like they’re just as bad, if not worse, than we are with this term death and murder, right?

But when you look at what they are, who they stand for, and the authenticity behind it, look at the authenticity behind our brand and why I started it, I’m not just some no-name, no-face, like brand that said, “We’re going to poke fun at this.” I’m a real guy. You do a little bit of research and you see me everywhere. You see me talking about it. You see me telling my story about feeling held hostage.

And then once you explain that little bit of the term hostage, everybody relates to it. Then that’s the genius behind it, is that everybody can relate to feeling like a hostage from their partner or their sleep, and they feel helpless. So that’s why it’s so good, is, again, context and the intent behind it.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s intriguing, I was listening to an interview with the Liquid Death guy. What’s his name again?

Alex Neist
Mike, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And it was really interesting, he said, “Well, our water, it’s in a nice aluminum can, and it’s tall, and it’s from a natural spring. So, there are some kinds of objective matter material elements of it that that make it seem quality relative to alternative packaged waters.” And he said, “And yet, the bulk of the price premium for it is just for the brand, the associations, the experiences, the hilarious marketing that is attached to it.”

And it was really interesting, he got me thinking hard, he said “That’s kind of how I define brand is it has a value for its associations,” I might be using my own words here but it has a value for associations in your brain, above and beyond the actual matter inside the package.

Alex Neist
You want to know why?

Pete Mockaitis
Lay it on us.

Alex Neist
Because people don’t buy with logic. They buy with emotion. That’s why. So, what people do, the way that our brains work, is anytime we make decisions on buying things, you know, especially if it’s not something that costs, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars, that’s a little bit of a different decision process, but something as small as mouth tape, Liquid Death, whatever, we might buy on emotion.

We do buy on emotion for the most part because we’re connecting to something about it, and with a brand like Liquid Death and a brand like Hostage Tape, people are buying on emotion. There’s something about the brand that’s attaching to their psyche or the way that they are. And then after you make a decision on emotion, then you validate it with logic, “Oh, yeah. Well, of course, I bought it because of A, B, and C.”

And so, that’s, I think, what Mike was really talking about there with Liquid Death, is that you’re creating this emotional connection with people, and that’s what makes a strong brand.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s interesting. And I say before I had encountered Hostage Tape, I was using some 3M micropore tape, and that kind of works for keeping your mouth closed, but it doesn’t stick as well. It’s not as comfortable. It’s hard to get just the right size. So, these problems are relatively minor but I will hand it to you, you solved all of them. It’s like this is more comfortable, it’s quicker, it adheres better, it even has just a little bit of holes or perforations or whatever, so it’s like…

Alex Neist
Yeah, because it’s a fabric, it’s completely breathable. And that’s what people think when they think, “Hostage Tape? Mouth tape?” They think it’s like duct tape, but in actuality. It’s a flexible fabric. You can breathe through it, so, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So, it’s interesting in that your product cost more than the generic micropore tape, and it has some performance characteristics that are superior but there’s also all this emotional stuff, and I just find it fascinating how that works because I don’t think I’m very good at brand, branding, both in terms of when I market stuff and when I buy stuff, I think it’s like, “Oh, this costs 10 times as much. Is it 10 times as awesome?” Well, maybe, yeah, in terms of when I’m sleepy and I don’t want to be fiddling with my tape for an extra 30 seconds, I value that substantially. But, again, maybe I’m just doing that post-emotion rationalization you were speaking of in the moment.

Alex Neist
Well, think about it like this too, right? So, when I built the brand, I had that dilemma that everybody has when you start a new business. You go, “Wait a minute. Is there a business here? Could I actually build something that’s worth my time and money to put into this because it’s just tape? Like, it’s a commodity. Is there a moat here? Can I actually build this?”

And then it was looking at Liquid Death. In fact, it was Liquid Death, but it was also so Moiz Ali is famous for the Native deodorant founder, okay? And I’ll never forget, he was talking about, when you go down the aisles of Target, and you look at a wall of, let’s just say, white of a product, there’s an opportunity there. There’s an opportunity because the TAM is there to create a product that stands out, that’s different.

And that logic, to me, went, “Okay.” Now granted, there wasn’t really a market for mouth tape, but there’s tons of tape, so I knew I could take something and I could improve upon it. And guess what? There’s 70% of people in this country that have this problem, so it was a very clear problem solution. And I had experienced it, that I went, “This is too big. This is too big not to be able to build something, but it all hinges on brand.”

So, I knew, the point I’m getting at was I knew that nothing about micropore tape, 3M tape, inspires you to go down to Walmart, Walgreens, Target, or even on Amazon, and buy mouth tape. It doesn’t inspire you at all, because that’s not really how we all make the decision to begin with, like, at least consciously.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you got to be desperate, like, “I need something, and I’m out. I guess I’ll go, not like I’m excited or inspired.”

Alex Neist
Well, and mouth tape, to begin with, because it’s so weird and new and different, you’re not going to see an ad for 3M micropore tape and think, “You know what? I should use that and put it on my mouth.” And even if it was advertised, you would think like, “Well, that’s just weird. That’s not cool. I don’t want to do that. That sounds dumb.”

But then you see this, like, really cool story that’s relatable, that you go, “Oh, I’m going through that same problem, too. My wife’s sleeping in the other bedroom. You mean to tell me he solved it by taping his mouth shut? Oh, man. Well, that’s kind of weird, right? Well, but that looks actually kind of cool. I like it. Okay.”

And then you start connecting the dots, connecting all these emotional barriers, and then, boom, you’re now inspired to go online and order Hostage Tape because it’s cool, it makes you feel cool, it makes you feel like you’re actually solving a problem, which you are, and you don’t feel weird because you’re putting medical tape on your face.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you said, when you go walk down Target and see white, do we literally mean the color white? What do we mean by you see white?

Alex Neist
So, it could be anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Like a gap or blankness?

Alex Neist
Let’s use, like, deodorant as an example. Like, you might go down a section in Target where it’s just the deodorant aisle, and they all look the same. That’s the point, if that category exists and they all look the same, that means the TAM is big enough.

Pete Mockaitis
Total addressable market.

Alex Neist
The opportunity is big enough, and you have a chance to stand out to create. It’s, like, Dr. Squatch is another really good example. Dr. Squatch said, “We’re going to take soap,” which is like, you know, this behemoth, huge behemoth in soap, and it’s just soap, right? But that guy took it and went, “I’m going to make it different, all natural, but I’m going to create this amazing brand around it.” And now look at them, you know, they’re huge, right?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so now I’d love it if you could bring it into the realm of the average professional. So, all right, we’re not building, we’re not inventing brands, new products, but we are seeing opportunities and certainly having to make a case, build a story, conjure up some emotion for support of initiatives and whatnot. So, tell us, how do we apply some of these perspectives to our everyday conversations and persuasions?

Alex Neist
The first thing that pops into my mind that we could riff off of is, like, when people are thinking that they want to start a business and they want to build something, they always ask, “Well, how do I start? Where do I start?” And I always tell people, “Look, the best place to start is like solve a problem, number one.”

And then when you solve that problem and you figure out what that business is, then there’s a story around it. That then you have to learn how to tell the story for that particular product in business, and then tell it in a way that’s relatable. And I’ll be honest, I launched this business, Hostage Tape, three years ago, and it’s taken me three years to craft the story in a way that’s relatable for people.

Very early on, I would tell the story, and I don’t think it was relatable enough, and I kept telling it, and then I kept hearing it, and I’m like, “Who can relate to that? Like, yes, there’s elements of shock and amazement that are interesting, but at the end of the day, people aren’t going to buy into something that they can’t relate to and see themselves somehow looking back at them.”

And so, I’ve morphed how I tell the story in a way that, “How do I bring out the right pieces of the story that are relatable to people?” So, I keep evolving it in a way that is not so grandiose. In fact, you probably know, the guy that I love is Matthew Dicks. He has a book on storytelling. And this dude, he wins all these awards for these competitions he goes to where he tells a story.

And one of the things he talks about in storytelling is, you don’t need to tell an amazing, oddball, wild story to have a great story. Most of the time, it’s a story about the most simplest thing that happened to you in your day that most people are going to think, “Well, that’s not interesting,” but it actually is interesting. You just have to learn how to tell the story, and then you make it relatable in a way, and also, you’re showing change.

A great story shows a change, “At one point, I was this, then this happened, and now this.” And so, that’s it, that’s another key there with that storytelling that you’re talking about, is that so many things happen to people during the day that you can tell stories on rather than just reciting back, “Well, this happened.” Well, that’s boring, like just reciting back anecdotally what happened to me today.

It’s telling it in a way that says, “I changed,” or “Something changed.” That’s what captures people’s attention, right? It’s like that when I tell the mouth tape story, I like to tell the story about how, “Before mouth taping, I was this. And then that first night I mouth taped, then I woke up and my whole life changed in that moment. And I knew that, now, I was going to be a different person. I was going to be able to get to here just from that one night of mouth taping.”

And for anybody listening to that, who can relate to having bad sleep, goes, “Wow, that’s crazy. I can resonate with that because I feel the same way. I felt the same way. And maybe if I just put a piece of tape on my mouth and shut my mouth, I can feel the same way too.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, I’m a believer in sleep, so it does not strike me as hyperbole at all. The difference between terrible sleep and great sleep is night and day for mood, productivity, all the good stuff. So that’s intriguing. So, a good story, change, you reminded me of, I think, in Dan Harmon’s Story Circle. I’ve actually worked through that with my kids a few times. And so, yes, and then the character returns changed at the end, and it’s fun to watch Community, because they are deliberately doing that with every character in every episode.

So, change and relatable. So, help us out. If the story’s evolved, can you share with us a suboptimal, prior version of a snippet of the story, and then give us the improved version, and tell us why is that better?

Alex Neist
Exactly. Okay. So, I used to be a professional athlete. I was a professional quarterback, and part of the story that I tell is I used to tell it where, so when I discovered the fact that I was mouth-breathing, I basically read a book. It was a book by James Nestor called Breath. And in this book, he details this experiment.

And part of the story is, as I talk about this experiment, reading this book and how it opens my mind, and I say, “How have I been a professional high-level athlete my entire life and my coaches never taught me this?” And so, then later I went, “Wait a minute, being a professional athlete has nothing to do, like it doesn’t matter to the story that I was a professional athlete, and nobody listening to that story is thinking, ‘I was a professional athlete, too, and my coaches never taught me that.’”

There’s a sub-small percentage of people that have ever gotten to the level of being a professional athlete that can relate to it. So, then most people then might feel alienated, and thinking like, “Well, I’m not a professional athlete, so I guess I don’t really know how I could relate to that.” But now, rather than say I was a professional athlete, I just say, “Look, I was an athlete my whole life. I played football, I played sports growing up, and my coaches didn’t teach me that.”

How many people played sports growing up and were athletes? Almost everybody did, in some capacity. So, that’s way more relatable that people now can connect, they can lean in, and go, “Oh, yeah, I was an athlete, too. Yeah, and my coach has never taught me that. Wow. Huh, this is crazy.” So that’s a really good example of something that I’ve adapted.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s funny, and not to critique your story life here, Alex, but I guess I have the hubris to do it. It’s like, I’m thinking that what you’re saying is perfect because, like, “I was a professional athlete,” it’s like, “Okay. Well, we’re not vibing with that.” But what’s interesting is we had Anjali Sharma on the show recently talking about this storytelling principle just like this.

It’s like, “You think you want to have it dramatically awesomely whoa remarkable, but you don’t want to be remarkable. You want to be relatable,” because it is remarkable that you were a professional athlete. And it is all the more remarkable, shouldn’t someone have known, with all the recovery information that’s so important for high performance?

Alex Neist
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So that makes it more remarkable but less relatable. And so, I’m intrigued, as someone who didn’t play very many sports, just that the notion that I’m relating to most about is it’s like, “Hey, shouldn’t someone have told me?” Like, I almost feel betrayed or shocked, disappointed. Like, “Shouldn’t someone have told me you can enable shortcut keys in Gmail? Everyone knows I love productivity and I use Gmail.”

Or, “Shouldn’t someone have told me that Severance is an amazing TV show?” So, yeah, I like that a lot in terms of we’re going to drop some of the most amazing wow factor pieces in pursuit of more relatability.

Alex Neist
I’ve got another one, too. This is another one that I used. Okay, so the other part of the story that I used to really lean in on was, I mentioned it earlier that my wife and I, we had gotten separated, and then we divorced, okay? And we actually got back together. So, I used to tell that part of the story, and I used to say that, “You know, six years ago I had it all and then I lost everything, and my wife and I went through a divorce.” And then at the end of the story, “After building this thing, then my wife and I got back together.” And then I’m like, “Actually, you know what? How relatable?” Like, divorce is relatable to 50% of the population, yes. But still, you’re still alienating 50% of the people who haven’t gone through a divorce, and, to boot, getting back together.

Like, how many people get a divorce and then get back together with their partner? That almost never happens. So, then I’m like, as amazing as it is, and as amazing as the reactions I get from people when they hear that story, they’re like, “Oh, my God, that’s wild!” it is not relatable at all to anybody because it just doesn’t happen.

So, now, I’ve started really kind of dropping those points and leaning more in on the idea that, “Here’s what is relatable about that. The fact that I snored so bad that it pushed my wife into the other bedroom, and we slept in separate bedrooms. It killed the relationship, it hurt us, put a wedge between us. And then you know what? I discovered mouth taping. Now I don’t snore anymore. I feel amazing. And my wife and I now sleep in the same bed again.”

That’s a more relatable story, and it’s all true. I just left out the most amazing parts of it that actually don’t make the story better, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s interesting in that, now, what’s juicy about this is, unlike the first example, it’s sort of like nothing feels lost in terms of like, “Okay, we don’t know as much about how awesome you were as an athlete, Alex, okay. So, but that’s okay.” But here, it almost does feel like something is lost because it’s like, it almost makes the Hostage mouth tape less of a hero.

Alex Neist
It could be.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like, “It saved a dead marriage” sounds more awesome than what you’ve described. So, now it’s interesting. Now I feel like we have a real juicy trade-off here between the relatability of the story and the amount of heroic impact the product can make. How do you chew through that one?

Alex Neist
I think you could argue that, while heroic it is, like, I’m a phoenix rising from the ashes, I think that, there’s a hero’s journey, though, that I can tell, the true story of this hero’s journey of that bedroom tale that every man and wife, more men and women are going through that story. That hero’s journey that I can help them become the hero of their story.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, got you.

Alex Neist
So, I think that’s way more impactful.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I hear you. Because we might have less of an emotional spike, but we have a broader set of folks getting into it. And those broader sets may actually have more of an emotional vibe.

Alex Neist
And here’s also the risk, because I’ve seen a ton of it. I’ve gotten a ton of feedback and responses over the years, the past couple of years here. The story sounds so unbelievable that people think it’s fake. Like, “Oh, it’s so fake. No way that happened.” I mean, it happened, it’s true, and I can understand why it sounds fake, but it’s so wild that it sounds fake.

And so, that’s the risk of it is that, again, now I’m alienating because of the craziness of the story. Now I’m alienating, again, too many people that I don’t need to alienate, that I could just tell a much more relatable story that still has the impact and goes the distance.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I’m reminded, I think, Ramit Sethi was talking about copywriting, and he said this product or offer of his really did have some epically transformational results for folks in terms of additional income or business revenue or whatever, but some of the results were so huge it was beyond belief. So, naturally, he wanted to say, “Look at the success of these students,” but he’s like, “Well, if I do that, I lose the credibility, even though it’s true, so I’m going to have to back it down.”

Alex Neist
Yeah, totally.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Alex, so much good stuff here. Any final thoughts on storytelling, branding, persuasion?

Alex Neist
I guess all I would say is, again, that everybody has so many stories that you can tell every single day that happened to you. You just have to pay attention to them, and they’re there, and just understand the key to a story is change. That’s the key. That’s what makes merely reciting facts versus telling a compelling story is change.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Alex Neist
It comes from my mom. And she taught me that you can do anything you want in life. You just have to be willing to work for it.

And along with that what I’ve added to it when I tell my kids, is I always tell them that, “Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it. If you want it, go get it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. And a favorite book?

Alex Neist
It is Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Alex Neist
Sauna.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Alex Neist
Go to HostageTape.com. You can find it on all the socials, Hostage Tape, Hostagetape.com. If you’re going to try to buy it on Amazon, you can, but it’s not the best place to get it. Just go to the website, HostageTape.com, and you can find your best deals. And don’t let bad sleep hold you hostage anymore.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Alex Neist
We’re in an age of virtual digital meetings worlds. I would challenge people to actually upgrade their equipment. Have a better camera. Have a better microphone. It makes so big of a difference when you’re on Zooms or you’re on Google Meets all the time, and you can actually sound great and you look great. It makes all the difference in the world.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Alex, this is fun. I wish you much luck and good sleep.

Alex Neist
Awesome. Thanks, Pete. I appreciate it.