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Michael Smith—Managing Partner and Founder, Emerald Advisors Michael Smith shares how a client-first philosophy, niche specialization, and independence helped Emerald Advisors grow from $385mm to more than $1B in assets. In Summary What happens when an advisor builds a business around client service rather than operational efficiency? Jason Diamond speaks with Michael Smith, Founder and Managing Partner of Emerald Advisors, about the path from a successful Merrill practice to an independent RIA that has grown from approximately $385mm to more than $1B in assets. Along the way, Michael shares the story of being told he was “overservicing” clients, why that moment became a catalyst for independence, and how a highly specialized service model fueled the firm's growth. Drawing on lessons from a 24-year Navy career, Michael offers a perspective on leadership, specialization, client care, and what it takes to build a durable business in today's wealth management landscape. The Storyline Growth is often viewed as the result of marketing, referrals, acquisitions, or scale. Michael Smith sees it differently. After building a successful practice at Merrill, Michael found himself at odds with the constraints of the traditional wirehouse model. What ultimately stood out wasn't compensation, technology, or platform capabilities. It was a philosophical difference around client service. When he was told he was spending too much time helping clients navigate tax planning, equity compensation, and other financial decisions outside the traditional scope of investment management, he began to question whether the model aligned with the way he wanted to serve families. That realization eventually led him to launch Emerald Advisors in late 2019. The firm started with roughly 85 clients and approximately $385mm in assets. Today, Emerald serves more than 225 families and oversees more than $1B in assets. Throughout the conversation, Michael reflects on the lessons learned from building an independent firm, developing a niche around concentrated stock positions and executive compensation, navigating custodial and technology decisions, and creating a culture rooted in accountability and service. Underlying it all is a simple belief: when firms become highly intentional about who they serve and how they serve them, growth often becomes the outcome rather than the objective. Topics Covered Merrill breakaways and independence Client service as a growth driver Building an RIA RIA growth and scalability Organic growth strategies Concentrated stock positions and equity compensation planning Ideal client personas and niche specialization Schwab and Fidelity custody relationships Advisor succession and enterprise value Navy leadership principles in wealth management The rise of mega RIAs Advisor technology and infrastructure > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors Why did being accused of “overservicing” clients become a turning point? (08:15)Michael explains how a conversation with management revealed a deeper misalignment between his client-service philosophy and the wirehouse model. What does client service look like beyond portfolio management? (11:30)The discussion explores how tax planning, equity compensation guidance, and proactive coordination can deepen client relationships. Why can specialization accelerate growth? (15:45)Michael shares why serving a defined niche often creates stronger referrals, greater expertise, and clearer positioning. How has the RIA landscape evolved since 2019? (20:30)Michael reflects on the rise of mega RIAs, changing technology capabilities, and why he believes independent firms still have significant advantages. What role do custodians really play in an independent business? (23:15)Michael discusses his experience working with Schwab and Fidelity and why he views custodians as strategic partners rather than competitors. Is the wirehouse model still the right fit for some advisors? (26:45)The conversation challenges the assumption that independence is the best path for everyone and explores the realities of running a business. Does reaching $1 billion in assets actually change anything? (32:45)Michael offers a practical perspective on growth, success, and why asset milestones can be misleading. What can advisors learn from the “steamboat” philosophy? (37:15)Drawing on his Navy experience, Michael shares a leadership framework that continues to shape how he approaches business building and decision-making. Key Takeaways Exceptional client service can become a meaningful competitive advantage when it extends beyond investment management. Independence gave Michael the flexibility to build a service model that aligned with his philosophy rather than adapting his philosophy to fit the platform. Developing a niche around executive compensation and concentrated stock positions helped accelerate Emerald's growth. The ability to make technology, custodial, and operational decisions quickly remains a significant advantage for independent firms. Not every advisor should be independent. Running a business requires a different set of skills and responsibilities than serving clients alone. Growth milestones are useful, but they do not define success. Michael believes success existed long before Emerald reached $1 billion in assets. High-performing teams with a clear client focus often find that growth becomes a natural byproduct of execution. https://youtu.be/RjzsMcC2DnY Quotable Moments “I literally had to go back and Google the word overservicing.” “Servicing the client is the most important thing that we can do today.” “If you serve a niche and you're very good at that niche, that word gets around.” “Growth becomes the outcome.” FAQs Can an advisor really “over-service” clients? The discussion explores the tension between efficiency and depth of service. While some business models prioritize scale and consistency, others are built around solving a broader range of client problems. The right answer often depends on the advisor's philosophy and business model. Does specialization still matter in a relationship business? Michael argues that developing expertise in a specific area can accelerate growth by making referrals easier and helping advisors become known for solving a particular set of problems. What actually changes when an advisor becomes independent? Beyond economics, independence often creates more flexibility around client service, technology, processes, and business decisions. At the same time, advisors assume responsibility for running the business itself. Is full independence the right path for every advisor? No. Michael acknowledges that many advisors benefit from the structure, support, and resources available within traditional firms. Independence offers flexibility, but it also introduces complexity and responsibility. How should advisors think about the $1 billion milestone? Michael views asset milestones as useful benchmarks but not measures of success. In his view, business quality, client outcomes, and sustainability matter more than any specific asset number. What role does an ideal client persona play in growth? Rather than trying to serve everyone, Emerald built its business around a clearly defined client profile. Michael believes that focus improves service, creates operational consistency, and supports organic growth. How can advisors balance growth with client service? One of the central themes of the episode is that growth and service are not necessarily competing objectives. In some cases, a differentiated service model becomes the reason a business grows. The discussion explores the tension between efficiency and depth of service. While some business models prioritize scale and consistency, others are built around solving a broader range of client problems. The right answer often depends on the advisor's philosophy and business model. Michael argues that developing expertise in a specific area can accelerate growth by making referrals easier and helping advisors become known for solving a particular set of problems. Beyond economics, independence often creates more flexibility around client service, technology, processes, and business decisions. At the same time, advisors assume responsibility for running the business itself. No. Michael acknowledges that many advisors benefit from the structure, support, and resources available within traditional firms. Independence offers flexibility, but it also introduces complexity and responsibility. Michael views asset milestones as useful benchmarks but not measures of success. In his view, business quality, client outcomes, and sustainability matter more than any specific asset number. Rather than trying to serve everyone, Emerald built its business around a clearly defined client profile. Michael believes that focus improves service, creates operational consistency, and supports organic growth. One of the central themes of the episode is that growth and service are not necessarily competing objectives. In some cases, a differentiated service model becomes the reason a business grows. Related Resources The Transitioning Advisor's Lament: Things I Wish I Knew Before Freedom vs. Familiarity: Is it Worth Disrupting Comfort for Something That Might Be Better? IBD vs. RIA Revisited: Two Independent Pathways for Advisors to Consider Advisor Transition Report 2026 Guest Bio Michael Smith, CPWA® is the Founder and Managing Partner of Emerald Advisors, an independent wealth management firm overseeing more than $1 billion in assets for affluent families, executives, and business owners with complex planning needs. Mike entered the wealth management industry in 2005 after a distinguished 24-year career in the United States Navy, where he served both as an enlisted sailor in the Submarine Force and later as a Limited Duty Officer aboard USS Abraham Lincoln and on major staffs around the world. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Management and an MBA with dual emphases in Finance & Accounting and International Business. Throughout his career, Mike has been known for his commitment to comprehensive planning, helping clients navigate complex issues involving concentrated stock positions, executive compensation, tax strategy, estate planning, philanthropy, and multi-generational wealth transfer. His client-first approach and passion for education have helped Emerald Advisors grow from a startup firm in 2019 to a nationally recognized RIA serving more than 225 families. Outside of the office, Mike is an avid ultrarunner, golfer, lifelong learner, and dedicated advocate for children’s health initiatives. He is a current member of the Legacy Council at Seattle Children’s Hospital and has served in leadership and board roles supporting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, the ALS Association, and the Alyssa Burnett Adult Life Center. He is also the proud father of Kat Smith. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. View the transcript of this episode… From “Overservicing” Clients to Building a $1B RIA: A Merrill Breakaway Story A conversation with Jason Diamond and Michael Smith, Managing Partner and Founder of Emerald Advisors.      Jason Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is From “Overservicing” Clients to Building a $1B RIA: A Merrill Breakaway Story. It’s a conversation with Michael Smith, managing partner and founder of Emerald Advisors. I’m Jason Diamond and this is the Diamond Podcast for financial advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned and, each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at (908) 879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual advisor transition report. It’s the award-winning, data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Jason Diamond: Growth is often viewed as the result of better marketing, stronger referrals, a larger team and even acquisition and that’s all true yet growth can be the byproduct of something else entirely. For example, Michael Smith built a successful practice at Merrill then, one day, he was told he was spending too much time with his clients, or his management put it over-servicing clients. For Michael, that wasn’t a warning sign about his approach, it was a signal that he might have outgrown the firm and the model. Today, Michael is the founder and managing partner of Emerald Advisors, the independent RIA he launched in late 2019 with roughly 385 million in assets and 85 client relationships. Less than seven years later, the firm has grown to more than a billion in assets while remaining deeply focused on a highly-specialized client base and an unusually hands-on service model. What makes this story particularly interesting isn’t just the growth, it’s the thinking behind it. Michael’s perspective was shaped long before he entered wealth management. After serving more than two decades in the Navy, he brought a leadership philosophy centered on accountability, discipline and what he calls steamboat people, those who keep moving forward regardless of conditions, that mindset continues to influence how he builds his team, serves clients and evaluates opportunities. In this episode, we discuss the decision to leave Merrill, the realities of launching a fully independent RIA, why specialization can accelerate growth, the evolving role of custodians and technology and why he believes exceptional client service remains one of the industry’s most durable competitive advantages. Because Michael’s experience suggests that growth isn’t always the result of finding more opportunities, sometimes it’s the result of creating the freedom to execute the vision you already had so let’s jump in. Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. For starters, can you walk us through your background and what brought you to the world of wealth management? Michael Smith: Jason, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today, I do listen to the podcast a lot especially before I left Mother Merrill. But my background and how I got into financial services is really distinct because I was on the board of JDRF back in the day and the national sponsor for JDRF was UBS PaineWebber and they’re like, “Mike, why don’t you be a financial advisor?” And my master’s degree was actually a finance and accounting in portfolio management because I’ve managed my own portfolio for years and years and so, when I couldn’t get a job, I just fell into it because I couldn’t get a job and I needed a job. That was 21 years ago, Memorial Day so that’s how I got into this industry. Jason Diamond: It’s a unique background, it’s super interesting and I want to talk more about it. You mentioned Mother Merrill, we’ll certainly get there. Before we do, give us a little bit of context on the current business you operate, Emerald Advisors, any context you can share on size, number of staff, types of clients you serve would be great. Michael Smith: Sure. So, we launched Emerald in 2019, November 2019 with about 85 clients and you always talk about this on the podcast how scared it is to launch and go independent. And I would say we took over about 95% of our clients that we wanted to bring over and today we’re at about 230 clients, I think we have some onboarding right now, we have just over a billion of assets. So, we launched with the 85 clients and around 350, 385 million, now we’re over a billion. Jason Diamond: Good for you. Michael Smith: Thank you. And I launched with four employees and we’re now at 11. And I would give a shout-out to one of my key employees because, when I launched, I actually hired somebody that had no experience with us and that was really a good thing because that allowed that person to really focus on operations and back office stuff while my business partner Emily and I were able to focus on bringing on the clients and alleviating any issues that they may have or thought. Jason Diamond: So, meaning you hired somebody basically immediately upon launch to help you with the transition and with this next chapter? Michael Smith: Correct. I hired them before but they started the day we launched. Jason Diamond: Brilliant, I love it. Oh, let’s definitely talk more about that because I think that’s a great strategy for … You’re right, you said it in a joking manner now because you’re seven years past but it’s a very real fear that advisors have and I think it’s worth talking more about. I want to mention too you have, obviously, built this business and grown this business dramatically. I don’t want to make this episode about the pandemic but you moved the business at a, certainly, a unique time. Did it impact your growth at all? Did you feel like you hit a brick wall? Just curious about your thoughts. Michael Smith: No, Jason, that’s a great observation. I would venture to say that the pandemic was actually a good thing for us. Jason Diamond: Interesting. Michael Smith: And I say that because, all of a sudden, you could hit pause because everyone was relearning how to do business, how do we do client reviews, how do we communicate with clients in a environment. So, I think the pandemic allowed us to just really reset our expectations visiting with clients because I used to fly a lot because I have clients in 38 different states so this has actually been, not just good for me, but good for the industry because I think it’s reset our expectations that we don’t have to be every day with a client facing. Jason Diamond: I agree with that largely and it’s true of our business too, by the way, it’s certainly reshaped the way people expect to be communicated with. I think Zoom has become much more mainstream, phone calls and we’ve heard from many other advisors who say something similar. I was just curious because you moved so close to or if there was an impact but I get, honestly, I think you’re right, it allowed you to have this nice natural inflection point and almost like flipping a switch of a clean slate. Michael Smith: It allowed us to learn the processes too. So, we launched in November 1st, by March we were in lockdown and so it gave us the opportunity to take several months of just learning the processes of how to be an RIA, it was pretty good. Jason Diamond: Absolutely. So, one of the things you mentioned in that was the way in which you serve clients and I’d read something funny and I think it was around the time of your move. You were talking about that, Merrill, you had a manager who spoke about that you would overserve your clients, you serve clients too much, tell me about that. Michael Smith: That was such an interesting topic because I got called down to the ops officer’s office and they’re like, “Ugh, Mike.” And it brought my admin down with me and they’re like, “Mike, these reports that you’re taking care of your clients too much,” and I’m like, “What do you mean?” “Well, you’re overservicing them.” Jason, I literally had to go back and Google the word overservicing because I was like, “How do you overservice the client? I’m not making their bed.” It was just so funny to me that I got counsel for overservicing clients when we’re in a client-facing job and I think that was part of the catalyst. Jason Diamond: Tell me more about what they meant, you think. Michael Smith: Hindsight, I think they … I like to take care of people which means I’m very intuitive towards taxes, I understand how the tax code works, I understand how everything impacts their bottom line. So, when we’re doing deferred comp enrollments or 401(k) enrollments or I’m a big believer in Roth 401(k)s and backdoor Roths and I’ve been doing them for years, I think what Mother Merrill wanted at that time was us not to do that. And, again, nothing against Merrill, I get it but this is how they wanted us to act and I wasn’t in that mold, I was taking care of clients to a much deeper depth is how I would say it. Jason Diamond: And I think that speaks to you outgrew the model not necessarily the firm. I think Merrill does a lot of things really well, you would agree with that, I think given that you built 85 clients and 350 million in assets is nothing to sneeze at. But the model that it seems like you value client service and an integrated client service experience of that and the wirehouse model oftentimes doesn’t put a premium on that. Tell me about your ethos or your thoughts around client service today and what being independent enables you to do. Michael Smith: So, that’s an interesting observation because one of my clients actually just mentioned to me that the reason we’re growing so much is because of our service model and the fact that we deliver a tremendous amount of value over just portfolio management. I said my managers is in portfolio management, I don’t do that any longer, I have a staff that handles that for me but it’s really the servicing of the clients because they don’t know what we know and I think servicing the client is the most important thing that we can do today. Jason Diamond: Give me some examples of what you mean by servicing the client in a more holistic way. I agree with you, by the way, portfolio management, table stakes, financial planning, table stakes, tell me more about what you mean. Michael Smith: By that I mean we do a quarterly review on tax. So, a lot of people don’t understand how taxes work and how estimated taxes work. So, estimated taxes are January 1st to March 31st, January 1st to May 31st, January 1st to August 31st, that’s how you do your estimated tax payments, you figure out what that is. And for compensated employees where they have RSUs that come in at different times of the year or different grants or exercise their options at a different time, that can affect their estimated tax liability and I’m not big on giving Uncle Sam any more money than they have to have until they need it. And then everyone doesn’t understand how the penalties and interest works on the IRS. And I’m big on the tax payments because that’s where we can add a lot of value for not a lot of time and we integrate it with our portfolio so we know what we’re doing with our gains. And I happen to reside in Washington State which has a long-term capital gains tax rate once you surpass about 270,000 of long-term capital gains. So, it’s super important for us to be aware of this and that’s how we service them. We also help them with their rebalancing of their 401(k)s, things that wirehouses cannot supposed to do, we are not supposed to be helping them with some of their aspects of life. Jason Diamond: Yup. That’s what I was alluding to earlier, it’s limitations on the model, not because they’re bad models, it’s just a different way, a different ethos around client service. You mentioned RSUs and corporate employees, I know that’s a niche you have is around concentrated stock positions and equity comp plans. I guess let me ask you two different questions around this. First of all, why that niche? Interested. And then, second of all, do you think a team needs to have a specialization to be competitive these days or do you think it’s okay just to be like, “My job is to be the best advisor and I want to service assets wherever those assets may come from?” Michael Smith: Another great observation. I’m going to address the niche first and foremost. I think, and I talked to R.J. Shook’s staff just recently, and having a niche gives you a specialization and it also accelerates your growth factor. If you serve a niche and you’re very good at that niche, then that word gets around. If you’re a jack of all trades, you can do lots of things but I don’t think you’re focused and you’re not hitting the right numbers that I like to see. And I think that would be my theme is the niche allows you to focus on a very specific type of ideal client, that’s a Schwab thing where you have an ideal client persona and our firm has an ideal client persona. As far as having the equity comp, I absolutely was one of the teams at Merrill Lynch that was equity compensation designated, I managed a couple of plans. My exposure to that, Jason, I haven’t thought about this in a very long time, came from UBS where I had team members that were colleagues that were associated with the Nextel Sprint plan. And I always thought that you’re taking care of the top executives but, really, my background being in the military was how do we take care of the troops, the troops, I call them sailors, and how do we educate those sailors. And one of the things I’ve always said in my entire career in the military and I still say to this day is 50% of every bonus or a promotion or something like that should go to long-term savings. So, I use that same mentality with RSUs, with stock options, with bonuses. Set that aside, let that grow because you’re not used to spending it and you will learn to spend what you make. Jason Diamond: I think that’s a great reason, it’s super smart and I love your explanation, it was a very simplistic way. Honestly, even I hadn’t thought about that around your niche, I think, becomes almost like a force multiplier for your own growth because it’s much easier to become the guy in X, Y, Z vertical than to be the guy in every financial advisor of America, across America. Let me ask you a follow-up question, you mentioned the ideal client persona. I spend a lot of time at our firm thinking about this as well, what does your ideal client persona look like. How do you think about an opportunity though that differs from that persona? So, it’s great. Obviously, everybody, it’s easy, you get somebody who’s your perfect prospect, they walk in the front door, sign me up. But when you get something that’s not down the fairway for you, is it just I evaluate it on a one-off basis or are you super disciplined to that approach because it’s who your firm is? Michael Smith: I truly haven’t given that a whole lot of thought but I will tell you how I would handle that because I am handling it with some one-offs. I like the opportunity because you’re stretching your brain in that you’re thinking about how somebody else is reacting so you’d never know. So, I like it from a learning perspective but I also know it comes with a lot of other baggage, I’ll call it baggage, because, all of a sudden, they want to short the market, they want to go long-short strategies. So, all of a sudden, they’re not in our niche and, all of a sudden, they’re taking a lot of time, they’re draining our time so I think you got to be very careful about what you wish for. And there’s a lot of great advisors out there that will walk circles around these topics that I’m like, “Okay, I would rather refer somebody so they get the right experience than give them the wrong experience.” Jason Diamond: I absolutely love that answer. The bow you just put on it, I think, is the appropriate way in my mind to put a bow. At the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather service somebody more optimally even if you don’t believe it’s yourself, I agree with that. I want to ask you one more point on the client service piece. I was playing around on your website and, on your service model, you have health as a component of the client experience of your diagram. Why do you think health matters in a financial context? Michael Smith: I always believed in a healthy mind and a healthy body will bring so much joy to you and I think health is just part of your persona. If you don’t take care of yourself and your body and your mind, then it doesn’t matter what I do, I think you got to start with health. So, I’m very big on the executive physicals, I routinely require all of our staff to have an annual physical. And, again, they’re young people but you got to have these annual … I live and breathe going to see a doctor every year to do my annual physical, not because I think I’m pretty good health, I still run, I do a lot of things but I think your life starts with being healthy. Jason Diamond: Yeah, it’s refreshing to hear that, no doubt. It’s funny to think about but 2019 is a long time ago now and, in RIA world, I almost think of it like dog years. You’ve been around the block now for a little while so I’m curious how have you seen this space change since you launched in 2019? Michael Smith: In 2019, I didn’t know what I was doing, I could barely get out a wet paper bag but I do think it’s changed dramatically. I would say the biggest thing I’ve seen in just the six and a half, almost seven years is the rise of the mega RIAs and how they’re going to shape the industry. Everyone talked about fee compression at Merrill Lynch. When I was at Merrill, we talked about fee compression, then they talked about robo-advisors and now they’re talking about artificial intelligence replacing advisors, I don’t believe that and I don’t think that’s going to happen in the RIA space. What I see the RIA space maturing is into these very big mega firms as well as these independent RIAs like myself that serve a very niche market where we can walk in our lane. The ability to transact today is so much easier as an RIA than it was at a wirehouse as well because we have instant access to technology. My military background, my Navy background says make a decision right, wrong or different, if you don’t like it afterwards or you get new data, course change. So, in our industry, we can change on a notice. I hired a tech firm last year, I didn’t like the experience nine months into it, guess what, they’re not coming back. So, I can do that but you can’t do that at the bigger firms and even the bigger mega firms would have a hard time navigating a change just like that on a dime. Jason Diamond: You bring up an interesting point. To the extent you face competition, do you find yourself competing more against traditional wirehouse type firms or RIAs like yourself, mega caps RIAs? Are your clients attuned to any of this? Michael Smith: That’s an observation I haven’t thought of either there, Jason. I would say I don’t feel that I have a … I know there’s competition out there but we have a growth issue more than we have anything else so I don’t … I can’t take on the clients that want to become my clients so I’m not competing with people too much. Jason Diamond: A capacity issue, you mean? Michael Smith: Yeah, I have a capacity issue. Jason Diamond: I think you’re not alone in that. How can I even think about competition and the like when … A lot of advisors would probably say that. I want to talk more about the capacity situation but, before I do, let’s talk a little more about the RIA setup. Who do you custody with, remind us, and why or how did you arrive at that decision? Michael Smith: Yeah. So, when I launched, I went with Schwab, Schwab is a phenomenal partner, they helped me get a lot of stuff done, I couldn’t have done it without Schwab. During the pandemic, I realized that I should probably … So, remember, during the pandemic, we had a lot of issues with the banking industry, it was almost like a financial crisis but in a very compressed time. So, during the COVID, I decided to add Fidelity as another custodian so now I have two custodians and I opened accounts on both sides of the house but I like the custodians that are there to help you, they’re very good at what they do. I don’t even consider them a competitor and they aren’t competitors, they have their own branch so I don’t consider them competitors, I think they’re my partners and both Charles Schwab and Fidelity are good partners. Jason Diamond: Yeah, I think that’s the healthy way to look at the custody relationship. That’s a very common approach, I think, is launching with one custodian and then adding a secondary custodian or a tertiary custodian down the line for one reason or another so I appreciate you sharing that because we get those types of nuts and bolts questions a lot so I figured I’d ask you. One last question on the setup and then we’ll shift gears. Has anything been a negative? So, you talked about leaving Mother Merrill behind and, Mother Merrill, we use it facetiously but obviously it implies a degree of comfort and the homeland so I’m curious if you miss anything. Michael Smith: I miss the camaraderie of being with a bunch of other folks. I mentioned this when I first launched, I mentioned it year over year with my team, the one thing that we miss as an RIA and, again, Dynasty has their benefits as well and the mega RIAs have their benefits but, if you’re a true independent like myself, we get to go to conferences that we want to and that’s a timing issue, really, a time constraint. But one thing Merrill and Morgan, JPMorgan, and the other big wirehouses have as well as the megas, they have the ability to put conferences together for their advisors or their administrators and have this education. That’s the one thing that, I think, would evolve in the RIA industry in the future as well. They’re not my competitors, they’re my business colleagues. And if we think of them as competitors, and a lot of people do because I don’t want to share my client information or what I do with my competitor because they may steal them, if you’re that insecure, then you’re probably not the right advisor in the first place. Jason Diamond: I don’t disagree with that. It’s interesting too, I hear two common answers to that question, not about Merrill but just about somebody who’s broken away, what do you miss about the captive firm world. Either on this podcast or just in conversations with advisors, brand comes up a lot and then the point you just raised. I’ll even hear like, “Hey, forget the conferences and the trainings, just being able to have an office where I’ve got eight other advisors on a row for me, it’s a little bit of a different setup than in the independent space,” and I think that’s just a reality of you take the good with the bad. And for other advisors, by the way, one of the things I want to ask you about to this point is do you believe that there are advisors that are just better served in the W2 traditional firm world or do you think that every advisor should be looking at the RIA space? Michael Smith: I think that wirehouse serves a great purpose and- Jason Diamond: Okay, me too. Michael Smith: … there’s a lot of great people that are great advisors in that wirehouse, they need the structure. What I hadn’t alluded to is, and I mentioned this to a former manager from Merrill Lynch of mine just recently, actually, I was like, “I don’t think advisors realize what it takes to run a business.” I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, running an RIA is hard work, it takes a lot of your time day in and day out to run a business as well as taking care of and servicing your clients so I do think the wirehouse venue is the right way to go. And, Jason, I want to go back to one other thing about your identity. I launched as the Smith Group because that’s what I was known at Merrill Lynch. Within three or four months, I changed that name to a firm because I did not want to be associated with it. So, when you’re at one of the wirehouses, you’re known as your team name or something of that sort, I didn’t want to be known as that, I wanted to be known as Emerald Advisors not the Smith Group because, all of a sudden, you have a single point of failure. So, brand identity, it’s not so unique inside the wirehouse because it’s a team name versus Merrill or Morgan Stanley or something like that. Jason Diamond: It’s a good segue because I’ll tell you where my mind goes when you bring that up. My mind goes is you’re smart in a way that you might not even realize or maybe you do realize which is that, if and when it ever comes time to sell this business, it is probably more valuable without your name attached to it or maybe not. But in some way, shape or form, as an RIA, you have an obligation to be thinking about that or it’s probably on your radar, maybe not an obligation. Have you given an ounce of thought to M&A either acquiring businesses, growing in that way or, ultimately, when you succeed out of this business and what the RIA space enables you to do? Michael Smith: To answer that question, yes. Everyone’s thinking about merger and acquisition, I think about succession planning from day one. I actually thought about I’m a big team person, I come from the submarine force where everyone is a key player on a submarine, every single person has a job and responsibility on a nuclear submarine. So, inside the financial services industry, I know Merrill Lynch was very big on teaming, I understand Morgan Stanley is as well because teaming gives them a breadth of responsibility where the responsibilities are shared. So, mergers and acquisitions or selling my business, I think, if you’re not thinking about that … And I’m not thinking about selling my business because that’s a distraction to me. If I needed the money, then I would’ve went to a wirehouse and that’s okay, you monetize your life’s work. Today, I’m all about what’s right for the client, what’s right for my team and what’s right for where I want to be in the next 10 to 20 years. So, I am growing, I do want to grow, I’m looking at opening offices in probably three locations in the next 24 months or so. Jason Diamond: Well, that’s what I was going to say, plenty of advisors I think would say the same, I have a lot of runway. But what about the other side of this equation which is you’ve had tremendous organic growth, you’ve tripled your client base, you’ve more than tripled the asset base, have you thought about acquisition as a mean to jet fuel the inorganic growth side of things? Michael Smith: I have but not in the typical sense that you’re looking at as buying a book of business. I want to partner with like-minded advisors that share that common thread of taking care of clients where you can serve as their trusted counsel and sit in the meetings with their attorneys and sit in the meetings with the accountants and give them sage counsel that you can only do because you’ve been with the family for 20 years. You know this family and that, not always, but I think that’s missed a lot in other firms. Jason Diamond: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I just thought of something else that you brought up. You brought Dynasty so I’m going to ask … I’m going to pull on this thread. That implies to me that you’re at least loosely aware of the supportive independence models that are out there yet you chose a very independent, autonomous path, why? Michael Smith: Because I didn’t know what I was doing. Jason Diamond: Fair. Michael Smith: Let’s be honest, I like Dynasty, I talked with Dynasty when I left. I talked to them all, I talked to Rockefeller, I talked to Morgan, I talked to Dynasty and then, when push came to shove, I wanted to be Mike Smith and launch my own firm and learn. And I will tell you, you learn drinking through a fire hose and we did that, we learned, I know the mistakes. What I didn’t want to do is just go to someplace where this is the stuff you’re going to have to use. So, I think Dynasty is a great launching platform, I think there’s other ones out there that are similar to Dynasty or the Rockefellers or the Morgans, it’s truly what you’re trying to achieve in life. What do you want for you and your clients and I always put my clients before me because I’ve always had this lifelong thing of, you do the right thing, you’re going to get taken care of. Jason Diamond: Yeah. And that’s a very common analysis, by the way, and it’s very common too for big advisors like yourself to say I did my homework across all of those different categories. I looked at the traditional wirehouses and regional firms and boutique firms, I looked at the independent broker dealers, I looked at the support platforms and the aggregators and the roll-ups and here’s ultimately what I landed on and why. Did you always know that though or was that something that it took you a diligence process to figure out? There was plenty of advisors, by the way, who come to us and they’re like, “I knew for the last five years that I was sitting there I was launching an RIA someday.” Michael Smith: Yeah. I did not know that and, to be honest with you, hindsight, I think one of those partners probably could have made me a little bit better at first because then I could have focused on clients versus focusing on, hey, how to open a business, who’s your technology … We talked about custodians and some other things but we didn’t talk about technology, how do you go find that technology. Where’s your email address come from? Who’s your chief compliance officer? When it resides on you, you got to look in the mirror. So, I think those parties out there that provide that for brand-new advisors launching could be very beneficial. I had in my mind what I needed to do and I knew I’m very frugal so mine boiled down to how much money I wanted to spend, to be honest with you. Jason Diamond: I think it is a cost benefit analysis, it is. It’s absolutely … Because if you list the functions of a support platform on paper and you showed it to somebody who didn’t know the industry, they would say, “Why on earth wouldn’t you do this? They’re taking off your plate compliance and tech and custody and the like,” and the answer is because there’s a cost associated with it and plenty of advisors decide what you decide, I wanted … Or I just wanted a greater degree of autonomy and freedom, to your point, the name on the door piece, I wanted this to be mine. Michael Smith: And, Jason, I think it also goes to the uncertainty. I had never done anything since Navy, financial advising and then launching. So, for me, I was launching with four employees I had to take care of and here I was going to hire a third party that I was going to have to spend X amount on and I didn’t even know what my income was going to be. That’s different if you’re a multi-billion dollar FA coming out of a wirehouse, the monetary dynamics are different. Jason Diamond: Agreed. Okay, here’s a good one for you. We get this concept from advisors, from firms, from private equity that a billion dollars in assets is like this magic number in our industry. Do you feel like anything’s changed now that you’re at a billion and what’s the next chapter for Emerald Advisors? Is it just continuing on this steady trajectory and serving clients and trust that everything else comes with that? Michael Smith: I go back and forth on a billion, everyone thinks that’s the right number, the biggest number that you need but I think it’s just an arbitrary numbers because it didn’t define who I was. And a lot of people define success at a billion, they define success that you’re a successful firm at a billion. I think I was a successful firm at 300 million, I was a successful financial advisor with 20 clients in 2005. I would say a billion is a multiplier, what I would tell new advisors out there today is gather assets. The more assets you have, the more revenue you generate. The more revenue you generate, the more money you can put in your pocket which means the longer you can stay in the industry. The problem with the industry is an attrition problem, not anything else. So, assets just give us the ability to have revenue which gives us the ability to grow. Jason Diamond: And is that the plan? Keep adding assets, keep growing one client at a time with the focus though, obviously, on what makes you which is a very client-centric service model. Michael Smith: Correct. There’s a lot of things I want to do in the next couple of years and expanding our footprint is our biggest one with the right partners and then just keep adding. I have a business development officer that I’m probably offer a job to here pretty soon and things are going well. Jason Diamond: Yeah, that’s great. You mentioned the tech stack and the other components of the business and I hear you on the frugal cost-benefit analysis. But who did you turn to for some of those early decisions, was it Schwab primarily who helped hold your hand through that? Michael Smith: Schwab was very good at helping me identify the tech stack at first and the tech stack is actually the one consistent, there’s a lot of things I’ve been consistent on but tech is one that I’ve stayed with them. I launched with RightSize, now they’re Advisory, they’re very good, they do the right job for us and I’m big on cybersecurity. So, tech was helpful from Schwab, Schwab helped us with that. Jason Diamond: So, we spoke a little bit about your naval experience but, I’m curious, can you tell us how has your naval experience shaped your perception or your experience in wealth management? Michael Smith: My Navy path was a lot different than many officers. I served 12 years as an enlisted person before I got my direct commission as a Mustang officer, typically called limited duty officers or loud, dumb and obnoxious as I like to say. But that experience gave me a unique perspective because I was able to be the enlisted side and officer which are the workers and then the management side so I had both experiences which was unique. When I was commissioned, Admiral Jerry Ellis, a submarine admiral that commissioned me, heard this lesson to the podium, he was just talking about me in this point but he said, “There are three kinds of people in every organization. You have rowboat people who need to be pushed, you have sailboat people who move whenever the conditions are favorable and then there’s steamboat people, they move continuously through calm or storm.” And he said, “This is Ensign Michael Smith,” he said, “Make your course.” And that’s always stood with me because you do have those three types of people in life. You got people that are just … They’re robo people, they go until they get tired. You got sailboat people that go wherever the wind blows them and then you got steamboat people that chart their own course. I would say for advisors out there make your course or just be happy with what you’re doing. But for some of us hard chargers, I think that analogy has stayed with me my entire career. Jason Diamond: It’s fantastic. I love the analogy, great naval tie in also. Thanks for sharing that. We got time for one more question. You have a fascinating background, a fascinating path to the industry, obviously, an incredibly disciplined approach around client service, any parting thoughts, words of wisdom especially as it relates to growth? That’s what strikes me most about your story is the growth that your move unlocked and that’s what every advisor who listens to our show is looking for. Michael Smith: I’m going to give another plug to Schwab on this. We actually were fortunate and I got their consulting group to come in right afterwards and I’m a big believer in having offsite. So, I’ve had an offsite, two offsites a year for my team and it’s the entire team unlike the wirehouses where you don’t take your admins and stuff like that. I take my entire team to an offsite and we group up on what we’re trying to achieve and have goals and objectives for the year. Schwab allowed us to use their consultants and we came up with our ideal client persona. Teams or firms that have this model become high performing. When you become high performing, growth becomes the outcome. I couldn’t do anything but grow. Jason, I couldn’t not grow because I had this ideal client persona, I knew how I was going to do it, it was measurable. So, growth becomes the outcome and, if you hold people responsible, then we’re all going to grow together and it’s a fun outcome. Jason Diamond: Fantastic, it’s a great place to end. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us, I can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds for Emerald, this has been a lot of fun. Michael Smith: Jason, thank you so much. I appreciate everything you do for the industry as well. Mindy Diamond: As a financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibility seriously and are dedicated to your clients. But are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firms or could a better option exist? Should I Stay or Should I Go? Is a book written with you in mind? It’s a self-guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self-discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively whether you’re considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy at diamond-consultants.com/thebook. From “Overservicing” Clients to Building a $1B RIA: A Merrill Breakaway Story A conversation with Jason Diamond and Michael Smith, Managing Partner and Founder of Emerald Advisors.      Jason Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is From “Overservicing” Clients to Building a $1B RIA: A Merrill Breakaway Story. It’s a conversation with Michael Smith, managing partner and founder of Emerald Advisors. I’m Jason Diamond and this is the Diamond Podcast for financial advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned and, each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at (908) 879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual advisor transition report. It’s the award-winning, data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Jason Diamond: Growth is often viewed as the result of better marketing, stronger referrals, a larger team and even acquisition and that’s all true yet growth can be the byproduct of something else entirely. For example, Michael Smith built a successful practice at Merrill then, one day, he was told he was spending too much time with his clients, or his management put it over-servicing clients. For Michael, that wasn’t a warning sign about his approach, it was a signal that he might have outgrown the firm and the model. Today, Michael is the founder and managing partner of Emerald Advisors, the independent RIA he launched in late 2019 with roughly 385 million in assets and 85 client relationships. Less than seven years later, the firm has grown to more than a billion in assets while remaining deeply focused on a highly-specialized client base and an unusually hands-on service model. What makes this story particularly interesting isn’t just the growth, it’s the thinking behind it. Michael’s perspective was shaped long before he entered wealth management. After serving more than two decades in the Navy, he brought a leadership philosophy centered on accountability, discipline and what he calls steamboat people, those who keep moving forward regardless of conditions, that mindset continues to influence how he builds his team, serves clients and evaluates opportunities. In this episode, we discuss the decision to leave Merrill, the realities of launching a fully independent RIA, why specialization can accelerate growth, the evolving role of custodians and technology and why he believes exceptional client service remains one of the industry’s most durable competitive advantages. Because Michael’s experience suggests that growth isn’t always the result of finding more opportunities, sometimes it’s the result of creating the freedom to execute the vision you already had so let’s jump in. Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. For starters, can you walk us through your background and what brought you to the world of wealth management? Michael Smith: Jason, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today, I do listen to the podcast a lot especially before I left Mother Merrill. But my background and how I got into financial services is really distinct because I was on the board of JDRF back in the day and the national sponsor for JDRF was UBS PaineWebber and they’re like, “Mike, why don’t you be a financial advisor?” And my master’s degree was actually a finance and accounting in portfolio management because I’ve managed my own portfolio for years and years and so, when I couldn’t get a job, I just fell into it because I couldn’t get a job and I needed a job. That was 21 years ago, Memorial Day so that’s how I got into this industry. Jason Diamond: It’s a unique background, it’s super interesting and I want to talk more about it. You mentioned Mother Merrill, we’ll certainly get there. Before we do, give us a little bit of context on the current business you operate, Emerald Advisors, any context you can share on size, number of staff, types of clients you serve would be great. Michael Smith: Sure. So, we launched Emerald in 2019, November 2019 with about 85 clients and you always talk about this on the podcast how scared it is to launch and go independent. And I would say we took over about 95% of our clients that we wanted to bring over and today we’re at about 230 clients, I think we have some onboarding right now, we have just over a billion of assets. So, we launched with the 85 clients and around 350, 385 million, now we’re over a billion. Jason Diamond: Good for you. Michael Smith: Thank you. And I launched with four employees and we’re now at 11. And I would give a shout-out to one of my key employees because, when I launched, I actually hired somebody that had no experience with us and that was really a good thing because that allowed that person to really focus on operations and back office stuff while my business partner Emily and I were able to focus on bringing on the clients and alleviating any issues that they may have or thought. Jason Diamond: So, meaning you hired somebody basically immediately upon launch to help you with the transition and with this next chapter? Michael Smith: Correct. I hired them before but they started the day we launched. Jason Diamond: Brilliant, I love it. Oh, let’s definitely talk more about that because I think that’s a great strategy for … You’re right, you said it in a joking manner now because you’re seven years past but it’s a very real fear that advisors have and I think it’s worth talking more about. I want to mention too you have, obviously, built this business and grown this business dramatically. I don’t want to make this episode about the pandemic but you moved the business at a, certainly, a unique time. Did it impact your growth at all? Did you feel like you hit a brick wall? Just curious about your thoughts. Michael Smith: No, Jason, that’s a great observation. I would venture to say that the pandemic was actually a good thing for us. Jason Diamond: Interesting. Michael Smith: And I say that because, all of a sudden, you could hit pause because everyone was relearning how to do business, how do we do client reviews, how do we communicate with clients in a environment. So, I think the pandemic allowed us to just really reset our expectations visiting with clients because I used to fly a lot because I have clients in 38 different states so this has actually been, not just good for me, but good for the industry because I think it’s reset our expectations that we don’t have to be every day with a client facing. Jason Diamond: I agree with that largely and it’s true of our business too, by the way, it’s certainly reshaped the way people expect to be communicated with. I think Zoom has become much more mainstream, phone calls and we’ve heard from many other advisors who say something similar. I was just curious because you moved so close to or if there was an impact but I get, honestly, I think you’re right, it allowed you to have this nice natural inflection point and almost like flipping a switch of a clean slate. Michael Smith: It allowed us to learn the processes too. So, we launched in November 1st, by March we were in lockdown and so it gave us the opportunity to take several months of just learning the processes of how to be an RIA, it was pretty good. Jason Diamond: Absolutely. So, one of the things you mentioned in that was the way in which you serve clients and I’d read something funny and I think it was around the time of your move. You were talking about that, Merrill, you had a manager who spoke about that you would overserve your clients, you serve clients too much, tell me about that. Michael Smith: That was such an interesting topic because I got called down to the ops officer’s office and they’re like, “Ugh, Mike.” And it brought my admin down with me and they’re like, “Mike, these reports that you’re taking care of your clients too much,” and I’m like, “What do you mean?” “Well, you’re overservicing them.” Jason, I literally had to go back and Google the word overservicing because I was like, “How do you overservice the client? I’m not making their bed.” It was just so funny to me that I got counsel for overservicing clients when we’re in a client-facing job and I think that was part of the catalyst. Jason Diamond: Tell me more about what they meant, you think. Michael Smith: Hindsight, I think they … I like to take care of people which means I’m very intuitive towards taxes, I understand how the tax code works, I understand how everything impacts their bottom line. So, when we’re doing deferred comp enrollments or 401(k) enrollments or I’m a big believer in Roth 401(k)s and backdoor Roths and I’ve been doing them for years, I think what Mother Merrill wanted at that time was us not to do that. And, again, nothing against Merrill, I get it but this is how they wanted us to act and I wasn’t in that mold, I was taking care of clients to a much deeper depth is how I would say it. Jason Diamond: And I think that speaks to you outgrew the model not necessarily the firm. I think Merrill does a lot of things really well, you would agree with that, I think given that you built 85 clients and 350 million in assets is nothing to sneeze at. But the model that it seems like you value client service and an integrated client service experience of that and the wirehouse model oftentimes doesn’t put a premium on that. Tell me about your ethos or your thoughts around client service today and what being independent enables you to do. Michael Smith: So, that’s an interesting observation because one of my clients actually just mentioned to me that the reason we’re growing so much is because of our service model and the fact that we deliver a tremendous amount of value over just portfolio management. I said my managers is in portfolio management, I don’t do that any longer, I have a staff that handles that for me but it’s really the servicing of the clients because they don’t know what we know and I think servicing the client is the most important thing that we can do today. Jason Diamond: Give me some examples of what you mean by servicing the client in a more holistic way. I agree with you, by the way, portfolio management, table stakes, financial planning, table stakes, tell me more about what you mean. Michael Smith: By that I mean we do a quarterly review on tax. So, a lot of people don’t understand how taxes work and how estimated taxes work. So, estimated taxes are January 1st to March 31st, January 1st to May 31st, January 1st to August 31st, that’s how you do your estimated tax payments, you figure out what that is. And for compensated employees where they have RSUs that come in at different times of the year or different grants or exercise their options at a different time, that can affect their estimated tax liability and I’m not big on giving Uncle Sam any more money than they have to have until they need it. And then everyone doesn’t understand how the penalties and interest works on the IRS. And I’m big on the tax payments because that’s where we can add a lot of value for not a lot of time and we integrate it with our portfolio so we know what we’re doing with our gains. And I happen to reside in Washington State which has a long-term capital gains tax rate once you surpass about 270,000 of long-term capital gains. So, it’s super important for us to be aware of this and that’s how we service them. We also help them with their rebalancing of their 401(k)s, things that wirehouses cannot supposed to do, we are not supposed to be helping them with some of their aspects of life. Jason Diamond: Yup. That’s what I was alluding to earlier, it’s limitations on the model, not because they’re bad models, it’s just a different way, a different ethos around client service. You mentioned RSUs and corporate employees, I know that’s a niche you have is around concentrated stock positions and equity comp plans. I guess let me ask you two different questions around this. First of all, why that niche? Interested. And then, second of all, do you think

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.