#77 Disruptions and Feedback Loops with Josh Mohrer

Summary

Transcending Stuttering with Uri Schneider – Episode #77: Disruptions and Feedback Loops with Josh Moorer

In Episode #77 of the Transcending Stuttering Podcast, host Uri Schneider engages in a profound and insightful conversation with Josh Moorer, the former General Manager of Uber New York City and current Head of Global Operations at Levels Health. Released on July 11, 2022, this episode delves deep into Josh’s personal journey with stuttering, his professional triumphs, and his vision for the future of stuttering therapy. The discussion is rich with valuable insights, practical advice, and inspiring stories that resonate with both individuals who stutter and those supporting them.

1. Introduction

Uri Schneider introduces Josh Moorer, highlighting his impressive career trajectory from leading Uber’s largest market in New York City to his current role at Levels Health. Josh is portrayed not just as a successful executive but also as a dedicated husband and father who navigates life with authenticity and resilience.

"[...] he is a husband, a dad, an all-around just down-to-earth guy." (02:17)

2. Personal Journey with Stuttering

Josh opens up about his early experiences with stuttering, highlighting the misconceptions and challenges he faced growing up. He shares his discomfort with having his spoken words transcribed, fearing that the written version would misrepresent his intelligence and communication skills.

"One of my least favorite things is giving an interview in voice and then having it typed out and put in a newspaper because I always feel like I sound like an idiot." (00:00)

He reflects on his school years, where his academic strengths in math contrasted with his struggles in subjects that required extensive verbal participation. This disparity fueled his preference for objective fields over those that demanded continuous verbal interaction.

"Math is, like, there's an answer. That's it. I don't think I chose math because of stuttering. I think I was good at it anyway." (10:40)

3. Openness and Self-Advocacy

A significant part of the conversation revolves around Josh’s approach to being open about his stuttering. He discusses his technique of self-advertising—informing others about his stutter upfront to alleviate anxiety and create a more comfortable communication environment.

"Self advertising is what I've just done here. Now that it's out in the open, I'll never be nervous about it when we speak." (40:56)

Josh illustrates how this openness has transformed his interactions, both personally and professionally, emphasizing the importance of honesty and transparency in building authentic relationships.

4. Professional Success and Leadership

Josh shares his professional milestones, notably his role at Uber where he significantly grew the company’s presence in New York City. He discusses the pressures of leadership, public speaking, and high-stakes situations, revealing how his experience with stuttering has shaped his approach to managing teams and communicating effectively.

"These are all kinds of different experiences and roles where you need to communicate effectively, and I've had to navigate that while managing my stutter." (Varied throughout)

Despite the challenges, Josh highlights moments of confidence where public speaking and leadership roles became less daunting, attributing this growth to increased self-assurance and professional experience.

5. Remote Work and Levels Health

Transitioning to his current role, Josh explains the mission and operation of Levels Health, a company focused on helping individuals understand how food affects their health through continuous glucose monitoring. He delves into the company’s fully remote and asynchronous work model, championing its efficiency and flexibility compared to traditional office environments.

"We are, by design, not like a Covid response, but from the beginning, we were built as a company that is fully remote and fully asynchronous." (26:18)

Josh advocates for this disruptive work model, citing personal productivity gains and the elimination of unnecessary meetings as key benefits.

6. Tips and Advice for New Professionals with Stuttering

Uri shares a compelling story about a young professional facing anxiety about starting a job at a major bank due to his stutter. Josh offers practical advice, emphasizing the importance of connecting with others who share similar experiences and building confidence through shared understanding.

"The best thing would be you could send me your resume. I'll help you polish it up. You can send me any of your interviewing stuff we can get on a Zoom call." (52:23)

Josh underscores the value of community support and mentorship in overcoming fears and achieving professional success despite stuttering.

7. Future of Stuttering Therapy

Towards the end of the episode, Josh envisions the future of stuttering therapy, advocating for the integration of digital tools and online communities to provide continuous support and feedback. He draws parallels between advancements in health technology and potential innovations in stuttering therapy, suggesting that the internet can play a pivotal role in connecting individuals and disseminating effective strategies.

"There is an analog, I think, giving more voice, decentralizing this a little bit. Where in the past your organization might be, everyone's interacting with you. You've now created a space that other people can interact with each other in a way that you're not necessarily involved in all the time." (57:20)

8. Conclusion

In closing, Josh offers a heartfelt piece of wisdom to his younger self:

"Don't worry." (61:37)

This succinct advice encapsulates his journey toward self-acceptance and resilience. Uri and Josh wrap up the conversation by reflecting on the power of empathy, community, and feedback loops in fostering safe spaces for individuals who stutter.

Key Takeaways

• Self-Advocacy: Being open about stuttering can alleviate personal anxiety and foster authentic connections.
• Community Support: Engaging with others who share similar experiences provides invaluable support and practical advice.
• Innovative Work Models: Remote and asynchronous work environments can enhance productivity and accommodate diverse communication needs.
• Digital Transformation in Therapy: Leveraging technology and online platforms can revolutionize stuttering therapy by providing continuous, accessible support.

Notable Quotes

• "I never enjoy when it's written back. I feel like in voice it's fine." (00:00)
• "I just want to get my ideas across to other people and be understood." (40:10)
• "Don't worry." (61:37)

Final Thoughts

Episode #77 offers a blend of personal vulnerability and professional acumen, presenting Josh Moorer as a beacon of resilience and innovation. His insights not only shed light on the nuances of living with a stutter but also inspire listeners to embrace their unique journeys towards self-improvement and effective communication. Whether you stutter or not, this episode provides valuable lessons on leadership, empathy, and the transformative power of openness.

Transcript

[Josh Moorer]

I guess on some level I've always worried that, like, people who don't understand stuttering, which I think is a lot of people, I don't think it's particularly well understood just amongst people, and that it could be confused for a lack of intelligence, a lack of understanding, not being, you know, not using words in a concise and coherent manner. One of my least favorite things is giving an interview in voice and then having it typed out and put in a newspaper because I always feel like I sound like an idiot because I'll like use some. I'll like kind of. I don't know, I'll just. The words just aren't tight because I'm not reciting a sentence. I'm just trying to get an idea across. And that's not always as easy for me. And so I never enjoy when it's written back. I feel like in voice it's fine if I watch like a recording, I'm usually fine to do that, but it's always hard if they want to like, exactly quote me and include all the uhs, and I'm just like, come on. So that's where I was at that point.

[Uri Schneider]

Welcome to the Transcending Stuttering Podcast. My name is Uri Schneider from Schneider Speech. Join me as I explore and learn from the true stories of real life heroes, people from the world of stuttering and beyond. We explore the challenges and the triumphs and most of all, how to trust, transcend stuttering and discover our best self. Well, this is an awesome episode. A wide ranging conversation with my good friend Josh Moorer. Today he'[e-mail] he's the former general manager of Uber New York City. You might have heard of them. This wide rating conversation touches on his personal, personal journey growing up with a stutter all the way to his present day professional success and everything in between. He's a husband, a dad, an all around just down to earth guy. And I know you're going to enjoy this conversation. So without further ado, Josh Moorer, Episode 77 Disruptions and Feedback Loops. Boom. There we are.

[Josh Moorer]

We're live streaming. All right.

[Uri Schneider]

I think we're live. When's the last time you were live, Josh?

[Josh Moorer]

Ooh, I haven't done a live one of these and maybe even ever. I've done a bunch of podcasts, but they tend to be edited because I need to be edited down. You know, if we're doing it live, who knows what's going to happen?

[Uri Schneider]

Come on, man. All right, let's jump right in and I'll explain why we're jumping right in, but quick intro. It's a big treat. My name is Uri Schneider, your host here at Transcending Stuttering and the head of Schneider speech. Now, our guest today is a friend and advisor and mentor in many ways. Josh is the head of global operations at Levels Health, a software company that helps you see how food affects your health. He was previously the New York general manager of Uber. For over five years, he helped grow Uber's largest and most profitable market from a few dozen rides a week to over 3 million. He also incubated a number of product ideas you may have heard of, including Uber Eats, Uber Rush. And after his time at Uber, he spent a few years on the investor side as an active angel investor, managing director at Tusk Ventures and co founder at Shine Capital. Now at Levels, Josh leads several strategic projects such as membership and launch strategies. And you can check out levelshealth.com It's a big treat to have you join us. Thanks a lot, Josh.

[Josh Moorer]

My pleasure. Good to see you.

[Uri Schneider]

Yeah. So the reason I was so prompt to jump right in is I was borrowing something that I'll be taking off from that Josh shared with me. He has a. At Levels Health, they have a user's manual and so he's got a user's manual. It's like an internal memo for everything you need to know about Josh. And one of the things he writes there, I love this. This was awesome. He says, just so you know, I can also be extremely direct and sometimes lack the necessary gentle touch. This works for some people and not for others. So I'm going to adapt to Josh's style and be a little bit more blunt and we'll move things through because Josh is a treasure trove and I can't wait to pick his brain and hear what he has to drop. For us today, we'll stop on certain things, including his personal journey. Okay. We'll talk about the value of self knowledge. I love what he wrote about strengths and weaknesses in this user guide. We'll talk about openness and self advocacy and how he deals with stuttering in an open way and puts it out front and communication and high stakes situations in terms of leadership at companies and also dealing with politics and confrontational situations. And of course, it would also be awesome to talk about tips that he may have for people entering the workforce, especially corporate startup spaces. And last but not least, thoughts about the future of stuttering therapy. So let's start with a quick game. All right, Josh, you're game. For a game.

[Josh Moorer]

I'm game for a game.

[Uri Schneider]

First three words that come to mind. I'm just gonna throw out a word. We're gonna do four different words, and I just wanna get three quick words, associations that come to mind. So I say. I say ice cream, just as a sample. You say Sunday.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah. I just say one. Got it.

[Uri Schneider]

Well, no, you got it. You're already on the roll. So the next one is going to be a good one. And the first three words that come to mind. And the word is stutter block.

[Josh Moorer]

Speaking. Maybe my wife, because she's a speech language pathologist. Yeah. All right.

[Uri Schneider]

Yeah. By the way, I meant to tell you we should have invited your wife to be on, but our younger daughter.

[Josh Moorer]

Finished school yesterday, and so now it's. It's full on summer vacation mode here. And so I don't actually think she could have joined us, just that she.

[Uri Schneider]

Should know that as much as we wanted to have you, we'd really love to have you.

[Josh Moorer]

Of course. Of course. Your wife, your Petra, would enjoy that, too.

[Uri Schneider]

Awesome. Okay, another word. Three words that come to mind. Uber.

[Josh Moorer]

Oh, I don't know. That's a tough one.

[Uri Schneider]

I knew it would be.

[Josh Moorer]

I mean, my job for many years, lots of cars, something that I talk about all the time, comes up a lot.

[Uri Schneider]

Awesome. Awesome. We won't spend too much time on.

[Josh Moorer]

It today because I know, you know, it's all right. Whatever you want.

[Uri Schneider]

How about a shared love? Josh? I know we both love this three words that you think of when you hear running.

[Josh Moorer]

Ooh, Strava. Sweaty. And marathon.

[Uri Schneider]

Awesome. And the last one. And I know you won't hold back. Speech therapy.

[Josh Moorer]

Speech therapy. Well, broad. It means a lot of different things. You know, there's a lot of things that can use therapy in speech, so that's sort of like a broad thing. Maybe. My wife, again, she's who I think about for a lot of things.

[Uri Schneider]

That's great.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah. Sorry, was it. It was speech therapy. Yeah. I mean, that's.

[Uri Schneider]

Yeah. You can modify it to stuttering therapy. I wanted to kind of think about in your journey both as a person who stutters growing up and so on, but also where you stand now, kind of looking at things from your vantage point.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah. You know, useful. Something that's worthwhile for folks in that situation, maybe misunderstood in some ways.

[Uri Schneider]

Great.

[Josh Moorer]

Particular stutter, you know? Yeah.

[Uri Schneider]

That's great. This is a new game I'm trying out, and I thought you'd be awesome, so.

[Josh Moorer]

Thank you.

[Uri Schneider]

Personal journey. So, you know, you tell a little bit in this user's guide, but maybe like, you know, you read the bio. I don't know if you get bored of hearing that bio, but for a lot of people it's very impressive. And I always find it interesting to kind of like connect the dots, which we can only see in hindsight. But if you were going Back to like 8 year old Josh, can you bring us back to 8 year old Josh? What he's doing, what he's thinking, what he's feeling, what he's worried about, what he's dreaming of and kind of connect the dots for us going forward.

[Josh Moorer]

Wanna spoil the surprise, but I mean, probably spending some time with your dad back in the day, all the way back, you know, I think you'll speak about this, but I've known you guys for a very long time. I'm 40, so, you know, I probably met your dad Phil more than 30 years ago in New York. I don't really like I watching old videos of myself from as young as age 5 or 6. Like it's very clear that I stutter. I don't know that it. My first memory of it being a true frustration for me was when I was in like maybe not even till third or fourth grade. So even a little bit older than that. Like older than 8, maybe more like 9 or 10 or maybe like 11. So. Sorry. Well, what was the question? Like, I'm. I'm eight years old.

[Uri Schneider]

Yeah. Yeah, you're eight years old. School years. Yeah, school years. What was Josh like in those school years? You know, were you crushing it socially? Did you have the confidence and.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah, so I style that you have.

[Uri Schneider]

Today or what did you look like? What do you.

[Josh Moorer]

I mean, I'm lucky the, you know, I in certain ways am very smart. And so like I remember I was always good at math and I think, like, it's hard to know did I go towards something like math because I stuttered or like, did I not? There were certain. I think generally speaking, my school experience, even in college was difficult because there were certain things I wouldn't want to do, like reading in front of the class. That's kind of like a classic one. I really didn't want to do that. And it would just, you know, take up so much extra cognitive load of just like thinking about, what am I going to say? How am I going to say it? I'm just doing gymnastics. Like you said earlier that in my bio, it's that I'm direct. I wonder, am I direct? Because it is just a little bit harder for me to Say something than the average person and sometimes a lot harder. And so, like, I'm not necessarily being thoughtful about the words I use. I'm just trying to get them out. Just trying to go for it.

[Uri Schneider]

Like, small talk. Small talk doesn't come cheap, so you.

[Josh Moorer]

Can not come cheap. And it's just. Yeah, it's more just like. I always kind of wonder if I could say anything easily. It is actually hard for me to imagine what it's like to be able to just speak and just say exactly what you think. To have no block, to have no, like, barrier or separation between the intent of the thing you want to say and what you want to say and, like, saying the thing. I find that hard to imagine for most people that that is what it's like. So I think that it became a bit ingrained. Like, school didn't agree with me for a bunch of reasons. Like, I did fine, but it wasn't, you know, I wasn't raising my hand. I don't think any of the teachers that I had more or less ever would be like, yes, Josh is like, the star pupil. There's just. There's just no way. And that wasn't an intellect issue. It was just, like, participation. I think I kind of spaced out a lot because I wasn't going to participate. And then I would get nervous that I missed something, and if I asked a question, it would be clear that I wasn't paying attention. And it's sort of just like a cycle. And so I tended to be worse at, or I performed worse in things like English and social studies because it was heavy on that kind of stuff. Talking in conversation. Like, I look at someone who can just talk about nothing for a long time, and I'm like, wow, that is like, a very interesting skill. You know, who could just shoot. Who can just sort of schmooze for, you know, a long time and be, like, effortless in that and just sort of talk and about a thing or a subject or a book or a character or a historical figure or whatever. Whereas, like, math is, like, there's an answer. That's it. I don't think I chose math because of stuttering. I think I was good at it anyway. But that's one of the things I like about it, is that it's quite objective. It's like, there is a right and there's a wrong, and so that's a little bit easier. But at 8, I don't really remember. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't know, this is a long time ago. You know, I'm old.

[Uri Schneider]

Yeah, well, you're not old. Come on, man. Everything's relative, right? It's all numbers. The way you run and yeah, you know, you've gotten back a few years in your life. We could talk about that later. But levels health physically. Yeah, totally. Totally. What would you say would be your. What would be like a standout memory either of a low point or of a breakthrough moment, you know, in your.

[Josh Moorer]

It's funny, the reason that computers and tech like have. That has always been a thing. I gravitated early in. You know, we had a computer in my house. Like my dad got a computer in his office and then we got Internet at home. Like we got a computer at home pretty early. We got Internet probably before anyone I knew. And I was really, really into that. And I would suspect that one of the reasons is that using my fingers on a computer I can communicate in a way that I can't always when I speak and I remember, you know, I could just go for it. I can give a beautiful and like articulate thing in a way that I probably couldn't in speech, you know, without like editing and all this. So I remember at some point, I don't actually know the age, but some probably in the 80s or 90s, it was sort of like a sci fi article of like someday computers are going to have video chat and we're all not even going to type anymore. We're just going to talk into our computers. And that was concerning. I was concerned about that. I was like, oh, that's going to be not great. And things like Siri and Alexa non starters. I have zero success with that. You know, I think some of the better versions are accepting of a pause, a block, a thing that sounds unclear, you know, but sometimes Alexa will like start to respond to me before I'm done. So I'm just like, not even. I don't really use any of that stuff. So that was.

[Uri Schneider]

Alexa and Siri also interrupt. They could use some.

[Josh Moorer]

But also just like the concept behind them is that for the average user it is easier to give a computer an instruction verbally than the other way. But for me that's not really true. And so I just don't, you know, so I. But, but you asked about like, you know, the memory. I don't. I remember being like, oh my gosh, is video chat going to be a thing? Like man, that's really too bad because I'm really good at it this way. And that'll be A struggle. Yeah. So that was the thing.

[Uri Schneider]

I remember. I remember another time we met, and you said, everything's on the table, everything's open. So we met at a later date. Do you want to give the context of that meeting?

[Josh Moorer]

Sure. So, I mean, like I mentioned, my folks brought me to your dad in the 80s and 90s, and I always remembered that as a good experience. And then later in life, like, right around probably like 0708, before any kids. But as. But I was an adult, I went back for some stuttering therapy at, like, a local organization. And then, you know, I did that for a bit, but then we got back in touch, and then my wife became an slp and she spent some time in this world and I guess met you, I think. And then my daughter, my older daughter at age 2 or 3, I couldn't really hear it, but my wife was like, oh, my God. Like, she. She's. I don't want to make it like, she was like, oh, my God, sound the alarm. She's like, I noticed that Lily is stuttering a little bit. And I was like, oh, yeah, you're right. That is. And so we came and saw you and some folks that you work with and that issue, I think the sciences suggested at a very young age, which she was. It can resolve, and after a certain age, you can't. And she was sort of in that before. And so it has resolved and you don't hear it anymore with her. She's now eight. So this must have been at least five years ago. There's. There's no Hannah at this point. So this must have been. She must have been two or three, five, six years ago. And we came and saw you in Brooklyn somewhere. And, And. And it's. And it's resolved because of that early intervention. And I think that's kind of how we reconnected. Right. And so. And my daughter went someone for a while, for like a year, and it was helpful. And, you know, now she is graduating second grade and was asked to, at the graduation, like, read a paragraph, actually memorize a paragraph, and recite. We've been, like, practicing all week. And it's funny because she tells me she's nervous, and I, believe it or not, similarly cannot understand why someone would be nervous if they know that physiologically the words will come out. Like, if you forget, I get it. That's bad. But, you know, we're going to be. We're going to be drilling those six sentences for the next week, and she's going to go. She'll Be. I've been going to be able to wake her up at 3am be like, tell me the paragraph and she'll be able to recite it perfectly. Like, that's kind of where we're at already. And now I'm realizing, oh, you're kind of nervous. But, like, I don't. She is very clear. She. My kids both understand that I stutter because I don't really hold back at all. So they hear it all the time. My younger daughter. My older daughter is, you know, she totally understands. My younger daughter still kind of asks some things about it. Like, what. Why did you make that sound? Why couldn't you say the word? Just like, not in like a mean way. Just. She at the time was like three or four and wanted to know. Um, but I don't think she. I don't think Lily knows that she did. I don't think we've. She knows she went to see someone. I don't think at the time she knew why. It was like, it's a helper. Going to just play with you. She's like, great. I love attention from young adults. Great. And so we did that for a while. Yeah. But that's. I mean, that's just to answer. That's how we reconnected after. After a long time.

[Uri Schneider]

So there's a lot that I'd love to unpack there. But we'll just hit a couple of touch points because there are some other amazing things that we want to get to. I would ask, do you remember? I vividly do. You came in, in a hoodie, and I did not do my homework. I had no idea what you do or your history. And I kind of accidentally said, oh, you know, like, what's the story? Tell me a little bit about your background. And you mentioned that you stutter and you mentioned that whole story that you just shared. And then you said to me, I just want you to know, like, my whole life I wondered, like, you know, wife, kids, and you went through this checklist. I kind of vividly remember you telling me, like, a lot of things have really clicked, you know, Like, I always wondered, would I. Wife. Yep. Check. Got that job. Thank God I'm employed. You know, this, that. And then you said, thank God I have a job at a company where I can say the name.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah.

[Uri Schneider]

You said to me you were grateful that you worked at Uber. Do you remember that comment?

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, because what sent me back into speech therapy is that I couldn't say the name above where I worked. And now it's Just like, you know, that's a problem. I was actually daydreaming on the subway. Like, what if my name was something I couldn't say. That would suck.

[Uri Schneider]

That's right.

[Josh Moorer]

I'm glad that's not the case. I mean, I just. Yeah. Like, it is. It's unfortunate because I think, even now that I would think about that if I. You know, I love the work I do now. If I were going to go and work somewhere else and it was called, you know, it started with A. Like a B or a P. Maybe not P, but a B or a T. Like, there are certain sounds that are just by default, kind of hard for me at the beginning of a word. And that I might not admit that that's the reason out loud, but I think that is. That would be a deterrent. Like, I just. Where do you work? Busted teas. Like, what? Busted tea. But. But it's just like. And I'm feeling very comfortable right now. And so this is. You know. But sometimes I don't feel comfortable, and sometimes it happens more. And, like, I just. People want to know what. It's sort of commonplace when you meet someone. That's what their name and what they do. It's just what people talk about. I mean, maybe they shouldn't, but it is. It's what people talk about. So.

[Uri Schneider]

Right. That's really real. That's real. And that's what I always loved.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Uri Schneider]

That's what I always loved. And that's what I want to bring out, is that for as much success that you have, you also keep it real. You know, as a dad, as a husband, and as a person who stutters.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And I also can. I can appreciate the absurdity of the whole thing. Like, I. You know, I'll probably send this around when it's done to some folks that I work with. And because we do podcasts, we'll talk about levels in a bit, but how we're all, like, remote and async and do all this stuff. Tons of podcasts, like, internally.

[Uri Schneider]

Yeah, just talk about it now. Just put it right in there now.

[Josh Moorer]

I'll circle back on that in a second. But I think it would probably blow people's minds to think that this guy that they work with. I'm not. I'm not the head of the company, but I'm relatively senior, and people know what I've done. But, I mean, like, I work with people who are, like, 20 years younger than me, and I know more than them because I'm 20 years older than them and have been doing this for longer. I think that's more than your age.

[Uri Schneider]

Yeah. You've been around the block.

[Josh Moorer]

I've been around the block. I think it would surprise people that like a criteria for me to work at levels was that I can say the L sound like. I think that probably would blow some people's minds, but that is just the reality. And I'll go back to what levels does in a second. But I think everyone has something, some issue that whether like an objective, it's a big deal or not, it is for that person. And so I think everyone has their thing. Everyone has a thing. That's an issue for them. And for me that, you know, this is one of mine. But anyway, a little bit about levels. What's probably more interesting here is not what we do, but how we do. And so we are by design, not like a Covid response, but from the beginning, we were built as a company that is fully remote and fully asynchronous. And so I want to define both of those things because they're kind of different. Remote is obviously it just means everyone works from. From home and what that. Or from somewhere that's not an office that we all share. And the benefit of that is, you know, there's several. One is that we hire people from all over the world. And so the city, our location is not a limiting factor for who can work with us. Which makes these situations sort of fun when everyone kind of like all the engineers are going to come to New York for this week and see each other. And then if you're lucky enough to live in New York, you can see them too. So that's the remote piece. And then the asynchronous piece is that we try to not just take office life and put it online and remote and just do zooms all day instead of doing meetings all day. Instead we try to do as few meetings as possible and keep things, things in writing or video. So instead of having a 30 minute meeting about a thing, I might record a quick video on loom. That's one of our favorite tools, like zoom, but with an L. And it's basically just a screen recorder that puts your face in it. Very, very simple. But when the recording is done, it immediately appears on a website that you can share the link and people can see it and you can speed it up, which is often like, you know, I play really well, like 1.7x. You know what I mean? And so just like podcasts that everyone, you know, everyone does that and so. So that's the async part. And as a result, you know, it's a lot of sort of deep work and we do a lot of writing and the execution. You know, we do do zooms too. I do plenty of zooms. And we record, but we record everything. Not in a creepy spy judgy way, but because if we have a conversation, it's like, oh, I really wish Scott were in this thing. And like, okay, well, listen, let's, like, let's just send him the recording. He can watch it at 2x and it's like he was here, but it took him half the time. He didn't have to be there at that time. And so that is kind of simultaneous to the what of, like, what we do. That's. That's the how. And it's very interesting, and I was skeptical of it at first, but it's actually been delightful, partially because I think typical office work is less effective and less efficient than people think. You travel to the office, you get there, you take off your thing, you have a cup of coffee, say hi to Jimmy. You go, you have a meeting about this thing. You're just gonna sit there. It doesn't matter. And then the actual work, like, we used to joke when I was at Uber that, like, I do, like, meetings all day and then I work at home, like in the evenings, because that was often, you know, I was, like, managing a lot of people and they all want a piece of me. It's like, I have a problem. I have a problem. Like, give me a raise. Like, I want a different job. Like all, you know, all. Just all the stuff. And so that is just a different kind of thing. So this is very different. It's nice. It gives me a lot of flexibility. I. I think I'm working as hard, I produce as much, but I have. I don't commute anymore and I don't do meetings that seem like a waste of time anymore. That's. Which is nice.

[Uri Schneider]

So your side gig is being evangelical for remote work.

[Josh Moorer]

It's not. I mean, actually, like, we're. That is the side gig of the company is that we are promoting a way of work because there have not been many situations like this. It's more common now, given our world, but we are a bit evangelical about that. It's like, we think this really makes sense if you're default remote. We actually don't think that a hybrid system works. Some of you can come to work, some of you don't.

[Uri Schneider]

No. But if we'll riff and we'll come back to my. We'll go back to that visit in Brooklyn in a minute. But maybe what levels actually does in addition to how you do it. And secondly, your experience as a guy who stutters, as a leader, as a speaker, the kid who dreaded video calls. And all of a sudden it's a big topic now, especially with COVID But even just contemporary work life dealing with zoom calls. Yeah. So any thoughts on that? But first, what does levels do? Because I'm really fascinated by the whole feedback loop and the value of that.

[Josh Moorer]

Yes. So levels helps you see how food affects your health. As a starting point. You know, they're in modern Western living, specifically in the United States. Lifestyles can be pretty unhealthy. Some of that is just the food that's available in the world is not great for us. We're more sedentary. We don't have to go and hunt for our food. We sleep in rooms that are warm because we have heat. Just all these things that are very nice. Our society has evolved much faster than our bodies. You have these health crises basically coming up where we've solved the know, people aren't, at least in the U.S. thank God, like starving. And they're sort of. The basics are by and large covered. But now we're developing things like cancer and heart disease and sort of like these, like Western diseases that are often the result of just bad lifestyle choices over the long haul. And so what levels does is it creates software that pairs with biosensors like a glucose monitor that sits on your arm that's traditionally worn by diabetics who need to monitor their glucose levels for. For like, acute health reasons. Or like, you know, they need to know they might need to inject some insulin in them to bring down their. Their levels. Or they might just, you know, there's usually there has. So the FDA approves those monitors for use by diabetics. But because that's what they were, that's where the money is. Essentially. The insight of levels is that actually those devices can be useful for everybody, not just people who are sick, because they give you a really interesting piece of data in an ongoing way, which is like how much sugar is in your blood. It's like driving a car. It's like your fuel gauge or your odometer or your speedometer. We as modern humans in 2022 have computers with dozens or hundreds of sensors about the temperature of this and the shape of this. And we have all this, all these things, and our cars have hundreds thousand sensors like the air pressure in your front left tire is low. All the stuff, it's all instrumented. But people go to the doctor once a year. They get a blood test, they get a one moment in time view of a few things. A guy in a white coat tells them if they're cool or not cool, and then they come back next year. And a lot of what kills people naturally are things that, if caught earlier, would not kill them. And so just the broad idea is that we should be able to know more about what's happening in our bodies all the time. It shouldn't just be, I go to the doctor. And so the glucose piece, it's a, it's a molecule that's relatively easy to measure because of its size. And these sensors are common and relatively inexpensive for the magic that they bring. And so our business, we don't make those, but we help people get them. And then we provide software that helps them, that sort of sits on top of it to help them understand specifically how food is affecting their health. So, for example, you might log all of your meals in our app and then we'll tell you basically give each meal a score based on the blood sugar response. You know, you basically the. At a very, very high level, you just, you want to not be spiky, you want variance to be low. And I think there's a bunch of different reasons someone would enjoy this. You know, there we. There's all these sort of different versions of this, but, like, one is the guy who thinks that eating the huge bowl of oatmeal and berries in the morning is extremely healthy for them. And it turns out that's just kind of a misconception or it could be for that person. Every person is different. There's a famous study that came out of Israel actually, that someone ate a banana, someone ate something like cookie or a banana, and each, like, had a response. And it was like the opposite. I'm telling the story. Not everyone is the same. So one person's response to a banana might be like their response to sweets, you know, like, it's not exactly. Not every human is the same is the point. And so doing it yourself and measuring yourself can help you see if the conventional wisdom of like, oatmeal in the morning is good. Like, it actually probably isn't. And we're coming also out of an era. If you're like, roughly our age, you might remember the, like, the cereal boxes that had, like, you know, eat, eat a lot of carbs on the bottom and like, eat a little bit of Fats and oils and like, it kind of the old.

[Uri Schneider]

The old food pyramid.

[Josh Moorer]

Food pyramid. It turns out it's probably the exact opposite. So they're just like. We're just. There's partially. There's just an information issue, like, people don't know, but then there's someone like me who does know, but sometimes can find it hard to be to, like, hold myself accountable, to not have, you know, a brownie at 11 at night. Like, having a thing that comes the next day and is like, hey, what'd you do at 11? You had a spike. Bad, Josh. You know, it doesn't quite say that, but the accountability is a. Is a new idea. Being able. You know, it's more than a scale. You stand on a scale. That's a very blunt thing. It's like, there's like, water weight, all these components that sort of make the scale. Not a very good measurement tool. But blood glucose is a pretty good measurement. So, anyway, that's the long version of what we do. The idea is to help people improve their health on their own terms using all the technology that we have now.

[Uri Schneider]

I think what's really cool about it is, like, in that wearable tech space, you know, having that ongoing feedback and data, which also gives you your metabolic profile. Like you said, not everybody responds to the carbs the same way. Not everybody responds to the keto diet the same way. It really gives each person their individualized dashboard 100%.

[Josh Moorer]

So you figure out what makes you go and what you know and what doesn't, and there you go.

[Uri Schneider]

And that's what we need for stuttering therapy. But that's for the next conversation. So back to that day, I remember you said something along these lines. That Sunday morning that we met in Brooklyn, you are in your hoodie. And you said to me, listen, I just want to tell you, like, I used to stutter, and it was a big deal. And now I'm the head of this company called Uber in New York City, and I do tons of interviews on television. In fact, I think that morning you did an interview at the Today show or something like that. You're like, yeah, I wasn't wearing the hoodie. I put on a suit for that, and I put on a hoodie for you. And you said, so I don't stutter anymore. You said a sentence like that and stuttered while saying it.

[Josh Moorer]

Right? You've told me this story before. You've, like, give me the read back on this. I'd be surprised. And then you said, yeah, I know.

[Uri Schneider]

But we'll ask Malika. Malika Burton, Shout out. She was the amazing therapist in the room. And then. And then you said, and I just want, you know, at the same time, you know, I don't hold back anymore. But last night, I went with my wife and just so, you know, get the read back. Right. We went to the Pearl Jam concert at msg. I remember.

[Josh Moorer]

All right.

[Uri Schneider]

And we took the subway back uptown. Now, first of all, that was always curious to me. The guy that runs Uber is taking the subway. But that's another.

[Josh Moorer]

That's not a secret. I was. I'm. I will almost always prefer a subway to Uber because it's almost always faster. But anyway, I mean, it just sort of depends. But, yes, continue.

[Uri Schneider]

Right. We're not going to knock Uber. And then you said, and I just want to tell you that the whole write up, I knew I had the Today show, and I knew that we had this big announcement that we're going to the outer boroughs. We're expanding to the outer boroughs. And I was kind of obsessed over the fact that B has always been tough for me. And so on the one hand, you're sharing in the same breath how you don't hold back, and then in the same breath, you're sharing how there's this occupation in your mind. And I just think that's really, again, the nuance and the reality of it. And I was just wondering if you could riff on that. Like, on the one hand being beyond it, and on the other hand, it's still occupying a certain amount of bandwidth of the operating system.

[Josh Moorer]

So, yeah, so I'm trying to figure out, I mean, this must have been 2016, because that's like, roughly when Lily would have been seeing you, when I would have had the cloud at Uber to go on a talk show or, like, Uber was interesting enough that they want us and we're doing borough launches and stuff like that. What I was reflecting on there is like, well, so first of all, everyone's stutter is different. I find that when the. When the adrenaline really cranks, when, you know, the moment comes, that tends to work out for me. It hasn't always. And I have some clear memories of, like, big issues in front of a thousand people. I was a youth leader of a youth group and had, like, a national role. And at a convention in, like, my freshman year of college, as I was sort of finishing the role, I went and just had to, like, read a speech, and it was a nightmare. Like, I still think about it sometimes, but I think with television and, like, the really exciting moments where. And go like I can. For whatever reason I've. I've put it to you this way. There's almost an inverse relationship between how many people I'm standing in front of and how bad my blocks are. And it's never worse than I'm. Than when I'm with one person, like with my wife, with my parents, with my brother, with one person, when that can sometimes be the worst. Whereas, like in a moment of gravitas, when I'm presenting something, I can sort of put on a different thing and it's like. And it doesn't happen for whatever reason. But yeah, I mean, these are concerns and I think like I referred to earlier, like Lily is. Is going to read the. Is going to actually recite about a minute of text at her graduate ceremony from second grade. It's basically like welcoming the first graders to second grade. Like, you know, in second grade you're going to do this kind of math or whatever, so. And she's nervous about it and I guess it's. It's. She's not worried that going to block. She's worried about this thing. Everyone's worried about public speaking. It's like the number. It's one of the top things people worry about for us. Kind of a different reason, but also kind of a similar reason. So, yeah, I mean, I think there was a part of the uber years. There were like the middle to later part of the uber years where my confidence just got so high in that context that it just didn't feel like as much of an issue. And I was getting older. That's been a part of it. I think you like, care less what people think as you age a little bit. But also I never, I guess on some level I've always worried that like, people who don't understand stuttering, which I think is a lot of people, I don't think it's particularly well understood just amongst people and that it could be confused for a lack of intelligence, a lack of understanding, not being, you know, not using words in a concise and coherent manner. One of my least favorite things is giving an interview in voice and then having it typed out and put in a newspaper. Because I always feel like I sound like an idiot because I'll like use some. I'll like kind of. I don't know, I'll just. The words just aren't tight. Cause I'm not reciting a sentence. I'm just trying to get an idea across. And that's not always as easy for me. And so I, like. I never enjoy when it's written back. I kind of feel like in voice it's fine. Like, if I watch, like a recording, I'm usually fine to do that, but it's always hard to sort of, if they want to, like, exactly quote me and include all the us and I'm just like, come on. Or if I just say something that doesn't really make sense or it sounds oversimplified, I'm using more, like, worse words to say an idea rather than just like, being precise about it. Like, those are all on the fly sub, just almost automatic decisions that I make that, you know, don't always look good in writing. So there's that. But, yeah, I mean, that's where I was at that point.

[Uri Schneider]

One of the things I picked up from your user's manual, user's guide, you said. I credit the Internet with allowing me to facilitate much of my communication in writing throughout my career. Cutting out the physiological middleman and kind of about this. Right. In other words, your written communication, you can choose to be as precise and wordsmith it as you choose.

[Josh Moorer]

Yes.

[Uri Schneider]

And you're saying that when you see your spoken word transcribed, there's a discrepancy between the way you'd like to be seeing it written. You would have written it differently. So your verbal performance, there's a discrepancy between what you feel of your acumen, your clarity, and your spoken word versus you written.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah, and sometimes I just get on a roll and I can be fluent and it's no problem. And you can almost just feel it. It's sort of hard to. It's hard to understand, like, what is. What is lifting your arm up feel like. Like you can't really describe that. I don't know. I just do it. I just lift my arm up and we know what happens. It's your brain sending a signal and the muscles, they contract and. But you don't think about it that way. I can get a feeling. Feeling that I'm going to be fluent for the next minute. I just know I'm like, oh, I'm like in some kind of groove. My brain is doing something a little bit different. And I just know that I could say, busted, teas, whatever. Like, it doesn't matter. I could say anything and I just know the feeling. So sometimes I get into. I can feel that. And that's good. And on the async, you know, we're fully async, so even though we'll do videos, you get a second chance. You can if you watch and you're like, oh, I'm going to do that again. And I think most people probably don't do that. I think they just go, and that's fine. And I don't. I take an extra minute, I go back, I might use an app to remove ums and uhs. I might feel like I'm saying something and then be like, I'm gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna edit right here. And then I'll just start it again and I'll go back and I'll clip it. And I think that's. That's all fine. That's just like a tool. At the end of the day, I'm just trying to communicate ideas to other people. Like, that's, you know, and I want to be. I want to be understood. That's what I do right there.

[Uri Schneider]

If anybody got that, that's the quote of the day. I just want to get my ideas across to other people and be understood.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah, totally.

[Uri Schneider]

At the end of the day, thinking about the final. The final outcome that we're all looking for, you know, sometimes how we get there is a little less important. We get caught up on the details, but get focused on the product. So I'm going to share what you write in this user's manual about stuttering. It's quite profound. A lot of people wonder how to be open about stuttering. How will it be repeated, perceived? And as I'm reading it, Josh, what I'm wondering for you is, number one, three questions. When did you start doing things like this, like being open and putting it out front? Two, what has it done for you? Like, how does it change things for you? And three, what does it do for others? Like, how do others respond to it? Yeah, a little interruption there. So I'm going to read this out. I'm going to read this out. Go ahead.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah.

[Uri Schneider]

Okay, perfect. And let people reflect on this because there's. This is just so good. You write in here. You may notice when speaking with me that I stutter. The term stuttering is mostly associated, and you give a little Wikipedia definition, and then you say, I've stuttered for as long as I've been able to talk, and I've undergone many years of therapy not to fix it, but to become comfortable with it and develop techniques to make it less disruptive to my communication. One such technique, self advertising, is what I've just done here. Now that it's out in the open, I'll never be nervous about it when we speak. And you'll Never wonder what you're looking at. If I get a block, you may have conversations with me and not notice this at all. You may think I'm being inefficient with a word or searching for what I want to say or sound a bit uncrisp. It will sometimes take me an extra second or two to get a word out and I prefer you let me do that rather than complete my sentence for me. Tends to be not much rhyme or reason to when I get these blocks. I've fluently delivered speeches to hundreds of people, appeared on TV interviews countless times, but I can sometimes struggle in the one on one discussions. There's both a physiological and emotional component and the area is under researched. After we got married, my wife decided to leave her career as a special education teacher and become a speech language pathologist. That is so epic. So when did you start doing this? What has it done for you and how do people receive it?

[Josh Moorer]

So in my adult life, when I went back to therapy, I don't know, it's sort of like I think maybe every stutterer has the moment where they realize, oh, like this is not going to get fixed. And I think at 27, when I went back and started doing this, I don't think I knew that yet. I don't think I knew that yet. I think I still had a fantasy. There's going to be a pill, a shot, a surgery, a technique, an audio device. You know, there's been a little research about like if you give yourself audio feedback and confuse yourself, it's easier to be fluent. It's just like, I don't know, like I think hundreds years ago they would slit your tongue. Like we've been trying to figure this one out for a while and we're, and we're not going to. And it's just, you know. So I think coming to terms with the fact that this is going to be a thing, right, is an interesting reframe. And so when I went back to therapy, the first that was clear and what we spent the first little while doing this was in like flatiron in Manhattan and we would go to like a department store and I would just go up to clerks and be like I need to ask them a question and then a question about anything, like where's the bathroom? But before I do that, be like, hi, I stutter when I speak. Can you help me find the bathroom or help me find anything? And since I would do one where I know I'm going to block and I'm going to hold eye contact with you and struggle and get the word out. And first I'm going to tell, I'm going to do the advertising, then I'm going to do that. I'm going to intentionally do it. And it's like a desensitization, a little bit of that moment because you're giving permission to the person to notice it. You don't have to pretend this isn't happening. This is happening. We're having this exchange. You're standing in front of me, I'm about to ask you a question and I can't. And I'm going to try and you're going to see me struggle and I'm going to get it out. You're going to answer. It's all good. And some of it is for the benefit of the person and mostly the, for the benefit of me, of the person saying it, of the stutter. And, and I think that was really interesting. And so I have used that, you know, I have experimented with it in a bunch of different ways. I think the user guide ended up being the perfect place because it wasn't. Because in some ways it's like so an example of when it didn't work super well for me in between Uber and this. I was an investor and I started this firm and we raised a bunch of money and I didn't end up really liking it very much. And so I left for levels. But when we did about a year of pitching where we go to university endowments or retirement fund managers and give them a pitch on why they should invest in our fund and this is a very bad experience for me because I think a planned, scripted thing and the guy I was working with is a very good speaker and salesman and would be very robust in what he says and it would sort of like leave spaces for me. And it was just like the worst of everything. And we tried some, we, we tried some, some advertising because it was bad. I mean, it was, it was really the worst period of adult stuttering I'd ever had. It was, I mean, I don't, I'm not going to use language on this, but I mean, I have a lot of things to say. Like, it was, it was really bad. And you know, I think for a bunch of reasons I was out of my element. It wasn't a good fit for me anyway. I was self conscious about it. The guy I was working with was much stronger at it than I was. I felt like a little bit of dead weight. It was just the opposite of Uber. The story you told earlier Where I had the confidence, it's the opposite of that. I tried advertising for a little bit and it just. I don't know, it didn't work for whatever reason. It was just, I don't know, I didn't like that. But the manual has been great. Like doing what I did here is so great because I know that people are going to see it or if they're curious, they're going to look and see it. It's a much better way. Because also I got to just say it exactly how I want. I got to have the long form. It's not just a one sentence thing. If it's a clerk in a store, it doesn't really matter necessarily what they come away with. But if it's a pitch you're going to be in for 90 minutes and you've sort of opened with that, it's like, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know. Just. I could be imagining it. It just, it didn't really feel good. It didn't, it didn't really work for me. But the, but, but after the, you know, going back a little bit after that incident, you know, after I practiced this in the department store, I did become more open about it. I would tell people that I work with, it's just sort of like, why not, why not put a label on the thing that the other person has seen?

[Uri Schneider]

You're saying it, name it, don't shame it. Just name the elephant in the room.

[Josh Moorer]

Don't shame. I love that. That's great. And it's just like, just get it out there and move on. Like, yep, there's this thing. Got no control over it. It happens, don't worry. It's almost like the positioning for the. It was almost like, don't worry. If this happens, this is gonna happen. Don't worry about it. I think that I talk about it.

[Uri Schneider]

I broke it down into three stages and you did it. And I could have taken it straight out of your piece. I talk about, you gotta give it a name, whatever name you wanna use for it. Number two, tell them what to expect, like what might happen or what might not happen. One of the things people do is they advertise and they don't stutter. And the person's like, yeah, I told you, it's no big deal. You don't stutter. Like, no, no, trust me, I do in many other places. And so like there's. That's. But to say what you said, you might not even notice it. But other times you Might. So you put that out there, you told them what to expect, and number three, you told them what you want them to do. Just hang in there, you know, don't complete my words. Other people might have other preferences they want to put out there. So we're coming down the home stretch, because I know you got another meeting in a hard stop, but I do want to touch on. Yes.

[Josh Moorer]

Yeah, I told the 11:30 that I might be five minutes late. So if it's like 11:31, don't worry.

[Uri Schneider]

Oh, okay. I got one extra minute. Perfect.

[Josh Moorer]

No, I mean. And it's a zoom.

[Uri Schneider]

I got you. I got you. I got you. We can just pull them into this meeting if you want. Who knows, they might be watching this Facebook Live.

[Josh Moorer]

It'll be a very boring meeting for you and for all the listeners.

[Uri Schneider]

But, yes, I'd be dead weight over there, Josh. You know, one of the things that we've teamed up on is, for example, I'm thinking of one person in particular. I'm going to tell a story about this guy, and then I'd love for you to shed a little bit of light. Some young people going into the beginning of their career, their first job, you know, high school is one thing, college is another. And then stepping into your first job, especially if it's in, you know, corporate settings or whatever, professional setting, there's a certain amount of, like, okay, you know, we're not in Kansas anymore, and there's a great deal of fear and angst that kind of ramps up with that new chapter in life. So I'm thinking of one person in particular I want to give a quick story about, and then maybe you could just shed a little light on the kind of things people have talked to you about and the kind of advice that you've shared, and maybe that could be helpful to some of the people that are listening. But think of one guy that, you know, who you chatted with, and he was just before he was starting his job, one of the biggest banks in New York and super antsy about, okay, I got it. They know I stutter, but, like, are they really going to accept me? Are they really going to treat me like an equal? Are they not going to judge me and kind of, you know, stigmatize and say, oh, yeah, here's the guy who stutters. And at the beginning of his journey, he was so fearful of his stutter. He told me that at the very beginning, he would search on the Internet and he would clear his browser and do it incognito. He didn't want anyone to even know that he searched for browsing stuttering. He said it was a big step forward. After his third or fourth meeting, he's like, yeah, I'm actually not doing it in incognito anymore. I'm not clearing my cash anymore. And that's like a 2022 version of desensitization. An example of measurable progress. So this young man then, he spoke with you before he started this job at the bank, and he found it super helpful. More than anything I could have ever done was talking to another person who's walked the walk, talk the talk, who has gone through the fire and it's a year later and he's in this community. We have transcending stuttering, transcending x.com he's in the community. And a guy from Nigeria pops up. I didn't even tell you the story. This is fresh. A guy from Nigeria posts in the community. Getting a job in Nigeria with a stutter is so hard. I'm in such hard knocks. If anyone could send me a loan of like 500 bucks, I'll pay it back in a few weeks. And I didn't know what to do. This is not a micro lending platform. I didn't want people soliciting funds. On the other hand, my heart goes out to the guy. So how do I support him? But also set kind of the code of conduct here. It hadn't happened before. So on the one hand, I told the fellow, here's a platform for microlending, for creating a campaign, and I'm sure we can find some people that could help you out short term. But at the same time, what you can find in this community is people that have been through similar experiences and you can hear what they've done and kind of also just have the comfort of knowing that you're not the only person on the planet dealing with this very challenging situation of feeling stigmatized and judged unfavorably. And some of it's in your head and some of it's real. You know, the world isn't always a friendly place. There are a lot of jerks out there. So I said that's what I said to him publicly, privately. I messaged a group of people in the platform, including our friend who went to the bank, let's call him Jesse. And Jesse pops in and gives this guy such an encouraging message. He says, listen, buddy, I've been there. It's hard. Let me tell you something. The best thing would be you could send me your resume. I'll help you Polish it up. You can send me any of your interviewing stuff we can get on a zoom call. I can help you. So this guy from New York is voluntarily helping this guy in Nigeria, lending him his heart, lending him his ear, lending him his time, lending him his experience. So this guy feels a little bit less alone. And the funniest thing is the guy that's hiding his browser says to him, and by the way, the best thing to do is just put it out there. Just let them know what's up and how you're going to deal with it. And so you know where he was at when he was starting at the bank. He was hiding beyond belief. So to see him advocating for others, to see the benefit of that is just remarkable. So what would you say, Josh? What are some of the things that people bring to you in that conversation and what are some of the tips that you offer?

[Josh Moorer]

Well, I think in, in that, you know, in, in this situation, I, what I was surprised after to learn is that he had never had a conversation with another actual stutterer before. Like, he talks to you, but he has never had that kind of like heart to heart with another person. And I, I know where he went to high school too. Like, I'm familiar with it, and I was just kind of surprised about that. But for whatever reason, he, I mean, I, maybe he would just didn't want to do that. He wasn't ready to do that. But, but it sounded like just having the heart to heart with someone who gets it in a first person way was effective, was. Was a useful experience for him. I had that early on because I got it from my uncle. I mean, that's obviously not what I mean, but the fact that my uncle stutters is related to the fact that I do. And so I had that prototype. And then I also had a guy in my elementary school who, who stuttered in kind of a different way than me. Um, but I just, I guess I just had some more exposure to people who had the situation. Um, and I didn't really need it, but I, but I think I, you know, it was clear to me from after speaking with him that everybody in that situation needs to have another, has to have a sound board for like, you know, I'm concerned about xyz, and I don't think necessarily the message I gave him was like, don't, don't worry about those things. No one will notice or care. Like, that actually is not the message. And I don't. I remember the zoom, and I remember the background of his zoom. And what the room he was in looks like. But I can't remember what we talked about, unfortunately. But I think it was just, you know, the empathy. It's like, yeah, I get it. You know, it's not good. But I did. It was kind of, don't worry, because I did. I think now, as I think about it, like, remembering some of the concerns, like the scenarios he shared, like, I'm going to be in the situation at this bank and I'm going to be doing this. And, like, this is going to happen. I'm like, no, it's not going to happen. Don't worry. These are, like, worldly folks. They're going to have met people. Not saying they're going to be necessarily all nice, but they're going to be worldly enough to know, like, you got a job there. You went through a process that wasn't an accident. You deserve it. You have what it takes. You probably even have a little more than what it takes because you still got it despite all this. And so I think it's going to be okay. You're going to work it out. You did the hard part. He was coming to talk after he got the big job. I was like, you got the big job right out of school, so it's gonna, you know. And I guess just sort of hearing that was probably good for him. And just the incognito stuff. I do remember that. And that is. I mean, that's wild. There's something there that was good to dislodge because that's. That's very difficult to hear that he felt like someone might. As if it's like an. As he's doing something, like, illicit. That's a little bit disturbing, to be honest. And so I'm glad that he was able to dislodge that and not feel that way anymore and be more open. Look it. I don't know that going into his first day at that bank and being like, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to tell you something, but I think what I said, I was like, but over time, you start to let people know, people that you spend a lot of time with. Maybe let your manager know upfront. It's almost just like you're assuring them, like, don't worry.

[Uri Schneider]

I think this is.

[Josh Moorer]

I, you know, I don't know.

[Uri Schneider]

You said it all there. You know, you're not even sure what you said. That's right. Like, sometimes it's not about the substance, it's about the experience. It's about just feeling the comfort of having someone that gets it. And we underestimate how powerful that can be in so many arenas in life. We're coming down the home stretch, and I appreciate your extra time. So we'll just come home with this. I think we'll circle back. Maybe we'll have around two, but that'd be awesome. Thank you. I think levels and what I'm thinking about is feedback loops. And you talk about in your user's manual how much you love feedback. And we all thrive on feedback and what the research tells us about feedback specifically. We need to create cultures and spaces. And I'm going to be talking at the National Stuttering association about how do we create safe spaces? And if we have enough positive feedback, we can create a safe space for hard feedback, too. And it can be very well received and very productive. The most unproductive is when no one can say what they really need to say, which is a sort of stuttering, whether you stutter or not, feeling that you can't say what needs to be said, having to hold back. But we'll skip that. Let's just circle back to, like, what would you say would be the most important thing you'd like to see in the stuttering therapy universe in terms of a disruption? As a guy who comes from Uber, one of the greatest disruptors out there, what would be something that you think could be really something that could take things to the next level, into the future of stuttering therapy opportunities for people who stutter.

[Josh Moorer]

Well, it's clearly you're already on the path. I mean, and I think a lot of it is Internet and digital, like, being able. You know, I've. I've only. I think I've gotten to one session of, like, all the stutterers get together and, like, sit on a couch and have a conversation. I was like, at a place I had to go and was there. And, like, you know, now we're all zoom in, and that's probably an easier way to do that kind of thing. I think there is a role the Internet can do something here. Like, I'm not. So the analog is like. So I lost a lot of weight, probably since I saw you that first time, like, after Lily's birth. I wasn't the pregnant one, but I still gained a lot of weight. And I was at Uber in, like, the thick of it and gained a lot of weight there too. And I ended up, like, losing a lot of weight. And that turned me on to a lot of the concepts that levels is into. That was sort of my onboarding for it. I lost the weight in like, 2019, a little bit before that too, but a lot of it. And I joke, but it's really true. But, like, I lost weight on the Internet. Like, I was able to access information and experiences of other people in a decentralized way that was really effective for me, the fasting movement. You know, for me, fasting always felt like a religious thing that you do a few times a year, and it's generally unpleasant. And this is like. Well, actually, this is like sort of, you know, water fasting. And it can be. You skip breakfast and it's like just things that are maybe like, metabolically healthy because they're how we evolved. Like, did humans 5,000 years ago or 3,000 years ago, like, necessarily eat three square meals a day? Like, no, for sure not. And so. And the fact that fasting appears in basically every major world religion just suggests that there is some there there. And so I reading people, people would post their experiences. I did this thing. Here's what happened. And I was into testing my blood for a bit to different sort of level of monitoring to monitor the levels. And that's when I've met levels. I was like, oh, yes, I'm going to blow my life up and come and do this, because this is going to be the thing. And I think there's an analog, I think, giving more voice, decentralizing this a little bit. Where in the past your organization might be, everyone's interacting with you. You've now created a space that other people can interact with each other in sort of a way that you're not necessarily involved in all the time. And I think there's something there in terms of, like, you know, there are now therapy apps. Forget about speech therapy, but there are therapy apps. There's apps for everything and behavior changes. Something that we think about a lot of levels. Like, how do we get people to not eat the bagel? Like, because it's not just knowing to not eat the bagel, it's also getting yourself to not eat the bagel and habits and behavior changes. And so I think there are. And the techniques, you know, there are still, even though it's not a solvable problem, there are techniques one could learn that can make things a little bit better so that you just, you know, you get through the block and you move on. It's not going to overnight make you fluent. But there are, there is. As with most things, there are techniques that have been developed by people who had been through it before and have been thinking about it. So I think there it's just a better way to disseminate information, to share experiences, to connect people. The Nigeria thing was a beautiful example. That doesn't happen without the Internet by any long shot. And so people that are in isolated places that are maybe like less enlightened, who are not around, people who know this isn't. Who are not living on the Upper west side, which I view as a rather enlightened place like most of the rest of the world. Maybe not be on the same like the east side.

[Uri Schneider]

Like on the east side.

[Josh Moorer]

On the east side. If you cross the park, east side, they're like, what is this? I'm just kidding. I just mean in communities where it just might not be on people's radars for whatever reason. I think there is. That is the opportunity set. I think it's just like the Internet is great. I'm not exact, you know, a lot of connectivity you can do. You connect different people who stutter with each other. You can put them in groups.

[Uri Schneider]

They're just.

[Josh Moorer]

I think there's some there there that's maybe topic for our second call. Awesome second podcast. But yeah, but there's definitely something to do there. I unfortunately do have to go now though.

[Uri Schneider]

Go. Closing line. You know, the closing line. What would be your one thing you would tell your younger self? Just that one short nugget of wisdom that you wish you knew then, you know now and you wish you could share.

[Josh Moorer]

Oof. Gosh, I don't know. Don't worry, you know, don't worry.

[Uri Schneider]

You got it. Don't worry. Level up. Josh, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for the extra time. Have an awesome day. Regards to everybody. Hope maybe Petrol join you for round two.

[Josh Moorer]

Awesome. Really great chatting. See you all soon.

[Uri Schneider]

Bye.

[Josh Moorer]

Bye.

[Uri Schneider]

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