Podcasts about Auckland City

For the next month nurses at Auckland City, Starship and Greenlane hospitals will refuse to take 'on-call' shifts. They say Health New Zealand's latest pay offer doesn't keep pace with inflation or the cost of living. Health New Zealand Northern Region Deputy chief executive Mike Shepherd spoke to Corin Dann.

A man is in police custody after a series of vandalism attacks on electric vehicles took place in Auckland. Cars including Teslas and a Polestar electric vehicle were reportedly spray-painted - making them unsafe to drive. Auckland City Electric Vehicles director Greg Larsen says the Tesla brand has become a 'political football' as a result of CEO Elon Musk's recent actions. "It's quite interesting that a motor vehicle brand has become a political football - and violence and vigilante kinds of activities are happening because of a vehicle brand." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Round The Bays are happening tomorrow on Auckland's waterfront. 27,000 people are expected to ascend on Quay street before making their way to St Heliers. Race Director Henry McLernon talks to D'Arcy Waldegrave. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the clock strikes midnight tonight Auckland City's skyline will be illuminated with the iconic fireworks display off the Sky Tower. Sky City Chief Operating Officer Callum Mallet joins the show to talk about what goes into planning the event, the best spots to watch it and how the weather could rain on the parade. LISTEN ABOVE. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've got it all in this episode. From conspiracy theories to C-PAP machines, ChatGPT vs. Siri, and a quick update on Nickson's Mayoral aspirations. Nate suggests a few ideas on how Nickson can secure more votes from the Pasefika community, and Bossman Lui puts the guys minds at ease as to whether or not they've been blacklisted from the Pacific Music Awards.

Auckland City General manager Gordon Glen Watson joins the show from Miami to talk FIFA Club World Cup draw, who his team are grouped with, expectations, preparations & more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the Niche Cast we roll through Joseph Parker's next fight, Chris Wood's penalty taking excellence and the Freddie Gillespie/Tacko Fall swap for NZ Breakers. Then we go deep into the Blackcaps vs England mangroves with notes about respecting England's domination of Blackcaps, Blackcaps being mediocre in New Zealand, playing styles, form slumps and plenty more. Plunket Shield rolls along so we offer a few of our favourite players (Rhys Mariu, Bevon Jacobs, Brett Hampton, Matt Fisher) and break down Otago's strong start to HBJ Shield. Auckland United and Auckland City won the National League football finals, while Auckland FC continue to own the A-League which includes nifty mahi from Nando Pijnaker. We finish with NZ Warriors depth/contract stuff and Sydney Roosters setting up a base in Christchurch.(Also, apologies for the audio quality… we had some technical dramas with the upload so it was a low-quality file or nothing - we'll try fix it later if we can, cheers for understanding)Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/elnichecacheNewsletter twice a week: https://thenichecache.substack.comHook us up with a brew: https://buymeacoffee.com/thenichecacheSay kia ora: thenichecache@gmail.comwww.theniche-cache.com(00:00) Intro(06:28) Mindfulness(09:34) Joseph Parker's next fight(16:26) Chris Wood's penalties(25:17) NZ Breakers defensive wonkiness(36:38) Blackcaps vs England emotional purge(01:33:29) Plunket Shield & HBJ Shield(01:43:33) Auckland FC defensive prowess(01:58:31) National League Grand Finals(02:07:38) Warriors Offseason Tracker & Other NRL

Established in 2021, the National League is Aotearoa New Zealand's premier domestic football competition, showcasing the nation's top talent in a two-phase battle for the prestigious title of National League champions. Auckland City take on Birkenhead United at 4pm on Sunday at North Harbour Stadium, to see who will be crowned the 2024 men's national champions. Birkenhead United Coach Paul Hobson joined D'Arcy Waldegrave to preview the clash. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In his first official day in the job the new Police commissioner has delivered an early Christmas present to Auckland businesses and residents; anouncing the city centre's getting a new police base, almost a decade after the last one closed. A number of businesses and residents have been campaigning for a bricks and mortar presence in the central city saying violent and anti-social behaviour is major issue. In July, police increased the number of officers carrying out foot patrols in the area - adding another 21 officers. The previous station on Fort Street closed down in 2013 and the police headquarter moved to Freeman's Bay in 2019. Police Minister Mark Mitchell, previously told RNZ there was no budget for it, he spoke to Lisa Owen.

The new top cop says Aucklanders will be feeling better about a police station in the city's centre. Police plan to have the new Federal Street base open to the public by the middle of next year. It will sit close to Aotea Square and the new CRL station, making it easier to deploy officers right across the central city. Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told Mike Hosking that soon we'll have 51 beats working 24/7 around the community, increasing visibility and safety. He says it's back to basics policing, with officers walking the beat and getting to know the people around town. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The winners of the men's and women's National League Championship 2024 will be crowned on Sunday December 1st, with both Grand Finals confirmed to take place at North Harbour Stadium in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. D'Arcy catches up with Myer Bevan out of the Auckland City FC camp, ahead of their match against Napier City Rovers. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Christmas tree going up in Te Komititanga Square, between lower Queen Street and the Waterfront is causing controversy due to the cost. Viv Beck from Heart of the City spoke to Alexa Cook.

Yesterday afternoon, a woman was taken to hospital in a critical condition after being seriously injured in an assault on board a bus broad daylight. Shortly before 6pm, police confirmed the person had died in the hospital – they said the victim was a passenger on the bus. They say nobody else is at risk at the moment, they know who the alleged offender is, but it's unsettling. This is not the norm, this is not what should be happening. You should be able to board a bus on a quiet Wednesday and get to your destination safely without being abused, without being spat at, without being assaulted, and without being stabbed until you die. There's something horribly aberrant about this. We've had a lot of good news recently, the Coalition Government has been talking tough on crime since they were campaigning to be elected, and then we've had the good news announcements of major criminal organisations being busted - Comanchero's down south, Mongrel Mob in Opotiki. We've had the announcement of more cops on the beat, a visible sign of the police being around, which does so much to make people feel safe and does a lot to prevent crime. There are already about 30 officers working the beat in Auckland City. The total police force on the beat in Auckland will exceed 50, it's expected to have exceeded 50 by the end of last month. Seventeen officers deployed in Wellington, in Christchurch an extra 10 tramping the footpaths, and by the end of the two-year roll out Coster said there would be 21 officers deployed in each of Auckland's three policing districts, making up 63 additional officers on the beat across the region. So that is great, these are good news stories that do make you feel better, but you cannot have a police officer on every bloody bus or every train. You can't even have a security guard on every bus or every train. Incidents like this happen, and then you get the New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey coming along, asking questions, do you feel safe? And you say no, I bloody don't. I don't feel safe when a person can be stabbed on a bus in broad daylight on a Wednesday. The sixth New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey that was released in June interviewed thousands of New Zealanders about their experience of crime, whether they reported it or did not report it. Although it should be noted they didn't talk to businesses, and a hell of a lot of crime affected business over the last few years. People said they felt unsafe, despite the fact that crime rates have remained steady over the last three or four years. All of the good news can be forgotten when something as random and as savage as this incident occurs. I think the idea of addressing the situations where crime occurs is a good one. If we're looking at families that are at risk, we need to focus on them. So, the Social Investment Agency, that is a good move. Investing in community programs that work is good. Investing in more rehab centres, drug and rehabilitation centres would be excellent. I still don't believe there are nearly enough facilities available for people who want to get help, for families who want loved ones to get help. The promised care in the community for those who are severely disordered, not there, and hasn't been there for a very, very long time. So you've got to look at the drivers of crime as well as crime itself. Great, we've got the Coalition Government talking tough on crime, actually making a difference when it comes to getting police on the beat, actually making a difference when it gets more police officers policing, rather than acting as social workers. When you've got drug rings being disrupted, all of this is good. This is feel good stuff, but it only takes one random incident and people are unsettled. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

World leaders pledge action for peace and sustainable development; a new report has been released on severe rental stress in Australia's capital cities and most regions; and, in football, UAE side Al Ain defeat Auckland City in the first round of the FIFA Intercontinental Cup.

The Government is unlikely to meet its target of reducing violent crime, according to its latest update. On Sunday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was heralding decreased crime rates in Auckland City. But as he gave a quarterly update on his public service goals on Monday, Luxon revealed violent crime rates had increased steadily since the coalition came to power. Of the nine goals which Luxon set as Government priorities earlier this year, officials said only two of them - related to emergency housing and greenhouse gas emissions - were likely be achieved. A group of local and international road safety experts, academics and health professionals have penned an open letter to the Government over its proposed moves to reverse speed limit reductions, saying it will result in lost lives if it proceeds. Education minister Erica Stanford has defended the Government's decision to fast-track its new maths curriculum by almost a year. Teaching unions are concerned that educators won't have enough time to learn the new curriculum, which will start at the same time as structured literacy. Stanford insisted the Government was not rushing the roll-out, instead saying it had been in the works for years. ================================== Come support the work we're doing by becoming a Patron of ⁠⁠#BHN⁠⁠ www.patreon.com/BigHairyNews⁠ Merch available at www.BHNShop.nz Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/BigHairyNews Follow us on Twitter. @patbrittenden @Chewie_NZ

Paul Ifill's in pursuit of back-to-back Chatham Cup football titles - in different coaching colours.  A year after leading Christchurch United to the national club title, Ifill is now Wellington Olympic mentor, who square off with Auckland City for the 2024 title this evening.  Paul catches up with Adam Cooper to preview the final.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kiwitea Street is set for a thrilling Chatham Cup semifinal clash on a special day for the club, as Auckland City FC host Birkenhead United on Sunday.  The Navy Blues will also be celebrating the club's 20th Jubilee with a host of former players and staff.  Kick Off is at 2.00 pm at Kiwitea Street, the home of Auckland City.  Striker Angus Kilkolly joined D'Arcy Waldegrave to preview the clash.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The submissions are open, you can now have your say on whether Eden Park should be allowed to have 12 concerts a year, which is double what they have at the moment.  And from me, it is absolutely a ‘hell yes'.Give them 12 concerts, it's a great place for a show. I've been to a few shows there now - Pink, Ed Sheeran, Billy Joel... and honestly, because of how good it was as a music venue, I struggle to imagine a time when Eden Park didn't host music. It seemed so natural. But they only had their first concert, Six60, in 2021. In the interests of transparency, I have to say for a couple of those concerts, I was there because Eden Park invited me. And I'm not naïve, I suspect they invited me so I could see what a great venue it was. And it worked, because I was quite impressed with it. Obviously, Eden Park isn't the only venue Auckland City's got, there's a whole bunch of them - and if you want to have a big open-air stadium concert, there's Mt Smart. But I still reckon Eden Park beats it on a couple of fronts. For one, it's much easier to get to and from there than it is for Mt Smart. For a big show, Mt Smart is a pain in the butt to get in and out of. With Eden Park, you can just walk out and you're in a bar in Ponsonby in 2.5ks.Plus, there's capacity. Mt Smart can do about 40,000 people for a live show, Eden Park can apparently hold more than 50,000. Obviously, that means more money for Auckland city, which is what I'm interested in.The hotel occupancy for Pink was apparently 97 percent. That means people are bringing in their money from other places in the country and the region. There'll be even more money flowing in for Coldplay, cause they're only playing three shows in Auckland.So far, Eden Park is doing good things for Auckland's economy - and just to underscore the place, think of the biggest events Auckland's had over the past wee while. We had Harry Styles, we had Pink, we had the FIFA Women's World Cup, and we're going to have Coldplay soon.  Three of those were - or will be - held at Eden Park. After Coldplay, what's on Auckland's calendar for cool things to do? Outside of stuff like the tennis and SailGP, there's nothing.So I'd argue we actually need Eden Park to have more concerts, cause it attracts the big stuff. And who would turn up the money that comes with it? Plus, if we say yes to these extra concerts, maybe in a few years we'll struggle to remember a time when we limited them to only six a year. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The demand for electric vehicles has continued its decline.   Last year importers across the country were scrambling to meet demand, and Auckland City Electric Vehicles was awaiting one of their largest shipments.   Since the axing of the clean car discount, BMI Research figures suggest that the total decline in EV sales will fall by nearly 11 thousand vehicles this year.    Auckland City Electric Vehicles CEO Greg Larsen told Mike Hosking that every manufacturer is going down the EV track, and he thinks they may have gone too fast.   LISTEN ABOVE   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former All Whites Captain and current Auckland City FC assistant coach Ivan Vicelich joins the show to talk about football throughout Auckland, and the upcoming EPL season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin Milne was in a different neck of the woods this past week.  He and his wife Linda were up in Auckland, catching up with some old friends and experiencing what the city has on offer at the moment.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The iconic Smith and Caughey's department store in the heart of Auckland City has started talks to shut up shop for good.. after 144 years in business. Finn Blackwell reports.

Jen interviews Cath Vincent, a business consultant from New Zealand who helps small businesses stop leaking profit. Cath shares her tips for analysing your cash flow, delegating tasks, and creating a business that supports your desired lifestyle.Episode HighlightsAnalyse your cash flow, expenses, and profit leaks using tools like Xero to gain visibility.Delegate tasks that you dislike or are not essential to your role to free up time and energy.Create an annual plan that accounts for seasonal variations in your business and personal cash flow.Say no to opportunities that do not fully align with your essential criteria to avoid taking on too much.Focus on delivering your highest value offerings exceptionally well rather than spreading yourself thin.About Cath VincentCath is an Associate at the Prime Strategies Group helping small businesses to stop leaking profit. An award-winning keynote speaker, she speaks on performance, productivity, behavioural change & leadership. She renovated a distressed warehouse and former methamphetamine lab in the heart of Auckland City into a motivational hub called Studio 38, where she lives and works with her husband, daughter, and wire-haired fox terrier. Studio 38 is a 50-seat venue and recording studio which hosts workshops, charity events and her broadcast TV show as well as her a women's speaking group She Says So.✨ Find out more about Cath here: cathvincent.com ✨ Connect with Cath on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathvincent/ Connect with usInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/femalefusionnetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/FemaleFusionNetworkYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/femalefusionTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/FemaleFusionNetLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/femalefusionnetworkWebsite: https://www.femalefusionnetwork.com/

The Mayor of Auckland, Wayne Brown has injected $570,000 into improving safety in the city.  The money will go towards additional CCTV operators, a safety coordinator for the CBD and investment in outreach to help people secure housing.   Heart of the City CEO Viv Beck tells Mike Hosking the boost will complement strong local efforts across a number of initiatives.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the show this week; Nicholas speaks to Zöe Collings, one of the curators of That's so last century, a new exhibition at the Auckland City library that explores New Zealand fashion from the 1950s-1990s. Beth speaks to world-renowned illustrator and author of children's books and the political cartoonist for the Observer, Chris Riddell, about his new volume of poems, I Can't Remember What We Talked About. To end the show, Nicholas speaks to Louise Menzies an artist featured in Eight thousand layers of moments, an exhibition hosted at Gus Fisher Gallery.

A new public artwork installation is coming to the southern end of Federal Street in Auckland, just a stone's from the RNZ studio.  The artist, Joe Sheehan, speaks to Jesse.

Auckland City councillor Lotu Fuli is a long-time friend of Fa'anānā Efeso Collins and was elected to the Manukau Ward in 2022 when Fa'anānā ran for the mayoralty. Fuli spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss. 

The question of whether Auckland needs a waterfront or downtown stadium has always been an easy question for me to answer. No, Auckland doesn't need another stadium. We already have quite a few stadiums with different capacities catering to various our needs. There are a lot of other more important things Auckland needs; less traffic congestion, better public transport, a better waste water system, more schools, more housing, a massive wet and wild Waterslide park - you know, the important stuff. A stadium, in the heart of the city is a nice to have, right? But you know what, how nice would it be to have. Sitting on the glistening shores of the Waitemata Harbour, the CBD should be the pride of Auckland City. Instead, it's too often the subject of complaints about safety, policing and access as Queen St transforms into a shared space. A lot of work has gone into enticing people back into the city centre; the Britomart complex, an upgraded Quay St, the impressive Wynyard Quarter. We know if you create interesting spaces – theatres, stadiums, family friendly open spaces, shopping precincts, entertainment and hospo areas – and make them accessible – the people will come and we'll get a world class, vibrant city with all the economic benefits that go along with that. So for this reason alone, I say bring it on. However, a city-based stadium in Auckland is like a lot of infrastructure projects in New Zealand – spoken about for decades but rarely seen. We thought about it in 2006 when Trevor Mallard thought it would be nice to have one for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, instead of spending money on upgrading Eden Park. In 2017 then Mayor Phil Goff commissioned a $1million feasibility report - which he was then reluctant to release. It turns out stadiums don't turn much of a profit. We've had architects, various consortiums and sports team owners present their visions for a revamped Auckland waterfront. There are probably a few students out there who've created some pretty good-looking Auckland waterfront designs for a school study. So far they've all been pipedreams; a teaser to get the public on side, a push to get politicians to act. Yesterday a new vison for Auckland Quay Park was released to the public by a consortium headed by former Warriors Chief Executive Jim Doyle. It includes not just an impressive looking 50,000-seater stadium with views to Rangitoto (is anyone else concerned about the wind swirling around in there?) but also hotels, bars and restaurants, residential apartments and public spaces and parks. Their vision is impressive – who wouldn't want it over an old railway yard? It's good to see local iwi who own the land on board, and with the majority of the investment coming from the private sector, input from the council and government is thought to be less than what may have to be spent on maintaining Eden Park in the future. It's a compelling case and vision. We will just have to wait and see if anyone is brave enough to commit to it. I hope they do. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reynoso & Soltero return for a recap episode catching up on everything they missed out on this past month in the world of football! Ranging from the FIFA Club World Cup, Premier League title race & looking forward to the most exciting tournaments of 2024. (00:00) Argentina Trip Recap(02:32) Columbus Crew are MLS Champions!(05:47) America are Liga MX Champions!(10:54) Rosario Central are Liga Profesional Champions!(14:11) Manchester City are Club World Cup Champions!(17:42) Claudio Echeverri to Manchester City(19:58) Why Al Ahly is one of the biggest clubs in the world(24:34) What the hell happened to Leon?!(25:19) The beauty of Auckland City(29:00) Liverpool is leading the Premier League!(32:07) Is Arsenal out of the title race?(41:43) Most exciting tournaments of 2024?(47:27) Which player are you most excited for in 2024? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thegivengo/support

Dawri is a Saudi football podcast by Arab News. In Episode 19 of Dawri, Arab News Sports Editor Ali Khaled talks to host Peter Redding about the World Football Summit in Jeddah, and we hear from Monika Staab, Technical Director at the Saudi Football Federation, about the rapid development of women's football across the Kingdom in recent years. Meanwhile Khaled Alarafah covers the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup opener between Al-Ittihad and Auckland City and relays the comments of Karim Benzema after the match.  

Victoria de el Al-Ittihad de Karim Benzemá por 3 a 0 contra el Auckland City en el Mundial de Clubes jugado en Jeddah, Arabia Saudita. Escucha esta y otras noticias del fútbol mundial.

Auckland City's part-time footballers were no match for their wealthy Saudi opposition at the FIFA Club World Cup in Jeddah today. The Auckland team lost 3-nil to Al-Ittihad and were knocked out of the competition - sending their players back to their jobs as teachers, salesmen, and tradies. Whereas the Saudi team which includes a player earning more than $150 million a season move on the next round against the champions from Egypt. We're joined by sports reporter Felicity Reid. [embed] https://players.brightcove.net/6093072280001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6342930291112

Dawri is a Saudi football podcast by Arab News. Episode 18 of Dawri sees host Peter Redding and Arab News Sports Editor  Ali Khaled discuss the upcoming World Football Summit taking place in Jeddah, and are joined by Asian football expert Paul Williams to look ahead to the FIFA Club World Cup, which kicks off on Tuesday when Saudi champions Al-Ittihad take on Auckland City. Meanwhile Khaled Alrafah looks back on a momentous Riyadh Derby that saw Al-Hilal beat Al-Nassr 3-0 to go seven points clear of Cristiano Ronaldo and co at the top of the Roshn Saudi League table. 

The boss of Auckland's City Rail Link is giving no guarantees it will hit its opening deadline of 2026. Preliminary work on the 3.4km track, spanning four underground stations, from downtown's Britomart to Mt Eden, began in 2016. But CRL chief executive Sean Sweeney says reaching that deadline of 2026 - 10 years later - is not guaranteed. The latest cost projection of the build is 5.49 billion dollars - and once it is up and running, it's is set to cost Auckland ratepayers an estimated 220 million dollars a year to maintain. It will serve as connecting link between existing rail services , making most of the central city accessible by train. An engineer ,Sean Sweeney has spent four decades working across the world overseeing such big construction jobs. But as he tells Kathryn Ryan, he believes Auckland is the most expensive place in the world for infrastructure projects.

Calls for more sensible spending on road safety in Auckland.  Auckland Transport is spending an average of $470 thousand for each of the 27 new signalised pedestrian crossings as part of its road safety scheme.  Spokesperson Mark Lambert says despite the high cost, they're necessary in areas of high safety risk like schools.  But Auckland City Councillor Maurice Williamson told Mike Hosking that his time as Transport Minister shows it can be done for much cheaper.  He says they spent nowhere near that amount of money on the photo driver's licence, and he claims the road toll came down every year as a direct result.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Growth and resilience are only two of the words I think of when I talk about our guest, Curtis Pipes. Curtis always has been a dreamer. He even says that as a child his dreams went much further than his “stateliness”. Nevertheless, he kept on dreaming.   Curtis began life in Columbia Missouri. He tells us about his life including many bumps along the way as he progressed through college. It was growth that finally caused him to focus and get college degrees in two majors.   Work eventually took Curtis to New Zealand where he again had to grow a lot not only to survive but to find his way. He will tell us about his time living as a homeless person in New Zealand and why no one even knew of his challenges.   Today, Curtis lives in Australia where he owns his digital marketing and coaching business. His company is called Peanut Butter Digital Marketing. Why “Peanut Butter”? I'll let Curtis tell the story.   Curtis is clearly an unstoppable person. Stubborn yes, but also he is confident and he understands where that confidence fits into his life purpose. I hope you enjoy hearing Curtis' story as much as did I.     About the Guest:   My name is Curtis Pipes.  I am from Columbia, Missouri.  My entire childhood I believed my dreams were bigger than my stateliness. When I used to talk about this as a kid I would sometimes get laughed at and have adults tell me to go the traditional route-graduate high school, graduate college and then get a job.  This route never sat with me and the uneasiness is what caused me to move out the country in 2010 to pursue a dream I had.     My dream took me to New Zealand and I had some the best and challenging years of my life. I became homeless in New Zealand as I was pursuing my dreams-sleeping on the street and stealing food to eat.  I could have easily gone home but I convinced myself as I was walking the streets of Auckland City late at night that this was part of my journey.  This is a test showing me how bad I want to achieve my dreams.  In the end, I achieved my dreams and created an amazing life for myself.   New Zealand allowed me to begin to find myself.  It didn't come without more challenges but I brought me to the road of personal development and it is one I walk to this day.  If it wasn't for personal development, I wouldn't have been able to heal childhood traumas and reframe self sabotaging stories.  I wouldn't have been able to realize I wasn't suffering alone. I was suffering from no self-love.  Discovering my message within my mess, liberated me to help others.  Self-love is the one thing I know can help individuals rid themselves of so many of their problems.     Supporting people to find their love for themselves is a journey I will partake until I'm gone.     Ways to connect with Curtis:   Social Media Links: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/curtishavenpipes/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075558769021 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtishavenpipes/ www.peanutbutterdigitalmarketing.com Website: www.peanutbutterdigitalmarketing.com LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtishavenpipes     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi there. I'm Mike Hingson, your host and you're listening to or possibly watching if you're on YouTube, unstoppable mindset. And we're really glad that you are with us today. I really appreciate you having the time to come and listen. And we are really looking forward to having a great discussion we have as our guest, Curtis Pipes who started out life in Columbia, Missouri, and I know people who live in Columbia, Missouri. I'm fact I'm going to see them next week. We're all meeting at the National Federation of the Blind convention in Houston. Oh, talk about heat. Anyway, but Curtis left there and went to other places. And he's going to tell us all about that among other things. So let's get to a Curtis. I'd like to thank you for being here. And welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Curtis Pipes ** 02:09 Thank you for having me, Mike. I really appreciate it.   Michael Hingson ** 02:12 Well, we're glad you're here. And I know you've got a lot of interesting stories to tell and a life to talk about. So why don't we love to hear maybe about the the earlier Curtis growing up and all that.   Curtis Pipes ** 02:24 Well, as you mentioned early on from Columbia, Missouri, I just good old country western Midwestern boy grew up with the oldest sister, single mother in Columbia, Missouri, where, yeah, had a great childhood, had a great childhood, my mom always made sure that we didn't want for anything, at the best of our ability was always in sports, and play football, played basketball, wrestled and ran track. And so I've always been an athletic person, I've always been in sports. And I really found that I excelled in in sports and fitness. And so as I got into my older years and got into high school, I still play football and, and I still ran track. And I noticed that being shorter than the others in sports, also had a focus on my mind, and focus on my education. And that was really drilled into us at a young age that you know, get your education really get your education, because it will definitely take you far. Needless to say that that value did not stick I did get in college, I ran track and field. And at the same time also got kicked out of college twice for grades for my academics, because I didn't have the discipline and the focus that I have now. Definitely took the opportunity for granted. And the third time as they say that wholesaling is third time's the charm, right. So the third time I was in college, I was older than a lot of the other students and so I recognize the game you know, the whole thing I used to do when I was younger in college was oh, there's let's go down to the local bar which one of the famous bars for college it Mizzou is what I went was called the Hofburg. And so like oh, we'll go down to the Heidelberg we'll have a drink and I'm like no, I know how that goes we'll have like one drink or so and maybe won't study anymore. So I was just stay in my room. And so it paid off those that the recognition of the patterns and the more focus on my academics paid off in I graduated with two majors and then still continue to also got the letter and track and field which was amazing. But after I graduated, I was still had the fitness books still had the one to workout book, which I still do now. I'm over here in Australia and so it's about four or five o'clock in the morning and I'm 330 person, I wake up at 330. And I work out by least by four. If you want to get more specific, because I'm very detail oriented by 406, I'm working out. And so after college, I started, I went to personal training, and at a local gym, and really found that I really wanted to help people in their fitness and there was a great career. And there was a specific point in my career about four or five years down the line, where I wanted more. And by that time I was applied as instructor, I was a group fitness instructor. And there was only as far as promotion is concerned, there was only lateral. And I don't do lateral, I want to go up. One big thing that our mother instilled in us was you can you can be anything and everything that you want to be. And so I could be anything and everything. I wanted to be moving laterally. And so I started to look for other opportunities. And that's what ultimately moved me out of my hometown.   Michael Hingson ** 06:14 Well, before we go on, and I definitely want to get to the rest of that, first of all, so when did you finally graduate yet? What year was that? Us?   Curtis Pipes ** 06:23 2003 is   Michael Hingson ** 06:24 when I graduated, okay? And what were your majors,   Curtis Pipes ** 06:27 English and sociology and wildlife conservation,   Michael Hingson ** 06:31 which is a little bit of a distance from a fitness and in gymnastics or gym or sports of any kind.   Curtis Pipes ** 06:40 Yeah, I I've always been a writer. I love to write. I love to read. I just have a creative book. I'm a poet. I'm a songwriter, and so desperate that really captivated me in into writing and wanting to learn the ins and outs of how to write.   Michael Hingson ** 06:57 So you did obviously, yes, I did. Now you have siblings. Can you keep saying we?   Curtis Pipes ** 07:04 Yeah. My sister she her name is Helen. She lives over Wisconsin. So you're talking about the heat in Texas. That's the total opposite. Yeah, as far as cold as cold freezing up there, but she loves to read. She loves to write as well. She? She's an avid reader. She was I used to make fun of her growing up because she used to read the dictionary. Ooh, yes. She   Michael Hingson ** 07:27 should have gone on to the National Spelling Bee. Huh? So did. So. Did she visit you over in Australia?   Curtis Pipes ** 07:37 No, she hasn't come over yet. She plans to come over and well, Christmas time here in Australia Summer. Summer. She wants to go over here this this summer for a sandy Christmas in that a white when a white Christmas?   Michael Hingson ** 07:51 Yeah. And hopefully six white boomers will be delivering toys to her stocking. Was the I know the song. But anyway. So you you graduated? How old were you when you graduated?   Curtis Pipes ** 08:08 Oh, gosh. 2323.   Michael Hingson ** 08:11 So you weren't too much older than the other students. But obviously, you learned a lot.   Curtis Pipes ** 08:17 Oh, yeah, I was well experienced. I was well experienced by that point.   Michael Hingson ** 08:21 Yeah. I've never been a real great bar person either. And so a lot of times when I was in college, people would say, well, let's go somewhere. And most of the time, I didn't want to go, partly for me. As I also continued to be reminded a lot later, was you go to a lot of those places. And they're very noisy, even in later life for me, when I was in a couple of sales positions where the sales force of a company got together and they all decided to go somewhere. It was so loud, you couldn't even carry on a conversation, which meant I didn't really get anything out of being there. So I know exactly. Probably for a little bit different reasons. But exactly how you you felt once you gain some experience, and I just didn't have a need to do that.   Curtis Pipes ** 09:12 Yeah, it got to the point where these when I was older than it had the experience that I knew that it wasn't going to going to be conducive to feeling better the next day. And I already had in my mind at that point, like I said, the third time's a charm that I was going to graduate. And that's all that was. That's all that I was focused on. I was very fanatical about my studying to the point where when I was in class, we were lucky to my teachers allowed us to have our laptops in class. And I took notes on my laptop and I would always go to my professors after class and ask them if they had time to read over my notes to make sure I didn't miss anything. Because as I was taking my notes, I was also making myself a study guide. So it was one of those things where there was nothing else on my plate except for my diplomas.   Michael Hingson ** 10:13 Yeah, that was the only thing you were interested in doing. So, girls weren't an issue either, huh?   Curtis Pipes ** 10:19 No, I didn't pay any at that point. That came later. Yeah. And before that, do another reason why I got in trouble.   Michael Hingson ** 10:28 There you go. So you, you really made a very conscious decision about what you were going to do and good for you stuck to it. And that's, and the reason I say good for you whether it was the right decision or the wrong decision, only time would be able to bear out. But you made a choice. And obviously not enough happened to tell you that it wasn't the right choice. Right. Right. So you stuck with it, which is, which is great. And so you graduated, and you had a job for a while. And then the whole issue, I know what you're saying about lateral movement, and in a job or in the workforce, sometimes there's value in doing it just depending on circumstances. But I also agree that moving up is important. And yeah, money's involved. But there are a lot of other things that go into that as well, don't you think?   Curtis Pipes ** 11:22 Definitely, definitely. There's, yeah, I mean, there's there's moving laterally definitely has, I mean, there's silver lining to everything. And I think for me, at that age, I was not conscious of that, though, it was for me, still remaining in the same place. And I still to this day, I'm a very stubborn and very ambitious person. And so I'm always out looking for more and always wanting to grow. So I felt that, okay, lateral is not going to, to help me grow and go to the next level, whatever it may be in my fitness career. So I need to find something else. And so I just started looking and but that also at that point I was getting I was I wasn't as motivated as that as I was when I first started. And so I was also funny enough, on my way out of the health and fitness industry, excuse me. And luckily, I did find group fitness group fitness is what kept me in the fitness industry, and then also got me out of Columbia. So not accepting a lateral move helped me discover what my next move was.   Michael Hingson ** 12:40 So do you think that for you, stubbornness is a positive trait? positive thing to have? Do you think it created some challenges for you? Are you happy with being stubborn?   Curtis Pipes ** 12:54 I'm definitely happy with being stuck. Okay. It's a double edged sword I make as I can be stuck in my ways. And when I get focused on something, sometimes what happens is I don't see something in my peripheral that could benefit me because I'm like a dog with a bone. This is the avenue I want to take. And I'm going to take it until I can't, until I exhausted. And so that's, that's the way the stubbornness can can be a disadvantage to me. But overall, it's helped me not accept what other people's perspective of me is, or was. It also has helped me not to listen to what people think of me. And it also has helped me not accept my situations that certain situations that I had in my life realizing that you know what, this is not for me, so let's change it. And it was up to me to change it.   Michael Hingson ** 13:50 I know that we're moving a little off track of just tracking your life a little bit. But still, this is kind of fascinating. How do you or what do you do to recognize that maybe stubbornness is locking you into something and you need to have a little bit broader view? How do you how do you recognize that? Or how do you deal with that?   Curtis Pipes ** 14:11 I recognize it when my emotions change when my energy changes. When I start to get what I'm more frustrated than ambitious, because it's not working out, then I realized there needs to be another course of action. And so even recognizing it is different than actually putting action behind the recognitions. Even though I recognize them a little bit frustrated, my energy is low. I can still make this work because I've told myself, I can still do it, I can still do it. And so it does take a little bit more knocks on the head, but that's how I really recognize that another course of action needs to be executed. Do you   Michael Hingson ** 14:49 spend time every day sort of thinking about what's going on? Do you do introspection of any sort that one of the ways that you discover this stuff?   Curtis Pipes ** 14:57 Yes, I do. I the reason I wake up in the wanting to work out at four AMS, that training is my anchor. And training is the one time in the day, that's just me, I can focus on myself. Even when I'm at the gym, I have my headphones on, and I have them loud. So people know not to talk to me. Because there's still people at the gym at that at that time. And they're, they're having conversations, which is fine, that's them, they can do what they do. But I'm in there to focus I'm in there to improve my mental capacity, my physical capacity. And so it allows me to focus on what I want to achieve for the day, and my goals. And then even after that, it's like the other side of the coin, I'm in there, I'm sweating, I'm aggressive, I'm lifting weights, and, and everything, and everything of that nature. And the other side of the coin for me, is when I am done with training, I go to the beach, I'm lucky enough and blessed enough to be 10 minutes away from the beach. And so I go there for my introspection, I go there to relax, I go there to listen to the ocean and meditate and still focus on my day, but just from another environment.   Michael Hingson ** 16:10 You do more of that at night before going to bed so that you now go back and look at the day and what was good, what wasn't and all the other stuff? Or is the morning your only time?   Curtis Pipes ** 16:21 No, I definitely do that. Now before I go to bed. If it's something that's something I picked up. Recently, when I say recently, two, three years ago that I do we do an inventory of my day, and see where I lost focus or see where I could have been better in this in this sprint would have gone, whatever the task is.   Michael Hingson ** 16:49 I have always been an especially more in the last few years, but always been a fan of thinking about the day introspection and I spend very quiet time at night, doing some of that and thinking about my life, and asking myself the hard questions and sometimes waiting for the answers. And they may take a while to come. But I think that all of us to do more of that. Because we do have time no matter what we may think, Oh, I've got so much work to do. I don't have time. Of course you do. We should have time to take stock of ourselves and analyze and use that to then help us grow.   Curtis Pipes ** 17:35 Yeah, we definitely. Yeah, we all have the same amount of time in a day. I think that now. We live in a world where it's stillness is not practice. Stillness is not an emphasis, we have things at our fingertips that can distract us every single day. So the the practice of stillness is something that if we really took time as a planet as human beings to realize that it's not just this quote, unquote, hippie thing, it's not just this quote unquote, spiritual thing. It's something that all human beings can really benefit from, and understand the benefits from it that I think more people would be in tune to it. But I do think that it's, it's come a long way from when people like when it's stillness, but I have an eight year old daughter, so I look at her and realize that that type of mindset, that type of teaching, it needs to be taught at a young age, we weren't conditioned, at least my generation was not conditioned to be still, we were always on the run, whether it be TV, whether it would be school, or go outside and play after school, sports and always on the move. So the only time when we were growing up that were quote, unquote, still was when we were praying before we went to sleep. And then when we were asleep. So now realizing the importance of stillness for myself as an adult, and I realized how important that was. When I moved away from home, it was in New Zealand. That's when I really started understanding stillness. I didn't do the whole inventory at night thing until, like I mentioned two or three, stillness really became a part of my life when I left home.   Michael Hingson ** 19:29 Well, and you mentioned praying, and certainly praying in maybe the most general and relevant form is as much listening as anything else. I mean, we, we spend a lot of time telling God what we want and what we think God should do. And the reality is God already knows that.   Curtis Pipes ** 19:49 Yeah. What did you say last time we have plans so when we tell them our plans,   Michael Hingson ** 19:53 yeah. Yeah. And Where's, where's the sense in that   Curtis Pipes ** 20:00 Yeah, definitely. It's just it's more of a surrendering that I had to learn. It's like, okay, you can have all these plans, man, but there's a divine design already. And so you just had to put your best foot forward and, and ride with it. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 20:19 I was reading your bio, and I really appreciate you sending that along. And one of the things you said is as a child, you always felt your dreams were bigger than your stateliness. What do you mean by that?   Curtis Pipes ** 20:31 I, I always had   Michael Hingson ** 20:33 an interesting way to put it.   Curtis Pipes ** 20:35 Yeah, I always had a massive imagination as a kid. And I thought as a young kid, that my dreams were bigger than my state lines. And it was something I would say, out loud. And granted, it was met with resistance, and you know, jokes and laughter. But I just always felt that I mean, I was the one who would dream of being an astronaut and leaving the planet and going to Mars, I was the one who would dream of, you know, be an international lawyer, it was always something that what I thought of when I was little, that would take me out of my state. And it was an eye and I said it with conviction. You even when I was made fun of it and hurt. I mean, it hurts to be bullied. But I just always, always believe that. And so I smile on that now as we talk about it, because my dreams did take me out of my state.   Michael Hingson ** 21:34 Yeah, yeah, well, and, and, you know, we are nothing if we don't have dreams, and we may modify our dreams as we grow. And we may find we want to do things a little differently. But nevertheless, there's nothing wrong with having dreams. And, and working to bring them to fruition, especially if they're very positive things that can help you and or help others. And I've, I've been very fortunate that I've had the opportunity to be very significantly involved in some of those kinds of things in my life, getting major legislation change that helped persons have a variety of disabilities, or helping to bring products to market and doing other things that really have made a big difference in the world. That's good, great. And, and I also know that, that, although I wasn't the instigator of any of those, being a part of it taught me a lot, and I use the opportunity to learn as much as I could, which is just as important as anything else.   Curtis Pipes ** 22:38 Always be a student. That's what that's one thing I learned is always be a student, I mean, granted, know, and accept that you are exceptional in something, but also be humble enough to know that being a student is one of the best things you can do   Michael Hingson ** 22:54 for yourself. Yeah, if you stop learning or decide to stop learning, then you're going to be in a world of hurt. Because the the reality is that there's always stuff to learn.   Curtis Pipes ** 23:09 Oh, definitely, definitely.   Michael Hingson ** 23:11 And we learn more when we seek out knowledge. Sometimes knowledge just comes along and hits us on the head. And that's okay. But probably we started at anyway. So learning is an important thing. I've always felt life's an adventure. And it's, it's intended to be lived to the fullest and you can't live unless you're learning.   Curtis Pipes ** 23:32 Exactly. Yeah, it's a great way to put it.   Michael Hingson ** 23:35 So for you, you mentioned that at some point, you ended up leaving the country and going elsewhere. So why did that happen? And where did you go and tell us about some of that, if you would?   Curtis Pipes ** 23:48 Yeah, well, it happened because as I mentioned earlier, that I found group fitness and I started working for a company by the name of Les Mills. And so Les Mills was it originated in New Zealand. And so I was looking at my career in Colombia. And I like I said it other moving laterally, wasn't a move for me is basically saying the same place. And then I was looking at the rest of my life. So like, I don't have a family. So that does hold me here. So I just put out inquiries in terms of wanting to work for Les Mills in New Zealand. So I can learn in my head at the time, I wanted to learn from the best group fitness instructors in the world, so I can help more people. And so I put out feelers and told everyone if I get any opportunity to go over there. I'm leaving. It's that simple. And so I finally got a call or email back in December, December of 2009. And by February 2010, I was setting foot down in New Zealand. I sold all my stuff and bought a ticket and moved over there. Two bags. And it was one of the best moves I could ever make. Because, as you brought up earlier that said that my dreams are bigger than my state lines. What I discovered was when I was telling people that I was moving to New Zealand, I got to see how conditioned we were at least for small town, to, you know, graduate, get a job. And then that get married and have kids and that sick because some of the people that some people that I knew, like, how could you go over there, you won't know anyone. It's so far away from home, you know, just all those things. And I was like, that's the point. I can always come back home, if it doesn't work out home is home. But I had again, like we've talked about my college career, I had a focus on graduate at that point, and focus on making this work. And so I moved there, and immediately hit the ground running, learning new skills, upgrading my teaching, being in all of the people that I saw on DVDs at the time, showing my age when I say DVDs. But I hit the ground running, and I had a place to stay. Before I moved over there I really prepared very well, because it was a country that I know I didn't know of the only thing I knew at that point about New Zealand, besides Les Mills, was that the Lord of the Rings was filmed there. And that AGRICO so I made sure that I had a place to stay. And so when I got off the plane in New Zealand, I checked my email and found out that the place I was going to stay the guy rented out my room so I didn't have place to stay. I was like, Okay, first hurdle. And it was easy hurdles to overcome. There is a free bus that took you from the airport to the main city, which was Auckland on the North Island. And the gentleman told me about a hostel. So they dropped me off the one of the stops was in front of a hostel. So he dropped me off there. And I got a room, put all my stuff away, check out the city checked up the bus line, and started teaching right away. And it was an amazing, it was such an amazing experience. And being new on the ground there, I definitely had to earn my bones, which is fine. I got I'm not I am not scared of hard work. Hard work pays off. And that's what I told myself like this is part of my journey. But since I was a permanent, I was not a permanent instructor at the time. My classes were foreign in between. So eventually, my money ran out. I didn't I didn't have my first permanent class until I was eight months into living in New Zealand. So once my money ran out, what happened to me is I became homeless. And so I was I had all my stuff still in the hospital at this point, they knew me and recognize me at the hospital. So I didn't have luck. Luckily, I didn't have to move all of my stuff out of the hospital. But I couldn't sleep in the hospital. I didn't know the the securities schedule when they would come around to them because we had movie rooms in the hostel. So you can go watch movies, but you couldn't sleep in the movie rooms. But I knew when they would come around. So if I was if I didn't want to sleep on the street, I would go in the hostel. And again, they recognize you so they didn't think anything, they would just think oh, he's out late because that's what you would do at that age is backpackers you would you would stay out late and so I would go into the movie room set an alarm on my phone to wake up before security came around. But if I couldn't do that I was sleeping on the streets I was sleeping around the corner from the hostel on a staircase next to a club that was loud at all hours of the night. I had to steal food. Cash I had to I had to steal food and and the thing for me to put it in perspective is I would go to the supermarket for breakfast lunch and dinner and the only thing that I would be able to do as far as my quote unquote food is is they would have this section in the supermarket where you and I think they have now where you know like there's little compartments of snacks and you will get a little shovel out the bag. Well, I will go around acting like I am tasting things to see if I want to buy it how would just eat from several of the containers and they'll be my breakfast having my lunch they might be my dinner. Now there were times where I did have a class and so I would use that money from my class to get food. But it got to where I had to decide on would I spend my money on food or what I save my money for bus fare to go teach another class. And so if I chose the ladder, it would be going to steal food again. And I lived off a peanut butter, which is very interesting to me. Because one I love peanut butters, that was fine. But it was I had to, I was still these little, like these little bitty containers where basically, there was only maybe a couple of spreads that you could put on a slice of bread. They were that small, but I was still like handfuls. And I would eat these up. Just because I know they're high. They're high in fat, so they're slow burning, so I'm getting more energy. But while I was still stealing food, I was still working out. So I lost a lot of weight. And for me, I mean, I'm only five foot five. And so I'm a small frame person. So when I lose weight, you can really tell it's pretty serious. Yeah. And these people are like, Oh, you're working out so much. You're so lean. And I just went along with the story. But in the back of my mind, it's like no, actually, I barely eating right now. But yet I'm still working out from it learning from these people that I came here to learn from.   Michael Hingson ** 31:15 I'm a little puzzled. I'm a little puzzled, though. You? Did they actually give you a job. When you went over there? Were you offered a job? Or how did that work? Because it sounds like you really didn't have much of a job.   Curtis Pipes ** 31:26 No, I was offered an opportunity. Oh, that's what I let it was funny about that is I didn't realize that until a couple years down the line. I was offered a job about seven months in and then eight months in, I was offered my first class. So I went there on an opportunity. And but again, I didn't realize that was really rolling the dice. But like I said, when even when I was homeless, I you know, I was frustrated, I was hungry. And I didn't have in my peripherial the option of going home, I did not give myself that option. I was here for a reason. This is part of my journey. And so we're just going to work it out. So no, I didn't have a job. When I moved there. I had an opportunity. And that turned it into a job. And it was one of that, that homelessness for a while was one of the growing pains that I had was the first growing pain I had living in New Zealand. I had a couple more when I was there. But now I see New Zealand as my spiritual home. It is the place. And I tell people this all the time to this day that I grew more in four years in New Zealand than I've grew in 30 years in Columbia, Missouri. And I believe that is because one I was not home. So I didn't have the comfort of my family and my friends. I had to make it work. And it's this sort of that sort of an example of the phrase, you know, be comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I was really uncomfortable. It was I had to add sometimes. I like to put this in perspective, too when people ask me about food. And when they hear the story is since I was able to take advantage of the fact that I was known in the hostel, they had this affiliation with Domino's Pizza down the street. And so every Thursday, they would get free pizzas from Domino's and the people who own the hostel who also own this bar, the pizzas were delivered to a bar people will go down for free pizza if they got there early enough. Needless to say, since I was easy, and I made eating, I was made sure I was one of the first people there. And my friends, they were like, Oh, here's a pizza. Now I had to ration out that pizza for an entire week, in hopes that I would get a pizza the next week. And so I had to ration out eight pieces of pizza for a week. And so literally, I would take one slice of pizza and maybe eat half of it. Or no sorry, I eat a third of it for breakfast and the next third for lunch the last third for dinner. And yeah, like it was the first growing pain that I had. And by far it was the most profound because I don't know who said it I'm paraphrasing here but it said that you find out your character and your values basically when you're at your lowest and I was definitely at a low but there was no way excuse my language there was No way in hell that I was going to go home. Because I looked at that as failure. Because I've, I believe that there's a way, you can find a way at a quote unquote, a No way, regardless of what it is, and I found it, and I made a massive and amazing career in New Zealand, again, with a couple of bumps in the road, of course, I mean, life is not just Cruzi. But I made a massive career out of my time in New Zealand, and not just that I met amazing human beings I met, make connections that I still have to this day. And so overall, the time in New Zealand was one of the biggest growth spurts in my life as a human being.   Michael Hingson ** 35:45 Did Did the people at Les Mills ever figure out or understand what was really happening with you?   Curtis Pipes ** 35:51 Not when I was there. It came out later. So I started talking about my story as I got into personal development more and you know, this being really disciplined, like one of my top values is discipline, one of my top values is putting and putting in that work. So when I started to talk to people about that, that story came out, and my friends would email me or message me on Facebook, there's like, you're homeless, while you were here. And I was like, yes. And they're like, when I was like, remember when I when I was very thin. And you all thought that I was just working out a lot. They're like, yes. I said, I was homeless at that point. And then, of course, they hit me with Why did you tell me? We went out to help you out? And I said, Well, I didn't tell you one, because I didn't know you all. And I felt that I had to do it myself. I was that whole lone wolf thing. Yeah, just that just came from experience that I had growing up where I realized that if I thought at the time, that if I wanted to accomplish something, I had to do it myself, because when I would voice what I'm going to do, I will be teased for it. And so I didn't say and believe that people would want it to help me. So I just had to do it myself. And so I took that into my early adulthood, because I was in my late 20s, or early 30s, in New Zealand. And I just believed that I had to myself, What did they say to that? They were upset. They were upset, because I even knew at the time that they want to help me out. If I want to ask them I even knew   Michael Hingson ** 37:27 you just didn't want to do that.   Curtis Pipes ** 37:31 Now I just I just firmly believe that that time that I had to do it myself. Now, I do believe that when you start out on something that you do have, it is a lonely road. I do believe that because experience has taught me that that when I put myself put my mind to something is going to it is met resistance resistance it is met with that? Well, what results do you have? I mean, we live in a results driven world, I mean, granted that I firmly believe that the journey is more important than the destination because that's where the value in the character is built. But we do live also in a world where results matter. So when there was no results, there was no belief from other people. And I had to basically build up an armor to not allow that to impact me because I was a very sensitive kid. I'm still sensitive now. But I was a very sensitive kid. And so granted, I was a very determined person and believe that my dreams were bigger than my state lines, people making fun of me, and bullying me really impacted me. And so I'd say all that conditioning all those learnings into my adult life to where, you know, okay, great. I had this, I had this dream and this ambition, I must protect it. So I'm not gonna tell people about it.   Michael Hingson ** 38:47 Well, so if you knew when you move to New Zealand, what you know, now, would you have done things any differently? Not at   Curtis Pipes ** 38:58 all? No. I wouldn't have. And the reason I wouldn't is because the lessons that I learned and the lessons that I learned and the being able to see what I was able to accomplish led me to the point that I have now because I have as I mentioned the little capsule, little capsules of peanut peanut butter I have have one of those in my gym bag. As reminder. I just said I took it from New Zealand and brought it to Australia. And they didn't they didn't take it out of my bag, which is cool, because I use it as a reminder of you know what, one time you were homeless and you got through it, and you got through it. So there's no way that I would change anything that I went through in New Zealand and like I mentioned that I went through, like two or three different Things in New Zealand that really, that really changed my life.   Michael Hingson ** 40:04 I kind of thought that would be your answer. And I understand. Again, when we've talked about it before, it's always all about choice. And the, the best thing you can say is I've learned from my choices. I also know that I made the right choices. And I wouldn't choose to go a different route because it would make me different than what I am. And I enjoy what I am.   Curtis Pipes ** 40:30 Exactly, exactly. Self Love is something that I had to learn. That is one of the other things that I learned in New Zealand was self love, and accepting myself for who I am and realizing that my opinion of me is the biggest.   Michael Hingson ** 40:46 Yeah, and that isn't something you're saying to be conceded it is that you, you need to understand you and you need to respect you, and accept you. And then you deal with the things around you that helped contribute to you.   Curtis Pipes ** 41:04 Definitely, yeah, yeah. Cuz I used to be a massive people pleaser. I'll raise my hand and admit it, I used to be a mass of people pleaser. And if people weren't happy around me, then I wasn't happy. And so I would always put my happiness on the back burner. And so learning self love in New Zealand came from the fact that I was trying to please everyone around me. But I was not happy. And so I looked at, I started to look at like you mentioned introspect earlier, I started to look at other parts of my life, where I did that. And I came up with a bunch of examples of that before I left home. I mean, there was a time in my life where I wanted to make everyone around me happy, which led to some very difficult and challenging situations when it came to relationships. And they were all happy. But I wasn't, I couldn't even look myself in the mirror. So I was looking at myself in New Zealand and realizing that I was wanting, wanting to live up to others expectations, what they believed of me. And I will do that by any means necessary. Now, behind closed doors, I was miserable. I was, I was, you know, smiling, basically, like, like an actor or an actress smiling in front of the cameras. But behind closed doors was a different story. And so me, I was smiling in front of all the, you know, the group fitness instructors, the National trainers, and the program directors and the members of my classes. But when I was going home, I was not happy because I was trying to please them, which led me to, and I mentioned, I went through a few things in New Zealand, which led me to choosing because like you said, everything's a choice. And I firmly believe that, that I ended up having an eating disorder because of that.   Michael Hingson ** 43:09 That didn't help.   Curtis Pipes ** 43:10 No, it didn't, it was because I was seen as a very fit, athletic person. And I was because I, I worked on it. And that came from being one of the smallest in football, I mean, even the smallest wrestling where I had to put in the extra work in order to compete. So I had to put in extra work to compete with the people that were there. One of the best phrases that I ever learned when I first got there was by one of my mentors. Her name is is Mitt Thomas, she's like you are now and I don't know how you were in your hometown. If you're one of the, you know, standouts, as far as the stretches are concerned, but you've been in New Zealand now, you are now a big fish in a small pond. And so I took that on and really wanted to work to become one of the big fish in a small pond that everyone looked at. And I ended up again, having a great career, but it came at a and I hate the word sacrifice. I just think it glory. Like I believe that people use the word sacrifice to glorify their decisions, when at the end of the day, if you take all the layers away, it's still a choice. So I chose certain things to do in order to appear how they wanted me to appear. And so eating disorder is something that I did to satisfy myself behind closed doors.   Michael Hingson ** 44:41 So you became a big fish though, because of choices you made. And, again, the fact that you stuck to your choices.   Curtis Pipes ** 44:52 Definitely yeah, I mean, what am I choices as I said earlier, one of my big values is putting in that work. So I worked my tail elbow off. And it led to me being on DVDs, it led me to being known for inserting programs within Les Mills. And so again, I wouldn't change any of it. It was the work that I put in, helped me grow my work ethic to help me achieve things down the line. Obviously, I didn't know what was going to happen to me down the line. But since I had that work ethic since I had that value in that experience, I was able to utilize that into inside future endeavors.   Michael Hingson ** 45:38 Well, and you mentioned that you're now in Australia, what got you there?   Curtis Pipes ** 45:42 Oh, man. Well, what got me here was my partner, she's Australian. But we first met. Funny enough in New Zealand, she used to work for Les Mills as well. But we didn't get together then she was married, I was in relationship. And at that point, I made, I made it a point to be a better man than I was when I left when I left Columbia. So I was like, You know what I'm gonna relationship. I'm not gonna do anything. So then we met, after we met again, after I left New Zealand. And I went to live in Indonesia, I went to go live in Jakarta, and was the national instructor or national director for group fitness for Gold's Gym. And so when I, when I was working there, I mean, within the first three days of touching down there, they mentioned to me that they had a consultant that worked for their group fitness department, you know, putting in strategies, putting in processes, processes, and upskilling, the the instructors, and they mentioned to me, you may know her, her name is her name is Judy king. And I just laughed, because I was like, Yes, I know, Judy King is because I met her three years ago, in New Zealand. And she was on one of the DVD, she came over for filming. And when I first met her, when I first saw her, I was like, she is hot. It's it's so simple fact that I got to see her again, was amazing. And so we hit her, she came over to Indonesia, from Bangkok. And we met up while learning processes, learning strategies, learning the team who's great, who to, you know, to lean on since I was new there. And after that meeting, we've been together ever since. And that was in 2000 2013. December 14. Wow. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 47:33 That's cool. And you remember the day, which is also important and pretty cool.   Curtis Pipes ** 47:38 Yeah, yeah. It's, I again, I'm detail oriented when it comes to certain things. And so that's definitely something to remember what   Michael Hingson ** 47:44 what is group fitness?   Curtis Pipes ** 47:47 Oh, group fitness is an instructor who say this way, there's an instructor on stage who teaches to a group of people, okay. Or there is an instructor inside of a room that teaches to a group of people.   Michael Hingson ** 47:59 Okay, so it's kind of what I thought, but it's always fair to ask. So you guys met on December 14 2013. And then how long were you in Jakarta or what happened and all that?   Curtis Pipes ** 48:17 I was, that was we were I was there for about a year and a half. And again, learning pains. Like I am a person who, like there's a double edged sword to everything. So being raised, that I could be anything and everything, I tend to take on opportunities without thoroughly thinking them through. So when I had to leave New Zealand, because they weren't going to renew my visa, work visa, which is fine, was bitter at the time, because I loved living there. Again, I made it home. But I didn't want to go home and I want to go back to eat. Like I've gotten I've lived in the United States forever. And I realize is there's so much world to experience. There's so many things to experience in cultures that didn't want to go home. So I was like, Yeah, I'll take Japanese Indonesia. Now. I was when I left New Zealand, I was still a group fitness instructors. So to go from an group instructor, to a national manager, there are there's a massive gap. Okay, there's a massive gap. And I learned that that gap was bigger than what I thought it was. And so I had a great time in Indonesia met again, met some wonderful people. But since there was a gap that I didn't understand as far as leadership as far as managing as far as you know, delegation and budget and all this stuff. You have to say I was fired. And so I was fired. But before that, Judy came over to live with me as well. She started work for Gold's Gym. We fell pregnant in September 2000 Then 14, and so and then sometimes that's 14. Yeah. So it's 20. That's 14. And so we are both fired. And then we moved to Bangkok. And so that ultimately had our baby over there in May 2015. And but yeah, it was, I wouldn't have changed that either. Because granted, I've fallen and taking my lumps, when it comes to just jumping in, I think it was Richard Branson, I'm getting I'm paraphrasing here, who said, say yes, and learn how to do it later. So basically jump off the cliff and learn how to fly as you're falling. And I did that. Leaving home, I did that learning. You know, like I said, I left on an opportunity. I did that saying yes, to this position and easier. And so if I wouldn't have jumped, if I want to just leaped, I would never have, I would never have left home, I would never have met. Judy, I would never have we've never had our beautiful daughter, Brooklyn, who was eight now going on 21.   Michael Hingson ** 51:10 That's the way of it. Yeah, it's   Curtis Pipes ** 51:12 what I do. And even to this day, I take on opportunities. And I've succeeded in many and I've, quote unquote, failed at many and the ones that I've failed that I've learned from. And so I will always be the person who leaps. Because I believe in myself. And I've been saying this lately, the last few weeks, because I had the opportunity to work with company in digital marketing. And needless to say, it didn't work out. Because I've been off more than I could chew. And I can easily say that I'm very humbled in my in my failings, I can easily get things. Now. Me I'm not so stubborn. Now. I'm more humble now. But I've been saying for the last few weeks to be a no, no, this is a word, but be delusionally confident in yourself. Be delusionally confident yourself. And also, at the same time, be realistic and humble. But I say be so confident yourself. There's so much delusional is that you want like you, you have to believe in yourself. It's you can't rely on your self conviction and your belief coming from other people. That's why it's called self belief. And so granted, jumped off the cliff. And sometimes I smashed into the ground as other times that I flew it, it brought me to having one of the greatest gifts and experiences ever, which is fatherhood. And so yeah, I wouldn't change it for anything. Well, so you   Michael Hingson ** 53:06 had Brooklyn, in Bangkok, and someone on the line, you ended up in Australia?   Curtis Pipes ** 53:13 Yeah, we lived in Bangkok for about three years. And we just wanted to change it started to become difficult stay in there for expats. And then we just had this conversation that we might want to move to the States or do we want to move to Australia. And for me, I wanted to move to Australia because I was used to New Zealand and be by the beach and just great weather. And so we moved here. And similar to when I move to New Zealand, we packed up all of our stuff. We sold a bunch of stuff when we came here in 2018. And we got here still trying to figure out where we wanted to stay. And at that point, we both decided that we didn't want to live in a major city. So Sydney was out of the question, which is fine by me. Beautiful city, we just didn't want to live amongst the hustle and bustle as much anymore. I mean, I had enough of that in Auckland and Indonesia and and in Bangkok. And so we went to more of a place where we can Funny enough, practice more stillness and more flow. And so merchant Zilla, or sorry, moved to Australia and then finally found our place here in sunny coast. And it took some time we had to do some housecleaning at some time at some points while we're here trying to figure out where to stay. And then of course COVID hit and that shut everything down. Oh, that was an interesting ride in itself. But yeah, we found it we found our place in the sunny coast and has been amazing ever since. So what do you do now? Still help with mindset. i It's one of those things that my in my DNA I believe I used to have a coach at the time. And his one of his great greatest quotes is you find your mess, you find your message within your mess. And so I took that on. And my biggest message that to convey to people through example, and also just through speaking is self love. Because I realized, looking back at the things that I have gone through, the things that I go through that self love was, the lack of self love was, there is a common denominator and a lot of the failings and heartbreak and disappointments in my life. And so being able to convey that message to others through my own experiences, because I don't mind talking about my experiences, being able to teach that through my experiences, and then help them break down. What is in their way, is the way for me to live my life. And so still, still, you know, preaching personal development, mental health and self love. I'm also a digital marketer, because I love strategy. I am a person who thrives off of processes and strategies that allows me to use and to utilize my, my fanatical demeanor of details. And so that's what I do now.   Michael Hingson ** 56:31 So do you work for a company? Do you work for yourself? Or what do you do,   Curtis Pipes ** 56:35 I work I work for myself, I work for myself, and I named my little business, peanut butter, digital marketing. Again, with the whole peanut butter. I use that little symbol and a little capsule, a little capsule of peanut butter in my bag, as a reminder. And so the ethos behind the capsule a peanut butter, the ethos behind my my company's ethos behind everything I do is that you can find a way to make it work. Granted, it's not going to be probably the path that you want, again, going back to God last when you make plans. But you can find a way if you put the work in, if you stay focused, and you don't stick to a plan that you had. That is where you mentioned the stubbornness I had to learn to let go of that happened in New Zealand. So yeah, it's the peanut peanut butter is still It signifies so much more to me than just something that is delicious.   Michael Hingson ** 57:43 Well, that's no problem. And it's fair. So you, you have the digital marketing firm. And you also then help people a little bit with mindset and so on.   Curtis Pipes ** 57:55 Yes, yes, that is, that is something that I take into my clients inside of digital marketing, because they want these things, for some reason has been a failure. So I besides thinking they're figuring out a digital marketing strategy for them. I also have to work on their mindset a little bit, they don't understand the correlation between the two at first. But I do believe that your business and your results are a reflection of how you feel about yourself and your capabilities. And so there is little mindset work when it comes to my clients and digimarc. And when they realize that they they execute from an entirely different level, because they're able to accept themselves for who they are, but also realize what their barriers were and are and how to work through them and how they can utilize that to create a better business for themselves. And more stability.   Michael Hingson ** 58:51 So where are your clients all over? Yesterday?   Curtis Pipes ** 58:54 Mainly International. I've had a couple clients here, but they're still mainly around the world   Michael Hingson ** 59:00 around the world. That's cool. And do you say you do coaching also, then? Yes, I still coach.   Curtis Pipes ** 59:07 Yeah. It's not as much as it used to be. But again, it's being able to impact people's lives is something that I don't take for granted. It is something that I will do until the day that I die, because and against me just teaching through my experiences and being obviously upskilled in personal development, to give people the greatest light that they possibly can have because my message is self love. And so I take on the belief that as long when I leave here, and I joke about this all the time, but I'm serious at the same time. I'm not dying until I'm 120 like I'll be stubborn and live it's all 120 And that's just how it is Again, Guy lastly make plans hopefully he's without he'll hopefully he's on board with that one. But I believe that as long as I make or help and support one person on this planet to love themselves more, I've done my job because the way that they conduct themselves, it's like a ripple effect, whoever they're whoever they are able to come in contact with in their life. Those people will see how they operate. And it can impact their lives. And maybe they'll seek out, you know, someone to help them with their, with their stuff with their message with their mess. And they will love themselves more. So one thing that I think that is that it can never be defeated, and what always can solve any problem on this planet is leading with love. So as long as you lead yourself with love, lead your life with love, then there's always a possibility of stillness, as you mentioned, is always a possibility of fulfillment. And there's always the possibility of achieving   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:00 more, you know, I absolutely agree with you and feel the same way if, if this podcast helps one person, if this podcast inspires one person, whenever I speak, if I'm able to help one person through the talks that I give, it's worth it. Yes. And you never know what seed you plant will flourish. And I can't worry about that, except to know that I'm doing the best that I can. And I always look to make sure I'm doing the best that I can and how I can learn to do better. And that's the way it really ought to be. And I'm glad that you feel that way. And that the way you're reaching out to people is the same sort of thing. So if you've written a book yet,   Curtis Pipes ** 1:01:43 I have written a book I wrote a book, gosh, few years ago. And when I when I wrote it, it's so funny even bring this up, because I was just thinking about all the obstacles that I had, right in the book. But I wrote a book called Live unapologetically it was it's an ebook. And iski get it. It's my life. It's the learnings that I that I had, the experiences that I had, and the learnings that I have from that I speak about being homeless, I speak about the eating disorder, I speak about self love, and I speak about being with us. And we didn't get into this what I speak about when I was younger, being molested by my babysitter. And so, yeah, I wrote a book about all of that in the learnings and the teachings, and you know, how to grow through those things. So you still live or can live, and unapologetic life.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:37 So is that book? Is the book available?   Curtis Pipes ** 1:02:41 It is available, I can send a link,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:43 I would really appreciate it if you'd send a link. And if you've got a picture of the book cover. We'll add that to what we put up in the cover notes for this, but by all means. Yeah, we should we should put your book up   Curtis Pipes ** 1:02:53 there. Yeah, definitely do that. Thank you. I forgot all about that feel. So weird. I didn't think about that.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:59 Yeah, yeah. I just went looked in. It wasn't there. I was going Curtis.   Curtis Pipes ** 1:03:05 Yeah, it's that was a, it was just a very interesting experience I loved I had to go through some serious, serious obstacles in writing that book, because chapter two of the book is where I speak about my being molested by my babysitter. And I almost didn't write the book because I had relive that experience. And I realize that if I'm wanting to stop the book, because I have to relive the experience, there's still some learnings there that I got. And so I pushed myself to continue to write the book to be to begin to begin to get the learnings that I've not gotten yet. And then that was the major that was a major obstacle. Another one was that when I was writing my book, My daughter, unfortunately dropped my laptop. And so the screen cracked. And so I wasn't able to use my laptop to write so I had to use my phone, and sad to write everything in the notes. And then that became just monotonous after a while. And so I found an app to where I could speak it, and it would transcribe my words. So I literally wrote chapter three, until I can't remember chapters in the book now, but from Chapter Three on was transcribed in my phone, and then they had to get a new laptop, and that's a call the transcriptions over to my laptop and correct words are misspelled. So it was a process. We want to add, it is absolutely loved, love the process. And now I'm in the midst of writing two new books as well. Because again, it's just another avenue besides me coaching that I can get out there my message of resilience and self love and self worth and being knowing that you're worthy enough of everything that you want to achieve.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:54 Well if people want to reach out to you and get in contact with you and maybe use your SIR versus coaching and or digital marketing? How do they do that?   Curtis Pipes ** 1:05:03 They can they can go to my website that is www dot  dot peanut butter Digital marketing.com. Or they can reach me at my LinkedIn link, which I don't believe you have you actually you may have it because you reached out to me there. But I can send that to you as well they can reach   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:18 out to and what is that? What is the link? I   Curtis Pipes ** 1:05:26 don't want to say is www.linkedin.com backslash Curtis Pipes. Okay, well, great. P i P e s. Yes, sir.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:35 Well, I want to thank you for being here. I am been fascinated by this. I think I've learned some things certainly learned a lot about resilience. And then the value of stubbornness and the value of recognizing stubbornness and how to deal with it. And I hope that everyone who has listened to this has found some nuggets that will help them. And certainly I hope that people will reach out to you, that's the best that we can ever want. And so I really hope that you're able to help a lot of other people because of what we did here today. And I want you to please stay in touch and keep us posted on things have happened with you. And I want to thank you all for listening out there. We really appreciate it. I'd love to hear from you. Your thoughts, your comments, please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to this podcast. Please feel free to reach out to me at Michaelhi at accessibe .com. That's A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go visit us at www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast and Michael Hingson is m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. So Michael hingson.com/podcast. We'd love to hear from you love your thoughts. Please reach out to Curtis as well. And we appreciate the rating again and five star ratings are always most welcome. Love to have them. And love to hear from you and Curtis for you and anyone listening if you know of anyone else we ought to have as a guest. Please let me know. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from any people that you'd like us to reach out to and chat with. But for you, Curtis, thanks one last time for being here. We really appreciate your taking your time with us today.   Curtis Pipes ** 1:07:17 Thanks for having me. It's been an honor.   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:22 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, plea

Poverty and the Economy - a session from Seeds Impact conference with Shamubeel Eaqub in conversation with a panel on the economy and how we actually (practically) help the poor out of poverty. Shamubeel Eaqub*, economist and author was in conversation with Helen Robinson - Auckland City Missioner https://www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz/about-us/our-team/  Sasha Lockley - Co-founder of Money Sweetspot https://www.moneysweetspot.co.nz/ and EHF Fellow Listen to Shamubeel's Seeds Podcast episode here. More at www.theseeds.nz  Videos at www.seedsconference.nz 

Big numbers of discarded road cones are littering Auckland city. A recent search for abandoned traffic management equipment found more than 2,000 of them. And that only covered a fifth of the city's roads. Auckland Transport's Tracey Berkahn spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

Increased train frequency in Auckland's Mt Albert could mean crossings will close for 45 minutes each hour during peak times. That's on top of Auckland Transport's plans to put barrier arms and flashing lights on all city rail crossings over coming decades. Many need to be done before the City Rail Link is completed, scheduled for 2025. Auckland City Councillor Christine Fletcher says it's not good enough. "The CRL will not work unless we invest in comprehensive-grade separation, because every 10-15 minutes, these trains are going to be coming along, and you're going to have the barriers down." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Te Huia train service returns to central Auckland this morning after temporarily being banned. It's not been allowed on tracks in Auckland City after failing to stop for two red lights this year. To celebrate its return, free tickets will be available. Waikato Regional Council Deputy Chair Angela Strange says a system has now been installed which will stop the train if it passes a red light. She told Mike Hosking that a more comprehensive solution will take a while. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are calls for more police in Auckland's CBD after another shooting. Police were called to reports of fighting between two groups on Lower Queen Street around 11.30 last night. One person fired up to four shots, leaving two people critically injured. Police are now hunting for the offenders. Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck told Heather du Plessis Allan that they'd like a police station back in the central city. She says they want to send the message that there's no tolerance for violence and crime, and having police presence would give people the comfort they're looking for. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The red light running train service from Hamilton to Auckland can't enter Auckland City until it sorts out its safety protocols. Instead of finishing up in Parnell, its final destination is now Papakura, more than 30km from the city. We sent reporter Tom Taylor trainspotting to see how it's affected passengers.

Aucklanders find out today if their mayor has enough votes to sell the council's two billion dollars worth of airport shares as part of the plan he says will help fix the city. Councillors will vote on the annual budget and have to plug a $325 million deficit. Auckland City's budget is set to be signed off today, with Mayor Wayne Brown pushing hard to get enough support to sell off the council's airport shares. He's proposed to fund local boards with $16 million of savings, in his budget to be signed off by councillors today. The super city is looking down the barrel of a $375 million deficit, including $50 million needed for storm recovery. The funding of local boards would be contingent on the Council selling it's 18 percent share in Auckland Airport. Henderson-Massey Local Board Chair Chris Carter and Waitakere Ranges Local Board Chair Greg Presland spoke to Corin Dann.

Police Minister Ginny Andersen isn't taking legislative change off the table as the Government attempts to stem rising violent crime, particularly offences committed by young people. Both Andersen and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been clear in recent days that more could be done to address crime, which is fast becoming a key issue ahead of the general election in October amid reports of businesses closing and owners fearing death, while Opposition parties demand stronger penalties for offenders. This Government's response to the increasing numbers of ram raids and aggravated burglaries last year largely consisted of two programmes providing security measures to small business owners and expanding multi-agency efforts to identify young offenders within 24 hours of the offence in areas like Auckland and Hamilton. Speaking to the Herald, Andersen indicated she may be considering tweaking the law to ensure it was meeting the need. “Look, it's always important to look at if the laws are working properly and making sure that we've got those settings right,” she said. “Post-Covid, we have seen that hardcore group of repeat offenders that are quite young. “So I think it's important that we make sure that we've got all those settings right to not only keep our community safe, but make sure that the laws [are] acting in the right way. “That's as much as I'll say, but I'm taking a really good look at the change in the landscape post-Covid and making sure we've got those settings right.” A Sunnynook dairy was ram raided on May 10. Photo / Hayden Woodward The two programmes targeting young offenders included Kotahi te Whakaaro, which combined members from police, Oranga Tamariki, the health and education sectors, Kāinga Ora, the Ministry of Social Development, local non-government agencies and iwi to review cases of those aged between 14-17 caught in the preceding 24 hours. The other was an early intervention programme, dubbed the “circuit-breaker”, for children aged 10-13 and which operated in a similar way to Kotahi te Whakaaro. In Budget 2023, the circuit-breaker programme was expanded into Auckland City, Hamilton and Christchurch after being piloted in South Auckland. By the end of March, 82 per cent of the 147 children referred to Kotahi te Whakaaro had not reoffended. For the circuit-breaker programme, 67 of the 84 children referred had not been re-referred. Andersen said further expansion of the circuit-breaker programme would be “good”, but it was unlikely Kotahi te Whakaaro would be expanded as well. “I don't have the budget for that now, but I'm always advocating for what more we can do. “I constantly have conversations with the Prime Minister and we're always looking at new options.” To indicate the complexity of addressing youth crime, Andersen referenced a 13-year-old boy who was found with a broken leg after participating in a ram raid. According to Andersen, the house he was living in was infested with cockroaches, he and his siblings weren't attending school, his mother was struggling with mental health issues and the children were largely going without clothes and food. Andersen said it took eight attempts by police, social workers and iwi representatives to make meaningful contact with the family, at which point the father broke down in tears. “[The father] was just in a state of absolute despair but through [those attempts], they got a door open.” She considered programmes intervening when children were young as essential, with evidence indicating older children often acted as the “ringleader” for others who would learn criminal behaviour if they weren't set on a different path. Police Minister Ginny Andersen and Northcote MP Shanan Halbert pay a visit to an Auckland dairy ram raided four times in recent months. It appeared likely that any further resources would be directed at diverting offenders away from crime as opposed to adding to the support for victims of retail crime, although Andersen did not rule out the latter. “When I visit businesses that have been victims of ram raids, I see the harm and I see that people are scared and angry. “We want to make sure we're doing everything we can to get on top of the problem now, but I feel I have a real responsibility to make sure that we're doing that long-term work to make sure that we're not just delaying the next generation.” The police's retail crime prevention programme had fitted 295 small businesses with a variety of security measures, with a further 262 having had quotes approved, as at May 17. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's fog cannon subsidy scheme had installed 582 cannons across the country, with another 436 in progress or booked in. - Adam Pearse, NZH For more political news and views, listen to On the Tiles, the Herald's politics podcast: See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Among the cuts on the table in Auckland Council's budget proposal is a slashing of funds for arts and culture - including the UNESCO City of Music programme. This programme aims to strengthen the city's music ecosystem, but it was only just getting started when Covid put a spanner in the works, putting a halt to music events that the industry is still struggling to recover from. Reporter Tom Taylor spoke with Auckland City of Music director Mark Roach about the impact of funding cuts for the sector, and the city at large.

Auckland's City Rail Link has had another budget blowout, and is now asking for another billion dollars. The project got underway in 2017, with a price tag of $3.4 billion. It will now cost at least $5.4 billion and is running a year behind schedule. The company delivering the project has now had to go back to Auckland Council and the government - who are jointly funding it - to ask for the money to continue. Felix Walton reports.

Last night (Gulf Time), as Auckland City and Egypt's Al Ahly were kicking off in Morocco, we jumped on with Dave Clark, founder and writer at Sounder at Heart. Dave knows more about football in...

As tough as Friday's downpour was on residents in Auckland and the far north, some of those most affected were people sleeping rough in the super city. Sleeping bags and cardboard provided little shelter, as torrential rains swamped the streets, flooding doorways, alcoves and other usual refuges. Some of the Auckland's most vulnerable turned to nearby businesses for shelter. Rayssa Almeida reports.

In this episode: The FAQ is: on being single and traveling: The destination is New Zealand, North Island. The lesson learned is: losing jewelry while traveling and the tip is: be willing to pause and be safe in travel.   FAQ : Ruth asks, I will be newly single in the new year and want to do some traveling that I did not have the opportunity to do when I was married, I am excited but a little timid about solo travel. Does anyone have any tips on trips that would be a good dipping the toe in the water?   Response:  Being newly single is a great time to take a travel somewhere new. It's ok that you're timid at first. Some tips to dip your toe in the water will be found on Level 1 or Level 2 travel stages. Here's some advice: Don't wait for your trip to come to you. Find out yourself how much you like travel and just start out small, this weekend take a trip on a city bus, train or to your nearby next city you've never seen. Go alone. Don't be tempted to find a friend and see how you do. Let me know when you get back how did that go.   Today's Independent Destination- New Zealand's North Island   New Zealand was one of the first locked down countries who did well with Corona Virus in 2020. In this episode, we'll focus on the North Island, and in another episode, I cover the South Island. My friend, Jenny Latto, talked to me about what's new on the North Island, New Zealand. She's an artist who lives in Waiuku, part of Auckland City, an hour's drive to Auckland Central or downtown. About 8k away from her home are some surfing beaches, including one that has either black sand beaches on one side or white sand, whatever you prefer. She told me about a Sandspit beach with a slide into the water which sounds nice. They are on an 8-week holiday in the summer months, the opposite weather from the Northern Hemisphere. She said that you could really travel from one end of the north island in a day if you wanted to. http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-KohStor-t1-back-d3.html   If you go to NZ North Island, you'll hear about the Waikato River, the longest river in NZ. 264 miles long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waikato_River You may find a nice rural area in Ohakune, where the ski areas are nearby. https://www.mountainviewestate.co.nz/about.php Wellington on the North Island is nice to walk on the boardwalk and stroll the restaurants and waterfront bars. Touristy places to visit include the Lord of the Rings sights and the Peter Jackson owned, Weta Studios in Wellington.   https://www.wellingtonnz.com/experience/see-and-do/weta-workshop/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/oceania/new-zealand/things-to-do-lord-of-the-rings-locations/   www.jennylatto.com   Today's Lesson learned-losing jewelry on the road   Walking through a small town in Alaska, I felt a chain from my necklace in my sleeve. That was not a good sign. It indicated that my special cross from my necklace had broken and was missing. I have the chain, but not the pendant. The lesson learned was to buy a better chain with clasp. I had warnings prior that the clasp was old and I should have done something about that. So, learn from my lessons, replace the old clasp before you lose the pendant.   Today's Travel Advice- Be willing to pause and be safe Pandemic travel may be with us a long time, so you will be getting used to new ways of walking through airports, using public spaces, and making meaningful travel decisions, especially about safety. Be more willing to smile, take a breath, and to let someone go ahead of you in line during these stressful outings. You never know, you may just make someone's day when you do. What a great experience that will be, right? Website Drmarytravelbest.com Mary Beth on Twitter Dr. Mary Travelbest Twitter  Dr. Mary Travelbest Facebook Page Dr. Mary Travelbest Facebook Group Dr. Mary Travelbest Instagram

Sports commentator Steve Holloway joins Kathryn to talk about the games that have happened overnight in Qatar, how this tournament is important for the legacies of Ronaldo and Messi and what neighbour Australia needs to do to stay in the competition. He'll also talk about the NZ national league final happening this weekend between Auckland City and Wellington Olympic. Steve Holloway is Premium sports editor at NZME, co-host of a podcast called Between Two Beers and a former NZ national league footballer.