Truthache

Truthache
  • 4.5 (8)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

The Podcast in The Room On Truthache, we talk about the elephant in the room, because we were all thinking it anyway. Join Michael and Daniel as we discuss culture, life, and the issues that matter to us all.  Watch on YouTube and Spotify. Listen everywhere.

  1. MAR 23

    Sell or Be Sold - Ian Illig

    Salespeople are the worst part of humanity. Our guest, Ian Illig, is not the one who said this, but we almost got him to agree with us.  Think about it. They wear plaid jackets or moisture-wicking fabrics, and promise you they’re giving you a good deal while selling you a lemon. The average salesperson puts pressure on you and disappears after they get their commission. And you're left with the memory of a creepy smile of a guy who calls you "buddy" all the time. That’s what we often picture when someone says “salesman.” Ian, on the other hand. He is not a salesman. He doesn’t need to be. He has luxurious hair and genuinely wants to see you thrive. Who wouldn’t beg to buy from someone like that? That's why Ian says high-integrity people should go into sales. Because the bar is low, but when you apply the traits of being a good human, you end up making friends, and sometimes, you sell something while you’re at it. In this chat, we discuss the worst parts of humanity and how you can avoid being an insufferable gasbag. We also discussed the hot air coming out of Washington and the biggest referral fee in history. About the guest: Ian Illig is a sales strategy consultant for early-stage companies at stompbox.io. About The Hosts: Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum. Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

    1h 26m

  2. MAR 17

    AI Slop and Economic Survival - Cody Sharp

    AI is a joke, and we should take it seriously. What do Cody Sharp and a software engineer have in common? Neither one of them writes any code. In Cody’s case, he has not been writing code for even longer. Now, with two working SaaS products on the market, I’d say he’s an expert at it. When we talk about artificial intelligence, Cody is always the first person to come to mind. Not just because of his own intellectual makeup, but because of our ongoing conversations off the mic about the junk AI has allowed us to produce in large supply, and our angry posts online about it. We talk about the necessity of AI in the survival of our economy, as well as its role in creating the modern city dump. About the guest:     •  Cody owns a web development company, https://sharpguyswebdesign.com/, and is a software developer, basically, thanks to AI. He recently launched an app called RECACE.com. Mentioned in this episode  •  Cody’s newsletter about desperate AI (https://mailchi.mp/4cad0684d3de/turkeys-8342264?e=0a0da13c63)  circus pitches   •  Daniel's screed on LinkedIn about Asana and AI (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielherndon_hey-asana-were-friends-right-why-do-activity-7360715123545595904-IG-e?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAG_Aa4B7U6u1QOl_j0Mo-1ZpLBX645FICw)   •  Reflector’s episode about paid protestors (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/paid-protesters/id1743666262?i=1000752900076). About The Hosts:   •  Daniel Herndon (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielherndon/)  is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency (http://hrndn.com)  and author of The Lorem Ipsum (http://danielkherndon.com).   •  Michael Salemi (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-salemi-40b54b16/)  owns a branded apparel and promotional products company, Colored Threads (https://colored-threads.com/).

    1h 26m

  3. MAR 7

    No Time For Regret - Stacey Blanton

    If you want to relax and feel good about yourself, there are two good ways to do it. Visiting Stacey Blanton's spa, Skin Renew, or being a guest on our podcast. Stacey, for an afternoon, decided to do the latter, to share how she looks back on business. To learn and then move on. Another good way to relax. What keeps us up at night are the decisions we made that were maybe the wrong ones, or at least a bigger bite than we thought they were. Stacey shares how she grew her spa business to a second location, from the lessons learned in startup mode, to a new kind of lesson in scale-up mode.  In either case, if you tell Stacey she's not going to make it, then she almost certainly will. And we can relate (and throughout this episode, we do).  About Stacey: Stacey Blanton owns Skin Renew, with locations in Greenwood and Southport, Indianapolis. https://skinrenewdayspa.com/ Mentioned in this Episode: The time when Markwayne Mullen challenged the President of the Teamsters to a fight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBD4Ous5zY0  About The Hosts: Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum, found at https://hrndn.com/ and http://danielkherndon.com/. Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and promotional products company, Colored Threads, found at https://colored-threads.com/.

    1h 18m

  4. FEB 24

    Abandoning Your Dreams - Oliver Mast

    Oliver Mast was about as close as you get to becoming a pro golfer as anyone ever gets. He was playing full-time in tournaments, moved to Hilton Head, and was carving his way forward, until the love for the game began to wane, and the uphill battle to get a spot on a major tour became bleaker. Eventually, he decided he needed to hang up his clubs.  Oliver moved back to Indiana and found an enviable spot as a golf pro on one of the most beautiful private courses in Indianapolis. We talked about what it's like to come within a grass club head’s distance of your dreams, and to give it up, how to pivot, and how to find happiness in chasing a new dream. About the guest: Oliver Mast is a professional golfer who had aspirations of making it on the PGA Tour.  He is currently the Assistant Pro at the Woodstock Club, where he continues to chase his dream, albeit in a much different way. About The Hosts: Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum. Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

    1h 26m

  5. FEB 17

    Strange Luck and Workplace Culture - Jenny Vance

    We are part of the culture we created or the one we’ve accepted. Jenny Vance is very, very lucky.  She’s a strategic growth consultant and a CRO at a tech company. But I’m not talking about some financial achievement, a business exit, or a lucrative executive role, although she’s had some of those; I’m talking about everyday, strange luck. She tells us about 30 rounds being fired, feet away from her bedroom window, none of which hit her home. She and her husband we’re 100% safe, too, even as one person in her driveway was not as lucky. She also tells us about a car that flipped over nearly as close to her house, from which she also escaped harm. Her career path has looked more like course terrain than smooth pavement, but with plenty of worthy achievements and successes. Along the way, she’s learned that she needs to trust two people. Her paid advisors, and herself, with the latter being most important. You might say she’s lucky in business because she has made her luck when she needed it. Add to that, trusting her employees. Jenny talked some sense into Daniel when he did his typical Gen Z rant in which he almost certainly has a good point, but a change of heart comes when we discuss how generations have learned secrets to work-life that the prior never understood, or took for granted. Jenny says that while Gen Z may use different language, they know what treatment should look like. She explains that culture is created by the leaders, and, as we learn in our conversation, what those leaders create often comes from the lessons they’ve learned, or failed to learn, when they were the new professional on the team. About the Guest: Jenny Vance is the founder and CEO of GrowthJen (​​https://www.growthjen.com/) and the CRO of software company, Encamp. Mentioned in this episode: Senator Chris Murphy questions Jeremy Carl, who Trump has nominated for Assistant Secretary of State, about his complaints about the “erasure of white culture.” https://www.instagram.com/reels/DUrOt_YjSGA/    About The Hosts: Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum. Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

    1h 39m

  6. FEB 9

    How to Make Friends as an Adult

    They say it gets harder to make new friends in your adult years. Kids, work, and being annoying can all be factors, but that's not the case for Michael and Daniel, because they need at least two hands and maybe even a foot to count their closest friends – in other words, they are successful geriatric extroverts with a busy social life. This conversation is all about making friends, keeping them, and thriving because you have them. We define what qualifies someone as a friend, versus a really, really good acquaintance who you hug at the end of the meeting, or a terrible friend who you love to hate. We count our actual close friends, and if you're thinking about listening, I will tempt you by pointing out that we may have even mentioned you by name. We discuss how to avoid dating apps, how to be better at networking (and why it's good for your social life), and all this while enjoying some really, really good coffee. Mentioned in the episode:  We made sure to talk about our weekend plans to not watch the Melania movie, which did okay (but not great) at the box office. Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum. Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and promotional products company, Colored Threads.

    1h 9m

  7. JAN 31

    Protesting and Audacious Beliefs - Alex Holt

    How to live out your beliefs on the streets, at work, and in the community. Alex Holt was a creative director at a church when a job loss pushed him to start a full-time creative agency. A bad weekend turned out better than what he would have chosen. Since Alex focuses on helping his clients understand the beliefs that shape their business decisions, we thought we’d ask him to talk about what *he* believes. So, to keep things light, we decided to discuss political protests and whether they are a problem or a necessary part of culture. After that, we discussed religion, how one arrives at their beliefs, and how religious institutions become political. Pretty easy topics. We also discussed the creative business, why bigger is not always better, and how the business community is seeking ways to be flexible and cost-effective, leading to more gig workers and allowing entrepreneurs to build lean teams and optimize for quality rather than quantity.  Also in this episode, Michael Salemi rubs his warm vacation in Mexico in our faces, and I dealt with some mild technical difficulties as a host who is simultaneously also a producer. Everything worked out great. About The Guest: Alex Holt is a founder and owner at CRTR Studio (https://www.crtrstudio.com/), a brand and identity design studio. He also hosts the podcast, Creative Belief. Mentioned in this episode: We briefly discuss how effective managers are often hated or viewed as controversial, a point which referenced a discussion in the comments section of The Lorem Ipsum, an issue that inspired some of the content of this episode. About The Hosts: Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum. Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

    1h 35m

  8. JAN 19

    The Problem With Business Coaches - Adam Weber

    Why should I hire a coach who has never played my game? If you are an entrepreneur or manager, you probably make a lot of decisions based on intuition mixed with data. Why do you need someone else to charge you to talk you through doing what you do every day? And why are there so many business coaches out there? As business-coach skeptics, Michael and I talk with Adam Weber, a tech founder turned business coach, about this and ask him to help us with our unbelief. We talk about how the best business leaders are people with strong intuition who gather information quickly and make decisions without friction, but that the decision-making in a vacuum can get fatiguing and lonely. Adam shared with us what 10 years of research taught him about people management. He also shared what he sees as the biggest challenges plaguing businesses today. We asked whether anyone can be trained into leadership or whether management roles are reserved for some and not others. I think you know his answer.  About The Guest: Adam Weber is a former executive and business coach at https://www.adamweber.co/. About The Hosts: Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum. Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

    1h 34m
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Ratings & Reviews

4.5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

The Podcast in The Room On Truthache, we talk about the elephant in the room, because we were all thinking it anyway. Join Michael and Daniel as we discuss culture, life, and the issues that matter to us all.  Watch on YouTube and Spotify. Listen everywhere.

Information

  • Creator
    Truthache
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    45
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Truthache

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