LEVELS – A Whole New Level cover image

LEVELS – A Whole New Level

Latest episodes

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Nov 8, 2021 • 49min

#38 - Mainstream media vs. the creator economy (Ben Grynol, Mike Haney & Tom Griffin)

There is a major shift happening with traditional, mainstream media and the creator economy.  Levels team members, Mike Haney, Head of Content, Tom Griffin, Head of Partnerships, and Ben Grynol, Head of Growth, sat down and discussed the current overlap and benefits with each of these channels and how Levels can engage better with the audiences they want to reach.   Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: https://levels.link/wnl Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (06:24) - Traditional media confers legitimacy (10:23) - Use first principles to make decisions (12:00) - Consider reach over time (15:27) - Different channels have different audiences (23:08) - The allure of an exclusive story (32:18) - The value of eyes on a headline (33:57) - Use coverage to attract talent (37:01) - More awareness is always better (41:06) - Mainstream attention has compound effects (44:25) - Content is a long game Transcripts & Show Notes
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Nov 4, 2021 • 43min

#37 - From school to startup (Braden McCarthy & Ben Grynol)

Many times, when people go through post-secondary school, they aren't aware of what career they want to pursue upon graduating. For Braden McCarthy – part of the Operations team at Levels – he went straight from school to startup and took a non-traditional career path. In doing so, Braden has been provided with immense learning opportunities as part of a fast moving team and early-stage tech company. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: https://levels.link/wnl Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (06:49) - Find an opportunity that resonates (08:35) - Don't rush into a job blindly (09:20) - Take the career path less trodden (11:22) - Battle imposter syndrome & add value (14:48) - Develop new skills quickly (17:58) - The forcing function of asynchronous work (20:46) - Everybody starts at square one (23:19) - Build your trust "battery" (25:42) - Customer support is under-rated (34:29) - Don't wait for a job posting to apply Transcripts & Show Notes
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Nov 1, 2021 • 47min

#36 - Building community, tribalism, and the principle of People Like Us Do Things Like This (Seth Godin & Ben Grynol)

When building a community, there's one principle which lays the foundation for every community and culture around the world – People Like Us Do Things Like This. It's a sense of tribalism, and a concept that Seth Godin, a global thought leader, brought to the world more than 10 years ago. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: ⁠https://levels.link/wnl Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker. In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, he has written 20 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and This is Marketing – which was an instant bestseller in numerous countries around the world. Though renowned for his writing and speaking, Seth also founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo!). In 2013, Seth was inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame and, in 2018, was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame.  Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. In this episode, Seth and Ben Grynol, Head of Growth at Levels, talked about marketing, community, and what it was like to grow up in Buffalo, New York. (00:06) - People like us do things like this (04:21) - There isn't one Buffalo (08:32) - The rise of the interview podcast (10:45) - Professionals are expected to embrace consistency over authenticity (14:05) - New media is exciting because it's always changing (16:33) - Following the path to find the dynamics of the medium (18:18) - How do ads create value? (23:42) - Defining the culture to drive action (26:18) - Respecting people who like loud music (29:34) - How do you build community? (40:52) - Building a new path for learning Transcripts & Show Notes Watch the Video – https://youtu.be/bim08ixEYtc LINKS SETH GODIN Seth's Blog – seths.blog Akimbo Podcast – akimbo.link Seth's Website – sethgodin.com
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Oct 28, 2021 • 36min

#35 – Building our Engineering Team (Michael Mizrahi & Andrew Conner)

Oftentimes, in hiring processes, companies have a sense of leverage over prospective candidates. However, with Levels, this isn't the path that we take – we don't want to sell candidates, and we don't want candidates to sell us. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: ⁠https://levels.link/wnl When bringing new team members onboard, the process is transparent. We don't trick people with challenges: "Here's a hard question, go and solve it." Rather, we give people the opportunity to document things, find areas where they can offer insight into what we're doing, and pick things apart. In this episode, Michael Mizrahi, Head of Operations, and Andrew Conner, Head of Engineering and one of the Co-Founders of Levels, sat down and talked about the process of building our team and onboarding new team members. Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (00:06) - People like us do things like this (04:21) - There isn't one Buffalo (08:32) - The rise of the interview podcast (10:45) - Professionals are expected to embrace consistency over authenticity (14:05) - New media is exciting because it's always changing (16:33) - Following the path to find the dynamics of the medium (18:18) - How do ads create value? (23:42) - Defining the culture to drive action (26:18) - Respecting people who like loud music (29:34) - How do you build community? (40:52) - Building a new path for learning Transcripts & Show Notes
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Oct 25, 2021 • 1h 11min

#34 – Growth experiments & playbooks (Wiz Abdulla & Ben Grynol)

Growth at an early-stage startup involves running series of experiments to learn about a hypothesis. Growth is not based a specific playbook, or a prescriptive plan that people can transfer from one company to the next. Rather, growth experiments are based on an amalgamation of insights from differing areas of a business, and even within the world. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: ⁠https://levels.link/wnl Wiz Abdulla, an investor in Levels, understands growth experiments at their foundation. Often, he has portfolio companies reach out to him for help about ways in which they can start ramping up growth within their companies. So, what better way to give people insight about Levels' "book of plays" than to have a conversation about the way that we think about growth experiments. Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (01:16) - There is no one size fits all growth playbook (06:32) - The dangers of following a prescriptive playbook (09:00) - The 3 principles of growth (13:14) - The 4 pillars of growth at Levels (20:57) - How to think about growth investments (24:22) - Acquiring more customers might not be the answer (26:21) - How can you get creative like Casey Neistat (32:57) - How the Levels Culture project came about (38 :49) - Launching the Coke Challenge experiment (39:49) - Iterating on experiments to unlock new growth (43:54) - The importance of being data informed vs data driven Transcripts & Show Notes
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23 snips
Oct 21, 2021 • 1h

#33 – Inbox zero & time management (Sam Corcos, Casey Means & Ben Grynol)

Inbox zero – it's taken the email world by storm and has been popularized by startups, like Superhuman. But, everyone seems to have their own process for managing emails and prioritizing tasks. Sometimes, this is due to the vertical or industry that a person works within. Other times, it's because entire companies have specific ways of approaching work. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: ⁠https://levels.link/wnl For the Levels team, we value three factors deeply when it comes to communication: Discussing initiatives asynchronously Documenting projects thoroughly Closing the loop voraciously Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (03:26) - Why Sam is a proponent of inbox zero (04:25) - Reducing anxiety through inbox zero (06:00) - Transitioning from the medical field to a fast paced startup (09:12) - Transitioning to a new process for task management (11:31) - The impact of closing the loop (13:47) - How to force constraints on what you can accomplish every day (16:33) - Ben's biggest learnings from calendaring (20:09) - Working in Threads and a need for reminders (22:59)  -Learning specific skills for inbox management (25:51) - Superhuman as a tool for flow state (28:42) - The role of leadership: removing blockers from others (32:25) - Being clear on who has the ball (35:38) - Increasing visibility for deadlines in remote teams (45:00) - Adapting to moving into a leadership role (57:09) - Recommendations for better communication Transcripts & Show Notes
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Oct 18, 2021 • 55min

#32 – Personal Socrates (Marc Champagne & Mike Haney)

Marc Champagne started out his career in the corporate world. After a decade of working in roles across sales, analytics, and product management, he took a leap and started a company – KYO – a journalling app, which ended up reaching nearly 87M people. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: https://levels⁠.⁠link/wnl Eventually, the company shut down and Marc was left thinking about what he wanted from his life. After an introspective period of asking himself questions, he decided to become a Mental Fitness Strategist, which led him down the path of becoming a podcaster (Behind the Human), and author (Personal Socrates). Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (09:06) - If everyone is trained the same, how can you stand out? (12:47) - Escaping the autopilot of entering higher education (16:22) - The birth of KYO with a clickable PDF (20:22) - The emotional toll of sunsetting KYO (25:19) - Finding a way back (26:44) - Pausing the loop by one small step at a time (30:14) - Why write a book when there are so many digital options (43:58) - Increasing self awareness to avoid negative choices Transcripts & Show Notes Marc Champagne – behindthehuman.com
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Oct 14, 2021 • 52min

#31 – The future of hardware for continuous glucose monitoring (Josh Clemente & Ben Grynol)

As a company focused on metabolic health and continuous glucose monitoring, it's important for Levels to be on the forefront of technology. For our team, it means that we must understand what's possible – today and in the future. And, there's no one better to talk to about the subject than Josh Clemente – Co-founder of Levels. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: ⁠https://levels.link/wnl Josh is a Mechanical Engineer by training, and spent many years at SpaceX putting rockets into the air. He has an innate connection to engineering, manufacturing and technology, so diving deep into conversations about hardware comes naturally. Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (13:37) - Adding value by layering technology (16:24) - Adapting a therapeutic device to measure glucose in everyday life (18:57) - The importance of a device that can handle movement (20:43) - The potential for measuring multiple factors of metabolic health (23:43) - Should you measure interstitial or arterial glucose (27:20) - The rise of Aptamers (28:36) - The benefits of Aptamers over existing monitoring technology (32:16) - The downsides of any invasive monitoring device (49:22) - Building a platform on a noninvasive sensor is kind of like unlimited nuclear fusion Transcripts & Show Notes
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Oct 11, 2021 • 33min

#30 – Who let Colonel Mustard into the mansion? (Dr. Robert Lustig & Dr. Casey Means)

In September of 2021, Dr. Robert Lustig participated in a Book Club with the Levels Community, where he discussed his latest book – Metabolical. For the session, Dr. Casey Means, Co-founder & Chief Medical Officer of Levels hosted an interview with Dr. Lustig, which was then followed by a Q&A with the Levels Community. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: ⁠https://levels.link/wnl Dr. Lustig is an Advisor to Levels, author of six books, including Fat Chance, Hacking of the American Mind, and Metabolical. Additionally, he’s Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. You can find more information about Dr. Lustig’s work at robertlustig.com. Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (00:06) - We teach Clue not systems biology in medical school (08:24) - Challenging the status quo with science to make progress (11:53) - Public health crisis are leaving the medical profession damaged (14:11) - For science to advance new ideas must be allowed to grow (21:14) - Working upstream vs downstream to solve problems (26:01) - The system that promotes processed foods has to change (30:34) - Processed fuel or poison? Transcripts & Show Notes
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50 snips
Oct 7, 2021 • 1h 6min

#29 – Mental models and heuristics – shortcuts to be more productive (Sam Corcos & Ben Grynol)

Mental models allow us to take shortcuts when makings decisions. The heuristics that create the foundation of mental models can be stacked on top of each other to form new mental models, when solving problems. Some mental models are quick and easy – others are more complex. For Sam Corcos, co-founder and CEO of Levels, it's no surprise that he has many mental models – for pretty much every situation in life and business. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: https://levels.link/wnl Levels helps you see how food affects your health, empowering you with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve healthspan. Levels Members gain access to the Levels app and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), providing real-time feedback on how diet and lifestyle choices impact your metabolic health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health. (00:06) - Helping people to build defensibility vs a moat (03:54) - Mental models for prioritization (06:48) - Seeing the forest for the trees (10:22) - The innovators dilemma for successful companies (16:04) - How much data is too much data (22:31) - Build your startup like the Mongols built their empire (25:10) - Killing ideas might be hard but essential (41:38) - Speed wins in startups (43:18) - Focusing on input metrics helps provide leading indicators (45:59) - The difference between one and two way doors (53:21) - Designing for loud failures (01:03:13) - Focusing on your core competencies Transcripts & Show Notes

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