In this episode, you'll hear from Brandon Drake, a relationship-driven CRM consultant who's built a 7,000+ person networking system that scores people on how genuinely reciprocal they are — not how useful they might be. Becky and Brandon dig into why "networking" makes so many of us cringe, the difference between go-giver and go-getter mentalities, and the exact red flags (and green flags) Brandon listens for in a first conversation. Brandon breaks down how he gamified his CRM with an engagement scoring system, why he refuses to work with CRMs that use "stair-step pricing," and how automation actually freed him up to be more human with the people who matter. If you've ever felt weird about networking, or you're drowning in a LinkedIn list of 4,000 names you barely remember, this conversation offers a genuinely different way to think about relationship-building in business.

Topics Covered:
• Why the "used car salesman" version of networking feels so bad, and what relationship-driven networking looks like instead
• The go-giver vs. go-getter mindset, and why corporate conditioning trains people to ask "what can I get from this person?"
• The one question Brandon asks to instantly reveal whether someone is relationship-driven or purely transactional: "Who are your strategic partners?"
• Red flags Brandon watches for in a first meeting, jumping straight to "target audience," rattling off accomplishments, not respecting calendar/time boundaries
• Green flags that tell Brandon someone is a match, asking how they can help him before he asks them, admitting a mistake and correcting course
• How Brandon gamified his CRM with a points-based engagement score built from both human judgment (tags like "community oriented" or "salesy") and hard data (email opens, replies, referrals)
• Why he has over 7,000 people in his CRM and how the engagement score helps him prioritize who to reconnect with
• His argument that automation and AI, used well, don't replace human connection, they buy back time to actually have it
• How his automated 60-day nurture sequence still routes back to real human follow-up (reconnection calls, updated bios)
• Why he refuses to recommend CRMs with "stair-step pricing" and what he looks for instead
• Who he actually works with: service-based businesses across industries, filtered by values alignment rather than niche
• His closing advice: lead with a go-giver mentality, and go read "The Go-Giver"

Find Brandon Drake at https://healthydataguy.com/

Resources Mentioned:
• "The Go-Giver" by Bob Burg and John David Mann: https://amzn.to/4gHD86z

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Podge Thomas is a queer, neurodivergent, multiracial creative entrepreneur who teaches people how to use Notion — not as another productivity hack, but as a tool for reclaiming curiosity that traditional education flattened. In this episode, Podge walks Becky through the concept of "digital gardens": a pre-algorithm way of collecting, synthesizing, and sharing what you're curious about online, without letting platforms like Facebook or Instagram dictate what you consume. They talk about why Podge refuses to use AI automation inside Notion even though it's available, how educational trauma shaped their fiercely anti-productivity-culture stance, the difference between "efficiency" and genuinely meaningful process, and how anyone can build their own "master's program" of self-directed learning using free tools and a little structure. If you've got 800 open tabs and no system, or you've felt disconnected from your own curiosity, this conversation offers a real alternative to algorithm-driven scrolling.

Topics Covered:
• What digital gardens are, where the concept originated in early-2000s blogging and programmer culture, and why it's resurfacing now
• Podge's input → synthesis → output process: collecting content, processing it in Notion, and turning it into newsletter and blog output
• How educational trauma and being punished for asking questions in school shaped Podge's anti-productivity, curiosity-first philosophy
• Why Podge intentionally avoids algorithm-driven platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) but embraces YouTube and Reddit for discovery
• Podge's decision to email Notion and request AI automation features be removed from their own account
• The difference between using tools for genuine efficiency versus getting trapped in a capitalist productivity mindset
• How Notion forces metacognition, thinking about how you think, arrange, and process information
• Teaching Notion specifically to neurodivergent people, marginalized entrepreneurs, and adult learners who were failed by traditional education
• The idea of building your own "master's program" through free online resources and self-directed curiosity
• Podge's practical workshops and free resources for learning Notion, including a DIY YouTube-in-Notion system

Podge Thomas:
• Website: https://www.podgethomas.com/
• Podge's digital garden

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Bree Nachelle isn't anti-tech; she's a NASA-trained digital strategist, mindfulness facilitator, and AI practitioner who's also brutally honest about what happens when productivity tools stop serving us and start running us. After a mini stroke at 43 forced a total reset, Bree wrote Aligned, Not Automated to draw a hard line between automation for its own sake and automation rooted in purpose. In this conversation, she and Becky dig into why "I hired five AI employees" often just means you've created five more jobs to babysit, how capitalism turns time-saving tools into productivity traps, the specific mental-load relief AI has given her as a Black woman managing chronic illness, and why real guardrails — used books, a paper planner, weekly credit audits, matter more than which app you download. If you've ever felt exhausted despite "automating everything," this one's for you.

Topics Covered:
• Why hiring "AI employees" often just creates more unpaid oversight work instead of real time savings
• The difference between alignment and automation, and why Bree's book exists to name that gap
• How Bree's 2024 mini stroke at age 43 forced a reckoning with burnout, corporate ladder-climbing, and self-neglect
• Using AI tools to fill cognitive gaps during recovery from brain fog, ADHD, and perimenopause
• The environmental and labor costs of AI (water usage, data centers, farmland) held alongside its personal benefits
• Why women, especially Black women, carry disproportionate mental load, and how that shapes both AI adoption and AI skepticism
• Bree's personal guardrails: buying used books, auditing AI credit usage weekly, printing and fact-checking AI output by hand
• Using AI to manage chronic migraines via pressure-change alerts, and to manage caregiving check-ins for her kids
• The "23 minutes to reset your brain" research on task-switching and why multitasking doesn't work
• Rejecting AI-generated art specifically, while still using AI tools for workflow and admin support

Connect with Bree Nachelle:
• "Aligned, Not Automated" by Bree Nachelle: https://amzn.to/3RwVoFl
• Bree's website: https://baronessbree.com/

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