Episode 033 - Greg Glenday, CEO of Lightbox OOH

Welcome to out-of-home insider today's guest is Greg Glenday. Greg is the CEO of Lightbox formerly ad space. The programmatic network that focuses on in-market consumers at the point of purchase or close to it, and more than 300 premier shopping destinations all across the county. They don't just put screens up where people are though.

Lightbox dominates the space with over 94% of all the Inmar inventory and uniquely uses video to engage buyers with brands. The team is comprised of the best and brightest from out of home business and technology. And today we'll spend time with the man responsible for their March to victory. Greg.

Thanks for being. Thank you. Thanks for having me. That's a great intro. You actually just passed our sales training final exam. So that was pretty good. Have you sound stuff? It's always a tryout, right? We're always trying out for something. Great. Right. Like, and like my, like most people, and this is where we'd like to start.

Each episode is no one really has a linear path to out of home. And you're certainly wasn't that you weren't born and raised as a billboard guy, but tell us about where you came from and how you got to where you are today. Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so it's where I spent almost 20 years in. Radio music entertainment on that.

I was at w what's now iHeart media. Uh, originally we were called ClearSale entertained. And that's where I started in the mid nineties. We had a sister company, a clear channel outdoor, but still clear channel outdoor. And, uh, funny enough now I'm in the same building. I'm on the third floor. They're on the second floor, but, um, you know, so I worked with those guys, you know, kind of arms distance.

We would do some big pitches together. Um, and I remember being really jealous of their business and, you know, I thought our side was fine. The grass is always greener. You know, we had musicians and, you know, we'd bring in Rihanna to meetings and things like that. And there's all these kinds of interesting things on the radio side, but the stuff we were selling to advertisers was fleeting.

Right. It's it's the commercials. Are they air? And then they're gone. And I remember the first year I went to Canada. Everybody's looking at these beautiful billboards that clear channel has, and they're winning awards for the art and the creative that's up there. And it's, it was so tangible. Uh, I always thought about that and I think, you know, everybody in radio is jealous of the visual mediums, right.

And TV and outdoor. So that was always in the back of my head. Um, you know, I went into a, an ad network called undertone, deep end of the pool, digital cross screen, like real, you know, digital data stuff. That company was acquired and I kinda went pathway back to music and I went to a company called Shizam.

That was the, the, uh, the music identification app and ran the global, the global business. And that was a blast, but also again, nothing tangible. We had this very complicated product and advertisers trying to understand it and how the data works. And Shizam went through probably the longest acquisition in history.

Took us a year to finally close and be acquired by. Um, I'm 25 years as an advertising guy, apple kinda, uh, made their reputation on no advertising, no data, consumer privacy. So when that transaction happened, I had a long time to come in, you know, walk on the beach and think about what I was going to do next.

This I literally, the day after I made a list of what was important to me, um, somebody called and said, Hey, there's a company it's called lad space. Uh, it's fundamentally sound, they've got a great network. Um, but I think they just have maybe some things that need to be adjusted on the marketing side and perhaps the team building and that kind of thing.

The stuff that I really enjoy. And I started meeting the board. I started meeting the senior executives and I fell in love with the company. You know, I, I looked under the hood, I got to really see everything. And I said, wow, if we just, if we tweak a few things, I think this is fundamentally an awesome company with, um, you know, famous last words on easy path to growth.

Um, you know, I probably said as long as there's not a global pandemic, we should grow for the next four years. Um, so that was right around now. So around. June of 2018, I started, uh, it was called ad space, mam networks at the time. And, you know, we had that, the network was awesome. 5,000 screens, big, beautiful video with sound, all of these unique propositions, tons of scale, 80 million people a month.

Um, and then all the mobile data that was coming into the space. So I really thought technology is really helping this. There's tailwinds and out of home and there's even stronger tailwinds and digital out of home. So it's not that I thought it was going to be easy, but I thought, I thought I could see the playbook in my head.

So, so that's what we did. And I found myself in, uh, in, out of hall. And after all these years, I get to sell something beautiful with screens and sound and video, and, um, you know, so far so good. If you, if you take out from about March 15th to now, other than that, it's been an awesome run and, and probably the best time I've had in my world.

Yeah, and it sounds like things are coming back. We were just talking to, before we press the record button, what what's what's the recovery look. Yeah. You know, um, we closed the, my last business trip was the week of, you know, I came back to New York on March 6th, thumbs in Chicago, things were starting to get pretty weird.

Um, uh, my wife called the airline called and I don't usually talk to my wife on business trips where, you know, I've been married a long time. It's like, just go and I'll see you when you come back. And she said, Hey, have you checked the flights? The airports or things started getting weird. And then we wound up shutting our office down.

We're right on park avenue in New York. We shut it down on Friday the 13th. And, um, we made a good decision at the time and our team is awesome. And they said, Hey, if, if our audience is going to disappear and these malls are going to close and we're going to turn off 5,000 screens, uh, We should probably be measuring this, which sounds crazy.

But this way, when things start to open up, we'll have a really authentic, trustworthy set of baseline numbers where we can show our growth. So, um, I wasn't thinking that far ahead, the team was really smart. Um, we interviewed a bunch of companies. We wound up hiring intermix who has credibility and. And it was really sad to watch.

The first week we went from, you know, big audience. We went down to, uh, six weeks of less than 3% of our average audience. So, um, so, so we basically were closed. Um, and you know, I talked to some smart people who run other businesses, our size and. People were going the route of furloughing, everybody and just Batten down the hatches and wait.

And we, we just, we didn't do that. You know, we still had an active pipeline. Um, our advertisers stayed with us for the most part. Obviously they weren't with us when the screens are turned off, but if they had a fourth quarter schedule, Almost none of those things canceled. So that gave us, you know, that gave us real courage to say, you know what, let's hold on to as many people as we can, let's make the team as strong as we can.

It's going to be weird, but, uh, let's sell out into the future. Um, and, uh, you know, let's, let's use this time to be really smart. Let's, let's do some training. Let's, uh, look at this data. So every week we're getting the data that says, yep, you've got no audience next week, that audience, and, you know, there were not exciting reports to get every time.

But then as mall started to open up, um, you know, by early June we had half of them open. And again, whether you think that was the right decision or not, they were pretty safe about social distance saying, and how they were going to treat the customers. There were no door handles. A lot of them. You can walk around, you can stay away from people and people started coming back.

So, uh, so now we were able to show a hockey stick. You know, we're plotting along at 2%, then it's 20% and it's 30, 40, 50, and now we've got about three quarters of our audience back. And that might be the new normal. Maybe it's fewer people in these locations, but that's still a big media company, you know, we're still, we're still, even now we're six times bigger than the number one show on broadcast television right now.

So if we can't sell that and then there's something wrong with us. So, so we're back and, uh, you know, it feels good. We're selling stuff. We're pitching. Um, you know, advertisers are still being cautious. You know, there's a lot of, it's a very tough time to figure out what your messaging should be. You've got a lot of things going on in the country, so not everybody wants to hear from a burrito company or a car company right now, but, uh, but they're coming back.

We're helping them with the creative. Uh, I think we've got a really good environment for that. We're not going to be in the middle of, um, a political conversation or, you know, a conversation that that might be something you don't want your kids to see. Uh, we're going to be we're out in the world, our screens, our ads only we do the content.

There's, there's no editorial. It's just, we're designed to get attention and, and, and just sort of get, get your message out there for brands. So I think it's a pretty good place because people recover and they're not sure what their message should be. We're a place where it can be a simple message. You can go back to, you know, talking to your customers and, you know, that's part of, that's part of the recovery as well.

Right. And talking about how advertisers use your platform, you're able to do some really cool stuff. Some interactive things, especially for families, is all of that done in house, or do brands typically come to you with the, these great executions? How does that work? It depends. It's funny. We have our creative team.

We've got an awesome, you know, she's essentially our COO, but she oversees our creative team and research or her name's Haywan you. And she's got a long career. And, um, you know, she's worked at creative agencies and media agencies and publishing and, um, she's just a big idea person. So, um, she, she came here, I hired her and her, her whole thing was, man, this is an incredible canvas.

And. We can do anything for ourselves or for the advertisers, whatever their KPIs are. We can do something fun that can drive results for them. So it's kind of a dream come true for creative people. We have a small group run by Johnny Hamilton called Lightbox studios. And I shouldn't say this publicly, but they are way better than they think they are.

Like, they are awesome. Like really it's a world-class creative team. And you know, I've tried to have these teams at other companies and, you know, they're only as good as, as their talent, right. If you're going to see a blue chip advertiser that has, you know, a creative agency roster like Ogilvy or FCB, and you are, you're telling them you've got this great creative team.

It better be good. And they're that good? Um, they did all of our rebranding. In-house the fonts, the color schemes, the sizzle reels, all that stuff was done in house. We want to make it easy. You know, at-home is still, I think too small, it's less than six or 7% of, of us ad spend digital out of home, smaller than that.

And, uh, the more obstacles we put up, the harder it is to grow that. So if we're going to go see a blue-chip advertiser, it better be really good because they may say, you know what? We don't have anything formatted for 700. We'll take care of it for you, but we've got to live up to their standards if we're going to do that.

So yeah, it's been, it's a fun part of the job. Yeah. And, and, and, and it sounds like a right, uh, uh, a Haven for the creative mind, because it is such a fun format. Greg, a lot of the things that you've talked about already, and I want to hone in on it, they sound culture. Right. The decision to, to keep everyone on the team pivot into training and how do we, how do we plan for Q3 and Q4?

The creative team in house. How important is culture at light box? It's very important. It's um, you know, I was lucky early in my career. It's funny. I had this really weird job where, um, you know, clear channel going way back and I'll spare you the spirit of all the details. But right when I started, uh, bill Clinton signed the deregulation.

So these media companies could buy a bunch of. So all of a sudden there was a feeding frenzy and it was, you know, so-and-so owned 18 radio stations and they bought this company that owned 12 and then together, they bought this other one. And this happened for like the first five years of my career. So I wound up in this job where, you know, we buy a group of radio stations and I'd fly in and you sorta spend a week.

And right away. I swear, every time you could just get a sense, there's something in the air right there, you know, without naming names or locations. But I went into one group of radio stations and the wallpaper's peeling. People are kinda scowling faces. Uh, I heard, you know, I heard it hallway argument.

Nobody came to get me in the lobby and that stuff adds up. I guarantee you. I was like, I know, I bet you, their numbers are bad and sure enough performance was bad as forward. You go to another market and. You know, it's bright. It feels fun. People seem like they want to be there. Everyone's 19. People are asking me if I need help and sure enough, their numbers are good.

And it just sort of soaked into me that the culture kind of fixes a lot of things. I've worked for four or five CEO's and the best ones. I mean, everybody wants to make money. Everybody wants profit, but if you just focus on that at the expense of everything else, it's really hard to achieve. And if you focus on.

A great place to work. You wandered with great people and then the profit comes. So I think I was lucky that I worked for good people early on that thought that way. Um, you know, I had bosses that. If they say they're going to do something for me, they say, Hey, take this year. And if you do X, Y, and Z, we'll do, we'll do this for you.

And they always did it. They did what they said they were gonna do. So that became really important to me, you know, and, and, uh, uh, shout out to some bad bosses too. If you have a couple of bad bosses that helps too. Cause you know, it's like, I'm not going to be like that. I'm not going to do that. I want this to be a great place to work.

Um, you know, I want people to get up in the morning and want to come. Or in this case, want to log in and not go somewhere. But, uh, um, yeah, so, so that's it. I mean, look, I think, uh, especially before the pandemic and unemployment is so low, kids are coming out of college with their pick a jobs and uh, you know, you have to make it, you know, I want them to come in.

I want you to interview in person so you can see everybody. We're not hiding anything. When you get here, these are the people. Um, it's going to be the nicest group of people that you work with. They're high performers and, uh, you know, I'll take, um, I'll take somebody that maybe gets. 80 minus results, but makes everyone around them better over somebody that gets A-plus results, but drags down 12 people.

Cause the net net is that's doesn't work right now. Ideally you have both, right. It's an A-plus and they also make everyone better, but that's, you know, w we'll get there. I wouldn't, I'm not, I wouldn't even put myself in that group. So, um, so yeah, that's really, really, really important. W what kind of advice would you give to?

Right. So a lot of our, the core audience that is show business development, account executive types. What advice would you give to a seller in this environment to maybe get, get traction coming out of this? Do you have one hot take that you say this is kind of the key for making 2020 a really successful.

Yeah, it's funny. The last couple of jobs I've had, I've been, you know, I always, I think I'm a seller at heart, whether I'm a CRO or a CEO or a board member, whatever it is. I just, I like making the deals. I think that's really important. My father-in-law he says that, you know, nothing happens until somebody sells something right.

In any business. So, so I think that's really the key part of it. But I can't believe how bad some of the pitches I get, you know, the cold, you know, the LinkedIn pitches where somebody's got a service I might or might not need, and my name is wrong or the company's name is wrong. It's still adds space. And it's like, man, we've been Lightbox since April of last year.

You know, it's like, why would I trust you with my business? And then I think there's always six degrees of separation. If you can find some other personal hook again, don't be phony. But I sent a note to somebody today, a head of media, uh, at a brand. I haven't talked to this guy in 15 years. I'm not sure he's going to remember me, but I just put it out there.

And I said, Hey, like, if you remember, here's how I think it was when we worked together. And it's just like a little bit of a connection. Find somebody in your team that might know that person instead of sending a hundred cold emails. I think if you can find a way to reach out to 12 people, I'm going to do it this afternoon.

If I can find a way to reach out to 12 people with something a little warmer, I think you're going to have a higher percentage of. Uh, depending on what you're selling, right? If it's, you know, if it's widgets, then go for it, send a hundred emails with the picture of the widget. But, uh, if you need relationships, I mean, our business thinks that it's really a meritocracy now.

I mean advertising and it's not right. There's still relationships to it. Right. Um, you've gotta earn it. Like I think our screens work. That's why I'm always offering to pay for research because I believe that our screens work. I, if my. If my sister had a business, I would take her money on our screens.

Cause I think I would drive her, you know, KPIs for her business. Um, I haven't always felt that way. It's tough to sell something you don't believe in, but I would just say, you know, lean into what you believe in and find a hook and be warm and be personal and, you know, try, I think a dozen reach outs that, that make sense over a hundred that are just a shotgun approach.

That's how I've always done it. I've never been, I've never been. Completely cold form letter salesperson, and maybe cause it doesn't work. Yeah. I think that's a valuable takeaway cause you hear it all the time. Right? Sales is a numbers game. It's a numbers game. It doesn't have to be when you make those numbers work in your favor, 12 of the right region.

Just one last one last period on that. And I know you wish relationships don't matter and there's different types of relationships. There's relationships where it's like, Hey, I just want to get the door open so I can have this conversation. All I'm asking you for it is for the 30 minutes. I don't need you to do me a favor.

I don't need you to give me a million dollar IO that I don't deserve. Like that's not what really relationships are just, Hey, somebody, can you make an introduction? I've done great work for you. And you've got a colleague at the agency that has a different. Would you be open to just, would you mind just saying, Hey, this worked for your brand and you know, and those kinds of things.

So I think those are the things when you've earned it. And that's the kind of favor to ask for, as opposed to just like, Hey, can you buy me for fourth quarter? Cause I'm behind my quota, which people still get that? Sure. Right. So it's kind of the one, two punch. And I really like it in that delivery of, you know, what I'm going to.

I'm going to do less of this sort of salesy, traditional reach out them and be more concise with who I'm talking to. And then getting over the fear of just, just asking. Hey, can, would you mind, would you mind sometimes we're just so afraid to do that. I don't want to upset the relationship. You know, this is my PR I don't want to do that.

So I'll bother a hundred other strangers that I don't know that I could potentially create a relationship. Yeah, and I'm sure you get them. And so you have to be genuine, right? Like they're there somewhere, you know, you get to the third paragraph and you're like, how do I know this person? And you realize you don't, but like, they've, they tried so hard to, you know, they're, they know about my hobbies and this, and they're talking about my Alma mater and they're there and it's like, wait a minute.

What's going on here? And it's a cold call, but they did so much for, you know, so you really have to, you have to balance it and be genuine as well. So if your sister did come to with her ad budget and her company, how do you measure? Like how, how do you measure performance for advertising? It's funny. One of the things, you know, I've been in a bunch of businesses where technology was supposed to help the ad business and it disrupted or destroyed it.

Right. And I think that's, what's unique about at-home that people don't talk about enough. If you look at technology, right. Uh, the IEB new friends today, right. They're talking about. How broadcast TV is just getting completely murdered by connected TV. And, um, obviously stick, talk and digital video. Is there flat, connected TV is up even through the pandemic and digital video is flat desktops down a little bit.

Um, so, so I think the idea that you have something that works, right, like let's, let's back up, let's take a step back and say, okay, Out of home, generally, it was works, but it's the hardest thing to measure. It's the oldest medium, it's putting signs up on the side of a building, putting signs on your saloon, like people would be doing at home for hundreds of years.

You know, you measure it. Do you sell more beer in the saloon to people, you know, are there more horses outside? You know, all those kinds of things for us, we've got all the technology that's coming in is not disintermediating us. This, this is making our screens more valuable. Um, we've worked with a couple of brands last year where I started getting much more confident where.

I'll carve out a big chunk of their budget and I'll pay for the research because I believe it's going to work. And if I can say to you, let's say, um, I go to one of our beautiful locations, like the Sono collection here up in Connecticut and Fairfield county. I've got my device ID, I'm walking around and I see a Verizon ad, one of our big advertisers or Facebook Oculus.

And I'm exposed to that on our screens. I'm in the mall for 45 minutes. I'm exposed to that ad and then anonymously. They know that then I go back and four days later I bought an Oculus while we finally could get the attribution for. We know that this was the, uh, Greg Glenn days device was exposed to that screen.

And I became a customer. We've done things like this with Chipotle and Lego, and we know we can sell Lego sets. We can spell specific Lego sets. Right? We did, we did a really cool control and expose study with these specific Harry Harry Potter Lego sets. The exposed device IDs, right? They're exposed to the Harry Potter.

Creative went into the Lego store and they asked for this specific set. And the only way you would know about the Harry Potter set was on our screen. So it's like this infallible research that when it comes back, I get you get giddy to pitch it to the client because you're not, this is not like, Hey, your sales grew 1.6%.

And we think it was our screens that did that. And you should give us credit. Sales grew 112%. And we know that the only place they saw them was on our screens. And it just it's, it's just such a fun thing to do because the clients happy agencies happy, the brand managers happy. So, I mean, ultimately it really can be a win-win sure I want more money, but I wanna earn it.

And, uh, you know, the fact that everybody who's geo-fencing, whether it's. Foursquare the place at the time, intermixed everybody's, geo-fence our locations because there's so much retail there. So we already know what's going on. We already know that people are there, they're back, what they're exposed to and then what they go do, they test drive a BMW and we'd been running heavy BMW schedules, and those devices were more likely to go into that dealership.

Wonderful. I mean, that's, it's, that's simple. Like we shouldn't over-complicate it, it worked, you know, so, um, I got very excited about the measurement because it's new, whereas programmatic and some of these other things. Decimated magazines. Right? Think about what it's done to them. They try to put it online and let programmatic takeover, and you just become this sea of impressions, right?

It's not all impressions are created equal and I will, I don't know how we let this happen. Uh, but there are shows that I think certainly the Superbowl aside, there are shows where people are going to sit through the commercials and their shows where they. Um, there are things where you need to watch it live.

And there are things that aren't, and you know, our screens are not interrupting anything. We're not interrupting people. Don't go there to watch something on our screens. And then they're annoyed at the ads because the ads are interrupting what they came there for. It's just part of the whole experience.

So I don't think at a home in general gets enough credit for that, that we are the least intrusive. We're not making you stop what you're doing, even Shizam like, we were very careful when someone was trying to get the name of a song. We never said, Hey, we're going to hold it. We know the answer to your question, but we're not holding hostage until you watch this video.

We told you right away, here's the song. And by the way, here's, here's an ad, you know? So I think that's the right way to work with consumers in 2020. I think obviously Brock has TVs figuring that out too. So anyway, I think the pressure was measurement, but I get really excited and I just, no, it's cool. I, because you've opened up a concept that I think is important to talk about.

It's not that measurement made out of home work out of home has always worked. It's just now we can measure it. Right. So then you think back to all of the intrinsic value of legacy advertisers, whether that's a national brand or a local advertising, Of what that investment is and really what that conversation can and should be of.

Hey, we can, we can tell you what it does now. Also the last 10 years you've been with us, that's built incredible equity in your brand. And I think that measurement allows us to have a really good conversation around the total value of out of home advertising. Yeah. We sort of pretend to be this like super data-driven now, whether it's a scientific, but it's a fairly inefficient thing, right.

If you were to be taken. Take the, you know, the smartest data scientist or analyst at, uh, MIT or a consulting firm and have somebody who doesn't know anything about this business, come in and look at it. And so you can reset the whole business. It would not look like this. Uh, you know, the dollars do not flow to where the attention is, the dollars flow.

I remember, um, selling digitally, like, and you're just like, how did we get to this clicks thing? Like, how did this happen? This is. This doesn't make any sense, like we're measuring the wrong thing, but the report card we're reporting on the wrong stuff. But, um, you know, so I think it's, it's getting there and I think everybody's, you know, there's a lot of smart people.

Um, you know, I had a conversation recently guys like Lou, the press gallery at bank of America, everybody knows who's, you know, a super smart well-read follows everything. He and John Patel, they talk about these like, uh, context. It's not just, who's seeing the ad, but where is it? And the moon. There's so many other things to think about.

It's not as precise. So you have to be able to use a little bit of gut too. And, um, but like you said, 10 years ago, it's like, you kind of think this billboard going to work or this screen might work. But if you can't prove it, it's just too risky. Uh, and as they always say, no, you know, nobody gets fired for buying the number one show on TV, you know, so you're, you're right.

And, and that's it. I, I, it's great. It's a great segue of, of authority and what, what platforms and formats carry authority, because every impression is not created equal. And that's something that out of home has the unique ability to do is really to, to project, whatever that is with authority. Almost regardless of where, you know, to a certain degree.

Yeah. No, I think about people who are supposed to be competitors of ours. Right. I think about like screen vision and captivate and, you know, the way digital out of home has, has grown up. For some reason we've gotten in these silos. I don't think that's the right way. I I'm, I seem to be alone in that. This idea that like, you know, we have these sets of inventory or that's not the way people live their lives, right?

No one thinks of themselves as an elevator rider or a mall shopper. It's you do all of those things. Right. I ride elevators, I pumped gas. I go to the movies, I go to the mall and you know, so I think when we start thinking about it, like audience, instead of verdict, we start thinking horizontally, I think it's going to be better for everybody.

And then you really start to earn it. Um, we have captivated our elevators in a light box and then I'm parked and I'm always jealous of, you know, I'll get in and I'm like, man, this is a great place for an ad. I'm staring at it. It's a short rock. I'm staring at it. And then I know they feel like, oh, I wish my Springs were bigger.

Like yours and head sound, you know? The grass was greener, but we're different. We all have different ways of communicating with those consumers. And, uh, you know, I think it's going to start to get, as, you know, as programmatic really takes off. And I think we have a chance to do it right. And not just make it a sea of impressions and a race to the bottom.

I think there'll be context around it and really smart people are thinking about it. Um, so I'm very hopeful about how, how technology, uh, beyond just location stuff, but the, the, the programmatic people, they're not trying to recreate the digital programmatic animal that's one-to-one. And at home, they're trying to create a programmatic model that works for one to many, which is what we should be.

We shouldn't be ashamed of that. I like the idea that a whole family can see an ad, right? If we've got an ad for HBO max on our screen, My whole family can see it. You know, it could be a grandparent with a grandson that brand fame has been lost with all this super precision. Right? Like my kids see a lot of ads.

I never see. And I see a lot of ads they never see, and I'm not sure that that's great for brands and brand health. Like you said, you and I could probably sing the same Coca-Cola songs from growing up and Alex, and there's something about that. That's kind of lost now, besides that. All right. And a great opportunity for.

Smaller startup brands to step in and do some of those things and potentially scale quickly because of it or some of the blue chips to, uh, to bring it back into the mix as they figure out, you know, what, what is the message. Yes, unique environment. So I think all great things. So Greg, if you're down, um, my man, Carlos, we're calling this Carlos, his questions are those devolve.

He's the marketing manager for InMotion media out in California. He said, Tim, can you like, can you start asking all the guests a couple of like the same questions? So.

So, uh, I'm just going to pick a couple of them who may do two or three first question, which I think is a lot of fun. If you weren't doing what you are right now, being in the out-of-home space, running Lightbox, why would you be doing oh, man. So this answer has changed through the quarantine, right? Um, I think I would do something, uh, with coaching or, and it could be, it could be anywhere from life coaching to coaching kids.

I just, uh, I've spent so much time with my kids and I've spent a lot of time on self improvement in the quarantine. You know, if, uh, I'm spending 10 hours a week on the train normally. So. I said to myself, if I get to the end of this quarantine and I've wasted those 10 hours a week, I used to be on a train and I just I'm wasting them.

So, you know, I've been doing yoga, I've been doing a lot of meditating. I've been doing a lot of stuff. I've wanted to get to, I've been reading a ton of books that were collecting dust on the shelf. So, um, so I'm really into biohacking and a bunch of stuff like that. So, um, I think I'd be really into that kind of thing.

Like what makes people live happier lives? Um, I want to incorporate some of that into the Lightbox life, but certainly it's not the whole thing. So I think something around. Wellness and, you know, just helping more people live fuller, better, more positive lives, I think would be something. And if you asked me this in February, I would've said something completely different.

So this is a post barn teen answer. Well, you know what? I think it's a great longterm answer because if nothing else we've learned through this quarantine and social distancing, it's a mental game. It is a hundred percent between these six inches of, uh, of how you perceive an internal. So true. I think that's great.

Let's see. Ah, this is a fun one. We've talked a little bit about it, but maybe just a chance for you to crystallize on it. What are you currently most excited about? Oh, um, so I would say for Lightbox, I feel like I, you know, we woke up a couple of weeks ago and things started open up. I'm most excited about how this is all gonna reset stuff.

Um, you know, What happened, not only with COVID, um, and you know, I'm from New York, my family's all on long island. They were kind of in the first epicenter of it in the U S and just sort of watching everybody go through that and then into, um, uh, George Floyd and all the stuff that happened there and how awful that was, and just what's happening with the country.

And, um, you know, I'm really excited about what's going to happen after this. You know, I think it's, uh, I think all of this is a catalyst for change. That's overdue. I think there's stuff that's been going on that just, I'm embarrassed to say you don't see it. Cause it's just, you grew up that way. You wouldn't realize that you don't know any different.

And, uh, I think, um, it, this is just a really just, I think all of this coming together, the fact that, you know, if, if people. Stuck at home. Maybe wouldn't be so easy to go out and March and protest and get the voices out. So, so I'm excited for, um, you know, selfishly for the malls to open in our screens, to come back and for us to do positive things in the community and help our brand partners and find new advertisers.

Um, you know, I'm excited that, uh, that revenue is starting to come back. So now we can bring things back and start doing all the things we wanted to do. Uh, I know there was a point there where I thought we were going to get to January 1st and I had an idea that we would get everybody. They didn't just say, let's start over.

Dark let's when we get to January 1st, we're going to say it's 2020 again, and we're just going to do the whole year over pretend 2020 didn't happen and just reset the whole thing. I don't think we have to do that anymore. So, so I'm pretty excited for sort of a safe reopening and somewhat back to normal safely seeing family and friends and, um, you know, I think it's, it's time for that.

And I'm really excited about that. That's great. I think we're excited for a lot of the same things it's going to be good. So you talked about in the answer to question one, and they're behind you, what's your book recommendation for the moment? Um, so I just finished and I know this has been out a little while, but, uh, is it James clear atomic habits?

Okay. Um, I read it cause I wanted, I had always heard about it and I wanted my 14 year old read it and I, I, I was like, I can't be a hypocrite and ask her to read it if I haven't read it yet. Um, I was like, this is not going to be anything new for me, but the whole idea behind little incremental changes was I wished I actually read it in before the current scheme, but it really solidified.

My thoughts I'm, you know, making little changes. Um, you know, I usually go business book, fund book, business book, fund book, uh, next on the list. Um, something, something deeply hidden. John Carol, that's a quantum physics for dummies book, Jim quick, limitless love. Ending aging and then Graham Hancock, uh, America before.

So these are my next four, right? Recommendations. I'm going to add a few of those. Um, yeah, that's, I'm reading a book right now, sky. His name's Jesse Cole. He owns a. Not even a professional baseball team. He owns a team called the Savannah bananas in Savannah, Georgia. And Jesse Cole is well-known for wearing this yellow tuxedo.

It is summer college baseball. So it's not a high quality product, but he's a student of Walt Disney and Barnum Bailey. And his whole approach is creating an experience. They have no advertisers in the stadium. They're sold out every single game. So. Maybe one for your list after you get through those Jesse Cole.

Got it. Jesse Cole, so good stuff, Greg, this has been a lot of fun. Where can people find more about you about Lightbox? What's the best places to find you guys all their info? Um, we've got a lot of great stuff on our website, Lightbox out of home. So Lightbox O h.com. Uh, I'm Greg at Lightbox, little h.com uh, on LinkedIn, you know, um, I, I.

That's probably the best place to find us, either of those things feel free. And, uh, we'd love to talk to anybody. You've got more time. I'm trying to spend more time with people. I don't know, uh, which sounds crazy in this, but you know, um, I'm doing lunch club and things like that, which I never would have done before this.

So, so happy to talk and I love kind of, I love stuff like this. I think this is really fun. And, uh, I appreciate you having me on very good. And we appreciate you doing thank you. And for anyone listening, this has been helpful. I encourage you. Go ahead and click that share button button, send it to somebody who could benefit.