The Allan McKay Podcast

The Black Swan Group is a consulting company that trains its clients how to be successful at negotiating. They help achieve exceptional results in business and personal negotiations using hostage negotiation skills. The Group was co-founded by Chris Voss, the author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It, and his son Brandon Voss.  Prior to writing this bestselling book, Chris Voss was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, as well as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group. During his government career, he also represented the U.S. Government at two international conferences sponsored by the G-8 as an expert in kidnapping. Prior to becoming the FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator, Chris served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI. He was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years.   During Chris’s 24 year tenure in the FBI, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Since Black Swan’s inception in 2008, Brandon Voss has established assessment procedures for new clients that take their needs, situations, and corporate culture into account so Black Swan’s approach can be customized to each client. Brandon has made it his mission to teach clients how to identify the basic types of negotiators and has developed a methodology for dealing with each type in the most successful way. Brandon’s background is in sales. He has done retail sales for Macy’s and business-to-business sales for Verizon. In addition to training clients, Brandon has guest lectured at USC Marshall School of Business, Georgetown McDonough School of Business and organizations like Policy Innovators in Education. In this Podcast, Brandon Voss talks about the art of negotiation and how to use of your emotional intelligence and leverage during any negotiation. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/166/.

Cameron Smith is an award-nominated visual effects artist who is also a Lead Compositor at Weta. He first studied computer science at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia before transitioning into programing and visual effects. He first began doing visual effects for tv commercials and short films. Over the course of his over a decade-long career, Cameron has worked for studios like Cutting Edge VFX, Fuel VFX, ILM and Weta, serving as a Compositing Lead, Supervisor and a Lighting Technical Director. Some of his projects include The Hobbit, Battleship, Furious 7, Man of Steel, Iron Man, King Kong, Avatar (for which he was nominated for a VES Award) and many more. In this Episode, Cameron talks about his over a decade-long career as a visual effects artist, the benefits of programing, constantly learning new skills and the latest technology. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/165/.

Justin Leduc is a Toronto-based web developer and 3D digital artist. In July 2018, he’s captured the attention of millions with his 3D animation monster keeping watch over the Golden Gate Bridge. Since then, the video has gone viral, earning over 15 million views. In the second part of this two-part interview, Justin talks about his future projects -- post his first viral video -- and the new platform on Patreon; as well as the importance of continuous learning and discipline. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/164/.

Justin Leduc is a Toronto-based web developer and 3D digital artist. In July 2018, he’s captured the attention of millions with his 3D animation monster keeping watch over the Golden Gate Bridge. Since then, the video has gone viral, earning over 15 million views. In the first part of this two-part interview, Justin talks about his journey from starting out to putting in his 10,000 hours; about the importance of creating your brand and taking risks -- as well as dealing with the success of a viral video. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/163/.

Your career is a journey. So is learning: It takes time! But when learning a new skill or software, or language, many people get overwhelmed because their metrics for measuring success are off.  You need to front load your learning. Things are hard in the beginning, but it gets easier the longer you stick to it. And you do get better! You need to challenge yourself by doing -- not by overwhelm. Learn just in time -- instead of just in case. In this Episode, Allan McKay talks about how to set yourself for success when learning a new skill, how to adjust one’s mindset and measure one’s goals. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/162/.  

One of the key things, as we go through our careers -- is having the right mindset.  It’s the mindset that allows you to pick up a new skill. If you’re present with what you’re doing, if you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty -- all of that plays into how successfully you’re going to learn. But you have to put in the work, in the trenches. Getting there is not the same as climbing it! That’s when people fall off. It’s about the experience that you go on, along the way. In this Episode, Allan talks about having the right mindset for creating a change in your life and career -- and how to handle your challenges and failures along the way. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/161/.

A lot of you are still stuck in convincing yourselves that your Dream Job is attainable. But you do know that you have this passion -- and that is your fire! If you have a feeling that something is missing and you want to fill that hole -- this is the Episode for you!  Changing the mindset -- is STEP ONE in the right direction! You have to live and breathe what you want to do. You have to pay your dues now. Talent is the easy thing. You can put in the 10,000 hours -- and build talent! The harder part is putting in the time. It’s also important to measure your goals, so that you can adjust along the way. In this Episode, Allan tackles the very first step on the way to your Dream Job -- changing your mindset! -- and asking the right questions to get you there! For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/160/.

Terryl Whitlatch is considered to be one of the top Creature Designers and Animal Anatomists working in the field today. In a career spanning over 25 years, Terryl’s film credits include Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars:The Special Edition, Jumanji 1 and 2, Men in Black, Brother Bear, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Curious George, Beowulf and many more. She has worked for ILM, Lucasfilm, Pixar, Walt Disney, Talking Pictures, LucasArts, Chronicle Books, Simon and Schuster, and various zoos and natural history museums.  Terryl is also the author of two books, The Wildlife of Star Wars and The Katurran Odyssey. In addition, Terryl is involved with several other book and film concepts, as well as teaching Creature Design and Construction / Anatomy at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. In this Episode, Terryl talks about the original passion that inspired her art, the difference between 2D and 3D animation -- as well as hyperrealistic vs non-realistic creatures -- and her work on some of the most memorable characters in film, like Jar Jar Binks. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/159/.

The most common question artists ask is: “I want to start working in Visual Effects but I’m 35 years old, I have kids, I’m married. Is it too late to go after my passion?” When you’re older, you do have those responsibilities and dependents, so starting out is different. It involves more risk. So the more important question becomes: How do you do this switch careers intelligently? In this Episode, Allan McKay talks about how to make a career change in a strategic way -- and without risk -- while learning about the profession and bettering your skills as an artist, on the side. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/158/.

Chris Bailey is a Productivity Expert and the bestselling Author of two books about productivity: The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction. Chris writes about productivity at www.alifeofproductivity.com and speaks to organizations around the globe on how they can become more productive, without hating the process. Chris was born in Red Deer, Alberta and raised in Ontario, Canada. He first became interested in productivity in high school after reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done. He graduated from the Sprott Business School of Business in 2013. After college, he started researching productivity and conducting experiments, while documenting his experiences on this blog A Year of Productivity. Insights and strategies learned from these experiments were compiled into his 2016 book The Productivity Project. His second book Hyperfocus was released in August 2018. In this Podcast, Allan and Chris discuss the neurological research behind productivity and the subjects of focus and scatter focus, taming distractions, mind resting breaks, flow state, multitasking and bio hacks. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/157/.