100 Episodes Later – Reflections, Lessons, and What Comes Next

In this milestone 100th episode of The mbaMission Podcast, host Harold Simansky and mbaMission founder Jeremy Shinewald reflect on more than two years of MBA admissions insights. They share favorite moments, discuss what sets applicants apart, and explore how AI and evolving trends are shaping the application process.

They also highlight the long-term value of an MBA, from career outcomes to lifelong connections, and look ahead to what comes next for the podcast.

00:00 Celebrating 100 Episodes and Podcast Milestones

01:15 Growth, Reach, and Impact of the Podcast

02:18 The MBA “X Factor” and What Sets Applicants Apart

03:43 Favorite Guests and Most Memorable Episodes

06:38 AI in MBA Applications: Opportunities and Risks

10:47 MBA Experience Today: In-Person Learning and Global Exposure

15:49 Changing Applicant Profiles and Career Planning Advice

18:19 On-Track by mbaMission, Admissions Strategy, and School Research

21:33 Interviews, Emotional Intelligence, and Final Reflections

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Transcript

Celebrating 100 Episodes and Podcast Milestones

Harold Simansky 0:00

Woo! We should have got some party hats. 100 episodes. Congratulations. I was just made aware of the numbers. I think for now we've been over, what was a million views?

Jeremy Shinewald 0:08

Yeah.

Harold Simansky 0:08

36,000 hours of watch time? What are some of the questions that you want to have answered in the next 100 episodes?

Jeremy Shinewald 0:15

Continuing to broaden our our our roster and mandates and to learn to help people understand not just with the application process, but also from the outputs. Harold. We should have got some party hats. We should have gotten a lot of money. Some streamers, some some horns. Exactly.

Harold Simansky 0:48

100 episodes. Congratulations. Thank you very much. I'm very excited about it. Yeah. And as I look over your shoulder, I'm seeing that car you got for me for the 100th episode. Fantastic. It's like, man, this has been so such a valuable experience for me.

Jeremy Shinewald 1:01

I was hoping we were going to do the Will Chamberlain, like you holding the hundred, the famous hundred-point game. Yes, yes. All these have been filmed in one day. This is your hundredth after 100 podcasts, right?

Harold Simansky 1:10

Today. Today. Yeah, exactly right.

Jeremy Shinewald 1:12

Uh let's let's look back.

Harold Simansky 1:14

Yeah.

Growth, Reach, and Impact of the Podcast

Jeremy Shinewald 1:14

First of all, you've been on, I we should get some some some numbers, but you've been on probably a few more than me. I'm always I always say I'm the guest on your podcast. That's right. That's right. And you've done it.

Harold Simansky 1:24

And you're on a week-to-week contract.

Jeremy Shinewald 1:26

Just to be clear here. Yeah, exactly. So I when how long have we been doing this? When was the first episode? I guess.

Harold Simansky 1:33

Um at this point, when was it? Probably about a year and a half ago, maybe even two years ago. Two years ago. And it was also the reason I chose a podcast because I have such a great face for podcasting. Right. And lo and behold, it turns out podcasts are awesome video. That was a that was a surprise for everybody at that point.

The MBA “X Factor” and What Sets Applicants Apart

Jeremy Shinewald 1:50

Uh we've had I mean hundreds of thousands of downloads uh both on YouTube and on um and on on uh like just normal podcasting platforms. Yeah, exactly. It's been a real honor to go out there and and I mean, think about it. Like in our day-to-day work, we you know work with a small number of applicants every round, but to influence that number of people who are interested in in the MBA now, I think as we branch out a little bit into their professional lives, it's been a real honor.

Harold Simansky 2:18

That's right. I mean, I'm still really struck by the fact that the X Factor episode, probably our most popular, is 75,000 views.

Jeremy Shinewald 2:25

Right.

Harold Simansky 2:26

And it's one of those things. Well, what's the X factor in the X Factor episode? Yeah. And it's always one of those things. Well, I don't think we really know. But at the end of the day, uh, you and I both like our job a lot. Yeah. We really like helping people. Yeah. We're really helping people in this context. So I think that's what I think our enthusiasm shows. And we both like talking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not gonna argue there. What is the X factor?

Gavriella Semaya 2:48

Well, I think the first thing to realize is that it's an X factor because it's somewhat difficult to pin it down. We often get questions about, you know, here's my profile. Will I get in? And the answer is, as Jessica says, if we could tell you that, then we'd probably be lying. That's the truth. But there are certain things that can distinguish you. And I think the first and foremost X factor is differentiation. What makes you one of one? Why does the Stanford or HBS need you in the class as opposed to somebody else who has your background on paper?

Favorite Guests and Most Memorable Episodes

Jessica Shklar 3:18

I remember when I first started at the company, I was asking Jeremy, we were doing a lot of training at CEO about um what does make people stand out for the school? He gave me a phrase that I have used for almost 20 years now, which is the applicants who get into Wharton and you know and Duke and all these Chicago, all these outstanding schools, they're the applicants who, when they're given an opportunity, they just knock it out of the park.

Jeremy Shinewald 3:43

Let's uh let's talk about let's talk about some of those guests. So who would you say your favorite guest is?

Harold Simansky 3:47

Okay, so I love the episode with John Byrne, who was the founder of Poets and Kwans, and I love it for some of what you poet fe some of what is seen on the screen and what is not seen on the screen. And what I mean by that Tell me more. Yes, and what I mean by that, so John Byrne, it was a great episode. We talked about schools that could be considered M7 schools, M8 schools, whatever it is. Right.

Jeremy Shinewald 4:07

So uh John people just to be clear, we we it was an episode where we we talked about if there was an M eight instead of an M7, which school would make it right. That had tons of tons of views too.

Harold Simansky 4:18

Yeah, tons of views, and I think really some great content there. Listen, a gro a lot of great information from John Byrne about, again, like you said, what school could be considered the M8 school.

John Byrne 4:28

So I I look at it two different ways. What do prospective students choose? Yeah. Okay. Right. So if you looked at yield rates, you would essentially know what a an informed, discerning crowd of prospective students are choosing as a number eight school. Right. And if you look by employers, you would know which school the employers choose as the number eight school. That's fair. So guess guess who has the yield that would certainly qualify them as the number eight school, Duke Fuqua.

Harold Simansky 5:03

Okay, that makes sense.

John Byrne 5:04

Duke's yield is over 57%. Now, for those who don't know, yield is the percentage of accepted applicants who enroll in the school. In other words, you you have to invite a lot more people than will come because people have multiple offers and they choose one school over another. Yeah. To have a yield rate of over 50% is exceptional.

Harold Simansky 5:25

Yes. And also there was just some great con things happening outside the school candid and has such a depth. Exactly right. And he knows so much across so many different mentions. We just couldn't fit all of it into one episode.

Jeremy Shinewald 5:37

Yeah, yeah. People might know that this thing is edited a little bit because Harold's loose canon. Yeah, yeah.

Harold Simansky 5:43

And you're AI.

Jeremy Shinewald 5:44

Yeah, exactly. There have been some there's been some speculation that I am AI. Apparently, there's something like if you like, if you put something with five figures, if you put five fingers up, you people can tell that you're not AI because AI produces six often or something. Something like that. Some nonsense like that. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. If you want to be one of our success stories, sign up for a free consultation with a member of our full-time MBA admissions team. Since we've worked with tens of thousands of applicants over the past two decades, we can give you our honest opinion on your chances and help you put together your very best application. This is not a sales call, but rather your first session with one of us for free. We can give you a profile evaluation, answer specific questions about the process, review your resume, talk about your school choices, and so much more. Sign up now for a free consultation at mba mission.com slash consult.

Harold Simansky 6:38

Yeah, and what's sort of weird though, Jeremy, is when we started this podcast again, let's say it was two years ago, AI sort of wasn't a thing. I mean, I guess it was, but it was really just sort of lurking, and now suddenly deep into the pool right there.

Jeremy Shinewald 6:51

Yeah, yeah, that it it's interesting how at the beginning I kind of looked at and said, you know, the problem with it is it's not very good.

Harold Simansky 6:59

Yeah.

Jeremy Shinewald 7:00

And people are going to are going to get to generic not very good. Yeah. I'd say ironically, um the problem now is that it's gotten much better, yeah, but still isn't it's not that it's not good. It's that it's gotten it's gotten better, but isn't it still lacks the personalization to allow you to really reveal your character and authenticity? So I think as it gets a little bit better, it's it's sort of like less obviously dangerous, right? Where where you're you don't realize that you're sort of putting in something that has like a bit of a generic veneer over it. That's right.

Harold Simansky 7:35

You're better at it, it makes you better at being average.

Jeremy Shinewald 7:37

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, people people, there's no question, people are using it. Now the schools ask about it. You know, how have you used AI in the production of this? I've had a lot, I've had different applicants um answer in really different ways. Say, I used AI, I didn't use AI at all. I used AI uh to uh to slightly edit and to reduce word count. Uh I used AI for all the ideas are mine, but I used AI to smooth out some of the rough edges. And I I've I've had I didn't have that many applicants in the in it to Harvard this year, but I had three applicants, and all three admitted to using AI at some level, and all three of them had interviews. So yeah.

Harold Simansky 8:19

Well the AI it's I think really very, very interesting as a test case. On the one hand, you're applying to go to business school, and a key tool of business is going to be AI. So this notion here that you're not gonna use the key tool of business, AI, in your application to a business school, that not only does it beg credibility, it almost begs foresight. I mean, are you really in that case optimizing for a solution here? Interesting. And and I I don't know what the answer is, because at the same point, you and I read a lot of essays, and we always know what an AI generated essay looks like. So that's not really hard to do.

Jeremy Shinewald 8:52

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I I myself have sat down, like tried to give it prompts like from from my own life. Like if I was writing this essay now, and I gave it these prompts, and I've and I've been very specific with the prompts, and um, this is not bad. That's where I kind of came up with that with that with that um assumption. I will, you know, that that I'm like, oh, the problem is that this is not bad. Yeah, it's just not me and it's not great. And I know I can make it great if I put my heart and soul into it. Um not bad isn't this isn't the place you want to be when you're applying to Stanford, which still has a pretty low acceptance rate. So so we started this a little bit kind of like post-pandemic, in um coming off of a trough in in applications. And so using Harvard as a bellwether, Harvard typically has say 9,500 applications. And for 22, I'm doing this for 22 years, for 20 of those 22 years, there's been a nine at the beginning, 9,000, 9,300, 9,800, whatever it might be, in front of Harvard's uh application volumes. And for two years post-pandemic, because the job market was tight and people were working from home, and it was like, wow, this is so great. I'm getting paid to work from home. Um, the applications fell off. Then they stormed back, and everyone started writing the MBA is back. But in fact, they stormed back to where they were. Like it wasn't, it wasn't just progression to the mean. Yes, progression to the mean. Yeah. It's it's it's been interesting to see uh a little bit of of volatility in this pool. I always say, like, when things are are tough for applicants, that's when you want to apply, right? You want to apply when there are a few. Yes, yeah. And so right now we're back in we're back in a cycle. So the evolution of our podcast, we're we're we're coming off of a trough, back up, and uh on again, a once-in-22-year trough. And um and my knowledge from my conversations with admissions officers, we're back in a trough.

MBA Experience Today: In-Person Learning and Global Exposure

Harold Simansky 10:46

Yeah. Listen, I can imagine if you're an international student, I'm not sure this is necessarily a time that you simply want to be in the U.S. I mean, quite honestly, if you're an international student, do you want to be in the US? And like you said, but counterintuitively, this is the time to apply if you're an international student. It's it's sort of the this crazy situation. What I find really interesting, though, is okay, we're just getting out of, or we're now fairly solidly out of a period where virtual learning, virtual interactions were dominant. All of us were on Zoom. And I think what we're really seeing that's refreshing is people finally make it into the classroom with real people not separated by Zoom and just how much more fulfilling it is. Just what these, again, these human relationships really feel like. And just honestly, by people being back in the classroom in this type of um just organization, this type of system, they're simply exhilarated just being with people, talking to people, learning with people. And that's something that I think we under-index.

Jeremy Shinewald 11:41

You know what's an amazing difference in over over my entire career? And I think we talked about this in an episode with a guest, I can't remember which one. Um maybe you remember, but uh uh, you know, every time I talk to someone we work with who's out of top school, yeah, it's like it's like, you know, yeah, I can talk, uh, I can talk Thursday, Friday morning, I'm off to Ibiza or something. You're like, you're like, yeah, you know, uh I I can talk, I can talk Wednesday, uh, we're we're all going to you know to Aspen. It's it's it's like a like the MBA should be should be, I don't know, someone should come up with a a better acronym that somehow i invokes a clever uh a clever saying about international travel at this at this time. That's right.

Harold Simansky 12:21

Was it hidden? I think it was the president of the Harvard Business School Students Association. Right. Yeah, yeah. He was terrific. Honestly, if you want to find out anything you need to know about Harvard Business School, about the social world.

Hayden Tanabe 12:32

Yeah, about the social world. I think that I did not expect to travel as much in the MBA program as I have. So this year I was really excited because I went to Oktoberfest in Munich. Okay. Our German classmates organized that trip for us. Okay. How many students? It's about 200 of us. Wow. I also went to Saudi Arabia in a very similar way. Our Saudi classmates partnered with the travel agency to get us there and take us there, which is really fun. There is one official, like required HBS international trip. It's called Field or Field Global Immersion FGI. They send all 900 of us, whatever the exact number is like all 900 of us to 15 different countries. So I went to Accra, Ghana. Okay.

Jessica Shklar 13:18

Okay.

Hayden Tanabe 13:18

And I had never been to Africa before. And so they have us rank the countries and they'll try our their best to like put us somewhere. Every single one of your classmates is in such a different part of the world. I remember checking Find My Friends. I was like, the whole globe is lit up because everyone's just everywhere.

Harold Simansky 13:32

Yes. So who was your favorite guest?

Jeremy Shinewald 13:34

My favorite guest for sure was Austin. And I hope that people watch the Hayden to Hayden episode. Hayden was great, and he's such a charismatic guy. Uh, but Austin uh just told his like emotional story about how he was got some mentorship and uh he was at UC San Diego and got some mentorship and and found his way into consulting found himself on an international uh international uh consulting gig in Norway. Yes. And um he was helping support family.

Harold Simansky 14:06

It just such as a and he had a walk to his business school for the interview from the bus stop and cold weather. It was like some crazy story like that.

Jeremy Shinewald 14:12

Yeah, I think he he got in. He wasn't even sure his his GRE was tough, but I I can't I can't I think he went seven for seven or six for seven or scholarships. I mean I can't remember. I mean, listen, he ended up going and he we gave him on track for free at the beginning. Yes. And uh and he used it and loved it and was a great proponent of it. And um, you know, just did incredibly well, got a scholarship, and it's just it's like it was like life-changing for him. Married guys, exactly very young, married people. But to Duke, if you feel comfortable, would you share the story of the text you got when you're in when you're in in Norway? Because I think it it will give people a a real sense of who you are and where you've come from. And and also I think give people a sense of like what's possible.

Austin Sandoval 14:53

Yeah. So I was in Norway, it was February, and at the time I'd only been there for about four or five months. And it it's in the winter, it's pitch black in Norway. And you know, I don't know what I'm doing. It's a whole other country, a whole other language. Like, you know, everyone's speaking Norwegian. I don't speak any Norwegian. Um, my mom texted me and she basically, you know, asked me to send her ten dollars um to let my sister go out to eat, for lack of better words. And that rocked me. You know, when you're in Norway and you're by yourself and you're doing everything you can to set yourself up for success, you know, ten dollars was it just blew my mind. I was like, you know, and these are my sisters, I absolutely love them. And um, so of course, you know, I sent ten dollars like here's a hundred, you know, but um that was such a reminder of you know what I'm doing, like why I work so hard and why I never quit and why I always go after everything that I, you know, hope for.

Changing Applicant Profiles and Career Planning Advice

Harold Simansky 15:48

Listen, I think one thing that we're seeing with our guests is just the particularly obviously our student guests, the range of experiences people have. Yeah. With this notion here of, okay, I'm just an investment banker, I'm just a consumer. We've actually had very few of those on. We've had people with just amazing backgrounds coming from all sorts of different directions. Right. Entrepreneur before business school, entrepreneur after business school, sort of non-standard, non-traditional. In fact, we're thinking we're doing a whole episode on non-traditional tickets.

Jeremy Shinewald 16:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I think that's been a major change also over not just over the hundred episodes square, but over of the of this podcast, but over my career. Yeah. The beginning, business school was for consultants and banks. It was bankers, not even private equity. Private equity is the industry when I started doing this, didn't exist, it didn't exist as we know it today in 2024, where you know, now everyone and their uncle has a private equity firm. And uh and you know, that just didn't it just didn't exist like that. And um, you know, so it was bankers and consultants. Now it's it's really, really varied. There are a lot of different people that are yeah, the diversity of our applicants is tremendous.

Harold Simansky 16:48

Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I think one of the big uh takeaways we always want our clients to have is thinking about, okay, just not why you're going to business school, but okay, really let's get specific here. What does that first job out of business school look like? What does the next job look like? What is the realistic dream at that point? If anything, I hope what people take away from this experience is they can certainly change their plan, they can change their minds, but by all means, at least go in there with a straw man. Just at least go in there with a belief that, okay, I'm going to business school to do very specific things.

Jeremy Shinewald 17:20

Right, for sure. Especially in a world where there's like uncertainty of the future, you owe it to yourself. Like, you know, the world's changing so quickly and geo, the geopolitics are changing so quickly. You owe it to yourself to have a true North when you go into this experience because you know it's it's an expensive endeavor. You gotta you gotta work on that ROI.

Harold Simansky 17:37

Well, listen, and when you think about ROI, I think also people don't realize just how long the return is. And what I mean by that is for most people your career is gonna be 50 years post-business school. And I don't know about you, I'm out 25 years or 20 years, whatever it is. I'm still connecting with my classmates. I'm still learning from them. I mean, this is something that has really carried me through till today. I mean, I still go to M back to MIT all the time, and the reality is it's just an incredible experience.

Jeremy Shinewald 18:00

I have a weekend every year with my closest friends from business school, and it's like a reunion between reunions, and I love it, and I'm in touch. Tomorrow morning I'm going for coffee with a uh we're in Boston, a Boston-based uh alumni school who I meet up with quarterly. That's all she can manage. She can't manage more than a quarterly meeting with me. Yeah. So she's led to do that. Yeah.

On-Track by mbaMission, Admissions Strategy, and School Research

Harold Simansky 18:18

Jeremy, what started with our podcast was on track. So how is on track going? Yeah, yeah. What have been some of the surprises, some of the things that have been really exciting for you?

Jeremy Shinewald 18:28

That's funny. It's it's the tail, it was it's the tail wagging the dog, right? Like it we started with a massive online curriculum. Yeah. And that'll that gave us an awareness of the power of video and our skills in that area. We've had our our amazing videographer, Jeremy Fecto. Thank you, Jeremy. Let's give him a round of applause. Absolutely, just right over there, everybody. Right there. So uh yeah, Fecto Media. If anyone needs an amazing podcast out there, uh you know, anyone needs an amazing video podcast being produced, I would call them. And um, but they gave us that you know, they gave us a sense of our capabilities through on track. And on track has just been it it's incredible how you know you imagine you're putting up this this curriculum for people and they're gonna learn from it and they're gonna love it. And I think that is that is what happened. I think the uh the thing that I never imagined is how much our our own package clients would use it and love it.

Harold Simansky 19:18

That's right. And so how much we use it. Yeah, we use consulting. It's such a good resource.

Jeremy Shinewald 19:23

Yeah, it's just it's so encyclopedic. Yeah. And so, you know, if someone wants to know, just get smart quickly on 17 business schools. Yes. Uh, you know, then maybe more now. I think we added one or two. Uh, you know, you want to learn about about Wharton and really like be conversant of it. You in a you you're still gonna have to do your own homework, but like, you know, you can watch under an hour videos on Wharton and be like, wow, I in an interactive way, I am I can't pick this up on the website. I I I have I have a lot of knowledge. I am beyond, you know, uh I'm at a I'm way beyond uh, you know, I'm an intermediate here. I'm not I'm not an expert. I remember one of the best pieces of feedback I got was an applicant who um went to an information session at Columbia and found himself talking to an admissions officer afterwards, and he he said, he sent me a note afterwards. He said, or he sent the firm a note afterwards saying that he had he had he had he was an on-track user and he had watched the Columbia um the sort of how to get into Columbia Columbia uh videos, and he felt ready for those conversations that he didn't know were even going to happen because he just kind of had a depth. So that that's been awesome.

Harold Simansky 20:33

Yeah, and listen, I think that's something that we really stress with people, and this is what makes on tracks really so good, is a key differentiator for you can certainly be that you know the school. Yeah. And you know the school and specificity is credibility. If you say you're committed to that school, well, if you know something about it, that really helps down.

Jeremy Shinewald 20:48

Yeah, on track gets you up to the ladder very, very quickly.

Harold Simansky 20:50

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Jeremy Shinewald 20:53

Exciting news! You can now access On-Track by MBA Mission for free. Take our two-minute onboarding questionnaire to personalize your learning path. Choose the free plan, and you'll have unlimited access to our complete modules on MBA application timelines, standardized testing, your professional background, community leadership, school selection, and more. You'll also get access to select lessons from our brainstorming, personal statement, essay, resume, and recommendation modules. It's a great introduction to the on-track platform and will help you jumpstart the MBA application process. Get started today at on track.mba mission.com.

Harold Simansky 21:33

Absolutely. You know what else is one of our best viewed videos talking about Warden, you touched on Warden, is the Warden team based discussion video. Right. Which is the interview, as everyone knows, it's team based. And the reality is it's very, very intimidating. And I think when people just go watch our videos about the Warden team based discussion, it's demystifying. It really starts getting people thinking about them the right way. It's not sort of this uh six on six or six on one or uh six on six.

Jeremy Shinewald 21:58

Well, I think also the other the other thing about it is that. It shows how the schools are actually doubling down on emotional intelligence. They, you know, in a world with AI, uh, they want to know that you can exercise judgment, that you can think extemporaneously, that you know how to interact with other people. Um maybe uh, you know, T V D started a while back.

Jessica Shklar 22:19

Uh well actually let's even back up and talk about why is Wharton even doing this. Right. Um because they did used to have the traditional process. Right. And several years ago, maybe seven, eight years ago, they switched to this process. And they said it was because they wanted to weed out the jerk factor. Yeah. That it's very hard in a discussion with your peers to hide who you really are. And Wharton is so concerned about collaboration, about building a strong community. They just don't want any bad apples in the class. Right.

Jeremy Shinewald 22:49

But there's a I I think uh an increased emphasis on some of these aspects. But you know, we we were talking about yesterday, the in the the rising number of schools that are using um, you know, video and that are giving you no time to think about it because they know that you're gonna quickly s quickly type it in. And I mean the uh you know, schools saying that individuals are on screen typing in the yeah, Donna Evanson from MIT.

Harold Simansky 23:13

That was a great one. Uh Donna was a favorite of mine too, for sure.

Jeremy Shinewald 23:16

Donna Evanson, the the uh the admissions director at MIT, it was just so sardonic and wonderful.

Harold Simansky 23:21

And also it was like just so mind-blowing, but when she said it, they could see on video, they you're doing a better for the school. They could see on video people typing in the question and looking and reading. It seems so insane.

Jeremy Shinewald 23:32

Yeah. But such poor judgment. That sort of shows the la lack of emotional intelligence.

Harold Simansky 23:37

Interesting fact. Up until this year, we um had a 60-second lag between here's your question, you have sixty seconds to think about it, ready record. What we noticed last year in particular, uh, that in that 60-second time period, again, these are not MBA candidates, these are for other programs, they were actually most likely typing in, asking Chat GPT how to respond. And it was very clear to us that we could see them reading.

Jeremy Shinewald 24:06

Oh no.

Harold Simansky 24:07

And in some cases, they could not even pronounce some of the words that they were being told to say. And this was supposed to be an off-the-cuff, you know, tell us about a time you had a challenge, you know, you were challenged at work, and how did you address it? So we cut that time in the middle from 60 seconds to 10 seconds. Okay, and we've tested it. It's real you have to type really fast to get a 10 seconds for Chat GPT for it to go. And again, it's just an additional piece of information for us for our MBA candidates around presence, thinking quick on your feet, and English language proficiency. So listen, as we think about going forward, um, what are the some of the questions that you want to have answered in the next 100 episodes?

Jeremy Shinewald 24:46

I want I want a full, I want to I won't I want a full get to know Harold episode. I think the world needs to know who Harold Samanski is.

Harold Simansky 24:52

Well that's very kind of you. I'm I'm sorry.

Jeremy Shinewald 24:58

Unfortunately your life has been options. It's uh look for the major motion picture. That's right. Coming out from uh what's the what's the big A24? Is that the big one? Right, right. Yes.

Harold Simansky 25:06

And I had a client who was working at A24. Really? Yes, yes, yes.

Jeremy Shinewald 25:10

So uh what am I I've I've really been enjoying as we've kind of branched out into other professional uh interviews, uh remarkable uh you know, uh series of interviews with um your your your your former uh you know your current friend, your childhood friend, uh Debbie Levich, who came on and talked about.

Harold Simansky 25:29

Current friend Debbie Levitch, former I grew up with Joshua Margolis, an HBS professor, did a couple of podcasts with us, and just some we've been very blessed to have some incredible people coming onto our podcast.

Jeremy Shinewald 25:40

Yeah, yeah. So I think that that's something I'm pretty excited about in the future, just continuing to broaden our our our roster and mandates and to learn to help people understand not just with the application process, but also kind of the outputs.

Harold Simansky 25:52

Yes.

Jeremy Shinewald 25:53

Um, you know, having uh Frank Cohen on talk about real estate, you know, having um and talk about kind of how to be successful, just generally speaking, professionally, but also uh as a also a consulting. I think it's been really great.

Harold Simansky 26:07

Yeah, and and listen, hopefully going forward we'll see some entrepreneurs who went to business school. Uh one episode that's coming up is with Clyde Anderson, who went to MIT, actually founded a company in MIT and is doing great with that. Right. But yeah, I think it's really exciting now to see where people have taken their MBAs. And they've taken in all sorts of different directions, as you both you and I have.

Jeremy Shinewald 26:26

So, Harold, what do you think has been the secret to us maintaining our 5.0 rating on uh Apple Podcasts? Good looks. Good looks, yeah. Okay, okay.

Harold Simansky 26:35

I mean beyond good looks. Um banter. Yeah. Clever banter. Good chemistry? Sure. That's right. Um let's be consistency? Yeah.

Jeremy Shinewald 26:46

Interruptions.

Harold Simansky 26:47

That's right.

Jeremy Shinewald 26:48

Inability to answer questions because I'm because I'm talking over you.

Harold Simansky 26:52

All of that. All of that. Okay. Um on track mugs. Um Yeah. Listen, uh I was just made aware of the numbers. I think right now we've been over, what was it, a million views?

Jeremy Shinewald 27:03

Yeah. 36,000 hours of watch time. Yeah. Um, yeah, five-star rating, I'm happy to say. Yeah, that's great. Uh, and it's been awesome. You know what's nice is that we're out there, and other people on our team are out there. You know, we had Jessica Schklar, Rachel Beck, Melissa Blakesley, uh, Gabby Samaya, yeah, um, and more. Um, you know, we went out we went on to the West Coast. We had that was a lot of fun. You know, Nation Tribetti and Debbie Choi and Julianne Hafey. You know, it's been it's just been great to really showcase our team, but then the second order impact of that is having people call us and say, hey, I really want to talk to Harold, or I really want to talk to I watched the episode with Julianne. I'd love to work with her. Is she available? Or how do I get a hold of Jessica? And can I tell you one thing that's funny? One of my favorite clients this year who got into the Stanford GSB, such a wonderful guy. Uh, maybe we can have him on the podcast at some point. He said to me, he said, you know, there's some effect that they that that's uh that psychologists talk about, where if you see the person on TV, there's some distance between you and you don't believe that you can actually like interact with them. Like it's it's almost some sort of like, I mean, in our case, misperception of fame. Right, right. Um, and and he was like, I just I had no idea that I could actually work with you. I just assume that you guys, this is all you do, and you just you're just sort of talking heads. Right. And you can work with Harold or you can work with Jessica or Rachel or Yeah.

Harold Simansky 28:31

All of us still do 30-minute free consultations. And the reality is, why do we do them? Yes, of course, to bring clients in, no question about it. But we all of us just like talking to people and hearing interesting stories. Yeah. So I actually really enjoy them. So, yes, by all means, sign for a free 30-minute consultation with me, with Jeremy, with Jessica, with Rachel, with Gabby, with Julianne, with whoever it is. But honestly, just come with your questions. At this point, we're not there to sell yet. We're just there to sort of understand what your needs are and see if we can help.

Jeremy Shinewald 28:59

Devi. Another person's been on the podcast. Oh, yes, Devi. Devi on the podcast with John, I think. We had Christine. That's right, Christine. Devi, Christine. So, yeah, we've had a lot of team members. We're I thought we better we've had everyone on. Yeah. It's funny, you know, like you think about uh other firms where they have no presence online, which is a choice, I guess. Um, or maybe they're just resource constraint or don't have a point of view or whatever it might be. Um, you know, you can't get to know you can get to know our team through our podcast, through our through our our YouTube channel, which also had over a million views. Like independently, our podcast and our YouTube channel each had over a million. It's crazy, it hits us, it's crazy.

Harold Simansky 29:36

Listen, I think also what this showcases is the fact that we're all different people. We don't have a system here. There is no sense of okay, we're gonna do A, then B, then C. The reality is it's a very important thing. Everyone's their own snowflake. Yeah, exactly. And we're in all a human process, we're all different from each other. Certain people who want to work with me may be better off working with Debbie. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, quite a bit.

Jeremy Shinewald 29:59

Yeah, I'll say to people for sure. I'll say them like, look, I'm a chatter box. I'm like, I'm I am you're probably you if if you if you don't want to, you know, really chat, like uh you know, I don't like to just call someone and say, okay, let's get to work. Let's get to work. But if that's someone you need, if that's the way you operate best, or someone else on our team. Like there are other people who could be like, yeah, let's let's laser focus the whole time.

Harold Simansky 30:19

No, absolutely absolutely. And and as you can see, listen, you and I are both still having fun. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course.

Jeremy Shinewald 30:24

Maybe that's a good place to end. I mean, I think that's perfect.

Harold Simansky 30:28

Jeremy, thank you for the opportunity. Opportunity by all means. I just love doing this. I love helping these folks, and and I just think it's a great profession. It business school is just a great opportunity for some people.

Jeremy Shinewald 30:40

Thank you for bringing the energy and enthusiasm and smile. You are indefatigable in that regard. And it's been uh a great run and a hundred more, to a hundred more.

Harold Simansky 30:48

There we go. Yeah. Okay.