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Have you ever felt dizzy? You're not alone. Dizziness is one of the most common reasons people show up at a hospital emergency room. But there are different kinds of dizzy. A lot of people, especially as they age, live with the feeling of being just a little unsteady or off balance. Others have experienced true vertigo. That's when the room seems to swirl and tip to the point where you might feel nauseous. Dizziness shouldn't be ignored. Depending on the cause, it can often be treated with medication, surgery or physical therapy exercises. And, it could be a sign of a serious underlying medical issue. MPR News guest host Kelly Gordon talks with medical providers to sort through our dizzy symptoms.
This is The Digital Story Podcast 1,017, Sept. 16, 2025. Today's theme is, "Telephoto Madness - OM System, Sigma, and More." I'm Derrick Story. Opening Monologue September must be telephoto month. Big guns were announced by OM System, Sigma, and Sirui Aurora. Some of these are affordable, some are less so. But there's bound to be something for everyone. We'll take a look at the offerings on this week's TDS Photography Podcast. I hope you enjoy the show. thenimblephotographer.com, click the box next to Donating a Film Camera, and let me know what you have. In your note, be sure to include your shipping address. Affiliate Links - The links to some products in this podcast contain an affiliate code that credits The Digital Story for any purchases made from B&H Photo and Amazon via that click-through. Depending on the purchase, we may receive some financial compensation. Red River Paper - And finally, be sure to visit our friends at Red River Paper for all of your inkjet supply needs. See you next week! You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.
Tax credits: on or off? Solar projects: full speed ahead, paused, or scrapped entirely? Depending on the day, the headlines have been wildly different. We sit down with one of the local leaders in the solar sector to discuss what's going in with the second Trump administration -- what that means for workers in the solar industry, what that means for homeowners, for businesses, and more.Our guest:Kevin Schulte, CEO of Greenspark Solar---Connections is supported by listeners like you. Head to our donation page to become a WXXI member today, support the show, and help us close the gap created by the rescission of federal funding.---Connections airs every weekday from noon-2 p.m. Join the conversation with questions or comments by phone at 1-844-295-TALK (8255) or 585-263-9994, email, Facebook or Twitter. Connections is also livestreamed on the WXXI News YouTube channel each day. You can watch live or access previous episodes here.---Do you have a story that needs to be shared? Pitch your story to Connections.
Title: From Hustle to Holdings: The Smarter Path to Passive Wealth With J. Scott Summary: In this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, host Seth Bradley discusses the importance of transitioning from active to passive income with guest Jay Scott, a seasoned real estate investor. They explore various investment strategies, the significance of due diligence in syndication, and the differences between house flipping and multifamily investments. Jay shares his journey from tech to real estate, emphasizing the need for teamwork in multifamily projects and the importance of understanding market conditions. The conversation concludes with actionable insights for listeners looking to create financial freedom through passive income. Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V26Rze2S9TM Bullet Point Highlights: Active income is trading time for money, while passive income allows for financial freedom. Investors should focus on the highest and best use of their time. Flipping houses can be tedious and may not be the best use of time for high-income earners. Transitioning to multifamily investments can provide more control and cash flow. Market conditions can significantly impact investment strategies and outcomes. Due diligence is crucial when vetting syndication sponsors and deals. Understanding the underwriting process is essential for passive investors. Building a strong team is vital for success in multifamily investments. Investors should seek to understand the risks associated with their investments. Passive income allows for a lifestyle centered around family and personal interests. Transcript: Seth Bradley (00:10.188) What's going on, law nation? Welcome to the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, your favorite place for learning about the world of alternative passive investments so that you can practice when you want to and not because you have to. Now, if you're ready to kick that billable out of the curb, start by going to attorneybydesign.com to download the Freedom Blueprint, which will also get you access to partner with us on one of our next passive real estate investments. All right, let's talk about the highest and best use of your time. We've talked about active versus passive income and for good reason, they are completely different. They're on opposite sides of the spectrum. When we talk about active income, we're talking about your job as an attorney, as a doctor or a business owner, where you trade your time in for money out. Depending on your skill set, background, education, work ethic, et cetera, You know, this could be a great use of your time or it could be a terrible one. But when most people think about getting into real estate investing, they're torn. Should you do a fix and flip like you saw on HGTV? Should you invest in a REIT like your financial advisor and Charles Schwab told you to do? Should you buy a single family rental or invest in a syndication? There are endless options so I can understand why it's so confusing. Well, start with this. ask yourself, what's the highest and best use of my time? If you're thinking about doing an HGTV fix and flip and your partner at a big law firm, for example, is that flip really the best use of your time? And don't be mistaken, a flip is transactional and it is active. So will you make more per hour on that fix and flip than you would at your job? After you factor in the learning curve, the deal sourcing, the headaches, what it takes away from your job and everything else, it's not even close. Unless you truly love doing it, which some people do, it just doesn't make sense for high income earners. You should be focusing on transforming the income you earn actively into passive income streams. At different levels on the passive scale, that could very well be a single family rental or an Airbnb. Seth Bradley (02:34.26) or could be passive investments into commercial syndications. But if you truly want to obtain financial freedom as quickly as possible, don't create more time consuming activities that aren't as fruitful as the active income stream that you already have. Focus on passive investments until you are financially free. And then you will have the freedom to transition or not into any active activity you have a passion for. Today, we have a very special guest, Mr. Jay Scott of Bigger Pocket fame. Jay is an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and the co-host of the Bigger Pockets Business Podcast. He has bought, built, rehab, sold, syndicated, and held over $70 million in residential property, and currently owns several hundred units. Jay is the author of four bestselling books on real estate investing, with sales of over 300,000 copies. Get really excited for this, folks. You're in for a treat. This is the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, where you'll discover the secrets and strategies of the ultra wealthy on how they build streams of passive income to give them the freedom we all want. Attorney Seth Bradley will help you end the cycle of trading your time for money so you can make money while you sleep. Start living the good life on your own terms. Now, here's your host, Seth Bradley. Jay Scott, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show. Scott (04:09.196) Thanks. Appreciate you having me here Seth. Absolutely, man. Appreciate you taking the time out of your day, We've got a little bit of history, but let's jump into your history, man. What's your story? Tell us about your background. Take it back as far you'd like to. Yeah, I'll keep it short because nobody really cares about what I used to do. So I'm a tech guy by education and former trade. I worked in Silicon Valley for a long time, spent about 15 years doing the engineering thing and the product management thing. 2008 decided to get married. My wife and I, she was in the tech world also. We decided to leave and do something different so we could start a family. focus on our family. Basically, we were both working ridiculous hours and it just wasn't sustainable if we wanted to start a family. So put our jobs in 2008, moved to the East coast, ended up flipping houses. Long, boring story about how that started, just kind of serendipitous. We didn't really plan it, never really considered real estate, but fell into flipping houses. Over the next eight years or so, we flipped about 400, 450 houses, was great. It ended up being the, next career we were looking for, it gave us the flexibility to kind of raise our kids and never have to miss a soccer game or a piano recital, which was fantastic. But then around 2017-ish really got burned out on flipping houses and that's when I started to look for some new stuff to do. and that kind of leads me into what I've been doing the last few years. Seth Bradley (05:41.742) That's awesome, man. That's a ton of houses you flip, man. think that that's, know, a lot of the folks who've been in the game for a long time, they've heard you speak on, you know, on bigger pockets and all of that. So, you know, what attracted you originally to house flipping rather than, you know, buy it holds or anything like that? So I'll be honest, I don't love real estate. I love business. I'm a business guy. like when I was even when I was in the tech world, I got my MBA and I did some business development and I moved from the engineering side to the product side where I could be more involved in the business stuff. And I'm a business guy by heart. And that's what I love doing. So when it came to flipping houses, For me, was, I could have been buying and selling anything. It ended up being houses. And again, not an exciting story. mean, literally the story was my wife was watching a show on HGTV with some people flipping houses and she said, let's give that a try. Just as kind of like a fun thing to do on the side while we were waiting for our wedding to come up. So it wasn't something that I ever thought about or planned to do. It just kind of happened. And so if it weren't flipping houses, it would have been buying and selling something else. would have opened a restaurant or I would have opened a retail store or who knows what I would have done. But for me, the challenge was in the business. It wasn't the real estate piece of it. And so I've always enjoyed the scaling part. So yeah, flipping a house is great. Flipping five houses is great. But I always wanted to know, how do I go from flipping five houses to flipping 50 houses in a year? What are the systems and processes I have to put in place? how do I build that type of business? That to me is what's exciting. And so for me, it's always been about not the real estate part of it, but about the building the business part of it. Seth Bradley (07:25.248) I love that man. I don't think I've heard anyone just come out and say that, even though a lot of people are probably in the same boat as you that, you know, you don't have to love real estate to recognize that it's a great business. Right. Yeah. So that that's awesome. So tell me a little bit about your, your transition and what you're doing now, your current business, how you kind of progressed from house living to what you're about to tell us about. Yeah, so 2017, I just got really burned out on flipping houses. It was good to us financially. We got good at it. I wrote a bunch of books on it, but I'll be honest, it was never fun. And as the years went on, it just ended up getting more tedious. I felt like I wasn't learning anything new. It was revising processes and creating new systems. it was fun, but I needed some new challenges. So 2017, I decided, okay, done with flipping, actually went and started doing some business stuff. So I do some advisory work for some tech companies. I do some angel investing. And so for a few months, I actually considered getting out of real estate altogether, focusing on other business pursuits. But I actually, what I realized was that I didn't like the nuts and bolts of real estate. I liked the mechanics of real estate. I loved the negotiation piece. I loved the asset management piece. I loved the putting deals together piece and I was good at it. And so while I really didn't wanna be flipping houses, didn't want to be involved in the day-to-day aspects of managing the projects. I enjoyed the deal part of real estate. And so in addition to that, after I stopped flipping, I had all this cash. And I was like, okay, what am I going to do with this cash? I was using it to flip houses. We were doing 50 houses a year. It's put a lot of cash to work. Now I had all this cash. I'm a control freak. do invest in other people's syndications, but I don't sleep well at night when all my money is being managed by other people. So I said, how do I kind of take back control of my own cash as well as kind of get back into real estate? What can I do in real estate that I would enjoy? And now I can also deploy a bunch of my own cash. And what I realized was multifamily. Scott (09:38.648) That was a great opportunity. And I had been thinking about multifamily for a long time. But what I realized was from the syndication side of multifamily, could, one, I could have the control. could be a general partner. could control the deal. I could put the deal together. I could manage the deal. But also I could come in on the limited partner side as an investor. And it was a great place to deploy my capital. So I could deploy my capital in deals that I had full control over. So 2017, I decided I wanted to get into multifamily, probably wanted to get into syndication. I reached out to a friend of mine, Ashley Wilson, who managed a company called Barred Down Investments. She and her husband had started the company a couple of years earlier. They were doing exactly what I wanted to do. And so I reached out to Ashley and I said, hey, I would love to learn multifamily. I don't expect you to like just take all this time and teach me so I can often be your competitor. But here's what I am willing to do if you're willing to do this. I will come work for you for a year. And in that year, you've got all my time, you've got all my energy, you've got all my knowledge, you've got all my contacts, I'll put money into your deals, whatever it takes. You mentor me for a year, you've got my commitment for a year. After a year, we can figure out if like, there's a place for me on the team or if I'll go off and do my own thing. But basically, let's work together for a year. And she loved that idea. mean, I think she liked the fact that I was really good with the systems and the processes and the operation stuff. And I obviously loved the fact that I could jump into a team that was high functioning, already owned a lot of properties and was doing deals. So for the next year, I worked with her team. It took about a year and a half before we finally did a deal. But 2020, just before COVID, we started putting together a deal. That deal went really well. Ashley and I realized that we were like, just we made a great team. We had a bunch of complimentary skills, the things that she was really good at, I wasn't, the things I was really good at, she wasn't, it was just a good partnership. Around the same time, her husband decided that he didn't really want to be doing real estate anymore. He kind of wanted to be a stay at home dad. He liked helping with the business. He ran the underwriting team and he did a lot of the analytics, but he didn't want to be a partner in the business anymore. So about a year and a half ago, Ashley came to me and said, Hey, would you want to join me and be a partner in the business? Scott (11:57.678) 2020, 2021-ish. Ashley and I joined forces. She and I now run bar down investments and we do value add multifamily all around the country. That's great man, said you weren't having fun anymore, you having fun now? I'm having a ton of fun. And I think the big difference between then and now is when you're flipping houses, flipping houses is a very, it's a solitary venture. Yeah, you have contractors around you and you have eight real estate agents and you have closing agents and lots of 1099 people, lots of vendors and people that come in to help you. But at the end of the day, you're running the show. You're doing the four big things that you do when you flip houses. you're acquisitions or you're running acquisitions, you're doing the rehab or you're running the rehab, you're doing the disposition or managing the disposition and you're raising the money. mean, all four of those things, you don't generally have a big team to do those things because it's just hard to scale a big team when you're flipping houses. The profits aren't there, the margins aren't there. Unless you're doing real high-end houses, the deal size isn't there. But in multifamily, the thing I love about multifamily is it really is a team sport. When you're doing it, $10 million deal or a $50 million deal, it's not something that I could ever do myself. It's not something anybody or very few people can do themselves. Typically you have to be part of a team because things are very specialized. mean, the acquisitions piece, you need some of the best acquisitions people in the world to be finding deals in this market. The renovation piece to be renovating a 200 or 400 or 600 unit apartment complex, it's not like flipping a house. You need to have really good systems and processes. need to... Scott (13:36.448) really know the renovation side of things. Managing the property, I mean, you have to know the asset management side. You have to know how to carry out a business plan. You have to know how to increase and reposition rents. You have to know how to decrease expenses and improve the efficiency of the management. And then on the sales side, that's a whole other world where you have to really know the market and be able to work with the brokers and know how to position the company for sale. And then finally, there's that raising funds piece. And that's a whole world by itself, whether you're dealing with raising debt through a broker and you're going like just typical, like getting loans, or you're going out to private investors or institutions and you're raising equity, people that come in as partners. And I mean, that's a full-time job in itself, those two things. So when you do multifamily, you really need to figure out what are you great at? And then you need to surround yourself with people who are great at everything else. And so that's what I loved about multifamily. It allowed me to focus on what I was really and then bring in people who are literally the best in the world at all the other stuff. And now it becomes a team sport. It goes from playing tennis to playing basketball. It goes from being yourself reliant and you have to do everything and be the best versus you have to be able to put together the best team and manage that team in a way that not only is everybody fantastic, but working together, they're better than the sum of their parts. Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic, man. The whole team game part of multifamily and commercial real estate. It's really interesting because when you get into other businesses, it feels more competitive and kind of like if you if you have the secret sauce, you keep it close to your vest. You don't you don't tell everybody about it. Whereas when you're in this commercial real estate world, everybody's sharing ideas. Everybody's trying to partner. Everybody's trying to see how they can help you rather than just looking about, well, how can you help me kind of? I call it, I'm gonna get in trouble here, but the Hollywood mentality where it's like, what can you do for me? Oh, you just drive a three series, you probably can't help me. So it's a different attitude. Scott (15:41.294) Absolutely. I like to refer to it as co-op petition. It's like there are deals that you're going to do with other people and then there deals you're going to do yourself and you may come back to those people later. You may never come back to them, but everybody kind of looks out for each other because you never know when you may end up in a deal with somebody that previously you were competing against. And so anytime that you're not in a deal with somebody, you're still treating them as if, the next deal we could end up being partners. And the deal after that, we could end up being partners. because it really is, it's a small industry, everybody knows each other. we really, again, going back to the sum of the parts is greater than the parts themselves. mean, working together, we can really do a whole lot more than if we just are purely competitive and try and take each other down. Yeah, absolutely. And I think kind of going back, there's a lesson to be learned about how you were transitioning from house flipping and you were the best at it. And then you're like, okay, I want to go into multifamily and a syndication. You went and you sought out someone that was already in the game that knew what they were doing, that had the experience. And you said, what can I do to help you? What value can I bring to you to help you so you can teach me what you've done? And there's a lot of value to be found in that lesson for folks that are trying to you know, get into the active side. A lot of listeners out there are passive investors already and they're, you know, maybe thinking about, maybe I want to do in the active side. And they're like, well, what can I do? Cause a lot of attorneys, especially in doctors and folks like that, they think they have this one track mind. They're only trained to do one thing. And they're like, what value can I provide as somebody else? But there are a lot of skills that you've learned in your W2 profession that you can apply to help other folks that are already in the industry. Absolutely. I mean, I talk about it a lot, but even outside of real estate, I do a lot of advisory work and I'm still pretty active in the tech world. And I find companies that kind of bridge that gap between technology and real estate. all know about the Zillows and the Airbnb type companies. There are a lot of startup companies in that space too called property technology type companies. so... Scott (17:46.998) I love to use my experience, my knowledge, my relationships to go into those companies and help them grow their companies. In return, I'm not an employee. I'm not even a 1099 contractor. In return, I'm getting equity so that if I can help make them successful, ultimately my equity is gonna be worth something. I'm gonna be successful as well. And so what I like to tell everybody like figure out what you're good at and then figure out who needs that expertise. and then figure out how you can offer that expertise in a way that isn't trading necessarily hours for dollars. Figure out how you can trade your expertise, your knowledge, your Rolodex, your whatever it is for equity or potentially passive income so that you can grow potentially many fold as opposed to I charge $200 an hour or $300 an hour. mean, everybody loves $300 an hour, but the minute you stop working, you stop making that money. But if you can get equity, that equity can work for you for a while. Yeah, absolutely. And it's tough for a lot of the WTs out there listening, they're highly paid professionals. It's tough to get off of that treadmill. For some folks it's easier because they're not making as much money, but for the lawyers, the doctors out there that are making a good amount of money in their profession, it's tough to try to see, you know, to stop trading time for money. But you've got to kind of see through the weeds there. Yeah, well, what I tell people is, there's two types of income. There's your active income. That's the stuff that you're trading your time for, whether you're a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or you're a house flipper or you're a consultant or you're a small business owner, whatever it is, that thing that when you stop working, you stop making money. And then there's a passive income. It's the thing you trade money for money. So you put your money out there and hopefully it continues to come back to you for the rest of your life or at least the next several years. And so what I like to tell people is don't think about those the same. Those are completely different. figure out for your active income, figure out what the highest and best use of your time is. If you're gonna make more money as an attorney than you are flipping houses, don't flip houses just because you eventually want to retire on real estate. You can always use real estate for the passive side of things, but if you're gonna make more dollars per hour as an attorney or a doctor or a consultant, then do that because you wanna get out of that active income as quickly as possible. Scott (20:05.9) And the way you do that is you make as much as you can and you move it over to the passive side. So focus on whatever it is that's generating the most dollars per hour for a shorter period of time so that you can then start moving that money over to the passive side and start building up the passive side. don't, people ask me all the time, should I flip houses or should I buy rentals? And I'm constantly telling them that's not the right question. Flipping houses is your active income. Compare that to all the other. potential active incomes you can have. And rentals is passive income. Compare that to all the other passive investments you can make. And so don't say flipping houses or rentals say, should I be flipping houses or should I be an attorney? And don't say, I be flipping houses or rentals say, should I be doing rentals or should I be investing in syndications or dividend generating stocks or something else? And think of them very differently. then secondly, Make sure as much of that active income as you can, move it over the passive side so that you can start that snowball rolling. I compound interest is the key to financial freedom. And the sooner you can put more money to work, the faster it'll compound and the sooner you can start to live on. Yeah, I love that man. mean, lot of folks, you know, calls that I take, they're like, hey, they're attorneys. Should I quit my job or how do I quit my job? I'm like, if you want to quit your job, don't be hasty about it. First of all, you're probably making a good amount of money in your active income. You just need to figure out a way to transition that active to passive income and don't just quit your job. It's very difficult to flip houses, to do an HGTV fix and flip while you're working at a big law firm or something like that full time. I tried to do it, I didn't do it very well. You're not even gonna make it nearly as much money as you would as a doctor, as an attorney, unless you get to level like you did, Jay, but that takes time and that takes a buildup of accumulation of skills and money to be able to get to that level. Scott (22:05.826) Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a math equation. mean, your passive income or your ability to build up enough income to be able to retire, whatever your number is, is based on how much can you put in per month into that wheel, that passive income growth machine? How much are you generating every year on what you're putting in? So what do your returns look like? And three, how long do you have to compound it? And so everybody can go out into a compound interest calculator and say, okay, I have $5,000 a month that I can invest passively and I can return 12 % per year and I need $6 million to retire. Well, based on those three numbers, you can now figure out that fourth variable, is how long is it going to take? And so figure out how much do you have per month to put in? What's the rate of return you can generate and how much do you need? And that'll tell you how long it's going to take or figure out how much you have to put in, how much your return is gonna be and how long you wanna spend. And that'll tell you how much you'll end up with at the end, either way you wanna look at it. But again, it's a pretty simple math equation, but too many people don't actually do that equation where they don't think about it until too late and they think, I wish I would have taken that $5,000 a month that I was spending on my second home in the Bahamas and put that into real estate so that I could have been. compounding it and so now I could buy that home for cash five years or 10 years later. Absolutely. Attorneys hate math, but I think they can handle that little equation. I want to take a step back for a minute because you got into house flipping in 2008, which is kind of like around the big crash. And now we're kind of at the height of a market. We don't know where that height is going to end, but we're definitely in it. Right. So can you maybe compare and contrast getting into, let's say, Seth Bradley (24:01.652) one real estate venture in the middle of a crash compared to getting into another venture kind of towards, towards the upswing. Yeah, so it's one of the reasons I like multifamily and I like commercial and I like syndication. Anytime you're doing purely transactional deals, buying something and then selling it, not generating any cashflow in between, you run a risk. If the market turns in the middle of the transaction, you're gonna lose money and you don't have a lot of ways to mitigate that risk. Whereas if you're buying something like an apartment complex, or even if you're buying a rental property, or you're buying a self-storage complex, or you're buying anything that cash flows, the nice thing is if the market turns, you may not be in a great position. You may not be thrilled with what's happening with the value of your assets, but if you're still generating cash flow, you can weather that storm. Maybe it's gonna take, the average recession lasts about 18 months. And so if you can make enough income that you can keep yourself afloat for 18 months, or maybe it's a horrible recession and it lasts three or four years. If you're still making income and you can keep yourself afloat for three or four years, the market's gonna come back. And so when we do our multifamily deals, yeah, we typically say we're planning to hold three to five years, but we also do all the underwriting to ensure that if we have to hold for six years or eight years or even nine or 10 years, that the numbers still work because. Again, who knows what's gonna happen three years down the road, we could have a major recession that lasts four years and now we're seven years down the road. I wanna know that my multifamily investments in seven years, they're probably gonna be producing more cashflow. We're probably gonna see more growth in terms of population. We're probably gonna see more growth in terms of employment. Hopefully we're gonna see more wage growth once we come out of that recession. So all the economic indicators that kind of lead towards value growth in multifamily, Scott (25:58.486) are going to happen over those seven years if I can just get my property seven years and not lose it. With a flip, well, I'm not generating any income. So if the bank calls the loan due or if my two-year loan comes due and I can't refinance, I'm screwed. But in a multifamily, I just waited an extra couple of years and I'm probably in a better position than I was anyway. So that's one of the reasons I love multifamily because we can't predict what the economy is gonna do in the next couple of years. But I do know that whatever the economy does, it's probably gonna come back in the next five or 10, and I'm still gonna have the problem. Yeah, yeah, that's great. That kind of rolls into this next question. How does a passive investor that's kind of vetting a sponsor, how do they check kind of the boxes to see if their sponsors are taking the extra measures to look into those risks that you just mentioned, to mitigating those risks, to taking those risks into account in their underwriting and things like that. How can they best vet the sponsor to make sure that they're thinking of those things? So I invest in a lot of other people's syndications as well as my own. And so when I do that, I kind of look at five areas for due diligence anytime I invest in a syndication. Number one is the team. And that's probably the most important thing. For a lot of people, I have been pleasantly surprised that a lot of our investors have recognized that team is the most important aspect of the deal. I know in the flipping world, everybody was concerned about the deal. Nobody cared about what was my experience, but in the multifamily world, a lot of investors recognize that the team has to be great. So number one is the team. Number two is location. Location is often overlooked, but at the end of the day, the thing that's gonna drive value for multifamily and for commercial real estate in general is gonna be population growth. So you want more people coming into an area, employment growth. So you want more employers coming into an area that will bring more people in. You want wage growth because that will ultimately drive rents up. Scott (28:06.082) and you want employment diversity. You wanna know that if one industry takes a big hit, so for example, we invest in Houston, but we won't invest in the energy corridor of Houston because it's so reliant on oil and gas, that if the oil and gas industry took a big hit, the real estate around there would probably take a big hit. So we wanna see that there's good employment diversity. But at the end of the day, location is that next big thing. So team, location, number three is the deal itself. So you need to know that the deal is gonna stand on its own. I wanna know that if I took a deal and I handed it to pretty much any other indicator, they couldn't mess it up too badly. Obviously, again, we're gonna go back to the team is super important, but I want the deal also to stand on its own. And I wanna know that the business plan for the deal, the hold period, the numbers and the underwriting, the pro forma for the property makes sense. So team location deal. Number four is the returns. So obviously when I invest with somebody, I'm in it for the money. And so I wanna see that the returns are commensurate with the risk. I wanna know that the returns, if somebody tells me I'm gonna get 10 % returns in this deal versus 20 % returns in another deal, I wanna know, well, why am gonna settle for lower returns? I want the answer to be because it's a lot lower risk or because you're gonna get your money back a lot sooner, which is gonna allow you to compound it or whatever the answer is. I want to know that the returns make sense given everything else. And then finally is the risks. At the end of the day, I'm always going to sit down with the syndicator and I'm going to say, what are you most concerned about here? Like where, if I'm going to lose money on this deal, where am I most likely going to lose money? They say, there's no shot of losing money. walk away because we all know every deal has risks and every syndicator knows what those risks are. And they're thinking about those risks. I just want them to tell me. So if I'm gonna lose money on this deal, where am I most likely? Why am I most likely to lose money if I'm going to lose money? So those are the five things that I look for. Talking about each individually a little bit more. the team, I like to know that one, I wanna see how many deals the team has done together because again, like a basketball team, you can put the best basketball players in the world together. And if they've never played on the court together, Scott (30:31.672) they're not gonna be necessarily the best team out there. You can find another team with five inferior players who have been playing together for 20 years and they're probably gonna be better because they know each other better. So I like to see teams that have worked together for a while. I like to see teams that have gone full cycle in deals. So it's easy to buy 10,000 units. It's hard to buy 10,000 units and also sell 10,000 units for a profit. So I wanna see that if a team has bought a lot of deals, they've at least sold some for a profit. I wanna see a team that's putting their own money in the deals. So I want people that have skin in the game. If they don't have skin in the game, and I've seen plenty of syndicators that don't like to put money in the deals, well, they need to sweeten the pot for me somehow. So maybe they're saying, we're not gonna take any profits until at least year three, or we're gonna give you a better preferred return, a better split than you would get if we were putting money in the deal. I wanna know if you're not putting money in. that you're at least giving me something that aligns our interests and ensures that you're gonna be working hard even though you might not have as much financial risk. So those are the types of things I like to see in the team. I like to see things like at least one or two people working full-time. If everybody's part-time, that's kind of a little bit scary. Obviously not everybody has to be full-time because there are a lot of jobs on a GP team that aren't full-time jobs. There are a lot of jobs that might stop the day you purchase the property. Like the person that's raising money, job's pretty much done other than communicating status when the property's been purchased. But I do want to know that whoever's managing the asset is doing it full time. So that's kind of the team stuff. Location, again, population growth, employment growth, wage growth, and employment diversity. So those are the four big things I look for. Next is the business plan. So I want to see the biggest question when somebody goes in and... does what I do, which is a value add multifamily. Basically they buy it, they raise the value of the property and then they sell it for a big profit. Where is that profit coming from? Generally the profits coming from raising the rents. There's also some lowering the expenses, but at the end of the day, raising the rents is kind of the big thing that's gonna generate the big profits in multifamily. And so I wanna know how are you raising the rents? And two, when you tell me that you're raising the rents from X to Y, where is Y coming from? Scott (32:55.182) Show me the comps that tell me that why is a reasonable new rent, market rent for this property after you've done the renovation. So I wanna see the comps. So that's kind of the deal. The returns speaks for themselves. I wanna see like the structure of the deal. So when's the money coming back to me? Is it paid monthly? Is it paid quarterly? What are the returns look like? What's the preferred return? So is it a low preferred return, which means that the syndicators are getting paid sooner, whereas at a higher preferred return, which means the syndicators have to do more for me before they take anything home. So that speaks for themselves. And then for the risks, I wanna know both the catastrophic risks. So what's the thing that's like going to make me lose all my money? Is there something out there that can cause me to lose all my money? Hopefully the answer is no, but there are probably some risks that are bigger than others. So we do a lot of deals in Houston. If somebody were to say to me, what's the biggest risk on your deals? The answer is generally going to be weather. If we have a really bad hurricane, if we're in a flood zone, we probably have flood insurance and we have hurricane insurance. But if it's in a place that's never experienced the negative impacts of a flood or a hurricane, and we are not required to have flood insurance, but there's still a massive hurricane that wipes out that property, that's not going to be good. We're going to have to pay for that ourselves. So what's our mitigation there? We don't have a great one. Luckily. the risk is really low. We don't buy in areas where there is that risk. And if there is, we're gonna get flood insurance. But I do want my investors to know that no matter where you invest, whether it's a risk and especially in Houston, if we see a storm bigger than anything we've seen the last 50 years, some of our properties could be at risk. And then there are the smaller risks. So maybe there's five other complexes being renovated all around us. Maybe there's class A, brand new class A being developed. all around us. So basically our absorption of units is going to slow down because there's so many more units. Maybe there's one big employer in the area. Amazon just built a warehouse that's employing 8,000 people. Well, what happens if Amazon has a bad year and has to lay off 4,000 of those people? How's that going to affect us? So, so risks is the next thing. And the way I approach it is I literally sit down with the, with the syndicator and say, Scott (35:15.554) What keeps you up at night? What are the biggest things you're concerned about? And so those are the things that I do. I have no problem basically saying to a syndicator, I need 15 or 30 minutes of your time to ask these questions. Typically the good ones will either find the times themselves or have somebody on their team that will sit down and answer these questions. If they're not willing to answer those questions, well, that's probably a good indication that that's not a good team. Yeah. For our listeners out there, that breakdown was incredible. Rewind that, listen to those five items again. That's a quick, but thorough and awesome rundown of what you need to do. Just as at least the starting points for your due diligence. And that's, that's great that you said if they won't book a call with you either themselves or an investor relations person on their team, then it's time to, you can just walk away and look at the next, look at the next deal. One question I had on the deal. So a lot of folks, it's kind of overwhelming to see an underwriting model or something like that. And being a passive investor, I don't know how much you even want to dive into it. Some people do, some people want to nerd out on it. Most people don't. And we don't generally have access to the T12 or the rent roll or anything like that. What are maybe some quick tips on how to maybe proof through that pro forma to make sure that the assumptions are reasonable and the pro forma is generally a reasonable prediction of what we might expect from that investment. Well, let me start, me take a step back before I answer that particular question and just say that even for you and me, mean, you know how to do an underwriting, I know how to do an underwriting. If you or I were gonna invest in somebody's deal, Joe Smith's deal, we're probably not gonna have enough information even though we know this business really well and we know the underwriting models really well, we're probably not gonna have enough information. Scott (37:08.908) that we're going to be able to know for certain that Joe Smith's not trying to scam us out of money. So if Joe Smith is really smart and he could probably put together an underwriting that could fool us because we're just not gonna be putting in as many dozens of hours underwriting as he and his team are. So the number one thing I would say is make sure you trust your syndicate. This goes back to why team is so important. because there's two types of things that Joe Smith can do. One, he could do a bad job of underwriting and come up with bad numbers. That's not good, but that's not nearly as bad as Joe Smith wanting to scam us out of money. So number one is make sure Joe Smith's not the kind of guy who wants to scam us out of money. And so work with people who are reputable. And that's why I would invest with you before I would invest with 95 % of syndicators out there because you're an attorney, you passed the bar. you know that if you go and somebody finds out that you're trying to scam somebody, well, you're putting your entire career at risk. And so what I tell people is, so what do you have that really proves that this person is on the up and up? And maybe it's a track record. Maybe it's 10 or 15 years of doing deals. Maybe it's, I like to think with me, I've been doing this business for 15 years. I've done thousands of deals with hundreds or thousands of people. And if you go out on the internet, nobody's gonna, you're not gonna find anything that's written negatively about me. So that's a good sign. But make sure that there's something out there that gives you faith in that syndicator, even if it's just somebody else that's invested in a couple of deals with them. So that's number one. So that's the way to rule out that catastrophic, they're trying to scam you risk. Then there's the more likely, what if they just didn't do a good job of underwriting risk? And so for that, would say for people that have very little knowledge of how the underwriting works and how the numbers work, it can be really difficult. And so what I like to do is, or what I recommend people do is sit down and ask to do a Zoom call for 15 minutes with the investor relations person and say, hey, will you kind of walk me through the high level underwriting? And at least force them to go through and then just ask questions. Scott (39:30.958) when they say something, even if you have no idea what you're talking about and they say, well, it looks like we're gonna be able to reduce expenses by implementing a rub system, blah, blah, blah. Oh, okay, well, what is rubs and how does that work? And at least make them explain it to you. At least then you'll get an idea that they're not making it up as they're going along, or at least you'll get that confidence that it sounds like they know what they're talking about. But the biggest thing that I would say is that whole comps thing. And this is a question that a lot of people don't like to ask. But I actually, and when people ask me this question, it always makes me nervous because it's the hardest part of the business, but it impresses me when people do. to the underwriting or the investor relations person, what are the comps that you used for your post renovation market rents? So again, the thing that drives values in multifamily is after the renovation is completed, in theory, you should be able to bring your rents up higher. and your rents, those higher rents, you should be able to figure out what they are by looking at other units that have already been renovated and seeing what their rents are. So if I buy one, two, three Main Street, and I know I'm going to put $8 million into it, well, now that property is going to comp out to 678 Main Street. And well, what are the rents at 678 Main Street? And so by asking, hey, so you're buying one, two, three Main Street, what are the comps for the rents after you renovate? and they tell you, it's going to be 678 Main Street and 123 Smith Street, whatever it is, you can then go look up those properties and say, okay, well, it looks like a two bedroom at those properties is renting for 1200. Now I go back to the investor relations person or whatever information they gave me I see, oh, okay, after renovation, they have their rents at 1200. Makes sense. If that's a reasonable comp, they now have the rents at kind of where they should be. If he says that six, seven, eight main streets, a comp, and you go look in a two bedroom at six, seven, eight main streets, 1200, but their underwriting tells you that after they do the renovation, they're going to be charging 1500. Well, why are you now $300 above this property that you said was a comp? And so that to me is kind of the first thing that I look at or the biggest thing I look at is what are the comps that they're using and does just a kind of first pass. Scott (41:57.762) jumping on apartments.com or calling the complex and asking them what different things rent for. Does that coincide with what they're telling you their post renovation rents are gonna Yeah, I love that man. I mean, it's not as simple as just going into an old dilapidated apartment building and saying, I'm to put granite countertops and hardwood flooring and stainless steel appliances in there. And then I'm going to triple the rent or double the rent. It's not that easy. If it's not in the right area that could support those, those market rents or that have potential tenants that want those types of things, it doesn't work. So that's why that's so important to check those comps to see what's around those apartments that you're going to be investing in to see if, they can achieve those. those proforma rents. All right, man, before we jump into the freedom four, what's one last gold nugget for our listeners? Absolutely. Scott (42:45.634) Yeah, so again, what I would tell people is figure out your highest and best use on your active side. And then for the passive side, figure out how you're gonna scale. And I know a lot of people like to invest in a whole lot of different things, but I'm a big fan of doing some work so that you don't have to diversify as much. Diversification is great, but diversification, is for people who aren't really an expert in anything. If you want to get your best returns, the way to get your highest level of returns is not to have to diversify. And the best way not to have to diversify is to get knowledgeable about whatever you're investing in. So if you decide you wanna invest in all your syndications, just cause that's what you and I do. So it's an easy example. If you want to invest in syndications and that's how you wanna grow your nest egg, my recommendation is, get as much information about syndications as you can. Pick up a good book on syndications. Go find somebody that does syndications and say, hey, I'd to pay you a thousand bucks for five hours of your time. Or you just to walk me through what a typical deal looks like or what the underwriting looks like. Or go sit in on a hundred multifamily syndication investor videos, presentations. So you can see all the different things they're talking about and become as much of an expert there as you can. So that way you're reducing your risk without having to do a lot of the. diversification. So focus on whatever your highest and best use of time is on your active income and then become as knowledgeable as you can for whatever you're investing in passively. What I like to say on the passive side is it's not truly passive. Nothing's truly passive. But the best investments are the one where all the work is done upfront. You do your due diligence and then it becomes passive. Yeah, that's awesome, man. And then what you can do though is diversify within that strategy, right? Absolutely. Yeah, different asset types can have different business strategy, value add, or maybe you're dealing with just a class A where you're chasing yield or across different cities, different geographies, or across different sponsorship teams. There's other ways to diversify within that same type of investment strategy. Yep. All right, man, let's jump into the Freedom 4. Scott (45:05.598) It's time for the Freedom Four. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy? So for me, it's admitting when I need a break. I know so many people that it's a badge of honor to work 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, never take a vacation. I'm just the opposite. If I wake up one morning and I'm tired and I don't feel like working and I don't feel like I'm gonna be productive, I will grab a book. I might even turn on the TV. I might say to my wife, hey, let's go to breakfast or let's go spend the day, let's go to a movie. And I have no qualms with just saying, I need a break today. Today's not gonna be a productive day. I don't need to pretend to work just so I can have that badge of honor that I work hard. And so, yeah, and that's one of the nice things about real estate. mean, I don't have a hundred percent flexible work-life balance. I can't do anything I want any time I want, but if I wanna take a couple hours off, I normally can. And so I'm not scared to do that. Yeah, yeah, that's a great answer. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it? Scott (46:15.734) Yeah, I still have a lot of them. I think we all do. But I'd say the biggest one is that doing a big deal is not that much harder than doing a little deal. I'm not going to say a hundred million dollar deal is just as easy as a hundred thousand dollar deal. But if you're smart enough to do a hundred thousand dollar deal, you're smart enough to do a hundred million dollar deal. And the people that are out there doing those hundred million dollar deals, mean, we have, we now have a hundred million dollars assets under management. I remember a couple of years ago, looking at the people that had nine figures under management and thinking, they're different. I can't do that. These are people, went to some school that I will never go to, or they were born into something that I was never born into, or they know people I don't know, or whatever it is. No, they're normal people. And the only difference between them and me was I wasn't thinking big enough. and I wasn't willing to take some risks and I wasn't willing to acknowledge the fact that doing again, a hundred million dollar deal is certainly within my capabilities. So that to me has been probably the biggest one and it's made it a lot easier for me now to say, okay, $50 million deal, let's go do it, not think twice. Yeah. I had a similar experience working in, in, big law, doing house flips, doing single family rentals, things like that. And even though my clients are doing 50, a hundred million dollar deals and I'm helping them close those deals, it was just like the mindset shift that, a minute, I can do those deals too. I'm actually giving them advice on how to, how to do this thing. I need to step up my game and, and, take some. Exactly, it's the difference between people doing a hundred million, a hundred thousand, it's all mindset. Seth Bradley (48:00.866) Yep, absolutely. What's one actual step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom. take action. So the biggest thing that I see stopping people is just this fear to take the first step. And I know this doesn't apply to a lot of your listeners, but I talked to a lot of people who want to get into house flipping or they want to get into rentals and they've been thinking about it for years and they just never take that first step and then they end up giving up. One of the the few truisms I see in this business is that there are two types of people I meet. Number one, I meet people that have never done a deal. They've done zero deals. And maybe they're still working on it. Maybe they've given up whatever it is, but they've done zero deals. And then the other type of people I meet in this business are people that have done a lot of deals. They've done five or 10 or 20 or 50 deals. There's one type of person I never ever meet in this business. And that's somebody that's done one deal. Because if you get that one deal, you're gonna get the second and the third and the fifth and the tenth. Nobody does one deal and then says, okay, that's it, I'm done. can't do this. So what I like to tell people is, and that applies to a lot of things in life. If you can get over the hump and do it once, you're gonna get that snowball effect and it gets easier the second time. It gets even easier the third, it gets even easier the hundred. So don't give up until you achieve that first step or that first iteration of whatever it is you wanna achieve because that's gonna get that snowball rolling. Yeah. Yeah. We preach that on their show all the time. Just like, you know, just do a deal, just invest in a deal so you can get that experience and it'll just kind of open up your mind to other opportunities. You'll just see opportunity all around you. Once you just do one deal last but not least, how it's passive income made your life better. Scott (49:51.886) Passive income has given me the ability and the confidence to raise a family. Before this, my biggest concern with raising a family was I didn't want to be, I had, my parents were great, but my parents were always working. And I didn't want to be the same type of father that my parents were. Again, they were fantastic, but I wanted to always be there. I wanted to be at every soccer game, every piano recital. I wanted to be able to go into school for the parent-teacher conferences. so passive income has really given me the ability to build my life around my family as opposed to building my life around Love that, love that. It's been fantastic, brother. We're gonna listen and find out more about you. Yeah, anybody wants to get more info, go to www.connectwithjscott, just letter J, Scott, connectwithjscott.com, and that'll link you out to everything you might wanna find. Awesome man. Talk soon. Scott (50:54.945) Awesome. Thanks, All right, Mr. Jay Scott from Master House Flipper to multifamily syndicator. He's a master of creating profitable, well-oiled business machines. I've been reading Jay's bigger pockets books for years and it's awesome to have the opportunity to have him on the show today. Major key, focus. Focus on transitioning your active income to passive income and don't get distracted. All right, if you're ready for a change, you're ready to take action. partner with us on one of our next passive real estate deals. Go to passiveincomeattorney.com and join our Esquire Passive Investor Club. All right, kiddos, as always, enjoy the journey. Thank you for listening to the Passive Income Attorney Podcast with Seth Bradley. Do you want more ideas on how to generate multiple streams of passive income? Then jump over to passiveincomeattorney.com for show notes and resources. Then apply for the private Facebook community by searching for the Passive Income Attorney on Facebook. And we'll see you on the next episode. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en J. Scott's Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jscottinvestor/ https://www.instagram.com/jscottinvestor/ https://x.com/jscottinvestor https://linktr.ee/jscottinvestor
I've been thinking a lot about the ways we unintentionally rob God of His glory, and in this episode, I'm breaking down three of them. Maybe you've found yourself taking all the credit, keeping quiet about your testimony, or even giving up too soon. I've been there too. But here's the good news—God can use every part of our story to point back to Him. Join me as I walk through scripture and share encouragement to help us live in a way that truly gives God the glory He deserves.Date: September 11, 2025Podcast: Black Girl TheologyEpisode Title: S4E3 | Are You Stealing God's Glory?PATREONWe now have a Black Girl Theology community on Patreon! Depending on what level you join, you will receive early access to new podcast episodes, be able to submit topic requests for the podcast, and get access to two private, bonus episodes each season.The Bestie level has a 7-day free trial, so be sure to check that out. https://www.patreon.com/blackgirltheologypodcastLet's Stay Connected!Follow Black Girl Theology on Instagram: https://instagram.com/blkgrltheologyEmail: washingtonashtyn@gmail.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ashtynwashington.substack.com
(SPOILER) Your Daily Roundup covers the Call Her Daddy Bachelorette announcement coming any minute so I want to give you my early thoughts on the hypocrisy this could lead to, the names being thrown around, & Rachel Reilly's elimination last night. Music written by Jimmer Podrasky (B'Jingo Songs/Machia Music/Bug Music BMI) Ads: ZocDoc – Click on https://zocdoc.com/RealitySteve to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. Factor Meals - 50% off your first box PLUS Free Breakfast for a year at https://factormeals.com/realitysteve50off Promo Code: realitysteve50off Tropical Smoothie Café - Tropical Smoothie Cafe® brings the goodness – with made-to-order smoothies, bowls and food. You're on Tropic Time now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This may be the penultimate episode of the show, but we are still bringing our A game! Well, technically our B game... LoL welcomes back Alex Tuchi for his third and final spot on the show (that kinda sounds like a threat) We finally see what happens to the French expedition. We update the sound board. And we get deep into the stats with the Lost Aggregate. This place may be Death, but at least the weather is nice! And support your local bookstore - if you're in LA, stop by Chevalier's Books in Larchmont Village. You might meet a Lost On Lost alum! Depending on what day you go.
Host John Lund recaps how ACC football fared in Week 2 and more from the Cards 28-14 win over James Madison last Friday night, including some sound from a fellow Bleav Network podcast hosted by two former JMU players as part of Bleav's JMU Sports News Network, To The House. If you missed our full recap of Friday night's win against JMU you can check out the last episode from Friday night. For this week, a look at how Louisville fared against the Dukes and how ACC football managed in Week 2. Game Notes include major storylines that showed up during the James Madison game, including playing two quarterbacks, what the James Madison offense did wrong and what the Cards' defense did right. Included in commentary is James Madison legends Delvin Joyce and Vad Lee is part of the To The House show, part of the JMU Sports News Network. Joyce walked on at James Madison in 1997 and played runningback there until 2000, eventually getting selected into their Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014. He was the first player in Division 1-AA and second in all of Division 1 to reach 1,000 career yards in all four statistical categories of rushing, receiving, punt returns and kickoff returns. Vad Lee was a dual-threat quarterback who transfer from Georgia Tech and played for James Madison in 2014 and 2015. He was the first back-to-back winner of the Bill Dudley Award, which honors the state's best Division 1 player for both FBS and FCS, that state being Virginia. He was also the two-time Male Student Athlete of the Year for JMU and tied the school record for all-time passing touchdowns with 51, despite starting just 21 games, and is second all-time in total offense and third in passing yards and completions. All that to say, the guys know a thing or two about James Madison football and do a great job. What's the latest of Louisville in the AP Top 25 poll? And, how did Louisville fare after Week 2 overall with the boys in Vegas? Depending on your Cardinals bets, the lines may have changed in your favor.
Hey! Welcome back on this beautiful September day! If you are new here, I'm Monica and I love to simplify and streamline everything and I enjoy sharing all I learn with you, so grab a cup of coffee and enjoy! After a summer of probably saying yes to too many things and feeling exhausted, I realized I needed to be reminded of my own advice to keep things simple with less stress. If you know me at all, which you probably know me pretty well if you have listened to any amount of podcasts here, but I'm sure you know I like to do all the things, I love to learn and sometimes that comes with getting too much on my plate. If you want to reduce some of your mental load & enjoy a slow and intentional life, the first step is to create it by centering your life around what is important to you. For me, it is my faith, family, and time for being present. To me, time is our precious commodity and I don't want to get to the end of life and wish I would have done things differently. Depending on what season you are in, living intentionally may look different than slow living, but you have to know what you really want life to look like and make a plan so you can stop spiraling out of control and feel like you are going backwards. Next, you need to start saying no to some of what you are doing. If you are saying yes to please others or just because you think you are supposed to do something, you will burn out fast. I remember when my kids were in elementary school, I thought that I should volunteer just because I stayed at home (because most people done understand what WFH moms do!), but I whenever it came to going, I just dreaded it because I had so many other things I needed to do. I have always had side businesses as I'm not someone that ever sits around, so I have to plan my time carefully. I have learned to say, thanks for thinking of me, but right now I am unable to …..whatever it is. You don't have to say any more or try to make up excuses. Just imaging what all the things you will be able to say yes to because of the no's you had to tell people! And the last way you can lessen your mental load is to declutter. There is a direct correlation with mental stress and clutter, so make sure you are clearing spaces in your home. Since we have moved into our home 2 years ago, we have done so mych outside, but I still have totes with my hobbies and it bothers me everytime i see those totes because it is something I just haven't had a chance to get to yet. As my business has grown, it is something that got put on the back burner! I know when I have clutter on the counter or around our home, it makes such a difference in how stressed I am. If you do 1 thing today, start with clearing off your cupboard and getting the dishes done every night. After a week or 2 add in another thing and try to clear your space you are in most of the time first. You will wake up feeling much better when you go to make your coffee and don't have the stress of the mess hanging over your head. I want you to start implementing this right away and let me know how it goes for you! Remember Keep it simple and have a great week! Love ya friend! Monica Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/claimingsimplicity/ Email -> monica@claimingsimplicity.com
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Brett Richardson, founder of DermaCautery to discuss chemical cauterization of benign skin lesions, who can perform it in the practice, and the benefits it brings to your business and your patients. Key Takeaways:Chemical cauterization of lid lesions is within the training of optometrists, and is permitted in many, but not all states.The procedure is relatively straightforward. A wooden applicator is soaked in the chemical agent. Following application, the lid lesion will no longer receive blood supply, leading to necrosis and sloughing off. Follow up is 2-3 weeks and is rare to have complications.Patients actively desire to have these skin lesions removed but aren't necessarily thinking about having it done in the optometrist's office. The lead in conversation is important and many patients will be open to receiving treatment.Staff are a great asset with this service. It is not a major burden on the team as the treatment and preparation is relatively simple. Getting them on board is key to success.Depending on the patient complaints, it may or may not be billable to insurance. For cosmetic only, it is a cash based procedure. On average, each treatment adds $350 per patient to your top line. Given most of it is a service based, most of that drops to your bottom line.What Brett is Reading:10X Is Easier Than 2X by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin HardyPractice Advantage Reading List** Don't miss out on an extra $15 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year - with $15 extended through June of 2026, and $10 thru the end of next year! Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**
“Jesus, We're Depending on You” Scripture & Sermon 9/7/2025
The entire country is buying lottery tickets today, in anticipation of tonight’s 2nd largest jackpot drawing in Powerball history. In fact, the jackpot has grown even bigger in just a matter of hours! Depending on which state you live in, your lump sum payment can vary greatly, but isn’t it fun to think about what the first thing is you would purchase?!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The entire country is buying lottery tickets today, in anticipation of tonight’s 2nd largest jackpot drawing in Powerball history. In fact, the jackpot has grown even bigger in just a matter of hours! Depending on which state you live in, your lump sum payment can vary greatly, but isn’t it fun to think about what the first thing is you would purchase?!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The entire country is buying lottery tickets today, in anticipation of tonight’s 2nd largest jackpot drawing in Powerball history. In fact, the jackpot has grown even bigger in just a matter of hours! Depending on which state you live in, your lump sum payment can vary greatly, but isn’t it fun to think about what the first thing is you would purchase?!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The entire country is buying lottery tickets today, in anticipation of tonight’s 2nd largest jackpot drawing in Powerball history. In fact, the jackpot has grown even bigger in just a matter of hours! Depending on which state you live in, your lump sum payment can vary greatly, but isn’t it fun to think about what the first thing is you would purchase?!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Foundations of Amateur Radio I've owned a Yaesu FT-857d radio since becoming an amateur and at the time I was absolutely blown away by how much radio fits inside the box. It's smaller than most of the commercial radios I'd seen when I bought it. I came across a video by Michael KB9VBR, the other day showcasing a wooden cigar box with a complete, well, almost complete POTA, or Parks On The Air, activation kit. I say almost, since Dave KZ9V, the owner of the kit, points out that the box doesn't contain an antenna. It made me wonder how small is small? According to RigPix, the lightest transmitter on an amateur band, in this case, the 5 GHz or 5cm band, is an Amateur TV transmitter. Weighing in at 3.9 grams. The Eachine TX-06 is capable of FM with about 18 MHz of bandwidth with an audio sub-carrier. Of course, that's not a transceiver, but I thought it worth mentioning in case you needed an excuse for something tiny in your shack, besides, as far as I can tell, there's never too much Amateur TV in the world. I've built a crystal radio on a breadboard which is tiny, but it doesn't transmit, so to set the stage, I think we need to limit ourselves to transceivers, that is, a device capable of both transmitting and receiving, on amateur bands. Before continuing I'd like to express my thanks to Janne SM0OFV, for the rigpix.com database that he's been maintaining, in notepad, since 2000. Without the invaluable information documented for the currently 7,512 radios, I'd be spending an awful lot of time hunting for information. Moving on, the FaradayRF board is a transceiver, capable of using 900 MHz or the 33cm band. It comes in at 30 grams, but without a computer it's a circuit board with potential. The PicoAPRS by Taner DB1NTO, is a 2m transceiver specifically for APRS, weighs in at 52 grams and similar in look and a third of the weight of an Ericsson T18 mobile phone. Speaking of mobile phones, the PicoAPRS does WiFi and Bluetooth, can pair with your phone and act as an AX.25 modem. I'll confess, I'm drooling. Moving right along, for 70cm there's a Rubicson Walk 'n' talk, weighs in at 65 grams. Mind you, the RigPix database puts this under the "License-free / PMR446" section which comes with a sage warning, check your local laws before transmitting. There's a few Alinco DJ-C models for different markets that operate on 2m or 70cm, weighing in at 75 grams. The ADALM Pluto weighs 114 grams, but you'll need a USB power supply of some sort to make it do anything. It can operate between 70 MHz and 6 GHz, but the user interface is limited to a single button and LED, so if you want to interact with it, you'll need some external technology. Moving on to HF transceivers, weighing in at 199 grams, without the bag, but all the options, is the Elecraft KH1. Transmits on 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m and 15m and receives between 6 and 22 MHz. It's CW only, but you can receive SSB. If CW isn't your thing, RTTY and PSK can be used on the 40m band with a Silent System Handy PSK 40. Presumably the Handy PSK 20 runs on 20m. Both weigh in at 250 grams. The Zettl P-20xx SSB does SSB, AM, FM and CW, transmits on 10m, 11m, 12m and 15m as well as the MARS frequencies and receives between 14 and 30 MHz, weighs 300 grams. Even comes with CTCSS. Another Elecraft model, the KX2 weighs in at 370 grams, does 80m to 10m and the WARC bands, does SSB, CW and data. Mind you, you'll also need to add the weight for the microphone and paddles, and factor in a computer if you want to do more than PSK and RTTY. The Expert Electronics SunSDR2 QRP does 160m to 10m, the WARC bands and 6m. Weighs in at 500 grams, has a network port and two independent receivers. Operates at 5 Watts. There's no user interface, unless you count the reset and power buttons, so I'm not sure if it can operate on any mode with just a microphone, but given the "Depending on software" disclaimers throughout, I'm going to guess you'll need to bring a computer to make it sing. The Risen RS-918SSB does all HF amateur bands between 160m and 10m, has a user interface and display, even a big tuning knob, has built-in FreeDV and does FM, SSB and CW. I'd hazard a guess that this is the lightest self-contained transceiver that you can take out on a POTA mission to a park. Weighs 623 grams and comes with an internal battery. The Elecraft KX3 also does 160m to 10m, and 6m, with a 2m option. Weighs in at 680 grams, but that doesn't include any options. And finally, we pass 1 kilogram and hit 1,100 grams and discover a radio that does all bands and modes, the Icom IC-705 with a battery, but no antenna. The Yaesu FT-817, FT-817dn and FT-818 weigh 70 grams more, but that weight includes both a battery and antenna. Of course there are other options. For example, there's the (tr)uSDX by Manuel DL2MAN, and Guido PE1NNZ, does 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m and 20m, CW, SSB, AM and FM. Comes in a kit, weighs 140 grams. It's not on RigPix, so I only know about it because it was mentioned by Dave KZ9V. Similarly, I bumped into, wait for it, a single transistor transceiver called the Pititico, in case you're wondering, Pitico means very small in Portuguese and Pititico means very very small. Designed by Miguel PY2OHH, it comes in various revisions, including one by Ciprian YO6DXE, also known as DX Explorer on YouTube, complete with a circuit board design, and with some modifications can do AM in addition to CW. It's also not in the RigPix database and I have no idea what it weighs. The point being that this rundown is intended as a starting point to explore how small you can really get and still activate the Park or Peak you intend to. While you're contemplating weight, remember to account for power, control, and most importantly an antenna or six. Again, big thank you to Janne SM0OFV, for the rigpix.com website. Also, thank you for the memories of the Spectravideo SV-318 and SV-328, the last time I bumped into one of those was in 1980-mumble when I was working in a computer shop on the Haarlemmerstraat in Leiden, Mr. Micro Zap, if you're curios. What lightweight adventures are you looking for next? I'm Onno VK6FLAB
Today we talk about how moving to Mexico has changed. Depending on who you are it could be for the better or for worse. With that said the idea of moving to Mexico has become more and more popular as the years have gone on, but the question remains. Is it still worth it? Join me as we talk about the realities of what living in Mexico actually are. #mexico #méxico #movingtomexico #livinginmexico #livingabroad ..Watch the Livestream and Participate Every Thursday on my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@JoseArteagaTravelsWebsite . Full of FREE information https://www.josearteaga.com
#FactsMatter, the Citizens Research Council of Michigan podcast
Guy Gordon chats with Citizens Research Council president Eric Lupher about his study examining how an admissions tax on sports and entertainment venues could help offset some of the costs of providing public services that support these venues and their visitors. The study, commissioned by the City of Detroit's Legislative Policy Division, focuses not only on Detroit but also on several other Michigan cities that could benefit from revenues generated by an admissions tax. These revenues could be used to provide benefits such as property tax relief and to invest in attracting future national events to Michigan. Among the many issues the report, Evaluating Local-Option Admissions Taxes in Michigan, examines are the economic impact of events, admission tax revenue estimates, tax design and policy considerations, revenue generation from comparable cities, the advantages and disadvantages of local-option taxes, and the viability of Michigan having an admissions tax. In a Nutshell: Detroit is one of the few major cities in the U.S. that does not levy an entertainment/amusement/admissions tax. While this means the city is not taking advantage of a revenue source commonly used by other cities, it also means that the city can learn from the processes and experiences of others. Depending on how an authorizing state law would define the base and the tax rates authorized, Detroit could yield upwards of $50 million from an admissions tax. Revenue from an admissions tax could be used to enhance city services, diversify the city's revenue streams, provide property tax relief, and put into a fund that could be used to draw major national events to the city. “Several Michigan cities serve as regional hubs for culture, commerce, sports teams, concerts, and conventions,” said Eric Lupher, president of the Research Council, adding there are even more that host events that, relative to their size, similarly incur service costs. “Detroit stands alone as the largest city in this role, with four major professional sports teams, concert halls, theatres, and other venues that attract attendees from throughout Southeast Michigan and beyond.” The study concludes that while a new state law would be needed to authorize local admissions taxes, the state legislature should consider allowing cities to impose an admissions tax to enhance revenue streams, help cover costs associated with hosting events, and provide property tax relief.
On this episode we stay primarily in the United States. President Trump is suggesting sending troops to New orleans to help clean up the city. Depending on the source reporting on the news, you may hear that New Orleans is safer now than it has been in years...you may also hear the statistical fact that New Orleans is currently #3 in the country for homicide. Speaking of Trump, a group of Epstien survivors have come forward to compile their own list since Trump's DOJ is refusing to do so! Hundreds of women are coming together to release the list compiled by their own eye witness accounts. Speaking of the DOJ, a massive 700,000 lb bust just took place of meth making materials being shipped from China to the Senaloa cartel. Meanwhile Florida is making vaccines a non-issue for all of their citizens, while the entire west coast is creating a vaccine alliance to force them upon their citizens whether they want them or not. Speaking of vaccines, members of the HHS are demanding the removal of RFK jr from his role as secretary. Also, an international "church" (which in this case is an absolute cult) was found to be a money laundering front and their two leaders were arrested for human traficking, laundering, forced labor, and abuse of their "congregates" in Florida. We then on a more positive note and discuss an archeological dig site in Texas that is rewriting the history books on what we thought we knew about early human civilization on this continent 13,000 years ago!To join in the conversation every Wednesday night at 9pm cst come to patreon.com/CajunKnightBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cult-of-conspiracy--5700337/support.
Depending on what state or country you live in, logging into Instagram, Reddit, or (dare we say) Corn Hub might prompt you to submit a government ID to proceed. This fresh privacy nightmare is thanks to a variety of "online safety" laws going into effect, or being upheld by courts. They are aimed at protecting minors from accessing harmful content online -- a laudable goal. But requiring all users to submit their face and address to tech companies comes with a host of privacy issues and pressures on free speech. To explain what's going on, who might be affected, and what happens next, Matt sits down with Laura Riposo VanDruff, a partner at the law firm Kelley Drye & Warren who has spent much of her career focused on tech, privacy, cybersecurity, and AI litigation, and a decade of work at the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, which is often the de facto government body that regulates these kinds of digital issues. Connect with Laura and her work: https://www.kelleydrye.com/people/laura-riposo-vandruff https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-riposo-vandruff-1598b921/ Shout out to our Producer Tier Patreon supporters! BowieBarks Dominick Kerr Evan Jolene Jula Robert Tortorelli Sam William News items discussed in this episode: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/14/nx-s1-5482925/scotus-netchoice https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/no-uks-online-safety-act-doesnt-make-children-safer-online This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts:
This week on the Black Girl Theology Podcast, I sit down with the legendary Michelle McKinney Hammond to talk about her newest book, The Power of Being a Woman: Embracing Your God-Given Gift of Influence.
- Anniversary of Japanese Surrender and U.S. Occupation (0:10) - Trump's Tariffs and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (2:34) - Impact of Trump's Tariffs on U.S. Allies and Global Relations (9:21) - Challenges of Shifting Manufacturing to the U.S. (10:02) - AI and Knowledge Mining (14:07) - Trump's Criticism of Operation Warp Speed and Vaccines (24:27) - The Future of Medicine and AI (30:09) - Economic and Political Implications of Trump's Policies (48:20) - Interview with Don Brown on Power Grid Security (48:40) - Strategies for Securing the Power Grid (1:16:29) - Challenges of Depending on Foreign Manufacturers (1:19:14) - Rising Domestic Tensions and Power Grid Vulnerabilities (1:23:35) - Legislation and Cyber Threats (1:30:16) - Protecting Against EMP and Solar Threats (1:32:37) - Preparedness and Personal Responsibility (1:37:42) - Final Thoughts and Recommendations (1:41:12) For more updates, visit: http://www.brighteon.com/channel/hrreport NaturalNews videos would not be possible without you, as always we remain passionately dedicated to our mission of educating people all over the world on the subject of natural healing remedies and personal liberty (food freedom, medical freedom, the freedom of speech, etc.). Together, we're helping create a better world, with more honest food labeling, reduced chemical contamination, the avoidance of toxic heavy metals and vastly increased scientific transparency. ▶️ Every dollar you spend at the Health Ranger Store goes toward helping us achieve important science and content goals for humanity: https://www.healthrangerstore.com/ ▶️ Sign Up For Our Newsletter: https://www.naturalnews.com/Readerregistration.html ▶️ Brighteon: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/hrreport ▶️ Join Our Social Network: https://brighteon.social/@HealthRanger ▶️ Check In Stock Products at: https://PrepWithMike.com
This episode is a study from the book of James, with Pastor David Rosales of Calvary Chapel Chino Valley. This message was taught on August 31st. Support us by checking out our other social media platforms! Youtube: www.youtube.com/@CCChinoValleyWebsite: www.calvaryccv.orgFacebook: www.facebook.com/CalvaryChapelChinoValleyInstagram: www.instagram.com/calvaryccv
rWotD Episode 3040: Digital holographic microscopy Welcome to random Wiki of the Day, your journey through Wikipedia's vast and varied content, one random article at a time.The random article for Saturday, 30 August 2025, is Digital holographic microscopy.Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is digital holography applied to microscopy. Digital holographic microscopy distinguishes itself from other microscopy methods by not recording the projected image of the object. Instead, the light wave front information originating from the object is digitally recorded as a hologram, from which a computer calculates the object image by using a numerical reconstruction algorithm. The image forming lens in traditional microscopy is thus replaced by a computer algorithm.Other closely related microscopy methods to digital holographic microscopy are interferometric microscopy, optical coherence tomography and diffraction phase microscopy. Common to all methods is the use of a reference wave front to obtain amplitude (intensity) and phase information. The information is recorded on a digital image sensor or by a photodetector from which an image of the object is created (reconstructed) by a computer. In traditional microscopy, which do not use a reference wave front, only intensity information is recorded and essential information about the object is lost.Holography was invented by Dennis Gabor to improve electron microscopy. Nevertheless, it never found many concrete and industrial applications in this field.Actually, DHM has mostly been applied to light microscopy. In this field, it has shown unique applications for 3D characterization of technical samples and enables quantitative characterization of living cells.In materials science, DHM is routinely used for research in academic and industrial labs. Depending on the application, microscopes can be configured for both transmission and reflection purposes. DHM is a unique solution for 4D (3D + time) characterization of technical samples, when information needs to be acquired over a short time interval. It is the case for measurements in noisy environments, in presence of vibrations, when the samples move, or when the shape of samples change due to external stimuli, such as mechanical, electrical, or magnetic forces, chemical erosion or deposition and evaporation. In life sciences, DHM is usually configured in transmission mode. This enables label-free quantitative phase measurement (QPM), also called quantitative phase imaging (QPI), of living cells. Measurements do not affect the cells, enabling long-term studies. It provides information that can be interpreted into many underlying biological processes as explained in the section "Living cells imaging" below.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:12 UTC on Saturday, 30 August 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Digital holographic microscopy on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Raveena.
To round out a depressing week, we bring in two people who deal with depressing situations for a living. We also bring in Kristyn, who deals with Hollywood. Depending on who you are, that's either very different or very similar.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Reminding listeners that they can be fully supported and guided by the Dharma, Gil Fronsdal discusses the Buddhist concept of taking refuge.Today's podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.In this episode of the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil describes:The significance of going for refuge within the Buddhist tradition How taking refuge can radically reshape your life and reorient your heart towards truth and freedomAnalyzing our consciousness and what it is concerned with Taking refuge in the right things (those which can be be depended on for safety, peace, support)Bringing 100% of yourself along to the refuge without holding backWhy some people resist the concept of going for refugeMaking the intentional, willful choice to live a life aligned with truth and awakeningTrusting in the Dharma, surrendering, and knowing that it will always support youThe wise story of a monk who always maintained an attitude of trust and positivity, to his own downfall Taking refuge within ourselves and becoming independent within the Dharma rather than depending on other people The essence of the Dharma: committing to a life that doesn't cause harm Taking refuge in the potential for awakening and freedom that we all haveFinding refuge within the sangha, aka, our spiritual community Offering refuge to others and ensuring that we are a source of peace for the world around us“For me a very important aspect of this whole refuge thing is offering refuge to others, being someone that people can take refuge in, or being in the world in such a way that the world feels safe with you, supported by you, that the world has nothing to fear from you. Not just going for refuge or taking refuge, but offering refuge in return.” – Gil Fronsdal About Gil Fronsdal:Gil Fronsdal is the co-teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975. He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers Council. Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He currently serves on the SF Zen Center Elders' Council. In 2011 he founded IMC's Insight Retreat Center. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, essays on mindfulness practice; A Monastery Within; a book on the five hindrances called Unhindered; and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications. You may listen to Gil's talks on Audio Dharma.This recording was originally published on Dharmaseed.org "To take refuge is to be interested in shaping consciousness in a very different way, shaping our heart in a very different way, so that our heart, our mind, is depending on something that is worth depending on. Depending on something which can provide a stable peace. Depending on something which is dependable. Depending on something that can protect us, support us, inspire us, and even liberate us.” – Gil Fronsdal See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Welcome to season four! We're kicking off this new season with none other than Sophia Ruffin-Wilson. Her brand new book, It Will Be God, launches this week! Back in 2022, Sophia released a live album with a song declaring: It will be God or it will be God. That declaration carried me then, and I'm still holding on to it now. In her new book, and in this week's podcast episode, Sophia shares the powerful origin of that prophetic declaration. Date: August 28, 2025Podcast: Black Girl Theology Episode Title: S4E1 | It Will Be God with Sophia Ruffin-WilsonABOUT SOPHIA RUFFIN-WILSON:Sophia Ruffin-Wilson is an influencer, author, creator, and prophetic voice whose message of deliverance and transformation has resonated powerfully around the world. Under the leadership of John Eckhardt, she is the founder of the CBK (Comeback Kid) Squad, CCL (Company of Copacetic Leaders), Speaker Speak, and Ready Writer Connection. A popular keynote speaker and media guest, she speaks extensively around the world and has appeared on The 700 Club, The Word Network, TCT network, and more. She lives in Chicago, Illinois. Learn more at SophiaRuffin.com.KEEP UP WITH SOPHIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yagirl_soph/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SophiaRuffinGlobal/Website: https://sophiaruffin.com/PATREONWe now have a Black Girl Theology community on Patreon! Depending on what level you join, you will receive early access to new podcast episodes, be able to submit topic requests for the podcast, and get access to two private, bonus episodes each season.The Bestie level has a 7-day free trial, so be sure to check that out. https://www.patreon.com/blackgirltheologypodcastLet's Stay Connected!Follow Black Girl Theology on Instagram: https://instagram.com/blkgrltheology Email: washingtonashtyn@gmail.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ashtynwashington.substack.com
How to Trade Stocks and Options Podcast by 10minutestocktrader.com
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According to a report from Fortune, more than 70% of the 40,000 mergers and acquisitions they studied fell short of expectations. So, how can you guide your sales teams navigate transformations and come out stronger on the other side of change? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Sérgio Vasconcelos, director of revenue enablement at Feedzai. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re super excited to have you. As we’re getting started, I’d love if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Sérgio Vasconcelos: Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the invite. So Sergio, based out of Lisbon, Portugal as probably with all of the enablement leaders in board, we actually just stumbled up on the position. So got my degree in computer science. I’ve been doing multiple roles from software engineering to project management till. Roughly eight, nine years ago, I started to get introduced to the solution consultant world. So supporting sales during the sales cycle with that technical knowledge and that advisory. And that has been the go-to for the probably for certain 10 years afterwards, there was a, uh, a stumble at feeds eye, you know, where I was able to, to gather that knowledge. The solution consultant and that experience of talking to the clients and I was actually invited to join recently created enablement role initially at Product ’cause the company was growing quite significantly and that organic growth was very much. Creating some challenges to what concerns the common understanding of the products and the services that we were doing, and that we had to go to market, that we had to sell, and then we had to activate and support to our clients. But then that evolution actually went really positive, and then the opportunity came for me to reach revenue, uh, on that same enablement function. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last, uh, three years, if I’m not mistaken. RR: Amazing. Well, I think it’s definitely a common story that stumbled down the rabbit hole of enablement from a different discipline, and you look back and go, how did I get here? But I’m so happy. I am, and we’re so happy you are too, because we have a lot of interesting topics to cover with you today. I’d like to kick off the conversation by asking about today. So in your role at Feedzai. What key initiatives are you focused on this year? And then in addition to that, how does your enablement tech stack support you in driving those initiatives? SV: First, in order for me to be able to, to share what is the focus of this year at Feedzai a little bit initially on what is enablement from my perspective. So enablement at the end of the day and the baseline, the core tenet is to address change. Experience simply whether it is in people, whether it is in product and services, whether it is, uh, market shift or market expansions, or whether it is actually in changing the ways of working. So enablement is actually the, the catalyst to promote that change. With that being said, the focus of this year for me and the team is actually three core themes that we have. The first is to raise the bar, whether it is from a soft. Hard skills perspective, but also to reinforce sales best practices. That has always been at the top of our agendas. We always need to be at the top of our game, whether it is with the knowledge of our products and our solutions, whether it is on the way that we interact, to have always a customer first mindset, the value first approach, and also to, of course, you know, to operationally speaking, to be as efficient as possible. The second one is how do we enable. Our sellers and you know, and our teams for success. That is basically the premise of how do we ensure that when a new Feedzaion comes in, they are equipped to succeed? Whether it is the first moment that we join the company with a solid onboarding program, not training, because I think that it is a wider aspect, or whether it is after the onboarding. How would they succeed on an ongoing support and that not only on the sales side of the house, but also to all departments that create the revenue function, whether it is customer success managers, whether it is inside sales team solution consultants. Others. The last, but not the least, is actually the one. And because I’m an engineer, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Right? So that’s one of the quotes I have from Peter Drucker. I’m a fan of that because we need to measure. You think that in the world that we live in, we need to. Really to focus on continuous improvement. So those small steps so that when we can do them consistently, then we can get better outcomes. And I think that that is, has always been at the top of our agenda. How do we ensure that we measure progress? And if we don’t, how do we actually identify it ahead of time so that we can adjust and adapt according? RR: Absolutely. I think that introductory perspective of enablement as a change manager really sets the stage well for a lot of what we’re gonna talk about today. Starting with, I know in the past you’ve switched off of a previous enablement platform and made the decision to embrace change and move to Highspot, so I’d love to talk a little bit about what motivated you to make that evaluation, make the change, and then what advice would you give to someone who’s looking to do the same? SV: Yes, absolutely. So that was well investigated by the way. So there’s also a premise on the enablement, and I think that this is actually true for the overwhelming majority of the enablement teams in the business, which is we’re not big teams, right? So if we are agents of change, if you are here to actually to accommodate and to address change, we need to do that both effectively. And efficiently. And, uh, because of that, we have some, you know, simple requirements of an enablement platform that we need to consider. It needs to be extremely easy to operate. Extremely easy to use and reportable. In conjunction to that, it needs to act both as a content management system as well as a learning management system. So it needs to serve both domains because again, if we just add up on the number of tools that we are supporting, the operational footprint, it’ll be a little bit heavier. What happens is that feeds eye. Basically runs at the fast pace and we were struggling to operate under those assumptions efficiently. And uh, we were getting some feedback from the users that, um, although the information was there, it was available, it was not easy to find information. You know how salespeople and how revenue folks are, right? They like to spend their time not working on back office. They just want to make sure that they are in front of the customers and, uh, you know, and spending their time with customers. But whenever that they need to find something, they need to quickly hop in. Find the information, get back to business. So that was, you know, we had a little bit of mixed feeling on the feedback that we got. And the other part is that the reports, when we talk about reports, we talk about. Numbers that generate insights, not just the KPIs per se, the numbers per se, the number of people that have been trained on, or the number of people that have downloaded certain assets. It’s actually the impact that will give and the trends. Are we getting some more engagement out of the engagement platform? Everything that we are releasing is being used and is it being adopted? And we were struggling to have that type of intelligence on our side. Hence we had to go. And search for alternatives. RR: Yeah, that all makes sense, and I think it’s something that a lot of organizations struggle with. You mentioned kind of what led you to the evaluation, and since you’ve made this decision and implemented Highspot, I’d love to know what are some of the differences that you’ve seen and maybe some of the benefits that you’ve noticed now kind of living in this new world? SV: It’s actually, it boils down to very simple things. I think that the number one is it’s not a thing anymore for us to operate the system. It’s really hassle-free, let us say, we don’t get anxious when we need to roll out, you know, just a certain go to markets. We don’t get anxious when we need to support the rebranding, when we need to actually to curate material that has been sitting for a while. So everything, all of the aspects of adding new assets, managing existing assets, updating existing assets, it has become really a hassle for operation. That has been one of the biggest ones. So basically we removed that variable out of our capacity, right? And that means that we have capacity to support all of the go-to-market initiatives going on. The second one is honestly the support. The support of Highspot as a whole. It was. Kind of an eye opener, honestly, from the moment that we were doing basically inquiring high spots on the capabilities, the thoughtful way of actually understanding what was our problem, what was our requirements, and how to best serve them. With Highspot being very true on what was possible and what was not possible. From the moment that then afterwards we made a decision of going with Highspot and then the activation. Process started all of that thoughtfulness of, uh, ensuring that feed eye had a solid foundation that could serve this for the long haul. That was really, really interesting. And actually because we are now are at that process that we’ve passed way beyond the point of activation and we are just continually running and, and evolving with the tool, the on-demand supporters, uh, second to none honestly. And, uh, that’s. Customer, it’s not even customer support. It’s actually customer care. That really makes a huge difference when, again, we need to cope with change. We need to be fast and we need be quick. I think that actually the last one, and that is a very recent one, is the new things that are coming up with ai. We know that AI has been, is an a acronym that is on the agenda of many people, is not a stranger that feeds ai. Honestly, you, we’ve been talking about AI and domain risk management since AI was not a thing. But, um, I think that more than the AI itself is actually how to apply technology to address the enablement needs. And really the stuff that has been, uh, coming along in the recent product, uh, updates has been. Amazing. And, uh, we are actually on the verge of trying out some really exciting stuff and I’m really excited about what’s going on. So again, that evolution also plays a part because scaling. Scaling is dying. RR: Yeah. I love to hear that you have that kind of foundation built and then knowing that you have that partnership for the future, especially because. I know Feedzai has recently gone through some significant changes. He recently acquired a company, which of course is gonna be a monumental change for your sales teams. So from your perspective, having gone through this moment, it’s only recently in the rear view, what are some of those common pitfalls that organizations often face during big organizational change like this? And then how can they avoid them? SV: So, well, I’ve been at Feedzai long enough to actually to witness a second acquisition, so I was lucky enough to witness that. From an enablement perspective, a change is a change whether major or minor, it is a change. So again, if we build those foundations right, it becomes easier or it becomes almost like part of the process because the rails, they are set in order for us to introduce that change to the revenue organization. But honestly, if I could spin around that question and probably just focus on actually what I believe that made a positive difference out of, you know, out of the whole process and actually. Even wider than just enablement. So from a company perspective, I think that first and foremost, having a clear understanding of what is the outlook of what is the end state of what would post acquisition, post-integration would look like, and be very clear on that vision. I think that that is, you know, establishing the, the end goal is the number one priority, and then the second one is actually how do we get there? That is a clear plan with clear definition of who is involved, what’s the schedule, what’s the timings, who you know, what they need to do so that we can, we can fulfill that vision. And then honestly, it’s just, it’s sheer greet and pure team execution. It’s making sure that there’s ownership on everyone’s involved and you know, and get it done well because it, nothing is all that rosy. Right. I think that, again, change is the only constant in the world. So. Things will happen. We’ll need to accept the fact that not everything will going to turn out smoothly. We need to be able to adjust and just move forward. So we just need to accept the fact that it won’t go without its bumps. But, uh, I think that if we plan in anticipation, there’s a clear vision, a schedule for us to get there and teamwork at, uh. It makes a world of a difference. RR: I love the kind of breakdown of a really big initiative, like an acquisition of just where are we going, what is our end goal, and then how are we gonna get there? So thinking of that, how are we gonna get there? And getting a little bit more granular into that. I’d love to know how an enablement platform helped you as you were figuring out those steps to get to that end goal. SV: That’s a big one. How can we actually boil it down? I think that if we can try and simplify it. So first the, an enablement platform needs to isolate from the noise of the world of excessive information that we have today. It’s almost like the definition of insanity, that we have so much information in the internet and in the world today that we need to actually to create large language models, to be able to consolidate and to make that information really efficient and useful for us. But, um, if we can just boil it down to one or two things, I think that one is. By isolating the users of this excessive information, the enablement platform will be able to actually to bolster the user’s efficiency, right? So when they need it, what they needed being there, it is there. So it’s almost like it’s a tool of confidence that you have an enablement platform where the material that it is available is curated, is ready to go, it is always up to date. It is a reliable source of information. That sellers and the revenue department as a whole, as an asset at their disposal. That is one. I think that the second one is, again, we need to be efficient. So time to market is really, really key. So departments that are creating those assets, that are creating those materials, that are creating those trainings, they almost have the recipe. They have almost like a conveyor belt where they can transition everything, whether it is products or services, or any change that has been defined and move them consistently and effectively. To market and an enablement platform is actually a tool to be able to create that consistency, to decrease that time to market and to actually make sure that we are predictable in the way that we approach change as a whole. RR: Earlier you kind of broke down an enablement tool as it needs to help you with your content, and it also needs to help you with your learning. So I’d like to touch on that. Second piece, as I know that training has been a really key lever as you’re navigating this change, looking at the data, it seems that you’ve achieved a 100% active learner rate in Highspot. So I’d love to know what are some of your best practices for optimizing your programs and then getting reps to use them? SV: Yes, yes. So first I have an awesome team, so that is one. But I think that the second, which is a very. Much necessary key aspect that we need to socialize is that without management buy-in, we can’t really be successful, right? So there needs to be a belief that training and enablement is a core tenant of success. Because without that, we’ll be throttle by it. So I think that that is the number one. So team’s awesome. Management, buying management team is awesome as well. The second one is when we think about training, we think about in isolation. Honestly, I think that we need to broaden that up. When we think about training. We think about training in the lens of the onboarding or in the lens of resident sellers or resident team members, and how can training can. Educate, influence and evolve KPIs, metrics and outcomes. Whether you are a new seller or a new feed design in general, or whether you are a resident that has been with feed, you know, for a number of years. So thinking training broadly. I think that that would again, get us away from the training and the training completion and more around outcomes. What type of outcomes do we want? Depending on actually the Feedzai tenure and where they are and when they join and for how long they have been in the company. The third one is you trust that you verify. So, you know, I do expect all of our revenue colleagues to do the training, but we need to introduce gating on those. So, for instance, if we think about, you know, a simple example is at the onboarding we have an onboarding program. So training it is required to be done. And then afterwards there is a checkpoint, a checkpoint to assess after, you know, actually if the training was done, if, if the manager provided the, the review of the, of those submissions of, um, you know, and then of course then we’ll move forward. Right? So almost like the training per the training, it is important to be rolled out, but it also needs to be validated and verified that the people have done it. Done it in the time that it was given to them and actually produced the outcomes and the learnings that we have expect out of them. And nothing happens with that if we don’t have reports. So that the ability to create reporting, to give that awareness, not only the individual awareness, but also the managerial awareness, it is important. So managing up and managing down. So then afterwards, everyone understands where they are at their learning and development path. The not so fun path is you just keep on beating down the dead horse, right? It’s ad nauseum. You just need to continue on pushing the teams. They have 10,000 other things to do, right? They have quarter, they have quarters, they have renewals, they have upsells. We just need to continue on reinforcing the fact that training is a shortcut to success, a proven one. RR: I love that phrase. I think we’re gonna have to steal that. Training is shortcut to success. It’s a great way to put it, and a, definitely a more positive slant than beating the dead horse, but both are true indeed. I’d like to touch on something a little bit more abstract, which is that during an acquisition, roles are changing, dynamics are shifting. Reps might start to feel a little bit uneasy. So what is. Your advice for motivating reps, easing that process of change and then getting them comfortable with that new state of work that you’re in? SV: Yeah. So that it is a tough cookie indeed. So I think that there’s something that, um, enablement can do and there is something that management, management can do as well. I think that from a management perspective, from a senior leadership perspective, tackle upfront and with clarity and company-wide, what’s happening, what’s the plan and what’s the goal? Be very clear and very forthcoming about it. The sooner the merri, just because you know that doubt, um, if we leave doubt for too long, right? Generates a lot of discomfort. I think that everything else, again, enablement, new joiners, new team coming in, included, be a Feedzai as soon as possible. Getting to the onboarding training, getting to the onboarding bootcamp. Make them a Feedzai, make them part of the family. Reach out just like we would do with any new joiner, but with the extra attention because that uncertainty always bubbles up. If we are just aware of that and again, introduce them into the same processes, treat them as a family member, I think that, uh, everything will turn out to be all right. RR: Yeah, I think that’s great advice. That kind of marriage of clarity and then compassion of understanding that this is a hard moment. We’re right there with you. Let’s talk about it. I think that’s gonna earn you success more than trying to come up with some ad hoc strategy or anything like that. One of the things that you’ve. I think mentioned a couple times as we’ve been talking is the importance of measurement, the importance of data trust, but measure. So what are those key metrics that you’re looking at as you’re driving change initiatives like these? What are you monitoring to ensure that your teams are on track and that you’re in that execution phase and you have your end goal here? What are you looking at to make sure that you’re on your way there? SV: On that aspect, it’s almost like it’s a bottom up. Type of strategy, so, so zooming out a little bit, so in essence, any change initiative requires a go to market of sorts, whether it is a bigger one, smaller one, and with a go to market. There’s a plan, there’s a strategy. So depending on the type of go to market that exists and the priority that exists, there is a. A bill of materials of assets that need to be built and that needs to be then released to either the market, so either internally or external, so to the revenue organization, other departments of the market. Also, on all of the go-to markets that are relevant, we’ll try to create certification courses to make sure that there is this ability or there is this trigger. So that the existing roster of the revenue family is acquainted with the new go-to market that we are releasing for the minor, let I say for the less relevant things we make use of what we call just in time training. So reference spaces in Highspot where we can make available the information because most probably certain people will need that. Two months from now, six months from now, and they’ll can resort to the same place to look for that information again. The quick hopping hop off, and that is what we try to reinforce. So we plan those go to markets, we make the quarterly, the quarter, the quarterly schedule. We make them available and we reinforce them as the quarter goes through. Then in each regional QVR, we basically report the status, the progress, the achievements, and again, reinforcing the need on those qvs. But then again, with the management buy-in, those KPIs of certifications, the progress and the completion and entertainment, they all bubble up into revenue wide KPIs as well. So it’s the bottom up from the release of the GTMs, the creation of. Either certification courses or references that people can or should be doing. All of that then is mapped out into a quarterly schedule and they, all of that bubble up into macro KPIs under the revenue organization. RR: I really like that chain of events of how do we get from, you know, the beginning of activity all the way through to what the business cares most about. I’d like to maybe double click into measurement a little bit and talk about, you know, since implementing Highspot. I’d love to know if there’s any business results you’ve achieved, wins that you can share, accomplishments that you’re measuring, that you’re especially proud of. Anything like that. SV: Without going too much into detail, but I think that there are a couple of insights that I think that were really, really useful. I think that Highspot has enabled us to create actually a revenue wide initiative called Road to Productivity Focus on sellers, and that means it’s almost like starting with the out with sellers. So what is the definition of success for sellers? By the end of year one, potentially reaching a particular quota, right? And now we’ll say, okay, for the seller to be able to be successful by the end of year one, what needs to be the road for them to be successful? So by the end of quarter one, what type of pipeline needs to be created, or if that is the pipeline that needs to be created. So KPIs should be on Q1, on how to be trained. For them to understand what they are pitching and what type of pipeline to create. And then to be able to, so quarter one is on the training side of the house. So training KPIs are, are the focus for the quarter one evaluation of sellers. The quarter two is the amount of pipeline created. The right pipeline created. So KPIs really focus on that second quarter of, are we actually. Is the seller actually developing the right amount and the right quality of the pipeline for them to be successful at the end of that year. Then for instance, on the Q3 is what type of KPIs or what type of pipeline or what pipeline is being actually developed and has been progressing through the funnel so that they can have enough coverage for them to attain the year one quota. Final outcome of having everyone at sales be incredibly successful at year one. How do we actually backtrack it into outcomes? And all of that is actually is backed up by Highspot, right? So on the, uh, month one on the training, having the training ready to go under the onboarding program is paramount. We then, we reinforce quarter three and quarter three with specific role plays for the typical scenarios that they will mostly kind encounter while they are trying to qualify opportunity, while they’re trying to pro progress on opportunities. And then afterwards, hopefully. It’ll end up with a successful year one for residents. It’s a little bit on that as well, because if you think about it, the training, training as a Pacific Lego block, it’s very useful for the new joiners, but it’s also very useful for the existing or for the residents because again, new products are coming out, new releases are coming out, new USPS are being generated, new ways of working. Are being, uh, continuously improved, then they need to continuously be on top of their game. So with that being said, the same mnemonics that we use for training at the onboarding, we also leverage them for the existing sellers as well to making sure that both motions the new generation, the existing generation, they then they all benefit from the same product innovations and, and, you know, and new services that feeds I makes available to their clients and equip them with the right knowledge for them to be able to be. Successful there. So the same way that we have a road to productivity of one year for new sellers, we also have a subset of those KPIs that we also try and understand if you are also getting good outcomes for the existing residents as well. RR: I really like how you broke that down into kind of a very clear step by step. It makes it feel more manageable and more actionable and like you can actually viably complete these steps to get to success. I think oftentimes these are very large, scary things to tackle. I think you broke it down very clearly, so thank you for that. So looking ahead, how do you envision evolving your enablement strategy to keep pace with your business’s growth, especially with, as we talked about, the ongoing adoption and interest in AI technology? SV: That’s actually, it’s almost like it is a wider question because it almost touches us all roles, all functions, and actually the future as a whole, right? How do we stand up with the, with this evolution of ai, of uh, this digital revolution that’s, uh, probably, we see that only on the industrial area and we are now undergoing that one. I think that honestly is, again, back into the core foundations of being very operationally nimble. I think that if I can summarize one in one sentence is actually how can we do more with less? How can we make sure that almost like we double with triple, we increase in one order of magnitude, what we can do with the same capacity? That we have today, or with a minor incremental gain. The reason why I am so curious about the, for instance, the new capabilities that Highspot has and whatnot is, as we know, the trust, but verify is actually a very nice to say, very hard to do. Because the verification process, typically we need to rely many times on the managers. The managers, they are accumulating responsibilities because they have a team to manage, they have outcomes to produce, uh, and to generate. And how can actually enablement can take away some of their burden, some of their load and be able to actually to ensure, you know what? How can we actually make more or do more to be able to equip new sellers and new revenue and new feedzai to be very, very well enabled, very well trained, so that can we maximize the chances of being incredibly successful at Feedzai? And that can be probably just ly speaking. For instance, one of the capabilities where I’m really eager to look forward to is the review of the submissions. How can AI actually auto review certain submissions, gives insights even without an enablement persona to be able to give them. It’s actually me as a seller. That I’ve just uploaded a feeds I pitch or a solution pitch. How can AI help me to give the insights that I need for me to continuously improve without relying continuously on my manager to do that feedback? Right? How can we enable that happen? How can we bring more self-sufficiency to sellers so that they can. Create their own learning path, and that is actually the path of scaling. That is actually the path of scaling, is, if you think about it, how can we actually grow tenfold without growing linearly? How can we actually do that without requiring 10 times additional people? That is what I think that AI will be able to give us. It’ll be able to scale our responsibilities and our outcomes without the need of us, having 10 times more people or 20 times more people, right? How can we do more high impact activities and leveraging AI to do all of those other things? RR: Those are certainly the questions that I think most companies are asking of how can we do more with less? How can we maximize our impact? And I wish you and Feezai all the best in answering them as we’re all figuring it out. But that’s it for us. I wanna say thank you so much for joining us today. It has been a fantastic conversation and I really can’t wait to share it with our audience. SV: Thank you so much. Was a pleasure. RR: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.
LEDs have become the standard source of energy-efficient lighting. They make use of semiconductors to turn electricity into light. Depending upon the materials used to make them, LEDs produce different colors. In the early 1990s, the first blue LEDs were discovered, ultimately earning the Nobel Prize in physics, and enabling LEDs to produce white light, […]
HR1 - Fitzy and Andy open today's show previewing cutdown day for the Patriots, will there any surprise cuts ahead of the 4pm deadline? Then the guys get into a discussion about the pop culture news of the day, is Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce a true love or a cash grab? Andy and Fitzy recap last night's Red Sox win, Andy cautions fans about the Sox reliance on the long ball. While the guys discuss how important Jarren Duran is to the Sox success down the stretch. Finally, could the Red Sox be looking for a new short stop this offseason? Depending on how Trevor Story finishes this season an opt out could be looming
This is a Fan Fav episode. Good news ladies! If you haven't figured it out yet, there's sex of all kinds for us to enjoy, and it's not all about His parts. There's much more to sex than penetration, his pleasure, and the nonsensical pressure to perform like a porn star in the bedroom every night. This episode is dedicated to a happier, healthier sex life for the empowered badass woman that's prioritizing her health and well-being. Depending on your background, religious beliefs, and parental tolerance for the conversation of sex, you may not realize the sex-pectations society has pushed on you or the reason your sex drive is non-existent some days. Dr. Jolene Brighton is the sex-ed doc we all wish our younger selves had (but you've got her now, so pay attention!) She's the author of the book we all need to check out, Is This Normal? Judgment Free Straight Talk About Your Body. She's a clinical sexologist helping women, a.k.a. “vulva owners” get answers to the questions they dare not say allowed or in mixed company. In this episode Lisa's putting aside all the shame and embarrassment to get the takeaways every woman needs to hear today: Why sex drive is the top complaint women have, and all the things we do to ruin it If you didn't have a big enough reason to practice mindfulness, having orgasm may be the best reason yet The unnecessary shame for women around pleasing their partner and having to make their own lubrication or else What Arousal Non-Concordance is and the fight between your brain and genitals Why size does actually matter (a lot) Male centric messages about sex have been screwing up our sex lives, our pleasure and our health.We've got a lot of messages wrong about porn, about orgasms, and about intimacy. You can start here and now with an upgraded sex-ed class that prioritizes your sexual pleasure not his! Follow Jolene Brighton: Website: https://drbrighten.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrJoleneBrighten Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/drjolenebrighten/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjolenebrighten/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drbrighten/ Original air date: 4-5-23 CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS Vital Proteins: Get 20% off by going to https://www.vitalproteins.com and entering promo code WOI at check out. SleepMe: Visit https://sleep.me/woi to get your Chilipad and save 20% with code WOI. Try it risk-free with their 30-night sleep trial and free shipping! OneSkin: Get 15% off with code LISA at https://oneskin.co Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/lisa Macy's: Upgrade your glam at https://macys.com BIOptimizers: Code IMPACTNOW for 15% off https://bioptimizers.com/impact ****************************************************************** LISTEN TO WOMEN OF IMPACT AD FREE + BONUS EPISODES on APPLE PODCASTS: apple.co/womenofimpact ****************************************************************** FOLLOW LISA: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisabilyeu/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisabilyeu YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/womenofimpact Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lisa_bilyeu?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Depending on your circumstances, it can be easy to wonder whether God has your back. This week, Charles Tapp concludes his series "Back to the Bible" and asks 'who holds the reigns to your heart?' with his message "The Lord of the Reigns."
Send us a textAre seed oils destroying your health… or are they unfairly demonized?Depending on which corner of the internet you land in, seed oils are either the liquid embodiment of evil or a perfectly fine “heart healthy” fat. So, who's right? And more importantly, how do you make sense of all this noise? In this week's Monday Mile, Coach Kevin breaks down the real*story behind seed oils in a way that's simple, clear, and (yes) a little entertaining. You'll learn:What seed oils actually are and how they became so common in our dietsWhy Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids matter - and why the ratio is more important than either on its ownThe surprising role processed foods play in our seed oil overloadWhether you should avoid seed oils completely - or just cut backSmarter swaps you can make in your kitchen for better long-term health Bottom line? No single food is the villain, but the way we overconsume seed oils in processed foods is a problem - especially if you're after strong, healthy aging. Tune in for a balanced perspective that cuts through the fearmongering and helps you make better food choices without losing your mind.
Two stories about wine and categories of people: 1. A Jew sent to a non-Jew, on his festival, because he wasn't an idolater. But someone who hasn't converted might still be problematic. 2. Entering a bathhouse with a good number of prostitutes - with the fear of the monarchy or not? How to judge someone, and what if he's not who you think he is? Also, a new mishnah: wine that was used for a libation and skilled on grapes - when can you wash them off? Depending on the taste they give off - or not. Plus, a story to counter the apparent principle of the mishnah - leading into a general rule for application elsewhere. Plus, the Gemara re-writes the mishnah to correct it.
In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss AI data privacy and how AI companies use your data, especially with free versions. You will learn how to approach terms of service agreements. You will understand the real risks to your privacy when inputting sensitive information. You will discover how AI models train on your data and what true data privacy solutions exist. Watch this episode to protect your information! Watch the video here: Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-ai-data-privacy-review.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. Christopher S. Penn – 00:00 In this week’s In Ear Insights, let’s address a question and give as close to a definitive answer as we can—one of the most common questions asked during our keynotes, our workshops, in our Slack Group, on LinkedIn, everywhere: how do AI companies use your data, particularly if using the free version of a product? A lot of people say, “Be careful what you put in AI. It can learn from your data. You could be leaking confidential data. What’s going on?” So, Katie, before I launch into a tirade which could take hours long, let me ask you, as someone who is the less technical of the two of us, what do you think happens when AI companies are using your data? Katie Robbert – 00:43 Well, here’s the bottom line for me: AI is any other piece of software that you have to read the terms in use and sign their agreement for. Great examples are all the different social media platforms. And we’ve talked about this before, I often get a chuckle—probably in a more sinister way than it should be—of people who will copy and paste this post of something along the lines of, “I do not give Facebook permission to use my data. I do not give Facebook permission to use my images.” And it goes on and on, and it says copy and paste so that Facebook can’t use your information. And bless their hearts, the fact that you’re on the platform means that you have agreed to let them do so. Katie Robbert – 01:37 If not, then you need to have read the terms, the terms of use that explicitly says, “By signing up for this platform, you agree to let us use your information.” Then it sort of lists out what it’s going to use, how it’s going to use it, because legally they have to do that. When I was a product manager and we were converting our clinical trial outputs into commercial products, we had to spend a lot of time with the legal teams writing up those terms of use: “This is how we’re going to use only marketing data. This is how we’re going to use only your registration form data.” When I hear people getting nervous about, “Is AI using my data?” My first thought is, “Yeah, no kidding.” Katie Robbert – 02:27 It’s a piece of software that you’re putting information into, and if you didn’t want that to happen, don’t use it. It’s literally, this is why people build these pieces of software and then give them away for free to the public, hoping that people will put information into them. In the case of AI, it’s to train the models or whatever the situation is. At the end of the day, there is someone at that company sitting at a desk hoping you’re going to give them information that they can do data mining on. That is the bottom line. I hate to be the one to break it to you. We at Trust Insights are very transparent. We have forms; we collect your data that goes into our CRM. Katie Robbert – 03:15 Unless you opt out, you’re going to get an email from us. That is how business works. So I guess it was my turn to go on a very long rant about this. At the end of the day, yes, the answer is yes, period. These companies are using your data. It is on you to read the terms of use to see how. So, Chris, my friend, what do we actually—what’s useful? What do we need to know about how these models are using data in the publicly available versions? Christopher S. Penn – 03:51 I feel like we should have busted out this animation. Katie Robbert – 03:56 Oh. I don’t know why it yells at the end like that, but yes, that was a “Ranty Pants” rant. I don’t know. I guess it’s just I get frustrated. I get that there’s an education component. I do. I totally understand that new technology—there needs to be education. At the end of the day, it’s no different from any other piece of software that has terms of use. If you sign up with an email address, you’re likely going to get all of their promotional emails. If you have to put in a password, then that means that you are probably creating some kind of a profile that they’re going to use that information to create personas and different segments. If you are then putting information into their system, guess what? Katie Robbert – 04:44 They have to store that somewhere so that they can give it back to you. It’s likely on a database that’s on their servers. And guess who owns those servers? They do. Therefore, they own that data. So unless they’re doing something allowing you to build a local model—which Chris has covered in previous podcasts and livestreams, which you can go to Trust Insights.AI YouTube, go to our “So What” playlist, and you can find how to build a local model—that is one of the only ways that you can fully protect your data against going into their models because it’s all hosted locally. But it’s not easy to do. So needless to say, Ranty Pants engaged. Use your brains, people. Christopher S. Penn – 05:29 Use your brains. We have a GPT. In fact, let’s put it in this week’s Trust Insights newsletter. If you’re not subscribed to it, just go to Trust Insights.AI/newsletter. We have a GPT—just copy and paste the terms of service. Copy paste the whole page, paste in the GPT, and we’ll tell you how likely it is that you have given permission to a company to train on your data. With that, there are two different vulnerabilities when you’re using any AI tool. The first prerequisite golden rule: if you ain’t paying, you’re the product. We warn people about this all the time. Second, the prompts that you give and their responses are the things that AI companies are going to use to train on. Christopher S. Penn – 06:21 This has different implications for privacy depending on who you are. The prompts themselves, including all the files and things you upload, are stored verbatim in every AI system, no matter what it is, for the average user. So when you go to ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude, they will store what you’ve prompted, documents you’ve uploaded, and that can be seen by another human. Depending on the terms of service, every platform has a carve out saying, “Hey, if you ask it to do something stupid, like ‘How do I build this very dangerous thing?’ and it triggers a warning, that prompt is now eligible for human review.” That’s just basic common sense. That’s one side. Christopher S. Penn – 07:08 So if you’re putting something there so sensitive that you cannot risk having another human being look at it, you can’t use any AI system other than one that’s running on your own hardware. The second side, which is to the general public, is what happens with that data once it’s been incorporated into model training. If you’re using a tool that allows model training—and here’s what this means—the verbatim documents and the verbatim prompts are not going to appear in a GPT-5. What a company like OpenAI or Google or whoever will do is they will add those documents to their library and then train a model on the prompt and the response to say, “Did this user, when they prompted this thing, get a good response?” Christopher S. Penn – 07:52 If so, good. Let’s then take that document, digest it down into the statistics that it makes up, and that gets incorporated into the rest of the model. The way I explain it to people in a non-technical fashion is: imagine you had a glass full of colored sand—it’s a little rainbow glass of colored sand. And you went out to the desert, like the main desert or whatever, and you just poured the glass out on the ground. That’s the equivalent of putting a prompt into someone’s trained data set. Can you go and scoop up some of the colored sand that was your sand out of the glass from the desert? Yes, you can. Is it in the order that it was in when you first had it in the glass? It is not. Christopher S. Penn – 08:35 So the ability for someone to reconstruct your original prompts and the original data you uploaded from a public model, GPT-5, is extremely low. Extremely low. They would need to know what the original prompt was, effectively, to do that, which then if they know that, then you’ve got different privacy problems. But is your data in there? Yes. Can it be used against you by the general public? Almost certainly not. Can the originals be seen by an employee of OpenAI? Yes. Katie Robbert – 09:08 And I think that’s the key: so you’re saying, will the general public see it? No. But will a human see it? Yes. So if the answer is yes to any of those questions, that’s the way that you need to proceed. We’ve talked about protected health information and personally identifiable information and sensitive financial information, and just go ahead and not put that information into a large language model. But there are systems built specifically to handle that data. And just like a large language model, there is a human on the other side of it seeing it. Katie Robbert – 09:48 So since we’re on the topic of data privacy, I want to ask your opinion on systems like WhatsApp, because they tend to pride themselves, and they have their commercials. Everything you see on TV is clearly the truth. There’s no lies there. They have their commercials saying that the data is fully encrypted in such a way that you can pass messages back and forth, and nobody on their team can see it. They can’t understand what it is. So you could be saying totally heinous things—that’s sort of what they’re implying—and nobody is going to call you out on it. How true do you think that is? Christopher S. Penn – 10:35 There are two different angles to this. One is the liability angle. If you make a commercial claim and then you violate that claim, you are liable for a very large lawsuit. On the one hand is the risk management side. On the other hand, as reported in Reuters last week, Meta has a very different set of ethics internally than the rest of us do. For the most part, there’s a whole big exposé on what they consider acceptable use for their own language models. And some of the examples are quite disturbing. So I can’t say without looking at the codebase or seeing if they have been audited by a trustworthy external party how trustworthy they actually are. There are other companies and applications—Signal comes to mind—that have done very rigorous third-party audits. Christopher S. Penn – 11:24 There are other platforms that actually do the encryption in the hardware—Apple, for example, in its Secure Enclave and its iOS devices. They have also submitted to third-party auditing firms to audit. I don’t know. So my first stop would be: has WhatsApp been audited by a trusted impartial third-party? Katie Robbert – 11:45 So I think you’re hitting on something important. That brings us back to the point of the podcast, which is, how much are these open models using my data? The thing that you said that strikes me is Meta, for example—they have an AI model. Their view on what’s ethical and what’s trustworthy is subjective. It’s not something that I would necessarily agree with, that you would necessarily agree with. And that’s true of any software company because, once again, at the end of the day, the software is built by humans making human judgments. And what I see as something that should be protected and private is not necessarily what the makers of this model see as what should be protected and private because it doesn’t serve their agenda. We have different agendas. Katie Robbert – 12:46 My agenda: get some quick answers and don’t dig too deep into my personal life; you stay out of it. They’re like, “No, we’re going to dig deeper because it’s going to help us give you more tailored and personalized answers.” So we have different agendas. That’s just a very simple example. Christopher S. Penn – 13:04 It’s a simple example, but it’s a very clear example because it goes back to aligning incentives. What are the incentives that they’re offering in exchange for your data? What do you get? And what is the economic benefit to each of these—a company like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta? They all have economic incentives, and part of responsible use of AI for us as end users is to figure out what are they incentivizing? And is that something that is, frankly, fair? Are you willing to trade off all of your medical privacy for slightly better ads? I think most people say probably no. Katie Robbert – 13:46 Right. Christopher S. Penn – 13:46 That sounds like a good deal to us. Would you trade your private medical data for better medical diagnosis? Maybe so, if we don’t know what the incentives are. That’s our first stop: to figure out what any company is doing with its technology and what their incentives are. It’s the old-fashioned thing we used to do with politicians back when we cared about ethics. We follow the money. What is this politician getting paid? Who’s lobbying them? What outcomes are they likely to generate based on who they’re getting money from? We have to ask the same thing of our AI systems. Katie Robbert – 14:26 Okay, so, and I know the answer to this question, but I’m curious to hear your ranty perspective on it. How much can someone claim, “I didn’t know it was using my data,” and call up, for lack of a better term, call up the company and say, “Hey, I put my data in there and you used it for something else. What the heck? I didn’t know that you were going to do that.” How much water does that hold? Christopher S. Penn – 14:57 About the same as that Facebook warning—a copy and paste. Katie Robbert – 15:01 That’s what I thought you were going to say. But I think that it’s important to talk about it because, again, with any new technology, there is a learning curve of what you can and can’t do safely. You can do whatever you want with it. You just have to be able to understand what the consequences are of doing whatever you want with it. So if you want to tell someone on your team, “Hey, we need to put together some financial forecasting. Can you go ahead and get that done? Here’s our P&L. Here’s our marketing strategy for the year. Here’s our business goals. Can you go ahead and start to figure out what that looks like?” Katie Robbert – 15:39 A lot of people today—2025, late August—are, “it’s probably faster if I use generative AI to do all these things.” So let me upload my documents and let me have generative AI put a plan together because I’ve gotten really good at prompting, which is fine. However, financial documents, company strategy, company business goals—to your point, Chris—the general public may never see that information. They may get flavors of it, but not be able to reconstruct it. But someone, a human, will be able to see the entire thing. And that is the maker of the model. And that may be, they’d be, “Trust Insights just uploaded all of their financial information, and guess what? They’re one of our biggest competitors.” Katie Robbert – 16:34 So they did that knowingly, and now we can see it. So we can use that information for our own gain. Is that a likely scenario? Not in terms of Trust Insights. We are not a competitor to these large language models, but somebody is. Somebody out there is. Christopher S. Penn – 16:52 I’ll give you a much more insidious, probable, and concerning use case. Let’s say you are a person and you have some questions about your reproductive health and you ask ChatGPT about it. ChatGPT is run by OpenAI. OpenAI is an American company. Let’s say an official from the US government says, “I want a list of users who have had conversations about reproductive health,” and the Department of Justice issues this as a warranted request. OpenAI is required by law to comply with the federal government. They don’t get a choice. So the question then becomes, “Could that information be handed to the US government?” The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Christopher S. Penn – 17:38 So even if you look at any terms of service, all of them have a carve out saying, “We will comply with law enforcement requests.” They have to. They have to. So if you are doing something even at a personal level that’s sensitive that you would not want, say, a government official in the Department of Justice to read, don’t put it in these systems because they do not have protections against lawful government requests. Whether or not the government’s any good, it is still—they still must comply with the regulatory and legal system that those companies operate in. Things like that. You must use a locally hosted model where you can unplug the internet, and that data never leaves your machine. Christopher S. Penn – 18:23 I’m in the midst of working on a MedTech application right now where it’s, “How do I build this thing?” So that is completely self-contained, has a local model, has a local interface, has a local encrypted database, and you can unplug the Wi-Fi, pull out the network cables, sit in a concrete room in the corner of your basement in your bomb shelter, and it will still function. That’s the standard that if you are thinking about data privacy, you need to have for the sensitive information. And that begins with regulatory stuff. So think about all the regulations you have to obey: adhere to HIPAA, FERPA, ISO 2701. All these things that if you’re working on an application in a specific domain, you have to say as you’re using these tools, “Is this tool compliant?” Christopher S. Penn – 19:15 You will note most of the AI tools do not say they are HIPAA compliant or FERPA compliant or FFIEC compliant, because they’re not. Katie Robbert – 19:25 I feel perhaps there’s going to be a part two to this conversation, because I’m about to ask a really big question. Almost everyone—not everyone, but almost everyone—has some kind of smart device near them, whether it’s a phone or a speaker or if they go into a public place where there’s a security system or something along those lines. A lot of those devices, depending on the manufacturer, have some kind of AI model built in. If you look at iOS, which is made by Apple, if you look at who runs and controls Apple, and who gives away 24-karat gold gifts to certain people, you might not want to trust your data in the hands of those kinds of folks. Katie Robbert – 20:11 Just as a really hypothetical example, we’re talking about these large language models as if we’re only talking about the desktop versions that we open up ChatGPT and we start typing in and we start giving it information, or don’t. But what we have to also be aware of is if you have a smartphone, which a lot of us do, that even if you disable listening, guess what? It’s still listening. This is a conversation I have with my husband a lot because his tinfoil hat is bigger than mine. We both have them, but his is a little bit thicker. We have some smart speakers in the house. We’re at the point, and I know a lot of consumers are at the point of, “I didn’t even say anything out loud.” Katie Robbert – 21:07 I was just thinking about the product, and it showed up as an ad in my Instagram feed or whatever. The amount of data that you don’t realize you’re giving away for free is, for lack of a better term, disgusting. It’s huge. It’s a lot. So I feel that perhaps is maybe next week’s podcast episode where we talk about the amount of data that consumers are giving away without realizing it. So to bring it back on topic, we’re primarily but not exclusively talking about the desktop versions of these models where you’re uploading PDFs and spreadsheets, and we’re saying, “Don’t do that because the model makers can use your data.” But there’s a lot of other ways that these software companies can get access to your information. Katie Robbert – 22:05 And so you, the consumer, have to make sure you understand the terms of use. Christopher S. Penn – 22:10 Yes. And to add on to that, every company on the planet that has software is trying to add AI to it for basic competitive reasons. However, not all APIs are created the same. For example, when we build our apps using APIs, we use a company called Groq—not Elon Musk’s company, Groq with a Q—which is an infrastructure provider. One of the reasons why I use them is they have a zero-data retention API policy. They do not retain data at all on their APIs. So the moment the request is done, they send the data back, it’s gone. They have no logs, so they can’t. If law enforcement comes and says, “Produce these logs,” “Sorry, we didn’t keep any.” That’s a big consideration. Christopher S. Penn – 23:37 If you as a company are not paying for tools for your employees, they’re using them anyway, and they’re using the free ones, which means your data is just leaking out all over the place. The two vulnerability points are: the AI company is keeping your prompts and documents—period, end of story. It’s unlikely to show up in the public models, but someone could look at that. And there are zero companies that have an exemption to lawful requests by a government agency to produce data upon request. Those are the big headlines. Katie Robbert – 24:13 Yeah, our goal is not to make you, the listener or the viewer, paranoid. We really just want to make sure you understand what you’re dealing with when using these tools. And the same is true. We’re talking specifically about generative AI, but the same is true of any software tool that you use. So take generative AI out of it and just think about general software. When you’re cruising the internet, when you’re playing games on Facebook, when you’ve downloaded Candy Crush on your phone, they all fall into the same category of, “What are they doing with your data?” And so you may say, “I’m not giving it any data.” And guess what? You are. So we can cover that in a different podcast episode. Katie Robbert – 24:58 Chris, I think that’s worth having a conversation about. Christopher S. Penn – 25:01 Absolutely. If you’ve got some thoughts about AI and data privacy and you want to share them, pop by our free Slack group. Go to Trust Insights.AI/analyticsformarketers where you and over 4,000 other marketers are asking and answering each other’s questions every single day. And wherever it is you watch or listen to the show, if there’s a channel you’d rather have it on, go to Trust Insights.AI/TIPodcast. You can find us at all the places fine podcasts are served. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you on the next one. Katie Robbert – 25:30 Want to know more about Trust Insights? Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth, acumen, and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data-driven approach. Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to drive measurable marketing ROI. Trust Insights services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep-dive marketing analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. Katie Robbert – 26:23 Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology and MarTech selection and implementation, and high-level strategic consulting encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Meta Llama. Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as CMO or data scientist to augment existing teams. Beyond client work, Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community, sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the “In-Ear Insights” podcast, the “Inbox Insights” newsletter, the “So What” livestream, webinars, and keynote speaking. What distinguishes Trust Insights is their focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data. Trust Insights is adept at leveraging cutting-edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion, yet they excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and visualizations. Katie Robbert – 27:28 Data storytelling—this commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to Trust Insights’ educational resources which empower marketers to become more data-driven. Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI, sharing knowledge widely. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, a mid-sized business, or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance, and educational resources to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.
Are you an animal lover thinking about welcoming your first pet into your home? That's so exciting! Here are some friendly tips to help you prepare for the journey of pet ownership and understand the costs involved. Links: Search for and adopt your next furry friend at petfinder.com Use Triangle's Goal Builder tool to start a saving fund for your next pet or a sinking fund for your current one! Check out TCU University for financial education tips and resources! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter! Learn more about Triangle Credit Union Transcript: Welcome to Money Tip Tuesday from the Making Money Personal podcast! Owning a pet is one of life's great pleasures. We adore our furry friends—whether they're cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, or even gerbils! Who wouldn't want a playful buddy to share their lives with? When it comes to how much a pet will cost you, there can be a big range. Some pets are quite affordable, while others may stretch your budget a bit. But don't worry—with some planning and a little research, you can get a good feel for the expenses that come with your new furry family member, making budgeting a breeze! So, what should you keep in mind when considering costs? First up is the purchase price. For dogs, you might find yourself spending anywhere from a couple hundred to a few thousand dollars for certain breeds. Cats typically come in a bit lower, but you should still budget a few hundred dollars. Smaller pets like rabbits, guinea pigs, and hamsters can be more budget-friendly both in terms of purchase price and ongoing care. Remember, where you get your pet can make a difference in cost. Breeders often charge more, while adopting from a shelter can be a wonderful and economical option. Plus, when you adopt, you're giving a loving home to an animal in need, and many shelter pets are already vaccinated and treated, saving you those initial costs. If you're considering adoption, check out your local humane society or petfinder.com to find animals looking for forever homes. Next, let's chat about medical expenses. If your new furry friend needs vaccinations, treatments, or surgeries, it's good to know what to expect. Procedures like spaying or neutering are quite common; you might pay around $130-$500 for dogs and $60-$370 or more for cats. Grooming is another consideration. Some breeds need regular grooming, and while you can definitely take this on yourself if you're up for it, a professional groomer can do wonders too. Expect grooming costs to be around $30-$90 for dogs and about $50-$120 for cats per visit. Food is a big part of your pet's budget, and there's a wide range of options out there. Whether you go for dry food, wet food, or even fresh scraps (just make sure they're safe for your pet!), you'll want to budget accordingly. Some pet owners even get creative and feed their pets fresh veggies or other kitchen scraps—just be sure to keep their nutritional needs in mind! Let's not forget about supplies and toys! Depending on your pet, you'll need to stock up on some essentials. For dogs, think about getting a leash, tags, a comfy bed, and plenty of toys. Cats will need a litter box, a few toys, and a cozy place to sleep. Smaller pets like rabbits or guinea pigs will need cages, bedding materials, and a water bottle. Make a checklist of what you'll need and hunt for good deals so you can save a little! If you're bringing a dog into your life, training is a worthy investment to consider. Some pups benefit greatly from professional classes, with the average cost of classes being $300 per course. But if you're up for the challenge, you can train them at home, too! Planning to travel? You'll need to consider boarding costs, which for dogs averages $40-$100 per night and for cats $30-$70 per night. Many facilities offer package deals, which can help you save a bit. Lastly, let's touch on pet insurance. Having coverage can be a lifesaver when unexpected costs hit. Routine vet visits might average a few hundred dollars, but emergency care can quickly add up to thousands. If you think you might struggle to cover those bills, pet insurance might be a smart move. That's all for today! If there are any other tips or topics you'd like us to cover, let us know at tcupodcast@trianglecu.org. Also, remember to like and follow our Making Money Personal Facebook and Instagram to share your thoughts. Finally, remember to look for our sponsor, Triangle Credit Union, on Facebook and LinkedIn. Thanks for tuning in to today's Money Tip Tuesday! Be sure to check out our other tips and episodes on the Making Money Personal podcast. Have a fantastic day!
This week on Mostly Horror, we're kicking back with horror influencer Gigi Leal (@RoomforScream) for a proper Horror Hangout.We start with the question on everyone's mind: what exactly is going on with this new War of the Worlds movie starring Ice Cube? It's a screen-life take on the H.G. Wells classic, dropped on Prime Video in July, and somehow managed to land a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Depending on who you ask, it's either a chaotic disaster full of bad CGI and shameless product placement or a campy mess worth watching with friends.Then Sean talks about the thing he's actually excited for: Last Podcast on the Left's Henry Zebrowski is working on an alien comedy called UFO: Unbelievably Friendly Organisms. Details are scarce, but the title alone already has us sold.From there, Gigi brings some sharp horror hot takes, we trade recommendations you'll want to add to your watchlist immediately, and end up covering everything from comfort horror to movies that make you want to scream into the void.If you're into horror news, spicy opinions, and finding your next favorite creepy flick, this one's for you sooo...COME HANG OUT!!!Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram & Threads: @mostlyhorrorpodTikTok & Twitter/X: @mostlyhorrorSteve: @stevenisaverage (all socials)Sean: @hypocrite.ink (IG/TikTok), @hypocriteink (Twitter/X)Enjoyed this episode? Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform to help us reach more horror fans like you! For early access, ad-free episodes, and exclusive content, subscribe now on Wondery+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In this episode, Dawn and I dive into a conversation about the gift of the prophetic. Depending on your denomination or personal background, this spiritual gift can often feel confusing—or even dismissed as something no longer relevant. That's exactly why I invited Dawn to join me. She played a significant role in my early journey with the prophetic, serving as both a mentor and a guide. What impacted me most was how she pursued Jesus first, long before ever stepping into this gift. Her story is both inspiring and deeply rooted in faith. I pray this episode encourages you and offers insight, no matter where you are on your journey. - Talk to yall in the next episode, los quiero! - Socials Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doriannygodoy/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doriannygodoy?_t=ZT-8yYiUAqnURz&_r=1
Depending upon what you've squirreled away in your wheelhouse, you may have found today's crossword a) straightforward, or b) a Friday crossword wrapped around a zesty Saturday mini-crossword. In the case of our cohosts, Jean was the former, Mike, inevitably, the latter. While their puzzle solving journeys today did most definitely diverge, they were both agreed that this crossword, the third by Dena R. Verkuil, was a delight: we hope for more, soon.Beyond the crossword, we have a fabulous fact for our Fun Fact Friday™️segment, so be sure and check it out!A reminder that xwordinfo.com is a great resource if you need to look up a clue, answer, or see the answer to the day's crossword: we highly recommend you check it out!Show note imagery: When you're shopping for PARKAS, Patagonia's ready to help!We love feedback! Send us a text...Contact Info:We love listener mail! Drop us a line, crosswordpodcast@icloud.com.Also, we're on FaceBook, so feel free to drop by there and strike up a conversation!
In this episode, Chrissy and Rose interview Brooke Murphy about anxiety, how it has affected her personally, and how she has learned that God's power is made perfect in our weakness.
Overthinking is the number one enemy when leading effectively and creating powerful content. With all the information and training available within the network marketing business, it's easy to become overwhelmed.But when you start with what comes naturally, the process feels less like a chore and more like an extension of yourself. And that is how you build an authentic brand.In another Diamond Life Mentor Uncut episode, Balazs W Kardos answers a question from his community about analysis paralysis and ad spend strategy. As one of his members enjoys doing ads, he says that it is a perfect way to consistently apply what she knows and work with others who do the same.Instead of trying to be perfect from day one, he wants you to approach ads like a controlled experiment. Start with a small, manageable budget by reinvesting a portion of your sales into the ad spend.Balazs also emphasizes that ads are only as effective as the content and brand they point to. Your goal is to attract people who are a natural fit for you and your business. Define your brand voice and set expectations about your ideal team members so your ads not only show the product you're selling, but also who you are. "You're going to pick a percentage of your commission that you generate from a direct sale that you will reinvest back into your ads. Depending on your financial situation, 10%, 20%, 50%, I would even say 50% would be smart, because you'll scale faster." - Balazs W KardosListen to this episode to focus on your strengths, master the fundamentals of ads, and grow from $300 to $10k through a strategic blueprint.Key Diamond Nuggets In This Episode:How can you prevent analysis paralysis as a leader and content creator?Why are context and personal alignment relevant to running a business?How can you master ads with a strategic ad spend?Why build a team of like-minded individuals?How can you reinvest in ads?What is the role of content and branding in your ad results?Want a Personalized Plan for Business & Life Optimization?Book A FREE Call Connect with Balazs W Kardos:WebsiteFacebookThe Diamond Life CommunityLinkedInYouTubeInstagramThe Diamond Life Mentor Instagram
There's a ton of strategic decisions coaches have to make. This week TJ and Sam go through four of them to uncover things you should be thinking about to put your team in the best place to be successful. Depending on your age and stage, there's likely enough games that get decided in the last minute of a game, and all four of these decisions have implications for late-game execution. Show Notes:• Who should inbound the ball?• Where, who and when... personnel-based decisions• System implications• The skill of inbounding• Practicing end of game situations• Building basketball IQ• Practicing situations versus plays• Do overs• When to pull the goalie• Changing strategies when you're down• How many defenses should you play• Variety, adjustments, and creativity• Having a change up• Having too manySend us a Message. If you'd like us to reply, include your contact info.
Keith fields listener questions on: changes to realtor fees, down payment strategies for investment properties, and how the new 100% bonus tax depreciation really works, then staggering inflation statistics that motivate you to invest in real assets. He explains that realtor fees have shifted from a 6% listing fee to a 3% seller fee, with potential buyer contributions negotiable. For down payments, he advises maximizing leverage while avoiding over-leverage. Bonus depreciation allows for significant tax deductions in the first year, benefiting high-income investors. Resources: Connect with a recommended cost segregation engineer to take advantage of bonus depreciation here. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/566 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review” For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad 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 Complete episode transcript: Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai Keith Weinhold 0:00 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, fielding your listener questions on changes to realtor fees, your down payment strategy, and how the new 100% bonus tax depreciation really works, then staggering inflation statistics that motivate you to invest in real assets today on Get Rich Education. Keith Weinhold 0:26 Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week. Since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com Speaker 1 1:12 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:22 Welcome to GRE from Athens, Pennsylvania to Athens, Georgia to Athens, Greece, and with listeners across 188 world nations. You are listening to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, yeah, you and I are back together for a 566th wealth building week. This is not where you learn how to create wealth through careful sports wagering at DraftKings. We also don't try to do everything like WalMart. We talk about investing actually pretty aggressively yet reasonably and responsibly at the same time. Usually those attributes are opposites, but because we are leveraging the most proven wealth building vehicle of all time, real estate, where you don't have to be the landlord. You don't need to get deeply hands on with house flipping, and you don't need to own property in your local market, though you could. We are not day trading. We are decade trading. There's not a get rich quick element here at GRE, because that doesn't work. We're owning mostly long term rental properties, bringing the financially free beats debt free approach and cognizant that compound leverage Trumps compound interest. And from the day you start focusing on this, you can retire in five to 10 years, and you can take it as far as you want, because unlike many professional sports, the sport of real estate investing doesn't have any salary cap at all. I'm starting off with three of your listener questions today. You write into the show with your questions and what I've got a few that I think could help a lot of you. I answer them here. And as usual, I start with the more introductory question, and then I proceed to the more advanced. The first one comes from Sherry In Sellersburg, Indiana. I know where that is. It's just across the river and to the north of Louisville, Kentucky. Sherry asks when I go to sell my duplex, how have last year's changes in realtor fees affected my sale costs? Yeah, thanks for the question, Sherry. And a lot of people still wonder about this first and a big little technical here, but this benefits other listeners Sherry is that a realtor means that they are a member of the NAR, the National Association of Realtors. So not all people that you enlist to help you market and sell your property are realtors, because not all agents belong to the NAR. In fact, the best catch all term for this person is not an agent. Depending on the state you're doing business in, it's probably licensee, someone licensed to act as your professional intermediary in a real estate transaction. And by the way, the name of an NAR member is a realtor. It is not pronounced real utter it's realtor, like doctor and lawyer. You wouldn't call a doctor a doctor two syllables, realtor, but to get to the crux of your question, Sherry, the changes to realtor compensation took effect almost exactly a year ago. It was last August, and it has less. Of an effect on the industry than many thought. I stated last year that it likely wouldn't affect things much, especially here on the investor side, and it really hasn't. The simplified version is that the old landscape was that when you used to list the property for sale, the listing agent charged you a fee, traditionally, 6% they offered half of that to any cooperating broker that brought the buyer to you. That was simple, and that worked for decades. That changed one year ago now, when any realtor or really licensee, when they work with you, now they simply contract with you for their fee, only like 3% as a seller of the property, you no longer have an obligation to pay for the buyer side agent as well, like you used to. But when you sign a listing agreement, you can indicate that you may be willing to concede and give an allowance to the buyer when they engage a licensee on their side to help them purchase your property. So Sherry, your voluntary contribution to the buyer side is negotiable, and it's part of the offer that the buyer presents to you. Now that's what you'll see as the seller and what you should expect as a buyer. The new landscape is that buyers negotiate a personal service agreement upfront with their licensee. Their service isn't free. I mean, these people can't work for free, and the buyer side licensee acknowledges that they will try to negotiate to get the seller to pay that fee. So Sherry, in reality, that's still what often happens. So the seller still pays that fee. In the end, the reason why is that not only is this traditional, but buyers cannot normally afford to pay for their own representation on top of their down payment and closing costs. They're often spread pretty thin already, but sellers can typically afford it. They have the upper hand financially in the form of equity in the property. And here, when you're buying properties at GRE marketplace, you don't have to pay any of those fees. We use a direct model without a licensee. So that's sort of the short version of the change, and why. I hope that helps sherry. It's a good question. Even licensees are struggling with the new rules. Keith Weinhold 7:38 The next question comes from Jezebel in Yonkers, New York. Jezebel asks, what is the ideal percent down payment that I should make on a rental property? I'm trying to figure out the trade off between debt level, cash flow, leverage and risk. I'm still trying to get past the mindset that paid off property is best. All right, that's Jezebel's question, and Jezebel The short answer is that you want to make the smallest down payment possible while avoiding over leverage. Over leverage, meaning that your monthly payments are so big that you struggle to make them. Now, many investors that buy rental property, they're going to make a 20% down payment on a conventional loan for a single family rental. At last check on duplexes and up the down payment has to be at least 25% now you can make a down payment as low as 15% at least on a single family rental, although you would then be subject to an extra fee a PMI premium. Now, why would one do such a thing for the leverage? Because leverage is almost seven to one at 15% down, but you've got to balance that with a PMI premium. Run the numbers and see what works for you. Now, since you can make just a 20% down payment on a single family rental, conversely, why would you put 25% down? Your leverage position would slide from five to one down to four to one, where you can often get a slightly lower interest rate if you put 25% down. But when you run the numbers, you'll find that it's often better to maintain strong leverage and only put 20% down. Now, Jezebel, as soon as you start putting 30% down on a property that is questionable at 30% or more, because at that point you really have to start asking why the rate of return from home equity is always zero. It actually makes your risk go up, like I've discussed extensively before, with 30% down, your leverage ratio has been cut to 3.3 maybe the answer could be that 30% down is what it takes to produce. Positive cash flow, but putting 30% or more down is clearly not ideal. Think about how good we've got it as real estate investors here, for example, imagine that you're attracted to a dividend paying stock because it pays a 4% yield, unless you're borrowing on margin, you would need to make a 100% down payment to get that 4% cash on cash return from a dividend paying stock, 100% sunk into this, which isn't even a down payment anymore. That's just an outright free and clear stock purchase. Well, instead, in real estate, when you realize that property prices rise or fall in value regardless of how much equity is in a property, you don't have an incremental increase in your equity growth. It's a quantum leap. And here's what I mean. Jezebel, say you're investing 100k in real estate, that's how much you're going to put into it, and it appreciates at 5%. All right, there are two scenarios with that. Scenario A, you put that 100% down into just one 500k property, well, then you've got just a 25k gain after a year. Instead, with Scenario B, you put 20% down on five 500k properties, then you've got a 25k gain after a year, not just 5k Said another way more powerfully. Scenario A, you only got a 5% return on one property. In Scenario B, you got a 25% return on all of five properties. Wow. That's why the leverage light bulb, when that goes off, that is an incredible flex that you've got. That's why I say it is not an incremental gain in your wealth. It is a quantum leap. So I hope that some of those considerations really help temper your strategy there. Jezebel, that really helps you see how financially free beats debt free and exposes the opportunity cost of a paid off property. Thanks for the question. Keith Weinhold 12:19 The next question comes from Ed, and he is a personal friend of mine, so he submitted this question by text message to me, but I wanted to address his question here, because I've had other people in my friend group ask me about this. It's about bonus depreciation, what it is. It's about bonus depreciation, what it is and how it works. And what's interesting here is that even those that aren't active real estate investors have been asking me about bonus depreciation. This was part of Trump's OB BBA, the one big, beautiful Bill Act that was signed into law back on the Fourth of July, and I told you about that last month, but because of all the questions about it and the lack of clarity around people's understanding of bonus depreciation, although it gets a little busy, let me give you a real world example with numbers on how bonus depreciation really works and how you can put 10s of 1000s of dollars in your pocket with it the next time you file your taxes. And by the way, my friend Ed that asked this question is a cargo pilot, so he is probably the most well traveled friend that I have. Yeah, through our chats and on social media, I often see that he's in China or Vietnam or a bunch of other places, but he lives in the US. In fact, bonus depreciation is encouraging more people that haven't even been real estate investors previously to newly invest in real estate because it is for properties acquired January, 20, 2025, or later, Trump's inauguration day for his second term or later. And I expect this to be effective for at least four years from that date. I think I mentioned that part to you a few weeks ago. All right, the property has got to be newly placed in service, not something that you bought, say, five years ago. Bonus depreciation does not apply to primary residences. We're talking about rental property, although it does apply to more than just rental property, because it can apply to property used in a business, like equipment, machinery and furniture, but within rental property, it applies to certain components of the real estate, not the building itself. That is on a regular depreciation schedule, and not the bare land. Land cannot be tax depreciated at all. All, neither through regular depreciation or bonus depreciation. You probably already know that a residential building itself can be depreciated over 27 and a half years. That works out to 3.6% of the value each year that can be depreciated or written off on your taxes, right? Well, what if there were portions of your building that you could write off faster, like over just five years, meaning 20% of their value each year you can, and others over seven years, meaning 14% of their value each year you can. And there's 15 year items as well. All right, so what if, instead of all that, you could take those five seven and 15 year components and just write them all off in the first year of ownership, so that you didn't even have to wait the five seven in 15 years, you can, you can write them all off in year one of your ownership of the property, and that is what 100% bonus depreciation is right there. That is in addition to writing off the main building over 27 and a half years. All right, with that understanding generally, let me break this down in more detail. Use an example, and that will also help reinforce what I just taught you, the components of rental property that bonus depreciation applies to, include the stuff that wears out faster than the building, and they are indoor items, appliances, flooring and cabinetry. At times, it can include HVAC systems, all right, that is written off in five to seven years. And then outdoor items known as land improvements, that includes fences, parking lots and landscaping. They're typically written off over 15 years. All right, let's look at a real world example on how this can benefit you. You can use bonus appreciation on single family rentals, duplexes, fourplexes and larger buildings. Let's use an example of an apartment building that you purchase for $1.2 million one we'll say the land value is 200k that is not depreciable. So the building, the depreciable asset, has a value of $1 million you must have performed what is called a cost segregation study in order to break down that $1 million building into those erstwhile faster depreciating components. And no, you cannot do the cost seg study yourself. You need to pay a few $1,000 to hire a Cost Segregation engineer to do this study. All right, let's look at the cost seg breakdown, the result of what he or she finds for you, let's say the personal property that's worth 150k its recovery period is five to seven years, and yes, it is eligible for bonus depreciation. Then you have the land improvements say that's another 50k over 15 years for a recovery period. And yes, it is bonus depreciation eligible. And then finally, you have the structure, or the building worth 800k It has a recovery period of 27 and a half years. No, it is not eligible for bonus depreciation, just the regular type. All right. Well, let me define more of this personal property for you here these five or seven year assets, these are what are eligible for 100% bonus depreciation in qualifying years. So we're looking inside the units, appliances like refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, microwaves, washers and dryers, also flooring, carpet, vinyl and removable floating floors, not typically hardwood or tile, cabinetry and countertops in some cases, especially if they're not load bearing. Window treatments like blinds, drapes and curtain rods, ceiling fans and light fixtures, they've got to be detached from the structure and furniture, if it's a furnished rental, like perhaps a midterm rental or short term rental. So we're talking about things like beds, couches, in chairs and then in common areas. This five to seven year personal property includes fitness equipment in the gym, leasing office, computers, desks, chairs, clubhouse furniture or TVs, package lockers, like places where your tenants have their Amazon packages, playground equipment and trash compactors. All right, to be clear, that was all personal property that can be depreciated over five to seven years. And then there are those land improvements, the. 15 year assets also eligible for bonus depreciation, sidewalks, fencing, landscaping and irrigation, parking lots and striping, outdoor lighting, retaining walls and signage. Okay again, those are the land improvements, the 15 year items, things that are not eligible for bonus depreciation are the building structure itself, like I mentioned. That includes the roof framing, drywall foundations, and also things like elevators, structural plumbing and wiring and HVAC systems that serve the whole structure. Okay, all that stuff falls in the category of regular 27 and a half year depreciation. All right, so what is the 100% bonus depreciation effect? All right, well, your eligible amount in our example is 150k of personal property plus 50k of land improvements. That's 200k that you can deduct all in one year, rather than having to spread it over five and seven and 15 years. But all in year one of you owning the property that's 200k and again, the remaining 800k structure is depreciated over 27 and a half years. That works out to about 29k a year. This is where it gets exciting. Here we go. So your total year one depreciation, the year that you bought this asset and put it into service, with your bonus depreciation items adding up to 200k and your regular building depreciation at about 29k your total year one deduction is about $229,000 Wow, before I break that down some more and tell you about how it really helps you, let's just be really clear. How did you really get to the 200k of bonus depreciation. All right, let's say the cost segregation study allocated 80k to appliances, flooring and fixtures. Remember, they are the five to seven year items. Another 70k to common area, furniture and office equipment, that was the seven year stuff. All right, so there's 150k or personal property, and then another 50k to that outdoor stuff, the depreciable items known as land improvements, like the parking, landscaping and fencing, those 15 year items, that's how we got to 200k all bonus depreciation eligible, all fully deductible in year One under the 100% bonus depreciation rules, all right, so here it is. Here's the takeaway. You have front loaded an extra 200k of deductions in year one, and you have greatly reduced your taxable income. This is the outcome. This is the result. You just reduced it by 229k between the bonus appreciation and the regular depreciation. All right, so what is the effect of you reducing your taxable income by 229k in one year? Well, if you're in the, say, 32% tax bracket, you keep an extra $73,000 in your pocket. That's $73,000 that you would have had to send to the IRS for the next tax year. But no, you don't, and that is the power of bonus depreciation. That's how it works. Ed, and for all of you that asked about it, I know it's not that simple, and there were a lot of numbers flying around there, it got a little heavy, but that's a complete breakdown. That's why so many people are excited about the return of 100% bonus depreciation, as laid out in law with the one big, beautiful Bill Act, as you can see, it's going to help higher income people more than anyone. If you'd like to get this going and connect with GRE recommended Cost Segregation engineer, or just check and see if it's worth paying several $1,000 for the cost segregation study, we can help you with that. In fact, you might remember that I interviewed him on the show last year, and we will make that introduction for you and help ensure that you have a successful cost seg and bonus depreciation experience regardless of the size of your portfolio, even if you don't own million dollar apartment buildings. You don't have to have a huge income for this to benefit you. It just benefits those people the most. Well, you can set up a time to chat with us about that completely free of charge at GRE investment coach.com I think you know that's where you can also get a completely free strategy session about growing your overall real estate investment portfolio. You might as well do that at the same time at GRE. Investment coach.com. More next, I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education. Keith Weinhold 25:07 The same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties, they help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President Chaley Ridge personally. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com. Keith Weinhold 25:39 You know what's crazy your bank is getting rich off of you, the average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back, no weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text family 266, 866, to learn about freedom family investments, liquidity fund. Again, text family to 66866, Blair Singer 26:49 this is Rich Dad, sales advisor, Blair singer. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold. And above all, don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 27:07 welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, if you have a listener question that you'd like to have answered on air, get a hold of us at get rich education.com/contact that's where you can either leave a voicemail or write in to us. I'd like to tell you the frequent guests that we have here on the show, all from the rich dad school, if you will, are going to be speaking in person at Penn State University in just a few weeks. Here it is on the 29th of this month. Yes, an event you can attend in person. It's going to be Robert Kiyosaki, Garrett Sutton and his son Ted Sutton and Tom wheelwright, the four of them speaking live and in person, sponsored by Penn State's Borrelli Institute for real estate studies. The event is named Rich Dad revealed Real Estate Wealth and wisdom. If that's of interest, look it up and check it out. From listening to the show and being a savvy investor that's inflation aware, you know that the mission is to turn a really fake asset, a conjured into existence asset, like $1 convert that into a real asset. Here is some astonishing clarity on why. That's the mission in this could leave you flabbergasted. Since 1980 The United States has one and a half times more homes, two times more gold today, and 42 times more dollars today. My gosh, that is almost laugh out loud material here. Yes, since 1980 the year that Jimmy Carter was president and Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, was the top grossing movie. The US has 56% more residential housing units today. So basically, since the year that Darth Vader told Luke Skywalker, I am your father, there are about one and a half times more homes, twice as much gold mined and brought into existence, and 42 times more dollars created out of thin air for the future, all of these trends are expected to continue at roughly the same trajectory and proportion to each other. Now, there's a reason that people use precious metals to measure inflation. It makes a particularly good measuring stick because commodities like gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium and copper, they don't change over time. Unlike a car or a bottle of soda, these items are on the periodic table of the elements, an ounce of gold 1000 years ago is exactly the same. As an ounce of gold today. That's why commodities like this are such good long term inflation measuring sticks. And then there's Bitcoin, something that didn't even exist until 2009 there will only ever be 21 million of them in existence, and 95% of Bitcoins, about 20 million have already been mined into existence. So yes, only 5% more will be issued, and it's going to take about the next 100 years to do that. If bitcoins were the size of a quarter, all 21 million of them could fit inside a single shipping container. There's some fixed supply scarcity. Let's listen to this. It's about 30 seconds long, and it's called all there will ever be. Speaker 2 30:50 Every day the Fed prints an average of $465 million that's 26,000 shipping containers a year, created out of thin air. Maybe that's why the dollar loses value over time. But there's one thing they can never print more of Bitcoin at the size of a quarter. This is all there will ever be. Shouldn't the store of value hold its value? Keith Weinhold 31:16 That's actually a Coinbase video advertisement that we just listen to the audio of there together. Yes, what they show at the end is a shipping container where, if bitcoin were the size of a quarter, all of them that will ever exist would fit in one shipping container. And like it said, every single year, on average, the Fed prints enough dollars to fill 26,000 shipping containers, just staggering. There are so many dollars now, I'm thinking of replacing my insulation with stacks of ones. Same R value, better liquidity. Pretty soon, we won't count dollars anymore. We'll just weigh them. Welcome to the Zimbabwe starter kit. We have gone from sound money to clown money. That's another way to think of it. Oh, they say money doesn't grow on trees. That's true. It grows in spreadsheets. Now, though, one keystroke at the Fed and poof, there's another trillion just like that. Just hit the control, plus the print key. That's all it takes. All right. Well, let's take a look and see how this manifests in your life as a consumer and as a real estate investor and as a worker since January of 2020 to today, a $100,000 salary has the same buying power as 125k today. Guess over just the last five years, the dollar has lost 25% of its value, and now I'm talking in terms of the CPI here, the consumer price index. So of course, all these figures I'm using could really be higher, like we say, therefore these figures are only the inflation rate that the government is willing to admit to. How does this break down by region? So yes, we have 25% national inflation over five years, but different regions have different rates of inflation, including the region where you are, and this is due to reasons like climate and the composition of industries and even cultural preferences. For example, a southern climate with a lot of air conditioner use spends more on electricity. So if electricity costs are high there, then that region's inflation rate could be higher than that of a northern climate. A place like Omaha, Nebraska is proximous to a lot of agricultural crops and beef, but a place far from where those items are sourced could be more sensitive to changes in beef prices or less sensitive. So over the past five years, here's how much annual inflation in these select cities have experienced again, per the CPI from lowest to highest San Francisco is just 3.3% per year. So in San Fran your 100k salary in 2020 would need to be almost 118k today just to maintain purchasing power. New York City, 3.9% annual inflation over the last five years. Chicago, 4.2% Philly, 4.3 Seattle is at 4.8 Dallas, Fort Worth 4.9 St Louis, 5% Atlanta, 5.1 Miami, 5.4 we're really getting up there now. Phoenix, 5.9 San Diego, 6.1 and the major. Major city with the highest inflation rate over the past five years is Tampa, Florida, at 6.4% annually, Tampa's had some of the highest real estate appreciation over the past five years as well. So this means that a 100k salary five years ago in Tampa would have to be 128k today just to maintain purchasing power due to its 28% cumulative inflation the past five years. But that's the CPI. The real figure could be 40% plus in Tampa. All right, now this information is useful, because even if you believe that the CPI is understated, which most everyone that's looked at it does, as long as the methodology is consistent, you can see the regional variation here. Again, San Francisco was lowest at 3.3 Tampa about double at 6.4% the ever present force of inflation. It's merely surreptitious, until you have a big wave of it peaking in 2022 that everyone noticed. Let's look at how it's contributed to the real estate price run up since 2020 All right, so in the first quarter of this century, you might find this unbelievable in itself, in the year 2000 the median priced Florida home was 195k I mean, that's the median price. Then the investor sweet spot is usually lower than that. It might have been 130k in Florida in the year 2000 so again, 195k in Florida for the median home price as recently as 2000 today, it is 412k gosh, almost as surprising in Texas, It was just 153k in 2000 and it's 338k now, I mean, don't these prices like 153k in Texas, make it seem like the price for a dog house already, New York, 276k up to 576k Also from the year 2000 to today, Washington, DC, 293k up to 643k Colorado, 377, up to 582k Florida, more than doubling 393, up to 833 And Washington State also more than doubling 313k up to 630k my gosh, price increases like this. They're a function of both monetary inflation and appreciation, and it's really a chief reason that the Fed has not cut interest rates this year. It's because the memory of soaring inflation is still much too recent. Keith Weinhold 38:05 To review what you've learned on this week's episode. Changes to realtor fees have made less industry impact than many expected. The smaller your down payment, the more powerful your leverage fulcrum. The return of 100% bonus depreciation has many investors, and even non investors, interested in adding income property to their portfolio, and staggering inflation is a motivator for adding real assets to your life. Hey, if you would, I would love it, and it would mean the world to me. If you found this episode valuable enough that you would share it with a friend. I put a lot of thought into it, just like I do every single week, friends are probably going to find explanations about realtor fees and bonus depreciation highly helpful this week, you can either share the episode by word of mouth or take a screenshot of this episode and put it on your social media. You might want to write out that it's get rich education in your social posts, because it only shows GRE on our podcast, cover image in some views. Thanks for telling a friend about the show. Until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Unknown Speaker 39:23 nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC exclusively. Keith Weinhold 39:47 You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got paywalls and pop ups and push Notes. Vacations and cookies, disclaimers, it's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video course, it's all completely free. It's called The Don't quit your Daydream. Letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text gre to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text gre to 66866 Keith Weinhold 41:02 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, getricheducation.com.
In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry's new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. In this series, they discuss Chapter 41: A Tale of Two Strategies and Chapter 42: How to Identify an Advisor You Can Trust.LEARNING: Passive investing is still the winner. If something is worth doing, it's worth paying someone to do it for you. “A good wealth advisor helps you build a plan and choose the best investment vehicles that'll give you the best chance of achieving your life and financial goals.”Larry Swedroe In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry's new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. The book is a collection of stories that Larry has developed over 30 years as the head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners to help investors. You can learn more about Larry's Worst Investment Ever story on Ep645: Beware of Idiosyncratic Risks.Larry deeply understands the world of academic research and investing, especially risk. Today, Andrew and Larry discuss Chapter 41: A Tale of Two Strategies and Chapter 42: How to Identify an Advisor You Can Trust.Chapter 41: A Tale of Two StrategiesIn Chapter 41, Larry explains why investors who have implemented the types of passive strategies recommended in his book have experienced “the best of times.” On the other hand, for those who continue to play the game of active investing, it has generally been the “worst of times.”“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens may have been writing about the French Revolution, but Larry observes that that line rings true for today's investors, too. Depending on how you approach the market, your experience can feel like either a triumph or a disaster.If you're betting on active management, it's the worst of timesAccording to Larry, people who still believe in the promise of active fund managers as the winning strategy are likely to find themselves in the “season of Darkness.” Over the years, the ability of active managers to consistently outperform has dwindled significantly.You may be surprised to learn that in 1998, when Charles Ellis wrote his famous book “Winning the Loser's Game”, about 20% of actively managed funds produced statistically significant returns after adjusting for risk. That figure was already discouraging.A later study in 2014 (Conviction in Equity Investing) found that the percentage of managers producing any net alpha had dropped from 20% in 1993 to just 1.6%.Larry reminds investors who are holding on to the hope that active management will deliver the goods that they are swimming against a strong current. The odds aren't in their favour—and neither are the expenses.It's the best of times for passive investorsIf you've embraced passive investing, it's the best of times. The resounding success of this strategy, backed by a wealth of data and real-world results, should instill a strong sense of confidence in your investment decisions.For investors who believe that markets are efficient...
Depending on who's in power, blatantly partisan redistricting may be derided as the ultimate dirty ploy or defended as a practical measure to cultivate fairer representation. The recent effort to carve out a few more safe Republican districts in Texas has set off blue state governors, with some preparing to “go nuclear.” To help get our bearings […]
Think debt collectors can ruin your life? Nick Pell reveals how to turn the tables and make them pay you on this Skeptical Sunday! Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we're joined by writer and researcher Nick Pell!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1188On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:Debt collectors buy your debt for pennies on the dollar. Sometimes as little as 10% or even just $50 for a $5,000 debt, giving them huge room to negotiate settlements.The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act strictly limits what collectors can do. They can't call outside 8am-9pm, can't harass you, and must stop contacting you if you request it in writing.You can sue debt collectors for $1,000 per violation. If they break FDCPA rules (like telling others about your debt), you can take them to court and win money from them.Old debts become legally unenforceable after 3-10 years. Depending on your state's statute of limitations, collectors lose the power to force payment through courts.Request debt validation in writing to protect yourself. 43% of collectors can't prove they own the debt. Send registered mail asking for validation — they must stop contacting you until they comply!Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at jordan@jordanharbinger.com and let him know!And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:Hiya: 50% off first order: hiyahealth.com/jordanUplift: Special offer: upliftdesk.com/jordanSimpliSafe: 50% off + 1st month free: simplisafe.com/jordanNordVPN: Exclusive deal: nordvpn.com/jordanharbingerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.