Podcasts about because michael

Hello! This is Episode 347, and Michael is back to give us the latest update on his new build project in Western Australia (which is currently under construction). Michael first came on the podcast in July 2024, in Episodes 323 and 324, and took us through the early phases of his project, including working with his designer and resolving the overall design, materials and details for his future home. [For all resources mentioned in this podcast and a free, downloadable PDF transcript, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/347] Michael and his wife are building a home that’s intended to be the place they retire to, as they transition away from their current daily lives of running a working sheep property. The new home is designed to comfortably accommodate the two of them with a focus on supporting their health and well-being, and making the most of the beautiful site, whilst providing a relaxing lifestyle. It’s also able to welcome their family for visits and accommodate them when required. In this episode, we talk about Michael’s process of comparing prices between a volume builder he was talking with, and their preferred custom builder. In an effort to ensure they were getting the best value for their investment, Michael really dove into the details of both options, and so he shares great insights about the differences he found, and why they made the builder choice they did. When you’re trying to choose the best builder with budget in mind, it can be a common approach to weigh up volume builders vs custom builders, and something I see many tackle in their projects when building new. Some volume builders will build a custom design you bring to them. And you don’t have to look far to see super low costs for a new build when working with volume builders, and so, it can be considered a more affordable and attractive option to get bang for buck, than going with a custom builder. However, unless you ensure you’re comparing apples with apples when weighing a volume builder up against a custom builder, you’ll never be able to fairly assess the prices you’re being told. Especially if you have specific goals for the inclusions or detailing of your home that sit outside the traditional building methodologies of volume builders. And to get to the bottom of what’s really included in your price can take time and flexibility in your approach. Michael shares how he was able to review builder communication, costs, detailing and inclusions effectively to make the right call for his project. We also talk about the research he did to make specific choices about wall and roof construction details. Because Michael didn’t use the PAC Process, his work with his designer and builder has travelled a particular way in pre-construction, so you’ll hear more about what that’s meant for timing, detailing and decisions - including signing a contract without finance in place (which I’d never recommend!) And he also shares what they’ve focussed on to create a healthy home for themselves. Remember, if you’d like to grab a full transcript of this episode, you can find it plus other helpful links by heading to www.undercoverarchitect.com/347. Now, let’s dive in! SHOW NOTES: If you’re struggling with understanding the overall steps for your project, what you should be focussing on and when, or how to best invest your efforts, energy and money to get a great outcome in your future home, I’ve created something super helpful for you. Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” now >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/projectplan This free workshop will really help you understand the best steps to take wherever you’re at in your project, and how you can avoid some serious and expensive mistakes. Plus, I’ll share with you what to focus on and when, so you know you’re getting everything in order for a successful project and beautiful home. And you’ll get access to some great bonuses as well. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST NOW. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST: For links, images and resources mentioned in this podcast, head to >>> www.undercoverarchitect.com/347 Access my free “Your Project Plan” online workshop and awesome bonuses now >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/projectplan Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/ Just a reminder: All content on this podcast is provided by Undercover Architect for reference purposes and as general guidance. It does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in any circumstances, including but not limited to circumstances where loss or damage may result. The views and opinions of any guests on the podcast are solely their own. They may not reflect the views of Undercover Architect. Undercover Architect endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or has become inaccurate over time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the Real Estate Investing School Podcast! In this Real Deal episode Brody Fausett sits down with a friend and incredible real estate investor, Michael Fitzgerald. Michael shares a deal where he bought entire apartment buildings with $0 out of his own pocket! Because Michael put $0 down when taking down this deal, he's able to make an infinite cash on cash return. Learn about the strategies, and the ups and downs of this deal with Brody and Michael as they take a deep dive. Start today by investing in YOU as a real estate investor. Book a free real estate strategy call with one of our coaches.  Book a free real estate investing strategy call! No experience necessary. Check out the Real Estate Investing School Youtube Real Estate Investing School Instagram Brody's Instagram Joe's Instagram Michael's Instagram

From youngest CEO on the Nasdaq to an industry he never dreamed he'd be in. You'll want to dive into this exclusive interview with CEO Michael Katz, founder of mParticle, with a mission to unify and organize customer data, unlocking its untapped potential.mParticle  was born from Michael's triumph at Interclick, where data-driven approaches led to business success. Recognizing the growing significance of mobile and the complexity of customer data, he seized the opportunity to create a platform that could rise to these challenges.Because Michael didn't know sales his strategy took a unique approach and one that I often recommend for the early days. He was very choosy about who he invited to the table to invest. It wasn't just money he was looking for, he found people who cared about his success as much as he did. By leveraging his network of investors, his lead generation was all through introductions. That became a force multiplier for him. Starting with founder-led sales and being very successful because of the introductions from his investors, he soon saw the need for more salespeople but not really knowing sales he shares how he hired his first great seller. Michael soon hired a sales leader and looking back, what he realizes is that he waited too long to bring in sales enablement. Another game changer for his sales growth was collaborating with partners as they played a pivotal role in building trust and influencing decision-makers.Michael Katz is the thoughtful, purpose driven, gritty type of CEO I'd want to work for. He shares a wealth of knowledge so I'll stop here and let you listen to learn the rest. Chapters00:53 Michael Katz discusses how mParticle manages customer data to increase sales.03:22 Michael Katz shares his background and the founding of mParticle.05:40 mParticle was founded to solve the technical challenges of mobile app data.09:00 Michael Katz utilized his network to make introductions and generate leads.11:49 Hiring multiple salespeople with different backgrounds to benchmark their performance.18:28 Fine-tuning the sales organization and aligning the different functions.26:45 Building a sales organization with regional coverage and vertical specialization.32:52 Sales is a system that requires constant fine-tuning and alignment.41:26 The sales organization includes account executives, sales management, solutions engineering, and sales enablement.About GuestMichael Katz is the CEO and Co-Founder of mParticle, a leading technology company specializing in data infrastructure for the mobile and web industries. With a proven track record of innovation and leadership, Michael has played a pivotal role in guiding mParticle to become a prominent player in the data management landscape.As the CEO, Michael Katz oversees the strategic direction of the company, fosters key partnerships, and spearheads efforts to deliver cutting-edge solutions to clients worldwide. With a passion for harnessing the power of data, he has helped mParticle establish itself as a vital platform for businesses seeking to optimize their data collection, integration, and activation processes.Drawing upon his extensive experience in the technology sector, Michael's visionary leadership has been instrumental in driving mParticle's growth and success. Under his guidance, the company has achieved significant milestones and earned a reputation for its exceptional data solutions and commitment to customer success.Social Links You can learn more about and connect with Michael Katz in the links below.Connect with Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelskatz/Check out mParticle's website: https://www.mParticle.com/You can learn more about and connect with Alice Heiman in the links below.Connect with Alice on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheimanCheck out Alice's website: https://AliceHeiman.com

Part two of Stu Levitan's conversation with his friend and former newspaper colleague Michael Dorgan, about his new book No Fight, No Blame: A Journalist's Life in Martial Arts. It is an absorbing read about a fascinating life which both general readers and martial arts aficionados will enjoy.And quite a life it has been in both those fields for Michael Dorgan, taking him from Richland Center Wisconsin to Beijing China as bureau chief for Knight-Ridder Newspapers and as a formal disciple to the most renowned Chinese internal martial artist of his generation, Hunyuan Taiji Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang.And there were some pretty interesting – and frequently dangerous – journalism stops along the way as well, in places like Islamabad, Singapore, Hong Kong. Thankfully, his only arrest as a journalist was during the strike against Madison Newspapers in late 1977, for kicking the door of a VW bug filled with scabs plowing through our picket line. That's how I first knew Michael, as a colleague at the Capital Times and then the strike newspaper Madison Press Connection.With the strike doomed, Michael headed to California. As a journalist, he rose to become assistant business editor and Pacific Rim correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News. As a martial artist, he turned away from the Okinawan karate he practiced at UW-Oshkosh and the Korean Tae Kwon Do he studied here with Master J. B. Chung and pursued various styles of the internal Chinese martial art Taiji, or for those who don't speak Mandarin, Tai Chi.Among his Taiji teachers in San Francisco in the early eighties, Master Wong Jack Man, whose secret fight in 1964 with the soon-to-be-famous Bruce Lee looms large in martial arts folklore, with lingering uncertainty as to what really happened. Reverting to his journalistic identity, Michael published a major magazine article detailing, for the first time, Man's account of the fight, which was licensed and freely adapted for the 2016 film Birth of the Dragon.In 1999, Michael moved to China to become the Beijing bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers, parent company of the Mercury News and at the time the world's second-largest newspaper chain. That's when he began studying with Grandmaster Feng – a practice that proved so important that in 2003 he took a leave of absence and remained in Beijing for a year and a half to train intensively with Grandmaster Feng and his disciple Master Chen Xiang. Which in turn caused a documentary about him to be filmed and broadcast on Chinese TV to a viewership of about 800 million. You'll hear more about all this in a few moments.Returning to California in late 2004, Michael returned to the Mercury News, as an editor in the business section. Until the business of newspapers got so bad that Michael left and devoted himself fulltime to his Hunyuan Martial Arts Academy of San Jose. An endeavor helped no doubt by Michael's designation in 2007 as an honorary instructor at the Feng Zhiqiang Martial Arts Academy in Beijing.Michael returned to journalism just this week, with a powerful opinion piece in the aforementioned Mercury News. Sadly, the headline tells a tragic tale: Cancer-drug shortage creates ‘death panels' for patients like me. And the sub-head: I'm deemed expendable as a national scarcity of life-extending chemotherapy medications has resulted in rationing.Because Michael has a mysterious metastatic cancer that has caused him to be cut, burned and poisoned with some progress but without a cure. So I've edited to tape to start with that part of our conversation, then we'll roll it back for talk of martial arts in the Bay Area and China, then reflections on the newspaper strike, and some closing thoughts.Here's Michael Dorgan, author of No Fight, No Blame – A Journalist's life in Martial Arts. 

It's STORY TIME, y'all! This lengthy 3-part series with Author, W. Michael Farmer is perfect to tune into while you're taking a road trip or working in the yard or just listening when you can. “You are stronger than we. We have fought you so long as we had rifles and powder, but your arms are better than ours. Give us like weapons and turn us loose, we will fight you again; but we are worn-out; we have no more heart; we have no provisions, no means to live; your troops are everywhere; our springs and waterholes are either occupied or overlooked by your young men. You have driven us from our last and best stronghold, and we have no more heart. Do with as may seem good to you, but do not forget we are men and braves.” These were the words of Mescalero Chief, Cadete to General Carlton in 1863. In Season 3, episode 8, my guest, W. Michael Farmer and I talked through the life and times of the great warrior, Geronimo. And over the next 3 episodes, Michael and I will walk through his 3-part book series based on the life of an Apache named Yellow Boy, starting with, “Killer of Witches, The Life and Times of Yellow Boy, Mescalero Apache”. Because Michael has completed extensive research on the Apache, you'll also learn a great deal about the Mescalero Apache way of life. A disclaimer…these books and episodes do contain realistic depictions of historic actions and events that do include violence, so listener discretion is advised. This is a story that's considered truth told along with fiction in a time when the Apache way of life was being threatened by the overtaking of Americans who were migrating west, and the terrors on the dark side in this life, witches and other evil spirits in the flesh, that still had to be destroyed to enter the next life unscathed. Check out “Killer of Witches” and other W. Michael Farmer books here: Website: https://wmichaelfarmer.com/books/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wmichael.farmer Native ChocTalk Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/nativechoctalkpodcast All Podcast Episodes: https://nativechoctalk.com/podcasts/

Today's Guest: Michael J. Maher Michael is CEO of REFERCO, the world's foremost authority in business referrals. In just his third year in real estate, he did 187 transactions and over $40 million, entirely from referrals. For the next 8 years, he received over 500 referrals every single year and netted over $1 million. Michael is an internationally bestselling author and his book (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals has been the #1 book in Real Estate Sales on Amazon for over 9 straight years. In addition to these impressive accomplishments, he has shared the stage with George W. Bush, Tony Robbins, Barbara Corcoran, and John Maxwell. Highlights From The Show: As we often do on the show, we started by talking about Michael's background. He began his working career as a high school math teacher and coach of three sports: football, basketball, and baseball. He spoke about how dedicated he was and earned District Teacher of the Year in his first year teaching. Michael had an interest in real estate so he got licensed as an agent at the same time he bought his first home. He talks about how he built his business almost entirely through word of mouth and referrals. Because Michael became an agent in 1999, I asked him how he weathered the housing market crash years. He said that because they were getting almost all their business through referrals, they ended up having record years during that period. This is when Michael first knew he was going to have to write a book because he had discovered a system of doing business that worked well in good markets, but even better in depressed times. He spoke about how the 7L system is basically tailor-made for a challenging time like we are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We talked about specific marketing and deal-generating strategies based on his 7L principles, going into detail about making your marketing as personal as possible. I then asked Michael about his book, (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals. He walked us through the levels and their amount of influence in relationships with people. The second-most powerful level involves events and seminars, and Michael explained some of the programs that they offer. That led to a conversation on the necessity of some structure to your day to increase productivity. He used the example of going to school and having an intense focus on a particular subject for a predetermined amount of time every day. Michael also walked us through the morning and evening rituals, which he imparts in his book and classes through acronyms. Michael then told us about how he helps business owners build their businesses on a foundation of love, generosity, and appreciation. He went into great detail about the personal and professional benefits of choosing to live and conduct yourself this way. Michael described love as our superpower, and generosity is that love in action. He also explained that it is vital for us to appreciate everything that happens in our lives, good or bad. I can't tell you how powerful and wisdom-packed this episode is! You would be crazy not to join me as I interview super-successful entrepreneur, Michael J. Maher! Notable Quotes: “Good market - referrals are really good. Bad market - referrals are everything.” Michael J. Maher “When people think they are going to lose their home, they want to talk to someone they trust.” Michael J. Maher “I'm big into personalized and customized service.” Michael J. Maher “What is the most important currency in today's world? It's not money - it's trust.” Michael J. Maher “Love is your superpower.” Michael J. Maher “What I'm really excited about now is helping people get structure in a world of chaos.” Michael J. Maher “Why do we charge for them? So people show up. If they have skin in the game, they come.” Michael J. Maher “There are a lot of people that would trade their wealth for health and happiness right now.” Michael J. Maher “Energy is the most precious resource known to man.” Michael J. Maher “You can change your life by changing your strategy.” Michael J. Maher “We are going to have a day - why not structure it in the most effective way you can possibly structure it?” Mike Simmons “It mixes the best of ‘go with the flow' with ‘get in the flow.'” Michael J. Maher “Your purpose in life is to be referable.” Michael J. Maher “Picking and choosing the opportunity is a lot better than chasing opportunity.” Michael J. Maher Thank You for Listening! Connect with Mike on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, Facebook Help Out the Show: Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes. Resources and Links From Today's Show: (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents Matt Walker: Sleep is your superpower | TED Talk - TED Talks Michael's Website Sweet Dreams Class 30 Mornings Class Referrals Podcast More Resources From Mike: Flip Hacking Live Tickets - Get them today! Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months WINNING DIRECT MAIL - How to CRUSH IT with direct mail! 7-Figure Investor Video Course - Scale your business to 7 figures. I'll show you how!

This is Part 2 of my interview with Sunil Bhatt, CEO of Genuine Hospitality Group, the corporate entity representing the award-winning chef, Michael Swartz. Today we covered the challenges of running a restaurant chain during COVID - among other things. Enjoy!TranscriptEdward: This is part two of my interview with Sunil Bhatt. Today, we're going to dive into his experience as CEO of Genuine Hospitality Group. Sunil, can you start by explaining what Genuine Hospitality Group is.Sunil: We are a group of restaurants—mostly in South Florida, including one in Cleveland, Ohio—that we're trying to bring residents here in South Florida the best possible food and hospitality that we possibly can. The reason we use the word genuine is because when you come to Miami, a lot of times, people associate Miami with pretension or more glossy surface, superficial kinds of experiences in people. There are plenty of people in Miami who are not interested in that at all. That's perfectly fine for TV and for travelers, maybe, who are looking to get that sort of Vegas.There are so many people here who really want to have an experience where they are treated intelligently and not gouged, and not given crappy products put on a plate with a bunch of gold leaf on it and charged $200. Instead, they want natural wines, local products, simple preparation, great jazz, and service that is attentive while not being cloying. The word genuine was really important when Michael founded Michael's Genuine Food and Drink because it was really a little bit of off-brand for Miami. There wasn't a lot of farm to table, ingredient-driven, authentic, genuine kinds of restaurants here.It absolutely found a niche here in Miami with locals, then eventually tourists too, and eventually got him national acclaim because we have a bounty of products here. We have amazing fruits and vegetables growing here, an entire ocean full of fish, and incredible meat and poultry growing right here—at least in the Southeast. We focus really on giving people an honest product at a price that they can afford. We have people come six, seven times a week to eat at our restaurant because it's affordable and it's that good.We fuss over it. We spend a lot of time using the lens genuine. That's very important when you're trying to scale something or do something to have a lens to look through that can inform decisions you make. Whether it be in hiring or training, decor, landscaping, buying the right product, or product development in general. Even in your finances. It genuinely matters to us what's the lens we look through. On the business side, we really think about doing the right thing. What's the right thing to do? That to us is how we translate genuine. Whether it be on the legal side. There are plenty of opportunities every day for people to cut corners, trick someone, or mislead. Many illegal negotiations and how you treat your people and how you train them are lens of genuine, honest, pure—those things are in our logo. They are part of our values, and everybody knows that.For us, the devil is in the details. That's what makes Michael a great chef. He obsesses over the little things. Because he believes that the addition of a hundred little things together that you, as a guest, may not even know. For example, if I may, we have radishes in our bar. You could ask me why, but that's the thing, Michael always loves radishes, and he thinks it's a great thing to have on the bar. Those radishes—on a regular basis—get water down. We have a spray bottle behind the bar. Part of the steps of service of the bartender knows that every so often, he's going to take that water bottle and polish up those radishes so that they look good.It's a little thing and there are hundreds of them in the restaurants, especially in the kitchen, in terms of the hygiene of the kitchen, the recipes, the commitment to integrity back there that add up to something that the sum of the parts is much bigger than any individual parts. We try to translate that into how we run the business as well. Whether it's in contract negotiations, legal, or finance. That's very important for us. That word—genuine—means a lot to us.Edward: Michael Schwartz's most famous restaurant is Michael's Genuine. That's the flagship, but it's not the most profitable restaurant for you. Is that correct?Sunil: It's not. No, it is not. It is very profitable, however, relatively, our margins are nothing like software merchants, for example. This is in the SaaS company. When I say very profitable, for a restaurant, that restaurant does just fine. But we won't hit a 20% net margin with that restaurant. But we can consistently execute because we're rigorous about our cost structure, and we're rigorous about how we meet every week to review day to day, week to week spending within the restaurant—COGS, personnel, OpEx. We have safety nets underneath the team—the operations team in the restaurant—so that if for whatever reason costs get out of line, off the road, we'll catch it before it goes too far. We put in that kind of discipline, which is very unusual with restaurant businesses. Edward: Which restaurants are the most profitable? Why are they more profitable than the flagship?Sunil: We run pizzerias. In the pizzeria world, your margins are going to be higher because the costs of the products are significantly lower than you would get in a fine dining restaurant. You also don't need to spend nearly as much on your personnel in a pizzeria as you do in a fine dining restaurant, as you can probably imagine. Take us, people, to make the food, menus are smaller, service doesn't have to be the kind of service you would expect to Jean-Georges—or in your case—Canlis up in Seattle.Your personal costs are lower, your cost of goods is lower. Pizza is flour and water, and that's pretty cheap. The cost for us to make a ball of dough is not even a dollar. But we can charge $14 for pizza easily and people are happy to pay it because pizza is hard to make at home. You can, some people do, but the doughs are science experiments. To get great pizza, you got to work really hard on it. People are more than willing. The elasticity in people's willingness to pay allows us to charge enough so that our cost of goods and our personal costs are much lower. Our margins in the pizzerias are significantly higher than they would be in fine dining.Edward: How do you leverage Michael's name and reputation of genuine across the rest of the footprint, and how is that different from say, Wolfgang Puck?Sunil: That's a great question. Wolfgang Puck, obviously, is a national figure—not just national, international. Wolfgang Puck created the celebrity chef. Before Wolfgang Puck, there wasn't anything like Wolfgang Puck. Michael happened to work for Wolfgang Puck at a restaurant called Chinois in Los Angeles. Wolfgang happened to write the preface for our pizzeria cookbook, which you can buy on Amazon if you want. Anyway, he is a good friend of Michael's, and he is a legend. There will never be another Wolfgang Puck. There are Bobby Flays and there are folks like that, but Michael is not built that way. For me, when I think of Michael, I think of him as an asset. I obviously think of him as my great friend, my business partner, the father to three wonderful kids, and all of the other things that he is. But when I put my CEO hat on, I just think of him as an asset.Michael is great at understanding various aspects of operations. He's certainly very, very good when it comes to innovation and mentoring in terms of teaching and cooking. He is just a savant when it comes to cooking. I've cooked with him for 15 years, believe me, he is a savant. He has the same ingredients as you and me, and he will cook something that you're like, what? You do that? And he's like, I don't know, I've been doing this since I was 16 years old, so I better [...] that. Anyway, he's a gifted world-class artist. Artists have certain skills, and it's important for me, as the CEO of the company, to put him in a position where he can add the most value to us in succeeding as a business. Not just in terms of putting great food on the table, but also in terms of us actually being not just viable but successful and stable as a company. It's also important to put him in a position he wants to be in. He's a valuable asset.Where he makes the most difference for us is in his coaching, mentoring, innovation, and operations. What he doesn't love to do—even if he's quite good at it—is be a shill. I'm not calling Wolfgang Puck a shill, but that's not a core desire in him to be on TV all the time, to be going on the Food Network, or doing those kinds of things. I don't try to put a square peg into a round hole. I thought about it for a few years. We do leverage Michael as a celebrity, especially in social media. But we've also tried to focus on the Genuine Hospitality Group as an entity. Sort of like Unions Square Hospitality Group in New York. We've also tried to build the brands of the individual restaurants where they stand in the room without Michael. Because Michael doesn't cook there, and in fact, Michael never cooks there. We have amazing chefs to cuisines at our different restaurants. One of the things Michael has done incredibly well is seed some of his control to others. Very difficult for founders in any industry, especially when you're a founder and you created something from scratch and you're used to doing everything yourself. Being able to give over some of that accountability and responsibility without second-guessing, letting people fail forward, and do it differently than you would is a really tough task for a founder—especially a chef. Michael's done an amazing job of that. Not always been easy for him.But just even giving me authority over every aspect of the company, then giving the chefs authority over their individual restaurants, and the GM's authority over their steps in the service front of the house, and on and on. He's done an amazing job while being involved. He's had to find a balance of where he can be useful but empowering at the same time. I don't think we could've scaled if he didn't have that ability. We couldn't have. There's only one Michael. He can only be in so many places at one time. He's done a great job of letting go of control to me and to all the restaurant executive team and our management team.Edward: I want to dive to some of your marketing channels. How do you grow a restaurant business beyond simply having a good product and a good location?Sunil: Those things help. I'm not going to lie. We have not always succeeded. In spite of the fact that Michael's brand—our brand—here in Miami is extremely powerful, and I don't think it's arrogant or overconfident to say that. Anybody would say that we are probably the most well-known—if not one of the two most known restaurant groups in Florida.Edward: How did that brand come about? Was it primarily because you had such a good product?Sunil: Yeah. He changed the game here. Anybody will tell you that. He was a game-changer for Miami in the way that I tried to tell you before. There just weren't a lot of restaurants that cater to locals.Edward: What do you do as a CEO to grow beyond the fact that Michael's a savant chef that can create amazing products, and you can choose good real estate? But now, what? How do you excel above that baseline?Sunil: What we try to do was we've tried to open restaurants that built on Michael as the foundation. But then eventually, developed a legacy of their own without the lying on constantly Michael Schwartz, Michael Schwartz, Michael Schwartz because it's a little bit disingenuous in some ways. Articulating to guests that Michael's back there cooking your steak every day is absolutely ridiculous. We've tried not to be disingenuous. We set our ethics. Our values exist everywhere. They go through hiring, menu development, pricing, and servings.We have this playbook for how we like to run our restaurant. Whether it's Latin cuisine at Amara, a pizza at our pizzerias, café food in our café, or whatever it is. Even through our events where we do weddings, bar mitzvahs, and rehearsal dinners. Any of that is fundamentally genuine. We've established the word genuine and taken ownership of that. The zeitgeist here, that you're going to get a genuine, authentic experience where you're not going to get b******t quality of the product, pricing, some crappy server who doesn't pay attention to what we need, or some hostess at the door that's got a red velvet rope that tells you you can't have a table even though there are 25 empty tables in the restaurant just so it looks exclusive. There's a lot of that in Miami.We just don't do that. It's not our style. We don't cater to celebrities. They rarely come to our restaurant—sometimes, not often. They go to other restaurants in Miami that are (I would say) less focused on locals. We decided we wanted to focus on locals, and we wanted to establish the nature of the word genuine across everything we do. We've marketed the word genuine. We aggressively market our restaurants. We do a lot of product marketing where we basically say, hey, we have a special pastrami pizza today. We get people to come for the food, for the individual restaurant brands, for chefs in those restaurants, and for the genuine over the Michael Schwartz. Michael Schwartz is a Trojan horse for us in marketing.Edward: And you say you market it and you push it out. Where are you pushing it out? What are the marketing channels you're using?Sunil: Mostly social media. Almost exclusively social media. And we've done a little bit paid search, a little bit of performance marketing in the past. Mostly for our catering business. A lot easy like lead gen. It's easy. It's very difficult to track in the restaurant space. If I were to buy keywords in Google or if I were to buy Yelp, it's just difficult for us to track through to conversion.From my perspective, we have one person in our marketing. He is terrific. His name is Joel White. He used to work in Green Mountain Coffee, Red Lobster, and Pepsi. But he's in charge of everything. He's in charge of all aspects of our marketing. We have the great social marketing firm we work with called Gather & Grow, and they do a terrific job. But I'm used to working in companies where I can track down to the penny what we're spending, conversion rate, and lifetime value of the customer. In our case, we're doing almost all social media and email marketing. That's pretty much what we do. PR and events, but it's really hard to track. I don't know from one day to next how many people sitting in our dining room saw an ad, looked at a post, or even [...].Edward: You say social media and email, are these all organic social and organic emails? You're sending it to people who have already subscribed to you or people who have already fanned your Facebook page?Sunil: Almost all of our marketing comes through Instagram. We have bought some ads and we've paid for placements on Instagram in the past. But most of what we do is all organic. Whether it be on our website, through email, or through social.Edward: How do you optimize that? How do you know how many times you should be posting, or what images are working, which ones aren't, which ones are driving revenue, and which ones are just vanity metrics?Sunil: Hard to know. We go off of engagement scores—how many people viewed, liked, and engaged with it through a comment. We try to use some of those metrics to understand what works and what doesn't at that level. We're just not sophisticated enough yet to connect revenue to Instagram posts. We just don't. What I'm told is, hey, look, you can connect the two. There's a little bit of a stretch. I'm sure other people do much better jobs in much bigger, much more evolved (I would say) online marketing companies probably doing much better jobs than we do. We're just a small group of 10 restaurants with 2 people in marketing, 1 ½ people in marketing, and 10 people in our headquarters total.We basically hope that the fact that people are engaging—by commenting or liking—will indicate that people are going to come to the restaurant.Edward: Many years ago, I tried to run a marketing business for restaurants. It didn't go very well. You must be approached all the time by companies who offer, hey, do these coupons, we'll do a paper performance and get people into your restaurants. Have you ever considered that? And if not, why not?Sunil: Generally, the only marketing channel that we use that is anything like that is UberEats and DoorDash. That's probably a whole another podcast, but it's a fantastic subject to discuss. Because for you and me, having come from Expedia, it's not very different in a lot of ways, especially with the pandemic and how reliant people are on take out delivery these days. It's not very different from what hotels.com, Expedia, and Travelocity did years and years ago where they sat down right in between supply and demand and charged a very healthy fee for that service.Delivery is very impractical to do on your own for all kinds of reasons—insurance, managing schedules, and hiring. These guys have a big billboard—UberEats, DoorDash, and Postmates. We're paying some of the billboard [...] for sure, but I would say that is one channel that we do spend a fair amount of money in for marketing. I spend a lot of time trying to understand how incremental that business is, how cannibalistic it is versus coming to the restaurant. Because we're going to pay 25%–30% of our revenue for every delivery order we get from these guys.When you think about our margins, which are pretty narrow as it is—depending on how much you burden your P&L for that and depending on how incremental you think it is—you've got to be pretty smarter than how you use those services for sure.Edward: You have 10 restaurants. Have you done, like phased in AB test to determine what that incrementality looks like?Sunil: We have. We've done AB tests. It's funny, AB testing is not something people are thinking about in the restaurant industry. When I first started talking about it, people were like, AB what? But we did an AB test here. Basically, we just turned it off, and we compared it to historical data. We compared it to another one of our pizzerias. What we found was not surprising to me. A lot of that business was incremental. We did see a significant downturn when we turned it off.That's because I don't believe people are thinking, well, should we order in tonight or go out? They've made the decision at the top of the funnel that we're ordering in. We're not going out tonight. We're on our pajamas watching Netflix. It's just a question of where I'm ordering from. If you think about burdening the P&L, staff are already there. We don't have to add much more staff to create a delivery order. The rent's paid for, the lights are already on. Depending on how you burden that income statement, really, just with COGS, a little bit of personnel, if you feel like you must—depending on how much delivery you do. And then the delivery fees, the OpEx—there's a little bit of supply cost, but you can convince yourself that that business is profitable. Especially if you consider it to be 80% or 90% incremental.Edward: Sunil, this has been fantastic. Thank you for being on the show. Before we go, I like to end with your quake book. Do you want to tell us what your quake book is and how it changed your thinking?Sunil: Yeah. I read it a long time ago, haven't read it since. I read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Twain's problematic in a lot of ways, for obvious reasons. I always think about just how grateful we should be for the tools and the life that we have. Especially given the privileged life that we lead here in the United States and specifically, at least my world. If I went back in time, and they said, hey, tell us about this thing called electricity, airplanes, or anything. I'm not sure I could add any value to people 200 years ago or 150 years. Running water is a mystery. I have no idea how the lights come on every day or how television works. You probably know 10 times more than I do [...] predicting the weather.If they said, hey, why don't you just know that there's going to be a hurricane in five days and you should probably take shelter? How do you know that? No, no, I turn on the TV, and then there's a radar. What radar? What's a radar? That's the thing I think about is how we should never take too much for granted the wonderful blessings that we have. It would be a damn shame to waste this incredible luck that we have to be born at this time and not be very appreciative and grateful for it. That's why it was my quake book.Edward: Thank you, Sunil. That's a great way to wrap up. Really appreciate your time today. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

We bring you our first Dreamcast Episode!  We dive into Canon Spike an Arcade game from Capcom.  Why are we playing this you ask?  Because Michael likes Cammy. Starring Mike Albertin, and Michael K Hughes.  Bulby - https://youtube.com/c/Bulby Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. 

What is the “New World Order”? What is the “Great Reset”? Many of us are wondering what this is all about. We asked Michael Hichborn, President of the Lepanto Institute, to come on the Grace Force Podcast. Why? Because Michael has actually done his thesis paper on the multi-century encroachment of nefarious characters conspiring to gain global dominance. In fact, the title of his thesis is the title of this podcast: “Global Governance: A Luciferian Conspiracy.” Needless to say, this topic is a lifelong passion of Michael’s. That’s why you will be blown away as Michael Hichborn unveils so much of this “inside information” on the satanic conspiracy of this ruling class “New World Order” cabal. DON’T MISS THIS! Please LISTEN & SHARE!!--------------------------------------Help support this podcast by becoming a Grace Force Patron here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=25398590 ---------------------------------------Learn how to craft your own Bug Out Bag in case of emergencies here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_e_jHMd8yM&list=PL5FMVgvbcM6mAKdYpDUzeppk649pkp_Z5---------------------------------------Become a part of the BATTLE READY COALITION and unite with like-minded Catholics and train for the intensifying Fight Body, Mind, and Soul! Click this link to join the waitlist: https://www.battlereadystrong.com/coalition---------------------------------------Get ready for a crisis with the BATTLE READY Emergency Preparedness Course: https://www.battlereadystrong.com/preparecourse---------------------------------------Get your hands on some US Grace Force Merch! Click here to see all our popular designs: https://teespring.com/stores/us-grace-force

After a long wait, Star Trek Discovery is back. Michael Burnham has succeeded in saving the universe, but she now has to face the fact that the lift she knew is gone forever, and her friends aboard Discovery are nowhere to be found. Worse than that, she learns that the Federation is all but gone in this distant future. What's a Starfleet officer to do? It turns out, this new century might need Michael just as much as the previous one did.  This is a good solid episode that opens the new season and promises an interesting and satisfying story. So let's geek out about it. -- Find my books at books2read.com/jewel books2read.com/jewel2 ------more---- Transacript Welcome to Nerd Heaven. I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars. And I am a nerd.   This is episode 38 of the podcast.   Today, we launch into something new and exciting. We’re covering the first episode of Star Trek Discovery season 3, and we’ll be doing weekly review analysis on each episode until the season is done.   And welcome to my new timeslot. Back when I was covering Star Trek Picard season 1, I’d watch the episode Friday night, then watch it again Saturday morning, taking notes and scripting the podcast. Then I’d record, edit and publish by Saturday afternoon. It got pretty intense. This time, I plan to pace myself a little. I’ll be posted on Mondays, Australian time zone. Probably Monday morning. That just allows me a bit more time to get the episode together and get some other things done on the weekend.   Today’’s episode is called That Hope is You. Part 1. The description on Memory Alpha reads Burnham navigates a strange, new galaxy, 930 years in her future, looking for the rest of the Discovery crew. (Season premiere)   The episode was Written by Michelle Paradise, Jenny Lumet, & Alex Kurtzman It was Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi And it first aired on the 15th of October 2020   Make it so.   The end of season 2 was a big game changer, liquifying the status quo of the series. Michael Burnhan and the USS Discovery flew into a wormhole taking them into the distant future. Further into Star Trek’s future than we’ve ever seen before. And that was an exciting prospect. So now, finally, we get to see what kind of world they emerge into. This gives the writers of the show the opportunity they’ve wanted all along, to create something brand new. To establish a completely unexplored era in the Star Trek universe. They must have had so much fun brainstorming ideas.  Honestly, Star Trek Discovery should never have been set in the pre-Kirk 23rd century, given the kind of creative freedom they wanted. The writers finally realised this and used the second half of season 2 to set up this change.   So … the very first scene shows us a bird, with a digital clock projected on its side. Okay. That’s different. Evidently, this is some kind of futuristic alarm clock projecting a hologram. I kinda like it. I’d wake up to that.   We see a man wake up and leave his bed, which dissolves into a liquid state and disappear. The whole structure seems to be constructed from nanites. It’s very cool on screen. He cleans his teeth, and a desk and chair are created by the same nanite technology as his bed. The process repeats, giving us a sense that this man’s life is very very routine and predictable. He’s searching for signals, and he carries a case that bears a Starfleet logo (Oddly, it’s the early 23rd century logo with the split delta.)   When The Next Generation first came out, they designed a whole new aesthetic for the technology. We got the beloved Okudagrams, often referred to as LCARS, although technically, LCARS is the library computer access retrieval system. Anyway, we all love that look.   But for the 32nd century, they needed to similarly re-define the visual look of the Star Trek Universe. This nanite-based technology is both visually interesting and logical. It’s a believable extension from the replication and hologram technologies.We’ve heard the term “Particle Synthesis” from time to time in Star Trek. Arturis used it to fool the crew of Voyager into thinking his ship was Starfleet. Species 8472 also used it to re-created Starfleet Academy in the Delta Quadrant. I can’t help but wonder, is this an advanced form of particle synthesis? The name seems to fit what we see on screen. Later, we’ll see a control panel on a ship. Instead of okudagrams on a touch screen, we’ll see this same nanite technology creating displays and controls. So for the most part, it seems this has replaced the holographic controls we saw in Star Trek Picard. This technology actually reminds me of the Kryptronian technology in Man of Steel. That was kinda similar and also very cool. Anyway, you could argue that this doesn’t look like Star Trek, but honestly, it shouldn’t. We’re almost a thousand years beyond the world Burnham left, so I think they’ve done a great job. I like it.   Then we cut to a space battle in orbit of an M-class planet. A spinning ship, maybe inspired by the jelly-fish ship in Star Trek 2009, is pursuing a character we’ll come to know as Cleavland Booker, or Book for short. It seems Book has stolen something from this rather ugly alien. I don’t recognise his species. But whatever it was, the aliens had stolen it first. Then the wormhole opens and Burnham emerges, in the red angle suit. No sign of Discovery yet. So is this planet Terralesium? That’s where Michael was expecting to emerge. I like the little shot of the CG bugs. I always enjoy seeing alien animals . Michael bounces off Book’s ship, causing them both to crash on this planet. A shield in the suit protects michael. The suit disengages from her, looking way too advanced for 23rd century tech, as always. She can’t reach Discovery on her communicator. The suit tells her she’s in the year 3188. She asks the computer if there are any signs of life. Her face holds so much emotion in that moment before it answers. Imagine if she’d failed. And finds herself alone, the only living being in a universe devoid of all sentient life. That was basically her mother’s life. But the computer confirms. There are multiple life signs on this planet. And she gives this great scream of relief, and victory. It’s a powerful performance from Senqua Martin-Green. It really makes me feel her emotions. She did it! She saved the universe!. Now, technically, she should already know she was successful. She emerged in the middle of a space battle between two ships. She knows someone is here, although, I guess those ships could have been AI controlled. In any case, I forgive it because it’s a wonderful moment. The wormhole is closing, so she has to send the final red signal back through it, letting Spock and Pike know that she arrived safely and successfully. The red angel suit flies off, on its last mission. The signal is sent and the suit explodes. This is important because it means Michael no longer has any way of getting back to the 23rd century. Her life, her entire world is gone. She’ll never see it again. And we get another beautiful outpouring of emotion. Before she can explore, let alone embrace, her new world, she needs to take a moment to mourn the loss of the old one. It’s really great stuff.   All she has is her badge, a tricorder, phaser and ration pack. She clings to the one other thing she has. Her identity as a Starfleet officer. She doesn’t yet know just how meaningful and significant that will be.   Now we have a new opening titles to discuss. There are no major changes. I suspected they might do a new arrangement of the music, to make it feel less connected to TOS, but the score is unchanged. As with season 2, some of the visuals have changed to reflect what is happening this season. The first big difference we notice is a huge collection of DOT-7 robots. Those were the things that popped out of the Enterprise Hull last season during the battle. Basically repair droids. Like R2D2. I Wasn’t a fan of this. Oh, they’re cool, but they felt out of place in Star Trek. That’s more of a Star Wars idea. It felt like they were trying a bit too hard there. Anyway, no idea what they’re showing up here. I guess they’ll have some significance this season. This captain’s chair from the Enterprise bridge is still present, which surprises me. I’d have thought that no longer relevant. Then we see a phaser. As usual, it pulls apart, but as it goes back together, it forms into a futuristic, possibly alien sidearm like we’ve never seen before. This shot makes the most sense it ever has. Then we see Book’s ship (I think). It doesn’t follow the traditional Starfleet  design at all. No visible nacelles. But it’s constantly changing shape, like it has moving parts Reminds me of a transformer, actually. I don’t yet have a good sense of this ship. We see the new oval-shaped com badge. That won’t appear in this episode. And then the three badges on the transporter pad meld into the new shape.   We get some beautiful vistas of this alien planet. They went and shot on location in Iceland for this. I love that. It makes such a difference. We occasionally got location shoots on Star Trek TV shows in the 90s, even in TOS, but I don’t think they ever went to another country just to film. That’s more of a movie-budget thing. Just another sign of the investment they’re making in this show. You can’t deny that CBS takes Star Trek very seriously at the moment.  Anyway, it makes me want to go to Iceland, because this planet is both beautiful and exotic. Michael has found Book’s ship. And it can turn invisible. Is this just a cloaking device, or some relation to the particle synthesis tech?  Watching this episode the second time, I’m picking up on a lot of foreshadowing of Book’s true nature that I didn’t notice the first time. Book thinks Michael is here to take his cargo. But he’s fiercely protecting it. It doesn’t belong to her. She tries to explain herself to him but he’s not interested in what she has to say. They get into a bit of a fist fight. Nicely done action. But the fight ends when she pulls her antique phaser.   This is where we get our first hint related to the new nature of the universe. Book questions the wisdom of ripping space apart, to create artificial wormholes. He says  “It wasn’t enough for you and the Gorn to destroy 2 light-years worth of subspace?” But ‘you’ I assume he means Starfleet. So something has happened to subspace, and it appears that both STarfleet and the Gorn were somehow responsible. We’ll talk more about this in a little bit.   When Michael asks if this is Teralysium, he says, it’s “Hima.” So, is that just a new name for Teralysium, or a different planet? From evidence so far, I think it’s a different planet. But right now, Michael doesn’t know what sector, even what quadrant she’s in. I assume she’s somewhere in the alpha quadrant because of the races we meet here. Andorians, Orions, Tellarites, Lurians, and of course, humans.   Anyway, she makes an impassioned plea. I’m all alone in the universe. I have to trust someone, and for better or worse, that’s you.   We get a look at the interior of this ship. We see the particle control panels. Michael is as taken by them as I am.   The dilithium re-crystaliser on his ship was damaged during impact. He can’t fly using quantum slipstream (another technology that Voyager toyed with on their quest to get home) without Benamite, which is apparently very rare. Tachyon solar cells are too slow. It seems there are a bunch of methods of interstellar travel in this time, but not many of them will work, due to lack of resources. What Book needs is dilithium for his warp drive. By now we can already tell this is not the super-advanced utopia we’ve glimpsed in the 29th century, nor the time-travel-obsessed 31st century. This is a time of shortage and challenge.   And that’s when we meet Grudge, the cut. She’s sure to become a fan favourite. Michael points out she’s a very large cat. And Book replies that she has a thyroid condition. This is kinda weird. My wife tells me Grudge is a Mancoon, which are naturally a very large breed of cat. So …. What put this thyroid line in there. I wonder if that’s going to become significant at some point during the season.   Michael hopes she can trade her antique equipment for dilithium. If she helps him get off the planet, maybe he’ll help her try to contact Discovery.   Then some more gorgeous location shots of a waterfall and moss-encrusted rocks. So good.   Time for some exposition, so Michael, and the viewers, can learn a little about the state of the galaxy. We learn that the Federation is gone, which is shocking news to Michael. How can the Federation be gone? What is the Star Trek universe without the Federation? Apparently, there are some true believers out there that still believe in its ideals. But not Book. He’s a courier. Out for himself. At this point in the episode, he seems like a bit of a Han Solo type. But we may challenge that assumption later on.   Book doesn’t know all the details, but the Federation collapsed a long time ago, after the burn. The burn was the day the galaxy took a hard left. Everyone has been doing a lot of speculating, since this line was revealed in the trailer. The most popular theory, by far, is that it was caused by an explosion of Omega Particles. Omega PArticles disrupt subspace. If one goes off, a large area around it will become so damaged that warp drive is impossible in that region. Fans surmised that omega explosions have made warp drive impossible, in this time. So everyone is cut off from everyone else. This made a lot of sense, and explained why Discovery’s spore drive would come in so handy.   What Book says is “Dilithium. One day most of it just went boom. Dilithium is the heart of every warp-capable ship The Federation weren’t sure what happened or why,but after a while they just weren’t around anymore.   So what we’re seeing doesn’t quite seem to fit the omega particle theory. Warp drive is still possible, and we’ll see it used later this episode. The problem is that Dilithium is very very rare (but not so rare that Book can’t get his hands on some before the episode is done.) But he did mention damage to subspace in a 2-lightyear radius. And THAT sounds like omega. We’ll also learn later that people in this region of space cannot scan very far out.   This all seems a bit muddy at the moment. We don’t get a full picture of what the real state of things is in this episode. But I’m starting to worry that they’ve taken the concept of the omega particle, but complicated it way more than was necessary. Kind alike what they did with Voq in season 1. The idea of surgically altering someone to look like another species is a very common Star Trek Trop, as far back as the original series. But the show complicated the whole thing with Voq so much that to this day, fans are still trying to get their heads around exactly what happened. They made it more complex than it needed to be.   Hopefully this won’t be a similar thing.   Sonequa is doing a lot of really good face acting in this episode. She portrays so much emotion without saying a word. It’s awesome.   They arrive at a city. A massive city. When they try to enter the mercantile, some kind of market, they scan Book and Michael. IT seems everyone in this time has some kind of technology embedded in their forearm. Reminds me a lot of the omni-tool in Mass Effect, actually. Because Michael isn’t from this time, she doesn’t have one, so they won’t let her in. I guess it’s like trying to enter a country without a passport, or trying to get a job without a social security number, or as we have in Australia, a Tax File Number.   But whoever runs this place is convinced that what Michael carries could be valuable.   Michael sees people using a site-to-site transporter, or as she calls it, a portable transporter. This technology existed, but was rare in the time of Voyager. It’ll be just like a toothbrush in this time.   And that’s when Book betrays Michael. He frames her as a bank robber and steals her equipment. Seems he’ll need more than just the tricorder to afford the dilithium he needs.   The Andorian and Orion security officers drug Michael to make her talk. It really does feel like the wild west out here. It’s funny, but the current creative team behind Star Trek really do want to make Star Trek feel more wild west. Emphasis on the wild. Star Trek Picard took us out of the safe comfortable Federation worlds into dingy places where morals were lower and danger lurked around every corner. Places where the peace is kept by Fenris Rangers because there’s nobody else to do it. It all felt a bit more Star Wars-ish to me. That’s feeling like a trend.   Anyway, it makes a lot more sense here, because a world without the Federation or Starfleet is basically gonna be like the wild west of Star Wars.   Michael’s reaction to the drug is mildly amusing. I do love the line when she says “I have a friend with red hair. You cannot give this to her.” It’s funny. This drug basically turns Michael into Tilly. So imagine what it would turn Tilly into.   The new round phasers are kinda cool. Michael certainly likes them, her appreciation enhanced in her drugged state.  As much as I don’t endorse the use of drugs in any way, it’s kind of nice to see a more playful side of Burnham. She’s really letting her hair down, so to speak. I’m realising now, just how much of her vulcan conditioning she still clings to most of the time.   In the end, Michael has to steal the dilithium because Book can’t buy it. And then we learn that Book has a site-to-site transporter. And so begins a game of cat and mouse and they beam away, and are quickly followed by the guards, only to beam somewhere else again. It’s a great way to show off more of this wonderful location. And we notice that not all the guards are Andorian and Orion. There’s a Lurian among them. You know, one of Morn’s mates. The lurian is bald, just like Morn, which is interesting, because we learned, in Deep Space Nine, that most Lurians have hair. Morn lost all of his because he was storing liquid latinum in his second stomach. I think this is a case of “it would be more correct for this lurian to have hair, but who wants to see that? We want to see the familiar bald look because it gives us nostalgia for Deep Space Nine, and Morn in particular. So I’m okay with it. Afterall, who says other Lurians can’t lose their hair? There are plenty of bald humans in the world.   Then we’re introduced to Book’s super power. He speaks in an alien language, that sounds somewhat like Hebrew, a glyph glows on his forehead, and a plant grows out of the water. The plant produces a substance that can heal Michael’s wounds. Book says that what he was doing was “something like” praying. He seems to have a connection to nature. We’ll see him use it to command an animal later on.   Book has figured out that Michael is a time traveller. He doesn’t know how she got her hands on what brought her here, but we learn that all temporal technology was destroyed and outlawed after the temporal wars. Nice to get some closure of that temporal cold war thing from Enterprise. Because we are further forward into the future than the time Agent Daniels came from. This is important because if time-travel was still prevalent, then our heroes could return home. But this was always meant to be a one-way trip for the sake of the story.   They get back to the ship but the guards have tracked them down again. When the Andorian says “What good is a courier who lets his cargo get stolen” and the dodgy bloke says “I’m the best runner in the galaxy”, it sounded very reminiscent of Han Solo. But then he gets shot. These guards want Book’s cargo. Book relenets and opens his cargo hold. There’s an animal in the3re. A giant slug thing, When they let it out, it eats the guards. What exactly were they thinking? Why would you come here to take possession of a dangerous animal, but have no way to contain it? Anyway, after eating the guards, it swallows Michael. But Book uses his magic powers again and convinces the slug, which he calls Molly, to vomit her back out.   I don’t really have any opinion on Book’s powers yet, because I just don’t know enough about them. Anway, Molly seems very friendly now.   So they’re now flying through space at warp speed. We’ve come to realise the truth of Book’s mission. He’s not just a courier. He’s an environmentalist. He’s rescuing these animals, endangered species, and returning them to their homeworld.   I like the red trees on the transworm planet. It’s a simple thing but it makes a place look suitably alien.   Now that his job is done, Book knows somebody who might be able to help Michael find her ship. He takes her to see that guy from the very beginning of the episode. Remember him? He lives on an old Federation relay station. The guy’s name is Sahil.  Michael is excited to meet him, but he’s in awe to meet her. He can’t find Discovery. But we learn there are two Federation ships out there. So not all is completely gone. But Sahil can’t scan beyond several sectors. Long range sensors failed decades ago. On first viewing, I thought this was a widespread problem in the universe, but now, I Think it’s just because the long range sensors on this space station are damaged. So maybe this is not related to the burn after all. But he says he imagines it is the same for all others, so who knows. It seems Discovery either landed somewhere a long way away, or it hasn’t arrived yet. IT could arrive tomorrow, or in a thousand years.   Sahil explains that he’s not a commissioned officer. Several generations of his family have run this facility, but when Sahil took over, there was nobody left to swear him in. But what about the two other ships out there? Couldn't he ask them? Anyway, for 40 years, he’s been waiting for a genuine Starfleet office to come. Michael is that hope. Sahil doesn't know how much of the federation still exists, but he does his own little part to keep the dream of it alive. And that’s when Michael hangs the flag for him. Only a commissioned officer may raise it. This episode seems to be using the terms Federation and Starfleet interchangeably. But they’re not the same thing. Very closely related, of course, but Starfleet and The Federation are two distinct things. The  Federation is a political alliance of worlds. Starfleet is their scientific, exploration and military service.   So, while she hasn’t yet found her friends, Michael has a new purpose. She commissions Sahil. Together, they will seek out others and help to rebuild the dream of the Federation.   So let’s examine this new world we find ourselves in. The utopia of the Federation is gone. In its place we now have a somewhat dystopian future. It seems they like to do that a lot. Discovery Season 1 plunged us into war with the Klingons. Our characters had to fight to get their utopia back. Then Picard season 1 turned Starfleert somewhat dystopian by having them be corrupt, due to certain influences. And now Discovery season 3 and yet again given us a Star Trek dystopia. It’s starting to feel like alex Kurtzman and his team really like dystopia, and are not actually that enamoured with the traditional utopian view of Star Trek. Deep Space Nine actually pushed back against the utopia a bit, and in my opinion did it more effectively than anything else has since. There are those out there who are not fans of this trend. I can understand that. I’m not particularly bothered, but I’m definitely noticing a trend. One question people like to ask is “What would Gene Roddenberry think? I’m convinced he wouldn’t have liked Star Trek Picard. He was always against Starfleet being portrayed in a negative light. I believe he didn’t even like what they did in Star Trek VI. But you know what, I suspect he’d have liked this. Why? Because of another show he created called Andromeda. It followed a similar plot to this. An officer from a great utopian alliance was thrust into the future where his government no longer existed. He strove to re-build it. And that’s the essence of what we’re seeing here. A determination to re-build the ideals of the Federation. There’s a whole lot of optimism to it.   And that concludes the first episode of season 3. I enjoyed it. There’s a lot we still don’t know. But I’m excited that our heroes have a whole new Star Trek universe to explore, and I’m looking forward to exploring it with them. I suspect this is going to be a good season. It’s the first one that has been produced without massive disruption behind the scenes in the writers’ room, so that alone is promising.   I like Book. He’s a cool character and I’m looking forward to seeing his arc across the season.   Don’t forget, I have a book series out called Jewel of The Stars. It follows the passengers and crew of a cruise ship in space, boldly travelling through unexplored space, after Earth fell to an alien occupation. Just like the crew of Discovery, they’re all on their own. You can read the first book completely free on Wattpad, or get it wherever eBooks are sold for 99 cents. It’s also in paperback. I’m working on edits to book 3, but I’ve been a bit delayed because my day job has really been kicking my butt lately. But hopefully that’s mostly over, and I can get on with life again.   I’ll see you again next week, when we discuss the second episode of Discovery season 3, which strangely enough, is not called That Hope is You Part 2, it’s called Far From Home. Catch you then. Live long and prosper. Make it so.

In this episode, I am thrilled to interview Michael J. Maher, who is CEO of REFERCO, the world's foremost authority in business referrals. In just his third year in real estate, he did 187 transactions and over $40 million, entirely from referrals. For the next 8 years, he received over 500 referrals every single year and netted over $1 million. Michael is an internationally bestselling author and his book (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals has been the #1 book in Real Estate Sales on Amazon for over 9 straight years. In addition to these impressive accomplishments, he has shared the stage George W. Bush, Tony Robbins, Barbara Corcoran, and John Maxwell. As we often do on the show, we started by talking about Michael's background. He began his working career as a high school math teacher and coach of three sports: football, basketball, and baseball. He spoke about how dedicated he was and earned District Teacher of the Year in his first year teaching. Michael had an interest in real estate so he got licensed as an agent at the same time he bought his first home. He talks about how he built his business almost entirely through word of mouth and referrals. Because Michael became an agent in 1999, I asked him how he weathered the housing market crash years. He said that because they were getting almost all their business through referrals, they ended up having records years during that period. This is when Michael first knew he was going to have to write a book because he had discovered a system of doing business that worked well in good markets, but even better in depressed times. He spoke about how the 7L system is basically tailor-made for a challenging time like we are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We talked about specific marketing and deal-generating strategies based on his 7L principles, going into detail about making your marketing as personal as possible. I then asked Michael about his book, (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals. He walked us through the levels and their amount of influence in relationships with people. The second-most powerful level involves events and seminars, and Michael explained some of the programs that they offer. That led us to a conversation on the necessity of some structure to your day in order to increase productivity. He used the example of going to school and having an intense focus on a particular subject for a pre-determined amount of time every day. Michael also walked us through the morning and evening rituals, which he imparts in his book and classes through the use of acronyms. Michael then told us about how he helps business owners build their businesses on a foundation of love, generosity, and appreciation. He went into great detail about the personal and professional benefits of choosing to live and conduct yourself this way. Michael described love as our super-power, and generosity is that love in action. He also explained that it is vital for us to appreciate everything that happens in our lives, good or bad. I can't tell you how powerful and wisdom-packed this episode is! You would be crazy not to join me as I interview super-successful entrepreneur, Michael J. Maher! Notable Quotes: “Good market - referrals are really good. Bad market - referrals are everything.” Michael J. Maher “When people are thinking they are going to lose their home, they want to talk to someone they trust.” Michael J. Maher “I'm big into personalized and customized service.” Michael J. Maher “What is the most important currency in today's world? It's not money - it's trust.” Michael J. Maher “Love is your superpower.” Michael J. Maher “What I'm really excited about now is helping people get structure in a world of chaos.” Michael J. Maher “Why do we charge for them? So people show up. If they have skin in the game, they come.” Michael J. Maher “There is a lot of people that would trade their wealth for health and happiness right now.” Michael J. Maher “Energy is the most precious resource known to man.” Michael J. Maher “You can change your life by changing your strategy.” Michael J. Maher “We are going to have a day - why not structure it in the most effective way you can possibly structure it?” Mike Simmons “It mixes the best of ‘go with the flow' with ‘get in the flow.'” Michael J. Maher “Your purpose in life is to be referrable.” Michael J. Maher “Picking and choosing the opportunity is a lot better than chasing opportunity.” Michael J. Maher Links: Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents Matt Walker: Sleep is your superpower | TED Talk - TED Talks Michael's Website Sweet Dreams Class 30 Mornings Class Referrals Podcast Flip Hacking Live Return on Investments Just Start Real Estate JSRE on Facebook Mike on Facebook Mike on Instagram Mike on LinkedIn Mike on Twitter

In this episode, I am thrilled to interview Michael J. Maher, who is CEO of REFERCO, the world's foremost authority in business referrals. In just his third year in real estate, he did 187 transactions and over $40 million, entirely from referrals. For the next 8 years, he received over 500 referrals every single year and netted over $1 million. Michael is an internationally bestselling author and his book (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals has been the #1 book in Real Estate Sales on Amazon for over 9 straight years. In addition to these impressive accomplishments, he has shared the stage George W. Bush, Tony Robbins, Barbara Corcoran, and John Maxwell.   As we often do on the show, we started by talking about Michael’s background. He began his working career as a high school math teacher and coach of three sports: football, basketball, and baseball. He spoke about how dedicated he was and earned District Teacher of the Year in his first year teaching. Michael had an interest in real estate so he got licensed as an agent at the same time he bought his first home. He talks about how he built his business almost entirely through word of mouth and referrals.   Because Michael became an agent in 1999, I asked him how he weathered the housing market crash years. He said that because they were getting almost all their business through referrals, they ended up having records years during that period. This is when Michael first knew he was going to have to write a book because he had discovered a system of doing business that worked well in good markets, but even better in depressed times. He spoke about how the 7L system is basically tailor-made for a challenging time like we are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We talked about specific marketing and deal-generating strategies based on his 7L principles, going into detail about making your marketing as personal as possible.   I then asked Michael about his book, (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals. He walked us through the levels and their amount of influence in relationships with people. The second-most powerful level involves events and seminars, and Michael explained some of the programs that they offer. That led us to a conversation on the necessity of some structure to your day in order to increase productivity. He used the example of going to school and having an intense focus on a particular subject for a pre-determined amount of time every day. Michael also walked us through the morning and evening rituals, which he imparts in his book and classes through the use of acronyms.   Michael then told us about how he helps business owners build their businesses on a foundation of love, generosity, and appreciation. He went into great detail about the personal and professional benefits of choosing to live and conduct yourself this way. Michael described love as our super-power, and generosity is that love in action. He also explained that it is vital for us to appreciate everything that happens in our lives, good or bad.   I can’t tell you how powerful and wisdom-packed this episode is! You would be crazy not to join me as I interview super-successful entrepreneur, Michael J. Maher!   Notable Quotes:   “Good market - referrals are really good. Bad market - referrals are everything.”   Michael J. Maher     “When people are thinking they are going to lose their home, they want to talk to someone they trust.”   Michael J. Maher     “I’m big into personalized and customized service.”   Michael J. Maher     “What is the most important currency in today’s world? It’s not money - it’s trust.”   Michael J. Maher     “Love is your superpower.”   Michael J. Maher     “What I’m really excited about now is helping people get structure in a world of chaos.”   Michael J. Maher     “Why do we charge for them? So people show up. If they have skin in the game, they come.”   Michael J. Maher     “There is a lot of people that would trade their wealth for health and happiness right now.”   Michael J. Maher     “Energy is the most precious resource known to man.”   Michael J. Maher     “You can change your life by changing your strategy.”   Michael J. Maher     “We are going to have a day - why not structure it in the most effective way you can possibly structure it?”   Mike Simmons     “It mixes the best of ‘go with the flow’ with ‘get in the flow.’”   Michael J. Maher     “Your purpose in life is to be referrable.”   Michael J. Maher     “Picking and choosing the opportunity is a lot better than chasing opportunity.”   Michael J. Maher   Links: Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents Matt Walker: Sleep is your superpower | TED Talk - TED Talks Michael’s Website Sweet Dreams Class 30 Mornings Class Referrals Podcast Flip Hacking Live Return on Investments Just Start Real Estate JSRE on Facebook Mike on Facebook Mike on Instagram Mike on LinkedIn Mike on Twitter

Action Radio Show!  Veterans Day! - 11/11/19 - Show Timeline: Introduction:  Introduction to the Second Amendment County Sanctuary Bill.  Talking Action Radio basics, life here in NW Florida, and the conditions that make this bill possible. 11:00 - Michael Taylor and Stephen Parris, both of Florida Carry, joined me for a discussion of the 2A Sanctuary bill, of rights in general, and a bunch of surprising topics that came up.  Because Michael found his legislators, in office, so woefully uninformed about the Constitution, we thought we should write a Florida Legislative Constitutional Orientation Act so they all have a basic working knowledge going in.  Stephen wants this for all people running for office nationwide.  We even got onto why a drivers license is a privilege, and not a right as I think it should.  That will come up again.   46:00 - Mad Moms FIght For Justice, our weekly family law report.  The topic is toxic narcissistic relationships, how to recognize them with red flags, deal with them, deal with your narcissistic ex in family court, how to differentiate the personality disordered narcisist from the harmless selfie taking one.  A true psychopathic, sociopathic narcissist has no empathy, no emotion, no conscience, and will delight in destroying your life for their own enjoyment and entertainment. 1:32:05 - Got back to our main topic after some announcements particularly our local car show.  Then I went into a general discussion of 2A Sanctuaries in preparation for tomorrows detailed discussion of my bill. Facebook page:   https://www.facebook.com/radiolegislature/ Show site:  BlogTalkRadio.com/citizenaction Bill writing site:  www.WriteYourLaws.com Podcasts: iTunes, Stitcher and Tunein Patreon memberships:  https://www.patreon.com/ActionRadio Twitter:  GregPenglis@ActionRadioGP

Dropping Your Identity of Hope Today, I was imagining what it's like to be me with no hope attached to what I do or don’t do. What an interesting moment. I realized the degree to which so much of who I’ve been being and what I’ve been doing has been related to hoping that the outcome would be in my favor. Having lived in hope for so long, I can tell you it hasn’t been a fun and easy ride. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone! I grew up in a large Catholic family, my dad was a doctor, we belonged to the Country Club, and I was considered the beautiful one in the family. I trained myself to create an identity that would be appealing and not be off-putting to anyone. I wanted to ensure my safety, security, and the belief that I was worthy of love and protection. As young children, most of us don’t know who the heck we are inside our little Earth suits. We watch what others are doing, emulate some and do the opposite of others. We train ourselves to be who it is safe to be, and we train ourselves to be what we believe will keep us safe, secure and protected. We live in hope that we are enough. Enough what?  Am I worthy of my own expression?  Few of us live in families that encourage the fullest expression of who we are naturally.  Instead we learn to compensate for our lacks, our unworthiness, our unlovableness, our undeservingness - hoping that we can pull off some role or identity that will, like I said already, keep us safe, secure and protected. A client of mine, Michael, turned 51 not so long ago. Michael is a recovering addict. More than recovering from substance abuse, Michael is recovering himself from a life of physical violence and emotional neglect and abuse. Yuck! Michael took on an identity of a tough guy in hopes of safety, protection and security. He was a member of gangs, and hurt people badly. He also did really stupid acts, in part, he admits, to maybe kill himself, and partly to show off. Because Michael was hurting so bad inside, he hoped that by taking on this identity as a tough guy, he would be respected, appreciated, and belong. It didn’t work. Now Michael is on this side of 50! And, our work together has been a process of reclaiming the abused child, the angry teenager, and the adult looking for love in all the wrong places. Michael is letting go of these identities of hope, and it scares the pants off of him. And though it’s scary, Michael is discovering his true self. He is slowly integrating this true self into his everyday life. And, in doing so, to his surprise, he is being embraced by people who see him in his beautiful self, in his loving, playful expressions, and in his heartfelt presence. More importantly, he is appreciating who is inside all of the hoping, all the acting, all the roles he hoped would bring him love and safety, but didn’t. He is discovering compassion for himself. “How strange!” he quips!! One last thing about Michael. He realizes that 98% of his life has been spent doing things for the wrong reasons. As he lets go of his identities of hope, he is having a lot more fun just being himself. As we age, no matter our age, we have moments when we realize that all the things we’ve done, all the ways we’ve been acting and being, hasn’t kept us safe from certain realities of humanness. Fame, fortune, intelligence, athleticism, power, sex-appeal-- none of it keeps us from experiencing the inevitability of discovering that no matter what we do, we cannot escape ourselves. This quite often is the moment that a midlife crisis begins - a crisis of faith. This the bad news and the good news. The longer we are on the planet, the more time we have to discover the fullest potential of being who we are. The crisis of realizing that hoping isn’t useful at all in providing us safety, security and protection, is the beginning of a very empowering adventure. FUN!!!! -- For more blogs, books, videos, or if you are interested in coaching or training with Dr. Rosie, check out her website: www.theparadigmshifts.com

GUEST BIO: Michael Kennedy is known best for being a Python expert. He is a Python Software Foundation fellow. His two podcasts Talk Python to Me and Python Bytes are well regarded, as are his developer training courses. Michael has been working in the developer field for more than 20 years and has spoken at numerous conferences including NDC and DevWeek. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode, Phil interviews Python Specialist Michael Kennedy. He is the host of Python Bytes and Talk Python to Me. Michael is also the founder of Talk Python training and a fellow of the Python Software Foundation. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (0.59) – Phil asked Michael to tell the audience a bit more about himself? In response, Michael explained that when he started his work life he focused on the science sector. While working on his maths PhD, he discovered programming. He said, “It just really connected with me”. That was 20 years ago, yet every day he feels a little bit more excited than he was the day before. With IT you are always learning, which is exciting.  (2.05) – Phil asks Michael for a unique IT career tip. Michael started by saying that it is important to remember that “small things add up”.  He said, we often overestimate what we can accomplish in a week, but massively underestimate what can be done in a couple of years. He pointed out that you need to carry on learning to progress. He also explained that it is important to realize that in the IT world there are no longer gatekeepers. The days when you had to ask permission from somewhere like IBM or Oracle to be accepted into the IT world are gone. Today, you are in control. “You no longer have to ask permission to be part of this, excel and be a leader, you just have to want it”If you want to do something all you have to do is to work gradually towards doing it. (4.13) – Michael was asked to share his worst career moment by Phil. Michael said that happened while he was working for DARPA, which is an advanced US government research facility. He was working on a secret project that used software to pull together the efforts of several companies and organizations. Unfortunately, the software did not work properly, so needed debugging. Under normal circumstances that would be a tedious task, but not a huge problem. But, for this project, his main partner was a man from the UK and he did not have the necessary security clearance to attend the meetings where the issues were discussed. He could not be in the room. Someone had to summarize what the problems were and he had to use that information to debug the software. Very stressful. (6.55) Phil asked “did you learn anything particular from this situation?” Michael said, yes, we should have tested more and used a technical person who could have physical access to the thing we were working on. (7.23) – On the flipside, Phil asks Michael what his best career moment was. Michael explained that he started working as a developer and enjoyed that work. But, it was starting to teach programming and developer skills that has been the highlight of his career, so far. (11.14) – Phil wants to know what excites Michael about the future for the IT industry. The fact that it is relatively easy for new people to enter the field and learn is something that Michael finds exciting. Students no longer have to hope that they can work it out from a book because there is plenty of support available. (11.14) – What drew you to a career in IT? Michael enjoys the fact you actually get to build things, rather than just working with theories. He enjoys the debate involved in developing a product and being able to press the button and find out if what you have done actually works. (12.10) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Because Michael was self-taught he said that he did not get much IT career advice from mentors and teachers. But, after speaking to others working in the field, he thinks that the most important piece of advice he can share is “just take action.” He said, “Even if you go the wrong way you will learn enough that you actually learn more about what the right way is.” (13.38) – Phil asks what approach Michael would take if he were to start his IT career again, right now. Michael says he would have been more selective and strategic when it came to choosing the projects he worked on. He feels that this would have made things easier for him. (14.30) – Phil asks what career objective Michael is currently focusing on. Michael said “I'm really focused on trying to inspire and inform developers”. The fundamental goal of his podcasts is to make people aware of new things that they should be interested in. He is working to make it easier for people to learn Python and develop successful IT careers. (15.33) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill? For Michael, learning to speak publically had been especially beneficial. The urge to share helped him to overcome his fear and communicate better. (16.36) – Phil asks Michael to share a few final words of career advice. Michael said – “every day, think about where you want to put your energy and really what you want” That may mean taking a job for 5 years with Google, so that you can learn the skills you need to build your own product. Whatever you need to do to achieve your dreams, just go ahead and do it. BEST MOMENTS: (1.30) Michael - "Every day, I'm just a little more excited than I was the day before about it. It's great." (2.00) Michael - "We often overestimate what we can accomplish in a week, but massively underestimate what can be done in a couple of years." (3.38) Michael - "You no longer have to ask permission to be part of this and excel and be a leader  you just have to want it." (3.45) Phil - "I think the opportunity is there. And it's up to the individual to take the opportunity." (10.40) Michael - "Because so much stuff is new you don't have to do it for 20 years to be an expert" (13.20) Michael - Just take action. He said, “Even if you go the wrong way you will learn enough that you actually learn more about what the right way is.” (18.00) Michael - "Every day, think about where you want to put your energy and really what you want." CONTACT MICHAEL KENNEDY: Website: http://michaelckennedy.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mkennedy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkennedy/ Podcasts: https://talkpython.fm https://pythonbytes.fm.  

Michael Hyatt is one of my favorite people in our space. He does things absolutely the right way and always works from a place of integrity and quality. You may recognize Michael as the author of the New York Times bestseller Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World and the coauthor of Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want. In addition to being a highly successful author, Michael has worked in nearly every facet of book publishing in the 30 years since he began his career at Word Publishing (which was a part of Thomas Nelson) while a senior at Baylor University. Perhaps most notably, he played a large role at Thomas Nelson Publishers, which is the largest faith-based publisher in the world and is now part of HarperCollins. Michael was the company’s CEO from 2005 through 2011, and remained there as chairman until the company was sold in 2012.  Our conversation today includes Michael talking in detail about his experiences with the writing, publishing, and publicity processes. As you’ll learn here, his first book came very close to never being published, and only his own tenacity and persuasiveness saved it.  In addition, he’ll offer incredible value in the form of advice for anyone interested in writing or publishing a book. He explains, for example, why having your own platform is more important now than ever before. He also offers recommendations on topics such as starting with a blog (using social media instead is “like building a house on a rented lot”) and why you might want to rethink those gorgeous, image-filled emails to your mailing list.  For all this and much more, listen in to this episode of the Self-Publishing School podcast!   You can find Michael here: michaelhyatt.com Michael Hyatt on LinkedIn @michaelhyatt on Facebook @MichaelHyatt on Twitter michaelhyatt on Instagram   Show Notes [01:30] - Did Michael know that his book Platform would launch a whole arm of his business? [02:07] - Michael takes us back to the very first book he wrote, in 1997. He explains all the difficulties and struggles involved in both writing and publishing the book, and reveals that it came very close to not being published at all. [06:09] - How long a span of time did Michael’s 1,200 interviews on the book take place during? As he answers, he reveals the intensity of the publicity process. [08:22] - Michael explains what he means by going into “sales mode,” and shares some of what he did to publicize it and build his audience. [09:33]- We hear why Michael thinks his book went from something relatively few people were interested in to something that went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. [10:43] - Chandler zooms in on two things Michael has said: speaking in sound bites, and making the host sound good. [12:20] - We zoom back out to learn about Michael’s time at Thomas Nelson. He explains his experience in working in just about every facet of publishing. He then explains the dramatic change in publishing between 2006 and 2009. [15:18] - What are some of the biggest takeaways from that period that Michael now uses? He reveals that publishers now count on their authors’ platforms. [17:02] - Michael clarifies what he means by a “platform.” [18:40]- We learn more about platforms and how someone who’s just starting out can begin building their own platform. He recommends starting with a blog, and explains why. [21:44] - Michael talks about his audience-building methods he uses or recommends. He emphasizes the importance of having an email list, and creating an opt-in magnet. [25:50] - Does Michael think that the power of email is fading, or is it here to stay? In his answer, he discusses why he has recently switched from beautiful, HTML-based newsletters to text-based email without images. [27:30] - We hear what triggered all of the changes that Michael made a month ago. [28:35] - Michael takes a deeper dive into content and its creation. His blog is his workbench, he explains, and the ideas that work there make their way into other content such as his podcasts and books. [32:08] - What is Michael’s rhythm or process for creating content? [34:17] - Previously, Michael was more of a rhythmic writer; now it’s more system-based. He explains how his system functions. [37:01] - Michael’s content team has three people in addition to him. Here he explains his process for finding good people who stay for a long time. [40:23] - Because Michael came out of the world of book publishing (where every piece of content is assembled by a team), having a team help create his content feels natural to him. [43:11] - We learn what Michael recommends for someone who is just starting out and wants to get noticed by a publisher. [44:42] - In answer to the final question, Michael offers his parting tip for someone looking to publish their first book: write a book proposal for yourself. Not doing this is “like trying to build an addition onto your house without a blueprint,” he explains. [46:45] - Chandler has a free gift for listeners: a copy of Book Launch (FIND AND LINK THIS). To claim your copy, go to spsfreebook.com! (FIND AND LINK THIS)   Links and Resources: michaelhyatt.com Michael Hyatt on LinkedIn @michaelhyatt on Facebook @MichaelHyatt on Twitter michaelhyatt on Instagram self-publishingschool.com spsfreetraining.com Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want The Millennium bug Platform University Evernote Workflowy John Maxwell Charlie Wetzel

Continuing the series of the North American Sasquatch Researcher, Nite Callers presents Michael Kain, Sasquatch Researcher from the state of Ohio. Michael Kain is 44 years old and lives in Central Ohio. Through out Michael's childhood, he experienced paranormal activity which spurred his first passion to be a paranormal investigator. Because Michael is open minded, it was not a stretch for him to believe that Sasquatch could also exist. He felt a kinship with those who had sightings especially when there was very little evidence to support the witness's encounters. When an episode of Finding Bigfoot aired on the state of Ohio, it ignited his interest in the subject and he decided to go out and look for himself where he found much possible evidence in the field. Being an avid off trail hiker, he began hiking to areas where few people ever go and obtained audio, found foot prints and limb structures. Mark and his partner Eric Tipton research year round, predominantly in the daytime. Join us as we welcome Michael Kain aka Woodland Spirit. It promises to be a very fascinating show! Michael has a face book community called the House of Enoch.