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What happens when your job asks you to do something that conflicts with your religious beliefs? Do you just give in because it's easier than rocking the boat? The same people who say they are fighting for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) often punish or intimidate those who commit the thought crime of disagreeing with transgender ideology (or homosexual behavior) even though these beliefs have NOTHING to do with workplace productivity. And really, why are we even talking about sex at work in the first place?! In this midweek episode, Frank shares what happened when he got fired from his corporate job and gives viewers advice on how they can respectfully engage with a supervisor who is challenging them, including an extensive list of clarifying questions you can present when you are asked to do something that violates your conscience as a Christian. Questions such as: I noticed that our company values tolerance as I do, but what does the company mean by tolerance? Are all employees required to have the same political, religious, or moral beliefs to work here? Does the company think it's right to force employees to violate their conscience?   If you're tired of having to hide your conservative or religious beliefs at work as if you live in a totalitarian state rather than America, then this is the episode for you! To view the entire VIDEO PODCAST, join our CrossExamined private community. It's the perfect place to jump into some great discussions with like-minded Christians while providing financial support for our ministry. Resources mentioned during the episode: Sex at Work?: https://bit.ly/3Olx4SP Alliance Defending Freedom: https://adflegal.org/ Correct, Not Politically Correct (Expanded Third Edition): https://amzn.to/457PyMP   Download Transcript

Do not correct a fool, or he will hate you; Correct a wise man and he will appreciate you. - Proverbs 9:8 In today's Modern Moment, I explore the importance of course correction. Jump in as I share the importance of checking in to realign your life with your core values and goals, regardless of the path you've been on. Join me as I explain the importance of having a MACRO VISION with MICO EXECUTION. Whether you're seeking a fresh start or looking to fine-tune your trajectory, this video will empower you to redirect your path toward a life that resonates with your true aspirations. ⚔️JOIN THE NOBLE KNIGHTS MASTERMIND⚔️ https://themodernman.gumroad.com/l/NobleKnights

Should you be working leads? Is it really worth it in the long run? How can you be maximizing clients in the easiest way possible?Three Things You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhat you should and shouldn't do in this market.Where the business is.Should you buy leads?ResourceCheck Out Exclusive Agent Referrals Real Estate Marketing DudeThe Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)REMD on YouTubeREMD on InstagramTranscript:So how do you track new business, you constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them. Let's get started.What's up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode, the real estate marketing dude, podcast, folks we are going to be chatting about quite a bit today. And what I wanted to focus on was what you should and shouldn't do in this market. And depending on where you're at, around the country, things aren't what they were 18 months ago. But that doesn't mean business still isn't being had. So we're bringing on a killer here, he's got over 90 agents in his market. And he hasn't really necessarily seen that effect yet. Because he's constantly staying on top of trends. He hasn't stopped bringing in inbound leads, despite market conditions. And as a result of that is that's why this team has really suffered anything on the numbers, right. But lead generation is pretty expensive, you can lose a lot of money in it very quickly. And for somebody that knows all these different platforms and whatnot, one of the questions we're seeing all around the country is like, Hey, what should I invest my money in right now? Because businesses now Should I buy Zillow lead? Should I buy realtor.com? Should I join one of these referral networking companies? What the fuck is it? So that's what we're gonna be chatting about today is what are we going to what do you do? How do you analyze let's do the pros and cons of lead generation within the real estate space as of 2023, coming into summer, so without further ado, let's go ahead and welcome our guest, Jeremy Wilson. Jeremy, what's up, man? Hey, thanks for having me. Mike. I appreciate your appreciate your time and you having me on for sure. Why don't you tell everyone who you are? What do you do? Where are you at? Yeah. Jeremy Wilson, I'm in, in my home bases Charleston, South Carolina. That's where we started a business about 16 years ago. And, you know, with the lead sources, scaling us we were able to move into a few other cities in South Carolina and and Georgia over the last few years and grow our agent count. And it's all based on lead sources, primarily. So we went from about 10 agents three years ago. And now we've got about 90 agents and four cities, just in the last three years. And out of those what kind of how many numbers of homes are we selling monthly right now. We'll do about 1500 transactions this year, in those in those four cities. Last year, we closed about about 375 million about 900 transactions. So you know, if you, if you take the leads, they're just gonna keep sending you.So you got you know, you understand lead generation, at least in real estate, you probably are a numbers analytical like crazy, and he's from Chicago believe that he's from Chicago. That's why you guys notice everyone like from Chicago works hard. And like actually kicks ass.Except sports. But that's a whole nother story.So here's the question that I have. And I'm like, I've always been refer, we talked about before, you got to show I've always been mainly referral, I do create a lot of content. That's been my business model. It's been our business model as a marketing company and whatnot. But I am dabbling a lot in the lead generation space, we've different company called owner advocate, and we have a referral model. And we get agents referrals and collect a referral fee for the leads we generate. And I've learned a lot in the last year or so on that business. And what I can tell you guys is that lead generation in general is very expensive game. And the vast majority of people can't play the game because they don't have the resources to do so. Right? Whether that's the CRM, the auto responder set up the right way, or it's the budget to nurture for six to nine months before that thing actually starts kicking. There's a whole number of things, but there isn't a grit, which quick thing that I've seen yet is there? No, absolutely not. Now, it's exactly what you said, big, big admin team that nurture the leads, because the agents are not going to do it. You know, they, you know, they want these bottom of the funnel leads that even though they're expensive, they want the quick money. Yep. So walk me through how it works with you guys, regardless of lead sources, like what is that? What do I need to have? If I'm thinking about actually doing this? What is the number one thing I should be doing? Like? Is it my CRM? Is it my auto responder? What's the offer winning offer right now? Let's go through some of those things. Yeah, yeah, I think the CRM is super important, as well as just having enough agents and having teams that are deep enough to be able to handle the number of leads and and just over the years, we've always been a team where we didn't bring any new agents on unless we had the leads to get them. So we just don't bring in agents just to have, you know, more people sitting on the seats on the bus. You know, it was just simply because we had too many leads to handle. You know, so So the CRM is very important. And we've always been a first to claim model some agents or some teams call it Shark Tank. We've tried every way to handle the leads in the past butThis seems to work the best, it creates a little bit of urgency. And then you know, we manage it, my admin team manages on the back end. So agents don't get too greedy and take too many, too many leads to where they can't handle, you know, but inevitably, it still ends up being where, you know, they take the calls, you know, a lot of these are connection calls, because there's a little black synopsis, you know, Joe, which are almost all connection calls, and they get on the phone, and they try to qualify him right away, when they meet him for the first time. But if they're not buying right away, then they can get pushed into automation, in hopes that they'll eventually come back around. So it works great for that low hanging fruit. How many? Because there's different three referral model than buying leads, right? So it's do leads only like I'm talking about zillow.com are buying leads, right? How many leads on average? Do I need to buy before I finally get one and let's just say I'm pretty good at converting, like, I'll just say, I'm not shy, like can actually talk to somebody, I got my shit together, how many things I need to buy to actually like, what you'd expect with the numbers. Yes, so every source is a little bit different. Of course, as you can imagine, we track a few of the sources independently, like Zillow flex, and our best agents are converting 12 To 1512 to 16%, on Zillow flex, as you know, not every agent is doing that. And you know, of course, we've got measures in place to bump them up on the on the scale their realtor.com, you we usually convert those at eight to 10%. Again, some agents, the killers that are just crazy aggressive, you know, they'll convert them a little bit higher than that. So, overall, you know, before we added some of the top of the funnel, lead sources, pay per click, and social media, which we just started six months ago, everything else was bought into the funnel, we would convert eight to 13%, on average for blended conversion. And we do about 15 to 20 Different lead sources that are all bottom of the funnel.So you know, our intent when we brought in these pay per click and social media leads that we knew were going to be more of a long term nurture and probably a lower conversion percent, but much, much cheaper leads is that the agents would would like these because they're they're no referral fee less expensive, even though it took a little bit longer to nurture. Yep. And awesome. I like it, folks. Lead Generation. So basically, what we're talking about is I had offers is like a manufactured lead that you create on your own. And there are a lot of companies that you have to get approved for a lot of these companies know that they're not just gonna go out and take anyone I know with ours, like we really are concerned, we're no, we're not Oh, Joe, or anything like that. We're tiny right now. But, you know, we want to make sure you can convert before we started investing money in you it cost money to generate these leads. And the vast majority is right, like the vast majority of people won't follow up on them in the right way. How important is that?Yeah, and they've changed over just the last two years, these these lead sources, you know,realtor.com has changed their platform, you know, they've tried to do this market VIP thing, which is more of like an invite, only, like you talked about, you know, only inviting certain teams that prove conversions, elaflex izly, that's all about finding the right team that's got the systems in place. Now. Oh, just in the last few weeks, it's been one month since I launched their ojo Plus program. And that's exactly what they're doing. They're splitting the leads in half. And they're finding one or two teams in each market, that can really do a good job with conversion. And they're analyzing, you know, it's weekly calls with your advisor to make sure you're doing a great job with it. So yeah, I think all the paid lead sources are really going away. You know, we're still spending, I think, $600,000 a year on realtor.com leads, but I know that eventually that's going to go away. And it's going to be more of the opposite the model or the market, the IP model. So that's what I'm sort of seeing as well, it's you know, a lot of the companies go that way. And it's because lead generation is expensive, guys, that's good. You said at the very beginning, in tackling it unless you really know how to run all these these things at once. Because you do need social you need retargeting going, you need that to sort of nudge you need just knowing what to target to begin with to create. There's a whole lot of moving parts on this stuff. So what do you what between the agents that you have right now who's succeeding? Who's not? Like, what? What do we have to do hear? It's no, it's not rocket science. You know, if you pulled up our CRM right now, without ever talking to a single one of our agents or listening to any of the phone calls, it's the agents that are just persistent and hard work. And then following up and being organized, those are the agents that are killing it, you know, that they put in the work, they're getting to make the money. It's it's the agents that are just kind of sitting back and hoping that the business will come to them that that just aren't succeeding, unfortunately, what other additional lead sources other than the than the handoffs and the purchased ones, I think you mentioned you guys had like a big, a lot of you had a huge amount of referral type leads and whatnot. Yeah, we're, we're starting to do a lot more referrals. You would think that a team of 90 agents brings in tons of referrals across the country, especially with the leads that we get on the front end being the bottom of the funnelEverybody that our agents are talking to, and we're getting a ton of leads, you know, about 80 to 100 leads a day for our team. And every single person our agent talks to is either moving away from here or moving to here, in most cases, you know, very little, they're very small percentage of the time, or they move in and, you know, within our market. Solooking at those numbers last year, I was embarrassed, you know, we, I think I told you earlier, Mike, we last year, for a team of 90 agents, we received 60, outside referral fees to our company where our agents referred somebody across the United States and a closed. So you know, obviously, when I looked at that number, and we've got, we've got to fix it. So we sat back, and we talked to our agents and tried to find out what was going on. And basically, it was two things, they didn't know how to approach that lead that they were on the phone with for the first time and what to say to them to get a referral off of it. And then the second thing is they didn't know how to find the agent, or they didn't know how to find the agent, but it was just very time consuming, very much a hassle they didn't have time to put into to throw them into a Facebook group or, or anything like or go Google search to find an agent wait for the agents to call them back, which doesn't happen. So so let me I just want to unpack that for all your broker owners listening. And that's just like free money. Literally not having a referral network for your agents like just to go ahead and refer just bottom of the line money right there, you guys. That's sure I don't even think about that, because that's something else I want you guys to really pay attention to, he says, the vast majority of the leads are either moving into or out of their market, which means they're non local. Okay? I want to unpack this a little bit. And the people who convert on leads are always non local. completely fucking weird. or crazy.Okay, and I'm gonna unpack each of these, firstly, to the non local, why is it non local? Why didn't Why is non local former lead generation? Well over 80% of people use the first person they meet with many of which they refer to or they personally know like, or trust or, or know, it's a still referral based business. All lead generation tends to be the ones that convert the vast vast majority of these are moving in or out of a market. Would you agree that? Yeah, absolutely.What does that tell you guys as an agent, what kind of content should you be creating around that? Right? So there's, there's one big hint because everyone tries to go out and spend money on targeting the people that are just moving in or they want to go target like spend money on all this other stuff. And they don't realize that the ones that convert are the ones that don't know anyone in the market yet.And there's a big correlation there. I'm not just theory right? But if there's a correlation, big time with it, too, are the weirdos. Why?Okay, I see them come in there. They're introverted. They're super weird, or they're a hoarder. Okay, these are the these are these, these I'm not joking. Okay. These are the investor deals, okay. And there's like a small percentage of them in the market. But these are the ones that the house is falling apart. There's a distressed situation, they're embarrassed to talk about it. There's a number of ones B K's foreclosure, late payments, high debt, you name it. That's a whole nother that's the that's the inner local right there. Okay, type of typically for lead gen. That's why investors never have a lead generation problem despite market conditions.And the third one is just like, just the weirdos that are introverts, they just don't have they don't know anyone. It's very rare. But they're out there. It's just you're not gonna get rich out of them, though. It's gonna be like a unicorn, when you see on your local and you don't have an agent, you don't know an agent. Okay, great.For sure.Everybody usually knows five agents, you know? Totally. What does that tell you guys on where to spend your money, though? Like and where do you spend your efforts? If you're gonna go into lead? Gen, you got to understand that people you're probably gonna do lead gen with are probably not familiar with the market you're in, what kind of content you create around the market you're in? That's right. Yep. All these bottom of the funnel lead sources or are not familiar with our market. And that's why they're on these websites. Correct? Yep. So that's, that's really interesting. You Pat and you guys probably have like you're doing 100 leads a day. That's what 350,300 52,000 leads a year.So you know, you know what you're doing? Yeah, a lot. A lot of leads coming in. Geez.What's up with the what do you think we're, what direction are we headed here? I'm curious to know if like, since the cost of housing got doubled, with interest rates going up, you know, how has that affected lead generation? I remember in markets past, there'll be big teams that could literally go closed doors overnight. Because the market shifted and they couldn't the ROI they had last month wasn't the ROI they're gonna get this month so they couldn't make smart decisions. What do you see happening is the buying habits changed? Not so much. What's what's going on over there? And, you know, we just talked about it last week in our meeting, so my main market is Charleston, South Carolina. And if you look back 18 months ago, in our whole entire emAlas, there was about 900 homes available to buy. And interest rates were still good. You know, there wasn't any inventory, nobody can find a house, it was multiple offers way over full price. And now fast forward 18 months, there's 2500 homes available. Okay, so three times as many homes available. There's interest rates are up quite a bit from 18 months ago. But there's still no, there's still not enough inventory for the amount of buyers. So, you know, honestly, I'm worried about when rates do drop, it's going to be crazy. You know, how many of those are reloads coming in that Charlson marks I know all my friends are moving out that way, everyone from Chicago is getting the hell out. You know, so you still have that inbound. I'm curious to know what's happening in like, some like Sacramento, I had an agent on and they're like, Dude, we're down. Like, where I pre pandemic levels. He told me the other day. So I guess a lot of it's where you're in the country, too. Yeah. And we're, you know, Columbia, South Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, and all of our market, all four of our markets are about the same. You know, just low inventory, things are still settling over full price. You know, I think it's stopping the people that are moving local, that have great rates already locked, and I think it's stopping those people, but people that are moving down from New Jersey that are paying ridiculous, you know, ces every year, you know, it's a no brainer for them to move down here and buy something in this inexpensive market. Yeah, they feel like it's cheap. I mean, people from California are like, oh, man, you got 3400 Square house for under a million bucks. Crazy. Under 750. Whatis this? Oh, my gosh, the pricing around here is this insanely? Yeah. And I've been doing it in Charleston for so long. So I see a house, it's now you know, $500,000. And for so long, it was $200,000? And just seems like it went up overnight. But it's still very affordable in the in the big scheme of things, you know? Yeah. You can almost that's an interesting market to be watching. But yes, that's I would agree with that, because you still have ocean from then it's going to climb until like other oceanfront markets.Very interesting, dude.Anything else you want to sort of any other tips? What do you anything else you want to chat about on this? The referral model is really interesting. You just didn't realize that, hey, if I'm going to be selling someone's house, and they're moving out of town, I might as well just get a referral free from our other agents in the in the market. Yeah. And I think that's it for the teams that I talked to across the country and team leaders and broker owners, they've got to have a solution for their agents on how to send referrals out because agents are frustrated with the Facebook groups and, you know, blasted out there. And then 50 People respond in the first five minutes. And then we got to weed through those people. And really, you know, they get frustrated, and they send that referral to any agent that responds. And that agent maybe has done one deal in their entire life, but they just happen to be the first one to click on that Facebook and comments on it. So you know, our solution has a team. And what we've rolled out nationwide is just, you know, even our own agents on our team, go to exclusive agent referrals.com.com, submit a referral, within 20 or 30 minutes, you're going to have a referral agreement sent back to you with your information as the sending agent, the other agents information in that market that we've already interviewed ahead of time, make sure that they've been in the business, they're closing deals, and you can trust them. And then the referrals information, it's a 25% referral agreement. And that's it, it takes you one minute to find a great agent. We've already interviewed instead of going to these Facebook groups and hoping you're gonna get on the phone with these agents, you already got some network setup. So if I already said anywhere, I just put it in there and I gotta get someone that's not going to like screw me over make me look like an asshole. No, you put it in there. We've interviewed these and they've been interviewed by my team that's been in business for a long time. You know, we make sure that they know how to follow up with leads that great with communication. They've been in the business at least two years are closing at least 15 deals a year. And we go to work and an agent never has to be worried about well do they have an agent in this area? Because some of the counties that we don't have agents, if we get a referral for that county, our team has a protocol they go to work immediately and we blast about 10 different Facebook groups. We go to Zillow, we go to all these different intranet sites, and we go to work and within an hour we're gonna find an interview a qualified agent in that area and get them hooked up for your referral. So we do all the legwork work for you. It's absolutely free if you're sending referrals if you want to have an exclusive county it's simply $10 per month to have that county and you get all exclusive referrals for you for that county. I was always hesitant to send referrals I'll give you guys a quick story. Right before I got out of the business in Chicago I referred is like a college friend of mine right? Never Refer a Friend of business especially one that's drinks a little bit more than they should. But long story short is that he's a contractor right? So one of my good friends bought a house, refer them over to you know, do some drywall and redo the bathroom and paint and whatnot. It was just a mess. Like the guy messed up didn't show up. She had to redo the whole job. She was like $15,000 At the end of the day that job ended up being my entire like month for a time and it was my problem right because it's a friend of mine Mike why you hook me up with this good? Dude is terrible. I don't readFor people for that reason contractors ever, no matter how well I know them, and I feel the same way about real estate agents do, yeah, that's a good thing you're doing there, because that should take some of theworry out because it's your brand when you're putting your name with somebody else. And just me if you refer anyone, this is why referrals always work, regardless of what context are in, is that people are wired to want to refer people shit. That's just the way God made us. We want to help others, we want to seek the help of others, like that's just what we are. It's how we're wired. And the fastest way you could kill your business is when you send someone a bad referral. Because if you ever sent someone to a restaurant where they serve hair and food, you wouldn't like them too much, either. And that's what you're doing when you send someone shitty service. So just try that. And we do have, we do have one failsafe that agents get worried about they're like, Well, what if I send a referral there? And I don't like the agent. But when an agent goes on our website to send a referral, Mike, they one of the questions on there is do you want to talk to that referring agent or receiving agent before they call the lead? And I'd say about 70% of the time to send the agent is putting Yes, because they want to talk to that agent, even though we've said we've already interviewed them, embedded them and everything. I don't blame them for wanting to talk to the agent and make sure if you don't use them. Yeah, absolutely. You should like you should want to know, especially if it's a trusted like a family member, just a name and number, like great. But if it's a friend or family member, you got to know what value you're sending them to. That'll come back and haunt you it never fails. can tell you that? I really appreciate why don't you tell them what that website is? It's pretty cool. Some of that is again, and then wrapped up. Yep, exclusive agent referrals.com is the website. It's easy. At the very top it says submit a referral. And if you're interested in locking down a county in the network, just click on not a member and we'll we'll get you scheduled for an interview. And your other website is Chuck town homes.com If you guys want to see what he's doing pretty nice site. I'm on it right now. But yeah, you could go click around he's in four different cities for any you guys looking to see how he's doing it and what he's doing. But yeah, this is cool, man, I appreciate you coming on. And I appreciate you sharing that information. And folks,you know what I'm gonna say referrals are always the lowest hanging fruit and the way that you always generate a lot of business, or at least consistent business not saying you get rich off them, but you can have a career off of them. No doubt as long as you follow the system and if you want that damn system, it's called www dot referral. suite.com Those referral suite.com We farm your database with content so they stopped forgetting who the fuck you are. And stop referring and cheating on you with other realtors. It's that simple. We foreign people. If you've read the millionaire agent by Gary Keller, I built out a software that his brain wanted to. That's all it is. Alright, so go ahead and go there referral suite.com It's s w e t. And appreciate you guys listen to their episode. We'll see you guys next week. Bye.Thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at WWW dot real estate marketing dude.com We make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule a time to speak with the dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We'll see you next time.Transcribed by https://otter.ai

so many folks are struggling with dangerous behaviors, and folks don't know how to stop it, they don't understand step one, the first step of rehab, this is most likely because of all the lies on social media

How much truth can you tolerate? That may sound like a strange question, but people often have the tendency to suppress the truth when it doesn't align with our own personal desires. Why? Because as Paul said in Romans Chapter 1, we want to go our own way! In this week's podcast, Frank illustrates exactly what this looks like by reflecting on a past exchange he had with a biology student who passionately defended transgenderism during a recent college event but never responded to any of his arguments when he patiently answered her questions. You'll also learn the 5 MAJOR flaws of transgender ideology, all of which are more heavily detailed in the newly expanded third edition of Frank's book, 'Correct, Not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism', which is now available for purchase! Frank also addresses questions like: What are some thought provoking questions to ask those who defend transgenderism? What is the best way to respond to loved ones who say they're trans or support the movement? What's more important than winning an argument? Has gender reassignment surgery proven itself to be a cure for gender dysphoria? How has gender reassignment surgery affected the people who have had the procedure?   By the end of the episode, you'll see that while supporters of this movement seem determined to reject the truth, the consequences of denying reality affect all of us! To view the entire VIDEO PODCAST, join our CrossExamined private community. It's the perfect place to jump into some great discussions with like-minded Christians while providing financial support for our ministry. Resources mentioned during the episode: Correct, Not Politically Correct (Expanded Third Edition): https://amzn.to/457PyMP Biologist Confronts Frank on Gender Theory (video): https://youtu.be/cRPjY-YyHSE Sex Change Regret: https://sexchangeregret.com/   Download Transcript

Sports with Rod 5-18-2023 …Charles Barkley is 100% Correct, Yet Again …Jimmy Butler of the Heat was all over that Rim …and LIV Golf's TV Ratings are so bad. How bad are they?

The health of a grapevine starts at ground level – literally in the soil. The California Department of Food and Agriculture is helping farmers improve the quality of their soils through the Healthy Soils Initiative. Taylor Jones, Ph.D., Director of Viticulture at Star Lane and Dierberg Vineyards used his funding as an opportunity to study the effects of compost. After completing two three-year trials in six different soil types in two American Viticulture Areas, Taylor found that compost additions significantly increased organic matter, Reduced Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium usage by 35 percent, and decreased water use dramatically. Listen in to hear the only downside to increasing the use of compost on your vineyard. References: 149: Fair Market Trade: Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Grapevines 151: The Role of the Soil Microbiome in Soil Health 163: Onsite Compost Production Using Vineyard Waste   165: Become a Microbe Farmer: Make Compost   167: Use Biochar to Combat Climate Change California Department of Food and Agriculture's Healthy Soils Initiative Compost Benefits and Quality for Viticultural Soils Compost use in premium vineyard development Dierberg Vineyard Taylor Jones LinkedIn  Tyler Jones: taylor@dierbergvineyard.com Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - DONATE SIP Certified Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript Craig Macmillan  0:00  Here with me today is Taylor Jones. He's Director of Viticulture at Star Lane in Dierberg Vineyards. And we're gonna talk about some soil health projects that he's got going. Thanks for being on the podcast.   Taylor Jones  0:10  Yeah. Thanks for having me.   Craig Macmillan  0:12  I just learned about this recently, and you talked about a little bit in the vineyard team tailgate meeting that got me interested, you have more than one thing going on? Is that right? Yeah, yeah, we do. And these projects are funded by the California Department of Food and Agriculture Healthy Soils program. Is that right?   Taylor Jones  0:25  Yes, that's correct.   Craig Macmillan  0:27  We'd love to chat about that part of it a little bit later. But right now, I really want to know what you're doing. How many projects, what are they about? What are you trying to find out?   Taylor Jones  0:33  We have two projects, we were awarded two different grants, one for each of our vineyard properties that we have. So we have one healthy soils project over in Santa Rita Hills that started in 2018. And it's a three year program. And then we have another project that's healthy soils program at our Star Lane Vineyard in Happy Canyon, AVA and over their three year project also. And that one started in 2020, I believe. So we just hit our final year, this this last year. So yeah, to two different projects. And essentially, we're the states paying us to put compost down and improve our soil health. So we're jumping on that and trying to see what actually happens in the vineyard after compost has been applied. Since we're getting all of this compost from CDFA. It's we're going to use the money that we're saving on the compost to kind of do some some studies and see what's actually being impacted in our vineyard soils.   Craig Macmillan  1:30  So talking about the Star Rita AVA, project.   Taylor Jones  1:33  Over at Santa Rita hills, we have Drum Canyon vineyard, and over there we were awarded, it was 35 acres of compost applications, we had six tons per acre. For three years, over the three year span, we had 18 tons per acre put down down over there what we did, we tried to, as best we could make an experiment, you know, it's kind of hard to make a proper randomized trial. In a field when you're doing compost applications with your normal operations, we try to apply compost in all the areas that we could in our vineyard and while leaving a few barrier rows that we could do tests. And so we had, for example, we'd have 10 rows applied with compost, and then a few rows, no compost so that we could test those rows separately see what's going on. Are there changes in organic matter? Are we seeing changes in compaction, all the good stuff that comes with soil, so testing soils for nutrition, microbial populations, and then also water, I think water is the big thing. So that's how we set everything up on the property, we have five or six different soil types that we apply conference to and in each soil type, we did our own measurements there. And we were able to have soil moisture probes in most areas so that we could utilize those to help with some data. We really saw a lot of benefits from putting the compost down. I mean, we're in you're entering our sixth year after application, the state's requiring us to send a final numbers and we have to do one more test of organic matter. So that's coming up soon for our final dataset. Overall, we saw some great really good impacts from from the healthy soil program at that site.   Craig Macmillan  3:11  Before we go farther, are we talking about banding under the vine we're talking about broadcasting?   Taylor Jones  3:14  Whenever you do your grant, you have to specify what you're going to do. And in our case, we went with banding the spreader that we have is a bander you know we'd have six foot rows and we have a ag soil works hydraulic gripper, the wings move. So we're in an area where we have a lot of compaction. Typically we like to rip every three years every other row. And so that kind of led to the decision of banding. We're getting the compost close to the vine. Since we're in a six foot row, our rippers going right down the vine row right next to the root zone. So we're trying to get everything incorporated and move down lower in the soil profile. That was our target what we did we since we had three different years, and we didn't want to rip every single year, we did well alternating rows. One year we did every other row with a compost band and rip. The following year we did the even numbered rows with the compost band and rip and then the final year, our desire was to go no till so at the final year, we banded and we just did a light disk and seed on top of that, that we didn't unnecessarily rip over again. So it was technically a combo of riping and broadcast.   Craig Macmillan  4:22  Unrelated just further conversation that I've had weed control under the vine using some kind of cold federal weed knife or using herbicides?   Taylor Jones  4:31  For the extent of this trial. We use it herbicides, trying to keep all the weeds down as much as possible so that we're not seeing any funky results coming from having weeds all over the place. So we try to keep the berms clean as possible.   Craig Macmillan  4:42  And this one has been going for a little while now. What kind of preliminary results do you think you're seeing?   Taylor Jones  4:47  We're seeing some some great preliminary results. The most impactful result that we're seeing is water. Our water usage has declined dramatically. I mean, we went from irrigating every two weeks historically, this will be my eighth vintage here at the company, we used to always pretty religiously we'd water every two weeks, if not more over on that property. And every year, we were kind of able to spread that out, we were seeing water holding capacity almost increase. So last year, we ended up waiting 79 days from basically from bloom until we harvested, we were able to not water at all. Pretty amazing, we were able to heat stress, we have totally sensors in the field that help us tailor our irrigation strategies, but that 79 days of no water being used was significant for our operation in terms of water savings, you know, propane costs, even the irrigator had more time to do other things besides troubleshoot the irrigation system. I think all of that kind of stemmed from the organic matter increase. We saw, on average over a three year timespan, the average was about point 2% increase in organic matter per year for those three years. And you know, 1% organic matter is more or less 20,000 gallons of water per acre that you can hold. That's our goal. Let's try to increase organic matter by 1% and try to achieve that extra water holding capacity. Let's see how high we can get and so we had different different soil types reacted differently in terms of how well they held water.   What kind of soils do you have out there? We're talking about the Santa Ynez River Valley, we're talking about being relatively close to Lompoc, for those of you who are interested, there is tremendous will type variability all through that area. And Drum Canyon is relatively on the west side of that area. I would describe it as that what kind of sils do you have out there?   So we have top of the hill pure sandbox, as you go down the hill, we have some nice Shaylee loans. As we continue down, we get more and more loamy but a little bit more clay and silt as you kind of go to the flats. We're getting a lot more water holding capacity there in the flat zone. And then we have another corner of the vineyard that is the lowest coldest spot and that's mostly sand like a kind of like a sandy clay. So huge variability in soils, we kind of have almost all the types on our property, which is well fun for me.   Craig Macmillan  7:12  Fun for you. Tremendous variation in water holding capacity.   Taylor Jones  7:15  Oh yeah, we had a block we tried to establish our sandy soils, and that was watering twice a week with four gallons per vine, like just trying to get those vines. I mean, it's windy there, we have a lot of struggles and sand is sands an issue trying to get vines established. And to get that taproot down, otherwise, our loams on the hillsides, they tend to have good drainage, they're maybe two feet deep before you hit a layer of sandstone. So our soils are fairly shallow. So we get good water infiltration and penetration, good ability to stress the vines out quickly, but not really holding water. Well, as you get to the flood zone, we've always been able to irrigate a little bit less often those soils kind of have more of clay particles, they're holding on to water a little bit more, until you hit the sandy zone and there are definitely watering twice as much as we do in other areas.   Craig Macmillan  8:02  But you're seeing improvement in all these areas?   Taylor Jones  8:05  Definitely every single area of all in line with each other and what what we're seeing in in our sandy soil series, we saw the higher increase in organic matter than the other soil series. And we were able to irrigate slightly less in those zones than the other ones, which then in previous years percentage wise, which was surprising, but also I'm so glad water is the same you know, in our sandy soils, we saw almost it was point eight 5% organic matter increase total over a final timespan. So that's the equivalent of 16,600 gallons per acre that of water that was used, On the lower end some of the, our loamy silty soils, we ended up getting about a point seven 2.45% increase over five years. So a little bit different there. But you know, we didn't need as much help with holding water in those soils of the sandy soils. So it kind of balanced out percentage wise in terms of how much water we were using.   Craig Macmillan  9:06  What about above ground? Did you see changes in the vines, the fruit crop load, wine quality?   Taylor Jones  9:11  Not so much crop load tons tons per acre, we're pretty spot on throughout the vineyard with seasonal variability. For better or for worse. Some areas we had too much vigor, some areas are vigor was improved overall vigor was higher than than previous years, even with reduced water and reduced and reduced fertilizer inputs as well. So yeah, above ground pruning weights increased a little bit. But that was that was kind of expected. We're having a lot more vigor. But yeah, fruit load was not impacted, which is fine. We're not like trying to pump out as much fruit as possible.   Craig Macmillan  9:43  We've made wines out of these?   Taylor Jones  9:45  Yes. So why is not really a lot of changes in wine. Our winemaking team. They make a couple different wines. A lot of its blended from different areas of our flat zones. And in our other ranch we saw some Yans increasing Other than Yans, that's about it in terms of wine quality was still on point with with every previous year, so no changes in wine quality and no changes in Brix or pH, anything like that phenologically ripening, everything seemed to be pretty, pretty standard for our ranch.   Craig Macmillan  10:18  And that's a good transition. So what about the Happy Canyon?   Taylor Jones  10:21  We're just getting some, I'm finally organizing some data for Happy Canyon. And they're we're seeing similar results. And if anything this year more so or we have had some pretty significant rains. But our cover crop took off a lot quicker than any previous year, this last November, November, December is when we put our final load of compost in from healthy soils. So we were in year three, and we're finally seeing cover crops just taking off. Unfortunately, I think the only downside of these projects has been a lot of increase in in inter row weeds, we've had a lot more weeds creeping up. And that's just I think, some of the compost we're getting this now the seed beds in there just stuck there. And you can see the Malvo just coming up right where we planted and ripped, which is frustrating, but I'll take the soil benefits and deal with the weeds later, you know. Happy Canyon, we're seeing very similar results, we're starting to be able to use less water on a per annual basis, we have a little bit less soil diversity over at Happy Canyon a lot more silty clay silty on the hillsides, clays towards the bottom and the flats. That grant there was 95 acres of compost and give that reference over over a three year timespan that ends up being it was 58 $59,000 worth of compost that we got to not to have from the state which which was phenomenal. And then at the Star Lane project, we're only doing four times an acre, not six tons an acre, the grants kind of based off of what compost you're buying and your carbon nitrogen ratio of your compost, so four tons an acre and Happy Canyon still with the goal of trying to go no till over there. And we're seeing similar increases in organic matter where we're getting that point 2.25% increase year after a year. So there were targeting hopefully, my goal is to find one block, maybe that we can get a full 1% increase in that would be amazing. But it's good to see similarity over two different ADAs two different ranches. It's nice to see the similarities kind of confirming what we're seeing at one ranch versus the other ranch.   Craig Macmillan  12:24  And I want to come back to that. But before I forget, again, we're talking about this is four tons per acre banded, you are not tilling the middle right now.   Taylor Jones  12:32  Correct.   Craig Macmillan  12:33  But you are tilling with that piece of equipment over at the Santa Rita ranch when you have to occasionally yes in terms of no tilled you for see Star Lane being able to farm with a no till system indefinitely? Or do you have plans that you'll have to reset the system every so often? And if so, how would you go about it?   Taylor Jones  12:53  That's that's a good question. I think that I would love to go no tilling indefinitely, unfortunately, with the rate of compaction all of our soils have and then the heavy equipment we're using it's it's inevitable that we're going to have to rip and till but I don't think that we'll ever have to do like every single year full plowed down kind of stuff. I'm totally fine with instead of ripping every three years, let's double that to rip every six years or even further down the road, see how far we can push it. I think with our compaction results that we're seeing in both ranches, our rate of compaction has reduced by about 80% We should be able to go for about five and a half years without ripping instead of every three years. So we can probably push that to six years and rip and then you know, maybe future copost applications will help reduce that even more. We're doing some no till trials where we planted a vineyard and started it no till and comparing it to the same block that's being tilled annually every year. And so far, we're five or six years in now and seeing no differences in yield or plant growth which is promising because I think that for our soil future we kind of need to go the the no till route and you know show that it can be done. And let's see what happens.   Craig Macmillan  14:06  Something that we didn't touch on that. I think if our listeners are not familiar, this is in Santa Barbara County, Santa Yenz Valley. Happy Canyon and the Star Rita AVAs are about as different as you could possibly get in my opinion. So fill us in a little bit about what's going on soil and climate between those two branches.   Taylor Jones  14:24  Both are similar in terms of frost. I mean we had we always have the same amount of frost days I feel like but yeah, so So Santa Rita hills a lot closer to the ocean. You've got the Santa Ynez mountain range, they're going east to west kind of funneling in all the morning fog so we get Santa Rita Hills morning fog usually burning out towards the end of the day, high winds and that that kind of leads to some nice distressed plants are really big fluxes in temperatures with daytime highs versus nighttime colds very similar toHappy Canyon Aava like stuff over there, we get a lot warmer during the day, we're seeing a lot more 90 degree plus days than what we would see in Santa Rita Hills. And with with the way the climates moving, both ranches seem to be trending towards more and more and more high heat days. And we're seeing more cold days as well. And out at Happy Canyon, we're kind of on the far edge of Happy Canyon where Star Lane is and we have morning fog kind of creeps in and it will kind of tickle the edge of our ranch almost kind of recedes a lot more back into Santa Ynez. So at Star Lane, we get a lot more a lot less foggy mornings, kind of ocean mist, and we have a lot more beautiful sunny mornings out. But over there, we also have a lot of wind as well, the significant amount of wind. So AVA wise, they are, you know, they're fairly, fairly similar, I would say only because you have some of that marine influence. High winds with soil types are completely different. And just like the amount of the day that you're getting sunlight in different areas, and wind is fairly different as well.   Craig Macmillan  16:05  Tell me a little bit about the Healthy Soils program. I think this is a really fascinating thing. I remember when it started, and how did you find out about it? How did you get led to it? What was the process like for getting into it?   Taylor Jones  16:17  Trying to think I found it, I really liked looking for grant money, I came from an academic background. And if there's free money to be had, why not apply for it, we use all the tractor replacement grants, we're trying to get electrification grants, you know, find money where we can find it to help our help our company out. Pretty sure we just stumbled upon this program being available. And we basically talked to CDFA. And we're like, Hey, we're interested in applying and said, Here's the process. And it ended up being kind of ridiculously easy. I'm surprised that more people don't apply for Healthy Soils programs, there's just an an online application that you fill out, not only while you're filling out this application, they make you use the Comet Planner tool online, which is a really fun tool, if nobody's used it before, just to estimate greenhouse gas emission reductions based on you know, that's, that's kind of the core of the program is reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing organic matter in your soils. And comet planner can kind of help you look at that. So there's some criteria you have to meet, you cannot have applied compost on these fields within I forget what it was in the last five years or something like that. If you've been applying compost, you can't get the Healthy Soils program. So we used some areas, we had put compost down so we couldn't use those zones, which is why in our Drum Canyon Ranch is 69 acres, but we could only put compost down on 35 of that. So that's one One limitation of the program. But overall, you pick your blocks that you want to do you set out a sampling protocol for them. And they'll usually accept it. And it's essentially you sample your soils every year during the program prior to compost application. And they'll reimburse you for those soil samples as well. So that you can track your organic matter. That's that's all they require. We submit our soils for more testing than just organic matter. Yeah, overall, it's a really simple end of the year, you have to send them proof of your project. And that's generally photos of the compost arriving pictures of the team implementing the compost, actually putting it into the ground, receipts, invoices that you had for just everything to prove that you've done what you do. And then yeah, it's three years. And then in year five, you have one last soil sample to send to the state. So overall, it's a simple application process. I found it one of the easier grants to actually apply for.   Craig Macmillan  18:38  You mentioned that you were doing soil analysis beyond just the soil organic matter what what variables are you looking at?   Taylor Jones  18:44  We just submitted for a full a full soil health panel looking back on it, I wish I would have added bulk density on that, because I think that would have been interesting to see how it changed. But you know, hindsight is 2020 but we looked at you know, NPK, calcium, magnesium cation exchange capacity. Any differences in pH, soil moisture, sodium, just kind of the whatever you send to us soil lab, whatever they'll give you for those tests. I think the biggest thing was we reduced our NPK usage by about 35%. At both ranches after this soil results showed you know we had some NPK increases, but not really as much. I think what we're seeing more so is our vines, roots, finding new areas where they haven't been before. And they're kind of being able to utilize resources that previously weren't available to them. So that's leading to our decrease in fertilizer usage, which is great. We're trying to go towards organic and getting away from a lot of inorganic fertilizer usages would be spectacular.   Craig Macmillan  19:47  That reminds me of something so have you been applying either synthetic organic NPK formulations on top of the compost as the compost been it for the fertility program?   Taylor Jones  19:56  We still do add a little bit, a little bit of NPK but more so calcium, we will have more calcium applications. Especially out in Happy Canyon, we have really high serpentine soils and really bad magnesium problems. So we're always trying to add in gypsum and calcium whenever we can. The Drum Canyon Ranch, not too much of a problem over there we have a problem with potassium uptake. Um, so we do increase our potassium usage they're coming into this year, I think we're really going to reduce based on what we saw last year in terms of vigor and vine health. I mean, our nitrogen applications are going to be really low. Phosphorus, we're always pretty fine on we don't need to use much will probably continue with potassium, but we'll see what petioles looked like this year.   Craig Macmillan  20:40  Well, we're running out of time. Is there one thing that you would tell a grower one piece of advice you'd give to a grower regarding what you've learned from this project?   Taylor Jones  20:49  I mean, the advice is use compost, I think we're we're seeing root zones reaching areas they haven't before where we're using significantly less water, which is just key to farming in California and really in the world going forward. You know, you're you're increasing your CEC or your cation exchange capacity so less nutrients down I mean, you're getting compost is kind of like a win win scenario. The only downside is weeds. Our soils are seem to be returned to normal. We had earthworms returned for the first time since I've been at this ranch. Five different soil pits we found earthworms in which they've never been in before. They're kind of creeping in from the edges, which is awesome. I think we're gonna maybe transition to worm farming.   Craig Macmillan  21:33  (laughs). Where can people find out more about you and what you do?   Speaker 2  21:39  you could always find out. Dierberg and  Star Lane Vineyards, we have Dierbergvineyard.com. Starlanevineyard.com. Otherwise, I kind of just bounced around the Santa Barbara County. I think it always...   Craig Macmillan  21:50  Just like if you're looking if you're looking for him. Just go to Santa Barbara County and drive around a little bit. Yeah. Probably near a vineyard.   Taylor Jones  21:58  Yeah, exactly.   Craig Macmillan  22:00  He has a lot of friends.   Taylor Jones  22:02  But no, yeah, you know, I'm happy if people want to reach out to me. You know, my emails, Taylor taylor@Dierbervineyard.com. Yeah, happy to help people out with applying for grants or if they want to chat or look at some data. I'm always down to see what other people are seeing and compare what we're seeing in our AVA versus another AVA or different grower strategies for compost applications. You know, I think information sharing is the way to go.   Craig Macmillan  22:28  Yeah, totally. Fantastic. Well, Taylor, I just am so happy you could be on the on the podcast, this has really been fun for me.   Taylor Jones  22:35  Thanks for having me.   Craig Macmillan  22:36  This is a topic. It's obviously a hot topic, continuing topic. And I think that the longer that we as an industry have been doing this, because this isn't something that people were doing in the 70s for instance, you know, is this you know, we've all had to learn we've had a compost is not just compost, you need look, the analyses and this rate is not the same as that rate and on the soil does that and the fact that you guys are doing that work along with everybody else and that you're sharing information. I think it's really fantastic. So, thank you so much for your contribution.   Taylor Jones  23:03  Yeah. Thank you.   Craig Macmillan  23:04  So our guest has been Taylor Jones. He is director of viticulture at Star Lane and Dierberg Vineyards in Santa Barbara County.   Transcribed by https://otter.ai

This podcast features Jamie Raskulinecz   Jamie is the founder and CEO of Next Generation Trust Company, and discusses the self-directed retirement plan industry and the founding of her company. She also explains how Next Generation Trust Company helps investors invest in non-publicly traded alternatives using their retirement plans. -------------------------------------------------------------- Starting a Self-Directed Retirement Plan [00:00:00] The Difference Between Servicing and Trust Companies [00:02:29] Importance of Customer Experience [00:06:45] The Importance of Self-Directed Retirement Plans [00:08:00] Marketing to Self-Directed Account Holders [00:09:33] Prohibited Transactions in Self-Directed IRAs [00:12:42] Prohibited transactions [00:16:28] Types of accounts: Solo 401k vs IRA [00:17:37] Deploying small balance IRAs [00:23:03] Investing in Personal Loans [00:23:59] Investing in Startups [00:25:19] Contacting Next Generation Trust Company [00:25:48] --------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Jamie:    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NextGenerationTrust/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/next-generation-trust-company/mycompany/?viewAsMember=true Web: https://nextgenerationtrust.com   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Jaime Raskulinecz (00:00:00) - . So when you're looking for investors, one of the objections you might get is, you know, all of my money is tied up in the stock market and things are really bad right now, and I can't really liquidate anything because, you know, everything has lost a lot of money, so I gotta stay there and make up for it. So the answer to that objection that I like to tell sponsors to give is, that's really great, and I, I absolutely understand that, but did you know that you're able to use your retirement plan, which, whatever kind you have to make these same investments into non-publicly traded alternatives?      Intro (00:00:37) - Welcome to the How to Scale commercial real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:50) - Jamie Rascal Linens is the founder and CEO o of Next Generation Trust Company. They are custodians for sale directed retirement plans, specializing in the custody and administration of non-publicly traded alternative assets. Jamie, I got all that out in one sentence without messing it up. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:01:07) - Thank you so much for having me. That was a mouthful, wasn't it? Betwe, between my name, pronunciation, and the, and the intro. Wow. ,   Sam Wilson (00:01:15) - It's a lot of big words all crammed into one. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I've got three questions that I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now, and how did you get there?   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:01:28) - Interesting. Um, yes, I can tell you. So, uh, my, my prior business to this was a property management company and I was looking for an additional revenue stream, and I happened to meet someone in this business who, uh, introduced me to it. I thought it was one of the greatest things I had ever heard, because I was also interested in putting real estate in my retirement plan. And so, kind of the rest is history. We started, uh, the servicing company in 2004, the Trust company, um, about seven years ago. And here we are today with, uh, almost 700 million in assets under custody, and, um, you know, still going strong working with real estate investors, fund managers.   Sam Wilson (00:02:16) - That's awesome. That's awesome. You, it, it's keeping you busy. You mentioned a couple of things there. Uh, you, you said, you mentioned you that you had started a servicing company in 2004 and then seven years ago started the trust company. I don't even know what the difference is   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:02:29) - . So, um, back in 2004, next Generation Services was formed. We have two companies, next Generation Services and Next Generation Trust company. And so the services company all by itself, always needed to have a licensed, uh, or chartered financial institution to act as custodian for all the assets. Okay. And without me having that partnership, next Generation Services would be unable to do business. Hmm. So you can only imagine that that was the nightmare that kept me up every night. And I was looking for ways to have both sides of that equation so that we had control of both sides. And so about seven years ago, we formed, the Trust company was chartered in South Dakota, and so the trust company is the custodian for all the assets, and the servicing company is in North Jersey and still does all of the sales, uh, transaction report and other types of reporting. And, uh, the trust company is really the chartered custodian for all of the assets.   Sam Wilson (00:03:38) - So yeah, I mean, that, that's is are all self-directed custodian set up in a similar, uh, kind of arrangement there?   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:03:45) - A lot of them are okay, but, uh, a lot of them are, but some of them use the trust company completely for both sides of that business. And so for me, because the servicing company came first, and because we're located in two different states and the regulations vary, it made more sense to keep them both separate for, um, you know, uh, trust company regulation purposes and other business considerations.   Sam Wilson (00:04:17) - It sounds, I mean, it sounds like this is, uh, is just not obstacles, but just kind of overcoming the legal hurdles required to do business the way you guys wanna do business.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:04:28) - Yeah, there's, there's a lot of, as you can imagine, there's a lot of regulation, uh, governing these types of businesses and plans, right? So we have to worry about the division of banking in South Dakota because we have an office in New Jersey. We also have to register with the banking commission in New Jersey. We've got i r s and Department of Labor Regulation. So it's really, uh, it's really a lot of fun.   Sam Wilson (00:04:55) - Yeah, I guess so. I guess, so how did, what, what gave you the confidence to enter this space? Knowing all of the regulatory hurdles? And I know some of those may be, maybe they have, maybe they haven't lessened here in the last 10 years, but, um, how did, how did you have the confidence to move forward in that? I mean, that's, that's a lot to swallow all at once, even just thinking about it.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:05:16) - Well, um, one of the biggest reasons is I think that, um, ignorance is bliss in the beginning. So you really, uh, you know, I didn't have any idea about a lot of what was gonna happen with this, especially the trust company didn't come until many years later. Yeah. So, and, and that's sort of been the story of my life, right? One of my other businesses is property management and we specialize in affordable housing and talk about regulations, right? Right. And so there's that, and my, uh, my prior life, my career was healthcare. So I've been in a heavily regulated environment, uh, pretty much since birth.   Sam Wilson (00:06:01) - Wow. Yeah, I guess, I guess, uh, if you're used to it, you know, and in its own right, you know, those regulations, uh, prevent competition, which I'm not gonna say is a good thing, but, um, they certainly, once you understand it, it's like, well, it's confusing and it's hard and lots of paperwork. So, you know, in its own right. Once you, once you kind of have the inside know-how it's probably, uh, it's probably okay, just getting through that initial hurdle I think would be, would be a little bit challenging. What do you feel like when you formed this company, and you guys have been, I guess now around it's 2023, so that's 19 years, like, what do you feel like you do differently or that was missing in the space? Because I think you saw opportunity there. What was that opportunity?   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:06:45) - Well, for me, regardless of whatever business I was in, what was always top of mind for me was the customer or the client experience. Hmm. And whether that was way back when in healthcare or in property management with tenants, or I've owned rental real estate myself. Yeah. You, you want to provide the best experience to people that you can. And in my industry, as you know, there are small boutique firms like mine, and then there are those giant companies that have been around since the seventies. And really our goal was not to become a giant company, like the ones that have been around since the seventies. I liked being a boutique firm because we can pivot easily and we can make accommodations for our referral sources and for our clients easily. And it was also easy for me to instill that, um, you know, that feeling with all of our staff members. We've done Ritz Carlton training. So, um, you know, that's kind of the level of service that I want us to be known for, and we are actually known for our customer experience in the industry.   Sam Wilson (00:08:00) - No, I think that's great. That's absolutely great. And yeah, I mean, as a, as a deal sponsor, I have, uh, interacted with all of the different, you know, uh, I guess variations of the types of firms out there. And certainly the smaller the firms and the more personalized that experience is, the easier it is for us as sponsors to bring our investors on that have self-directed accounts. And the larger the companies get, the, uh, the more cumbersome and less responsive it tends to be. So I certainly, sure.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:08:30) - And, and what's our job? It's to make life easier for our client when they wanna make investments. Right. And on the other side, you know, of course, you know, we're not allowed to partner or directly refer, but we wanna make it a seamless process for all the parties concerned in the transaction, otherwise why would they come to me? Right,   Sam Wilson (00:08:49) - Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I understand there's statistics that are out there and, and I'm not gonna butcher whichever ones they are. Uh, but in short, and I'm guilty of this too, so tell me what the opportunity is and maybe, maybe we could even talk about how deal sponsors can be effectively marketing to the self-directed account holder crowd. Because what I understand is that there's a lot, a lot, a lot of money in self-directed accounts, and again, myself included, especially small balance accounts that is doing absolutely nothing other than sitting in a trust account. How, how, how do we get in front of self-directed account holders and let them know what opportunities we have?   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:09:33) - That is such a great question. So let me, let me start at the beginning. There's almost 12 trillion in IRAs in the United States right now. Uh, it's really boomed because of much more contributions and a lot more gain in the investment. Yeah. Uh, in the last year that may not be so the canon investment, but about 12 trillion. And so we get this question a lot from fund managers and other people who are looking to raise those funds. And you know, my answer to them is because I know some of the objections that you get. So when you're looking for investors, one of the objections you might get is, you know, all of my money is tied up in the stock market and things are really bad right now, and I can't really liquidate anything because, you know, everything has lost a lot of money, so I gotta stay there and make up for it.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:10:29) - So the answer to that objection that I like to tell sponsors to give is, that's really great, and I, I absolutely understand that, but did you know that you're able to use your retirement plan, which whatever kind you have to make these same investments into non-publicly traded alternatives? And one of the best things to ask, especially now with, um, the layoffs that there have been in the last couple years, is they're an old employer 401K somewhere that you can roll over. Uh, I am not allowed to give people advice, but personally I like to tell people that I can think of only one real specific reason to ever keep your old employer 401K active. And that's if you have stock in that company, you may wanna keep it in that old 401k, but anything other than that, you wanna really roll it over so that you have more control over the investments that you can make and the fees that are involved because 401ks have higher fees, uh, with employers. So that's one strategy to even start talking about, do you have old employer 401ks? What, what are your IRAs doing? Uh, you can also self-direct education savings accounts and HSAs, and a lot of people take advantage of those contributions and use those to self-direct as well.   Sam Wilson (00:11:57) - I think that's, that, that's really cool. Um, and, and most people don't, most people don't know even about self-directed IRAs. Even inside of my own family, I've had to educate a lot of my own siblings like, Hey, you know, you can move this into an accountant and tell, tell 'em what to do with it. Like that, that's, that's, and, and, and so if they don't know about that in the self-directed IRA space, then you start getting, you know, further down the rabbit hole into self-directed HSAs and things like that. And that's, that's mind blowing I think for a lot of people. Let's talk a little bit about maybe the transaction types, prohibited transactions, things like that, that go into self-directed IRAs. I know there's all kinds of confusion on this, and so I'm hoping maybe you can kind of just boil this down so a simpleton like me can understand   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:12:42) -  Well, it took a simpleton like me to figure it out and figure it out quickly too when I first started the business. Right. Okay. So the easiest thing to remember is not what type of investments am I allowed to do within a self-directed ira because they're, you know, it's a huge number. What is best to remember is what am I not allowed to do? And the only things that are not allowed investment in self-directed IRAs are life insurance policies and collectibles. And so, uh, that means that if somebody says to you, gee, I wanna invest in a racehorse, can I do that? You absolutely can. So, and we've had people do that. Um, you know, I wanna invest in oil and gas interest or lease rights for mineral rights. Can I do that? Absolutely, you can. Uh, another interesting one was several years ago they purchased licenses to, uh, purchase feet at national sports stadium games. I never even knew that was a thing.   Sam Wilson (00:13:50) - Oh. So,   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:13:52) - Um, so the possibilities really are endless. You may invest in, you know, anything except for those two things. Um, I have people, you know, real estate investors are mostly creative thinkers, right? So real estate investors are, uh, a real fun and interesting group for me to work with because I'm always getting calls with creative ideas to try to do something that's not allowed. So, , how about if I structure it this way? Yeah, no, it's still not good. You can't, you know, you can't get around the rules, right? But, you know, we, we have great discussions with people, but the structure, as you say is important. If you have family members or if you have business partners that you are associated with, you're unable to really do transactions between you and them. So a great example, you and your wife own property personally, and you wanna get it into your ira.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:14:54) - You can't sell it into either one of your IRAs because it's self-dealing. You can't purchase or sell anything that you already owned personally. If you and your wife had separate IRAs and you wanted to invest in a property together, uh, this requires some thought about this. You may invest in a property together and you may partner together, but the percentages that you start out investing must remain the same throughout the entire investment. So if you purchase a property, 50, 50, 50% of the investment money must come from each ira and all of the income must come back to the IRAs in those same percentages. So 50% of the rent, 50% of expenses from either ira, and those percentages can never change because then that's actually doing transactions with disqualified people. That's why the percentages must stay the same, but there is a lot of flexibility to partner with others, even though they may ordinarily be disqualified from doing a transaction between you.   Sam Wilson (00:16:05) - Right. The way I've, I, the way I've understood disqualified, uh, uh, people, it would be more of a, a linearal, no linearal, gosh, can't even speak today, but just direct descendants. Like, my mom can invest with me in a deal that I am a general partner on, but my siblings can. Is that right? Correct.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:16:28) - Yeah. But you have to be careful. If your siblings invest, then you have to be sure that it's a market rate transaction and that your siblings IRAs are not getting special treatment because of the relation, right. Or your fund, or your deal isn't getting special consideration. Like if they're giving you a loan, maybe they're giving you half of the normal interest rate that's market that's wouldn't be allowable. So you also have to keep some good records to prove that everything was market rate.   Sam Wilson (00:17:02) - Right. Right. Yeah. Which, I mean, market rate four years ago might, might have been three to 5% market rate today might be 10 or 15. So , right,   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:17:12) - You're   Sam Wilson (00:17:13) - Gonna, you're gonna need the, uh, need that good record keeping there. Okay. Awesome. So we've talked a little bit about prohibited transactions. We've talked about how to market to, uh, self-directed account holders. What, and we've talked a little bit about the types of accounts. I think we mentioned self-directed IRAs, we mentioned, uh, self-directed HSAs and self-directed. What was the other one you threw in there that was a   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:17:36) - Little bit? Education savings, account   Sam Wilson (00:17:37) - Education savings account. One that I don't hear a lot of press coverage on, because I think everybody, I think IRAs for whatever reason tend to be more, just more people know about 'em. But solo 401ks, what is to walk us through that benefits, maybe if you're considering opening accounts, why one versus the other? I don't even, not even sure. I understand why one is better than the other. So maybe you can kind of talk to us about those.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:18:04) - Well, on a solo k there, there can be no common law employees of the company if you have a solo K but you can have partners or spouses that can, uh, be included in the plan. And so why some people see benefits to using a solo K first thing is the contribution limits to a solo K are much higher than you could put into an ira. So for 2023, and I have some cheat notes for myself cause uh, my memory is bad, but for 2023 and a solo, okay, you can, um, you can contribute up to 25% of your compensation to a maximum of about, uh, 22,500. And if you're 50 and above this year, there's a $7,500 catch up contribution. So the contribution limits are a lot higher. If you mortgage a property in a solo k, it's a little bit, it's, it's a little bit easier to mortgage a property in a solo k um, there are some benefits to that, but the disadvantages to a solo K or that most people don't really understand them, uh, there are companies that specialize in self-directed solo Ks, and that might be all they do is qualified plans for non-publicly traded alternatives.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:19:38) - We offer solo Ks as well, but we require folk to have a third party administrator to advise them on the setup of the plan, the ongoing reporting and maintenance of the plan, because that's, that's a whole separate field, uh, qualified plan administration, and that's really not our thing. So en to, to enable somebody to do it, they really have to have someone to advise them.   Sam Wilson (00:20:03) - Right. Yeah. It sound, it sounds like there's, there's, uh, maybe some flexibility benefits that come with it, but then also some reporting and, um, just some rules to that game maybe that are sounds really nuanced.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:20:19) - Yeah, and a little more of an expense too, right? Because you actually need to have somebody advise you on that. So, uh, it it's a little more expensive to do if you think you're gonna make all of those. Uh, if you're gonna maximize the contributions and perhaps you have an old employer 401K that you wanna roll into this plan, so you have a lot of funds, then it kind of makes sense, right? You've got a lot of money in there and you wanna be able to put it to maximum use for your investments, and then it pays to pay all of those professionals to advise you, right? If, if you, if you have $10,000 in that plan, um, you know, why would you wanna spend money on the advisors, you know, makes more sense to use an IRA simpler,   Sam Wilson (00:21:01) - Right? Yeah, absolutely. Are there things that we should be doing on the IRA side of things to, I mean, are there, are there advantages or, or, uh, is there any capability of putting in more than maybe what the contribution limits that are published? Are there, are there kind of some catch up provisions or anything like that that we should be thinking about?   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:21:21) - Yeah, there are, uh, catch up contributions for, uh, traditional and Ross, although not as generous as, uh, the 401k. So it's only a thousand dollars catch up contribution for both of those, and the contribution limits are 6,500 for this year. But you know, what people don't realize is with those old employer 401ks, um, you know, as I keep saying, there's not too many reasons to keep all your money over there. You can roll those into an IRA and have a nice balance to enable you to do some creative investing.   Sam Wilson (00:21:58) - Yeah, no, that's cool that I didn't realize that, that you could roll old 401K funds into an ira. What, what do you advise? This is a personal question because I see, I see both in my investor pool and me personally inside of my self-directed ira, you get distributions. Maybe they're monthly, maybe they're quarterly, but you know, so let's say we put 50 grand in a deal and you know, it's throwing off 8% a year, whatever that comes out to be, what is that? 4,000 bucks a year? Yeah, it's really hard, especially when that 4,000 bucks dribble dribbles in $1,000 at a time throughout the year to do anything meaningful with that. What do, what do you see some people doing to kind of overcome that hurdle of small accounts, especially investments that produce cash flow, but then, I mean, it's gonna take 12 years to have another $48,000 to invest into anything at 4,000 bucks a year. If that's all that account had was 50 grand, then I'm not saying that's what it is, but if that were the case, so what are people doing right now to kind of deploy small balance IRAs in a meaningful way?   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:23:03) - Uh, good question. And so don't forget, even though you have a small balance, um, IRA, you probably can make contributions every year to boost up that balance, right? So you have to watch your income limits and, and what other contributions you're making. Yeah. But you can add to it that way. But a favorite method, uh, or a favorite investment in our office of small balance accounts, especially with some young people who might just be starting out, they may look at their balance and say, especially in this interest rate environment, I have a friend who has credit card bills or whatever, and they're paying, what is it now, 30%? I'm afraid to look at my statement. So I don't even know what credit card interest is these days, but it's, it's, you know, really high. Sure. So, um, they're paying this off and maybe it's 30% interest.   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:23:59) - I can get maybe four and a half percent in a treasury fund right now because interest rates are going up so much. But if I offer that person a personal loan, and it could be collateralized by something, it doesn't have to be an unsecured note, but I'm gonna lend this person $5,000 to pay off some credit card debt, and instead of them paying 30% and me getting four and a half, maybe I'll get 10, right? Or 12 if it's not collateralized by anything, maybe even 15, because there's no collateral, right? You have to look at what your user, uh, laws are in each state, but I'm going to get a much higher interest rate, you're gonna get a much lower interest rate, and I still have recourse against you if you don't pay me, uh, or if you don't pay my ira. So that's a good way to do it. There are some other companies that take smaller investments into some startups, so I don't, there's so many out there crowdfunding sites and startups, but you can use your IRA or other money to do smaller investments in some of these platforms that do investments in startup companies, and they're small minimums, right? So those are two of the most popular ones that I see.   Sam Wilson (00:25:19) - Yeah, I would, I would, I would think a reggae fund of some sort where you could, especially if you can, you know, continuously invest those distributions that are coming to your account, would be a good way to, a good way to deploy that as well. I hadn't, hadn't, uh, considered that, uh, on that front. So, no, those are, those are great. Two very great suggestions there. Jamie. I know we're over time. I certainly appreciate you coming on the show today. This was a blast. Learned a ton from you. If our listeners want to get in touch with you or your company, what is the best way to do that?   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:25:48) - Well, we, our website is next generation trust.com. That's probably the best way. There are several ways to reach us there. We have, uh, a chat spot on that website. We have a form on the website to contact us. There's a ton of educational resources there. We have, uh, pre-recorded webinars and other videos. We have white papers that they can download to see the different investment types. And there's also, uh, a listing of our staff and ways to contact them if you want to talk to a live person. Fantastic. We have a live, live person answering the phone during business hours, so you, you will always get a person at my office.   Sam Wilson (00:26:30) - Awesome. Awesome. Thank you Jamie, so much for that. I do appreciate it. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Have a great rest   Jaime Raskulinecz (00:26:35) - Of your day. Thanks so much for having me.   Sam Wilson (00:26:37) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast. If you can, do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank hire on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.      

Have you ever had that nagging feeling that you're not qualified to help the people you want to help? That there are people out there with more education and experience doing what you want to do, so who are you to be doing it too? If you have, you're not alone. In today's episode, we're going to explore the mindset block that's making you feel unqualified and how to squash that feeling and start helping more of the people you're meant to help. “Your business is you and your ability to help another human. That is how you are going to make a living.” - Shawn Mynar “Part of this process is really being okay with and willing to explore your fears and becoming aware of how they show up for you in your actual life, your actual business.” “Your role as the coach is to help guide them towards the best decision for them. To ask them the right questions. To move them along on their own journey and to help them make the best decisions for them.” - Shawn Mynar “Focus on the people you want to help and how you can connect with them in the deepest way possible.” - Shawn Mynar “Get more comfortable doing what you want to do with your clients that is really the most basic, simple, tangible way that you can feel more qualified.” - Shawn Mynar FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT BELOW: 0:00 Have you ever had that nagging feeling that you're not qualified to help the people you want to help, that there are people out there with more education and experience doing what you want to do? So who are you to be doing it to? If you have, you're not alone. And in today's episode, we're going to explore the mindset block that's making you feel unqualified, and how to squash it so you can start helping more of the people you're meant to help. Stay tuned. Hey, there, I'm Shawn Mynar, and this is unstuck entrepreneur. I'm a former nutritionist who turned a struggling stressful nutrition practice into a thriving, Freedom filled online business way work from home in my sweatpants while reaching and helping 1000s of people all at the same time. Now, I am obsessed with showing other heart centered coaches, practitioners and solopreneurs how to build a business and life they love. Consider this podcast your safe space to learn both the inner work and practical strategies required to build the impactful profitable business of your dreams, no hustle, grind, or long hours required. That's right hustle culture, not welcome here. Let's get into today's session. Hey, hey there, friends, and welcome back to the unstuck entrepreneur Podcast. I'm Shawn, your host, happy to have you here. Thank you so much for your support of this show. And we've got to dive right into a pretty big topic that I have been wanting to talk about here on the show for a while now. Because it's something I see that is quite rampant in the coaching practitioner expert space where you are in a service based business or service based role. And guess what pops up, as soon as you start getting more into that role, putting yourself out there more marketing yourself getting more and more clients creating more and more paid offers for your customers. As all of that happens, then there is also the potential to have more doubt and uncertainty. And to be even more specific, this feeling of being on qualified, I'm starting to question, your ability, your capabilities to start doubting your ability and capabilities. And as a byproduct, especially if you believe that and start really kind of letting those emotions take hold. While then you continue to play small, you potentially don't put yourself out there and the way that you should be or could be, you're not growing your business and the way that you should be or could be. And it all stems from what really is a classic case of imposter syndrome. I mean, that's really what we're talking about here that really is kind of the bucket term for this feeling of being unqualified of not being capable or questioning your abilities. It all is under that umbrella of imposter syndrome. And we've talked about that quite a bit here on the show at least two or three episodes just based on impostor syndrome. And here we are again. But taking a little bit different of a turn here because I really just want to give you some tools and just some things to consider. If you are feeling this way. And if you're not right now, that's amazing. But there is a potential that you will someday in your business. And, you know, it may not even be that you feel unqualified when it comes to how you help clients. But you might have that feeling that imposter syndrome me feeling when it comes to having a business of being a solopreneur of running your own show being your own boss that may have you caught up in these emotions, doubting your abilities, not feeling capable of making that happen for yourself and for your business. So, you know, there's a lot of different paths we can go here. But regardless, if we're talking about imposter syndrome as a whole, well, this is something that we know is super common, like 70% of adults experience imposter syndrome at least once in their life. And I really think that for business owners because of that option to not only be feeling or doubting your capabilities as a coach or as a practitioner or helping your clients. There's also the possibility or addition of feeling that way about running your own business. So I really think that for business owners, it's like nine be percent where you have this feeling of what am I doing? Why am I doing this people are doing this so much better than I am capable of doing? Why am I even here? Who am I to think that I can be a successful business owner and a successful coach, a successful practitioner, who am I to be doing this, that is really what it comes down to. And so if you are an adult, if you are a human being already a really good chance that you felt this or will feel this at some point in your life, if you're a business owner are trying to become a business owner, and especially in this service based role, which we're going to talk about to then hey, Jones's are quite likely, at some point, you will have that nagging thought, or that nagging emotion of doubt of uncertainty, and feeling unqualified to be doing what you're trying to do. And to go into that next level where it's someone specifically in a service based role, where your business is you and your ability to help someone else with something that is just obviously ripe for this entire environment, this entire mindset block that we have. And it sounds like, Am I qualified enough to do this? 6:27 Do I need more certifications education experience? Before I can help someone else do I need to keep going for more, there are people more qualified, smarter, prettier, bigger audiences already doing what I want to do. So why bother? Who am I to do it too, that's what it really sounds like, or comes across as in this specific service based role. And understandably, because like I said, it's you your business is you and your ability to help another human, that is how you are going to make a living. So again, really important conversation that I have been wanting to have here on the show for quite some time. Because this is something that probably at some point, most of you will experience and will have those thoughts and it might go down a rabbit hole to where you do stop showing up or you do push your business off further push what you really want to be doing further and further away. Because of this, really, what is a mindset block over anything else. And this block could really be the thing that's keeping you from the business that you want, from building it to be what you want it to be, and to grow to the point where you want it to grow. And you know, help the people you want to help make the money you want to make. Spend your time doing what you want to spend your time doing. It could really be something as simple, I'm not going to say easy or anything like that, because this is not. But it's as simple as this one mindset block that you are still dealing with that is still going on in your subconscious programming. Often without you being aware, you just have that feeling or have that the chatter, that mental chatter that is keeping you stalled out keeping you stuck or keeping you from showing up in a way that you should show up all because of this one subconscious belief that is still within you. So that's what we're going to talk about today. I do also kind of want to put some blame on to social media. And to kind of remind you of the power of something like that, and how abnormal it is for us to be able to look into every single person's life and business. And you know, suppose it bank account and suppose that amount of clients and all these things that are kind of glamorized on social media these days, especially in the solopreneur, coach, online business space, that is not normal. And that is not healthy. And that is often where some of these blocks that we could potentially not even have not even be kind of activated, I guess. Those come up because of our ability to see into everyone's lives and that is not okay. And if that is something that you find is triggering for you, then you have to be honest with yourself about that. And stop. Like, don't scroll on social media unfollow the people who are causing that in you. You should not be Following competitors, and you know, I'm using air quotes with competitors, because I don't really think anyone in this kind of service based rule has a direct competitor. Because we're all unique. We all do things totally differently, even if we're helping people with the same problems. But you know, in your industry, if there's anyone who's triggering to you, that is, like making you say these things of, well, this person is doing this already. And they're way more qualified, they've had more clients, XYZ, whatever you're coming up with these stories that you're coming up with. If a person brings that out, and you are following them on, follow them, don't scroll on social media, do your business, work on social media, spend your time be on your stories, share your your post, whatever you want to do, and then call it good and get off. Because it's quite likely that the reason that you are stalled out in your business is because you're watching others who aren't. And that is causing a lot of strife in your own mindset, your own headspace, and it's not normal, it shouldn't be that way. 20 3050 years ago, that's not how businesses ran. And they probably didn't have to deal with nearly the amount of imposter syndrome that we have to today, because they don't didn't have access to this abnormal amount of information coming in. Okay, so that was my social media. So box for this episode. Now, let's move on to the pep talk portion of this episode. And that's really what this is today, these are reminders that I want to make sure you are telling yourself as you go about this business building process. These are things to do, I would say tools to have and processes to go through for yourself. As we've talked about here a lot on unstuck entrepreneur, in particular, when we talk about the mindset blocks, the subconscious programming that we may have to go through in order to get to the point where we can have a successful business where we can help the people that we want to help that is all in our work, that is all stuff that you have to do on your own for yourself. Yes, I can talk to you about these things, I can give you all the pep talks in the world. But that is still a conscious thing, that is something that is happening consciously for you to hear it, what we need to do is let it register and shift things subconsciously. And that is where you know, the fear lives, that is where the mindset blocks are. And that takes more time, it takes more practice and consistency in order to fully release those. So just so you know, I am giving you a pep talk today, I'm giving you some tools and things to work on. But it has to be something that you are doing on a consistent basis that you are recognizing and that you are taking control of in your own life and in your own business to shift that subconscious programming. Okay, so let's start this pep talk with a definition and that is the definition of qualified, there are two different definitions one is officially recognized as being trained to perform a particular job, also known as certified. And then the other definition is competent or knowledgeable to do something aka capable. Okay, so two different definitions for one word, which is qualified. And I want to bring up a point right here that is important. And that is if you are legit, not qualified. And there is a real possibility of that, especially in the coaching industry, which is unregulated, so anyone can call themselves a coach, you do not have to have any sort of training, certification education, nothing before you can call yourself a coach and start coaching people which, you know, I could see in the future that changes and in order to have that title for yourself, you do have to go through a coaching certification or training program. But right now, that is not the case. And while today, we're going to spend more time talking about the possibility of being overtrained and over educated in an attempt to squash these feelings of impostor syndrome of being unqualified. We also need to talk about the opposite, which is truly not being qualified and claiming that you are. That is something that I would strongly discourage you from doing even though it isn't time Technically a regulated industry and there's no direct path, like, do this, go here, do that, get that certification, and then your code, even though that is not present, there are still a ton of educational opportunities that I recommend exploring and finding that certification, finding that training, finding a mentor, and do it the right way, so that you can help people the right way, as a truly qualified coach. Okay, 15:32 so just wanted to put that out there. I know for most of you, it's the opposite problem. You have tons of knowledge and training, but you still feel unqualified, or you still find yourself questioning your ability and your capability of helping your clients. And this is a mindset disconnect. It's a safety mechanism. Most likely, it's a safety mechanism against fear of failure, fear of judgment, maybe, perhaps even embarrassment, fear of disappointment, there are a lot of reasons behind that mindset disconnect behind that safety mechanism coming up to make sure you don't have to feel that you don't have to experience these things that you're afraid to experience. So then we create this mental chatter in our conscious mind that is that imposter syndrome. That is you having these thoughts of not being capable not being qualified enough to help your clients. So it's all based on what's really going on underneath that fear that's really going on underneath and what are you afraid of what could possibly happen, that you absolutely do not want to happen, so much so that you are staying away that you are keeping yourself safe from that even being a possibility. So like I said, failure, judgment, embarrassment, disappointment, there could be other things going on for you. But those are just the ones that came to me off the top of my head, but you need to figure that out. For you, that's part of this process is really being okay with and being willing to explore your fears, and then becoming aware of how they show up for you in your actual life and in your actual business. So let me remind you of a few things to help you release that safety mechanism. So you can get back to helping the people that you want to help and creating this business that you want to create. There really are only two things, okay? Thing Number one, as someone in a coaching type role, you are a helper, you want to help people in a meaningful way, you are there to be someone's guide and support system, you're not there to provide all the answers and know everything. That's actually not a good coach, and no one is looking for that. And no one is expecting that there is no one that will become your client that expects you to know every single thing and just tell them exactly what to do. Your role as a coach is to help guide them towards the best decision for them to ask them the right questions, to move them along on their own journey and to help them make the best decisions for them. More important than you knowing every possible thing that your client could ask you, is it the relationship that you build with them, the connection, the rapport you provide, that your clients feel seen, heard and understood. That's what they want. That's what matters. They know that they have your attention, that you want to help them as much as they want to be helped that synchronistic relationship, that feeling of just being gotten through that I don't even think that's the right English or the right grammar, but like someone gets them, and you are that person and as soon as that is established, then you have a client for life, even if you don't know the answer to a question they have. I actually feel like there's something really special about having a coach or practitioner who doesn't know everything, but is willing to find answers for you. And as long as that relationship is built with your clients, then if they have a question and you don't know the answer, but you can say hey, I'll get back to you. Let me go talk to my mentor or let me make sure I have this Correct. And I'll get back to you, that's cool. No one even will blink an eye at that. So you do not have to know everything you are not expected to know everything. But you are expected to create a real relationship with your clients. And that is what truly matters to them. And that is something that, like I said, you know, we're all so unique, how we create relationships are unique, our personalities are unique. So it doesn't matter how many people are doing what you're doing, no one is going to create the connection that you will with your people, because we're all different. So you don't have to worry about that. But just focus on the people that you want to help and how you can connect with them in the deepest way possible. Now, my second reminder, the only way to feel more qualified is to get more experience. So this is more kind of on the practical level a little bit worrying, stressing talking yourself out of taking action, hiding, doing busy work, instead of doing work that will actually move the needle, none of that gets you more qualified, none of those things will get you that feeling that you're looking for watching a bunch of webinars, listening to all the podcasts, reading all the books, those also are probably not going to make you feel much more qualified. Now you might feel like it actually you probably are becoming more knowledgeable. Yes, for sure. If you are listening to podcasts and reading books, about the area of focus that you work on with your clients, you are getting more knowledgeable, but not more qualified, that is not the same thing. Because qualified is actually really a feeling you feel qualified or you feel unqualified. So it's not this tangible thing of, oh, I just read this book. And now I know more, you have to have that feeling. And that feeling really only comes with experience. So from this very practical perspective, get more experience. And I know that might feel hard for some of you because you can't get past this mental hurdle. To get you to a point where you are getting the clients, you are creating the program, you are hosting the workshop. And if that's you, then my recommendation is to offer to do sessions with your family, your friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, whoever you know, whoever is in your network, start asking to get more experience, start seeing if they will be practice clients even. And you can do those for free in exchange for testimonials. And obviously, the biggest exchange just for you to get more comfortable and to feel more qualified, which is the biggest and best exchange and will completely catapult your business to the next level. As soon as you have that feeling. And you've had those practice clients. Now if you're doing something more like a program, a group program, then do a beta group. First, I always say that that is part of what I teach and signature program lab, you have to run a beta group first to test out your program and test out how it goes and what you include and what you don't include and if it all works, or what you need to change. And when you do that, you get a discounted rate in exchange for feedback. But it also gets you more comfortable in your own program. And it helps you of course, feel more qualified running that program. So do a beta version of your program first. And just overall get more experience. Even just give your friends advice or give them coaching feedback, even if they don't ask for it does get more comfortable doing what you want to do with your clients. That is really the most basic, simple, tangible way that you can feel more qualified. I just feel like there's so many people who have that feeling simply because they don't have enough experience under their belt. And as soon as you do, even if it's just one or two more people, it will completely change that and you will go on to absolutely crush your business after that because it relieves that feeling. And it brings in this new feeling of competence. And this happens at every stage of your business. This is not just at the beginning when you're first starting with clients and getting going and having that feeling of not knowing what you're doing. But as you move on to the next level as you pivot as you start offering new offers and talking about new things, and just taking everything to the next level what you do with your clients, what you talk about what you do in your business, that will keep coming up and again it's just this can continuation of getting more experience, and remembering what you're really there to do, which I think I can say for all of us is to help people to be of service to another human. That is what you're really there to do doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to look a certain way. It doesn't have to be like so and so that you're checking out on Instagram that's doing great work. It is what you should be doing to help that person to help those people in your own unique way and creating that connection, creating that relationship, creating that space for someone to feel seen, heard, and understood, and then being their guide, being their person that can really help them. Okay, we're gonna wrap this up with one last thing that's kind of Woo. And that is what we need to do to help integrate this all into your subconscious. Because, like I said, hearing all of this listening to what I'm on a podcast, having me chat about it in your earbuds right now, is only doing so much, it's just scratching the surface of your conscious mind. But this is all living deep within your subconscious programming. It's why you have those fears. It's why you have the mental chatter. It's really something deeper than just Oh, Shawn told me not to worry, and just to go get more experience and to create this connection with my clients. So I'm gonna go do that, and all this is gone. That's not how this works. Instead, it is something that you have to integrate for your own programming in your own life, how it's showing up for you. And it's something that needs to be gotten done consistently. And with intention, in order to change things for you. So as you may know, if you've been listening to this show for a while, I always love and recommend journaling, and, or visualizing. So that is what I want you to do pick one or do both, for what we just talked about today. So first, I think it would be great to write about the kind of coach that you are or that you want to be write in detail in your journal, no one's going to see this but you you can throw it away. As soon as you're done. This is just getting it out of your head and onto paper. really creating this scenario for yourself. What kind of coach Are you? What kind of coach do you want to be? How do you show up for your clients? What do you feel when you are with your clients? And what do your clients feel when they are with you? What kind of relationships do you have with your clients? What do you work on with them? And I would even go through this scenario of what do you do when you don't know the answer to something? When your clients have a question, and you're stumped? What do you do in that scenario, write it out. And this is all in present tense or write it out as if it's happening right now. Okay, so that is the journaling practice that we can start with just really getting things out on paper, really starting to see and feel and experience, what you want your business to be like, what you want your clients to experience what you want to experience with your clients. Just let it all out, create this scenario in your journal of how you want it to go and how you really expect your your sessions to go or your program groups to go your course to go your workshops. Just lay it all out, get as specific as you can. And while you're doing that, you may notice that it's also becoming this vision, like you have this vision of you with a client or you in front of a group of people on Zoom for your coaching call, or you in front of an even bigger group for your workshop. What does it look like when you are a confident coach or a confident practitioner in your business with your clients really dive deep. And see if you can let that vision keep coming to life, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, get into a meditative state. And just let yourself see it. See what you want your business to look like. See what it will look like when you really go after what you want. When you really put yourself out there. When you don't have these fears holding you back. Just let yourself get into it. So kind of a two pronged approach. And then the goal really is to keep doing this. So once is probably not enough to break all of these subconscious programs that you have going on. But if you can do it over and over again and just let yourself visualize that business that you want and get to the point where you're even feeling that level of competence that you are going to have in front of your clients or your groups and just get to that level. Pull in your visualization, get there in your journal. And then you will slowly start to see that is also how you show up IRL in real life. And that is something that comes with consistency and patience and practice and just really staying on it and doing that kind 30:18 of mindset work, you know, the whoo stuff that really, really changes everything for you, once you commit to it. And once you start seeing the benefits, you will be hooked. So like I said, start with that journal, just get everything out, there's no prompts are anything, I just want you to really focus on what it looks like and what it feels like in your business for both you and your clients when you show up as the competent, qualified person that you are, and then transfer that over into your visualization and get as spicy and specific with it as you can, and then keep coming back to it. Okay, so that will wrap up today's episode, again, just something that is out there. It's happening a lot, it's a big deal. It's really keeping a lot of people from doing what they're really capable of doing and creating the business they're really capable of creating. And it does go back to that mindset work. That is something that we bring up here a lot on the podcast and for good reason. You can create all the programs, you can have all that you can have this amazing one on one client package, that you're never going to get anyone to buy because you don't believe in yourself and your capabilities. And that is mindset work. Okay, it's not about doing anything else different in your business is about doing something different within yourself within your own programming. And that's what we really need to focus on. So those are some reminders for you and some things to consider. And until next time, take care. Hey friends, Shawn here, and if you're a coach or practitioner who's looking to help more people, make more money and have more free time than I have a special invitation for you that you don't want to miss. Right now. I'm hosting a free masterclass that will walk you through the process of adding a signature program to your business. As many of you know, the signature program business bottle has been my primary way of doing business since 2017. And after seven programs of my own created and helping dozens of other wellness pros create theirs. I'm now sharing my exact process with you for free. In this one hour masterclass. Now, you might be thinking, Shawn, I'm just not ready to have my own program yet. Or I don't have the time to build a program right now. Are you crazy? I totally get it, I get all of it. Which is exactly why I created this training in the first place. I want you to see how possible this really is for you, and how simple it can be when you have a tried and true proven system in place, no matter where you're at in your business today. So if you're like most coaches and practitioners who have a dream of creating a scalable offering their business that helps the people that are meant to help without it being directly tied to your time and energy. Then there's a seat with your name on it inside my burnout proof your business masterclass. In just one hour, you're going to learn why adding a signature program will uncap your income potential forever and give you more time for your own life health, family and self care. You'll learn exactly how my clients sold out her first program, even with a small audience. Because of this one super simple marketing hack that I am going to reveal. You'll learn the simplified, foolproof process that will take your knowledge and experience and turn it into your own program in just six weeks, and also how to implement an automated marketing system that will grow an engaged audience full of Perfect Match clients that can't wait to enroll in your program. Once it's ready. Even if right now you're starting at zero. All you have to do is head to Shawnmynar.com/burnout proof and save your seat for this masterclass before it's gone. Shawnmynar.com/burnout Proof can't wait to see you there.    

You want controversy? We've got it! In this midweek podcast episode, Phoenix Hayes joins Frank to discuss the expanded third edition of his book, 'Correct, Not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism'. The transgender movement has seemingly swept the Western world by storm, and the ripple effect has resulted in the ostracizing of conservative values, the crippling of women's sports, and the mutilation of young children! Gender reassignment surgery and hormone replacement therapy has been marketed as the solution to those who believe they suffer from gender dysphoria (previously called gender identity disorder), but the data shows the exact opposite! Frank and Phoenix expose many of the shocking and horrific consequences of “transitioning”, show how same-sex marriage and transgenderism are ultimately harmful to our society, and answer some tough questions from our listeners! Including: Why has the Church been so silent on this issue? Why is transgenderism more common today in girls vs. boys? Should Christians use preferred pronouns? Should certain books be banned in schools? What is the definition of "tolerance" and how should the Church respond? What's next for the transgender movement and what can we do about it?   To participate in private Q&A sessions with Frank, Phoenix, and other members of the CE team on a variety of cultural issues, be sure to join our CrossExamined private community. It's the perfect place to jump into some great discussions with like-minded Christians while simultaneously providing financial support for our ministry. Correct, Not Politically Correct (Expanded Third Edition): https://bit.ly/3o0mTIP   Download Transcript

There has been a lot of talk about potential TV deals in the wrestling business lately, particularly with WWE being sold and Vince McMahon supposedly returning, in part, to oversee the negotiations with networks vying for the promotion's TV rights. It seems AEW's TV deal is up for grabs this year too, and it may well be on the cusp of signing an almost unbelievable new contract for a reported 1 billion dollars with Warner Brothers Discovery. What does this all mean for AEW, and how will AEW change of the next 5 years? Will we see AEW content streamed via HBO Max, like WWE has with Peacock? What does this mean for the industry as a whole, and the tribality of both the WWE, and AEW fanbases? Also, CCM Punk, and AEW Collision news, and news on a major feud for CM Punk that is NOT Chris Jericho, and major news, and notes coming out of what WWE touted was the most successful WWE Backlash PLE ever.  

Today's episode features an interview with real estate investor, Al Curiel, who specializes in performing notes. The interview covers Al's background in real estate, his decision to focus on notes, and how he scales his note investing business.  -------------------------------------------------------------- Al's Real Estate Journey [00:01:03] Investing in Notes [00:03:33] Avatar and Mentorship Program [00:05:38] Building a Virtual Assistant System [00:08:29] Scaling with Trial and Error [00:10:08] Getting Meaningful Deal Flow in the Note Space [00:13:37] Buying Non-Performing Notes [00:16:58] Pricing Changes in Non-Performing Notes [00:19:17] Rehabbing Strategies for Non-Performing Notes [00:21:40] -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Al: Web: www.AssociatesinRealEstateHoldings.com Email: info@associatesandrealestateholdings.com   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Al Curiel (00:00:00) - I don't want to be a process junkie, right? I, I do what I do best, which is raising capital, talking to customers, shaking hands, and kissing babies sort of thing. Um, the, the, the, the other stuff, the day-to-day grind, I lead to someone that is going to be managed by a supervisor that is going to give me results at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month. And we compare those in a gigantic spreadsheet as to what our production goals are for that specific quarter.   Intro (00:00:28) - Welcome to the How to Scale commercial real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:42) - Al Curiel is a real estate investor that focuses on performing notes, and he also has a mentorship program that focuses on investing in real estate using the power of meditation. Al, welcome to the show.   Al Curiel (00:00:53) - Thank you, Sam. Good to be here.   Sam Wilson (00:00:54) - Absolutely. Al the pleasures mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now, and how did you get there?   Al Curiel (00:01:03) - Started back in 19 90, 83 when I was, uh, 22 years old. Started with my first, uh, building, uh, it was a rental building, and, uh, I learned quickly that, uh, you need a whole lot more than just money to, uh, to succeed. And, um, my brother and I started the business. We, uh, survived through some of the corrections and, uh, eventually became wholesalers fixed and flippers, renters and all that stuff. And then finally in 2008, as a result of the waterfall from the 2008 debacle of the, uh, subprime market, we started focusing on performing and unperforming notes.   Sam Wilson (00:01:45) - Wow. So you've been in real estate. Gosh, you're going on four decades at this point. That's   Al Curiel (00:01:50) - Exactly right. I hate to admit it, Sam, but that's exactly right. .   Sam Wilson (00:01:53) - Hey, luck to you. Some people, some people don't make it that long, so, you know, there, there, there is that bright side to it. Um, but you've seen a lot. I mean, you've seen the savings in loan crisis. You've seen the.com bust. You've seen the oh eight crisis and now on, on the verge of who knows what right now, uh, just we see banks starting to collapse and things like that. So, I, I, I don't wanna dig in too far really into each of those sections. We just don't have time on the podcast. I'd love to hear kind of all the different things that you've done in that, but tell me why you do what you do now. I know we talked about this a little bit off air, and you kind of gave me some insight into the mess versus message or mess being your message sort of thing. So if you don't mind, give us some insight on that.   Al Curiel (00:02:36) - Not at all. I'll try to be as brief as, as I can, given the, the time constraints that we have, Sam. But basically what happened was I, being in, in so many markets and seeing so many adjustments, I couldn't tell, I didn't have a, a, a, a crystal ball to predict the future. But I certainly had a rear view mirror to see where he had been with, as you mentioned, the, the, the, the dark, uh, Monday of October 29th, 1989, that what happened in, with the doc, with the, uh, Y2K anticipation, with the savings and loans collapsing and, uh, now the 2008, nine and 10 issues with, with subprime markets, that made me realize that I was not gonna have time to recover from what I had seen in the past. So I decided to research for something else. And that's when I discovered that, uh, uh, the passive income that you realized from investing in performing and unperforming notes is where it's at.   Al Curiel (00:03:33) - Um, and that was a result of, of, again, what happened in 2008. Um, so they had, they had, they had the fallout of that mess still happening. Now you have Covid that happened in 2020. So we had a revival of that. You had the waterfall of 2008 that was still not resolved. The world stops, but commerce didn't stop. Commerce continued to work. So you had the supply supply chain issue. You had the perfect storm of covid and then the fallout of 2008. So what was gonna happen to all that inventory of, of properties? And the answer was in the banks inventory that were not being sold. So we did some research. My brother decided, you know, he's had a family, so he says he couldn't, he couldn't withstand the rigors of, and the stress of, of not having inventory to flip. So I, I did it along and, and, uh, I discovered that investing in notes was a lot easier than investing in, in fixed and flipping, because you can make money with a pen instead of swinging a hammer. Right. And that's what bedwin focus in for the last, uh, well now 10 years now.   Sam Wilson (00:04:40) - Wow. That's really, really cool. And are you buying just performing or performing and non-performing nodes?   Al Curiel (00:04:46) - We, yeah, we, we, we purchase a performing notes for our P portfolio. We pur we purchase those for our retirement. Hmm. Um, through your, through our, our Roth IRAs and the nonperforming notes, we rehab, we rehab them. Just like you can rehab a house, you can rehab a loan, right? Um, you can, you have three, three different ways of, of rehabbing, quote unquote a loan. And, uh, those we sell to our customers by way of partials. So let's just say, Sam, for instance, you have a, I bought, I buy a 30, 30 year loan from, let's just say Bank of America. Bank of America, send me a loan that is not performing. I buy it at a discount. I fixed it a little bit, and then I flip it to Sam. So outta that 30 year loan, I sell Sam 10 years. At the end of the 11th, uh, month, the 11th year, the, the note comes back to me.   Al Curiel (00:05:38) - So why do I do that? Two things. I share the risk with my customer and, uh, the customer gets the truly passive income that he wants for a certain period of time while he tries it out. If he likes it, he'll continue on with it. If he doesn't, we part company friends and everything is cool. So that's our mantra, that's our model. Um, my avatar, our personal avatar is as I, I told you before, the, the start of the show, uh, is somebody in, at or near retirement age that has three concerns. His health not of living his income and, uh, establishing a legacy for his descendants and his descendants. So that, that was my, that was my issue. So I figured that this is something that most people in my age group would, would probably want to hear about. And that's what we created the mentorship program.   Sam Wilson (00:06:27) - Yeah, I mean, cuz I, I can only imagine, you know, I think you shared, I don't know if you said your, your age here on the show, or you told me that beforehand, but either way, you know, you know who your avatar is and you know what their concerns are mm-hmm.  and I would imagine mm-hmm. , the, the, the note space is something that, like you said, you can, you can make money with a pen, not with a hammer. And the person in your, your avatar. That's, that's   Al Curiel (00:06:52) - I'm 62, Sam, I'm full disclosure. I'm 62. I'm not afraid to say it.   Sam Wilson (00:06:55) - You're not afraid to say it. Great. I didn't, I didn't wanna I didn't wanna, you know, air your dirty laundry. No, I'm joking. It's not dirty laundry , uh, here on the show. But I think that's a really powerful thing cuz you, you've defined who your avatar is and what it is that they need. And I think so many people haven't, especially as we are raising capital as we are doing deals, don't necessarily know who our investor base is necessarily. They haven't figured out what their areas of concern are, and then they can't appropriately bring a product necessarily to market that that particular person may need. Tell me, I I guess from a more, more, um, just just the nuts and bolts of what you do, how, how do you scale the node investing business?   Al Curiel (00:07:37) - We have, um, I, I reali initially it was just a one minute operation, right Sam, and then with the editor of my brother, after we, we decided that our spark company, because we ran out of inventories and we found ourselves empty handed after 89, after 2000, he just couldn't stand it. So he says, we have no inventory. What, what now Einstein? And I said, I says, I got a family, I gotta, I got offend him. He says, okay, God bless you. Go. So I had to be a one man operation, and as I started investing in it, it was, it was just me. But as I started to get more properties and I started raising more money and I started getting more investors, then I had to seek the services of virtual, uh, assistance. So now for that, I have specific, I have, I have, I have several, um, assistant firms that, that help me with different tasks.   Al Curiel (00:08:29) - I have an acquisitions manager, I have a sales manager, I have a due diligence manager, and then I have a sales manager. Those sales, and these are people that are in the Philippines and do some of my calling. Um, I have people in India that do some of my systems and social media management. And then I have people in Jamaica that do the actual negotiations, and the sales manager is there so that I hold everyone accountable. We have meetings every Tuesday afternoon. We, uh, we find where we were last year, how many leads came in, where we're at right now, how we are in raising money and where we go next month. So we have to keep everything in a journal. And I write, I mean, I dunno if you can see, but I got back here. I got journals that go back about 35 years of everything that I do every single day of my existence. I journal every day. I meditate every day, and I draft a plan of action for how my day is gonna shape out and how it ended up looking at the end of the day. So that's keep, that keeps me focused and allows me that flexibility and the latitude to pivot if I make changes to my scaling business.   Sam Wilson (00:09:36) - Wow, that's really, really cool. I, I, I would the, the building the system with that many, uh, or building your systems around virtual assistance, I think that's one, you know, you hear a VAs handling, you know, certain repetitive tasks, data mining mm-hmm. , you know, whatever it is. But scaling it the way you have done it, it's, it sounds pretty powerful. I mean, what are, what are some of the, what are some of the tips or maybe challenges that you faced when scaling with VAs and how did you overcome those? Because I think   Al Curiel (00:10:08) - It was, it was, it was a, it was a trial and error, uh, uh, enterprise, um, uh, Sam because you, I initially started with one individual and I thought this person was going to be the be all and all. And, and it's trial and error, Sam, because sometimes they don't work out. Sometimes they do. And so what I try to do is I try to keep them motivated and have three of everything. If I have, if I have a, a solid, lemme just give it, for instance, without getting too deep in the weeds and, and bore you to death. But basically, let's just say for my due diligence, I have someone that is, uh, I got hired somebody that is really good. And then, uh, through this other website that I, that I go for Upwork or, uh, assistant.com or something like that. I get a mediocre one and then one that is, it is okay, but it's a workforce by works when he or she wants, which is not really effective.   Al Curiel (00:11:02) - So I have three of those so that I'm constantly hiring. So if the, if the bad one falls off, then I have another bank of, of of VAs that I can pick from that is going to replace the not so good one with a mediocre one. Well then if the mediocre one in the middle falls off, then I have a, a, uh, the really good one to, to replace them. And I just keep con I continue to mix an experiment with their motivation with, with what, what Dr. Their why. You gotta find out your why. And then I let 'em, and then I let 'em go with, uh, with, with what they do, always keeping them on task and always having meetings to, to hold them accountable. It was really difficult, but we had the system down really good so that I know who I can call on what task on any given day. And when you motivate 'em like that, when you keep 'em on a, on a, I don't wanna say short leash, but it is a short leash, then you know what the ex they manage your expectations and you manage theirs.   Sam Wilson (00:12:01) - Right? No, I think that's super powerful. And that's, uh, I like the, the the doing things in in in duplicate or duplicate there where if some something isn't working out, you're not dead in the water because you've put all your eggs in one basket and, and they move, you know,   Al Curiel (00:12:17) - It, it, it, it is huge when you, you know, when you realize, I mean, and I'm paying these, these folks, uh, you know, nominal amounts by, by by us compare standards. But still, nevertheless, I need the activity. I need to continue to be out there. I I don't want to be a process junkie, right? I, I do what I do best, which is raising capital, talking to customers, shaking hands and kissing babies sort of thing. Um, the, the, the, the other stuff, the day-to-day grind, I lead to someone that is going to be managed by a supervisor that is going to give me results at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month. And we compare those in a gigantic spreadsheet as to what our production goals are for that specific quarter. And we match those. And if we need to tweak it, we tweak it.   Sam Wilson (00:13:03) - That's really, really powerful. I love, I love the thought process behind that. And also just the idea that it's trial and error. I think. So oftentimes thank you. We get right the first time where it's like, okay, we're gonna do this and this is the way we're gonna do it. Whereas it's, it's probably more of an iterative process than we want, uh, want to admit. Let's, it   Al Curiel (00:13:20) - Usually is   Sam Wilson (00:13:20) - . Let's talk a little bit about deal flow. I mean, how, how do you, uh, when it comes to the scaling side of things, how do you get meaningful deal flow in the note space? Like, who sells 'em, who buys 'em? How do you get in front of sellers? It seems like an obscure market.   Al Curiel (00:13:37) - Yeah, it is a rather obscure market. Not many people know about it. It's a specialized niche that again, was, was found through trial and error and, and just investigating. And I'm one stubborn son of a gun. I, you know, the more you tell me you can't do something, then the more I'm gonna try and, and, and prove you wrong. So that's, that's part of my stuff. That's my makeup, that's my father's teachings. And, and, and us and, and what have you. He was an entrepreneur himself, so I don't give up easily. And so I decided to look as to, into what was the problem, getting inventory of houses to rehab in 2008 and through again, research and research. And I found out that banks and hedge funds have a specific asset managers that are tasked with getting rid of, of pro inventory, of notes that they don't want, that are not working, that are not performing, or that are performing.   Al Curiel (00:14:32) - And the bank and the hedge fund needs capital to redeploy to be able to lend for cars, uh, personal items, appliances, whatever, what have you. So I decided, let's just say for instance, one day I decided to call the Bank of America, of the world the asset manager or the Wells Fargo, uh, person of the world or at digital capital hedge fund on any given day. And say, Mr. Asset Manager, this is Al Curiel from the name of my firm, blah, blah, blah. Do you have any, uh, assets that you wish to get rid of this quarter? And initially, Sam, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sugar code. It, it was, it was a lot of rejection. They didn't know me from Adam, but I stayed consistent. I decided when it was a good time to call, I ne I decided, hmm, let, let's be smart here about this curio, I don't call on Monday.   Al Curiel (00:15:17) - I didn't call on Tuesday, I didn't call on Wednesday. I started to call them when the week was kind of dying down Thursday and Friday at two o'clock, they're more likely to pick up the phone. So I started establishing more dialogue. So after a, you established report, more dialogue, then one day, one day, Sam boom, I got an inventory of 20 non-performing loans. And lucky for me, I was able, I had capital that I had raced before that I was able to buy in bulk. So now I have a set of 20, 20 a list, or what they call a tape, I don't know what they call it, a tape. It's a spreadsheet of 20 loans. And they said, all right, pick whatever you want here and uh, if you want to buy 'em all, we'll give you a greater discount then buying on a per piece basis.   Al Curiel (00:16:03) - I, we'll sell you the case and you can sell 'em off by the bottom. I said, okay. So I, I had enough, I had enough of a discount built into it because we're still talking 2008 when you can get a hundred thousand dollars loan for $13,000. I was able to do that. I bought all 20 of 'em. I established a rapport with that company. All I need is five. All I need is five for the number of investors that I have. So I established rapport with another one and another one and another one. And that's how the scaling came about. I'm, I'm, I'm giving you the Reader's Digest version of it. It's this lot more that goes into it, Sam, but for our purposes, that's basically how it happened.   Sam Wilson (00:16:41) - That's, that's really, really fascinating cuz that, that was gonna be one of my questions was when you're dealing with Wells Fargo, bank of America, I mean they, I can't imagine that they'd wanna sell one at a time loans off. That's, that just seems just not, it's not the way they're gonna do business.   Al Curiel (00:16:58) - Correct. They don't, um, and they give you, when, when those asset managers, those asset managers are people like you and me, they get up in the morning, they have families they have to feed, and they have quotas to get rid of loans that they need to get rid of. And if they don't, there's hell to be paid, right? So, uh, it, it behooves them to work with as many investors and to show how these investor, how serious these fit investors are. So if they offer me a bulk of a, a a lot of twin 25, whatever, maybe commercial loans, I have to have enough backing meaning capital so that I can build my credibility, continue to keep that credibility so that, uh, the inventory keeps coming. So that's why on the, you have to anticipate, you have to plan how much money you're gonna raise before you approach these people.   Al Curiel (00:17:46) - And, and I'm just using the example of, of Bank of America, regional banks are very good for that. Regional banks sell assets that, that sweet, that sweet spot for us is anything between 25 and $120,000. Hmm. Right. That's our sweet spot. That, and you find those mostly in the Rust Bell states. Right? All right. It's hard for investors in New York and in California to re to get their minds wrapped around the low ban assets in those states. And I'm talking about Michigan, I'm talking about Indiana, I'm talking about Ohio, maybe some Georgia, maybe some South Carolina, and definitely some Texas. And so I can get an answer again, to give an example, to be very simple about it, a hundred thousand dollars loan that I can now I can, I can pick up for about maybe 40 cents on the dollar.   Sam Wilson (00:18:37) - Wow.   Al Curiel (00:18:38) - So, you know, when I, when I have these people in, in San Francisco, the investors in San Francisco were in mailbox is $150,000 . Right? I mean, they, you can see how there's like, oh, okay, well then I don't have to, I don't have to deal with toilets trash or non paying tenants. Right? I can be the owner, I can take the place of the bank, be the bank, right, and not worry about servicing anything. And I get the monthly income. All I get, all I get is a servicing company that is going to allocate your escrows your taxes and your insurance. And then the difference goes in Pocket National Bank every month.   Sam Wilson (00:19:17) - How th this is really fascinating. And I, and I love, uh, I love personally the, uh, non-performing note strategy. I think that's, that's, it's a great one. It's, it's where there's opportunity, I think still. And I'm, I'm invested as a passive investor, uh, in some other non-performing note funds. Even one I think's spaced outta your hometown there in Chicago. Um, okay. But, but the, how, I guess, how has that pricing changed? I know you mentioned before and you said maybe in 2008, like 10 to 20% maybe was the range that you were buying those on, and now you're saying it's, you can still pick up NPNs in the 40%.   Al Curiel (00:19:54) - 40%. Yeah. And the reason for that is because now, now that it's, now that the catch outta the back, so to speak, it's a sexy thing to invest in. Now most people are now finding out about non-performing notes, right? As you get more demand, the pr obviously the price goes up, right? So that's, uh, that's what happened. But with volume, with volume now you continue to have the discount. So I'm beginning to see those, it, it used to be 65 to 75% for non-performing known. Now they're, they're coming down to like 55, 45, 40, 40, 40 cents on a dollar. That's how I'm able to get 'em. Um, but initially in 2008 they were, because they were virtually unknown by anybody, right? Um, that this discounts were greater. But now with, with time or more invest investors being involved, more mentorship programs out there, more gurus teaching this kind of thing, it's become more of a, of a, of a, of a sexy thing to invest in.   Al Curiel (00:20:50) - And not as readily available as, as it was. But still, you can make very, very healthy, very healthy returns. And the, if I may share with the, with the group, what, what with your group, what, what some of those Strat rehabbing strategies are. Yeah. One is to modify the loan. Yep. Um, if, if you can modify the loan and, and if the person loses his job, person stops paying his mortgage for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is divorce, loss of a job, loss of some kind of loss of income, right? But they, they, they love the house. They, you know, they, you see flowers are on the flower bed and mama don't wanna move, right? She just wants to do whatever they want, whatever they need to do to make it. That's, that's number one thing. So you modify the loan, even though they get a job at a lesser paying thing, you can reduce the mortgage, you can reduce the interest rate, you can modify it, period.   Al Curiel (00:21:40) - The other thing is, if, if they, if they modify the loan and they are still not able to, um, to pay it, then I like to be really tough on the problem and soft on the people, Sam. So I say, why don't we part friends? You know, you've clearly you've been, we've tried this modification of the loan, you can't pay it. Um, I'll tell you what I'll do. I will not report those, those four or five months that you're behind to the credit bureau. I will back up the U-Haul. You put all your stuff in there, you leave the house just as clean as when Bank of America or Wells Fargo sold it to you when you got your loan. And upon inspection, if everything is, is copacetic, I'll drop you a check for a thousand dollars. You gimme the keys, you gimme the deed, and we're we're good. Right? That's,   Sam Wilson (00:22:26) - They avoid a foreclosure on the record that way.   Al Curiel (00:22:29) - It's a deed and lie. Exactly right. Cash for key de and lie. That's what they foreclosure. And there's no deficiencies that I de demand. So we all, we we leave in good. He's, he has a chance to start life, I knew. And the third thing, which is more, the more drastic, uh, uh, measure is, is foreclosure. Um, and that, for that, and that is the reason why I do not buy in judicial states. Judicial states like Illinois. I do not buy in my own backyard because in Illinois, foreclosing on somebody is gonna take me about 298 days. I can't afford that. Cuz I deal with the velocity of money with my investors. They can't sit there waiting for their money to be, to be, to be returned. Right? So I go to non-judicial states like again, Texas, um, uh, Michigan, Indiana, even though it's, it's traditional non-judicial, there's special ways that you can do to, to speed up the process. Georgia and one of the car Carolinas, that's where we focus our investments in. And, uh, so that's, that's how we are able to, to scale how you were to rehab the loans. And, um, if somebody's not paying, I'm taking it all the way to foreclosure, I can wait no more than 120 days.   Sam Wilson (00:23:37) - That's fantastic. Al I'm I, I got about 25 more questions for you. We're at the end of the show. This has been absolutely fascinating. I love your strategy. I love the way you do it. You've shared with us systems, you've shared with us the value of non-performing notes. You've shared with us the ability, a a and kind of the mindset behind finding who your investor avatar is and how you solve their problems. If our listeners wanna get in touch with you or learn more about you, or maybe even the notes that you guys are working on right now, what is the best way to do that?   Al Curiel (00:24:05) - You can contact, uh, our website. You take a look at our website, it's Associates and real estate holdings.com. I know it's a long one, but it's Associates and Real estate holdings.com. Or you can, uh, uh, get a, on our, our list, it's info at associates and real estate holdings.com, we're gonna have our, our our first, uh, three day, uh, event coming up at the end of of May. So if anybody wants to get details, they can find 'em at info.   Sam Wilson (00:24:32) - Fantastic. We'll make sure we include that all there in the show notes. Al thank you again for coming on the show today. I do appreciate it,   Al Curiel (00:24:38) - Sam. Take care.   Sam Wilson (00:24:40) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can, do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.  

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Alex and Keev go back and fix the mistakes of Sports Illustrated and the Associated Press, identifying the correct deserving winners of Athlete of the Year for every year of our lives. This episode's outro is As The Years Go By by Mashmakhan. This episode is sponsored by Caldera Lab, which creates high performance men's skincare products by combining pharmaceutical-grade science, along with nature's purest and most potent ingredients. Use code 32FANS at calderalab.com or just go directly to calderalab.com/32FANS for 20% off their best products! This episode is also sponsored by MANSCAPED. Use promo code 32fans at MANSCAPED.com to get 20% off and free shipping on the Lawn Mower® 4.0. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Are you weary of people calling themselves PR professionals who seem to be storytelling their careers? The few who talk a good game, leaving a trail of disgruntled clients? In this episode we talk about ways PR practitioners – from those new to the profession to seasoned pros – can represent our profession well.   Transcript: Michelle Kane (00:02): Thank you for joining us for another episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today? Karen Swim, APR (00:19): Hey, Michelle. I'm doing great. Solidarity to the writers who of this recording are on strike. We stand with writers, hang in there WGA, we hope that you get what you need and deserve. And if I were in California, I would be out there with you on the picket line. Michelle Kane (00:42): I fully agree. Fully agree. I hope that the WGA gets everything they are asking for because they are the backbone of all of the projects on which they serve. Karen Swim, APR (00:54): Yes. Michelle Kane (00:55): You know, if you like watching things where words come out of people's mouths, , you need to thank the writers. Karen Swim, APR (01:02): Absolutely. And that's kind of a funny segue. I mean, serious topic, but yeah. Writing, storytelling. Hmm. And PR peeps who might be storytelling their careers just a tad too much. Michelle Kane (01:20): Just a little bit. Yes. We're going to to carefully edge into these waters. I'm sure we, you'll soon be nodding listeners, these people that come into your path, these self-declared am I going to say the word, the G word, gurus, the people that come across as very flashy, but you soon find out there's precious little substance, however they present themselves as seasoned PR professionals. And, you know, it just really, it doesn't do any of us any good. It's not a service to us. In fact, it's a disservice of the hard work that truly seasoned professionals put in. And you know, I say this a lot and I think just as technology grows, and I'm not even talking about AI, I'm talking about the Canvas of the world, the people who, “I have a MAC, I'm a designer.” That whole mindset of you can do anything. Well, yes, but to a point. To a point. Even though, we're not licensed, we're not doctors. We don't get to call ourselves “Dr. PR professional,” there's still a lot of training and experience that goes into doing what we do well. Karen Swim, APR (02:41): There should be yeah. And I mean, while we have the APR credential and some people do have a degree in comms, the access point to practice the profession, like so many these days is, is very low. You could just set up shop and call yourself a digital PR person. I came up in PR from a very non-traditional way. And the reason that I pursued my APR is because I wanted to have that foundation. I wanted to have the language, I wanted to have the breadth of information to be able to really practice as a professional. So this discussion today is not saying that you have to go the traditional way in order to be a professional, but what we are imploring people to do is to strive to be a professional. Please do not be out there, as Michelle said, calling yourself an expert, calling yourself a professional, calling yourself professional when you can't even write a PR plan. There are just some things going into running your own business that you really should know how to do. And you should know how to do some of the things well. You don't have to know how to do everything. You don't have to be perfect at everything. If social media is not your jam, that's okay. You can partner with people to walk you through that. But if you do not know how to research, plan, implement, evaluate, notice how I used RPIE. Please learn. Please learn. I beg of you to go learn. This came out of previous discussions because I think it's very frustrating when people who take this profession so seriously and do consider ourselves to be professionals, when we see questions coming from other people, or we see content being produced by other people that we know is not at the level of professionalism it can be very, very frustrating. And people get very angry about that and they feel as though it diminishes the entire profession by bad actors. Michelle Kane (05:17): Indeed, indeed. And like you said, there is a huge difference between aligning with or putting people on your team to fill certain roles at a professional level. That's not what we're talking about. I spent some time as an account executive at an ad agency, and really that's been my model ever since. You are the person, you are the hub, you build the strategy, you work with all of the players to make things happen. And of course, you know, I'm also a writer, so I wear that hat as well, which comes in handy. But I noticed as time has gone on and, thank goodness for the internet, it's made it easy for us to set up solo shops. But I've seen a lot of people setting up shop and I would just say to myself this is why you need an account executive. This is why you need someone like us who creates the strategy, who oversees it all? Who orchestrates it? Who knows what is good and what isn't? Who knows the difference between good design and bad design? I mean, and I am eternally grateful actually to the agency where I started - you look back, it was a good thing at the time, but as you look back, you realize, oh my goodness. In fact, I was chatting with an ex-coworker, gosh, a few years back, she had moved on to a different position and she was waiting for approval for an ad. And you know, that's something we did. So she thought, well, I'm just going to approve it. And she got her hand slapped because that wasn't the right channel. And she said, well, there was a deadline. I knew it was right. . Karen Swim, APR (07:04): Yeah. Michelle Kane (07:05): You know, but all that, to bring it back to our topic of, you need someone, when you're working with clients, who has that experience, who just knows how to guide a client through something and isn't just throwing it together haphazardly because you know that's not going to last long, that that's not going to serve them well for the long run, certainly isn't going to leave a trail of happy clients. And those unhappy clients are going to say, “Ugh, PR, I worked with someone, it was terrible. Karen Swim, APR (07:44): Well, I think another thing that really is a personal pet peeve of mine is that you have people calling themselves either PR professionals or that they practice PR and to them that strictly equates to media relations. But then they're not even good at media relations. These are the people that spam the universe hoping for something to stick. They don't have a strategy, they're not aligned with the client's overall goals. There's nothing but tactics. And yeah, any monkey can put together a bunch of emails and you know what, even a broken clock is right twice a day. So it's frustrating because then you have clients and, maybe you're getting media for them may not be quality media. Maybe you are able to land tier one coverage, but it's just about that. And that's all you do. You have one trick in your tool bag and that's it. And then when the client is not happy, because you don't have the skillset to be able to be more nuanced in how you practice, and you're not able to really deliver a higher value strategy, you're going to turn through your clients very quickly. And then these are the people that come to true pros and say, “Ugh, we don't believe in PR.” Well, they don't believe in PR because they've never seen it practice before. And that's because we have these people that are playing at the profession and it's time to stop playing. Right. And again, not to make anyone feel bad about maybe being newer to the profession or maybe learning, but it's an encouragement to please learn. And does not mean that you have to, you know, learn like a textbook worth of things before you can start. Maybe you start it, maybe there are some things you know, but please up your game level up because you really do, you know, you're lowering the bar for all of us. And that's not okay. It impacts our ability to earn a living. It impacts our ability to do our job well because we, as PR professionals, part of our job is to protect our publics. That's not just our clients. And you have to know that responsibility. In order to protect it and if you're not bothering to learn what this job really entails, that's not a good look. It's almost like, would you go and order a custom cake from a bakery where the person knew how to spot great cakes and maybe knew how to draw, but didn't know how to bake and they're learning on the job. And so sometimes it's good because like, oh look, they hit on something that work, but sometimes it's not and they don't really know what to do, but they're figuring it out as they go along. You are a business. You have a responsibility to come into this game with some skillset, some level of skillset, please. Michelle Kane (11:03): Right, right. And, just to build on that of, you know, don't feel bad. I mean, if you're just starting out, then those are the services that you offer, where your comfort zone is with an eye on growth. You know what you do really well. Focus on that until you do other things better. I mean, we're always learning - all of us, or at least we should be. And just talking to those of us who might have come to a client who's coming off of a bad experience, have a discussion about that. Say, oh, well, okay, what happened there? Oh, okay. And that can, you know, again, we're always talking about educating our clients. That can be an instructive moment of, well, so no, here's what you can expect working with me or working with us. You know, we will make sure that x, y, z happens. You know, just help them to get beyond that perception of that bad experience. Karen Swim, APR (12:06): Oh my gosh, absolutely. I think, you know, to be honest with you, I've had a few clients like that. We've had two recently that we really just dug deep. Rather than running away when they say, “Oh yeah, we had a bad experience with PR, we're not afraid to ask the questions because we're trying to make a decision if we want to work with this particular client. Because sometimes it's not the agency, sometimes it's the client. Right. So don't be afraid of just digging deeper for your own satisfaction to know, like, okay, is there something like, as you said, that I can learn from this situation. Is this someone that really could be a great client? Or are these red flags? I mean, but you don't know until you dig and you ask, right. And you ask for examples and then you talk through it. And I have found that with reasonable adults and professionals, sometimes you can work through things and you have a greater understanding. And sometimes the way somebody else practice is not the way that you practice. And that same misunderstanding would not have happened. And so it could be a good fit for you. Michelle Kane (13:23): Correct. Yeah. Karen Swim, APR (13:24): Again, the people that do not have the expertise that are just, you know, get a client, lose a client, no big deal. They just, they're churning quickly. This is not what any of us want to be representative of PR it, I know of an agency still standing, their whole M.O. for many, many, many years has been to bring clients in, spend a lot of time on discovery, not really deliver anything of value have junior people on the account, and then by the time they're out of discovery and supposed to be delivering results, they get fired and they just move on to the next client. So they just purposely turn through and are making their money by holding onto people through a false period of discovery and not really delivering results. This is so completely unethical. But I would always also say, check your ethics if you're selling something that you do not know how to do. Because you should know how to do what clients are paying you to do. Let's just be clear about that , it's fine to have a really narrow engagement. Last week on our program, we had a wonderful guest, Katie Boos, who is a seasoned PR pro with an agency, but she found through practicing her profession, that she really loved events and she really loved the, you know, getting speakers. And so she leaned into that slice of thought leadership hard. And that's what she does. She has a very narrow specific focus in her PR practice and she delivers on it. She's good at it. She continues to learn and to grow and to deliver what clients expect from her. So it's fine to not be a generalist. It's fine not to have all the skillsets. Maybe there is a slice of PR that you actually are good at. As Michelle said, focus on that slice. And if you want to build your skills, there's ways to do that through hands-on learning by working with other pros. You know, be honest and say, “Hey, is there an assignment that I could work on with you that I'm trying to build my skills in X?” Right. And I don't have that skillset, but I'm willing to learn if you're willing to teach, and I can pitch in and help on the account, but being open and honest with other professionals is really important too, because if you're in professional circles or groups and forums and you're asking 101 questions, you are going to create people that have zero desire to help you and will have no respect for you as a professional. You see through that straight away and you just think, huh, okay, what are we doing here? And it's frustrating and it can be demoralizing, but, you know, try not to let it . And I love what you said about, you know, niching down if that's, and that is the beauty. As we often talk about being a solo shop. Even if you, even if you're a micro agency or something larger than a one person business, you get to create the business that you want, which is a wonderful thing. But, you know, at the same time, yeah, we have to tolerate some people that just pop out there and, and suddenly and, and you know, you see it everywhere, right? You see it in job listings where someone's looking for a marketing coordinator and lists all these things with horrible pay and you realize that's really a director position and that person needs a team and good luck with that. Those are also potentially, well, depending, obviously if the pays not very good, you're not going to pop in. But sometimes those are fun to just play with and say, Hey, would do you want to hire consultants? Karen Swim, APR (17:38): And I think that the existence of many of those want the world at low prices kind of originated with people doing things that really weren't qualified to do. And didn't know to charge the right value.  Because it's not really what they do. And I mean, PR is not the only profession where people are overselling themselves. Marketing, you know, is rife with social media. It's why you have people out here thinking, oh, well if you're Gen Z I'll just hire you to do my social media because you're a digital native. But does that person understand how to align your social media strategy with your company goals, by the way? Yeah. They know what strategy or do they know the tactics because the tactics are important, but who's going to guide your strategy? Michelle Kane (18:30): Right. Do they know, do they know what brand voice is ? Karen Swim, APR (18:35): Probably not. Have you talked to some of these people? Do they know personas? Do they know how to do message maps? All of these things that professionals will tell you. Do they know how to ride a crisis plan around social media to protect you? Is there an escalation plan should something happen? These are all things that professionals recommend and it's not overkill. We recommend and we do these things because we understand the depth and breadth of our jobs and we know that it's more than being task monkeys. Which none of us are. And I'm sure , I believe with all my heart that most of our listeners are not. And so this again, is not an indictment for anyone starting. It's not being the, you know, mean PR girls that are like, “Ugh, you suck and you should get out of this job.” It is an encouragement for all of us to uplift the profession. By really living up to what it really means to be a PR pro. It's already hard enough to fight against clients who are out here calling press releases articles, and it's like nails on a chalkboard for me. Yeah. I get that. That's a little thing. But we all have those little things that drive us over the edge. Like yeah, that's not an article. It's a news release. And in some cases, you're right, girl, that's not even an article that is a marketing brochure. And I cannot put this on a site. Michelle Kane (20:10): We can repurpose our content in appropriate ways, but we shouldn't just take the copy and put it everywhere. Karen Swim, APR (20:18): The media does not want your product brochure. Michelle Kane (20:22): No. Karen Swim, APR (20:23): But it's not on the wire. Michelle Kane (20:25): Exactly. No, no, no, it's not. And actually in the back of my mind, I'm already thinking, okay, who's the listener looking to buy the domain name task monkeys.com ? Karen Swim, APR (20:36): It might be me. I don't know. We'll see. But I mean, we're joking, but we are. Yeah. And you know, Michelle and I hope that we are always a source of encouragement and information, and this is something we wanted to address because it is being discussed among PR professionals and it is something that bothers us too, because we work too hard in what we are building. You listeners, you're part of the, we work too hard, we strive too hard to get where we are in our careers. Many of you did put in time in traditional PR roles and came out of agencies in leadership positions. Some were client side, some went to school and you know,  your major is in comms, others are APRs and you're proud of this job. And I believe that that is something that we all share. We're proud to do this job. We love this profession and solos. We really have to make sure that we are continuing to set a high standard and not lower ourselves to these people that are really n not a credit to our profession, but we continue to raise the bar so that we're setting a standard for the next generation coming up behind us. Michelle Kane (22:03): Yeah, I agree. And I think especially as solos and or self-employed micro agency leaders, because what credibility do we have beyond our track record and the perception of our profession? Because it's not like we don't produce widgets that we can say, look, my product is beautiful. See how nice it is. No, our service is our product. So it's so important. Karen Swim, APR (22:32): 100%. And I know the younger generation is, they're more comfortable with fluidity. They will get a job and they will leave a job in a heartbeat. Like zero emotion about it. Like Yeah, I'm not doing that. But you cannot bring that same attitude into running your own business because at some point you're going to run out a runway. Yeah. I mean you could drop around, you could practice in different countries, but there's something very satisfying about having a reputation that says you deliver results. It's personally rewarding because you're connected. You're the person that's producing the service, and you get to see the outcomes of that service. And building a reputation based on results and meeting the expectations that you set, that's what's going to give you longevity. That is what is going to allow you to scale your business. That is the thing that you can tap into. You can tap into that bank of trust. And that does become more important because it's expensive and exhausting to keep hopping around and churning through clients. It's not the way, I promise you, at some point in your lives, you will get a bit older and you will see that that takes a toll because you're constantly having to expend the energy and there's a price tag to continually onboarding new people. Yeah. It gets old. It's not as fun as it sounds and you think, you know, you can't keep treat treating your clients as though they're dispensable. And this environment today should maybe help you to take note of that, that they are not dispensable, they are valuable. People do move to other companies. They do remember. And your leads may one day dry up. Because you're not who you said that you were. Michelle Kane (24:36): Yeah. It's so true. So true. Well, we hope that you've gotten value out of this today. We hope that every week, but especially today, I, you know, I'm sure many of you were nodding your heads rolling, your eyes giggling along with us, but we are so grateful for you and the time that you give to us. And we are equally grateful if you share this around, if you know someone who's going through this and if this might help, just give them some encouragement. We would love to be a part of that. And until next time, thanks for joining us on That Solo Life.  

For just the second time in three horrifying years, Kevin and Kornflake are together in the same place for the Flopcast! And that place is... a hotel room in New Hampshire! (This is Kornflake's home state, and that explains A LOT.) To celebrate, we're learning some weird New Hampshire facts involving UFOs, old libraries, state songs, and a shopping mall where Kornflake may have gone to college. We also go through a list of famous people from New Hampshire, including three SNL cast members and someone who witnessed Kevin's terrible old Spam-juggling act. Finally Kornflake breaks out some giant weird New Hampshire cookies, and there is much chomping. This was all part of her plan to help Kevin carb up for a half marathon the following day. (Update: Kornflake promised miserable steady rain for the whole race, and she was CORRECT.) The Flopcast website! The ESO Network! The Flopcast on Facebook! The Flopcast on Instagram! The Flopcast on Mastadon! Please rate and review The Flopcast on Apple Podcasts! Email: info@flopcast.net Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation! This week's promo: Earth Station Who!  

Kat Event recap GO DEVILS & Tipping Issue  Publicly Shamed By ‘The Cart Narcs' Neighbors Fight Over No Mow May Where is Cookie on Cinco De Mayo? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*Royal Truman, PhD: RSR hosts Fred Williams & Doug McBurney welcome Dr. Royal Truman to discuss creation, biology, information science and more! Royal is fluent in five languages and received bachelor's degrees in chemistry and computer science from SUNY Buffalo, an M.B.A from the University of Michigan, his PhD in organic chemistry from Michigan State, with post-graduate studies in bioinformatics at the universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg in Germany. Royal believes the God of Abraham created the universe, and that His Son Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. *Thomas Schneider's Ev: The Punchline: Many evolutionists refer to the work of Thomas Schneider and his Ev program's “proof” that useful information can arise without a creator. Dive into Dr. Truman's refutation of Dr, Schneider's alleged proof that new biological information can arise naturalistically. *Where did the evolutionists go wrong? In simulations they assume that if random mutations changed a protein and / or DNA patterns so that in rare cases they facilitated binding at 1 site this would automatically be selected for! They have this backward. Natural selection would act against finding new binding sites during the non-functional generations. First, statistically virtually all random bindings would be in the wrong places. This messes up the system, creates errors, and wastes resources since proteins could otherwise be used for something useful. Therefore, the competing organisms missing this junk would be better off. Being more fit they would out-populate those doing wasteful nonsense. Correct binding location per se does nothing. If a codon would attach to the right part of the tRNA (the anti-codon region, very unlikely) nothing would happen. ✓ Binding sites need a whole complex machinery to process the code represented by the binding site. Like ribosomes. Or DNA polymerases in the case of genes. ✓ After a transcription factor attaches to a DNA region, it recruits many of exactly the right partner proteins to perform a function. ✓ Often binding sites need to be carefully prepared. Enzymes edit them. Like tRNAs. Otherwise, the 3-nucleotide anti-codon region would not be recognized. New binding sites require new nanomachines which means more DNA (new genes) and more protein. ✓ This slows down the replication time of cells, costs time, energy and material. If a new binding site could arise through random mutations after millions of years, those cells would have long since gotten rid of what was significantly deleterious. Natural selection would work against creating even one new kind of binding site! *The Business of Science: Dr. Truman encourages Christians who have a passion for the sciences to pursue those passions faithfully! Industry needs, (and will hire) scientists who pursue the truth, (even aside from the espousing of the evolutionary worldview). *Chemistry & Computer Science: Hear how a knowledge of information science, in addition to chemistry is essential to understanding and unlocking the potential of binding sites, and why the information involved could not have arisen naturalistically.

*Royal Truman, PhD: RSR hosts Fred Williams & Doug McBurney welcome Dr. Royal Truman to discuss creation, biology, information science and more! Royal is fluent in five languages and received bachelor's degrees in chemistry and computer science from SUNY Buffalo, an M.B.A from the University of Michigan, his PhD in organic chemistry from Michigan State, with post-graduate studies in bioinformatics at the universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg in Germany. Royal believes the God of Abraham created the universe, and that His Son Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. *Thomas Schneider's Ev: The Punchline: Many evolutionists refer to the work of Thomas Schneider and his Ev program's “proof” that useful information can arise without a creator. Dive into Dr. Truman's refutation of Dr, Schneider's alleged proof that new biological information can arise naturalistically. *Where did the evolutionists go wrong? In simulations they assume that if random mutations changed a protein and / or DNA patterns so that in rare cases they facilitated binding at 1 site this would automatically be selected for! They have this backward. Natural selection would act against finding new binding sites during the non-functional generations. First, statistically virtually all random bindings would be in the wrong places. This messes up the system, creates errors, and wastes resources since proteins could otherwise be used for something useful. Therefore, the competing organisms missing this junk would be better off. Being more fit they would out-populate those doing wasteful nonsense. Correct binding location per se does nothing. If a codon would attach to the right part of the tRNA (the anti-codon region, very unlikely) nothing would happen. ✓ Binding sites need a whole complex machinery to process the code represented by the binding site. Like ribosomes. Or DNA polymerases in the case of genes. ✓ After a transcription factor attaches to a DNA region, it recruits many of exactly the right partner proteins to perform a function. ✓ Often binding sites need to be carefully prepared. Enzymes edit them. Like tRNAs. Otherwise, the 3-nucleotide anti-codon region would not be recognized. New binding sites require new nanomachines which means more DNA (new genes) and more protein. ✓ This slows down the replication time of cells, costs time, energy and material. If a new binding site could arise through random mutations after millions of years, those cells would have long since gotten rid of what was significantly deleterious. Natural selection would work against creating even one new kind of binding site! *The Business of Science: Dr. Truman encourages Christians who have a passion for the sciences to pursue those passions faithfully! Industry needs, (and will hire) scientists who pursue the truth, (even aside from the espousing of the evolutionary worldview). *Chemistry & Computer Science: Hear how a knowledge of information science, in addition to chemistry is essential to understanding and unlocking the potential of binding sites, and why the information involved could not have arisen naturalistically.

Jody Hudson was born in Michigan but has moved a number of times since graduating high school. She spent 15 years in the retail industry. She then spent five years being a stay-at-home mom before finding new employment in the nonprofit sector. Her story sounds somewhat typical, right? Not really. Jody has a much different story to tell which you will get to hear on this episode of Unstoppable Mindset. Jody is the penultimate unstoppable person. Jody's second child, Alex, was born in 1995. Alex was a very active child and worked hard at everything she did. While in the fifth grade, Alex began exhibiting physical symptoms which eventually lead to her no longer being able to be an athlete and active person. In high school, she began losing weight. No doctor could diagnose what was happening. It wasn't until college that happenstance lead Jody and Alex to a doctor who correctly diagnosed Alex's condition as Lyme's Disease. Listen as Jody tells hers and Alex's story. She will tell you about the book she wrote as well as about the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation. This episode is very powerful, and Jody leaves us with strong advice we all can take to heart when we are presented with life challenges. About the Guest: Jody Hudson, Grants and Philanthropy Director for California CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), is a fundraising professional with over 15 years of nonprofit leadership experience. She is the CEO and founder of the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation, an organization that seeks to increase research efforts and patient support for Lyme disease and MCAS. Before joining California CASA in 2021, she served as Vice President of Development and Communications for Girls Scouts of Central California South and, before that, led the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fresno as Director of Operations. In 2018, Jody was honored with the Marjaree Mason Center Top Ten Professional Women Award. Hudson is also an author and speaker. Her book, My Promise to Alex: Through Pain Comes Purpose, is a memoir about her daughter's journey with Lyme disease and her passing at the age of twenty-two on March 24, 2018. For more information on Alex's foundation, please visit www.alexhudsonlymefoundation.org About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes You have been listening to the unstoppable mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes please visit w w w dot Michael hinkson.com/podcast. Michael Hinkson is spelled mi ch AE l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site. Please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of anyone or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hangsen.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free ebook entitled blinded by fear. The Unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessibility and is sponsored by accessibility. Please visit w w w dot excessive b.com excessively is spelled ACC e ss IBE. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again ne Michael Hingson  00:00 Access cast and accessibly initiative presents unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet Hi, I'm Michael Hinkson, Chief mission officer for accessibility and the author of the number one New York Times best selling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion, and acceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The Unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessibility, that's a cc e ss I, capital B II. Visit www.to. Access a b.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Well, Hi, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we get to interview Jody Hudson and Jody has got a very good and strong and compelling story to tell. She is a person who has worked in the world for a while. She is the Director of of grants right for California casa.   Jody Hudson  01:43 That's correct. The advanced philanthropy director,   Michael Hingson  01:46 advanced philanthropy director Wow. And, and, and again, but there's a lot more to Jodi than that. So we're gonna get to it. So Jodi, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Now, where are you? Exactly.   Jody Hudson  01:58 So I'm in Fresno, California. And we have just been getting hit with these recent rains. It's really sad to see what's going on out there. But in fact, before I jumped on, we just had another big downpour. So we're, we're right now good, but you never know when a next one is going to hit us.   Michael Hingson  02:18 Yeah, we don't get that level of rain in Victorville. I don't think it's rained here today. We had a little bit of rain Tuesday, but we just don't get that kind of rain here. And as I mentioned earlier, I heard on the news that there are a few places in the Sierras that have had something over 670 inches of snow, and they've gotten more snow this week. So how will this affect the drought it will, at least in the short term, but whether this is really going to have enough of an effect on the aquifers to really give us long term aid remains to be seen. But the way it's going, I think we're going to see more years of a lot of rain and other things happening. So we'll we'll kind of see how it goes.   Jody Hudson  03:05 I yeah, I agree. It was crazy. Last week, the 99 was shut down because of flooding. So you just never know what's going to happen. Right?   Michael Hingson  03:15 Go figure I know. Well, so let's start a little bit by you maybe telling us some of your background. As a younger God, what you did when going to school and all that give us all the highlights from an earlier time.   Jody Hudson  03:33 Oh my goodness. Okay, we could be here a long time because I'm not a young man. You know, I'm in my early 60s here now. But now I'm teasing.   Michael Hingson  03:41 So just talk about the early parts.   Jody Hudson  03:44 So I'm a Michigander born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, went to school at Central Michigan University where I graduated with a degree in retail. I've always loved fashion clothing. And so that's what I did for quite some time. Worked at Marshall Field's Lord and Taylor made my way west to Los Angeles. My claim to fame was that I was the manager of the Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I felt like I had arrived, so to speak. Then got married and made my way to Fresno where I currently reside. Two children, Garrett and Alice, my son's 29 My daughter's 22 And I stayed at home for about five years just to be a stay at home mom. And then when I decided to get back into the work environment, I got into the nonprofit world which I absolutely love. I have a servant's heart and it really spoke to that worked at Catholic Charities for about 1314 years. I worked at Girl Scouts for a little bit until I couldn't eat any more cookies. It was not good for my waistline and at all. And then I've been with California, Casa for two years, and we oversee all of the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. I am a product of foster care, I was born to a single mother who put me up for adoption. So I was in the foster care system for the first six months of my life until I was adopted. So I've kind of come full circle in that whole realm. But so that's what I'm currently doing. And then we'll get more into my true purpose and mission, which is the Alex Hudson line foundation.   Michael Hingson  05:46 So Marshall Fields, so did you get good deals on Franco mints?   Jody Hudson  05:50 Oh, my gosh. I know, Chris, and at Christmas time, because I worked out in Chicago at State Street at their flagship store. And during Christmas time, they'd have like the big pyramids of frango mints and I just devoured those. Like there was no tomorrow I have a weakness for sweets. I could not have sweets in my home, because they will be gone. I don't have willpower. I don't know what the word means.   Michael Hingson  06:17 No. Have you ever had mint? Meltaways? Yes. Which do you like better? Franco mints? Yeah. I like them both. But I do have to admit that there is something about Franco mints.   Jody Hudson  06:29 Oh my gosh, that just brought me back. I love that brought me back in time for sure. Yeah, and I miss them. I do too. I do too. I love those Frank moments. So good. It's kind of like melt in your mouth.   Michael Hingson  06:42 Yeah, really tasty stuff.   Jody Hudson  06:44 I think that's probably why girls with the Girl Scout cookies, then men's is my favorite. Because I was born and raised with the kids go mess with men. Go into the cooking mode. Then minutes. So what's your favorite Girl Scout cookie?   Michael Hingson  07:00 And Miss? Then Miss? Yeah. Although I've also enjoyed venture foals, which is one of the newer Well,   Jody Hudson  07:06 that's yeah, that's one of the the newer ones.   Michael Hingson  07:09 A new one rasberry one that I haven't tried yet. Yeah, you   Jody Hudson  07:12 know what I'm not a big fan of of the data, kind of like to keep my my the fruit and the chocolate all separate love them both, but really like the the combination together, but anything with chocolate, mint, peanut butter, I'm down for all of that stuff.   Michael Hingson  07:31 So I bought a case of Thin Mints. Well, actually, last year, I guess, I bought a case of Thin Mints. But somebody misunderstood and they made the order for two cases. Oh, and so I accepted that and I took them all. But even with the one case, what I did with two would have been the same with one which is they all mostly get put away mostly in the freezer. And for me, especially out of sight out of mind. And so most of them are still there. And they will be eaten over time. Which makes it a little bit frustrating for the Girl Scouts every year because I don't buy a case every year. It'll take me three years sometimes to eat those two cases, as I said, out of sight out of mind. But I do know where they are now having thought about them. This may cause a open so   Jody Hudson  08:26 I think I know where you're going after this little conversation here.   Michael Hingson  08:31 Yeah, I promise I won't get up and go do that while we're talking. Okay, but still. So So you got into this whole idea of the nonprofit Well, I actually another memory going back to Chicago and Marshall Fields. Do you remember Robert Hall? I do. Where the values go up, up, up and the prices go down? Down? Down?   Jody Hudson  08:52 Yep, yep.   Michael Hingson  08:55 Ah, those were the days having been born in Chicago and live there for five years and been back occasionally. But still. Great stories, great stories.   Jody Hudson  09:05 Yeah, I just don't like Chicago when it's December, January. It's like 80 degrees below with the windchill factor and you're trying to make your way from where you live in Lincoln Park down to State Street a little bit.   Michael Hingson  09:18 A little bit tough. And even with the L it could be tough. Oh yeah.   Jody Hudson  09:23 Oh, yeah. But boy, I had good good times there. I just graduated from college. So I was making a little bit of money hanging out and living with my sorority sisters. So it was just like an extension of of college. But when you have a little bit of money, it's a little bit more fun. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  09:41 Well, you were you bring back memories for me also, a few years ago, I was in Chicago for a speech or I was there for a convention I don't recall which now, but they were doing the event where you Um, to raise money for something, they did the Polar Plunge so everybody would go and jump in Lake Michigan. And I think Rahm Emanuel was the mayor. And Jimmy Fallon was there and they decided they were going to go do the plunge. And I was watching it with my cousins on TV. And they went in the water. It was zero or colder. Oh, we were very happy to be in a heated house. And the reporter said, these guys are doing it all wrong, because they went in in their suits, you know. And as soon as you get out of the water, you can go into a tent that was warm, where you could dry off. But just before they got out, a woman got out who was just wearing a bathing suit. And the reporter said, How much smarter she is because it'll dry right off and she won't be cold very long. And they were right, you know, but Well, that's the difference between intelligent people and politicians sometimes, I guess. I don't know.   Jody Hudson  11:01 My gosh, when my dad had a summer camp in Grand Haven, Michigan, and that brings me back to those memories that summertime with like the Polar Bear Plunge, we had that with the kiddos getting up early in the morning, like at six o'clock and going down. And if you if you did it every day, then you got like a special award. But yeah, I never did it. I watched my campers go in. But I'm like, Yeah, that's too cool for me.   Michael Hingson  11:29 Yeah. But you know, it's part of our country. And it's always fun to go to, to different places. And of course, go into Chicago go always for me at least. There I'm sure better places. But I like to go to UNO's and get a nice good deep dish pizza to   Jody Hudson  11:46 deep dish pizza. And it's a fun place to be in Chicago on St. Patty's day too. So Oh, yeah. That's always a blast. Dine the river green and drinking green beer and all that good stuff. Yeah, Chicago. Chicago is a fun fun city.   Michael Hingson  12:02 Yeah. Memories will tell us about California casa a little bit. So you've been doing that for now? What two or three years? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  12:10 for two years. And as the grants and philanthropy director, I helped to raise money not only for California, casa, but for our network. So California, CASA is the the parent, the umbrella so to speak, over the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. And we our initiatives, our mission, our you know, philanthropy, everything is in support of foster children. And there's 80,000 foster kids in the state of California. And what a casa does is they are that one person that link to help these kiddos to navigate through the court systems to be that voice for them, to help them where maybe they don't have a mom, dad and adult anybody to help guide them through life. And it can be transformational for these children to have a casa appointed, watching over them, it really makes a big difference.   Michael Hingson  13:24 Do foster parents help with any of that? Or is this really kind of pre them or our in spite of them? Sometimes,   Jody Hudson  13:31 you know what I mean, it's kind of done in conjunction with them as well as a CASA is a volunteer, they go through a training which I went through a training as well, just to kind of better understand what a CASA volunteer does, it's about a 3040 hour training commitment. Once you go through, you actually get sworn in as a casa and the in the court system. And then you are assigned a child and you could be assigned a child for maybe a year, two years, some people have had classes for, you know, even greater longer periods of time. It just depends upon, you know, the the cases. But it really is such a great meaningful program. And we definitely, you know, right now, we have probably 12,000 classes, but as I said earlier, there's 80,000 foster kids, you know, in the state of California, so there's definitely a gap. And that's what we try and do is you know, raise money raise funds to recruit classes, to train them to help the local network, you know, really pouring into the hearts of these foster kids.   Michael Hingson  14:51 So are their centers that these people are based out of or how does it work?   Jody Hudson  14:55 The classes themselves? They Yeah, so There's, you know, like I said, 44 class of programs throughout the state of California. So there's like a casa in Kern County, there's a casa and Fresno County. It's all, you know, based upon that the counties, each county is really supposed to have a CASA program. And, you know, there's what 51 counties, I think, in the state of California, so, yeah, 58 So we're, we're missing obviously, a couple of Casa programs, but each CASA program is you know, their own 501 C three, they, you know, raise their own funds money, they have their own board, executive directors, own staff, and we come alongside them to support them, and to give them you know, additional training, additional resources, and help where we can, we were lucky enough California casa, to be working with a lobbyist team who petitioned and we did receive a state appropriation in Governor Newsom budget for $60 million. And that is, you know, going to be funneled out to our Casa programs. However, as we know, the state of California is a little messed up right now with with budgets, and we only received the first wave of that $60 million, we received $20 million, and we were able to pump out that money to our network. But the other two bases are in jeopardy right now. And we are petitioning and trying to get that money back. So we will see   Michael Hingson  16:39 is that because of the legislature in some way or what? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  16:45 we are very grateful for what we did receive, and that was a blessing, we didn't even think that we were going to get that. And it really is to help our, our programs with infrastructure, it's to help them with, you know, recruiting, it's to help them just really build upon their their programs. So yeah, we're hopeful though, the, you know, legislators and other government officials and senators and people in the Capitol, they were not happy that our funding was was cut, because they really have become aware of our programs and the impact on the foster children. So we do have some really good people in our corner. So we'll, we'll see what happens.   Michael Hingson  17:30 He cut it. Who cut the funding, if the governor had it in his budget, and so on what happened,   Jody Hudson  17:37 it was in the legislative portion of the budget. So I don't know all the details. Yeah, in our inner workings of how all that happens. And, you know, with politics, things can be moved around, things can be cut, because maybe they're negotiating and looking for something else. Who knows what goes into all of those discussions. But like I said, we've got a lot of good champions and people in our corner, and it wasn't just cost of that was cut, there was a lot that was cut. So yeah, we're just hoping that we're gonna get that back.   Michael Hingson  18:14 I remember. Now, a number of years ago, the national level, there was a major discussion about the government. And what it had been doing through what was called the Talking Book program, which later became the National Library Service of the Blind and Physically Handicapped. And they, the Congress decided that they wanted to cut a bunch of the funding. They said, we can get things from other ways. And one of the magazines that was produced under the program was playboy. And the Congress people's fee with a conservative said, Well, that's ridiculous to publish Playboy, that blind people can take advantage of all the pictures and stuff. And the answer to that was, that's correct. But go read Playboy read the articles, because there were there were many, well written articles. And mostly, they are really good articles in Playboy. The original story, the short story, the fly came out of Playboy among other things, and eventually it got dealt with, but people do get some very strange ideas about things from time to time, don't they?   Jody Hudson  19:26 They sure do. And, you know, I've never seen a playboy, but I did hear that. There are some really great, great articles in there. So but yeah, so you know, well, we'll just have to kind of wait it out. I mean, we're so full speed ahead. And we are, you know, implementing what we can with the the funding that was awarded to us in our in our programs and and we're grateful for that.   Michael Hingson  19:49 We are a 501 C three, right. So you do you obviously do a lot of soliciting outside of what the government provides.   Jody Hudson  19:55 Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have, you know, government money. We've got you no private funding. So, yes, we have different pockets that we definitely, you know, reach out to. But, you know, from the pandemic, it's it's tough. Yeah, for for fundraising for nonprofits, I mean, everyone, you know, that was was losing out because they weren't able to have fundraising events and other things. And people were really tightening up their belt. So, yeah, well, we'll have to see how how things work out. But the nonprofit world is definitely definitely hurting.   Michael Hingson  20:37 Yeah, and it's gonna be a process. Well, for you, though, what made you go into the whole idea of doing nonprofit stuff? So it's different than what you've done in the past?   Jody Hudson  20:49 Oh, absolutely. Retail and nonprofit, very, very different. But   Michael Hingson  20:54 although you, you can tribute it to the nonprofit of Marshall Field's with Franco mints, but that's okay.   Jody Hudson  21:00 That's right. So, so I had my son in 93, I had my daughter and 95. And then I stayed home for for five years. And then when I was deciding to you know, get back into the workforce, one of my girlfriends, became a development director over at Catholic Charities, and she called me up. And she said that she was going to be starting this position at Catholic Charities, and she was going to be forming a women's Guild and that she wanted me to be on it, there was gonna be about 12 of us that were going to, you know, be the the pioneers of this Guild, and a common, you know, take a tour of the facility and see what I think, see what I thought so sad to say, I mean, I'm Catholic, but I had never heard of Catholic Charities before. So got my car went and down and opened up the doors, took a tour, I saw the clientele, I saw the people there that were, you know, waiting for services. And I just had this aha moment where this was where I was supposed to be, I was supposed to be giving back. I was supposed to be helping those, you know, less fortunate. And I told my girlfriend Kelly at that time, I said, Yes, I go, I want to be part of this guild. But even more importantly, I want to see if there's employment here, I would love to work at Catholic Charities. And as luck would have it, there was a position open. And it was for in the food pantry overseeing the food pantry. And check this out, overseeing the thrift store. Well, I think with my degree in retail, and working on Chanel boutique, I qualified to oversee the Catholic Charities thrift store. So the joke was always, you know, hidden, here's Jody from Rodeo Drive to Fulton Street, where Catholic Charities was and yeah, the price tags are just, you know, a couple of zeros off, but hey, she's, she can handle those. So, I fell in love with it. And it was so good as my kids were getting older, you know, to bring them to these, like food drive events, and, you know, the the farmers market that we would have, and they would see what the face of poverty looked like. And they fell in love with it. And you know, they were always there supporting my fundraising efforts. And and, you know, just supporting, giving back. So it was it was wonderful. It was really good. It must   Michael Hingson  23:45 get pretty emotional. Because you see so many people who are facing challenges and so on. How are you able to just move forward and not take it so emotionally personal, if you will?   Jody Hudson  23:59 You know, that's an excellent question. And it was very hard for me in the beginning, I wanted to take home these children that I saw, I wanted to fix everything I wanted to be the Savior. I wanted to be the knight in shining armor and I realized that I couldn't do it right. I mean, there I was limited in what I could do, but I could go out and raise money so that the pantry would be full of food so these families could eat so these families could you know go into the thrift store and purchase clothing or be given clothing, clothing and hygiene every so often so I can I can do you know what I can do in my in my wheelhouse. But you're right, it was tough. The first six months, I took it home with me there was no separation of my work and my life. But it just became more of a driving force for me in my job, more motivation to really get out there. and get the community involved with our mission and what we were doing. And even though the names of Catholic Charities, we never asked what people's religion was, hey, if you have a need, then we're going to be there. And we're going to meet that need.   Michael Hingson  25:18 Yeah. And it's, it is a an issue and a challenge for, for I know a number of people to get beyond the being so emotionally involved that you can't separate it, while at the same time developing a greater empathy. And I in fact, I think it's, it makes sense to develop the empathy and the understanding. But you can't take it personally because you didn't cause it all. And all you can do is try to work to fix it.   Jody Hudson  25:45 Right? And, you know, I said about my children going down there and being exposed to that, to this day, my my son, he'll tell me, Mom, he goes, it's a blessing and a curse, this empathy that has been passed on to me because he wants to be now that fixer, and he wants to, you know, when people come to him and share their problems, I mean, he wants to, you know, help them and he's going through that process right now realizing that he can't fix everyone's problems, right? He can, he can only do so much. But yeah, it's definitely tough. What does he do? So he used to work at Merrill Lynch. He graduated from ASU in 2008. Teen got a job right out of college, I mean, super smart, young man. And he worked at Merrill Lynch for over a year. And that just wasn't him. Like I said, he has that empathy, that very sensitive heart. And we also had a, you know, family crisis during that time. And I'll get into that later. But he just really, and then we had, you know, the pandemic hits. So he left Arizona, came home to Fresno to try and figure out what it was that he wanted to do. And now he's been with his current job for over a year. And really, really excelling in it and doing well. And I think he has found his niche. And he works for this organization called behavioral stars. And they are assigned troubled children from the school system. And he meets with these kids one on one, he has about 12 kids right now in his caseload, and he really tries to work with them on behavior modification, trying to work with them on just, you know, being a positive influence in their lives, because so many of these kids come from such troubled homes that they don't have that. And so Garrett is kind of trying to fill that void. And he's done very, very well, just this morning, he sent me over a text and he had to present to his team on some like motivational, inspirational messages. And it was like a 2030 minute presentation. And I love the two YouTube clips that he shared, and one of them spoke about how, you know, you can't let your past you know, dictate what you're doing today. It's like the overcoming and, you know, we're all going to have challenges, but how it's how you rise above from it. And I love it, because as he is administering to these kids, and helping them with their life challenges is also healing for him.   Michael Hingson  28:44 And it's clear, you've passed on a wonderful legacy that that he is taking advantage of, and he'll he'll expand out and I suspect,   Jody Hudson  28:58 Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I wrote a book, and I keep telling my son, I go get, your story is going to be even far greater than mine. And I can't wait to read your book one of these days, because it's going to be so inspirational with everything that you have gone through. I mean, I'm just really, really proud of him for climbing Klein, and just, you know, making it happen.   Michael Hingson  29:25 Well, we've talked about Garrett, and we should get to Alex, I know you want to talk about all of that. So you said that Alex was born in 1995. Correct. And, and a lot of things have happened. So tell us a little bit about Alex, if you will.   Jody Hudson  29:42 Sure. So Alex was supposed to be a Christmas baby. Her original due date was December 25. But she came a little bit early and she was just a sweet, sweet baby. She and her first five years I mean just a very sweet, shy, innocent little girl. And then she discovered sports and the tomboy in her really came out along with the the big brother that was right by her side helping her. So she was very active. She played soccer, she played softball, she ran track, she did cheerleading, volleyball, you name it, and she was very, she was a very good scholar to her brother definitely had more of the smarts. But he didn't apply himself out, worked much, much harder for her grades, and did very well with that. And then in the fifth grade, she started developing joint pain, inflammation, and we thought it was all related to her sports. And that's what the doctors thought as well that she was just an overworked you know, athlete. And so she would suck it up. She would like tape up her legs, ankles, do the ibuprofen. Well, that went on for several years, and nothing really changed. In fact, it just kept getting worse. To the point where her freshman year in high school, she was playing basketball running on the court, and her knees ballooned up to be like the size of grapefruit. And she dropped to the ground. And she was carried off by her teammates and coach. And they ran some X rays. And they discovered that she needed to have knee surgery that she had some issues with with her knees. So she had one knee surgery done on her right knee and they said if that took and did well, and it was successful, then they would do the left knee. Well, it didn't help but it didn't change anything. So basically from her freshman year in high school on Chica never run again. She it was the beginning of the the end for her because she couldn't play sports any longer. Everything that she had identified with was gone. And in high school, that's especially hard when you lose your your peer group. And so she really went through a dark period for a while only had maybe a friend or two, started losing weight started developing digestive issues. Then we, you know, started thinking, well, maybe he's got anorexia or an eating disorder. I mean, we just really went through hell and back. And she graduated from high school went to a junior college because we were still trying to figure out what was going on with her health. And she did well at junior college and applied to several colleges and ended up getting a full ride at UCLA. But she wasn't able to carry that out because she was losing weight. And she was down to about 87 pounds. And we were going from doctor to doctor probably 40 Plus doctors, and Alex on her own just by going on the internet, found this doctor down in LA who specialized in digestive issues. And she said mom goes I think I found a doctor that might be able to help me. And at that point, I'm like, Sure. What's what's another doctor? I mean, we we've been, you know, striking out with all of our local doctors and everybody at this point, just that she and I both were crazy, right? Because they would run tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with her. So we got in the car went down to LA. And within a half hour of talking with this doctor, he asked me Mrs. Hudson, has anybody test tested Alex for Lyme disease. And I innocently said, What is Lyme disease. And then he told me what it was and this was in 2017. And I'd really had never heard about it. And here I am from Michigan, you know, thinking that maybe I would have heard about it growing up. But we consented to her getting tested for Lyme disease and a couple of weeks later, sure enough, came back with a diagnosis that she she had Lyme disease. So now test, what's the test the test. If you go to a regular doctor, most of them are still testing with an outdated western blot test, which will give you false reads on it. This doctor was smart enough to have outs tested through iGenex and iGenex is out San Jose area. And they are very detailed. I mean, it's everyone sends people to iGenex just to because they know that testing that's part of the problem with Lyme disease. testing can be so. So what's the word I'm looking for? Not not reliable, inaccurate, inaccurate? Yeah. So tested her with the iGenex. And that's what it came back with. So in that moment, you know, I had to first of all, as a parent, figure out what this diagnosis was. And then second of all, how do I treat it, because I'm disease, you just can't go to any doctors, so many of them don't know about Lyme disease and how to treat it. And therein lies the problem trying to find proper doctors that know about this disease. And also, you know, the the treatment, because it's not like cancer, where there's a tried and true path. With Lyme disease. It's almost like, here's your buffet, you can do antibiotics, you can do this, you can do that. Or maybe you can do a combination. And it's a trial and error. But Alex didn't have have time to go through a trial and error. You know, she was at 80 pounds and 2017, down to a handful of foods that she could eat without reacting. And I had to get her better quick, like,   Michael Hingson  36:17 do you before going on? Do you have any sense of how she got Lyme disease?   Jody Hudson  36:25 No. And that's the thing. 35% of people that get Lyme disease will have what's called the classic bullseye rash, where it's a circular little red ring on your body of the point of impact where people are a bit, the majority of people don't know they have Lyme disease, until maybe they've been sick for a while. And by then it's hard to treat, because it's you know, once it gets into your bloodstream, and in your system, it can wreak havoc on every part of your organ. I mean, people have died from Lyme disease, because of, of, you know, getting into their heart, people have died from it from, you know, getting into their brain. It's, it's really quite horrific. And I mean, that can be adopted at this point from everything that I had to get schooled on real quick like in 2017. Till she passed away in 2018. But yeah, the majority of people when when you first have Lyme symptoms, it's like a summer flu. So you, you know, might have just being you know, feeling lethargic, joint pain, inflammation. And it's not until other symptoms appear when it can really become quite critical, like an Alex's case where it affected her whole digestive system.   Michael Hingson  37:53 You How did you how did you end up handling it? What did you do, because you certainly had to do something in a hurry.   Jody Hudson  38:01 So what I did was, you know, social media can work for you or against you. And in this situation, it definitely worked for me two things happen once I got Alex's diagnosis. Interestingly enough, she was diagnosed in May, which may is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and our local TV station, KC 24 had just done a episode a segment on Lyme disease. And I knew these people very well through all of my fundraising efforts at Catholic Charities. So I called them up and said, Hey, you guys just did a episode. You guys just did an episode on on Lyme disease. My daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I need to know these three women that you spoke with because I need to find out how to treat my daughter. So that was number one. Number two, was I took to Facebook with Alex's consent. And I basically made a play saying, you know, my daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I'm still trying to figure out what Lyme disease is. If anybody has any resources, know of any doctors locally, can put me in touch with people, please, you know, DM me, and you'd be surprised at how many people that I didn't realize had Lyme disease in the central valley that reached out to me. And Jessica Devine was one of them that lived right in Clovis, a couple of you know, Fresno, who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease had been battling it for a couple years. And she gave us the name of her doctor in Pismo Beach, and that's where we started. So it definitely helped by, you know, getting the message out there. And when you're a parent, parent and your child is struggling and you need answers, you do what it takes. aches. Right?   Michael Hingson  40:00 Right. So you reached out to that doctor.   Jody Hudson  40:04 So we reached out to that doctor. And then at the same time, we googled best Lyme facilities, best line treatment, because, you know, I'm a mama bear. I single mom at that time, Alex's dad wasn't in the picture at all, financially, emotionally, any of that. And I was working parents. And I thought, Okay, I need to tackle this, right. I'm going to roll up my sleeves, we've got a diagnosis, we're gonna get the doctor treatment, she's going to be better in a couple of months time, I was so naive. I had no idea what I was facing. And so we had this appointment with, you know, this doctor in Pismo in June. So Alex had been diagnosed in May that this appointment for June. But then I started researching best Lyme clinics. Sofia Health Institute was one, there was a couple others and I basically got on the phone. And I begged and pleaded to get into these facilities. And insurance doesn't cover a lot of this. In fact, it didn't cover most of it. In a year's time, I spent over $100,000 Trying to get Alex better, I sold cars. I had people give me money. I mean, it was crazy what I did. But again, any of us would do that in our situation with a sick child. So we went to the doctor in Pismo, we also went to Sofia Health Institute. And with every doctor that we saw, it was a whole new protocol. Everybody, you know, had their own opinions. And it was just, it was just really tough. Like I said, you know, with cancer, it's tried and true. These are the treatments that you go through. But with Lyme disease, because there's so many different co infections. You have to figure out who you know what symptoms are the most troublesome, you start there, and it's like, okay, eliminate that. So that symptom, and then let's move on to the next. And that's what we were trying to do with Alice. But at the same time, she kept losing weight, and she couldn't be strong and healthy enough with her treatments. Because she was so malnourished, so it was just, it was a mess.   Michael Hingson  42:35 And no matter what happened, nobody was able to come up with any solution that seemed to help.   Jody Hudson  42:41 We had a team of about 12 doctors we had, because as I said, once Lyme disease is in your blood system, which for Alex, it had been since. You know, if you go back when her symptoms first started, which we thought was just that overworked athletic body. It was in fifth grade. Now here she is in college, right? So I mean, it'd been 10 years that this had been living in her her system. So she had cardiologists she had a gastro doctor. She had, you know, a doctor, the doctor in Pismo that was kind of like the the lead on this. But we had so many other people that we had to bring onto the team. And then not to mention, just she was in and out of hospitals, just trying to get IVs and other stuff in her system to keep her healthy.   Michael Hingson  43:42 When did you get to the point where you realize that you weren't going to be able to fix her and how did you reconcile that?   Jody Hudson  43:52 So May of 2017 She got the diagnosis by December after going through a whirlwind of in and out of hospitals, different doctors. I knew in December that I was losing her she was we just we couldn't get a leg up. And from June until December, we literally had gone cross country Now mind you, I was still trying to hold down a job at this time, right? So I was just going back and forth and people were giving me their their sick time and vacation time. And I was just trying to uncover anything that I could to get her her better. But we realized that not only did she have Lyme disease, she had something else called mast cell activation syndrome, which she basically was allergic to almost every type of food she was down to like four or five safe foods. She could eat. And I detail all this in my book because I mean, it could take hours and days to go into all of this because it's just such a crazy, crazy disease. But   Michael Hingson  45:12 was that caused by the limes? Disease?   Jody Hudson  45:15 Correct? Yeah. When your immune system is compromised, it creates havoc in your in your system. And so everything gets Miss wired. And her histamine levels, everything we're, we're off. So you know, her treatments, she would try and have different types of treatments. And her supplements things that normally she could take before now, it was as if it was an enemy entering, you know, a danger zone here, she would try and swallow these supplements and take her, you know, treatment. And her histamine levels would just start attacking, thinking that was, you know, something bad that was coming into her system. Just horrific the pain that she was going through, but it was December. And I remember, you asked me, How did I reconcile with this, I remember getting in my car, and just driving. And I pulled over and I found it on the dashboard. And I had the serious conversation with God. And I was in tears. And I basically said, listen, here's the deal. Like I'm telling God what to do, right? I said, here's the deal. I go, you either take her right now, because I can't deal with this anymore, or you heal her. But this purgatory is not working for me, I cannot do this any longer. And that says, you know, and so that's what he did a couple of months later.   Michael Hingson  46:47 So you had so hard and I have some associations with Lyme disease in a different way. First of all, when I was living in New Jersey and the selling some products, I knew a couple guys who had accompany the turns out they they did have Lyme disease, it was apparently somewhat controlled, but they did have it. And I only know that because they told me but my fourth guide dog was bit by a tick relatively soon after we moved to New Jersey and we knew she was bitten we, we got the tick and we got it out of her and and the vet said there's nothing you know, we can do to analyze it or anything. And you know, as long as she's okay, she's okay. Well. One of the things I've learned about guide dogs is that they are and a lot of dogs, especially when there's a lot of love, and they want to please, they're incredibly stoic. We never detected any illness in her until May 1 of 1999 When I called her to dinner, and she didn't come and we found her on her bed, almost unresponsive. And through getting her to an emergency vet and then going elsewhere and so on. And finally meeting a woman who we regard as a very dear friend, although I haven't talked with her for a while Tracy Gillespie, who is in the University of Penn system. And working for emergency vet in Toms River, New Jersey, as I recall. She said Lynnae has glomerular nephritis. And it is morphed from Lyme disease. So she wouldn't keep the good stuff in her system, the kidneys would pass it out along with the bad stuff because the Lumeria went bad. So she had to retire. And we were able to keep her for three more years. But still, we we knew that there was was something there but it was just one of those things. So I appreciate all you are saying that's my closest brush, fortunately, or whatever with Lyme disease, but it's it is a very insidious thing.   Jody Hudson  49:04 It really is and you know, that's can be carriers of Lyme disease and, you know, with with the ticks and that's why I always when I'm you know talking make make sure that I recognize that it's not just humans. I'm glad that you shared that story. I mean, it is, you know, as we do tick checks from head to toe on our body, we need to do that as our animals come in from the outside because they are just as susceptible to it as as we are.   Michael Hingson  49:38 Well I'm being a guide dog. We kept a close eye on her so we found it right. Still it occurred. Well so. So Alex past, God listened to you and and did take her then what did you do?   Jody Hudson  49:57 So, what I did was yes, she she passed on March 24. In fact, tomorrow's her five year anniversary, I cannot believe. Yeah, I can't believe it's been five years and some aspects of it, I feel like it was just five, five minutes, five days and other times. So I feel like maybe it's been longer. But she and I were very close, we were just with everything that I'd gone through being divorced. And being a single mom, I mean, the mother daughter bond is very strong. To begin with, and ours was especially strong just with our our life experiences and challenges. And when Alex was, I mean, she was bedridden for for several months before she passed away. And she was always so positive. And she kept, you know, thinking that she was going to be this Lyme warrior, she was going to, you know, get to UCLA, finish that degree and start her own nine nonprofit. And when we knew that, God, you know, had other plans for her, I made a pact with her and said that I was going to basically carry her torch for her. And so after she passed, money started just flooding in. There was a GoFundMe account that someone had set up for me and I started receiving quite a bit of money. And I knew that was going to be my my seed money to start the outsets in line Foundation. And here again, I was working for a nonprofit, I was still working at Catholic Charities. And I thought, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, petition, I'll get someone to help me to, you know, see what that looks like. And, you know, people have told me, it's going to take about a year to get a nonprofit up and running. So that okay, good, that will give me time to adjust and make the transition. Well, I received status that I had been awarded 501, C, three for the outsets, in line foundation in 30 days. And in my classic CPA, comment, my CPA when I got the letter, I said, Okay, roll in, tell me that this is like a joke. Like, this isn't true, right? Like, I really didn't get this approved so quickly. And he said, God, sometimes the good Lord does things that there are no explanations for Congratulations. You have a 501 C three. Yeah. And so yeah, we were up and running in June, we started our first fundraiser, we were able to work with global Lyme Alliance and do a research grant with them, we were able to award some financial grants to lyme patients. So we, you know, we're doing everything according to Alex's wishes, and five years later, we're still doing that. So it definitely, like I said, before this mother daughter bond, I know I'm not doing it alone, I know that she, you know, is helping me every step of the way. And you wrote a book. And I wrote a book. And that was something that I did not expect at all, like I am a business woman, I write reports. I don't journal I don't write for fun. But this was something that was just laid on my heart. And I was a member of the Fresno State book club. And there was a gallon there who had just written a book, and I started talking to her. And I said, you know, I feel like I need to get this stuff out of my head and onto print. Because just as I'm chatting with you, there's so much that people didn't realize of the journey that Alex and I went on, especially that last year, even my closest group of friends, you know, when they read my book, they're like, God, God, we just didn't realize everything that you had gone through, we thought we did. And I said, No, I, I feel bad. I wasn't able to catch everybody up on this, I said that I was running so fast to get my daughter better, that I didn't have time to bring my team along with me. So this book was written for so many different reasons. Just to let people know how amazing my daughter was and what she went through, also to, you know, give people hope, inspiration. And also just to, you know, give validity to this horrible disease that so many people's still in the medical community don't recognize, or, you know, give it such a stigma. So the book came out. Last February, I self published it and Uh, you know, it's, it's done pretty well, I mean, I've received over 100 plus five star reviews on Amazon, which, to me, if I just, you know, was able to impact one or two people at that, wow, that would be great, you know, people would really understand what I'm trying to convey. But you know, just the, the impact, and what I'm getting back from it that people, you know, write to me or call me. It's just so overwhelming, you know, and for them to appreciate my daughter and love my daughter, with what she went through, it's pretty, pretty touching.   Michael Hingson  55:42 What a blessing. Well, tell me, what would you like people to take away from listening to you today.   Jody Hudson  55:51 So what I want people to take away from listening to meet today is, no matter what challenges you have going on in life, it's how you show up that people are going to remember. And for me, in that moment, when Alex passed away, it could have been so easy just to throw the covers over my head, and give up and be, you know, this grief girl, but I didn't want to be defined by that I wanted to, you know, have people look at me, and be that example, for others be that example for my son, be that example for my friends, that no matter what I had gone through, that I can still show up every day, and that there's still like to be lived. And to do that, also, you know, in honor of my daughter, right, with everything that she went through, how could I just lay it in bet. And I mean, she's suffered far greater than, than I did, and, and I just, I couldn't do that. So I needed to make some, you know, purpose out of what she went through. And that's what I'm I'm trying to do and I'm trying to accomplish?   Michael Hingson  57:05 Well, how can people reach out to you and communicate, correspond or learn more? And   Jody Hudson  57:11 yeah, so we have a website alexhudsonlymefoundation, website, www dot alexhudsonlymefoundation.org, there's ways that you can get a hold of me on the website, you can also go into Amazon, and look for my book, my promise to Alex written by me, Jody Hudson, I would love it if you know, people would, you know, by the, by the book, and, you know, support me through that, because all the proceeds from that book, go right back into the foundation. And, you know, if people are out there, struggling right now with, you know, medical mysteries, you know, check out Lyme disease, check out and see maybe if that's something that you might have in the doctors just haven't been able to diagnose. You know, be your own advocate, never, never give up. And that's one of the things that Alex and I never did, no matter how many times that door was slammed in our faces from the medical community. We still kept opening it up and trying to get to answers.   Michael Hingson  58:22 Never giving up is extremely important. We do it all too quickly. And we, we don't realize that we can do a lot more than we think we can.   Jody Hudson  58:33 Amen. Amen. You don't know you know how strong you need to be until you are in those moments where strength is all you got?   58:42 Well, I want to thank you, Jody, for being with us today. And for telling your story and having the courage to do it and to continue doing, what you're doing and anything that we can do to help through this podcast and so on, please let me know. And we met through accessibility, which I'm really happy about. And I appreciate your desire to help in dealing with inclusion and website accessibility but more important, anything that we can do to continue to promote what you're doing. We're in so I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank you for listening to us. We really appreciate it reach out to Alex through Jodi reach out to Jodi especially and Alex will know and we want to hear from you please email me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. Accessibe is A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to www dot Michael hingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening and like especially if you're on iTunes, please give us a five star rating. Those tend to show up a lot and we appreciate it. But Jody most of all, once more. I want to thank you for being here and for not only inspiring us but I hope educating a lot of people about Lyme disease and just being stronger and more unstoppable than we think.   Jody Hudson  1:00:00 Thank you so much for having me and listening to my story and Alex's story It really means a lot to me   Michael Hingson  1:00:11

What's left for the New York Giants to figure out regarding their 2023 roster? Plus, I give you two UDFAs I'm interested to see, and I answer a couple of listener-submitted questions. What's Left for New York Giants to Do? https://www.youtube.com/@LockedOnGiantsNFL Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…

Tim Kelly and Nathan Ackerman jumped on Twitter Spaces after the finale of a three-game sweep in Los Angeles came to a gut-wrenching conclusion. They discuss what went wrong in L.A., starting pitching woes, Bryce Harper's return, the new-look Phillies lineup and more.

Gift giving with Trey and Katie. Dude Dad joins today's episode with an exciting announcement. Trey discusses the new show, Jury Duty. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Learn more and save 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/correct Go to Indochino.com and use code TREY to get 10% off any purchase of $399 or more. Go to Zocdoc.com/CORRECT and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Then find and book a top-rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. Go to shopify.com/correctopinions Start your $1/Month trial! Take your business to the next level today. Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL3ESPT9yf1T8x6L0P4d39w?sub_confirmation=1 Love the opinions, but hate the ads? Subscribe to the ad-free version of Correct Opinions here!: https://correctopinions.supercast.tech/ Subscribe to Correct Opinions on Apple: http://bit.ly/COPodcast Buy my merch: https://fanjoy.co/collections/trey-kennedy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

International Coach and Senior Trainer for the More to Life Foundation Ann McMaster shares how the More to Life methodology reveals your Real Reality.  More to Life is based on Dr. K. Bradford Brown and Dr. W. Roy Whitten's training program that enables people to make fundamental changes. Their premise is to be awake to reality– the reality of our essence, relationships, and the moment and circumstance in which we find ourselves. Ann walks Podcast Host Christopher J. Miller through one of his recent Lifeshock experiences to demonstrate how the process works. After we experience a Lifeshock, we interpret the experience based on our current situation and belief systems. This response is known as Mindtalk. With clarity, we revisit the Lifeshock and ask ourselves three questions. Are our thoughts true or false, or do we simply not know? The process helps us live in the real world instead of one made up in our heads. The ultimate goal is learning to live our true destiny.  Ann aligns herself with this saying, "I am who I am, You Are who you are. My journey is my Journey; Your Journey is not my journey. And all journeys work in the big scheme of things." To understand more about the thinking mind, the feeling heart, and the knowing gut, Ann refers the listener to another book titled "Mbraining: Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff" by Grant Soosalu and Marvin Oka. Ann reminds the listener of one undeniable truth, "We belong right here, right now." Ann McMaster has been training, coaching, and working with people from Europe, New Zealand/Australia/Fiji, Mexico, Colombia, and South Africa – where she lived for two years. She is a psychotherapist, trainer, consultant, and coach. She has worked with people across the US, the UK, Mexico, South America, Spain, Switzerland, Brussels, Trinidad and Tobago, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, and South Africa, where she lived for two years. As a Senior Trainer for the More To Life Foundation, she has also led courses for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Texas and California. She has been a consultant for the New Mexico State Prison System. She is the author of "Lifeshocks Out of the Blue: Learning from your Life's Experiences," available on Amazon.com. She loves working with people and learning about new ways to make a difference in the world.  You can check her out at www.annmcmaster.com. For more information about More to Life events, visit www.moretolife.org. 

Learn how to harvest equity without giving up your low, fixed-rate mortgage. Today, I discuss: conventional loans for single-family rentals, DTI, refinancing, accessing equity, student loan debt, and down payment requirements for income properties with Ridge Lending Group President, Caeli Ridge. Learn what's better for a second mortgage—the pros and cons of a HELOC vs. Home Equity Loan. You also get a mortgage market overview. We discuss changes in cash-out refinance seasoning requirements.  Caeli also describes where she believes mortgage rates are headed later this year. Resources mentioned: Show Notes: www.GetRichEducation.com/447 Ridge Lending Group: www.RidgeLendingGroup.com info@ridgelendinggroup.com Join us for tomorrow's free GRE Florida properties webinar: www.GREwebinars.com Ridge's All-In-One Loan Simulator: https://ridgelendinggroup.com/aio-simulator/ Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Find cash-flowing Jacksonville property at: www.JWBrealestate.com/GRE Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  Top Properties & Providers: GREmarketplace.com Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free—text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Keith's personal Instagram: @keithweinhold   Speaker 0 (00:00:00) - Welcome to GRE! I'm your host Keith Weinhold. You can get a conventional loan for a single family rental with less than a 20% down payment. Learn why you might want to refinance today. Even though mortgage rates aren't as low as they were a couple years ago, how do you qualify for loans if you've already got student loan debt? All things mortgages and financing today on Get Rich Education, Speaker 2 (00:00:29) - You are listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Speaker 0 (00:00:52) - Welcome to GRE from K Patis North Carolina to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold. This is Get Rich Education, the voice of real estate investing since 2014. Before we get into a great education on all things mortgages today, there is still a little bit of time left for you to join us on tomorrow night's G R E Live event. You can join us from the comfort of your own home. This is for new build single family rentals, opt to four plexes in Jacksonville, Ocala, and elsewhere in Florida. Purchase prices are still below 300 K on the single families. Yes, still in the two hundreds in some cases. I don't know how long that can last. Yeah, these are the property types that are quickly vanishing. Our investment coach Naresh Stars in that event tomorrow, he finds you the good deals with the national providers that are actually giving incentives despite the fact that the product that you're buying is in really short supplies.   Speaker 0 (00:01:59) - You're gonna get a good, solid, fundamental education on what makes a durable income property market and a arrest in the Florida provider are going to share with us just for webinar attendees. Those even better than two and two incentives. Yes, for you, the incentives on the webinar are even better than that 2% of your purchase price paid do you in closing costs cash and 2% of free property management. It is going to be even better than that. That's gonna be rolled out tomorrow night, May 2nd at 8:30 PM Eastern, 5:30 PM Pacific. It is free to attend. You can ask questions live, get your questions answered and get access to the actual properties should you so choose. That is the final reminder. So if that's of any interest to you, be sure to sign up now@grewebinars.com. I'm coming to you from the Mojave Desert today here in metro Las Vegas.   Speaker 0 (00:03:04) - It's Henderson Nevada. To be technical next week I'll bring you the show from Phoenix, Arizona. And you know what? It's kind of funny. Sometimes you hear people refer to this general area of the nation this southwest and they say they are going to the desert if they were doing what I'm doing. Well this unrepentant geography nerd will clarify that it is the deserts plural. Yes, Las Vegas is in the Mojave Desert in Phoenix is in the Sonora Desert. There are differences in vegetation type and others that distinguish the two. And the most obvious difference perhaps is the presence of the big iconic Saguaro cactus down in the Sonora that you don't find up here in the more northerly Mojave and perhaps the Joshua tree is the more distinct plant type here in the Mojave. Yes, we're talking about two gigantic pieces of real estate here. Much of it is baron. Two disparate deserts with their own distinctive flora and fauna. As you're about to learn about financing real estate today, let's remember that there is a cash out refinance and then generally if you're performing a refinance without pulling cash out, that is known as a rate and term refinance. Let's get into it.   Speaker 0 (00:04:30) - Well hey, well how do you qualify for more mortgage loans at the lowest interest rate available, Americans have near record equity levels in their homes. What's the best way to access that equity yet keep your low mortgage rate in place? And what about your student loan debt and how that factors into you getting a mortgage or getting a refinance? We're answering all that today with a GRE regular guest and though it's her first appearance back on the show this year, it's the return of the company president that's created more financial freedom through real estate than any other lender in the entire nation, Ridge Lending Group. It's time for a big welcome back to Caeli Ridge.   Speaker 3 (00:05:08) - Keith Wein. Hold. Thank you. You flatter me sir. I appreciate it. Love being here with you and for your listeners.   Speaker 0 (00:05:14) - Well yes, the president is back and everyone loves this type of president because it's not about being a Democrat or Republican. So hail to the chief, great to have you here. And Jaylee mortgage rates, they have settled down a good bit from their recent highs now they peaked back in the fall of last year. So with that and some of the other things in mind, why don't you talk to us about the big picture first, sort of your mortgage market overview.   Speaker 3 (00:05:40) - Interest rates is always top of mind for everybody. I think they're doing pretty well. I do believe I've been sharing with our listeners and and my clients on a day-to-day. I do believe that rates will continue to kind of increase here and there. There's gonna be some ups and downs. Of course the Fed has been very clear with us. Jerome Powell is gonna continue to raise the Fed fund rate just for anybody that doesn't know the two between a mortgage rate and a Fed fund rate while connected, not the same thing. So when they raise that does not automatically mean that we see the increase on the the 30 year mortgage bonds. I think that that's gonna continue to happen, but I think the pace in which it happens or continues to happen is gonna be a lot less aggressive. So I think that's gonna bode well overall.   Speaker 3 (00:06:21) - For interest rates. I know everybody is very, very interested in in are they going up, are they going down, when are they going up, when are they going down? I think that we'll continue to see a little bit of upward movement. I think it's gonna be sometime next year that we start to see interest rates come back down in any meaningful way. And remember gang rates go up much, much faster than they come back down unfortunately. So I think we've got a little bit of way to go. But I'm always the one saying, Keith, you and I have talked about this, um, many, many times you must be doing the math and that the rate as a function of the return of the investment isn't the most important thing. So I'll leave it there for rates. Otherwise, I think that the industry is doing really, really well.   Speaker 3 (00:06:58) - One big announcement that we had this year was that Fannie and Freddie both have extended the seasoning period of time to where a cash out refinance when leverage was used to acquire is applicable. So now you have to wait 12 months to pull, to pull cash out of a property using the A R V that after repair value if you use leverage to acquire the property. Quick distinction because this has been confused. If you paid cash for the property, your source and season funds, that still falls under what's called the delayed cash out refi and no seasoning is required. It's only when leverage was used to acquire the property and then they're trying to use an after repair value to pull cash out in hand. Is that 12 month seasoning rate and term is different. So that doesn't apply either.   Speaker 0 (00:07:45) - Okay. So if you make a purchase and then say it less than 12 months down the road, you want to do a refi but not pull cash out, is that still all right?   Speaker 3 (00:07:55) - That's absolutely fine. No seasoning is required and we can use the arv. It's only when you want cash in your hand that that 12 months is is applicable.   Speaker 0 (00:08:04) - Got it. Okay. That's really helpful to know. Just big picture before we winnow down, are there any other big substantial mortgage stories out there that some should know about? Um, it was only a couple weeks ago, there was a lot of misinformation going around on TikTok and elsewhere about 40 year loans from F H A without people understanding that's just for loan modifications and really other stories like that. Any other big picture things where you can help us see what's happening?   Speaker 3 (00:08:30) - It seems to be par for for the course? I have not. There's nothing that's come across my desk that I would say was newsworthy or noteworthy to share. I think we've got more to unpack here than any of that.   Speaker 0 (00:08:40) - Yeah and things sure are picking up here around G R e. People wanna buy more properties this year. It really slowed down toward the end of last year, right about when the mortgage rates were at their peak. So when we talk about getting loans, we think about leverage. Leverage is created with debt. Has anything changed with the down payment requirements for an income property? And we're largely here in today's discussion talking about one to four unit income properties. Properties that you don't live in yourself,   Speaker 3 (00:09:08) - Correct down payments have have remained the same. There isn't been anything that has changed there. Just to reiterate, for those that may not be aware on a single family residence, conventionally 85% loan to value is applicable. You can leverage all the way up to 85, you're putting 15% down. Keep in mind everybody that that will have pmi, private mortgage insurance attached to it, I would have you look at them side by side. The PMI factors actually pretty low and depending on the loan size it may only be 20, 30 bucks a month. So if you're able to leverage extra, it may make sense. You're gonna have to look at the numbers so that single family and then two to four unit on a purchase transaction different on a refinance transaction but purchase is 25% down or 75% leverage is required for those duplex, triplex, fourplexes.   Speaker 0 (00:09:54) - Okay, so as little as 15% down on a rental single family home. So you're getting up to six to one, seven to one leverage in that case. Sheila, do you find very many people doing that or would they rather pay the 20% down for a rental single family home and not have the pmi?   Speaker 3 (00:10:10) - I find that right now I think that it's less common than maybe it was because interest rates are up from where they were, uh, a year, year and a half ago. So more often than not we see the 20% down. But I still think it's worth looking at. I mean you're never gonna know unless you run the numbers right side by side.   Speaker 0 (00:10:25) - Okay, so we're thinking about how much cash we have to have put aside for a down payment in closing costs. And one thing that we need to do in order to qualify for that loan in the first place of course is some people get hung up on the dti, their debt to income ratio is too high to qualify for property and chaley. Over the past few months I've had a few listeners write in with questions and I thought, well I'll say that question until we have chale on again. And one of them really has to do with student loan debt. Student loan debt often contributes to one having too high of a debt to income ratio so that they didn't have to repay their loan. I know that Biden said that you wouldn't have to pay back student loan debt for a while, but can you talk to us specifically about student loan debt with D T I?   Speaker 3 (00:11:06) - There's gonna be a few pieces to share with everybody depending on whether we're talking about Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and we won't know who we're gonna end up selling to after the loan funds. And they have slightly different guidelines between the two of them. Similar. But there are some differences as it relates to student loan debt regardless of whether you're in deferment or you've been told that you don't have to repay. If it shows up on an individual's credit report, the calculation will be as follows. They're going to take the outstanding balance times 1%, that's Fannie Mae's rule or the outstanding balance times half a percent. That's Freddie Mac rule and that will be the payment that we include in the debt to income ratio. Uh, I'll mention that the all-in one, which is a very popular loan right now. First Lean HeLOCK, maybe we'll talk about that here today. They will defer to Fannie rules so it'll be 1% of the outstanding debt pulling on the credit report even if it shows a zero payment listed. Now there is one caveat, if the individual has a letter, this happened maybe in the last six months and I'm trying to think about, there was a title, it's pretty rare. But if they're able to gain access to documentation that specifies that they are not going to have to repay that debt and we can take that documentation, then we can zero out that payment in the D T I.   Speaker 0 (00:12:22) - Alright, there's some strategies for how you can approach D T I with respect to any student loan debt that you have and what is the maximum D T I that a borrower can have?   Speaker 3 (00:12:34) - Conventionally and non qm, you're gonna get to 50% debt to income ratio for the all-in-one since we just touched on it, 43% is the absolute max.   Speaker 0 (00:12:43) - Okay. And on prior shows, Chile and I have discussed specifically with examples just how that D T I is calculated. If you're wondering, you can hear that in some past episodes Chile one one goes ahead and they continue to add income properties to their portfolio. Often I recommend that one does that with high leverage but not over leverage. How does one keep their D T I ratio down over time as they continue to add properties so that they can qualify for more properties in the future? Is there a good strategy for that?   Speaker 3 (00:13:14) - There is, and it's such a good question because as investors, right, our qualification primers are not static. They're going to change over time as we buy and sell and refinance. So it's very, very important, especially with the debt to income ratio that we're keeping an eye on it. And there's a few ways in which you can kind of strategize or optimize that D T I. The first is going to be the Schedule E, okay? The Schedule E is where all the rental properties are going to live once you've filed the annual tax return. The easiest way for the time that we have here today, Keith, is gonna be to tell the listeners, send us your draft returns. So on an ongoing basis we tell our active clients do not file federal tax returns until you send us the draft. We're going to run that draft through the pre-formulated calculation that comes straight from Fannie, Freddie and then we're gonna provide you with some feedback, one of which may be Mr.   Speaker 3 (00:14:03) - Jones, you forgot to include your insurance as a deduction and that's actually an add back that's gonna be to your disadvantage. Make sure that you put that in there. You didn't claim the full number of days of income for the property, you forgot to put depreciation on there. That's also an add back. There's a whole slew of things that we can look at and look for and give the individual that feedback so that they are filing at that optimal way while maintaining what the maximized tax credits are, right? There's a nice balance there. The more aggressive you are with the tax deductions, the more it can impact the D T I. So we wanna have eyes on that and work closely with the client and or their CPA is a very common part of what we do. So schedule E a little more complicated, that would be one of the the ways in which we wanna maximize debt to income ratio.   Speaker 3 (00:14:45) - Obviously not obtaining new debt, new consumer debt is is not gonna be to our advantage, right? We don't want more liability than we have income. Another thing is, is that when we talk about credit and a lot of clients that we talk to, they pay their credit cards off monthly, right? Maybe they charge up five grand, eight grand, 10 grand, they get a miles or whatever it is. It's very important to communicate with us to find out when in the month we wanna strategically pull the credit. Because what will happen is is that the day in which we take that snapshot, if there's a minimum payment due, a balance with a minimum payment, that minimum payment will be used in the individual's debt to income ratio regardless of whether they're gonna pay it off at the end of the month. That doesn't matter to us.   Speaker 3 (00:15:26) - There's a payment here, we gotta hit you for it. So strategizing on the day in which we wanna run credit might be another helpful way for D T I. And then finally, and there's probably a few other things, but I think high use would be, I don't like the shorter term amortizations. I think this is something else you and I have talked about many times, Keith, where people wanna pay off quicker, which is great if that's really what they wanna do, that's perfectly fine. I'm not sure that that would be my strategy, but whatever. Don't get yourself into a 15 year fixed mortgage because it's only gonna jack that payment. It's gonna really increase that payment. It's ultimately going to, for long-term optimization, hurt your D T I. You can do the same thing with a 30 year mortgage and not pay extra interest by accelerating the debt if that's what you chose. So those would be the the few things I'd comment on   Speaker 0 (00:16:10) - 100%. And for you the listener and viewer right now with what you just heard from chaley, you can begin to understand the value of working with a lender that works specific with income property investors rather than those lenders that are more geared toward primary residents, borrowers. Nothing wrong with them but they're in their lane during their thing. And you can understand why Chaley over there at Ridge is really a specialist to help you qualifying for as many income property loans as you possibly can and optimizing those loans as well. Chaley, when we talk about interest rates, oftentimes it's of interest to people to look at what are refinance interest rates like versus new purchase interest rates.   Speaker 3 (00:16:54) - I would say on average there's a variety of of variables that dictate what the rate is gonna be. Okay? I talk about this a lot. They're called LPAs loan level price adjustments. And a loan level price adjustment is a positive or negative number that attaches to the characteristic of the loan transaction. So purchase or refi, hash out refi rate and term refi credit score has its own L L P A loan to value, loan size occupancy. All of these come with a positive or negative number attached to them as it relates to purchase versus refinance. Generally speaking, let's take a rate and term refi where you're not getting cash out, you're just maybe taking an arm and making it affix. You're taking a higher rate and making it lower, whatever, maybe about a half a point difference. So if a purchase was at six and a half, the re rate and term refinance might be at 6 75 or 7%, cash out's gonna be a little bit different. I would add a quarter point to that and then if, if it's a t