Podcasts about googling

Ditch the dressing room. Use the smart mirror that guesses your size. Here's how it works. Plus, I've got all the details on electric cars from Mercedes and BMW. You'll also get the inside scoop on Amazon's plans for new smart home tech. (Hint: They involve augmented reality.) You also need to know the dangers of Googling. When you type these words into the search bar, you're putting yourself in danger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's 2015 and I've just become addicted to this thing called improvisational comedy. I'm consuming every bit of information I can find: taking classes, reading books, and Googling everything about it. I'm completely immersed. Then I hear about an Improv performance just south of where I live. Obviously, I have to go and see it... and it is amazing! The characters, the music, the performers--they're all mesmerizing! And I'm thinking, “There's no way I'll ever be as good as they are.” After the show ends, the performers meet us outside the theater. I shake hands with one of them and say, “I'd love to be able to do what you do.”  And he simply responds, “You can!” Fast-forward seven years later, and not only is that performer my guest in this episode but he and I are starring in a play together! Tom Mueller has been a performer all his life. In fact, he has far-reaching family history with performance art. If you're curious to know: What is competitive Improv and how does it work? How can powerful stories impact you (and the world around you) long after you first hear them? Then enjoy the show as Tom and I talk about theater sports, the power of commitment to improvisational storytelling, and more! What you will learn in this episode: How to start a scene (or a speech) in a way that'll engage your audience right away What makes a great story, from the theatrical Improv perspective What needs to be true for a character to be believable Who is Tom? Tom is the co-founder of the Ventura Improv Company (est. 1989) and comes from a theatrical family. He has had a storied career, including as a surgical orderly, radio announcer, tour guide in France, French and English teacher, technical writer, and instructional designer. In addition to his primary focus on Improv, Tom also enjoys performing scripted works, most recently at the Alcazar Theatre in Carpinteria, California. Like many improvisers, Tom sees the experience as enriching one's life outside theater due to the close teamwork it requires.  Links and Resources: Impro by Keith Johnstone Storytelling School Website @storytellingschool on Instagram @storytellingSchool on Facebook

Do you feel like you're aging before your time? Do you have wrinkles, gray hair, and low energy?   If so, you're not alone. But there's good news!   According to our guest for this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, Dr. Joy Kong, it's possible to turn back the clock by harnessing the power of stem cells.   Joy Kong, M.D. is a UCLA-trained, triple board-certified physician (American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology, American Board of Addiction Medicine, American Board of Anti- Aging & Regenerative Medicine). She is the president of Uplyft Longevity Center in Los Angeles, California, where she specializes in stem cell therapy, ketamine therapy, as well as a wide range of therapeutic modalities to improve patients' overall health by enhancing their body's innate regenerative potentials.   Dr. Kong shares in this podcast episode her groundbreaking research on how stem cells can be used to regenerate tissue, improve hormone function, and reverse the effects of aging. She also provides practical tips on how midlife women can take advantage of this exciting new technology.   In this episode, you'll learn: What are stem cells, and how do they work? How stem cells can be used to regenerate tissue, improve hormone function, and reverse the effects of aging How to use stem cells for health and longevity The latest research on stem cells and aging Skin care products from stem cells   So if you're ready to feel younger, more vibrant, and full of life, this is the episode for you!   Tune in now and learn how to harness the power of stem cells to regrow your parts, heal your hormones, and reverse aging.   (00:00): Do you ever wonder what all the buzz is about stem cell therapy and if it might be for you or not? My gift today, Dr. Joy Kong is gonna help you understand the benefits of stem cell therapy. And if this is right for you, stay tuned.   (00:16): So the big question is how do women over 40, like us keep weight off, have great energy balance. Our hormones in our moods feel sexy and confident and master midlife. If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself. Again. As an OB GYN, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock, solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy. After 40 in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results. And to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges, join me for tangible natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston welcome to the hormone prescription podcast.   (01:10): Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited to dive into the topic of stem cells with you. It's such an important topic. I mean, after all, we wouldn't be here on this planet. If  it weren't for stem cells, we would start as stem cells, right? When the embryo is formed in the uterus from the sperm and egg meat, we are stem cells. And then all of those cells differentiate into the various organs and parts of our body. And we become adult humans, but stem cells still form this reservoir. That's available to us to recreate our bodies' moment to moment, but their number decreases over time. And this is one of the reasons that aging happens. So maybe you've heard about the buzz about stem cells. Maybe you've heard about some controversies.   (02:09): We're gonna dive into that too. What's FDA approved. What's not and why. And we might even give you some ideas or inspiration for how you might want to access and use stem cells for your various health ailments or to achieve your aspirations of becoming fairly immortal, living a long time and being healthy while you do it. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Dr. Joy and then we'll get started. Dr. Joy Kong is a medical doctor. She's trained at UC a N triple board certified American board of psychiatry and neurology American board of addiction, medicine, American board of antiaging and regenerative medicine. Wow, that's a lot of work. She's the president of the uplift longevity center in Los Angeles, California, where she specializes in stem cell therapy, ketamine therapy, as well as a wide range of therapeutic modalities to improve patients overall health by enhancing their bodies, innate regenerative potentials.   (03:13): She is an avid educator and the founder of the American academy of integrative cell therapy, a a I ct.org, where she trains other physicians on stem cell therapy. And she conducts clinical research on stem cell therapy. And she's a published author in many scientific journals now to provide her patients with the best regenerative medicine products. She founded Cher biologics, where she developed the most potent and comprehensive stem cell product in the country with a patent pending formulation, as well as a 100% natural stem cell cream chair Omni. And we've got a link for you in the show notes with a discount code to get her skin cream. And you wanna get this cream trust because if you could see her face on this podcast, you'd be like, oh my God, her skin is amazing. I want that. She's sending me a bottle and I'm gonna let you know how I do with it.   (04:09): I'm gonna take before and after pictures too. So we can see what happens with my skin. She was recognized for her contribution in the field of regenerative medicine and awarded the top doctor of the year in stem cell therapy in 2019, as well as stem cell doctor of the decade in 2021 by the prestigious I a O T P that's the international association of top professionals. She also has a memoir. She wrote tiger of Beijing and it's garnered tremendous interest. It was named 2020 book of the year and showcased at times square. She was also featured in the 2021 book heroes leaders, legends, the power of the human spirit, along with movers and shakers, such as Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra and Maya angel. You might know a few of them, so we'll help me to welcome Dr. Joy Kong to the podcast.   (04:59): Thank you for inviting me, Kyrin.   (05:01): So happy to have you on today. You can speak about so many topics that I want my listeners to hear about. We're gonna start with stem cells, cuz that's really what you're known for and so passionate about, and you've developed products to help people and really have a unique way at looking at this technology and using it with people. I think that they need to know about, but let's start at with the basics. cause a lot of people have an idea of what stem cells are and they think, you know, it only, they only come from placenta and that that's really a violation and we shouldn't be using them. So can you talk about what stem cells are?   (05:45): Yeah. There's such a wide array of the types of stem cells. You know, in our current, you know, our bodies, we all have a ton of stem cells. Of course, as we get older, we lose more and more, but in each of your tissue, there are organ specific stem cells. But when we go back to the origin, we all came from a fertilized egg. So that was the first quintessential stem cell. And from that one stem cell, you can form a multitude of stem cells and somehow these cells know how to migrate and how to form a three dimensional structure that became eventually the baby. So as the baby's organ started to form, then you get more of more specialized cells. But before these cells, from that single fertilized egg to reach the stage of a tissue specific stem cell, there could be a thousand different variations and they're all stem cells.   (06:37): So in, in this baby, you know, eventually the organs are formed and there are cells that are organ cells, but they're also tissue specific stem cells. I say a liver they're liver stem cells that can form a liver cell. So in our body, throughout our body, we have all these stem cells. So there's, you know, it's like a continuum of this stem cell evolution in the body. And not only we have tissue specific stem cells, there are certain stem cells that are really special. One of the most special one is called Kinal stem cells. So these are cells that are all over your blood vessels. So anywhere you have blood vessel supply, blood supply, you have these cells that are huddling around the blood vessels, waiting for signals from the blood or sensing the signals in the neighbor neighborhood of all these other cells. And, and they're, they have this communication coordination effect that they are able to tell what the local cells should be doing by sensing what's going on in the blood, or they can figure out what's needed in the local tissue and send out signals to the blood.   (07:45): So they have this, you know, like I call them the master of regeneration. So conductor in the symphony of regeneration. So we still have those stem cells in our body. And that's what people are doing with fat deriv stem cells. They're trying to extract fat, but they're really not getting stem cells from fat. They're getting the stem cells that are along the blood vessels, that supplies the fat cells. And then you can U utilize those cells for regeneration. So there's so many different sources. You can get stem cells from Meru blood. You can get stem cells from blood, you know, in the small amount, but you can get it, you know, if on bone marrow. So the embryonic stem cells that, that has controversy mm-hmm was in the beginning that you know, of stem cell research, they thought that's the, the end all be all.   (08:32): And, and that's the, the best source. And they were able to grow they were extracting cells from five to seven day old embryo and utilizing those cells to form any organ, you know, or cells of any tissue type and does involve destroying an embryo, which is where the controversy comes. But we've moved. You, you know, far from that, there's still research done embryonic stem cells, but clinically there's no one in this country, legally that's actually doing embryonic stem cell treatments. They are using a person's own, you know, extracted from your own body or using birth tube, which are biological waste. You know, after the baby is born, they, you know, usually they will discard the placenta and the Bual cord. But now we know that they have incredibly powerful regenerative cells in these tissues. And that's what a lot of doctors use and that's what I use.   (09:32): And I believe that's a superior source, which is why I've lectured on the subject in various stem cell conferences. And I put my lecture online is called, are all MSCs created equal. So even when you're looking at mechy stem cells, they're not really the same whether or not it's from an adult source, from the bone marrow, from the fat or from the birth tissue, even within different birth tissue compartments, the cells are all a little different. They have different potentials to become different types of cells. They have different growth factors they secret. So there's vast amount of difference, even though they're all messing Al stem cells, right. The cells that are Hulings. So there's huge variations, you know, of what's going on out there.   (10:17): Okay. So thank you for clarifying that no fetuses were harmed in the making of the stem cells that Dr.Kong is talking about. Okay. So everybody can relax. So autologous from yourself, right. Stem cells. So getting harvesting them from your body, you mentioned menstrual blood. I know some women out there are gonna be Googling that in five seconds, looking up, how do I get stem cells out of my menstrual blood to use it? Is that really something that's used in clinical practice?   (10:46): Not much in this country, but I think overseas, there may be some clinics that are using it. Yeah.   (10:51): Okay. Just curious, because I hadn't heard that, but I know you can get cord blood, babies, cord blood banked to save the cells for later use if you want it for your child. That's something that was big back when I delivered babies, which has been a long time since I did that. So these stem cells, makeable stem cells. What can you use them for, for, in terms of healing in the body? What kind of applications?   (11:20): Yeah. So first of all, of course, you know, as well as I do that, no claims can be made if there's no FDA indication. So the only FDA indication for stem cell therapy is for Buco blood or bone marrow derived stem cells for chemo reconstitution. So basically replacing your blood system, regenerating white blood cells, red blood cells, the whole blood system, that's the only FDA indication everything else will be off-label use. So there's no direct FDA indication. However, research has been extremely active all around the world, which is why I put together the course for American academy of integrative cell therapy. So for interested is a, a I ct.org on there. I have a lot of articles listed of, for different conditions, clinical excerpts. I have, you know, hundreds of articles that I share with doctors when they take the training, they're all categorized by organ systems and disease categories like over 30 categories within each category.   (12:24): They're, you know, they could be 10 subcategories. So it's very extensive. And they're also some case studies of people who that have been treated that have gotten great results. So while I cannot make any claims, I can't speak from my own clinical experience cause I'm really excited for how well my patients did, but I also am willing to share, you know, research results of you know, all these different conditions. If you look at research from cardiovascular system issues, atherosclerosis, congestive heart failure, different kidney diseases, liver cirrhosis, you know, central nervous system conditions, autism, and C O P D you know, different lung fibrotic conditions, all kinds of autoimmune diseases. And it's you know, powerful evidence on all kinds of autoimmune issues. And even including things like eye conditions, years, you know, hearing pretty much, you know, like most organ systems are covered.   (13:23): So there has been really great results. And even for just general anti-inflammation, they have shown to reduce inflammatory markers and also improve the markers of aging, such as hair, skin, energy level sex drive, and then showing anti-aging benefits when these animals, so animal studies were done where these animals were given older animals, given regular IV treatment. And with the, the IV stem cell treatment, these animals showed that in their brain and their muscles, the neurotropic factors, you know, the neurotransmitter levels, the growth factor release, inflammatory markers, everything was reverted back to younger state. So there's powerful, anti-aging benefits. So basically as we age, we're losing more and more stem cells, just, you know, a number when we were born, every one in 10,000 cells is a mess. Kinal stem cell, right? They're everywhere. And when we reach our teenage years, it's already one in a hundred thousand.   (14:28): So you got tenfold less as far as you know, the ratio. And then when you reach your forties, it becomes one in 400,000. And when you reach your eighties is one in 2 million. So this is why we are getting wrinkles. We're, you know, we're starting to decline in our immune system. We're getting more cancers is because your body can't keep up. It cannot regenerate, you know, wear and tear disease, osteoarthritis, you know, we are wearing and tearing our tissue so much more when we're little kids, but it's fixed right up. You don't get osteoarthritis, but when you are older, old injuries, your body, all of a sudden just can't keep up anymore. It just can't give you enough replacement to regenerate. And then you get lots of weight and pains. So we are running outta stem cells. And that's why I'm such an advocate of using these stem cell therapy to replace what's lost.   (15:23): So all this regenerative, this powerful life force that's doodling. As we age, now we can replace it so we can give body the signals. It used to receive just like what you do with hormone replacement, all these important signals that start to get less and less. You replace the signal. All of a sudden you can bring yourself way ahead, right. Of how you were doing because your body was starving of these signals. So these cells have, you know, huge array of signaling capacities. And, you know, like for example, I just gave you a quick rundown of the kind of capability these cells have, first of all, hugely anti-inflammatory they? So rather than a single hormone, right? These are life cells. They're able to secrete lots of different factors, cytokines that can reduce inflammation. Mm-Hmm they also have anti-fibrotic properties. So they can molecules that can break down scar tissue.   (16:22): They also have immune modulating properties. So they can shift immune system from more inflammatory to a more anti-inflammatory state. They have angio properties because they can sense signals to help your blood vessel, to form more blood vessels and supply more nutrients. And, you know, like blood exchange. And they also have direct antimicrobial properties. They actually secret antimicrobial peptides. They have anti-cancer properties that has been shown, and it has been used in research for cancer treatments and showing great results. And it also have what's called anti apoptotic property. So it prevents program cell death when tissues are injured, just like when we see in stroke, you may have the area that the blood supplies cut off and that's where the cells die. But the neighboring cells start to die as well is because of the signaling cascade. That's triggering the apoptosis program, cell death, and that's where the cells can come in and abort those processes. So it can stop these cells from going on these death path. So there's all this wide array of actions and that's why is so exciting. And, and that's why it's such an elegant treatment. It can help so many things in the cell, right. Also have the ability to define their way , but let's   (17:43): Back up for a second. Cause I do wanna dive into certain applications that I think people will be most interested in, or people have talked to me about in the past. But before we do that, you mentioned the only FDA claims are allowed for bone marrow and cord blood kind of rebuilding of the blood system, usually after cancer, after it's eradicated for blood cancers. So what if the FDA doesn't allow any indications? Not for intravenous, not for focal use, what are people actually using it in clinical practice for, in America right now? Okay. So   (18:26): This is where we come to the 2017 policy from the FDA where they were there's concern. These products can be used and they're very, you know, they're holistic products, their natural products, and the FDA wanted to regulate the me drugs, right? So one sided argument is that these are not drugs. These are tissue transplantations, you know, not that different from transplanting organs or blood. So the FDA decided, okay, if you do not change the cells by putting in all kinds of chemicals, enzymes, you're not basically changing the characters of the cells and you're not growing them into huge numbers. We're gonna allow you to use them as tissue transplant. We're not gonna categorize 'em as drugs. So we don't require, we don't have the same standards, right? We don't require you to do medical studies and get clinical approval. So that's what we're using. We're using the message tissue transplant. So as physicians, we can provide tissue transplantation, right? That's part of what we can do. So just like grafting, you know, a piece of you know, artery, you know, when we do, you know, grafting, we can put it from one person to another person bone grafting. So this is all part of what physician can can do. And that's what a lot of doctors are operating under.   (19:44): And so you can use those intravenously or locally, like intra particular in a joint,   (19:50): Local tissue injections. That's where there's least least concerns from the FDA. I don't think they liked the idea of intravenous treatments because somehow, you know, that they didn't like the idea of a systemic effect, even though everything would put in the body has a systemic effect. You can put something in a joint, it was still have a systemic effect. So I don't know where that policy came from, but you know, that's what their concerns are. So there are doctors who are doing intravenous therapy because of the vast amount of research showing incredible safety and then also efficacy. So from the clinical studies, the key is no claims should be made because if you are doing intravenous, that's considered, you know, more toward drug route. If that's the case, you know, then no claim should be made, right? It's an experimental procedure. So you inform people properly that there has been no FDA approval and this experimental and you understand the risks and benefits and alternatives. So that's how doctors are doing it is by giving proper consent and telling people that there's no guarantee of, of effect. Although there can be research that you can educate the patients on, okay, this condition, look at all these research results, but you know, still no claims can be made   (21:11): Well. And, and what's true for a lot of the medications and treatments that we use in medicine. They're not FDA-approved I mean, if you look at when I practiced obstetrics, we used to give something called Turine for what we call lysis. If women went into premature labor, that's not FDA approved for stopping labor, but we used it for that. So we use lots of things in medication. I want everybody listening to understand that this doesn't mean this is illegal. It doesn't mean that it's anything nefarious. It just means that they've said we don't regulate this , and it's out of their jurisdiction. And so we use lots of what we call off-label. Okay. So now we've gotten that out of the way   (21:57): Of medications used that theirs are actually, off-label used yes. In math practice, 80%, like vast majority are not FDA approved, but that's what doctors have decided to be helpful. And that has become a standard. And then everybody do it, right?   (22:13): So if the research shows it, if you, if you wait till the FDA approves it, you could be waiting forever, and you know, life is short. So you need to get some help now. And stem cells are pretty amazing. So can we talk about maybe how you are using it in your practice? What are some specific applications that you're finding the best results with? And if you wanna touch on the research too, that would be great.   (22:42): Yeah. So first of all, of course, musculoskeletal issues, you know, I do local injections into joints, into soft tissue. So that has been really, really helpful for anything. So like   (22:56): Your arthritis, if someone's told they need a knee replacement you're rebuilding cartilage?   (23:01): Yeah, my first patient, he was 69 years old. And he was told by two orthopedic surgeons that he absolutely needed bilateral knee replacement. So he wanted to try stem cells as a last ditch resort. So because of how large the knee joint is, the way that the cartilage is nourished, the inner two-thirds, the cartilage nourished by the sono fluid in the joint capsule. But the outer one-third is nourished by the blood supply. So it's better to attack from both angles. Of course, we know that, you know, by replacing stem cells, the stem cells do interact with the immune system, help boost the immune system. So there's like all these other effects, but, but we're targeting both ants for the, for the knee. And what's interesting was, so this is six years later, he's going to all kinds of trade shows. He's never had an operation.   (23:49): He's walking four miles every day, barely feels his knees. And what's really fascinating was the next day after the treatment. He said, you know, I slept through the night and I haven't been able to sleep through the night for decades because I had a rotator cuff tear when I was a, you know, late teens and when my car rolled over. So it never fully healed. Every time I shift in my bed, I wake up from the sharp pain. So he slept through the night. It, that huge anti-inflammatory effect. I didn't even know about his shoulder. He never told me about it. So that just shows you that this is why it's so exciting, right? The cells have intelligence. And if there's screaming inflammation in his rotator cuff and the cells, you know, they're attracted to those signals mm-hmm and they went there and they helped him fix it. So this is, you know, he's, he's great. He's doing fantastic. That was my first case. Of course, I'm gonna be hooked .   (24:41): And so he received these stem cells intravenously and in the joint, in the knee joint, both as you were attacking it, both sides and then voila, this shoulder injury that he had. And can you talk a little bit about the data on knees and joints? Because I think it's pretty impressive.   (25:01): Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the studies really fun, such an interesting study because they use people who have bilateral knee basic osteonecrosis. So, both knees are really are rotting basically because of steroid. So these people supposedly need bilateral knee replacement. So what they did was that they divide these 30 people like midline, one knee received, knee replacement, the other knee, they give them stem cell injections. And what's fascinating was this is, I think, about 12 years study. So in the end, what happened was out of all the knees that were replaced, six needed revision surgery. So 30 needs, right, 30 patients, 30 needs were replaced six out of those needed revision surgery because they weren't doing too well out of the 30 needs that got stem cell injections, only one ever needed replacement. So that's a powerful statistic. Yeah,   (26:01): It's phenomenal. And I know some people are listening, then they're Googling, where can I get this done? But I guess, can you talk a little bit about, for instance, a knee injection, what's the cost for stem cell therapy for something like that.   (26:16): So for mild to moderate condition, it costs about $4,000 for severe, you know, cuz we need more product to be used and they are expensive. It costs $7,000 at my clinic, but I do tend to use the IV route, especially when a person's over the age, 55 or so because they just, they, they have lagging regenerative capabilities. So I do tend to add the IV treatment, which has been to have, you know, tremendous anti-aging benefits, but also it's gonna amplify the results. The more products that's used, the more expensive it gets. So the range is between, I'll say when people come to my clinic, the range is 7,000 to $15,000. That's how much it usually costs.   (27:00): And the reason I asked that question is because I always try to do the interview from the viewpoint of my listener. And I know that's what they're wondering, but what I wanna say as a consumer, that that's really the wrong question to ask   (27:17): Right. Everybody wants to know when they hear what I do when they hear what Dr. Joy does, does my insurance cover it? How much does it cost? And the answer is no, your insurance doesn't cover it cuz they're not interested in you being optimally healthy. They're not interested in you necessarily avoiding a joint replacement. And I've talked about that on other podcasts, how really the churn and burn of our medical system is profiting off of your illness. So only you have are the one to take the vested interest and say, yeah, instead of going on this vacation or buying this fancier car, I would rather avoid surgery for various reasons and invest it in my health for whether it's natural hormone replacement therapy or stem cell therapy are all of these tools that I teach you about on the podcast that most of you get the value of. And so that's why I asked that question is cause I wanted to, to bring it up and just to, as a marketer, remind everyone to question why you have the beliefs that you have and why you think the thoughts that you do cause ultimately the quality of your health will be determined by the quality of questions that you ask about your health and how much does it cost is not an empowering question.   (28:32): Such a great, but that   (28:34): Yes. Okay. So knees, now I know you've developed this a skincare line. I wish y'all could see her skin. It's absolutely gorgeous. Can you talk about your stem cell based skincare line and kind of what's the story behind how you developed that?   (28:51): Okay. Being in the antiaging field, of course we're getting educated on what we put on our body, what we ingest, you know, just, you know, the whole aspect. So skincare products, household, you know, cleaning products, I mean, and all these can have huge effect on, you know, hormone disruption and just all kinds of toxicity. So when I realized what was, you know, all these cosmetic products and I thought this was really scary, you know, I really don't want to put all these chemicals on my skin, which is the most absorbent organ in the body. So I thought, okay, let me find a natural cream, all natural cream. So I would spend a lot of money buying some Korean cream and they said, it's all natural. But then when I actually looked at the ingredients after using it for a while, I was like, what's this?   (29:37): And what's that, oh my God, you know, that's, that's not all natural. So I, I was like, okay, now I need to find true all natural product, go to natural expos and getting some samples. And then I'll leave in my drawer for like a month or two, by the time I was ready to try them out and they're separated into different layers. I thought, you know, these people know how to make a cream. You know, that's when I was so frustrated and I was like, you know what? I have access to stem cells to peptides and I can design my own cream. So why don't I just make an amazing cream, you know, first of all, for myself, cuz I don't have one, I need one. And then after I make it, I can share it with everybody else. So that's really how it came about.   (30:16): It just, it was frustrating to find a decent cream. So I make sure it's a hundred percent natural. Even the preservative is a hundred percent is a natural preservative because I refuse to and use any synthetic, even if it means extending the life sh the shelf life of the product. So it has, you know, a big component of a stem cell from the political cord and they're not not alive. You know, I'm not claiming that there are any life cells because it it's, it's impossible to keep the cells alive, but they do have all these regenerative signaling molecules that are still in, you know, in them. And they're still, you know, they're well preserved so that once you put on the skin, they can give your skin the right signals. And I also put all these different peptides that are known for skin regeneration, you know, for anti-inflammatory actions, you know, reducing wrinkles, improving collagen production. And then I put in, you know, all these incredible natural oils, natural oils can be hugely powerful. And then all these different, interesting herbal extracts that have, you know, anti pigmentation properties and, you know, sun protection properties, just incredible skin, regenerative properties and then antioxidants and pre prebiotics. So that's the, the whole formula. It just, I'm very proud of it because it's just, it's impossible to find something like that on the market. That's a true a hundred percent natural product.   (31:41): It is so true. And all my ladies, like in my gut detox program, they're always, what can I use? What can I use? And you know, I'll recommend something and we'll research it and then, oh, by the way, it's got this chemical in it. And oh, by the way, it's got that chemical and everybody listening. Dr. Joy told me before we started recording that she's gonna give everyone a special code to get a discount on her product. So we'll have that in the show notes for you and a link so you can check them out. I haven't tried them, but I am super excited to do so. And I will do that. And then I'll report back to everyone, to all my listeners about them,   (32:20): Do it before and after picture, you know, for themselves, you seriously and no cheating, you know, same lighting, same spots, same time of day. We have, you know, doctors who are stock expensive products in our office, you know, European products, you know, Korean product, you know, they're phasing them out because they love this cream so much, you know, estheticians were really experienced who have seen everything on the market. They absolutely love this product. So I'm really proud of   (32:44): It. Yes, you should be. It sounds amazing. And I'm just wondering, there's all kinds of data with, you know, my thing is hormones and just using natural hormone therapy and decreased number depth and size of wrinkles, decrease skin sagging. Right? All of the data on how it improves the quality of our skin. Also our hair and nails.   (33:07): I've definitely seen it in people who are using the cream. I mean, you know, stem cells have been used for as far as for wound repair, you know, it's hugely powerful and I've seen people who have you know, within a couple weeks, you know, two, three weeks the reduction in fine wrinkles. So there's, you know, pretty rapid, you know, regenerative properties. Mm-Hmm, decreased pigmentation and, and some have people with with lesions falling off. So it definitely is very, yeah, very powerful. So a lot of it is through injection, but you can, you know, inject and I do that with wound care. I can inject along the rim of the wound and that just is so, so incredible, you know, getting the wound to close, but topically, it can because we have a, you know, an ingredient to help with deep penetration of mm-hmm the molecules. This is why you don't need a separate toner, a serum, you know, eye cream moisturizer. You don't need, you don't need a whole, you know, line of product. You just need this one because it's deep penetrating. You don't need to use those tricks to get the product, to get deeper into your skin.   (34:21): Yeah. I think most people think that their skin is solid, but it's really porous and permeable. And anything you put on your skin goes through your bloodstream and goes to the deeper layers and really is very accessible to the rest of your system. So let's, I wanna talk about heart disease. And also if you can autoimmune disease, you mentioned it earlier that there are really a lot of FDA indication, well, not FDA indications, but studies that have been done that show that there's improvement with these types of disorders. Can you talk a little bit about the use of stem cells for those things?   (35:01): Yeah. For heart disease, they've shown for like an atherosclerosis decreas in plaque size at the aortic root. So they actually dissected the vessel and, and show an imaging and how the macrophages aggregation, you know, was changing. You know, how there's just much, much less plaque that's in the blood vessels. And it has been shown to improve ejection fraction in people with heart failure or people who have myocardio infarction. So heart attack also helped to regain cardiac function and repair the cardiac tissue and breaking down scar tissue. So, you know, when we have heart attack and, you know, we have debt tissue and scarring tissue. So because the antifibrotic properties of the cells, they can help break down scar tissue and form new tissue. So it's pretty impressive.   (35:51): Okay. And this would be with an intravenous application.   (35:54): Yeah. So the studies have done either intravenous or intra intra cardio injections, so they can okay. Inject into PE pericardium or into the heart, you know, muscle self, so different types of injections, but they have all shown really good results.   (36:10): Awesome. The name of the prescription is the hormone. The name of the podcast is the hormone prescription. So I always try to tie everything into hormones. How does this affect hormones? You mentioned about the cytokines and the growth factors that come along with these stem cells, the signaling molecules. And so can you talk a little bit about how this interacts? Yes,   (36:32): Actually it's fascinating. You know, cause one of the sections I cover in my horse is reproductive health and they've done studies on animals like menopausal rats or just aging animals and giving them stem cells, younger stem cells, they showed in increase in ovary size, increase in number of follicles, increase in estrogen levels and decrease in FSH and LH. Right. so that's all good sign and the increase in number of pregnancies. So that's pretty powerful evidence that it actually enhances hormone levels and improve re reproductive health.   (37:14): Yes. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean stem cells and growth factors and all these things you're talking about affect everything. And like you mentioned earlier, it's, anti-aging it reverses aging. There are some things you can do without the use of stem cells to improve all of these parameters. Aren't there. What kinds of are there things I know some people are wondering, I don't want stem cells, Kyrin, but I'm wondering, are there other things I can do?   (37:42): well, healthy practices. Of course, you know, you want to eat very healthy and do exercise and make sure you detox, get the toxins out of your body, maybe through saunas and you know, Inre sauna or, you know, other supplements. I mean, all those are really, you know, wonderful ways. There's so many hacks where we're like at a biohacking blossom right now, it can be dizzying, you know, seeing all the things you can do, but I still don't believe there's anything that can replace the power of life itself. I'm giving life. You know, when I inject these stem stem cells into the body, I'm injecting the origin of life, right? The early, early life. And what is in those cells, the first stem cell, the fertilized egg, how does it know to form an entire human being? This is an incredible miraculous feat.   (38:39): How does it know? So what kind of incredible intelligence is in that cell is embedded in that DNA, right? So I'm transplanting just maybe part of that intelligence because as the cells get older and older, you lose more and more of that kind of intelligence, but I'm giving early cells and they still contain a lot of that intelligence. What's really cool is that the stem cells, the me Kinal stem cells from these birth tissue, they're actually in between embryonic stem cells, as far as how primitive and powerful they are embryonic stem cells and the stem cells in the baby. When these cells, when, when these Al cord and placenta, when they were formed, a lot of these young cells were trapped during the embryogenesis. So they are keeping a lot of their early characteristics. This is why it's. So, you know, it is so powerful because they, you know, they're kind of a part embryo stem cells, but they don't have the problem. The embryonic stem cells, which is OMA formation, right? Uncontrolled growth. They don't have the drawbacks of the embryonic stem cells, but they carry a lot of powers of the embryonic stem cells.   (39:48): You know, I love that. You said what you said the way you said it, because I'm thinking again from the listener, they're thinking, oh, I don't wanna do all that. But they do the same thing with hormone therapy, joy. They go, no, I wanna do menopause naturally. Right. And I always like to say, no woman ever said, I'm gonna do osteoporosis naturally. my daughter. Dr. Told me I have osteoporosis and I'm just gonna do it naturally. I'm just gonna take some calcium and vitamin D no, they're like, oh my gosh, I'll be at risk for hip fracture. I could die from that. I could become incapacitated where I can't a emulate or live independently. I want, and they want treatment for it. Right. Women come to menopause and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna do it naturally. It's a natural phase of life. I'm not gonna do anything.   (40:34): And I go, that's fine. As long as you're educated about the consequences of that choice, mm-hmm right. You know, and the fact that neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's are reduced by 79% and women who use hormone therapy for at least six years. Well, do you wanna reduce risk of getting Alzheimer's they go? Yeah. Well then hormone therapy would be a part of that macular degeneration. The number one cause of blindness in women who are 65 reduced with hormone therapy. And it's the same, like you just said, there's nothing that will replace stem cells. Nothing. If you really care about your health to the most degree, like if you ask most women in terms of your values, what do you care about? Most they say, oh my health. But then you ask them to categorize where they spend their time and their money and the health is on the bottom. So you gotta have this value shift and all this to say that, you know, I heard what you said, and I totally agree with you. There's really nothing that stem cells, there's no replacement for them. Just like, they're no replacement for hormones.   (41:40): Love that. So thank you for all   (41:41): That in perspective. Yeah. , it's brilliant with, you know, shifting that people's perceptions cuz they say one thing and then they're actually to   (41:50): Another another.   (41:51): So if you put it that way, you know, do you wanna do osteoporosis naturally? I mean that's a whole that's yeah. That's brilliant because people, they don't realize that's what they're doing.   (42:01): Well, thank you so much for sharing this wonderful information. I know you are passionate about ketamine therapy too. I'm gonna direct everyone to your website cuz we're already been going quite long, but they wanna find out more. We will have links to Dr. Joy's website. We'll have a link to her skincare products and a code for our discount. If you wanna use that, any other links that you would like us to put in the show notes? Dr. Joy.   (42:24): Yeah. So my YouTube channel just joy Kong MD. I have a lot of educational videos there. So people wanna dive deeper into different aspects of stem cells. I talked about five common mistakes that doctors make when they do stem cell therapy. I talk about what happens when other people's DNA are in your body. What does it really mean? Is that something to be alarmed about? You know, what are the three stages healing of stem cell therapy and you know, and what about treatment is in Panama? What's the difference? Are they better? So I go into all these specific questions that people have and I really try to, to, to get people a perspective because just not enough information is out there. Well, a lot of confusing information, but not a clear guidance for people.   (43:10): Yes. Wow. That's amazing. So much, so many resources that you have for people and they can seek treatment with you locally in LA. Is that correct?   (43:20): Yeah. So I'm in yeah, Los Angeles area, my clinics uplift longevity center. So we, I do have people who fly from all over the country and around the world to, to come to our clinic. Okay.   (43:30): So we'll have a link for that. Also all the links in the show notes, everyone. Thank you, Dr. Joy for coming and sharing your wisdom, your passion, your expertise, and really awakening to us to what's possible with stem cells. Thank you for doing,   (43:47): Yeah, we don't have to age and decline, you know, like I was joking with my, you know, my friends, but yeah, what we want is to be vibrant, vibrant, happy, vibrant. And then we're gone. That's the way we go.   (43:59): I literally, you're a walking billboard for that. I'm like she's must have been in medicine for as long, almost as long as I Haven. And she looks like she's 20. So stem cells. Yeah. I think that's where it's at   (44:15): With, with you. I have been doing IV stem cells on myself every three months for the fat past six years. You know, I don't because I'm usually, I'm already very healthy. You know, I take good care of myself, so I don't notice the difference. But other people, when people who don't see me every day, they notice it. They were telling me I'm looking younger and younger and this, you know, I was like, wow, really? Cuz I can't tell by looking myself every day, but I can tell now that Facebook keep reminding me of these happy anniversaries, you know, look at you seven years ago, they think I was gonna be happy because I was younger. And I was looking at is like, oh my God, I was aging. I didn't even know. So only now I have, you know, kind of reversed. It it's much easier to post a picture cuz I don't need to mess with it. You know, I look fine before. I was like, no, it's the lighting. It's a problem. So I was always trying to make myself look better and I still didn't look that great because you know you anyhow. So I was blaming the lighting, but now you're   (45:12): Blaming the lighting. It's not lighting y'all let's say you don't have enough stem cells. so now everybody's gonna have to go stalk your YouTube. Yes. They'll get educated, but they wanna see you aging in reverse, including me just TBH. I gotta be honest, but thank you so much for joining me and thank you for listening today. Thank you for joining me. Hopefully you've learned something that will empower you to take a step with your health, towards the brilliance that you deserve. We will have another great topic for you next week. I hope you have a wonderful week until then peace, love and hormones y'all   (45:52): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40. When we learn to speak hormones and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it. If you give me a review and subscribe, it really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com, where we have some gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.   ► Discover what a stem cell cream can do for you. Reap the benefits of cutting-edge stem cell science to combat the causes of skin aging and rejuvenate your skin. CharaOmni's regenerative stem cell elements and potent peptides will jumpstart cellular repair and regeneration, along with other all-natural ingredients including herbal extracts, natural oils, antioxidants and hyaluronic acid. All in a deep-penetrating formula. Get it here. Use the code (HORMONEBLISS) to get a discount.   ► Watch Dr. Joy Kong's educational videos about stem cells, skincare, health and wellness. CLICK HERE.   ► Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try? It might be time to check your hormones.   Most people don't even know that their hormones could be the culprit behind their problems. But at Her Hormone Club, we specialize in hormone testing and treatment. We can help you figure out what's going on with your hormones and get you back on track.   We offer advanced hormone testing and treatment from Board Certified Practitioners, so you can feel confident that you're getting the best possible care. Plus, our convenient online consultation process makes it easy to get started.   Try Her Hormone Club for 30 days and see how it can help you feel better than before. CLICK HERE to sign up: https://www.herhormoneclub.com/    

This morning comedian Adam Hills joined Fitzy and Wippa on the phone to discuss the new season of Spicks and Specks… but conversation somehow turned to what he's been Googling on his laptop.  Catch the new series of Spicks and Specks Sunday's at 7.40pm on ABC TV and ABC iviewSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dems are unleashing IRS agents on us and jacking up healthcare costs, just to show America they can get things done. Also, the one thing everyone knows about Fidel Castro is that he was LatinX so and nothing more. Find us at burnbarrelpodcast.com Email us: burnbarrelpodcast@gmail.com Follow on Parler: @burnbarrelpodcast On Gab: @burnbarrelpodcast Facebook: facebook.com/burnbarrelpodcast And Twitter: @burnbarrelpod Rumble: rumble.com/c/burnbarrelpodcast YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCWhLuhtutKdCmbHaWuGg_YQ Follow Tom on Twitter: @tomshattuck You can follow Alice too: @aliceshattuck More Tom stuff at tomshattuck.com Tom's "Insta" as the zoomers say: instagram.com/tomwshattuck Join us at Locals: burnbarrel.locals.com (subscriber based) Join us at Patreon: patreon.com/burnbarrel (subscriber based) The opening theme music is called Divine Intervention by Matthew Sweet. The closing theme music to this podcast C'est La Vie by Derek Clegg. Excelsior

Growing up in a conservative church, some kids don't even know being gay is an option. Add that to an ill-kept family secret, and Olivia became scared to orgasm as an adult. She shares how she went from Googling “naked bodies” to discovering assault survivor resources, and why she's now exploring polyamorous dating. Olivia is a 24-year-old cisgender female. She describes herself as mixed race with both African and Middle Eastern heritage, and she's gay with an asterisk. She grew up in an evangelical Christian home. She is currently dating and exploring non-monogamy. She describes her figure as an 'hourglass with extra minutes.' Support the show: www.patreon.com/goodgirlstalkaboutsex Full show notes:  https://www.goodgirlstalk.com/posts/podcast/kissing-a-vagina-olivia

What you'll learn in this episode: Why all successful business owners use a combination of thought and action The difference between Google Ads, Google My Business, and organic SEO Why all roads lead to Google My Business, and why law firms should be investing in it How SEO has changed over the last decade, and how it will likely change over the next five years Why online reviews are crucial for ranking on Google, and how to get more of them About Ronnie Deaver Ronnie Deaver is the founder of NoBull Marketing, a lead generation firm for lawyers. Specializing in Google Ads and Google My Business, NoBull is know for its “No B.S. Guarantee” and fluff-free services. Before founding NoBull, Ronnie was Director of Operations and Director of Web Development & SEO at SMB Team, a legal marketing and coaching firm.  Additional Resources NoBull Marketing Website Ronnie Deaver LinkedIn No Bull Marketing Facebook Transcript: SEO has changed dramatically over the last five years, but one thing remains the same: keep Google happy, and Google will reward your firm with higher rankings. Ronnie Deaver, CEO of NoBull Marketing, has figured out exactly how to do that for his legal clients. He joined the Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast to talk about why Google My Business is so important for law firms; how to get more valuable online reviews; and why your website still matters—but not for the reasons you might think. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Welcome to the Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast. Today my guest is Ronnie Deaver, who is CEO of NoBull Marketing. NoBull Marketing is a lawyer-exclusive marketing firm. In this session, we're going to be touching on three areas: search engine optimization or SEO, Google My Business and Google Ads. They all play a role in generating leads for your firm. They can also make your head spin, as they have mine, but Ronnie's going to lay it out for us clearly. Ronnie, welcome to the program.   Ronnie: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.   Sharon: So glad to have you. First of all, tell us about your career path, how you got here.   Ronnie: My career path probably started around 10 years ago, and it was a very unexpected way to get into marketing as a whole. I moved to Boston, and for anyone who wonders why, it's a very stereotypical story: I chased a woman. The woman did not work out, but the city did. While I was there, I was very broke. I went on Craigslist—this is one of my favorite stories—and found a guy who was like, “Hey, I need help with my website.” I met with him at a McDonald's, and the first thing he said to me was, “Hey man, I want a website, but what I really want is to show up number one on Google.” In my head, I was like, “I don't know how to make that happen, but if you pay me this much per month, I'll make it happen for you.” So, I got my first recurring client. Fortunately I succeeded, and the rest is history from there.   As it relates to lawyers, I got involved with lawyers three or so years ago. From then on, I've been sold that they're the people I want to work with. As far as I'm concerned, it's almost like a spiritual calling. I have so much respect for lawyers because they literally raise their hands and say, “Yes, I'm willing to get involved with people at the worst times of their lives.” They're crazy. That's insane to be like, “People going through the most emotional problems of their lives, when they're at their worst and their lowest, I'm going to help those people.” I'm like, “Wow! I want to help those people help other people.” I've been working with lawyers ever since.   Sharon: Why are they at the lowest? Because they're lawyers, because they went to law school?   Ronnie: No, they're helping people who are at their lowest.   Sharon: I see. I get it.   Ronnie: If you're getting a divorce, you're pretty emotionally stressed.  If you're going through a criminal case, you're usually not your happiest person at that time. What I respect about lawyers is they put a lot of training and time and willingness into helping people who are not coming to them when they're super chippy and cheery and excited. They're usually unhappy; they're usually trying to solve a big problem; they need help; they can be emotionally touchy. It's not easy to be a lawyer. You're dealing with people at the worst, but these lawyers are volunteering to do that. It's a cool career. While I couldn't be a lawyer—I wasn't destined for that—I want to help those lawyers build better lives and build better businesses for themselves so they can help more people.   Sharon: That must keep you very busy. You answered my question. I was going to ask if you had thought about law school yourself.   Ronnie: I did, but I'm one of those guys that's more of intense action than intense thought. I thought about it, and I was like, “Man, this is not my destination.” I'm a very clearcut, no B.S. guy, and the law is a little—there's a lot of negotiation. There's no clearcut “This is right. This is wrong.” It's not that simple, and I'm a simple guy in that sense. I'm like, “This is how we do it. This is what's going to work. I've tested it and I'll evolve that over time.” I'm not destined for that high level of nuance and thought that lawyers need. I thought about it, but it's not me as a person.   Sharon: That's interesting. I'll have to think about it. I like the idea about intense action. You're a person of intense action and not intense thought, and lawyers are so thoughtful and think everything through. What keeps you attracted, then? Why, after years now, have you continued to work with lawyers?   Ronnie: The biggest thing is because they're so intensely thoughtful, they're also willing to recognize that intense thought doesn't make a business. That's the cool thing about business; it inherently is this weird balance of both. You have to have to incredibly good thinking. You have to think and know what you're doing and why you're doing it, but you can't think your way to success. You also have to take a lot of action, action that you don't know if it's going to be profitable; action you don't know if it's going to work; action even when it's hard; action when you're having a bad day. It's a combination of both.    What I love about lawyers is that oftentimes they're very driven people if they went through law school. They're like, “Hey, I know I have this weakness. I know I can think well, but I don't know what I need to do to act.” They're very willing, if given appropriate guidance and coaching, to take real, major action and have success. When I work with a lawyer, I'm usually quite confident. In almost every circumstance, I can work with that lawyer and they're like, “Yes, I want to make this business work,” and I'm like, “Great. Do this, this and that. This is what we found works. If we follow these steps, we're going to make you money.” They're like, “Great, I will follow the steps,” and they do it and they execute.    If I work with a restaurant and I work with somebody who's not quite as driven as a lawyer, you can end up with a lot less successful story. The success stories I get with lawyers are incredible. I've got one woman right now, and when I met her, she was basically facing bankruptcy. Now she's growing so fast and hiring because she can barely keep up with the caseload. They're struggling to follow up with their leads. That delta, that change, is so common in the lawyer space because once given direction, they run with it because they're so driven. I love it, and I have so much energy for it.   Sharon: That's great. I'd like to know some of the lawyers you know. Don't you find resistance sometimes? Resistance like, “I know. You don't know. I'm a lawyer. I know how to do that.” Not to knock anybody, but it's like, “I know how to do whatever needs to be done, whether it's marketing or whatever.” Do you find that?   Ronnie: I think that's broadly true for most marketers in working with lawyers. I have a unique experience with lawyers as an individual because of the way I come off and the way I speak to people. The way I think and talk and approach people is very forward. It's no B.S. It's like, “Hey, this is what I think. This is why. This is going to be the outcome if you do this and the outcome if you don't.” I'm very honest and transparent.    Maybe you have seen my guarantee—I won't go into it right now—but if I don't think I can make you money, I'm not going to charge you, basically. If I don't think I can succeed for you, I'm going to tell you I can't, and I won't take you on as a client. I make it very clear to people that I'm not trying to sell you anything. Either you want the thing I do and I can make you money, or you don't want the thing I can do or I can't make you money, and we shouldn't work together. When I come to people with that approach and I'm that transparent, that no-B.S., and I have that wiliness to not take your money, and I'm not trying to scam you or sell to you regardless of your benefit, people will come to trust me a lot quicker. They're going to say, “This guy actually has integrity.”    Character and integrity building is something I care a lot about. Because I approach my business and every person I speak with like that, I usually get very little resistance, because at that point, they're like, “Hey, I actually trust this guy.” That resistance is usually coming from fundamentally they don't trust the person they're talking to. That's not usually an experience I have, because I will willingly stop working with somebody when I'm like, “I think you should focus on a different investment, because I don't think you're getting the ROI from me for whatever circumstances. I think you should go to do this.” I do that even to my own detriment, because my fundamental goal is that I want lawyers to build better businesses. Sometimes that includes me and sometimes that doesn't. I'm willing to say that regardless.   Sharon: I can see how that can engender trust and less resistance. You're in area we've worked in, but not so much as a hands-on area. It's something that really needs to be straightened out. SEO has come a long way since the first websites and I could tell people, “Do it yourself.” That can't be done anymore. What's the difference between SEO, search engine optimization, Google My Business and Google Ads? Can you explain that all?   Ronnie: I find the easiest way to explain it is to envision an actual search. Any lawyer listening, do a search for “divorce lawyer New York City.” I chose New York City because it's going to have tons of searches and a lot of competition. If you do that search, what you'll see immediately at the top is Google Ads. You're going to see the new local service ads. I should say newer; it's been out for years now. That's where you see maybe an image of a lawyer and their reviews. Under that, you'll see text ads. Those are ads that literally just have text on them. Both of these, though, are a form of Google Ads. Google Ads, they're great. A lot of people have had mixed experiences, but the great thing about Google Ads is you can pay to play, and it works if it's done right, if you're doing it with a professional who knows how to fight Google.    Here's the thing: Google Ads is designed to spend your money, not make you money. Think about who's running it. Google wants to make money. They don't really care that much about you. They just want to make money. But when you work with a professional whose goal is to make you money, like me, my goal is to say, “Hey, Google, I don't want you to take my money. I want to make sure we're making money.” Anyway, Google Ads can be really profitable if you spend this much to get that much. So, that's Google Ads, and basically it's pay to play. You pay to advertise. You get clicks. Those clicks turn into calls. Those calls turn into cases. You run the numbers. You try to make it profitable. That's Google Ads you see at the very top.    Interestingly enough, as you mentioned, a lot has changed over the last 10, 15 years in the SEO/Google world. What's right below Google Ads now—and this didn't used to be true—is Google My Business, otherwise known as the Map Pack or the Three Pack. There are a lot of different names for it. That's the next thing, where you see names and reviews and a literal map. Back about 10, 15 years ago, you saw organic results first. You would see ads, of course, but then you would see organic results, your typical text search results, and then you would see a map under that. This was a major shift that happened roughly five years ago, where Google My Business was completely allotted to being above organic results.    Nowadays, what I talk to lawyers most about is that Google My Business shows up above all of your organic results. This is where I think you should put your effort into on the organic side. Google My Business is its own standalone profile. It has a lot of ranking factors that are a little bit different than SEO. It's going to have ranking factors based on reviews, how active you are on the profile. Are you making posts? Are you uploading photos? Have you added your services? Have you added your products? Are you doing Q&As? Are you responding to your reviews? There's a lot of grunt work, which we'll talk about later, that goes into Google My Business as a platform for ranking on there.    Quick caveat there: one of the big differences from traditional SEO—when people say, “I want to be ranked one”—is on Google My Business, you can get to rank one, two or three, but you're never going to own that spot 100% of the time. It doesn't happen. Google My Business is always switching them out. There's no owning rank one 100% of the time in your market, especially in a bigger market. So, the name of the game with Google My Business, because it's so dynamic, is not just to rank one. It's the percentage of time that you own rank one, otherwise known as your market share or your share of local voice, which are just different ways of saying how often you show up in the top three. So, just remember that, people. The big thing that's changed from SEO to focusing on Google My Business is instead of owning that rank one spot and owning it permanently for years, you're talking about a percentage of time, literally, in a given day. If a thousand searches are made in one day, you're trying to have maybe 20% of that, not 100% like you would in the old days, which is traditional SEO.   Beneath is, of course—if you search “divorce lawyer New York City,” we saw the ads; we saw Google My Business. Right beneath that is your traditional SEO. I personally don't promote a lot of traditional SEO anymore. The big reason for that is that nowadays there are all these aggregators: Super Lawyers, Lawyers.com, Justia, FindLaw. These guys are spending millions and millions of dollars a year to own these. I've found that even if you could rank here—and you can with sufficient effort, but the value you get out of it, plus the chances of your ranking are so low that it's not worth the ROI. I did the tracking once. The average website tracker converts 3%. You're going to put all this effort in, and you get 300 extra people on your website. That's like 10 calls. 300 people, that could be a big number for a lot of business owners, especially for the level of SEO they can commit to, but it's only 10 calls. Making that profitable is very hard.   Regardless, that's your three fundamental separations between Google Ads that show up at the top, pay to play. Google My Business, which is where I now recommend people put the majority of effort because it's at the top. More importantly, you're not competing with Findlaw, Super Lawyers, Avvo, any of those guys on Google My Business. You're just competing with the local people in your market. It's a much less competitive market while still having all the volume of everyone in your area searching for it. Below that are organic SEO results. That covers the three.    Sharon: Let's say I'm a family lawyer and I've never done any of this. I come to you and say, “I have money to put behind it. Can you get me to the top or near the top?” Is that possible today? Do I have to redo my website with content?   Ronnie: Yes, it's absolutely possible. Here's the thing. SEO and Google My Business, they still have a relationship together. Do you have to do everything as crazy and intense as you used to have to do with SEO? People used to think with SEO, “We have to redo the website, and we've got to make millions of pages of content. We've got to do that,” and it's this whole giant affair. You don't have to do that anymore. However, your website still does affect your Google My Business because it scans your website and uses that for context of what services you offer. If you say you're an estate planning lawyer, for example, Google wants to see that you have pages for probate, pages for estate planning, pages for wills, pages for trusts, because it's going to scan your website and use that as context.    But here's the thing. This is the big changing in mindset. It's not about those pages' rankings. Those pages are never going to rank. I don't give a crud if anyone ever Googles and finds that page. That's not the goal when you're focusing on Google My Business, at least. The goal is that Google scans them to help it understand what your business does, and then it's more likely to rank your Google My Business profile higher on that Map Pack rather than your actual page.    Here's the other reason I love Google My Business. Google My Business only shows up on the searches where people have literally raised their hands and said, “I need a lawyer right now.” It doesn't show up when they're saying, “Should I get a lawyer?” or “Can I avoid getting a lawyer?” or any of these other research terms. It literally only shows up when people say, “Hey, I want to hire a lawyer right now.” So, the leads you get from it, the people who call you, they're usually very close to making a decision. You're putting effort into showing up in front of people right when they need a lawyer, which is why it can have a high conversion rate and why it can be so profitable.   But yes, you can absolutely start ranking. A lot of my clients rank within as little as 90 days. That's possible. The reason it's possible is because if you put the sufficient grunt work into the profile—grunt work being the posts, photos, Q&As, getting reviews—reviews alone are like 35% of the factor. Put that grunt work in, and even a small boost in your ranking on Google My Business can easily turn into an extra 10, 15, 20 calls a month. 10, 15, 20 calls, maybe that's three, four or five consultations. If you close one of those with an average case value of $3,000 to $5,000, you're already starting to get profitable from what you're spending on somebody like me. The ROI to time factor with Google My Business is so much better and so much faster than whatever SEO that was in the past, where it's 12 months or 24 months to float an expense, and maybe $30, 40 grand a year for years. Google My Business doesn't have that factor. You can go a lot faster.   Sharon: You still have to do a lot of SEO behind the scenes. It shows up in a different way. Tell us more about the grunt work. Do you do the reviews? Are you doing the photography? Are you prodding your clients, saying it's time to write an article or whatever?   Ronnie: Yes, so we do as much of the grunt work as we humanly can. This what I talk about the whole time. We're not selling back magic. We're not selling a magic pill that solves all your problems. What we sell is grunt work. We know if we put this work in, it pays. So, we handle all the on-page SEO. We'll go through and optimize your website fully. For anybody who wants to hear these terms, some of these will be a little technical. We're not going too far into them, but metatitles, metadescriptions, local schema, image alt text, image compression, website speedup stuff. All your basics of having a website that makes sense to Google so they know your name, your address, your phone number, what you do, we'll handle all that.    Then on the setup side of Google My Business, there's actually quite a lot. One of the things people don't realize is that five or eight years ago, Google My Business was a set-and-forget thing. You put your name, your info, your category and never thought about it again. Maybe you get a review every now and then. Nowadays, they've turned it into a quasi-social platform. I want to be clear here: it's a terrible social platform. Never think of it as a social platform. But even if you're not going to get views or likes or whatever on it, doing that activity still makes Google happy, which means you're more likely to rank higher. It's about making Google happy, not about getting profile views or image likes. In terms of setup, you can put all that basic information in: your name, address, phone number, description.   Nowadays, they've recently—and I say recently as in the last couple of years—they've added functionality where you can add literally every service you offer. Let me give you an example. When I work with a criminal lawyer, they're not just a criminal lawyer. They do drug crimes; they do manslaughter; they do criminal deportation. They do all these different subcategories. Even below that, a drug crime lawyer is not just a drug crime lawyer. It's also Xanax crime, meth crime, marijuana crime. You can break this down. For our average client, we're adding 50 to 100 individual services, breaking down literally every single thing they do. We're adding 100 words of extra context into the back of the profile, putting every single thing they do. Again, that gives Google more context of who you are and what you do, and it makes it easier for you to rank. The cool thing is when you do rank, if somebody did want a marijuana crime lawyer near me, Google literally would say, “Provides service: marijuana crime lawyer.” You're more likely to get the call because not only did you rank higher, but you showed that you're a specialist in that industry.    You can also do products. Products are basically a visual version of that. You get to do the same thing, but you put photos and you can link to a certain page on the website. It has a little more of a visual component to it, but again, it's another way of telling Google who you are and what you do. We do all of that on the setup side.   Then you have the ongoing side. On the ongoing side, again, we do all this grunt work. We write a blog post every single month. Lesson learned; I now only work with J.D. holders to write blog posts for lawyers. I will never have somebody who has not gone to law school write a post for a lawyer. No lawyer likes that. I've never had a problem with a lawyer now that I only have people who went to law school writing it. I had lots of issues before, but we've done that for years now, no problems. So, we have an actual law student, somebody who went to law school, got their J.D., write the blog posts so the lawyer doesn't have to.    Then we go further than that. We have posts on Google My Business. We'll upload photos. If we have to, we have stock photos; even stock photos are better than no photos. We do send a little automated text asking lawyers, “Hey, send me a photo if you have it. If you have a real one, I'll take it.” I make it as easy as if you just respond to a text, I'll handle uploading the photo. So, we ask for those photos or we post our own.    We're going to be uploading our own questions and answers. People don't realize this, but you can actually ask yourself a question on Google My Business and answer it. You don't have to wait for somebody to ask you a question. That's a whole new functionality. A couple of years ago, Q&As didn't even exist. Now Q&As will do this. Say I have a family lawyer. I'll say, “Hey, what's the process of divorce?” and I'll ask myself that question. Then, J.D. holders will write a 300-word response and post that there. We're adding 10 of those a month; we're adding 3,000+ characters of words to the profile proving to Google that we're an expert and know what we're doing. Again, more and more grunt work, everything you can do.    Finally, on the review side, I can't do it for you fully. People have tried completely outsourcing but your conversion rate will be terrible. If I do it for you completely, I'll get one out of every 10 people to leave a review for you, which is a waste. What I have done—and I've gotten this up to a 40% conversion rate, so four out of 10 will leave of review of you. I set up a very simple flat automation for our clients, where all they have to do is give me a name, a phone number and an email, and we'll automatically send three to six follow-ups by SMS asking them to leave a review. It'll follow up over 10 days. It's that follow-up that makes a big difference, because the first time you ask, they're never going to leave a review. You've got to ask at least two or three more times, and they'll do it on the follow-up. That gets about a 40% conversion rate. Most of our clients are getting two to five, sometimes 10 new reviews a month.   When you combine all that together, what we end up seeing is often between 20% and 30% lift month over month. By lift, I mean an increase. If they're getting 30 calls now, next month I'd see maybe 40 calls. The next month I'd like to see 50, 60 calls. The next month I'd like to see 60, 70 calls, so that at the end of it, I have a lot of clients. Within six months, they've doubled their call volume. When you're doubling your call volume, that pretty easily turns into quite a bit more revenue.   Sharon: Wow! But you're saying, though, you still have to do all the stuff we used to do. It's the stuff we're talking about, just on your website. You'd come in and say, “Let me change the tags. Let me change this.” You still have to do that, even though people aren't coming to the website directly; they're coming to the ads or Google My Business. When you add, let's say, 15 more services, is that behind the scenes? Like if they search “criminal lawyer in New York City” and then they click on that and see, “Oh, this guy does all this criminal stuff,” is it behind the scenes?   Ronnie: It's completely behind the scenes. The customer will almost never see it unless it showed up on a very specific search. Here's the thing: it's in the profile of Google My Business itself. It's not a thing anybody can click through to. It's not a thing somebody can explore or open up. Products are a little different. Products you can click through and explore, but services are explicitly a backend thing, so Google My Business knows exactly what your services are. They sometimes use it where the customer can see it says “provides” and whatever the service is. That will sometimes show up, but you can't control it. It'll sometimes show up on the search, but there's no clicking through and seeing all those services. So, mostly we do it for Google's sake.   I love that you mentioned all that old SEO stuff as still being present. The way I think about it, Google My Business was built on the foundation of SEO. It's not that they're completely disconnected, but nowadays, SEO is a supporting tool to Google My Business. I don't usually recommend SEO as a standalone campaign anymore just because of the numbers and profit. I tracked 200 campaigns and here's what I found. I tracked every call, every form fill, every everything. I found that 60% to 80% of all calls a lawyer got over 200 campaigns could be directly attributed to Google My Business. They called straight from Google My Business. They didn't go to the website at all. They just called from Google My Business without ever going to the website.   Sharon: Does Google My Business give you a separate phone number if you're paying Google for ads? Do they give you a separate phone number to track this?   Ronnie: They do have some call tracking functionality. It's not a separate number. What they do is behind the scenes. They have what is called call history in Google My Business. I don't usually recommend it, and the reason I don't recommend doing that is because, first of all, it's bad data. It'll lead you to believe you're getting worse data than you are because it can only track the people who click it to call. It can't track the people who type it in manually. Google My Business is still going to show your actual number, but when you click it, they run it through a different phone number on the back end. So, it's only tracking 60% to 70% of your calls. It's not tracking the many, many people who Google on their desktop and then call from their phone, for example.    What I do instead is set up call tracking, where we replace your office number or we import your office number and turn it into a tracked line, depending on if you have a vanity number or really old number you love. Either way, we either completely replace your office number with a new tracked line, or we'll import your current one and make it into a tracked line, and then we put that on Google My Business. Then we have perfect data because it doesn't matter how you placed the call. Whether it's clicked on or manually called, I have that data. I know how that person called and I know where they came from.    Sharon: Is everything you're describing the same on the phone, desktop, mobile device?   Ronnie: It's all the same. They would see one phone number all the way through. It doesn't matter where they come from.    Sharon: What happens if you have a vanity number? Let's say I'm a client and I say, “Oh, I have to call John. I know his number is 1-800-LAWYER.” How do you separate those?   Ronnie: Yes, if you really care about running a vanity number, I understand. Like I said, we have the option to import that. We can import that number and turn it into a call tracking, which I think is best practice regardless. If you're going to have a fancy number, at least know how many people are calling you. I think that's the useful thing to do. So, we import that number and turn that into a call track number. Then that number stays the same. Nothing changes. It's the same number. When you switch from T-Mobile to Verizon, you get to keep your number. It's the same thing. We get to keep that number; we just turned it into a tracked one. It's the same number, but you get all the benefits and now you can track all your calls.    Sharon: When you're working lawyers, what are the top three mistakes you see, or the top three tips you have? What would you say?   Ronnie: I think as it relates to broad marketing, the biggest thing is not realizing what personally works for you as an individual. What I mean by that is the biggest thing I see lawyers do as a mistake—this is all business owners—is that it's so tempting to follow the advice of everyone else who says, “This is the best way to succeed,” and they'll do it regardless of whether or not it's good for them as an individual. I'll give you an example of somebody it's not good for. Say you've got a very shy person, a very shy lawyer who doesn't enjoy meeting in person. It makes them very nervous. It makes them very sickly and unhealthy and anxious. They're having a bad day. Every time they go to a networking event, they're miserable. But every lawyer they've ever met has told them the only way they're going to succeed is if they get good at networking, so they grind their way through and force themselves to go to all these networking events. The reason I think that's a terrible idea is because business is marathon; it's not a sprint. This is general business advice separate from marketing. Business is a marathon, not a sprint. If you go do things that make you miserable all the way through, you're not going to be able to sustain. You're going to want to quit. You're going to want to give up. You're going to burn out. You're going to shut down. You're going to give up. It doesn't work. So, the biggest mistake I see lawyers make is trying to do things the way everyone else tells them to, regardless of how it feels to them.    Networking for me is super easy. I'm very outgoing, very loud. I speak. I can own a room very easily. Great. What didn't work for me was trying to force myself to run a lot of Facebook ads. I'm a very direct marketing guy. Cold email is how I do things. Meeting people in person is how I do things. Podcasting and talking, that's how I do things. But everyone I met was telling me, “Do Facebook ads. Do Facebook ads.” That just freaked me out. If I spent $3,000 in Facebook ads, I was terrified all month, like, “Oh my god, I'm wasting money.” Then I'd be miserable the whole day, all day, every day. I never would have gotten this far if I kept doing what everyone else told me to do.    The same thing is true for most lawyers. Find the marketing path. Find the way to run your business that works for you as an individual, even if everyone else tells you it's not the best way. Again, success is going to come from surviving over the long run, over the marathon, so you can find what works and find the thing that keeps building up rather than the short-term thing everyone says should work. That's the biggest mistake with lawyers. Just find the path that works for you. If you don't like making content, you don't want to be on TikTok, you don't want to network, you don't want to whatever, that's fine. There's a way to do it; I promise. You've just got to find the way that works for you. That's my number one tip there.   The second one, as it relates to Google My Business specifically, is that it's not a set-and-forget profile. I'm going to say it again. It is not a set-and-forget profile. Five years ago, you were right; it kind of was. You would set it. It wasn't even the thing that showed up first. It was secondary. Now, it's the thing that shows up first. I've tracked 200 campaigns. The majority of your leads comes from Google My Business. Think about this: all roads lead to Google My Business. Here's why. You run that billboard campaign. They'll remember your billboard. They might remember your name, and what do they do? They Google your name. What's the first thing that shows up? If you do a Google search for the business and you have a Google My Business listing, the first thing they see on the entire right side of the screen is a massive thing with everything about you, your reviews, you information. That is Google My Business. It's literally massive. It takes up the entire right side of a Google search. It's huge.    So, if you run that billboard campaign, you run that Facebook ad, you do that radio campaign, even if you get a referral, the first thing people do nowadays is they Google you and read your reviews and look at your profile. I've seen lawyers lose referral leads because they were Googling them, and they were like, “Hey, you've only got one review. I don't trust you. Your Google My Business profile looks terrible.” All roads lead to Google My Business, so what I tell people is don't set it and forget it. Put more effort into it than anybody else, whether you pay somebody or do it yourself. This is not stuff you can't do yourself; it's just a lot of grunt work. Get in there. Make the posts, add the photos, get reviews. Do the work. All roads lead to Google My Business. Don't set and forget it. Make use of it. Find everything you can do. You'll get paid for it in the end. It's grunt work that pays. That's what I tell people: it's grunt work that pays.   Which brings me to my next thing, which is that when it comes to reviews, there's a big myth. I get so many complaints about reviews. “I can't get reviews. I'm a criminal lawyer. Somebody who just had a child sex case doesn't want to leave a review. Somebody who just went through a divorce doesn't want to talk about the divorce.” First of all, you don't actually know that. There are a lot of assumptions. I know if you were going through a divorce, you wouldn't want to leave a review, but you don't know that about other people. I have met a lot of criminals who are pretty thrilled to brag about the fact that they were a criminal who got off the hook. They're very thrilled to leave that review. They're proud of it. You've got no idea what people are willing to do. Don't assume you do. More important, the reality is that reviews are so profitable. Even the referral person is going to look at your reviews. So, you've got to get those reviews, and the number myth I see is that most lawyers think they can only get reviews from paying clients, people who have succeeded and paid you. That is not true. The only requirement for a review is that you gave somebody legitimate legal value.    Let's think about that. What does that mean? I'll give you an example that blows it out of the water every time. Estate planning lawyers, every quarter they're going to host a local seminar at the nursing home, for example, and 60 people are there. Maybe they get three, four, five clients out of that session. They're thrilled. They've just made so much money. However, here's what they do next. After that seminar—they've just spent two hours with these people—the ask all 60 attendees to leave a review right then and there. They get 15 to 20 extra reviews in one day for a seminar they were already going to do and they already got five clients out of. At free consultations, you just spent 30 minutes giving legitimate legal value to somebody, even if they don't become a client. I've got clients right now who get three, four, five reviews a month just from people they did a free consultation with. They didn't even become clients, but at least they got a review out of it for that free consultation. So, there are lots of creative ways that you can get reviews. You've just got to think, “Did I provide legal value of some sort?” Friends and family count here. If you gave legitimate legal value, if somebody asked for advice or a thought or suggestion or direction and you gave legal value of some form, that's cool; ask for that review. You're safe to do it. It's worth the payout.   My final thought for people, and I'll close off here, is that I know you've probably had a bad experience with Google ads when you tried running them yourself. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There are a lot of lawyers who are like, “I'll never do Google ads. It's never profitable. I tried it once and I lost a lot of money,” especially after Google launched Google Express Ads. I don't know if you remember those, but Google tried it for a while. Basically, Google wants to get rid of us agencies because we are really good at not getting people to spend as much money. We're really good at getting our clients to reduce the budget with Google ads. Google wants a direct path to the client where they can work with the lawyer and the lawyer pays Google. They don't want a middleman. However, the benefit of the middleman is that when you work with an appropriate middleman, you can get it to where we're constantly telling Google, “I don't want to pay for this. I don't want to pay for that. I don't want to pay for this.” What we're doing every day and every week is finding out what's worth paying for and what actually turns into money.    I'll give you an example. If I work with a criminal lawyer, what I've found out—and we've helped clients make more money this way—is that if we just pay for DUI searches, we'll get some cases that way, but a lot of people who are in a DUI, some of them don't have the money or they aren't very socially responsible people. They're not likely to have the money or to pay out. What I found was if we go after nursing DUI or contractor DUI, suddenly the game changed. Now we were going after people who lose the entire livelihoods and licenses. A nurse loses her license for a DUI. Suddenly, those people have more money because they're nurses, and they're way more incentivized to make it work because they don't want to lose their license. I have that context where I can pay money on Google Ads to find the leads that are most likely to make you money and actually convert. When you work with a professional on Google Ads, you can make your campaign a lot more profitable than anything you've ever done on your own. So, don't throw out Google Ads. You're literally getting to pay to put yourself in front of people who say, “I need a lawyer right now.” If you work with a professional, you can make a lot of money with it. Don't throw it out. Consider it.   Sharon: You work with Google a lot. It sounds like Google would love to go to a lawyer and say, “Just buy my ads.” It doesn't matter whether it's a nurse. This is just off the cuff. What's next for Google and you? Do you feel changes coming? It seems like every time one learns what's going on, it's changed. What do you feel is changing or coming?   Ronnie: Yes, one thing I love about Google is that while it seems like it's changing a lot—which it is. It's changed more in the last five years than it's changed in the last 15. At the same time, it's kind of the index fund of marketing. What I mean by that is if you think of it as a broad hull and you don't get distracted by Google itself in terms of user behavior, it's the most ingrained thing now. It's a social/cultural thing. When you don't know something, what do you do? You Google it. You look for it. You make a search for it. It's the most basic thing. We haven't quite gotten to that with social media like Facebook. You're not so ingrained with the idea of Facebook that you go on Facebook to look for an ad to find an answer to your problem. It's not the same; it's completely different. Google has the benefit of being this culturally ingrained thing. Even though its platform is changing a lot from a user behavior standpoint, nothing's really changing, unlike Facebook where a single iOS update completely shattered Facebook ads, and now you suddenly can't make money on it. That's wild. That's very unlikely to happen on Google because it's so ingrained in culture and how people work. It has the benefit of being high intent. People only go there when they intend to find an answer or when they intend to hire somebody, unlike Facebook. They don't intend to find an ad on Facebook; they just happen to.    I bring that up because when it comes to Google and why I love it and expound on it so much, it's the index fund of marketing. It's hyper-ingrained in culture. It's not going to change very much at all in terms of the cultural side. It might evolve, but it's going to be Google. It's going to be the idea of searching for a solution. That may evolve in its format. It might be like a VR headset, where an ad shows while you're searching for something on a VR headset. But fundamentally people are going to search for answers, and you can pay or put grunt effort in to show up in front of people when they search for the answer, whatever format they take. So, in some ways it's changing; in a lot of ways it's almost not at all. For me, I'll probably be on the Google search world, because why would I not put all my effort into putting myself in front of people when they're already looking for me? That's where I want to be. It's easier that way. Fundamentally that's not changing.    Now, when it comes to actual platforms—which, to me, are on a micro scale compared to the macro we just talked about—there is some micro-stuff changing. The thing that's going to keep changing is Google's going to keep trying to find ways to get rid of agencies. I'm going to have to keep fighting. We're going to fight that as long as we can. There's going to come a day where eventually Google succeeds with that, but the agencies will probably still have a role because business owners have better things to do than manage their budgets or campaigns. There may be a human component forever, but there will probably be a point where Google succeeds enough where their ads actually perform at reaching their goals for the client. That is probably still many, many years off, because right now the reason Google Ads can't do that is because they don't know your business.    For example, right now with local service ads, which is probably the most they've ever succeeded at making it where they can go directly to the lawyer, they will run a campaign for an immigration lawyer, but they don't know that business. So, if that immigration lawyer says, “Hey, I don't do deportations and I don't do asylums,” Google has no filtering for that. You can't turn that off, so you get all immigration leads. Right now at least, there's no customization to that individual business. That's the kind of filtering I can do as the human saying, “Hey, I only want these types of cases. I don't want any of these cases.” I can put that kind of thinking into it. Google may one day fix it up, but they haven't done it yet.   What they're trying now is an improved version of all this called Performance Max. It recently came out. Basically, it's the same idea as Google Express Ads, but with the lessons from local service ads. It's like version 3, but now it goes on all of their Ads platforms. They're trying merge into one giant ad platform where you pay one budget to advertise on Google ads, display ads, YouTube ads, Gmail ads, on all their platforms all at once. Of course, in theory that sounds great, but if you just give it to the bots, it's going to spend money. It has no context of who you want to target, what types of cases turn into money. Performance Max might have a role to play. I don't expect it's going to take over the agency role anytime soon. I probably need to keep fighting them for a long time to make sure we're only spending money when it makes money. But what we're going to keep is a trend where Google tries to find some new way where we don't need an agency. They're going to underestimate and still not understand what the individual business actually needs, so we're going to keep going back and forth until one day they figure it out. I don't know how long that's going to be, but it's probably at least five, 10 years.    Sharon: You've given us a lot to think about. It's not your father's Google, I should say.   Ronnie: Yeah, it's changed a lot.   Sharon: I want to thank you so much. It's been very, very interesting. We greatly appreciate you being here.   Ronnie: Absolutely. I had a great time. Thanks for having me.  

SUMMARY: Today we talk all about how to manage when your fears appear in your dreams.  This was a heavily requested topic, so I hope it was helpful for you. In This Episode: Why our fears and obsessions show up in our dreams What to do when your fears appear in your dreams  How to manage the distress when dreams feel “real”  Links To Things I Talk About: ERP School: https://www.cbtschool.com/erp-school-lp Episode Sponsor: This episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit is brought to you by CBTschool.com.  CBTschool.com is a psychoeducation platform that provides courses and other online resources for people with anxiety, OCD, and Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors.  Go to cbtschool.com to learn more.  Spread the love! Everyone needs tools for anxiety... If you like Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast, visit YOUR ANXIETY TOOLKIT PODCAST to subscribe free and you'll never miss an episode. And if you really like Your Anxiety Toolkit, I'd appreciate you telling a friend (maybe even two). EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION  This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 295. Welcome back, everybody. It is Episode 295, which sounds like a whole lot of episodes. It really, really does. Actually, it shocked me when I saw that number. Today, we are talking about when your fears show up in your dreams. I would say quite regularly, actually, a client, particularly morning clients will often say like-- I'll be like, “How are you? How was your week?” And they'll say, “Well, I'm just feeling really overwhelmed. I had the most bizarre dream last night and it's hard to shake it off.” And so, I'm wondering, I'm guessing. I've had this experience, I'm guessing you have too. And I wanted to talk this episode about how we might respond to that situation and what we need to look out for when we have this situation, particularly if you have anxiety. That's really the specific group of humans we're speaking to today. And I'll share a little bit more about that as we get going. All right, before we do that, let's do the review of the week. This one is from FullWalrus and they said: “I found this podcast by Googling an issue I was having, and this just popped up.” FullWalrus, this makes me so happy. Thank you so much for Googling this and finding me because that means we're doing a good job at being on the internet and helping people in that way. “I had kept away from podcasts about mental health in fear of being triggered or being told I was crazy after all, and that didn't happen obviously. Kimberley is a gifted presenter and a therapist who introduced me to Buddhism and mindfulness in a way I'd never thought of before. For the first time, I feel like I actually have the tools to help me manage OCD, and this show is sure a beautiful compliment to any therapy you should be currently undergoing because we all need therapy. Thank you for everything, Kimberley. My life is forever changed and I am forever grateful.” Thank you, FullWalrus. What a wonderful, wonderful review. I just love hearing how I'm helpful. I love hearing what episodes are helpful and it's really cool that I'm a really-- I love Buddhism. I find it to be exactly what I need every time I'm in a hard time. So, I'm so glad that I'm bringing that in a way that isn't overwhelming or overpowering. So wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. This week's “I did a hard thing” is coming to you from Holly. Holly says: “Last week, I went to court to obtain full custody of my son since his father has become a threat to him. This was extremely difficult seeing as we have been in an abusive past. My anxiety was the highest it's been in a very long time, but ultimately, I knew I had to take action. I did my hard thing and I couldn't be more proud of standing my ground and not succumbing to so many fears.” Holly, sending you so much love. This is 100% doing the hard thing. It's so hard, because often we're talking about irrational fears and so forth, but I love that you brought like I'm doing this real thing. This real thing. And I love when you guys share with me both you're facing your fears related to your disorder, but also just facing fear about showing up and living according to your values and showing up for your family. And Holly, just so good. Thank you so much for submitting that “I did a hard thing” for our “I did a hard thing” segment. Okay. Let's talk about dreams. So, again, often people will bring to my attention like, what do I do if my fears show up in my dreams, or even fears you didn't have right. Like fears that you never considered during the day, but once you go to sleep, it gives it to you, sucks it to you, and whatnot. So, what do we do in this situation? Most people will report they wake up in a massive ball of sweat, high heart rate. It feels so real. It feels like it actually happened. And it takes some time for that to burn off. It really, really does. Some people say it even takes the whole day to burn off. And so, if that's the case for you, you're definitely not alone. Now, one thing to think about when we're thinking about dreams is we've been fed this belief that dreams are like windows into our soul and that they must mean something, and that some people interpret dreams. In fact, I'll tell you a story. I'm a clinician, I'm a CBT therapist. I use science-based treatment methods. And I do remember looking for a therapist several years ago actually and asking some colleagues. And one colleague, who knew me really well, referred me to this dream analyst. And I went for the first session. I was like, “This is not going to work for me,” mainly because of exactly what I'm going to tell you. Now, if you like dream analysis, 100% no judgment. The reason that I had a strong reaction to it is I was going through a very, very anxious time, and I knew that if I engaged in that behavior, it was going to trigger me in ways that I'll share here very soon. The way I understand and the way I was trained and the way I've researched dreams is dreams, are just thoughts you have at night. So, if you've listened to this podcast, you'll know that during the day, if you have a thought, I'm probably going to tell you, thoughts are thoughts. Don't give them your attention. Don't give them too much kudos. And so, dreams are no different. They're just thoughts that you have while you're asleep, and do your best not to give them a ton of importance, a ton of weight, a ton of value, because when you do that, you can get in trouble, particularly if they're anxious thoughts. Now, let me say here, I am notorious for having the weirdest dreams. My husband often, when we first got married, would sit up in the morning and be like, “Tell me everything you dreamed,” because I dream about like, I once had this dream about turtles and we went scuba diving together. And me and these turtles, they were like cartoon turtles. We're like going through these tunnels together. Ridiculous stuff. I've had dreams of going hot air ballooning with a giraffe, and I have had this dream many, many, many times. I would say tens of times. And so, yeah, sometimes dreams are just silly and crazy. But where they've got fear attached or danger attached or catastrophes attached, it can be really hard for us to not get caught up in them. So, the next question is, is it effective to interpret our dreams? My opinion is there's nothing wrong with it, but here are the things to look out for. If you have a dream and it's attached to your obsession and you're interpreting your dream, it's a chance that you're doing compulsions to try and get certainty around that obsession. So, if you've already got the fear and the obsession, interpreting the dream actually maybe just reinforcing the fear, giving it too much importance, giving it too much value, and therefore feeding you back into a cycle where you're going to keep having more of them, and you're going to keep having anxiety about them, because you're responding to them as if they're important and dangerous. If they're just random like you wake up, often people say, “I had a dream that a loved one died,” or “I had a dream that a loved one was in an accident or it was my fault or so forth.” If you have that, what I would encourage you to do is look at it curiously. For me, it's either like a really silly cartoon style dream or it's that I'm responsible for something, which just is a sort of, if I'm curious about that, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. I tend to be hyper-responsible. I tend to take responsibility very seriously. So, that makes sense. But I'm not going to go and dig around more than that because now I'm digging around in the content of my fears and giving those fears way, way, way, way too much attention. Way too much attention. So, is it effective to interpret your dream? It depends. And I will say really clearly, if it is around your obsession, I strongly discourage you from doing it with one caveat, with one exception, which is unless it's for the purpose of actually doing an exposure that's scary. So, that would be the one time I would say, yes, it's cool to interpret your dream. If you're doing it on purpose in effort to actually induce the actual obsession and fear that you have so that you can practice tolerating the uncertainty and you can practice writing that wave of discomfort. We can and we do do exposures to the content of your dreams. So, again, if a client has a dream or you have a dream and it's triggering you, whether it was a part of your old obsession or just a new one, you can choose if it's really bothering you to do an exposure. You could do an exposure with imaginal exposures. We cover imaginal exposures in ERP School, which you can go and find out about at CBTSchool.com if you're interested. ERP School is our online course that teaches you how to apply ERP to your obsessions. So, you could do an imaginal exposure where you write a story about your worst fear coming true and the consequences of that, and you read it over and over and over and you just allow the anxiety to rise and fall. You could do that. Or let's say if it's a fear like, not long ago, I had a dream about this one area of the corner of my kid's school. It was like this really bad thing happened. So, if it's really bothering me and I'm struggling with reducing my mental compulsions about that. Yeah, I might go into that corner and just sit there and read a book or just wait there for my kids or whatnot. So, yes, you can do exposures to the content of your dreams, particularly again, if they're really strong, repetitious, and they seem to be persistent. What we can do in addition to that is apply a ton of mindfulness to the dream content itself. So, this is what this would look like. You wake up, whether it's from the morning or from a nap. You've had a dream. It's really overwhelming. It feels really real. It might even feel like you're actually in the moment of this catastrophe or this event. And even though it feels real, we're actually just going to be mindful of that. Now, what does mindfulness mean? Let's do a quick recap. Mindfulness is being present with what's actually happening. So, within that moment, what's actually happening is things feel unreal, things feel strange, things feel scary. Your heart might be beating faster. You might be sweating. You might have a tummy ache. So, that's what's happening. We're present with that, but we're also present with what else is happening. Oh, the birds are chirping. I feel my pajamas against my skin. This is the taste of the coffee I'm drinking. I can smell the coffee as well. We're just being very mindful of what else is happening, and we're doing all of that nonjudgmentally. Key point: We're doing all of this. We're having the weird feeling. We're having the anxiety. We're smelling the coffee. We're feeling our feet against the floor and we're practicing not judging these things as good or bad, even though they might be uncomfortable. When we are acknowledging that they're here, we're allowing them. We're being willing to experience them, not pushing them away, and we're practicing being non-judgmental. Now you may need to do this, and this is often our clients will say, “Yeah, I did that, and then it kept bothering me.” And I'll say, “Well, did you do it again? Could you do it a little longer?” And they'll go, “Yeah, I did. But then it kept bothering me.” And I'll joke with them. I try never to be condescending, but I'll say, “But did you then do it again? Did you keep going?” And that's the key to mindfulness. Mindfulness, we don't do these behaviors to make the discomfort go away. We do them moment by moment, minute by minute, 10 seconds by 10 seconds, just to practice being in the presence of this discomfort and giving the discomfort zero of our tension. Now, the other thing we may want to do here is activate a behavior. So, if you're feeling totally overwhelmed, totally anxious, everything feels like it really actually happened. A lot of clients will say somebody died in their dream and they actually cry and they're experiencing grief as if it actually happened. That's true too. That often happens. We would engage in behavioral activation of going, “If I didn't have this feeling, what would I be doing?” Such a good question. If I didn't have this experience, what would I be doing? And go and do that thing. So, if I didn't have this dream, I'd be getting up and I'd probably go for a walk or I'd sit down and check my emails or whatever it may be. Make sure you do those things and try not to divert away from the behaviors you would've done had you not had this dream. That's the response prevention piece. If you didn't have this dream, would you be giving this content your attention? So, let's say I had a dream about my child dying, which is devastating, the idea of it. So, when we say I wake up and I feel like it actually happened, my body is telling me it actually happened, even though maybe my child is right in front of me. Then how do I engage with the rest of the day? Am I ruminating about ways to prevent that from happening? Am I actually implementing behaviors to prevent it from happening? Because if I'm doing those things, I'm actually doing compulsions. I'm trying to solve a thought that I had, not an actual thing. And so, this is why this is so important that we understand that dreams are just thoughts you have at night or during sleep. That doesn't mean that they're important and they need to be analyzed and that it's a sign of something to come, because we wouldn't do that with an intrusive thought. We're learning not to do that. So, when we have a thought, we're learning not to go, “Oh my gosh, that must mean it's a sign.” We're learning to undo that reaction and going, “Yeah, thoughts are thoughts.” So, this is how I want you to maybe consider changing your response to dreams, especially scary dreams. Again, let me be really clear. If you love analyzing dreams and you find it helpful and you don't find it loops you back into the anxious cycle, wonderful. No problem. I'm definitely not against dream analysis. But for those folks who were anxious, I just want you to know this information, keep it in your back pocket, or maybe even your front pocket for the times when you catch yourself engaging in behaviors that become ineffective. My word of 2022 is “effective.” I have it written everywhere. It's a huge part of the decisions I make every day, every minute. Does this keep me in being effective? And so, it's such a great question when we ask ourselves, is this behavior effective? It won't always be, you don't always have to be effective. But sometimes again, when you catch trends that are getting you to be ineffective, we want to see if we can make a change. Okay? So, that's Episode 295: When your fears show up in your dreams. I hope it was helpful. Do not forget, it is a beautiful day to do hard things. This work is not easy, friends. This work is actually-- let's just be real. This work sucks. It really, really does. It's exhausting. It's hard. It's taxing. It beats you down. So, please be gentle. It is a beautiful day to do hard things. Please remind yourself of how brave and strong you are because you're stronger than you think. And I will see you next week. Have a wonderful day.

In this episode, I meet with Kelli Walker, a Certified Health and Wellness Coach and host of "Not Another Anxiety Show". As someone who struggled with health OCD in the past, Kelli and I discussed... - the difficulties of OCD and how her symptoms had her bedridden - her experience in treatment and with ongoing recovery - her obsessions and compulsions with health OCD and anxiety, including mental compulsions and excessive Googling - encouragement and advice to help others take the leap of faith into recovery This podcast should not be substituted, nor is meant to act as a substitute, for legitimate mental health treatment/a legitimate mental health treatment provider. This podcast and any information in it is solely the reflection of general knowledge and cannot be taken as a personal therapeutic recommendation. To find a therapist near you to work more directly with these issues, head over to NOCD.com, IOCDF.org, psychologytoday.com, or nami.org. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jennaoverbaugh/support To learn more about Kelli's work, check out these links https://kelliwalkercoaching.com/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/not-another-anxiety-show/id1175495815 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jennaoverbaugh/support

What do Google, P2Ps, and Instagram all have in common? They are search engines! This week, Anne & Erikka talk tech. More specifically, SEO and how you can use keywords to improve your searchability & business. Our websites and online profiles are our digital storefronts. The words we put on them are the secret to getting found by clients, so specificity and consistency are essential. Listen up Bosses, we've got tips & tricks just for you! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am here back with special guest co-host Erikka J. Hey Erikka. Erikka: Hey Anne, how are you today? Anne: I'm doing good. What's going on with you? Erikka: Oh, nothing, man. Just happy to be back and happy to have -- actually, I just had a job that walked in on my website, and I was so excited because I love getting those. Anne: Ah, oh my God. I love that. You said that because walking in on your website, that's the best kind of job to get because you don't have to do all the work of auditioning. They've already come to your website. They've heard your demos. And they've liked what they've heard, and then they contact you and say how much? Erikka: Yeah. They just walk in and wanna hand you money for you doing the talking. So I love that. Anne: I love that. That is such an efficient way to work. Not that -- look, I'm not gonna blast anybody who auditions. I mean, I audition. I audition for my agents every day and thankfully I'm busy because I do a lot of things in my business that I don't really have a ton of time to audition outside of, for my agents. And so when it comes in on my website or however they find me online, I absolutely love the inquiry because they don't necessarily need an audition. They're just saying here's my job. How much will it cost? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, talking about balance, yeah sure, we do auditions every day. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: And that's a great way to land work. And a lot of the work that we get from our agents where we have to audition are those big, you know, really great jobs, but having a balanced approach to your business and having a diverse set of leads that come in, having that walk-in money where you don't really have to do that audition work. And it's just like, hey, we want you to do this job. We saw your website and love your work. And when can we schedule a session and how much? Like, that's great. It's a good balance. Anne: Love it, love it. And so I think so important to talk about is SEO, because that plays a large part in how people find you online, a large part in how people find me and my website, and then pretty much say, hey, I like your voice. How much will it cost? So let's talk a little bit about SEO, search engine optimization. I know a lot of people like get discombobulated when we start talking about technological things like that and SEO. And disclaimer here, I am not an SEO expert, but I have definitely employed certain things on my website that have allowed me to be found easier. And it has really contributed greatly to those people that walk in and ask for work from me, which I think is amazing. Erikka, what about your experiences? Erikka: Absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, when it gets a little intimidating, you just think about SEO, as Anne said, stands for search engine optimization. What is Google? A search engine. What are all these social media sites essentially? A search engine. Even the P2Ps, a search engine, they're looking for things. So all you're doing is optimizing your website so that you are found more easily on that search engine when they're searching for things that are relevant to your website. Anne: Yes, absolutely. Or your online presence. I know. I -- Erikka: Yeah, absolutely. Anne: -- I bring it back to the website because I think the website is the core of who our businesses are. And the core website will allow anyone to come find me, listen to my demos and then pay me money. So it's like a full cycle. That's my online storefront. And so let's talk about how we can optimize our online presence for good SEO, Erikka. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: What's the first thing? Erikka: I think for me, I saw the jump when I went into -- 'cause currently my site is based on SquareSpace. I'm in the process of moving over to WordPress. But there is, if you dig into those sites, there are sections that are specifically for SEO. And if you go in there and you start putting in, I use keywords that I know when someone who is looking for me or my type of sound or what I bring to the table as a voice talent, I'm putting those keywords in my SEO box so that when they're searching for Black female voice talent, or authoritative, or sounds like Viola Davis or whatever, I'm coming up in those options. So I think that's number one is making sure that you have the right copy on your website and the right terms that are specifically driving SEO on your website listed there. Anne: Let's talk a little bit more about keywords because I think keywords are what, you know, people are like, well, what keywords should I use? And I think keywords are very specific to everybody, every person. And I think everybody wants to be found for the keyword voiceover. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: You know? Erikka: Everybody, Anne: Everybody. And here's the deal. The sites that have a lot of people that have voiceover in their profile, that word, are going to be the ones that get found first because there's many occurrences. So keywords are, basically in Google, if you rank highly for a particular keyword, you will show up on the first page, which is desirable to show up on the first page. 'Cause many people, when they search myself included, I don't always go to the second or third pages. However, I will say, Erikka, I don't know if you've noticed recently, there's been an awful lot of ads on the first page of Google lately. Erikka: There have. Anne: A lot. Erikka: Definitely. And not just Google, but like, you know, I went to like search for a restaurant on like Yelp or something, and it was like, it wasn't necessarily the best, but it was ranked first because it was sponsored, and you have to look for that word, and it's like, oh wait. . So yeah, lots of ads. Anne: And so I think that by the way, Erikka, this is probably another podcast episode, but thinking about marketing and ads, adding ads into your daily practice could be something that would be worthwhile. And again, that's another investment, but I say that just because I'm noticing the increase on the first page of Google of ads showing up. And so you wanna make sure that the keyword that people search for will show up your entry on the first page, if possible, because not many people click to the second or third pages. However, I will say because of the amount of ads I have been going to the second page more often now. Erikka: Yeah. I've seen that. Anne: But what makes a good keyword? So of course you can put voiceover in your body of text that you put on your website or on your profile. But I also think you definitely need to target it more specifically to what you want to be found for. So for example, if somebody typed in voiceover coach or commercial voiceover coach, and I'd have to keep checking right now, but I have certain words that I wanna be found for. But if somebody types in commercial VO coach, that's a different set of words than commercial voiceover coach. So keep that in mind because people say, well, I didn't find you when I searched for you under commercial VO coach. And I'm like, well, that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't find me under commercial voiceover coach. So I think a lot of times in order to get yourself found on that first page, try to think specifically and narrow down that focus on your target. So for example, if I say "commercial voiceover Orange County," I will show up on the first page exactly. Or "narration voiceover coach Orange County," that kind of thing. And if I don't, by the time this airs , I will, I will be working to make sure that that happens because I have a certain set of words that I wanna be found for. Now, it would be great if I could be found for voiceover coach, that in general, but there's a lot of voiceover coaches out there that use that as well as their a search term. So it really behooves you to think about what it is that you wanna be found for. Erikka: Absolutely being specific is so key 'cause like you said, everyone is gonna have voiceover and not just that, but the first page, if you just have voiceover or even VO or just those sort of generic terms, you're gonna get eaten up by the sites that are corporations that have thousands of dollars into voiceover, some of the P2Ps. Anne: Exactly. Erikka: You know what I mean? So you're gonna get pushed down and, and maybe not even be in the first three pages. You'll get found for what you wanna get found for, for what really your niche is because we all have different areas of expertise. Anne: Exactly. Erikka: Not just in genre, but in like how our voice sounds like, how do you describe your voice?What adjectives do you use? What celebrity references would you compare your voice to? Anne: I think celebrity references are great too. Erikka: Oh yeah. Yeah. Anne: So many people forget about that, their soundalike, and that really helps. And I think you should absolutely put that on your website. Because that will help target the search even more. Yeah. Erikka: Alt text in photos is another good thing to have just to get your site higher ranked in general. The better that Google likes your website, doing things like to make it clean and having the hierarchy right so you get site mapped, and that's where like if you search for a website and you'll see where it says, like if you search for Erikka J, you'll see like about and voiceover and music, like you'll see the different subpages on the Google initial search, that means you've been site mapped. So Google kind of ranks you higher just for that reason alone. So a lot of different things to consider. Anne: Well, I think that that's wonderful. I think, so number one is knowing that. The way search engine optimization works is, or the way search engines work is they pretty much keyword or they index your website with all the words on it. And so when somebody says to you, oh, I think that your website is too busy or it's too wordy. I always say, mm, think again. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: I mean, if you ever look at my website, I've got words everywhere. And so the reason for that is for SEO purposes. I want to be able to be found. And so these people they're like, I really want clean voiceover webpages that, you know, you can get to the demos right away, which I agree with, but I'll tell you what. Clean doesn't necessarily mean that you're not being verbose about who you are and what kind of a business you are. Because when I search for, let's say, I wanna find a particular product, like I'm trying to find green chickpeas. I just say that -- Erikka: That's pretty particular. Anne: It's particular, and it's very difficult to find green chickpeas, but when I type that in the websites that come back, I wanna be able to click on them and immediately purchase. And so when somebody types in those keywords for you, commercial voiceover or explainer narrator, whatever that is, you wanna show up on that first page. And then when they click on you, you want that page to be accessible and easy to buy. Erikka: Yes. Yes. Anne: Easy to buy and look professional. So I think in terms of the SEO, the search engine optimization being optimized for your site, I think it helps to have more words that accurately describe who your business is and what words you wanna be found as. So you must include those. And you mentioned the alt text, which is great. And somebody who doesn't necessarily design websites may not know what that is. But that is text that you put around an image in the code of the HTML of the website, which you can do if you understand a little bit about WordPress or whatever your website has been developed in. My websites are all in Wix now. I was using WordPress and then my websites became very complex in terms of eCommerce happening. I have a CRM embedded. I have email that I'm sending from these websites. So Wix kind of worked out for me for that because it had all of those embedded into the website, those capabilities. And with that, any web provider, if it's Wix, if it's WordPress, you know, hosted on a GoDaddy website, whatever it is, they're going to have some sort of provision for SEO where you can insert keywords. That is very, very helpful, not only having the words on your website, and I think also dividing your website into different sections. So like I have a commercial voiceover landing page. I have a corporate narration landing page. I have an explainer landing page, a telephony landing page. And so that just makes it even easier to find, because again, I can put more of those words on my website by having specific landing pages Erikka: And it's more targeted. So I mean, you know, obviously we're talking about having the right copy and having, you know, these SEO terms. You don't wanna word vomit, right, and just have like all the words that you think are gonna get you found. It still has to be cohesive and make sense. And it has to be true. Nothing's worse -- I don't know about you guys, but if I'm searching for like great Mexican food near me and I get something that's totally unrelated, that's annoying, and it pisses your buyer off. So make sure it's still relevant. So definitely getting those pages that are relevant to the topic can target who you're trying to talk to with that demographic. And I believe it may have changed 'cause I know Google was more so understood words and they're starting to have more like a computer vision where they can understand images more. But I think having at least 500 words was the cutoff last I heard from someone that worked at Google per page to get it kind of recognized and rank. Anne: Yeah. I think they're starting to recognize words within photos as well. Erikka: They are. Yep. Yep. Anne: I absolutely think that having, first of all, more words and targeted words that make sense -- by the way, you'll get penalized, if you just do what they call keyword stuffing. So you can't just throw in the words. And as a matter of fact, if you throw in more words like voiceover talent or voiceover or VO and you put too many of them in your pages and they don't make sense, you'll get penalized and you certainly don't want that to happen. And by the way, I always tell people that SEO is one of those things. Now we talk about Google, right, because that's my search engine. I don't really go to any other search engine. Do you, Erikka? Erikka: I don't. Anne: Yeah. So in reality there are other search engines, but I really don't use any. It's always Google, and nobody knows really Google's algorithm unless you work for Google. And that is a proprietary thing. And I remember SEO people would study that and there are different versions of the Google algorithm that come out and they name them. And so every time Google would come out with a new algorithm, they'd say, well -- and I think one of 'em was called like the penguin. I can't remember, but everybody would come out and say, okay, since Google's new algorithm, here's what you need to do to get good SEO. And so I'm just gonna say, if you don't work for Google, you don't know you don't. You just don't. So if you have somebody that comes to you and says, I can make you show up on the front page, I want you to probably just run far away. Because I just have never really believed people 'cause that used to be a real business. People would just be, they were SEO people and we can get you on the front page and you pay us all this money. And in reality they would keyword stuff. And that was back in the day. And I still have people who email me and spam me about SEO and getting myself on the front page. So beware -- Erikka: Me too. Anne: -- that, unless they work for Google, they don't really know. And I'm all about, and I think Erikka, you too, I'm all about organic SEO, and organic is absolutely let's write the verbiage. Let's use the words on our website and in our profiles that accurately describes who we are, what we do and what we would like to be found for and not keyword stuff. And that's worked wonders for me in the past years because as I mentioned before, I have a lot of different divisions of my business that I work at. And I don't have time to audition all the time. So for me getting work that finds me or getting clients that find me first, then they have the opportunity to listen to the demos on my site. And if my demos are targeted to the specific genre, and they nail the sound that the client is looking for, boom, I've just taken care of half of the work in terms of getting that lead and then solidifying it so that I can get paid. Erikka: Yeah, absolutely. You don't want someone to find you and then they find that you weren't the right match. You don't want to attract the wrong client and ends up wasting your time. So the more targeted and sort of more strategic that you are with those keywords to make the right match happen automated, take that manual workout for yourself, it's a win for both sides. So absolutely. Anne: I like how you said you don't wanna attract the wrong client. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: And interestingly enough, I always hear about people talking about being low balled in a lot of the Facebook groups and they'll be like, oh, you know, they only offered me this or this is what they're offering. And I'm like, interestingly enough, I never quite meet clients like that. And I'm going to very humbly attribute it to a great web designer, my great web designer who shall remain nameless because they can't take on anymore clients and a great writer for the verbiage of which I worked many, many years myself on on trying to hone that and really working with someone to figure out who am I? Who do I want to be? How do I wanna be found online? And really working, not just a day on that. It has evolved over years of writing, rewriting and a lot of work. And it has been, I think one of the most successful things that I've ever done for my business that has garnered me, I'm gonna say, three quarters of my income was a great website with great verbiage that says exactly who I am, targets who I want to find me, and just gets me work without me having to go and cold call people or email people or whatever it is, just being found. And it's not just the website, but it's a website in combination with social media profiles. And also not just the words on the website, but I know we're specifically talking SEO, but the words in combination with the actual website that looks professional enough so that people, when they see it, they trust it, and they're willing to click and buy so to speak. Erikka: Yeah. One of the best compliments I got was somebody told me, oh, your website looks expensive. And I was like -- Anne: Yeah, right? Erikka: -- perfect! because I want clients that, that know they're not going to get a $50 voiceover from me. Anne: And that's it. And then I guess that was the long story of me getting back to your point about you don't wanna attract the wrong client. If somebody comes to me, they're not gonna offer me $.08 a word. You know what I mean? For e-learning. I'm not even attracting that type of client. I'm attracting the type of client that is going to be willing to pay. And funny enough, I was like, and now of course I'm gonna have another one of those moments, but I said something to my husband, I said yesterday, I don't even care what it costs, but I am hunting for this product because I want it to be the right product. And I want it to be quality product, and I'm willing to pay for it. And that I think is something so important for us as business owners and entrepreneurs that we understand that. I shop online all the time. I love online shopping. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread personally. Erikka: Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, think about how it is when, when you guys are shopping, when -- there are times when you're more budget driven, when you're like, all right, what can I get what I need for the lowest price? And there are times like you just said, Anne, you know, when you're like, look, I don't care what it costs, but I need a certain level of quality. Anne: Yeah. I need this. I'm just gonna particular brand or yep. Erikka: Yep. And that's what you want your brand, your website, your digital storefront to say about you. Anne: Yep. You wanna be the Kleenex. Erikka: Yes. There you go. The Puffs Plus with lotion Anne: I need the Anne Ganguzza of voiceover. And also I wanna just mention that everybody should always have their name associated with their business, AnneGanguzza.com. And I tell people, I want you to be the Kleenex of voiceover. I need that Anne Ganguzza. Oh, I'm sorry. I need an Anne Ganguzza, you know, that kind of thing. I need an Erikka J . Really, that is important. And there's so many people that come up with these clever little names for their URLs and I'm like, well, that's great, but also have your name. Right? Erikka: Well, use them and, and I guess this is sort of a little, it's still kind of related to SEO in a way, but you can do that and use redirects. That's one thing I do a lot because people frequently forget that I have two K's in my name or where they wanna put two RS or whatever. So I have had other things like EJ Voiceover that are easier to find, but it still redirects you to ErikkaJ.com. Anne: Absolutely. Erikka: So you can still do those little clever names that get people's attention and have it tell them what your name is when they get there. Anne: Unless you have somebody else out there with another name that might be, I don't know, somebody undesirable that you may not wanna be found for. Then I say, add the word, voice or voiceover afterwards, you know, Anne Ganguzza Voiceover. Everybody's like, well, Anne Ganguzza, isn't that difficult to spell? I'm like, well, I'm a Kleenex. So -- Erikka: Teach them. Anne: And like, Erikka J, I will tell you, Erikka, I learned right away because you're somebody I wanted to know. I knew I wanted to be in contact. I immediately remembered the two Ks and not two RS. Erikka: Aww. Thank you. Anne: But it's true. Right? So I just now know -- Erikka: It's true. Anne: And I think that any client, right, that wants you, they learn it and that's it. And you stay in their brains and that is what makes you unique. And I love your last name. It's so like Ganguzza... Anne: Thank you. It is a cool name. Isn't it? It's one of the reasons why I took it Erikka: Right, right, right, right, right. You're like, honey, this is a business decision. Anne: Well, it kind of was. My name before was Lucy, and that was also a cool name. So I just thought Anne Ganguzza was a cool sounding name, but Anne Lucy was always also really a cool name 'cause people sometimes would call me Lucy instead of Anne. But when I first started, I picked a URL and I said, Annespeaks.com. And I thought it was so clever. And the funny thing is, is that nobody searched for Anne -- like, what is an Anne speaks? Is that like a noun? What is that? I mean, you would like it to be, but in the beginning it did not serve me well, even though I thought I was so clever. Erikka: That's memorable, you know? Yeah. But like Anne Ganguzza, how can you forget that? Anne: That's right. And if you want Anne Ganguzza, you'll know how to spell that name. Erikka: That's right. That's right. Anne: That's the point. You'll find it. That's the point. So don't worry BOSSes out there. If you have a name that's difficult to spell, I always say, get that name and then get redirects. Like things that are easier, like your first name voiceover.com or whatever. But that again is part of the SEO as well. Not just the words that you have on your website, but also in your URL. Erikka: Yes. Anne: So if they are words that people typically search for that you wanna be found, you can also include those in your URL. And it's not expensive these days -- Erikka: Not at all, not at all. Anne: -- to get additional URLs, to buy additional domain names. And then let's see, I have about 11 websites, Erikka. How many do you have? Erikka: Oh man. Err... More than 10. Anne: There you go. There you go. So the thing is, is I think for people who have been in the business and have a little bit of at least knowledge about SEO and understand the, the advantages and the benefits, you can create what you mentioned before, those redirects, that go to your website. So I also happen to have the eLearningvoice.com, medical-narration.com, phone-voice.com and all of these other genre based website domains. And they have, again, more words on the page that discuss who I am. Right? What my business does, my voiceover for explainers or voiceovers for telephony, voiceovers for -- and that also contributes to my overall SEO in the world of online searching. And so I pay for those websites. I pay for the maintenance of those websites. And so it is an investment, guys. But I, I think if anybody has a problem finding me online, they maybe don't know how to type it properly because -- Erikka: Well, I mean, that's what it's all about is being easy to be found. So what can you do to make it easy for people to find you? Because the internet is vast . I mean, it is so big So what are you gonna do to help people filter through the noise to find you? Anne: Google yourself. Erikka: Oh my goodness, yes. In an incognito window, which means that it's not looking at your cookies or anything like that or any, it's not seeing it through the lens of anything else you've searched. If you use Chrome or whatever browser, but you should see like in, I know in Chrome, in the upper right corner, there's like three dots. And if you click that, it'll say new incognito window and it'll be like dark. That means that you're in like, almost like a brand new browser and -- Anne: it's a dark window. Erikka: -- if you Google -- it's the dark web. Anne: You Google yourself in the dark window, on the dark web. Erikka: Google yourself. And then you will see how you are coming up from the dark web. No. Anne: But that's so important. Erikka: Seriously. Yeah. It's is. It is. Anne: That is so important. Erikka: You'll be shocked. Anne: And I say, Google yourself regularly, because you don't wanna be found for things that maybe you don't wanna be found for. Erikka: Right. Or old things, you know, like -- Anne: Exactly. I love that. You said old things because that's so important that we make sure that you clean up, make sure you clean up online. If you can. It's really difficult sometimes to completely clean up things that have been said. And that again, could be another podcast episode. If you've said things online, your social posts show up online as well. Erikka: Yes, they do. Anne: They do.   Erikka: I've definitely seen Twitter posts come up in a Google search for me. And I was like, oh, okay. Anne: So if you searched your name, right, Anne Ganguzza, I think the first thing, if it's properly done, that should come up is your website. Erikka: Should be, yes. Anne: Right? Erikka: Absolutely. Anne: And if you have multiple pages on your website, which I think is a good thing, and Erikka, I believe that you agreed with me, you'll see like you're about section, you'll see whatever that might be about, demos, those types of things, whatever sections, they should also show up. And then I think the next thing might be either YouTube or LinkedIn or whatever your social media social profiles are. I think YouTube possibly is the next one that come up. Erikka: It depends on the one you're most active in, honestly. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: If you're not super active on YouTube, like me, like I haven't posted anything with there in a while, bad Erikka but yeah. Anne: Yeah. So the next thing for me is YouTube. 'Cause I've been doing a little blurb on YouTube trying to yeah -- and again, that's another thing that I've been doing to try to increase my SEO is I've been putting out weekly videos. And so not only for VO BOSS, do I put out weekly videos, but for Anne Ganguzza I do. So for each brand I'm putting out well VO Peeps, I mean I'm only one person, but as most people know, I have a team of people that help me. I have been putting my own videos out on Anne Ganguzza to try to increase the Anne Ganguzza brand and VO BOSS, we do all of our episodes weekly. We put that on YouTube as well, just to contribute to the SEO. And as a matter of fact, we also transcribe our episodes as well to help any possible type of SEO. So if you were to search or if you listen to any of the episodes on, let's say Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you'll see that the transcripts are there as well. Erikka: Yeah. And I think, I think LinkedIn is another one that comes up heavy for me because it is one of the largest -- Anne: Yes, me too. Erikka: -- social media platforms in the world. And a lot of people sleep on LinkedIn. I know in our community we talk about it more, but seriously it's like, 'cause you know, it's like it's Facebook in a suit. You know, people say that, but -- Anne: It is Facebook in a suit. Erikka: But just about everybody's there. So -- Anne: Everybody's on it. Yes, absolutely. And you're right. And now there's the feed. And so I'm posting daily to that, and I'm trying to post content that matters. So another thing that can help you with SEO is to publish content and update it regularly or new content. And so I also blog on a weekly basis, and one of my blogs every week is my video that I've put on YouTube, which I've then transcribed, which then becomes a blog of mine. And then I also write a blog every other week. So that again are words that come back to my website so that again, people can find me easily. Erikka: Yeah. Another thing I did fairly recently, which I probably need to do some maintenance work on, but I'd created a business on Google business. Anne: Oh yes. Good idea. Erikka: Which is easy to do. And then that way you could actually get people to write reviews for you too. So yeah. You can come up there and show up as a business. So. Anne: That's the other thing, when you do a Google search on yourself, that should show up. That and Yelp always showed up pretty high up. But I think lately they've not been coming up as high up in the search. Erikka: I haven't seen Yelp as high lately, but -- Anne: Yeah. You know, well, there's so many issues with Yelp, I think with people sabotaging other businesses by writing bad reviews and that sort of thing, which was a real thing. Erikka: Yeah. I mean, SEO's kind of like credit scores, right? Like you said, the algorithm changes all the time. You get the most information that you can to try to optimize, but you're not gonna master it because it's proprietary to those companies, and they put a lot of money into keeping them very secret and specialized. Just do the best you can. Anne: So consider, you know, I'm thinking for the future, it's gonna be something I've been looking at too. I mean, if you're not advertising already, think about that. Because it's becoming more and more prevalent out there, but for sure, understand who you are, define who you are as a business, figure out what keywords you want to be found for, make sure that they appear in your websites, make sure they appear in your social media profiles and try to just Google yourself every week or so. And longevity by the way, has something to do with it. So make sure that you are Googling yourself every week, every other week, and you too can win at the SEO game, and it's not that complicated. Erikka: It's not. And bringing it back to our balance theme, you know, it's like we do things actively to get these leads and to get these jobs every day, like auditions or you know, some people on P2Ps or doing your direct marketing. SEO is something that you can do passively so that work just walks in the door. Anne: There you go. I love it. Wow. I could talk another half an hour on this at least. Erikka: I could. I think we both talk a lot, Anne because we get paid for it. Anne: Ah, there we go. Yeah. Well BOSSes, you can use your voice to make an immediate difference and give back to the communities that give to you. Visit 100voiceswhocare.org to find out more. You can absolutely make a difference for a small, quarterly contribution. And a great big shout-out to our sponsor. ipDTL. You too can network and communicate like BOSSes like Erikka J and I, and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing, and we'll see you next week. Bye! Erikka: Bye! >> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.

Google has gotten together with the Local Enterprise offices to start a programme called ‘You're the Business'.  The idea is to get small companies online, ready to roll in a fully digital world, and enable them to expand internationally. Speaking to Joe this morning was Alice Mansergh who is the Director of Small business with Google (Ireland).

This month on Episode 38 of Discover CircRes, host Cynthia St. Hilaire highlights original research articles featured in the Jue 24th, July 8th and July 22nd issues of the journal. This episode also features an interview with the 2022 BCBS Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award finalists, Dr Hisayuki Hashimoto, Dr Matthew DeBerge and Dr Anja Karlstadt.   Article highlights:   Nguyen, et al. miR-223 in Atherosclerosis.   Choi, et al. Mechanism for Piezo1-Mediated Lymphatic Sprouting   Kamtchum-Tatuene, et al.  Plasma Interleukin-6 and High-Risk Carotid Plaques   Li, et al. 3-MST Modulates BCAA Catabolism in HFrEF   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Hi, and welcome to Discover CircRes, the podcast of the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation Research. I'm your host, Dr Cindy St. Hilaire, from the Vascular Medicine Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. And today I'm going to be highlighting articles from our June 24th, July 8th and July 22nd issues of Circulation Research. I'm also going to have a chat with the finalists for the 2022 BCBS Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award, Dr Hisayuki Hashimoto, Dr Matthew DeBerge and Dr Anja Karlstadt.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        The first article I want to share is from our June 24th issue and is titled, miR-223 Exerts Translational Control of Proatherogenic Genes in Macrophages. The first authors are My-Anh Nguyen and Huy-Dung Hoang, and the corresponding author is Katey Rayner and they're from the University of Ottawa. A combination of cholesterol accumulation in the blood vessels and subsequent chronic inflammation that's derived from this accumulation drive the progression of atherosclerosis. Unfortunately, current standard medications tackle just one of these factors, the cholesterol. And this might explain why many patients on such drugs still have vascular plaques. In considering treatments that work on both aspects of the disease, meaning lipid accumulation and inflammation, this group investigated the micro RNA 223 or miR-223, which is a small regulatory RNA that has been shown to suppress expression of genes involved in both cholesterol uptake and inflammatory pathways in both liver and immune cells.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        The team showed that mouse macrophages deficient in miR-223, exhibited increased expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and reduced cholesterol efflux compared with control cells. Overexpression of miR-223 had the opposite effects. Furthermore, atherosclerosis prone mice, whose hematopoietic cells lacked miR-223, had worse atherosclerosis with larger plaques and higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines than to control animals with normal levels of miR-223. These findings highlight miR-223's dual prompt, antiatherogenic action, which could be leveraged for future therapies.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        The second article I want to share is from our July 8th issue of Circulation Research and is titled, Piezo1-Regulated Mechanotransduction Controls Flow-Activated Lymph Expansion. The first author is Dongwon Choi and the corresponding author is Young-Kwon Hong, and they're from UCLA.   As well as being super highways for immune cells, lymph vessels are drainage channels that help maintain fluid homeostasis in the tissues. This network of branching tubes grows as fluids begin to flow in the developing embryo. This fluid flow induces calcium influx into the lymphatic endothelial cells, which in turn promotes proliferation and migration of these cells, leading to the sprouting of lymph tubules. But how do LECs, the lymphatic endothelial cells, detect fluid flow in the first place? Piezo1 is a flow and mechanosensing protein known for its role in blood vessel development and certain mutations in Piezo1 cause abnormal lymphatic growth in humans.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        This script found that Piezo1 is expressed in the embryonic mouse LECs and that the suppression of Piezo1 inhibits both flow activated calcium entry via the channel ORAI1, as well as downstream target gene activation. Overexpression of Piezo1, by contrast, induced the target genes. The team went on to show that mice lacking either Piezo1 or ORAI1 had lymphatic sprouting defects and that pharmacological activation of Piezo1 in mice enhanced lymphogenesis and prevented edema after tail surgery. Together, the results confirmed Piezo1's role in flow dependent lymphatic growth and suggest it might be a target for treating lymphedema.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        The third article I want to share is also from our July 8th issue and is titled, Interleukin-6 Predicts Carotid Plaque Severity, Vulnerability and Progression. The first and corresponding author of this study is Joseph Kamtchum-Tatuene from University of Alberta.   Excessive plasma cholesterol and systemic inflammation are contributing factors in atherosclerosis. While traditional remedies have been aimed at lowering patient's lipid levels, drugs that tackle inflammation are now under investigation, including those that suppress Interleukin-6, which is an inflammatory cytokine implicated in the disease. Focusing on carotid artery disease, this group conducted a prospective study to determine whether IL-6 levels correlated with disease severity. 4,334 individuals were enrolled in the cardiovascular health study cohort. They had their blood drawn and ultrasounds taken at the start of the study and five years later. This group found IL-6 was robustly correlated with and predicted plaque severity independent of other cardiovascular risk factors. This study also determined that an IL-6 blood plasma level of 2.0 picograms/mls, identified individuals with the highest likelihood of plaque, vulnerability and progression. This threshold value could be used to select patients who might benefit from novel IL-6 lowering medications.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        The last article I want to share is from our July 22nd issue of Circulation Research and is titled, Mitochondrial H2S Regulates BCAA Catabolism in Heart Failure. The first author is Zhen Li, and the corresponding author is David Lefer from Louisiana State University. Hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, is a compound that exerts mitochondrial specific actions that include the preservation of oxidative phosphorylation, mitochondrial biogenesis and ATP synthesis, as well as inhibiting cell death. 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase, or 3-MST, is a mitochondrial H2S producing enzyme, whose functions in cardiovascular disease are not fully understood.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        This group investigated the global effects of 3-MST deficiency in the setting of pressure overload induced heart failure. They found that 3-MST was significantly reduced in the myocardium of patients with heart failure, compared with non failing controls. 3-MST knockout mice exhibited increased accumulation of branch chain amino acids in the myocardium, which was associated with reduced myocardial respiration and ATP synthesis, exacerbated cardiac and vascular dysfunction, and worsened exercise performance, following transverse aortic constriction. Restoring myocardial branched-chain amino acid catabolism, or administration of a potent H2S donor, ameliorated the detrimental effects of 3-MST deficiency and heart failure with reduced injection fraction. These data suggest that 3-MST derived mitochondrial H2S, may play a regulatory role in branch chain amino acid catabolism, and mediate critical cardiovascular protection in heart failure.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Today, I'm really excited to have our guests, who are the finalists for the BCVS Outstanding Early Career Investigator Awards. Welcome everyone.   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Thank you.   Anja Karlstaedt:          Hi.   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Hi.   Matthew DeBerge:      Hello. Thank you.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        So the finalists who are with me today are Dr Hisayuki Hashimoto from Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan, Dr Matthew Deberge from Northwestern University in Chicago and Dr Anja Karlstaedt from Cedar Sinai Medical Center in LA. Thank you again. Congratulations. And I'm really excited to talk about your science.   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Thank you. Yes. Thanks, first of all for this opportunity to join this really exciting group and to talk about myself and ourselves. I am Hisayuki Hashimoto, I'm from Tokyo, Japan. I actually learned my English... I went to an American school in a country called Zaire in Africa and also Paris, France because my father was a diplomat and I learned English there. After coming back to Japan, I went to medical school. During my first year of rotation, I was really interested in cardiology, so I decided to take a specialized course for cardiology. Then I got interested in basic science, so I took a PhD course, and that's what brought me to this cardiology cardiovascular research field.   Matthew DeBerge:      So I'm currently a research assistant professor at Northwestern University. I'm actually from the Chicagoland area, so I'm really excited to welcome you all to my hometown for the BCVS meeting.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Oh, that's right. And AHA is also there too this year. So you'll see a lot of everybody.   Matthew DeBerge:      I guess I get the home field advantage, so to speak. So, I grew up here, I did my undergrad here, and then went out in the east coast, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire for my PhD training. And actually, I was a viral immunologist by training, so I did T cells. When I was looking for a postdoctoral position, I was looking for a little bit of something different and came across Dr Edward Thorpe's lab at Northwestern university, where the interest and the focus is macrophages in tissue repair after MI. So, got into the macrophages in the heart and have really enjoyed the studies here and have arisen as a research assistant professor now within the Thorpe lab. Now we're looking to transition my own independent trajectory. Kind of now looking beyond just the heart and focusing how cardiovascular disease affects other organs, including the brain. That's kind of where I'm starting to go now. Next is looking at the cardiovascular crosstalk with brain and how this influences neuroinflammation.   Anja Karlstaedt:          I am like Hisayuki, I'm also a medical doctor. I did my medical training and my PhD in Berlin at the Charité University Medicine in Berlin, which is a medical faculty from Humboldt University and Freie University. II got really interested in mathematical modeling of complex biological systems. And so I started doing my PhD around cardiac metabolism and that was a purely core and computationally based PhD. And while I was doing this, I got really hooked into metabolism. I wanted to do my own experiments to further advance the model, but also to study more in crosstalk cardiac metabolism. I joined Dr Heinrich Taegteyer lab at the University of Texas in the Texas Medical Center, and stayed there for a couple of years. And while I was discovering some of the very first interactions between leukemia cells and the heart, I decided I cannot stop. I cannot go back just after a year. I need to continue this project and need to get funding. And so after an AHA fellowship and NIHK99, I am now here at Cedars Sinai, an assistant professor in cardiology and also with a cross appointment at the cancer center and basically living the dream of doing translational research and working in cardio-oncology.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Great. So, Dr Hashimoto, the title of your submission is, Cardiac Reprogramming Inducer ZNF281 is Indispensable for Heart Development by Interacting with Key Cardiac Transcriptional Factors. This is obviously focused on reprogramming, but why do we care about cardiac reprogramming and what exactly did you find about this inducer ZNF281?   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Thank you for the question. So, I mean, as I said, I'm a cardiologist and I was always interested in working heart regeneration. At first, I was working with pluripotent stem cells derived cardiomyocyte, but then I changed my field during my postdoc into directly programming by making cardiomyocyte-like cells from fiberblast. But after working in that field, I kind of found that it was a very interesting field that we do artificially make a cardiomyocyte-like cell. But when I dissected the enhanced landscape, epigenetic analysis showed that there are very strong commonalities between cardiac reprogramming and heart development. So I thought that, hey, maybe we can use this as a tool to discover new networks of heart development. And the strength is that cardiac reprogramming in vitro assay hardly opens in vivo assay, so it's really time consuming. But using dark programming, we can save a lot of time and money to study the cardiac transitional networks. And we found this DNF281 from an unbiased screen, out of 1000 human open reading frames. And we found that this gene was a very strong cardiac reprogramming inducer, but there was no study reporting about any functioning heart development. We decided to study this gene in heart development, and we found out that it is an essential gene in heart development and we were kind of able to discover a new network in heart development.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        And you actually used, I think it was three different CRE drivers? Was that correct to study?   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Ah, yes. Yeah.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        How did you pick those different drivers and what, I guess, cell population or progenitor cell population did those drivers target?   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   So I decided to use a mesodermal Cre-driver, which is a Mesp1Cre and a cardiac precursor Cre-driver, which is the Nkx2-5 Cre and the cardiomyocyte Cre, which is the Myh6-Cre. So three differentiation stages during heart development, and we found out that actually, DNF281 is an essential factor during mesodermal to cardiac precursor differentiation state. We're still trying to dig into the molecular mechanism, but at that stage, if the DNF281 is not there, we are not able to make up the heart.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        That is so interesting. Did you look at any of the strains that survived anyway? Did you look at any phenotypes that might present in adulthood? Is there anything where the various strains might have survived, but then there's a kind of longer-term disease implicating phenotype that's observed.   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Well, thank you for the question. Actually, the mesodermal Cre-driver knocking out the DNF281 in that stage is embryonic lethal, and it does make different congenital heart disease. And they cannot survive until after embryonic day 14.5. The later stage Nkx2-5 Cre and Myh6-Cre, interestingly, they do survive after birth. And then in adult stage, I did also look into the tissues, but the heart is functioning normally. I haven't stressed them, but they develop and they're alive after one year. It looks like there's really no like phenotype at like the homeostatic status.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Interesting. So it's kind of like, once they get over that developmental hump, they're okay.   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Exactly. That might also give us an answer. What kind of network is important for cardiac reprogramming?   Cindy St. Hilaire:        So what are you going to do next?   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Thank you. I'm actually trying to dig into the transitional network of what kind of cardiac transitional network the ZNF281 is interacting with, so that maybe I can find a new answer to any etiology of congenital heart disease, because even from a single gene, different mutation, different variants arise different phenotypes in congenital heart disease. Maybe if I find a new interaction with any key cardiac transitional factors, maybe I could find a new etiology of congenital heart disease phenotype.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        That would be wonderful. Well, best of luck with that. Congratulations on an excellent study. Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Thank you.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Dr DeBerge, your study was titled, Unbiased Discovery of Allograft Inflammatory Factor-1 as a New and Critical Immuno Metabolic Regulatory Node During Cardiac Injury. Congrats on this very cool study. You were really kind of focused on macrophages in myocardial infarction. And macrophages, they're a Jeckel Hyde kind of cell, right? They're good. They're bad. They can be both, almost at the same time, sometimes it seems like. So why were you interested in macrophages particularly in myocardial infarction, and what did you discover about this allograft inflammatory factor-1, or AIF1 protein?   Matthew DeBerge:      Thank you. That's the great question. You really kind of alluded to why we're interested in macrophages in the heart after tissue repair. I mean, they really are the central mediators at both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses after myocardial infarction. Decades of research before this have shown that inflammation has increased acutely after MI and has also increased in heart failure patients, which really has led to the development of clinical efforts to target inflammatory mediators after MI. Now, unfortunately, the results to target inflammation after MI, thus far, have been modest or disappointing, I guess, at worst, in the respect that broadly targeting macrophage function, again, hasn't achieved results. Again, because these cells have both pro and anti-inflammatory functions and targeting specific mediators has been somewhat effective, but really hasn't achieved the results we want to see.   Matthew DeBerge:      I think what we've learned is that the key, I guess, the targeting macrophage after MI, is really to target their specific function. And this led us to sort of pursue novel proteins that are mediating macrophage factor function after MI. To accomplish this, we similarly performed an unbiased screen collecting peri-infarct tissue from a patient that was undergoing heart transplantation for end stage heart failure and had suffered an MI years previously. And this led to the discovery of allograft inflammatory factor-1, or AIF1, specifically within cardiac macrophages compared to other cardiac cell clusters from our specimen. And following up with this with post-mortem specimens after acute MI to show that AIF1 was specifically increased in macrophages after MI and then subsequently then testing causality with both murine model of permanent inclusion MI, as well as in vitro studies using bone marrow drive macrophages to dig deeper mechanistically, we found that AIF1 was crucial in regulating inflammatory programing macrophages, which ultimately culminated in worse in cardiac repair after MI.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        That's really interesting. And I love how you start with the human and then figure out what the heck it's doing in the human. And one of the things you ended up doing in the mouse was knocking out this protein AIF1, specifically in macrophage cells or cells that make the macrophage lineage. But is this factor in other cells? I was reading, it can be intracellular, it can be secreted. Are there perhaps other things that are also going on outside of the macrophage?   Matthew DeBerge:      It's a great question. First, I guess in terms of specificity, within the hematopoietic compartment, previous studies, as well as publicly available databases, have shown that AIF1 is really predominantly expressed within macrophages. We were able to leverage bone marrow chimera mice to isolate this defect to the deficiency to macrophages. But you do bring up a great point that other studies have shown that AIF1 may be expressed in other radio-resistant cell populations. I mean, such as cardiomyocytes or other treatable cells within the heart. We can't completely rule out a role for AIF1 and other cell populations. I can tell you that we did do the whole body knockout complementary to our bone marrow hematopoetic deficient knockouts, and saw that deficiency of AIF1 within the whole animal, recapitulate the effects we saw within the AIF1 deficiency within hematopoietic department.   Matthew DeBerge:      It was encouraging to us that, again, the overall role of AIF1 is pro-inflammatory after MI.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        I mean, I know it's early days, but is there a hint of any translational potential of these findings or of this protein?   Matthew DeBerge:      Yeah, I think so. To answer your question, we were fortunate enough to be able to partner with Ionis that develops these anti-sensible nucleotides so that we could specifically target AIF1 after the acute phase during MI. We saw that utilizing these anti-sensible nucleotides to deplete AIF1, again, within the whole mouse, that we were able to reduce inflammation, reduce in heart size and preserve stock function. I think there really is, hopefully a therapeutic opportunity here. And again, with it being, perhaps macrophage specific is, even much more important as we think about targeting the specific function of these cells within the heart.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Very cool stuff. Dr Karlstaedt, the title of your submission is, ATP Dependent Citrate Lyase Drives Metabolic Remodeling in the Heart During Cancer. So this I found was really interesting because you were talking about, the two major killers in the world, right? Cardiovascular disease and cancer, and you're just going to tackle both of them, which I love. So obviously this is built on a lot of prior observations about the effects of cancer on cardiac metabolic remodeling. Can you maybe just tell us a little bit about what is that link that was there and what was known before you started?   Anja Karlstaedt:          Yeah. Happy to take that question. I think it's a very important one and I'm not sure if I will have a comprehensive answer to this, because like I mentioned at the beginning, cardio-oncology is a very new field. And the reason why we are starting to be more aware of cancer patients and their specific cardiovascular problems is because the cancer field has done such a great job of developing all these new therapeutics. And we have far more options of treating patients with various different types of cancers in particular, also leukemias, but also solid tumors. And what has that led to is an understanding that patients survive the tumors, but then 10, 20 years later, are dying of cardiovascular diseases. Those are particular cardiomyopathies and congestive heart failure patients. What we are trying, or what my lab is trying to do, is understanding what is driving this remodeling. And is there a way that we can develop therapies that can basically, at the beginning of the therapy, protect the heart so that this remodeling does not happen, or it is not as severe.   Anja Karlstaedt:          Also, identifying patients that are at risk, because not every tumor is created equally and tumors are very heterogeneous, even within the same group. To get to your question, what we found is, in collaboration actually with a group at Baylor College of Medicine, Peggy Goodell's group, who is primarily working on myeloid malignancies, is that certain types of leukemias are associated with cardiomyopathies. And so when they were focusing on the understanding drivers of leukemia, they noticed that the hearts of these animals in their murine models are enlarged on and actually developing cardiomyopathies. And I joined this project just very early on during my postdoc, which was very fortunate and I feel very lucky of having met them. What my lab is now studying here at Cedars is how basically those physiological stress and mutations coming from the tumors are leading to metabolic dysregulation in the heart and then eventually disease.   Anja Karlstaedt:          And we really think that metabolism is at the center of those disease progressions and also, because it's at the center, it should be part of the solution. We can use it as a way to identify patients that are at risk, but also potentially develop new therapies. And what was really striking for us is that when we knock down ACLY that in a willdtype heart where the mouse doesn't have any tumor disease, ACLY actually is critically important for energy substrate metabolism, which seems counterintuitive, because it's far away from the mitochondria, it's not part of directly ADP provision. It's not part of the Kreb cycle. But what we found is that when we knock it out using a CRISPR-Cas9 model, it leads to cardiomyopathy and critically disrupts energy substrate metabolism. And that is not necessarily the case when the mouse has leukemia or has a colorectal cancer, which upregulated in the beginning, this enzyme expression. And so we have now developed models that show us that this could be potentially also therapeutic target to disrupt the adverse remodeling by the tumor.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        That is so interesting. So one of the things I was thinking about too is we know that, I mean, your study is showing that, the tumor itself is causing cardiac remodeling, but we also know therapies, right? Radiation, chemotherapy, probably some immune modulatory compounds. Those probably do similar, maybe not exactly similar, but they also cause, adverse cardiac remodeling. Do you have any insights as to what is same and what is different between tumor driven and therapy driven adverse remodeling?   Anja Karlstaedt:          So we do not know a lot yet. It's still an open question about all the different types of chemotherapeutics, how they are leading to cardio toxicities. But what we know, at least from the classic anti-cyclic treatments, is right now at the core, the knowledge is that this is primarily disrupting cardiac mitochondrial function. And through that again, impairing energy provision and the interaction, again, with the immune system is fairly unknown, but we know through studies from Kathryn Moore and some very interesting work by Rimson is that myocardial infarction itself can lead to an increase in risk for tumor progression. And what they have shown as independent of each other, is that the activation of the immune system in itself can lead to an acceleration of both diseases, both the cardiac remodeling, and then also the tumor disease. We don't fully understand which drivers are involved, but we do know that a lot of the cardiomyopathies on cardiotoxicities that are chemotherapeutically driven, all have also metabolic component.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        Nice. Thank you. When I prepare for these interviews, I obviously read the abstracts for the papers, but I found myself also Googling other things after I read each of your abstracts. It was a rabbit hole of science, which was really exciting.                               I now want to transition to kind of a career angle. You all are obviously quite successful, scientifically, at the bench, right? But now you are pivoting to a kind of completely opposite slash new job, right? That of, independent researcher. I would love to hear from each of you, if there was any interesting challenge that you kind of overcame that you grew from, or if there was any bit of advice that you wish you knew ahead of time or anything like that, that some of our trainee listeners and actually frankly, faculty who can pass that information onto their trainees, can benefit from.   Anja Karlstaedt:          I think the biggest challenge for me in transitioning was actually the pandemic. Because I don't know how it was for Hisa and Matt, but trying to establish a lab, but also applying for faculty position during a major global pandemic, is challenging is not quite something that I expected that would happen. And so I think saying that and looking more conceptually and philosophically at this as, you can prepare as much as you want, but then when life just kicks in and things happen, they do happen. And I think the best is to prepare as much as you can. And then simply go with the flow. Sometimes one of my mentors, Dave Nikon, mentioned that to me when I was applying for faculty positions, it's sometimes good to just go with the flow. And as a metabolism person, I absolutely agree. And there are some things that you can do as a junior investigator.   Anja Karlstaedt:          We need to have a good network. So just very important to have good mentors. I was blessed with have those mentors, Peggy Goodell's one of them, Heinrich Taegtmeyer was another. And now with this study that we are publishing, Jim Martin and Dave Nikon were incredible. Without them, this study wouldn't have been possible and I would not be here at Cedars.   Anja Karlstaedt:          You need to reach out to other people because those mentors have the experience. They have been through some of this before. Even if they have never had a major event, like COVID-19 in their life before, because none of us had before, they had other experiences and you can rely on them and they set you then up for overcoming these challenges. And the other thing I would say, is put yourself out there, go and talk to as many people as possible or set conferences, present a poster, not only talks. Don't be disappointed if you don't get a talk, posters are really great to build this network and find other people that you probably wouldn't have encountered and apply for funding. Just again, put yourself out there and try to get the funding for your research. Even if it's small foundations, it builds up over time and it is a good practice to then write those more competitive grants.     Cindy St. Hilaire:        Dr Hashimoto, would you like to go next?   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Just my advice is that, could be like a culture of difference, but in east Asia, like in Japan, we were taught to, do not disturb people, don't interrupt people and help people. But I realized that I wasn't really good at asking for help. After I am still not like fully independent, but I do have my own group and I have to do grant writing. I still work at the bench and then have to teach grad students, doing everything myself. I just realized it's just impossible. I didn't have time. I need like 48 hours a day. Otherwise, you won't finish it. I just realized that I wasn't really good at asking for help. So my advice would be, don't hesitate to ask for help. It's not a shame. You can't do everything by just yourself. I think, even from the postdoc, even from grad school, I think, ask for help and then get used to that. And then of course, help others. And that is the way I think to probably not get overwhelmed and not stress yourself. Science should be something fun. And if you don't ask for help and if you don't help someone, I think you are losing the chance of getting some fun part from the science.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        That's great advice. I really like that, especially because I find at least, I started my lab seven years ago now. And I remember the first couple months/year, it was extremely hard to let go, right? Like I taught my new people how to do the primary cell culture we needed, but I was terrified of them doing it wrong or wasting money or making too many mistakes. But you realize, you got to learn to trust people. Like you said, you got to learn to ask for help. And sometimes that help is letting them do it. And you doing, you're being paid now to write grants and papers. That's a big brain, you're not paid to do the smaller things. That's really great advice. I like that. Thank you. Dr DeBerge, how about you?   Matthew DeBerge:      So I guess towards a bit of life advice, I think two obvious things is one, be kind, science is hard enough as it is. So I think we should try to lift each other up and not knock each other down. And along those lines as the others have alluded to as well, one of the mantras we sort of adapted on the lab, is a rising tide raises all ships, this idea that we can work together to elevate each other's science and really, again, collaborate.   Towards the career side of things I'll just touch on, because I guess one thing I'll add, there's more than one path, I guess, to achieving your goals. I've been fortunate enough to have an NIH post-doctoral fellowship and had an AHA career development award, but I'm not a K99 recipient. Oftentimes, I think this is the golden ticket to getting the faculty job, so I'm trying to, I guess, buck trend, I just submitted an RO1. So fingers crossed that leads to some opportunity.   Even beyond academia, I'm not certain how much everyone here is involved in science Twitter, it's really become a thing over the last couple years, but I think, kind of the elephant in the room is that academia, it's really hard on the trainees nowadays to have a living wage, to go through this. I mean, I'm really excited to see my, fellow finalists here are starting their own groups and stuff, but for many, that's not the reality for many, it's just not financially feasible. So I think, kind of keeping in mind that there's many, many alternative careers, whether it's industry, whether it's consulting, science writing, etcetera, going back to what Dr Hash says, find what you love and really pursue that with passion.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        I think it's something only, I don't know, five to 10% of people go into or rather stay in academia. And that means, 90 to 95% of our trainees, we need to prepare them for other opportunities, which I think is exciting, because it means it can expand our network for those of us in academia.   Anja Karlstaedt:          I think right now it's even worse because it's about 2% of old postdocs that are actually staying and becoming independent researchers, independent or tenure track or research track. And I think I second, as what Matt said, because I play cello. I do music as a hobby and people always ask me if I'm a musician. And at the beginning I felt like, no, of course not. I'm not like Yoyo Ma. I'm just playing, it's a hobby. And then I, that got me thinking. I was like, no, of course you are because there's so many different types. And what we need to understand is that scientists, like you are always a scientist. It doesn't matter if you are working at Pfizer or if you are working at a small undergrad institution and you're teaching those next generation scientists, you are still scientist and we all need those different types of scientists because otherwise, if everybody is just a soloist, you are never going to listen to symphony. You need those different people and what we need to normalize beyond having those different career paths, is also that people are staying in academia and becoming those really incredible resources for the institutions and labs, quite frankly, of being able to retain those technologies and techniques within an institution. And I think that's something to also look forward to, that even if you're not the PI necessarily, you're the one who is driving those projects. And I hope to pass this on at some point also to my trainees that they can be a scientist, even if they're not running a lab and they become an Institute director and that's also critically important.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        There's lots of ways to do science. Thank you all so much for joining me today. Either waking up at 5:00 AM or staying up past midnight, I think it is now in Japan or close to it. So Matt and I kind of made it out okay. It's like 8:00 or 9:00 AM.   Matthew DeBerge:      Thank you.   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   My apologies for this time zone difference.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        I'm very glad to make it work. Congratulations to all of you, your presentations. I forget which day of the week they are on at BCVS, but we are looking forward to the oral presentations of these and congratulations to all of you. You are amazing scientists and I know I'm really looking forward to seeing your future work so best of luck.   Matthew DeBerge:      Thank you.   Hisayuki Hashimoto:   Thank you.   Anja Karlstaedt:          Thank you so much.   Cindy St. Hilaire:        That's it for the highlights from the June 24th, July 8th and July 22nd issues of Circulation Research. Thank you for listening. Please check out the CircRes Facebook page and follow us on Twitter and Instagram with the handle at CircRes and hashtag Discover CircRes. Thank you to our guests. The BCVS Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award Finalists, Dr Hisayuki Hashimoto, Dr Matthew DeBerge and Dr Anja Karlstaedt. This podcast is produced by Ashara Ratnayaka, edited by Melissa Stoner and supported by the editorial team of Circulation Research. Some of the copy text for the highlighted articles is provided by Ruth Williams. I'm your host, Dr Cindy St. Hilaire. And this is Discover CircRes, you're on the go source for the most exciting discoveries in basic cardiovascular research. This program is copyright of the American Heart Association, 2022. The opinions expressed by speakers in this podcast are their own and not necessarily those of the editors or of the American Heart Association. For more information visit ahajournals.org.  

Dave Dubeau is a Real Estate Entrepreneur, Best-Selling Author, Speaker and Investor Attraction Expert based in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada.  He began his real estate investing career in 2003 doing 18 deals in 18 months.  He later switched his focus to client-first rent to own deals, and nowadays he invests in multi-family (apartment building) properties.  For the last several years Dave has been a leading authority on helping mom and pop real estate investors to find money partners and raise capital. Using his proprietary 5 Step Money Partner Formula™, Dave helps his real estate entrepreneur clients to grow their portfolios significantly and in record time by attracting investors (instead of chasing after them).    In this episode we talked about: Dave's Bio & Background Real Estate Business Evolution Legal Aspect of Raising Capital Three Biggest Mistakes Real Investors Make when Raising Capital Lineup Resources   Useful links: How to raise capital 101 show https://www.raisecapital101show.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/davedubeau/?originalSubdomain=ca Transcriptions: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. Ladies and gentlemen, my name's Jessica gala, and you're listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm happy to introduce a returning guest to the show. Dave, Dubo a fellow Canadian and Dave was on the, a working capital podcast episode 1 0 3.   If you want to see the older episode we did about raising capital. Dave is a podcast host and creator of the money partner formula. He and his team work with mom and pop real estate investors providing done for you marketing services to help them raise capital. He's a best-selling author and speaker based in British Columbia, Canada. He began his real estate investing career in 2003, doing 18 deals in 18 months. We talked about that last time and he invest passively in multifamily properties. Dave, welcome back,   Dave (1m 6s): Jesse. Great to be here. Thanks for having me, bud.   Jesse (1m 8s): Yeah, it was a pleasure to have you back, you know, nothing's changed in the last two years, so we won't have much to talk about, but yeah, I mean, I, I thought it would be, it'd be good to, you know, we're doing another, I guess, multi or a podcast swap here and always, always great to speak with you. So I guess first how's everything going out in Western Canada? How have you been, have you been fairing over the last a year, year and a half?   Dave (1m 38s): Well, you tell, I tell you what, if people are watching this video, they can see it's been hair back for me a way back too far back. No, it's good. Good life is good. Can't complain Jesse. It's it's always good in beautiful British Columbia.   Jesse (1m 52s): Absolutely. Well, I mean, it's, it's also nice to speak to a fellow Canadian. We can talk about, you know, Canadian real estate, but it does, you know, pretty much pairs up with most north American real estate. A lot of the similarities, even when raising capital and even some of the legal nuances, but we're not giving accounting or legal advice, but I felt   Dave (2m 12s): No.   Jesse (2m 14s): So maybe a good place to start would be for listeners that haven't listened to the prior episode, which I believe I mentioned one episode 1 0 3, for those interested, you could give listeners a little bit of a background and you know, how you got started in real estate and where you're at today.   Dave (2m 32s): Sure. Well, thanks Jesse. So actually kind of grew up around real estate. My family home was one unit in a sixplex that my grandfather and father built a then when my parents split up, I was living with my mom. She was a real estate investor as well. She was a full-time school administrator and she still managed to build up a portfolio of about 50 rental units while doing that and taking care of her snot-nosed kid. Here's truly, and, but you know, like a typical teenager, I didn't pay much attention to it.   I didn't really get involved. And then I went to school, went to university, started traveling around and lived overseas for 13, almost 14 years. And actually my first little dabble into real estate investing was in San Jose, Costa Rica of all places. And what I did there, I guess we would call kind of like a couple of little pre-foreclosure deals. I was kind of a passive partner there. Just kind of put the money up for those deals that worked out pretty well. And then I, I moved my Costa Rican family to Canada, back to Canada, to BC and had to start all over again from scratch.   Hadn't been able to sell my business or I didn't have much money had been gone for so long. I had zero credit had been self-employed for so long. I was pretty much unemployable. So there I was in a brand new city wondering what the heck am I going to do? And you're too young to remember these things, Jesse, but there used to be these things called late night infomercials. And it'd be like this, you'd be up with insomnia late at night. Wondering how the hell are you going to make a living? And then you'd see this guy, come on TV and go. You too can get rich in real estate with little or no money down.   I said, perfect. That's what I got little or no money. So I said away from the course, it was some American guru and a, I got a whole bunch of at that time, binders and CDs, maybe a VHS cassette or two, I don't know, but a bunch of stuff and put this all all to work. And that's when I started doing creative real estate investing deals around 2003 in the smallest city of Kamloops. Did those 18 deals in 18 months? Sounds impressive. But they aren't where they were. They weren't all impressive deals, Jesse, by any stretch. Some of them were crappy, little mobile homes and mobile home parks and stuff like that, but they were all creative type deals.   So that's, that's how I got started.   Jesse (4m 50s): I can just see the infomercial. Aren't you tired of not making money and your job   Dave (4m 55s): There. Might've been bikini's and Lambo. I   Jesse (4m 57s): Was going to say   Dave (4m 58s): A red   Jesse (4m 58s): Furrion and five blondes on the arms. You can be rich like me.   Dave (5m 2s): Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. But it did. It did the stuff did work.   Jesse (5m 6s): Yeah. So we talked a little bit about this last time kind of starting, starting out the 18 deals that you did and you know, you'd be in the you're in this industry long enough, you know, that 18 deals can be amazing. 18 deals can be an absolute nightmare. It could be a reason to stay in or to leave the industry. Yeah.   Dave (5m 23s): Well, I left for a while. So that might tell you this.   Jesse (5m 27s): Yeah, maybe, maybe it was those 18, but I, I guess the, the background and we touched a little bit on this last time, the background was, was somewhat related to real estate. You had individuals, you know, obviously close to you that were, that showed that it's a, it's a viable place to, to build a career. And today, you know, a lot of the focus that you do have is raising capital for real estate. And yeah, I think what would be great for our listeners is to talk a little bit about how business has evolved or your investing has evolved from way back then to kind of having a niche.   I love talking to a Canadian, I can say niche instead of niche. I taught, you know, how it evolved and how you've kind of carved out a niche where your focus now has been on the multi-family side and raising capital. What did that evolution look like?   Dave (6m 18s): Yeah, good question. So I did those creative deals took a few years off, jumped back in around oh nine, 10 give or take. And I'm focused on single family homes at that point. And I was doing a different strategy. So I actually bought them. So I had to come up with down payments and all that kind of stuff after doing a couple hundred, my own steam ran out of cash, run out of credit. That's when I started trying to figure out this whole OPM other people's money idea failed miserably at the beginning.   Absolutely. Was it painful? Just even think back on that, but that's how I got started with the whole thing and, you know, talk about making almost every mistake in the book. I, I definitely did that. So yeah, I've learned, I learned a lot of things that you shouldn't be doing when you're, when you're starting to raise capital. And then that kind of transition did that for a couple of years. And then I realized it kind of came to the realization Jesse, that I don't really enjoy dealing with tenants or toilets. I'm about as handy as a foot. You know, I don't like hearing people whine about the problem.   So I decided maybe it'd be better for me to be more of a passive partner and invest passively in other people's multi-family deals. I had a good friend that was involved in multi-family. So that's how I got started there.   Jesse (7m 35s): And on the multifamily side, we're the first properties that you started to invest? Was it a more formalized thing where it was kind of roles and responsibilities were clear? Was it, or was it something that was, you know, shooting from the hip?   Dave (7m 50s): No, it was quite a formalized situation. So there, how many of us were there seven of us involved in that deal? Myself and my business partner and five investor partners in, in that particular deal. And that was a 54 unit building actually in Ontario.   Jesse (8m 9s): So on the raising capital side. And, and again, we'll, we'll speak fairly broadly here because the, the actual intricacies of, of the legal aspect of raising money are very similar, you know, whether it's the, the OSC, Ontario securities and exchange, whether you're out in BC or whether you're in the states. So, you know, you don't just go into real estate and then kind of figure out how to create these structures. So when you first moved to that, was there somebody in this group of seven that introduced you to this idea of, of raising in a structure that what we see today in Canada, a lot of times it's limited partnerships with an LP, with a number of LPs and a general partner or sponsor very similar in the states with the exception of them having LLCs limited liability companies, which we don't have up here.   Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, where, where you got that knowledge and, and how that, you know, transitioned?   Dave (9m 7s): Yeah, for sure. So the, fortunately for me, the gentlemen that I was working with, my partner on that deal had a lot of experience in multifamily. Also had a lot of experience working with other investors and he had a very good legal team. So we had everything structured properly, right from the get-go. I didn't really have to figure much of that stuff out. So I got to focus on my strengths, which were the, you know, the marketing side of things and the investor relations side of things.   Jesse (9m 35s): So we talked a little bit before the show, you've got three of the biggest mistakes that you see real estate investors re make when they're raising capital. Maybe you could speak to, to a few of those, a few of those mistakes for our listeners benefit.   Dave (9m 52s): All right, Jesse, well, these are all big mistakes that I made. This is why I'm generalizing, I think a lot. And I see a lot of people making these mistakes. The biggest one is this, this guru talk that I hear all the time, even today, which is, Hey, just find a good deal. If you find a good deal, the money will find you don't worry about. Right. So I bought into that hogwash early on, and that's how I lost a really good deal, but, you know, laziness as well for, and my philosophy has completely changed.   So now my philosophy is if you do anything, get your investor ducks in a row first and then go looking for deals, or at least do both at the same time. Right? You don't want to have one or the other. So in a perfect world for me, I would have my investors lined up and then I'd go make offers on properties. Cause then you've got so much of our confidence. You've got your mojo, you're ready to rock and roll, right? And, and you can go in, you can negotiate harder. You can have better positioning.   You can close faster because you've got the money to back you up. So chicken and the egg, which comes first, the money or the deal, I'd say the money comes first.   Jesse (11m 5s): So you're, you're cooking with oil at that point when you got the investors. So I, I can hear listeners saying, you know, lined up, what is lined up mean to you? And maybe just as a, just a caveat there, oftentimes we hear of getting a partial commitments, full commitments. Are you having people sign things? W w w what does that look like to you?   Dave (11m 27s): For me that looks like getting people to sign off, at least on an expression of interest indicating how much they're willing to invest and within what timeframe. Right? So it's not a legally binding agreement. However, anytime you get somebody to sign off on something, but they're John Hancock on a document it's so much more powerful than just a verbal commitment, right? Like, like the joke says verbal agreements worth the papers written on kind of thing. So if you get them to mark it down, that goes a long way.   And then the other thing I had to learn the hard way, I don't know if you've ever found this, Jessie not everybody's ready to pull the trigger when the rubber hits the road. So lineup more capital, more investors than you think you need. And I'd say at least a 50% margin there at least a hundred percent would be the better, because that way, when the smoke clears, then you're, you're going to be safe.   Jesse (12m 22s): If you're in a situation where you are, you're pushing money away from the deal. I think you're in a good spot. So   Dave (12m 28s): Beautiful spot. Yeah.   Jesse (12m 30s): And, and we were, you know, on our last raise, we, we did have a situation where we, we needed to make room and, and it's because we followed a bad ideology that it it's listen at the end of the day. Things happen, even if it's completely in good faith. And, you know, somebody, something happens in there with their family. Something happens with their career. You know, when I said, I was going to give you $150,000, four months ago, what that looks like today, a hundred   Dave (12m 57s): Percent. That was before I lost my job. Right?   Jesse (12m 60s): Yeah. Well, you know, it's like, you know, if it happened two years ago, a year later, you know, that was before there was a global pandemic, right? Like you can't, you can't control those things, but it's a good rule of thumb. So one of the challenges I find with people that are raised in capitals, there's this question, especially if they start once, you know, you've raised for your first dealer, second deal is this idea that you're raising for asset specific raises. So for instance, you have a property, you identify the property route there, then kind of a rolling fund.   So the challenge I find with that is you kind of, you really have to make sure everything's set up and then once a deal is there and you kind of, we're all running to get everything put together. So on that end, I think that's probably why you have this commitment that even though it's non-binding for you, is it something that it at least psychologically gets them connected to the deal?   Dave (13m 53s): Oh, a hundred percent. Get some connected, not necessarily to the ideal, but to ideal with me. Right? So there, at the end of the day, Jesse, when your investors are investing with you, a huge part of what they're investing in is, is Jessie. It's not just the deal, it's the team that's putting the deal together, right? So it's, it's that trust that's coming to the table. So that's my goal for, for our clients is to get them a number of investors waiting in the wings, so to speak kind of their investor ducks in a row, people, people that have signed off, not on necessarily on any specific deal, but on the idea of what the kind of deals are that they're doing.   Right. Because, you know, in your case, you're focusing on multi-family properties, are our clients have different, different focuses. Some of them do, multi-family some of the new burrs, single family flips, whatever it is, but their investors are signing on to that kind of deal.   Jesse (14m 51s): Yeah. I think it was had Brian Burke on the show a bout a year ago. And he called it the partnership structure. It's a trust vehicle, right. You're Dave Jibo or Jesse for golly, you know, there's, there's no investors that come in, if there's a lack of trust for the sponsor of the dealer or the team.   Dave (15m 7s): No. Like, and trust man got out of those three and in place for sure.   Jesse (15m 11s): No, like, and trust. Okay. So Dave, what was that? That was number one or the,   Dave (15m 15s): Yeah, we're having so fun. It's hard to keep track of what's going on here. So yeah, that's one of the big mistakes. The other one, again, that I made, it kind of goes in tied hand in hand with that, you know, you got to deal now, you got to raise the money for it. And that is just rushing in cold, hitting people up for cash. And, and this just brings back a nightmare for me, that that's exactly where I was at. I had this deal, it was a single family home, but you know, I need to raise whatever 85 grand, something like that for the deal.   But I only had like 14 days to remove the subject. So I had to get my you-know-what and gear pretty quickly. And that just brings a whole new sense of urgency, but also desperation. Right. And I don't come from a strong sales background. Most people don't, it's very, very few people that come from a sales background and can do the old Wolf of wall street thing and pick up the phone and start dialing for dollars. Not very many regular human beings can do that. Well. Okay. DiCaprio made it look like a lot of fun on the movie, but in real life, it's these by experiences, nowhere, nothing like that.   Yeah. So I tried that, I made picking up the phone dialing for dollars, doing those creepy networky type things, like turning every conversation into a real estate conversation, 32nd elevator pitches or commercials or whatever you want to call them. Right. All of that kind of stuff. In my opinion, just kind of smacks of desperation. Right. And it, and it's back to that whole thing. So I've tried all of this stuff and I had a deal on the go, but the challenge is you're coming from a position of weakness, right?   You need the money quickly and no matter how good that deal is, unless you're amazingly gifted actor, that desperation is going to ooze out of you. It's going to, it's just going to, they're going to smell it on you. I think in sales, they call that commission breadth, right? You just, you desperately need that sale. And no matter how good the deal is, the other person is going to be turned off by it. So that's, that's a big challenge. I see, you know, people are trying to raise money for a deal.   They're calling up folks they haven't seen or heard of for years. And the first thing, you know, they're pitching them on a deal. It almost, I don't know if ever had anybody hit you up for a network marketing type thing or an MLM type thing, Jesse, he never had that experience.   Jesse (17m 42s): Absolutely.   Dave (17m 42s): Doesn't it isn't just like it's cringy, right. It just a hundred   Jesse (17m 46s): Percent. But   Dave (17m 46s): Yeah. So we don't want to be in that, in that boat. So don't just, you know, I highly recommend you warm people up first before you start pitching your deal. So when we're working with clients, we have a whole process for this. We call it the warm-up campaign. Once we target our specific group of potential investors, we don't go in with, Hey, I got deals. If we got dough, no, the first step is, Hey, it stayed. Chances are, it's been a while since we've seen each other or connected, just wanted to reach out, say, hi, see how you're doing.   Let you know a little bit about what I've been up to. And then do a quick little recap of what's been going on in the last 3, 4, 5 years. You yourself, more the personal side, right? Not talking about real estate, not talking about markets, not talking, not trying to NLP anybody into investigating, just having a legitimate reconnection. So the way we do this with our clients, we'll do a three step email campaign, drip, drip, drip, like over a period of a week or 10 days. And the whole goal is just to get some movement, get some, some interaction, get people kind of going back and forth with you a little bit there because there is definitely capital in those connections.   Plus now it sets the stage for all of the marketing. That's going to come down the pipeline.   Jesse (19m 2s): So last time we were speaking you, you talked about kind of doing an audit on your phone. I believe, you know, looking for, you know, different or your contacts on your phone. I found that when I first started raising capital, it was, you know, your, your student network, you know, people that you knew through work there. Like when you really start to think about it, you do have tentacles that go into a lot of different areas. And it's just about organizing those. Has that changed at all for you? Or is it   Dave (19m 31s): No, we still do that process. So basically we, we want to create a list, a focus group of somewhere between one and 200 people, a hundred to 200 people that we want to laser focus in on to get started with Jesse. So what we do with our clients is we'll do a data dump. We'll take all of their phone contacts, their email contacts, their social media contacts, get them all into one place, sift sort, merge, purge, deduplicate duplicate, get it all cleaned up. And then you're probably going to start with a list of, I don't know, a thousand or 1500 people typically, or maybe even more.   And then the job is you go through that list and quickly whittle it down to a couple of hundred people that you actually do have a preexisting relationship with. Right? So these are people that have you bumped into them in the street. They'd know, you you'd know them. You could have a conversation, you know, at least that's, that's what we're looking for. Genuine connections. So that's, that's what we do with our   Jesse (20m 26s): Client. They do a stop and chat.   Dave (20m 28s): Exactly. Yeah. You could have a nice little conversation in the lineup for Starbucks.   Jesse (20m 32s): So the F the first thing you said there, it's like, to me, it's, it's a lot like dating this aspect of when you're absolutely completely needy. You have a deal, you can smell it. You can just, you get that vibe right away. And if   Dave (20m 46s): It, did you see me in my dating days? Is that what the transit sounds like? It sounds like you're spying on me,   Jesse (20m 52s): But it, it really, it really is funny. It's it does feel like it's almost like you're in high school again. And there's this aspect of when you feel, when it comes off, that you don't need that commitment. All of a sudden that you get that opposite reaction to somebody that's interested.   Dave (21m 7s): It that's exactly what it's like beautifully said.   Jesse (21m 10s): So this, so I guess just to cap off that second one, there, the point that you start to make this touch point does not have to be right when you get a deal. If anything, it doesn't hurt for people that are looking to raise capital to start reconnecting, you know, now prior, And I think one of the, one of the challenges, like you said, you know, I'm in brokerage and even, you know, even in a sales environment, I can only imagine if, you know, if somebody is not comfortable with talking or reaching out or it's outside their comfort level.   But one thing that I was told very early on was just like, you know, just bite the bullet and let people know what you're doing. And, and if real estate is what you're doing, there's, there's people that will invest with you that don't didn't know that you, you were actually investing. And I find that if you put yourself out there, you make these connections. Then when you do have a deal, it's, it's like you said, it's not a, you know, at the 11th hour, you're asking somebody to fund something.   Dave (22m 6s): Yeah, definitely. Well, and here's the thing. You come from a strong sales background. I come from a strong marketing background. And when you combine the two of them, then you're really on fire. So the beautiful thing I love about marketing is it can do a lot of that heavy lifting for you. So when you, you get the right marketing out there, what I call edutaining communication. So a little bit educational, hopefully a little bit entertaining, always with a clear call to action, never specifically selling a deal that selling people on the idea of booking a call with you.   That's, what's super powerful because then here's the, here's the difference, Jesse, instead of us reaching out, trying to convince somebody to listen to us about our deal, we use marketing to create curiosity, get them to put up their hand and ask us about the deal. That is a complete 180 and as a complete 180, when it comes to positioning as well. Right? So they want to know more from us versus us pushing our thing on them. So that's, that's my whole goal when it comes to this whole marketing thing is to try to attract investors instead of chasing after investors.   Jesse (23m 16s): Yeah. I like that. Edutaining good. Good. A little portmanteau there, Dave.   Dave (23m 21s): I, I, I wish I came up with that. Somebody smarter than me did. I can't remember who fortunately, but that, yeah, that's, that's the way to do it, edutain them.   Jesse (23m 29s): Okay. So we are on the TWA with   Dave (23m 34s): A few Eastern Canadians with your French. Look at me. I got the French last name, barely put three words together and fresh.   Jesse (23m 41s): You know what? I got   Dave (23m 42s): This Italian guy talking to me.   Jesse (23m 45s): I appreciate just being next to Quebec. They're the only ones that get my last name, right? When they're on a national bank or something. He still, yeah. Okay. So, all right. That's number one. And number two, third biggest mistake you see,   Dave (24m 0s): Oh man, I'm sure you see this all the time, Jessie and that is people kind of spraying and praying, right? So they think anybody with a pulse and a checkbook could make a good investor. So they start posting on Facebook. They're posting stuff all over the place. They're soliciting people in these public forums. And again, caveat here. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not giving legal advice. I'm a real estate guy and a marketer. That's, that's why they, but my understanding, and I'm pretty sure it's yours too, is that's that's illegal.   We're we're crossing, crossing the line with the good old Ontario securities commission, BC securities commissions, securities, and exchange commission in the states, if you're proactively soliciting investors in public forums, right. Especially strangers people that you don't know. So that's a big mistake back in the day, when newspapers were a thing, I'd see people putting in ads in the classified section and the Western investor and all these different places. And, you know, they might get away with it for awhile, but once the law comes down on you, that can be a very, very stressful, painful, and expensive experience.   So again, that's why we're working with clients, just helping them get started with raising capital. That's why we laser focus on leveraging their existing network first.   Jesse (25m 19s): Yeah, I think for Canadians, I think we have the national instruments. If anybody's curious to know what our equivalent is on the security side, but you know, in the states, I'm sure some listeners would be like, well, I saw, you know, I saw different people, advertise and grant Cardone, these different, you know, they're, they're looking at very specific exceptions within the law. And I, I, I think I'm going by memory reg, reg, D, and the states where if you're investing to certain individuals, if it's all accredited investors, if there's are, there is advertising, you can do.   But the average person, when they're just throwing everything out there, you really gotta be careful about that because, you know, I venture to guess the OSC and BC secure, I think it's BC securities commission. Is that right? Or is it, yep. I think that they might be a tad friendlier than the sec, but I, you don't want to get in the cross hairs of, of either,   Dave (26m 12s): Oh man. I, I know of a company in Alberta that had a full-time league. Like they had a legal department in-house they had, they, all their sales guys had to get the securities, whatever Canadian securities course thing and all that kind of stuff. They got shut down by the Alberta securities commission for six months. And their whole business was raising capital that's. That's how they made a living. That's all they paid the bills, they got shut down for six months for an investigation at the end of the six months.   They said, oh, it looks like you're doing everything right. You can go back. Continue. Yeah. Well, yeah, no, they're dead in the water after six months. Right. So   Jesse (26m 55s): Sham down a, a restaurant for a year. Same exact you're good now.   Dave (26m 60s): Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, and that was a full-time legal team and a multi multimillion dollar company. So think about for you and I are a little mom and pop real estate investor. I mean, yeah, just Laura getting a lawyer and trying to do anything with that bang you're down 10, 20, 30 grand in no time.   Jesse (27m 20s): Yeah, for sure. And that was one of the things for, for us, you know, we started with, you know, although you pay for it, we started with the solid legal team and you know, one nice thing about being in the industry is we knew a lot of people on that side, real estate or, or syndication or securities lawyers where, you know, you make sure you're doing everything correct. Okay. So those are the three. And, you know, once, once you have investors or you kind of are, I guess, people that you're educating on this kind of stuff, once they kind of have a handle on those aspects of investing or passive, are there any other ones that during the process, once you have acquired, I'm thinking from an investor relations standpoint?   Cause I feel like a lot of times there's conversations about raising capital and you finally do, it's great. You, you acquire the place, but then there's this whole other business where sometimes your personality type is great for raising capital, not so much for asset management,   Dave (28m 19s): Right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. That's, that's a big hiccup for a lot of people, they get off to a good start and then the communication just kind of dries up. So I think, you know, and, and we work with a lot of what I call mom and pop investors, just getting, going, doing joint ventures and that sort of thing. Right. So what I always recommend to people is treat your investor. Even if it's your brother treat it as if it's a complete stranger and better yet I'm an accredited investor.   So ask yourself, you know, would an accredited investor want the proper legal paperwork? Yes. So make sure you've got the proper legal paperwork, but an accredited investor get independent legal advice. Yes. Make sure your brother gets his own independent legal advice. Would an accredited investor want regular reporting? Yes. How often quarterly semi-annually, whatever it is, then do the same thing. Right? So excuse me, Jesse. I came down with a little something here, so sorry for hacking on your shelf, but that's, that's the whole thing, right?   You gotta, you gotta have that communication, but you need to decide upfront in conjunction with your investor. How often did he want to hear from me? Because what I found in, in real estate investing as well as a lot of people are on the analytical side, so they can overdo it with almost too much communication, too much data, too much information when the investor really doesn't want that much. So you got to find that happy balance with your investor partners, and maybe you start off with a quarterly meetings for the first year back it off to every six months, the second year, and then keep it going like that, depending on what you agree with your investment partners.   Jesse (30m 1s): Yeah. I think it's good. I mean, in any relationship, any business relationship or, I mean, just in general setting expectations at the outset is, is a helpful because whether the there the right expert expectations or the wrong it's people get anchored to them. So you want to make sure that you're not, you know, setting expectations that you know, that you can't deliver on, or you find out that you can't deliver on. So being, you know, being careful, careful, and prudent about that. I think that makes a lot of sense.   Dave (30m 27s): Yeah. Good point.   Jesse (30m 29s): All right, Dave, we did a little bit more of a power round today. So I think we're going to have to chat about private money and next time I see it, because I think I was saying before the show with interest rates where they're at, I feel like that is going to be, it's going to start to be an area where we're going to see a lot more activity. We're already seeing it on the brokerage side, whether it's in the form of hard money loans or vendor take-back mortgages. So definitely should, should schedule a time to talk about that maybe in, in the fall.   We'll see where we're at.   Dave (31m 1s): That sounds great. My friend,   Jesse (31m 3s): So Dave, for our listeners, aside from Googling yourself or looking in the show notes here, where can listeners get in contact with you? See what you're up to?   Dave (31m 12s): Oh, thanks Jesse. So I'm really excited because I'm launching a brand new podcast. It's called the how to raise capital 1 0 1 show. You can find that wherever you like to listen to your podcasts and the first nine episodes of the show are a mini course on how to raise your first six figures in a matter of weeks, your first seven figures in a matter of months, even if you're just starting from scratch. So again, that's my new, not my new show that I'm pretty excited about the how to raise capital 1 0 1 show.   Jesse (31m 45s): My guest today has been Dave Dee, both Dave, thanks for being part of working capital. Again,   Dave (31m 50s): My pleasure, my friend. Thank you.   Jesse (31m 59s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care.

Remember when vacation planning felt FUN? Yeah, me too. But nowadays the to-do list just to get the vacation planned tends to sabotage the giddiness and fun that we should be experiencing. Even though all of the Googling and mapping and decision-making kinda sucks, there is one MAIN reason that vacation planning feels like a chore these days. Join me as we talk about what this is, and I walk you through how to bring back the fun! Get Angela's help to plan your next vacation: https://wildhairtravels.com/plan-my-vacation

How many people want to know if the heat can cause diarrhea? Apparently A LOT!

My guest on the Powerful Stories podcast today is the fabulous and fearless Abbie James who I met when she joined the Powerful Steps community. Abbie is an ethical entrepreneur who created her sustainable fashion label after surviving the world's longest lockdown in Melbourne, Australia. Abbie found the first lockdown un-directional, and she struggled. On paper, everything was amazing - she had a family and a husband that loved her deeply, but she just wasn't feeling content. When she entered her second lockdown her sister-in-law asked, “if you could do anything at all with your life and money and time wasn't an option, what would it be?”  In that exact moment Abbie decided to create a sustainable fashion brand. It was her dream, and she knew it was time to make it reality.  Abbie is an environmentalist who wanted to create and deliver change and saw that 50% more people were Googling sustainable fashion than they were last year, and this fact excited her. She created her first range from the basement of her home and gives people a story of who the makers are, where everything is ethically sourced so consumers can then have a piece of clothing they cherish and are connected to which encourages them to wear it for 10, 20, 30 years.  As a female entrepreneur starting a business can be challenging and topics we discuss are: Why it's important to financially back yourself to become accountable to your business How community and partnership can propel your business forward when you have limited funds to invest in building a global brand Why it's important to become fearless when asking for help Sustainable work practices that set you apart in an industry renowned for global waste. Where to find Abbie James: Shop the look: https://abbie-james.com/ Instagram: @abbiejames.offical Join the Powerful Steps Business Attraction Program which Abbie helped create a powerful community for her launch here https://powerful-steps.com/mentor-global-entrepreneur-program/business-attraction-program/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

S3Ep86 All Doggos Go To ... , Pastor Newms [0:00] Hello and welcome, to season 3 episode 86 of the Berean Manifesto faith hope and love for the modern Christian. This is pastor newms and I'm here to deliver an interesting thought process. Interesting. Topic tonight last week's was pretty heavy and so I decided to go a little bit lighter with this week's for a question that is you know. Plagues us all sooner or later in time and my personal thoughts on it but so first thing. You're my week is good we got a lot of stuff done around the house getting ready for the next school year. And such starting to get that process going so that way we can be ready to home school the girls next year and just a lot of a lot of stuff going on in my house. Played some games not a lot of streaming games just because it was you know, kind of boring stuff I was doing and random times I didn't stream it all this week hopefully this next week I will but. Overall my work week was good and the week itself was good just real busy.  [1:30] I hope you guys all had a great week as well.  [1:35] But that's just kind of how my week went was kind of boring I didn't do anything Fantastical or anything.  [1:46] I don't think I can't remember anything I don't know alright see you, now onto the part of the show that I still don't like even though I'm continuing to do it every week because it's part of the show which is getting another pastor's the question tonight. Is what is one item you own that you really should throw away. But probably never will. So here's the problem with this question what is something that I should throw away but I probably won't. And the answer is everything. I keep way too much stuff. I collect things I treasure things very easily and I. End up.  [2:54] Having just boxes of stuff yes as Phoenix said it is a family trait she does a similar thing, I Won't Say I'm quite at hoarder status. Because I don't keep.  [3:17] Like newspapers boxes cans I've used you know things like that in piles but like.  [3:27] Anything that might be collectible I keep in the Box typically I keep.  [3:36] Things like that has Zaydiee says she's not like, me and Phoenix and we need to clean out a bunch of junk we never use which the reason we haven't is she knows if we were to start that process it would be nothing but a never-ending fight until we were done and, that'll be an interesting, time when she decides it's time to throw away a bunch of stuff because every time she does it gets to be pretty heated, nrm marriage during times when she wants to purge and I want to hoard. It was really really bad when we got married I came to the marriage with like 20 something. 24 totes of Collections and.  [4:36] Just stuff like I have two totes of t-shirts from high school never some of them are band shirts that's why and we are down to like five totes because I eliminated over time and certain things are just real important and so they're out and about if I could once I get everything set up, you know as we build out the house more and more over time some of that stuff will become.  [5:11] Integrated into the house I've got a lot of. Legos and lots of other things like that that are in boxes comic books things that are all plastic totes nothing's in boxes boxes, but hopefully soon we'll get all that put places I'll be rearranging my office soon, and when I do that it'll be time to it'll give me some time to be able to do some of that, purging an unboxing and figuring out OK is this box actually important is this thing in Port you know blah blah blah but I have a lot of stuff just stuff so yeah stuff. I think that's it for getting another pastors I think I think I think I think.  [6:16] Which then leads us to. The message for the night the conversation we want to have whatever you want to call it the part of the time of talking so. I wanted to talk about do doggos go.  [6:39] Blank now the term dog oh might be like the taco dogs are doggos dog. So it's play on that do all dogs go to heaven aspect because doggos is a is a thing and it's interesting because this is one of those situations where. Everyone has. Lots of people have opinions across all of history on what happens to pets every religion you know it gets asked because people love pets. So I thought we'd start with looking at what some religions outside of Christianity belief starting with Islam, um now this this synopsis I found so I don't know. I kind of grabbed a couple different sources and kind of pushed it all together as we all do with internet research so it's not like one place but, a bunch of stuff that I could find as I was researching so Islam doesn't and doesn't offer a clear answer in the Quran.  [7:59] But in order to go to, Heaven their version of Heaven beings must be judged by God on Judgment Day and so then there's a dissent among, Scholars on whether animals would or would not be judged but, the Quran does say that people that go people who enter Paradise can have whatever they want and then logically some people would argue that than it is. The pets. Because if you've had lots of pets over time you love all of them they've passed at some point or another of course that's what you want once you are in Paradise so that is the, Buddhism and Hinduism they both have a thought process of reincarnation in them and so over time you your, they do believe animals have a soul in are sentient and that it is part of The Reincarnation cycle and so in that they would not because.  [9:14] We are all animals are. Just part of our cycle of reincarnation so their thought processes is once you get to Nirvana you would be at a point of above that thought process, Judaism is similar to, Islam and what we're going to get to here in a few minutes with Christianity on whether it's kind of fuzzy.  [9:45] And you know there are some people who go so far as to. You know whether there is a true heaven or hell as other religions Define it other than just paradise and she'll which we've talked about in past. Broadcast and and so there's that aspect but some rabbis say that you know. Animals can go to those places some people say some Rabbi say animals can't but in Judaism there is the belief that animals do have, Souls from what I can understand and that's part of the whole kosher. In the blood because that's where the souls are you know held kind of and same with us you know life is in the blood those aspects and so in Judaism there is.  [10:45] The thought process that animals do have souls but it's unknown whether they can go to the paradise or the next phase. And then we get to Christianity where again, it's fuzzy because there are Scholars who believe yes there are scholarship believe know there are Scholars who believe no they don't have souls animals don't have souls but they do have.  [11:17] Similar to the Islamic belief of well but once you get to heaven it is Paradise and what would Paradise be without our pets and so there are all those types of, conversations so what I kind of wanted to look at quickly and this is going to be a shorter one because let's be honest this is kind of a funny. A funny topic that I just kind of want to talk about because it's a question that children ask a lot it's a question that other people ask a lot and so I just wanted to give people a thought of you know let's think about it. And there's a couple places in scripture where animals are talked about a lot. They of course were created before man. In Genesis and then I'm going to use very interesting story which. Is an odd one to use for this but.  [12:39] Thought process and balaam's donkey and so then when we look at. In 23 the story of Numbers 22 23 the story of Balaam, it said that the Lord opened the donkey's mouth so the exact thought is when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the path of the Dawn, with a drawn sword in his hand she turned off the path and went to the field so Balaam hit her the angel of the Lord stood.  [13:15] The narrow passage between The Vineyards in the stone wall on either side of the donkey saw the angel of the Lord and pressed him herself against the wall squeezing balaam's foot against it so he hit her, once again the angel of the Lord went ahead and sit in the narrow place so there's no room to turn right or left when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord she crouched down under Balaam so he became Furious and beat the donkey with his stick, the Lord then the Lord opened the donkey's mouth, and she asked Balaam what have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times and Balaam answered which this part of the find interesting Balaam answered the donkey and wasn't freaked out about the fact that there isn't donkey, talking to him you made me look like a fool if I had my sword in my hand I'd kill you and the donkey said I'm, am I not the donkey you've written all your life have I ever treated you this way before no he replied and the Lord opened balaam's eyes and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the path with a drawn sword in his hand so. You know the reason I'm looking at this story of Balaam is this is one of the the times that. Animals have a direct Forefront.  [14:36] Part of the story where they are actually. So what are the only times they have a speaking role in the scriptures other than the serpent in the.  [14:55] In Genesis that was possessed and then the there's the. The, the prophetic aspect of the Dragon in Revelation which might or might not actually be, a physical creature or just the spiritual thought process of it which is another interesting discourse all in its own. So in that where it says the Lord opened the donkey's mouth the term for open that's used is I'm going to. I'm going to butcher this because I barely speak English properly but it's.  [15:51] Pause fuck its primary route to open literally and figuratively specifically to loosen. To plow to carve to Break Forth to draw out to let go free it's use about 143 times in the KJV. Version where Strong's has talked about so go with me on this thought process so the Lord opened the donkey's mouth so. My thought process here is if you open the mouth. That means it had to be closed it doesn't say gave the ability to speak it says open which implies that animals have that sentient aspect.  [16:50] And so replies it was closed now.  [16:55] We don't we don't have in the Bible listed a definite time that the miles were closed but. We know that it's talking about here and the serpent the serpent the only other time. And one of the main things that separates us for Animals is the stability of you know speech it's not the only thing but it's one of those big things of understanding and languages and, fought over whether or not animals have souls or if they have reasoning or if they run sheerly off of instinct more than thought, but to me this story shows the attitude of the ass and the fact that she strove to serve her master well and so in that to me, um that rejects that thought process that animals only run on, now those of us that have pets and do more of treating our pets like they are part of the family as opposed to actual pets. Like my family does this is not something that is.  [18:24] I surprised because we treat our animals like they have full attitudes all the time and so, you know we we often joke about things like that and you do notice in animals a distinct. Attitude often and so because of that I've always had that thought process of that animals had. The ability of speech and have their own personalities and have their own. Aspects of their personality just like their human counterparts which then leads us to. That thought process that day. Might have mental reasoning above.  [19:20] That of just logic now as humans we are three parts we are Body Spirit and soul, and so one could argue well maybe they have the spirit but not the soul or one could argue they have just the soul and not the spirit depending on which usage of each word that you use whether one is the connection to your your mind will and emotion and then the other is your connection to, God and you know the spirit, and so there's the always that thought process when you start to talk about souls and those types of things and we've kind of talked about Soul versus spirit before in past broadcasts, and so you have to kind of look at you know is there a true, difference which we know there is between the spirit and the Soul so is it possible that the animals just have, the mind will and emotions but do not have an actual connection to the higher power that humans have. So we're going to talk about the soul specifically now to kind of.  [20:39] Go into that the word that she translated into Soul most of the time is nephesh. And it's properly a breathing creature that is an animal, used very widely in literally mental and physical or an appetite it's used in the kjv 753.  [21:08] Examples of this is TLeviticusis 26:11 so we'll look at that real quick as one of the aspects that we have Leviticus, 26:11 no that can't be right that's going to be a typo.  [21:34] Is it how did you jump over to my parallel here sorry. 26  [21:47] Hmm.  [21:59] I'm looking for where I was actually I miss type something so let's find. Where it might be it's not into is it in six.  [22:44] We looking for.  [23:15] Okay. So here we have it is it's 26:11 sorry and I will set my Tabernacle among you and my soul, shall not a poor you and that Soul let's listed there is the 2315. Which is interesting because that is.  [23:42] You know the Lord talking to us so his soul he uses that word of a breathing creature. Then when we look at Deuteronomy 6:5 would help fight look at the right, versions so that's the video Kiss 26/11 we go to Deuteronomy 6.  [24:13] Five. We have love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all your soul and with all their strength and that word soul is the same that connection of the breathing. The breath that is in us and then if we look at Leviticus we jump back to Leviticus and we look at 27. 1:33 and say to them I have messed up my notes something terrible guys I'm very sorry.  [25:40] Do do do do do do do do do.  [26:00] There is a place where it is used for creature in Leviticus and that's what I'm trying to find and I am sorry that I have messed this up so royally.  [27:01] 5314 I'm looking at it would help if I was looking at the correct.  [27:13] Leviticus 26 11 let's go back there yeah using concordances incorrectly.  [27:44] So let's look at Genesis 1:20 so the verdict is 26 and then we had Deuteronomy I forgot to type these references and then we're going to jump to Genesis 1. And there it says. And God said let the waters bring forth abundantly and moving creatures that hath life and fowl that may fly above the Earth in the open firmament of heaven and that creatures that have life is again that, that's that aspect of the Soul, it's the same word that's translated for soul for humans as well as used for man in certain places and used for animals, creatures that liveth so what's that. Implying that that Soul or spirit that it is speaking of at that point is what defines life and so when we look at that that's what.  [29:10] That's where that conversation lies so we don't have to me we don't have biblical proof that animals don't. Have a soul in that so because of that there's no. Proof that they don't have the ability to move into the spiritual realm upon death so this is one of those situations where.  [29:49] We don't know. And that's okay some of these aspects are things that we have to have beliefs about and we have to have faith in what we have and what we believe but this is one of those situations where we don't have definitive. Proof we know humans will go through a judgment we know. Aspects like that but we don't know whether or not animals will just you know it's that, you know old school movie all All Dogs Go to Heaven well all dogs are good dogs so they go to heaven you know, there's that thought process and so this is one of those that's of course not a Salvation aspect so this is one of those just thought experiments more than anything else of what do you believe why do you believe it, situations like that and the question was posed to me one time and that's why I had even looked any of this up in the past and, have then kind of used it to to look at that but personally for me I feel that animals will. Because we know there are animals in heaven. That is talked about in scripture and I closed my.  [31:19] Bible program so I'm sorry technical difficulties just all over the place today we know that there is a time in.  [31:35] Scripture where if we look at the end.  [31:51] And that comes from I'm trying to find it again because I. Closed it after I opened it and this was not part of my.  [32:15] To do to do.  [32:18] Do do do do this wasn't part of my notes it just came to me while I was talking.  [32:36] And it is found in.  [33:00] 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.  [33:27] So  [33:48] 52 do okay the one place I decided not to look quickly is of course where it's talked about this is that whole thing about doing church together. It looks like I'm just wrong.  [34:43] So this is one of those weird. Aspects of Christianity where we talk about something over and over again but it is not accurate. In fun learning things together right guys so when Isaiah 11:6. The the passage talks about this is talking about the Thousand-Year Kingdom of Christ on Earth so this is before the final Heaven before the Ascension the final Ascension. But in Isaiah 11:6 it actually says not the lion but the wolf. The wolf it's actually talked about in a couple places Isaiah 6 11 and Isaiah 65 25 both of them say. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together which.  [35:58] Is interesting because we always hear line in the lamb the thought process.  [36:08] Possibly is when you look at you know it's just one of those things we're taught that's not actually document anywhere.  [36:24] Some people say the reason why it's gotten messed up is.  [36:32] In Revelation 5 and 6 when it's talking about the Scrolls being opened and it says and then one of the elders said to me do not weep, look the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David has conquered so that he might be able to open the scroll and it's Seven Seals and then I saw one like a slaughtered lamb standing in the midst of the throne and four living creatures and among the elders he had seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the Earth um and then they open the scroll and so it's it's that aspect of combining, you know the Lord is talked about as The Lion and the lamb and then the wolf and the lamb slain down with each other, either that or it's yet another Mandela effect of I've jumped time streams and. You know they did turn the hydrogen the height of the.  [37:26] The collider in CERN is back on so who knows but it's actually not talked about in scripture about the line in the lamps that's one of those things that unless I cannot find it and Google has failed us all while I'm doing research on the Fly which is. Interesting. So it's supposed to be a wolf I guess it doesn't make for his good of pictures maybe of a wolf in Lamb's but. I think that's also kind of better, so we know for a fact in the Thousand Years when God recreates Earth there will be animals but actual end time Heaven you know eternity that is up in the air. But we can hope and that's that's what we do, you know we have faith we hope and we love I hope all my animals are there waiting on me because I want them all just a house full of animals from my whole life.  [38:35] So that is my. Discussion for tonight does anyone did anyone else that's listening all several of you guys know that it was wolf and not lamb am I the only one who thought lamb. I mean thought lion and lamb. I know Phoenix is out there and I know zadie is did both of you guys feel that.  [39:11] It was lying instead of wolf am I the only one has everyone left me.  [39:25] Phoenix says she knows it was wolf what what.  [39:36] What can I guess it was me. Lady says she agrees she remembers it being lying always taught lying in the lamb what zaidi why do you feel that wolf makes more sense. The verse we're talking about so well both Phoenix we are talking about you know.  [40:02] I was trying to find the scripture where it talks about the lion and the lamb which doesn't exist. And I thought the saying came from a verse. Because of what it implies but it does not.  [40:26] And so that's interesting because I always remember being taught it was lion and lamb in Revelation. It appears zaidi says wait what did you find 80 what does it imply.  [40:47] What does the verse imply well let's look at it again if we look at that was Isaiah 11. Six we can reread it 11:6. The wolf will dwell with the lamb the leopard will lie down with the goat the calf the lung Young Lion and the fatted calf will be together. And a child will lead them the cow and the bear will graze their young ones will lie together the line, eat straw like cattle an infant will play by the cobras pit and a toddler will put his hand into the snakes then they will not harm or destroy each other. On my entire Holy Mountain for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is full of water, and the root of Jesse will stand as a banner and the Nations will look to him.  [41:59] Extend his hand to the remnant of people who survived this is all talk about the Thousand Years Isaiah prophesy sometimes. Interesting and and I agree Phoenix it does make sense when you think about it from the stack standpoint of the wolf is who usually fights against. Lambs other than a couple of times where it is a mountain lion.  [42:37] No no it's not a version aspect but I do agree he's 80 it has. More sense along the line of the other stories of Wolfson Lambs it does make a lot more sense and maybe it's just that whole thing about the lion is talked about later with the calf which makes more sense because let's be honest lions. Fight calf's more than sheep.  [43:06] And and yes Sadie in Narnia it is definitely a lamb and a sheep. And not a mountain lion but an actual I can't find. A verse with the line of the lamb but. Feel free to reach out to me you can find out how to contact us on EKK.House and. If I cannot find it and that would be good I'm sure someone out there would messages if possibly. You're the one who said Narnia and you're going to tell me I'm going to make you I'm sorry okay so we record this podcast every Sunday night at 6:30. And we. The live stream goes out on Twitch Facebook and YouTube and we welcome the chat.  [44:19] I'm confused someone said Narnia we welcome the chat to allow for. The fact of having the conversation doing church together this isn't just one person or two people when Pastor Bill is with us and back from sabbatical to to do this this is all of us together. And so we record it 6:30 you can go to EKK.House as I was saying earlier and there you can find out which twitch which Facebook in which YouTube, but we would love for you guys to join us in this live recording so we can, interact and have fun and hang out while we study these things together often times while we're studying and Googling and, and reading scriptures and such on the Fly sometimes because of something I have my fidget in my hand, and I'm Still rocking I'm sorry Phoenix says I'm making her dizzy because I'm rocking back and forth for those of you who want to watch live you can come join and see how much I do not sit still when I'm recording this. So please come and join us and we hope to talk as we go and I hope to see you again next week and we love you guys and be safe.

Welcome back to everyone except the person who killed their grandma! Just kidding all are welcome here. It's episode four and we're talking boyfriends that want to eat you alive, collecting corpses from the side of the road, and Googling 200 of the greatest gay bars in the world. Plus, Alyx hears the craziest thing she's maybe ever heard!!! Spoiler alert: that means it's PRETTY PRETTY CRAZY. Amen.  Thank you to our sponsors!  Function of Beauty - Go to Function of Beauty.com/alyx to take your Hair Goals quiz, and you'll save 25% on your first order. Manscaped - Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code SECRETS20 at Manscaped.com.  Apostrophe - go to Apostrophe.com/SECRETS and click Begin Visit, then use our code SECRETS at sign up and you'll get your first visit for only $5! Follow, rate and review Revealing Your Secrets The Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts! And remember, you're only as sick as your secrets…so share them with me! Go to https://kastmedia.com/secrets - that's Kast with a K - to leave a voicemail or fill out the anonymous submission form HERE- https://forms.gle/xvNWvk4w84FxmcC48 You can also leave us a voicemail directly HERE- https://www.speakpipe.com/revealingyoursecrets Follow Alyx: YouTube: https://youtube.com/ayydubs Instagram: https://instagram.com/ayydubs TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alyxweiss Twitter: https://twitter.com/ayydubs See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every once in a while the podcast drifts into the deep end of the pool where it takes a little bit of effort to stay afloat. If the catch is genuinely fresh, we relish the work. Our eyebrows are telltale indicators of our willingness to engage a conversational adventure (David has tested this on hundreds of flights to comedy gigs). Also, there's a Rule of 3s at work…unless you use the triple-ask as a way to get $50 from your friend. Our FC 2.0 takeaway? "Nothing matters; everything matters." Chomp on that with us.

If you have any further details about amazing tornado survival stories involving entire classrooms of children, please reach out to me. Googling has proven fruitless. - timp 9:20 - A Cavalcade of Wacky New Modes 19:30 - Making a New Mode 22:55 - Impossible Seed Discovered 24:50 - Making a New Mode Pt. 2 30:40 - AVIANART 2022 36:35 - Main Tourney Final 3 38:25 - Challenge Cup Final 4 39:35 - timp Mentors a Friend 43:20 - Bi-Weekly Seed: True Pot Hunt 45:50 - Review, Recs & Wrap-up AVIANART 2022 Asyncs | Rules Doc | Discord Main Tourney Schedule | Challonge Challenge Cup Schedule | Challonge Mentor Tournament 22 Schedule | Swiss Results Check out dwarvendynamite on Twitch Daaanty's Ped% on Dance Pads Full run | Moldorm Follow Us on Twitter | Join Our Discord to discuss the Bi-Weekly Seed Enjoy the show? Consider donating to GMP on Patreon or PayPal

Knowing where to find grant funding sources is so crazy important to win grant funds. But just Googling ‘grant funding' is not a good use of your time. In fact, you will go down a never-ending rabbit hole that will lead to a full-time potato chip obsession. Plus, you will waste your time. The other thing that is trying? ------------------------------------------------------ ✨

Joe, Matt, and Bobby are at it again. Doing deep dives on Hey Arnold, Latinx Nurses, and what Chris Benoit was Googling while murdering his family. Joe talks about the Supreme Court, Matt can't stop making puns, and Bobby tries to tell a story. Taylor Swift, Linkin Park, Ghislaine Maxwell. This episode has it all!

Just recently I've been binge-watching Stranger Things and I have a bit of a thing for David Harbour. On a Googling spree I discovered he's married to UK pop star Lily Allen. Of course from that point onward my Scorpio Moon and Mercury–Venus square Pluto went into overdrive delving into Lily and David's relationship, discovering lots about them both. A bit stalkery I guess. To ease my personal shame I decided to turn this crazy stalking into something productive by turning my thoughts into a podcast episode. To be fair, Lily Allen and David Harbour have some very interesting synastry, even when using the noon charts (which is all that's available). Have you seen Stranger Things and do you dig David Harbour like I do? Were you as shocked as I when you discovered he married Liliy Allen? Share your thoughts with me in the comments!   LINKS Lily Allen https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Lily_Allen David Harbour https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/David_Harbour Titanic Maiden Voyage https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Historic:_Titanic_Voyage  

In today's episode, we're re-broadcasting another episode from our previous podcast, How Things Grow.Our guest is Gina Gotthilf, co-founder at Latitud, a platform dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs and companies in Latin America. Prior to this, Gina worked as VP Marketing/Growth at Duolingo and worked as International Marketing, Growth and Community lead at Tumblr. In this episode, Gina talks about how she began her career in growth marketing despite having a degree in Philosophy and not a lot of quantitative skills. She describes how learnt a lot on the job through Googling and trying-things-out. She learned and grew her skills to a point where she was able ascend to a position and steer Duolingo's growth from 3 million installs to 200 million installs with very little paid marketing: Gina describes her journey in this episode. We talk about her start with Duolingo, how she drove international growth through PR, how she transitioned to product growth, some of the very unconventional product experiments and wins that drove widespread adoption for Duolingo - and much much more. KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Laura Hmelo Jawas, Ph.d joins B and Crystal to talk Local SEO from the solopreneur perspective.Laura is a pregnancy and postpartum personal trainer and birth doula who helps people stay strong and active during their pregnancy, have a powerful birthing experience, and recover afterwards.Laura has a PhD in oceanography and was a research scientist for two decades before pivoting to her current line of work.She shares her start with SEO when she couldn't find her business in a Google search.Laura defines SEO as the art of getting Google to serve you up in search results.To build domain authority, Laura writes long form content with keyword research.Laura's SEO process includes Googling the seed keyword and then looking at the related queries, people also ask, and Google suggestions. Follow Laura on Instagram: instagram.com/laurajawadfitnessVisit her website and blog: https://laurajawad.comB's linksWebsite: brittanyherzberg.comInstagram:Brittany's SEO cheat sheetCrystal's linksWebsites:crystalwaddell.com and collageandwood.comInstagramJasper.ai Start Your Shopify StoreSEO Writing MasterclassIf you make a purchase after visiting our links, we may receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!

Sean: But what about these SMEs, small to medium business owners? Maybe small business owners are mostly our listeners. What do you advise? Where do they start? They start with paid ads. Do they start with Facebook? Do they start with Instagram or a website? Farzad: There is a process I always recommend folks because I get a lot of people asking, Hey, that's worth my time for any business. It doesn't matter what you do, whether you sell t-shirts or you sell a software product or you are an SEO agency, doesn't matter. Whatever you do, put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer. Like, Who do I sell to? Here's my ideal customer as a person X, Y, or Z, and answer three questions. Question number one, is that person aware of the problem that you're solving? Are they actively looking for a solution to their problem? If the answer is yes, then take it a step forward. Like, okay, well, they're aware of their problem where they're looking for a solution. If the answer to that is they're googling about it, then it's almost idiotic not to focus on SEO because that's where your customers are hanging out. Now, let's imagine that you have a t-shirt company, you sell hoodies and t-shirts. Do people want t-shirts? Do that. Are they aware of the problem? Yes. We all wear t-shirts. Are they Googling about it? Most likely not. Right. So for a lifestyle company, like a t-shirt company, your best bet is probably Instagram or Facebook ads, and TV ads and whatnot. Now let's flip the script. Let's say you run a medical device company and sell very expensive hospital equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. So is your target audience aware of the problem-solving? Probably not, because they're running their business as they would. And you built a better mousetrap. So they don't even know that they would probably need a product like you. So you even want to stop the research process there and SEO just rolls it out, paid out. Just rule it out. Go ahead, hire salespeople, go the door to door to your hospitals, and start selling this thing to doctors and hospital administration. What I'm saying is there's a very simple check-in understanding of what your customer journey looks like and building your acquisition channel based on and parallel to that. So for us, for example, if you want a link-building solution, as an SEO agency, you're our target customer. Sean are you aware that you have a problem with your link building? Yes. We all need to do link building. We need to set up tools. Are you Googling about it? Yeah, probably. You're Googling about it to find out. What are some of the latest tools in the market? Now let's understand what are you Googling and go cater to that search. So if you go and look up link-building software now Respona should be in the top three. So what I'm trying to say is that it's a very simple process. So if you're new to digital marketing, it doesn't mean either one of these channels works better than another. It's entirely reliant on your business model and your acquisition strategy. - - - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/

The Falcon bumps into a giant tentacle monster with guest commentator Tim Barnes!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happened at airport security?  Sarah is a backseat dog walker  What did you get in your hair?   Big Debate: Aisle vs Window  Ronaldo car biggest work blunders  Love Rat: Mismatched Libidos   When did you put your foot in it?   Liam Silicone Story   What did you catch your kids Googling?   Forbidden Folder: Freemason   Ruined Proposals  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you digging into your savings, trying to find a way to fund your God-given vision? Are you spending hours on google searching for grants, only to find out you aren't eligible for most of them?  Well, it's time for you cut down on the hours you spend on google and create a revenue strategy using the Funding with foresight matrix.  The Funding with Foresight Matrix is for the visionary female founder, used to optimize the opportunities that are available for the growth of your business.    Save your time! Meet the deadlines! Get funded!  Here's how you can create a revenue strategy step by step  : 1: Tools you will need include:  > Laptop (The Funding with Foresight Matrix OR pull up your search bar if you'll be   Googling what opportunities are available in your Google Calendar)   > Planner  > Highlighters and a pen  > Your favorite tune, drink, set the tone and intention for this process  2: Access the category your business falls under OR the category you most identify with (minority, female-founded, women in tech, etc.)  3: Filter the matrix by the month you are forecasting for (August, September, etc.)  4: In your calendar, schedule your application deadline to be 2 days prior to the actual grant deadline. 5: Do this for the next 6 months of your business to fund your vision, grow your business, and expand your impact!    Get instant access to the only matrix focused on getting women in front of money that can help them grow their business!  Grow Your Vision through Funding > buffaloambitionco.com/fundyourvision

This week on  Sex & Violence with Rebel Girl, we talk to an American mixed martial artist who currently fights in the flyweight  division of the UFC. Sijara “Sarj” Eubanksholds a Blackbelt in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu and 7-7 mma record. An Invicta FC veteran who was also  a contestant on “The Ultimate Fighter 26.”'She's an openly gay athlete and member of the LGBTQ+ community. We talk about: 

If you've been thinking about signing up for a popular course or program, you've likely tried Googling around to see what you can learn about it. If all you're seeing is glowing reviews - particularly if the reviews all seem strikingly similar - you may not be getting a full picture. In today's episode, I share more about why you often can't/won't find any negative reviews for these types of programs online. If you're enjoying this episode, I also highly recommend listening to Episode 21: Questions to Ask Before you Buy a Program or Course. Helpful Links for Practitioners Monday Mentoring

I decided early on that I would cloth diaper my kids. Environmentally it just made sense to me. There is more information about cloth diapering on the internet than you could possibly consume. Which can make it feel incredibly daunting! So before you go Googling and thinking there's some magic bullet 100% right way to cloth diaper, know that there isn't. And, like so many things in life, at some point you just have to get started.In this episode I share how you can decide if cloth diapering is for you, what you should know before getting started, and how you can cloth diaper long-term successfully.  Some of the things I cover:The lowest cost are typically Prefolds. Fitted DiapersAll-in-Ones Once you have the cloth diapers, how do you use them?Cloth Diaper Trouble-ShootingDiaper rashBut remember: if they're leading to information overwhelm and therefore inaction on choosing a cloth diaper strategy, take a step back. The simpler the better.*****The Missing Pillar of Health Podcast is brought to you by Green at Home. Check out our other resources: Green Product Forum: https://facebook.com/groups/greenproductforum Instagram: https://instagram.com/emma_greenathome Website: https://greenathome.ca 

In 2005, Crysta Abelseth was raped and had a baby. In 2022, a judge granted full custody of that child to her rapist and ordered her to pay child support. While facing a possible post Roe V Wade era, is this the new normal? https://heavy.com/news/crysta-abelseth/ https://heavy.com/news/jeffrey-cashe/ https://heavy.com/news/john-barnes/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/investigative-unit-rape-victim-ordered-to-pay-her-abuser-child-support/?s=07&fbclid=IwAR2f66KL5gzfPeCe3MARP0HkoInUL6PgKq_m5SkINF5xutX7jIWLRrpOkcg https://www.wbrz.com/news/sheriff-admits-department-dropped-the-ball-after-nakamoto-report-on-startling-rape-case-investigation-turned-over-to-da-s-office/?s=07&fbclid=IwAR32dCqjpzaU917RpbWf9-1b5Oyf351KPyRX2hGMk0OZLSG_bhUq3AJRKUc WTF News Serial Killer Googling https://www.fij.ng/article/us-based-nigerian-murder-suspect-googled-how-to-be-a-serial-killer-before-disappearing/?fbclid=IwAR1wKVBjpUmEW_v9AMkHWQz4Una03CGW0abnHUzO3W_miqnxf0C0Fy2R2_U Crime Update Dee Dee Dodds https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/22/dodds-transgender-dc-killer-sentencing/?fbclid=IwAR3MPrVR-l2jfyu-8gIUS1ORioR-DYJlS1NHhFiacUbtAceEWJgj4C5l0EY SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd85RJRW6kn51aM2un6ButA/featured *Social Media Links* Facebook: www.facebook.com/truecrimeparanormalTPS Facebook Discussion Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/215774426330767 Website: https://www.truecrimeparanormalpodcast.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@truecrimeparanormal Our Latest Video: https://youtu.be/jpFL8LmF5u4 Check Out Some of Our Previous Uploads! Oculus Kidnapping, Drug Inspections, and Pants Full of Snakes https://youtu.be/AF209aoQeas Amy Todd Fleming, Burger King Robbery and Idaho's questionable management of executions https://youtu.be/n9hGlsN124A Michael Vaughn Is Out There Somewhere https://youtu.be/C7Cre3vQrok True Crime Paranormal on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5gIPqBHJLftbXdRgs1Bqm1 True Crime Paranormal on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-paranormal/id1525438711?ls=1 Kristi's Crystal Shop https://www.ehcrystals.com/

Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Dan * https://strangecurrencies.org/ * https://twitter.com/SCReviewsDan * Shepard * They are known as Earthnova in the Discord and has one published work: http://thelitmag.com/2021-edition/this-story-has-a-ghost-in-it/ Topics: * Only playing narrative/story-driven video games once * Sometimes life is like an adventure game, a skill or item that's useless when you get it is needed years later * Sleng Teng Riddim * https://www.engadget.com/2015-12-04-casio-and-the-sleng-teng-riddim.html * Here's an argument that the riff originated with David Bowie: https://axischemicals.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/david-bowie-digital-reggae-kingpin/ * Tyger! Tyger! by Robin Johnson * https://mobile.twitter.com/rdouglasjohnson/status/1517804673998237697 * The internet and college are two great tastes that taste terrible together. * The first time I beat my father at Scrabble * Explaining traffic jams, or at least this one traffic jam Microtopics: * Wanting to see all the stuff. * Replaying a series of four RPG length games to see the alternate endings. * Getting the most video game endings for your dollar. * Tenable and untenable ways to have an adventure. * Recapturing the magic of your first time (with emulators). * Getting every video game you wanted for a system and then enjoying that for 10 minutes. * A giant archive of every DOS game ever. * Losing your nostalgia for old games via emulation, but keeping your nostalgia for the box art. * Falling out of love with Windows Vista. * Keeping your custard pie intact until the yeti needs it. * The bread maker approach to learning a new skill. * Why there are no cupcakes in Frog Fractions 2. * Playing Go against someone better than you and suddenly losing. * The Go community rallying around the identity that computers can't beat the best Go players. * Whether computer Go has shaped the way humans play Go. * An extra creative extra special humany thing. * Beating a chess expert by convincing them to play something else. * John Henry's retirement plan. * Being promised a Yamaha DX7 but receiving a Casio MT-40 instead. * Writing a part for a rock and roll rhythm section that is accidentally a great reggae rhythm section. * The origins of the Amen Break. * Setting up a situation where you can write your own notes. * Figuring out where the genre can go with this new tonality. * Stripy guys and chonky units. * The best kind of tigers. (Floofers.) * Learning about slant rhymes one morning and that afternoon writing a poem that rhymes "eye" with "symmetry." * Blake hearing about the Great Vowel Shift from his grandpa and deciding that that would be a great way to make Tyger! Tyger! sound old timey. * Googling why Blake tried to rhyme "eye" with "symmetry" and finding dozens of implausible theories, all expressed with complete confidence. * Making an impression on the world of poetry by not being good at it. * Hipster throwbacks to the great vowel shift. * Calvin and Hobbes panoply of tiger poems. * Holding off on reading more Calvin and Hobbes tiger poems until you're done recording the podcast. * Not letting online schooling get in the way of your online education. * Whether someone will figure out how to do a college class online before we transition back to in-person classes. * Whether ASL is especially well suited to bring taught over Zoom. * Doing yard work and wearing protective equipment so you can't pull out your phone to check Twitter. * Lying down in court. * Realizing for the first time that your parents don't know everything. * A framed photo of the one time your mom won at Risk. * The one thing you and your dad are both interested in. * Sports montage of getting better at Scrabble. * Driving or better yet watching movies with cars in them. * Everybody slowing down to take a look at the two headed chicken. * Driving towards a shadow and being blinded by the sun to what's beyond the shadow. * A time loop where the car in front of you slows down for no reason and then you slow down for a good reason but the car behind you thinks you're slowing down for no reason. * A car driving on a road. * Stacking a bunch of human reaction speeds on top of each other. * Slot cars as a fun and disastrous solution to traffic. * The slot car model of public transit. * Finding everybody on the Discord.

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Paid subscribers receive thousands of extra words of content each month, plus all podcasts three days before free subscribers.WhoJoe Hession, CEO of Snow Partners, owners of Mountain Creek, Big Snow American Dream, Snowcloud, and Terrain Based LearningRecorded onJune 15, 2022About Mountain CreekLocated in: Vernon Township, New JerseyClosest neighboring ski areas: National Winter Activity Center, New Jersey (6 minutes); Mount Peter, New York (24 minutes); Campgaw, New Jersey (51 minutes); Big Snow American Dream (50 minutes)Pass affiliations: NoneBase elevation: 440 feetSummit elevation: 1,480 feetVertical drop: 1,040 feetSkiable Acres: 167Average annual snowfall: 65 inchesTrail count: 46Lift count: 9 (1 Cabriolet, 2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Mountain Creek’s lift fleet)About Big Snow American DreamLocated in: East Rutherford, New JerseyClosest neighboring ski areas: Campgaw, New Jersey (35 minutes); National Winter Activity Center, New Jersey (45 minutes); Mountain Creek, New Jersey (50 minutes); Mount Peter, New York (50 minutes)Pass affiliations: NoneVertical drop: 118 feetSkiable Acres: 4Average annual snowfall: 0 inchesTrail count: 4 (2 green, 1 blue, 1 black)Lift count: 4 (1 quad, 1 poma, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog’s of inventory of Big Snow American Dream’s lift fleet)Why I interviewed himTwenty-five years ago, Vail Resorts was known as “Vail Associates.” The company owned just two mountains: Vail and Beaver Creek, which are essentially right next door to each other in Eagle County, Colorado. The resorts were, as they are today, big, snowy, and fun. But they were not great businesses. Bankruptcy threatened. And the ski media – Skiing, Powder – was mostly dismissive. This was the dawn of the freeskiing era, and the cool kids were running the Circuit of Radness: Snowbird, Squaw, Mammoth, Jackson Hole, Whistler, the Powder Highway. Vail was for suburban dads from Michigan. Beaver Creek was for suburban dads from New York. If you wanted the good stuff, keep moving until you got to Crested Butte or Telluride. Vail was just another big Colorado ski resort, that happened to own another big Colorado ski resort, and that was it.Today, Vail is the largest ski company in history, with (soon to be) 41 resorts scattered across three continents. Its Epic Pass transformed and stabilized the industry. It is impossible to talk about modern lift-served North American skiing without talking about Vail Resorts.There was nothing inevitable about this. Pete Seibert, Vail’s founder, did not enter skiing with some snowy notion of Manifest Destiny. He just wanted to open a great ski resort. It was 18 years from Vail Mountain’s 1962 opening to the opening of Beaver Creek in 1980. It was nearly two more decades until Vail bought Keystone and Breck in 1997. It was 11 more years until the Epic Pass debuted, and a few more before anyone started to pay attention to it.What Snow Partners, led by Joe Hession, is doing right now has echoes of Vail 15 years ago. They are building something. Quietly. Steadily. Like trees growing in a forest. They rise slowly but suddenly they tower over everything.I’m not suggesting that Snow Partners will be the next Vail. That they will buy Revelstoke and Jackson Hole and Alta and launch the Ultimo Pass to compete with Epic and Ikon. What Snow Partners is building is different. Additive. It will likely be the best thing to ever happen to Vail or Alterra. Snow Partners is not digital cameras, here to crush Kodak. They are, rather, skiing’s Ben Franklin, who believed every community in America should have access to books via a lending library. In Snow Partners’ version of the future, every large city in America has access to skiing via an indoor snowdome.This will change everything. Everything. In profound ways that we can only now imagine. The engine of that change will be the tens of millions of potential new skiers that can wander into a Big Snow ski area, learn how to ski, and suddenly train their radar on the mountains. Texas has a population of around 29.5 million people. Florida has about 22 million. Georgia has around 11 million. Those 61.5 million people have zero in-state ski areas between them. They could soon have many. There are countless skiers living in these states now, of course, refugees from the North or people who grew up in ski families. But there are millions more who have never skied or even thought about it, but who would, given the option, at least try it as a novelty. And that novelty may become a hobby, and that hobby may become a lifestyle, and that lifestyle may become an obsession.As anyone reading this knows, there’s a pretty direct line between those first turns and the neverending lines rolling on repeat in your snow-obsessed brain. But you have to link those first couple turns. That’s hard. Most people never get there. And that’s where Big Snow, with its beginner zone loaded with instructors and sculpted terrain features – a system known as Terrain Based Learning – is so interesting. It not only gives people access to snow. It gives people a way to learn to love it, absent the broiling frustration of ropetows and ice and $500 private instructors. It’s a place that creates skiers.This – Big Snow, along with an industry-wide reorientation toward technology – is Hession’s vision. And it is impossible not to believe in his vision. Hession announces in this podcast that the company has secured funding to build multiple Big Snow ski areas within the foreseeable future. The combination of beginner-oriented slopes and simple, affordable packages has proven attractive even in New Jersey, where skiers have access to dozens of outdoor ski areas within a few hours’ drive. It makes money, and the business model is easily repeatable.Mountain Creek, where Hession began working as a parking lot attendant in his teens, is, he says, a passion project. The company is not buying anymore outdoor ski areas. But when Big Snows start minting new skiers by the thousands, and perhaps the millions, they may end up driving the most profound change to outdoor ski areas in decades.What we talked aboutThe nascent uphill scene at Mountain Creek; “most people don’t realize that this is what New Jersey looks like”; celebrating Big Snow’s re-opening; the three things everyone gets wrong about Big Snow; the night of the fire that closed the facility for seven months; how the fire started and what it damaged; three insurance companies walk into a bar…; why six weeks of work closed the facility for more than half a year; staying positive and mission-focused through multiple shutdowns at a historically troubled facility; New Jersey’s enormous diversity; skiing in Central Park?; “we’re creating a ski town culture in the Meadowlands in New Jersey”; everyone loves Big Snow; the story behind creating Big Snow’s beginner-focused business model; why most people don’t have fun skiing and snowboarding; the four kinds of fun; what makes skiing and snowboarding a lifestyle; what Hession got really wrong about lessons; the “haphazard” development of most ski areas; more Big Snows incoming; why Big Snow is a great business from a financial and expense point of view; looking to Top Golf for inspiration on scale and replicability; where we could see the next Big Snow; how many indoor ski domes could the United States handle?; what differentiates Big Snow from Alpine-X; whether future Big Snows will be standalone facilities or attached to larger malls; is American Dream Mall too big to fail?; finding salvation from school struggles as a parking lot attendant at Vernon Valley Great Gorge; Action Park; two future ski industry leaders working the rental shop; Intrawest kicks down the door and rearranges the world overnight; a “complicated” relationship with Mountain Creek; Intrawest’s rapid decline and the fate of Mountain Creek; leaving your dream job; ownership under Crystal Springs; how a three-week vacation will change your life; transforming Terrain Based Learning from a novelty to an empire; “I’ve been fascinated with how you go from working for a company to owning a company”; the far-flung but tightly bound ski industry and how Hession ended up running Big Snow; how much the Big Snow lease costs in a month; an Austin Powers moment; this is a technology company; an anti-kiosk position; the daily capacity of Mountain Creek; buying Mountain Creek; the art of operating a ski area; the biggest mistake most Mountain Creek operators have made; the bargain season pass as business cornerstone; “we were days away from Vail Resorts owning Mountain Creek today”; bankruptcy, Covid, and taking control of Mountain Creek and Big Snow in spite of it all; how much money Mountain Creek brings in in a year; “a lot of people don’t understand how hard it is to run a ski resort”; a monster chairlift project on the Vernon side of Mountain Creek; “a complicated relationship” with the oddest lift in the East ( the cabriolet) and what to do about it; “no one wants to take their skis on and off for a 1,000 feet of vertical”; which lift from Mountain Creek’s ancient past could make a comeback; bringing back the old Granite View and Route 80 trails; why expansion beyond the historic trail network is unlikely anytime soon; Creek’s huge natural snowmaking advantage; why no one at Mountain Creek “gives high-fives before the close of the season”; Hession is “absolutely” committed to stretching Creek’s season as long as possible; the biggest job of a ski resort in the summertime; the man who has blown snow at Mountain Creek for 52 years; whether Snow Operating would ever buy more outdoor ski resorts; “variation is evil”; the large ski resort that Hession tried to buy; “I don’t think anyone can run a massive network of resorts well”; an Applebee’s comparison; whether Mountain Creek or Big Snow could ever join a multi-mountain ski pass; why the M.A.X. Pass was a disaster for Mountain Creek; why Creek promotes the Epic and Ikon Passes on its social channels; changing your narrative; not a b******t mission statement; why the next decade in the ski industry may be the wildest yet; and the Joe P. Hession Foundation.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI’ll admit that it can be awfully hard to appreciate the potential of Big Snow from the point of view of the casual observer. For anyone living in the New York metro area, the place spent a decade and a half as a vacant laughingstock, a symbol of excess and arrogance, an absurdly expensive novelty that was built, it seemed, just to be torn down. As I wrote last year:On Sept. 29, 2004, a coalition of developers broke ground on a project then known as Meadowlands Xanadu. Built atop a New Jersey swamp and hard by Interstate 95, the garish collection of boxes and ramps with their Romper Room palette could be seen from the upper floors of Manhattan skyscrapers, marooned in their vast asphalt parking lot, an entertainment complex with no one to entertain.It sat empty for years. Crushed, in turn, by incompetence, cost overruns, the Great Recession, lawsuits, and funding issues, the building that would host America’s first indoor ski slope melted into an eternal limbo of ridicule and scorn.I didn’t think it would ever open, and I didn’t understand the point if it did. This is the Northeast – we have no shortage of skiing. At four acres on 160-foot vertical drop, this would instantly become the smallest ski area in nine states. Wow. What’s the next item in your master development plan: an indoor beach in Hawaii?But eventually Big Snow did open: 5,545 days after the center’s groundbreaking. And it was not what I thought it would be. As I wrote the month after it opened:For its potential to pull huge numbers of never-evers into the addictive and thrilling gravitational pull of Planet Ski, Big Snow may end up being the most important ski area on the continent. It is cheap. It is always open. It sits hard against the fourth busiest interstate in the country and is embedded into a metro population of 20 million that has outsized influence on national and global trends. Over the coming decades, this ugly oversized refrigerator may introduce millions of people to the sport.I wrote that on Jan. 13, 2020, two months before Covid would shutter the facility for 177 days. It had only been open 94 days when that happened. Then, 388 days after re-opening on Sept. 1, 2020, fire struck. It caused millions in damage and another 244-day closure. After endless negotiations with insurance companies, Big Snow American Dream finally re-opened last month.So now what? Will this place finally stabilize? What about the disastrous financial state of the mall around it, which has, according to The Wall Street Journal, missed payments on its municipal bonds? Will we see more Big Snows? Will Snow Operating bid on Jay Peak? Will we ever get a real chairlift on Vernon at Mountain Creek? With Big Snow rebooted and live (take three), it was time to focus on the future of Snow Operating. And oh man, buckle up.Questions I wish I’d askedI could have stopped Joe at any time and asked a hundred follow-up questions on any of the dozens of points he made. But there would have been no point in that. He knew what I wanted to discuss, and the narrative is compelling enough on its own, without my input.Why you should ski Mountain Creek and Big SnowBig SnowIf you’re approaching Big Snow from the point of view of a seasoned skier, I want to stop you right there: this is not indoor Aspen. And it’s not pretending to be. Big Snow is skiing’s version of Six Flags. It’s an amusement park. All are welcome, all can participate. It’s affordable. It’s orderly. It’s easy. And it has the potential to become the greatest generator of new skiers since the invention of snow.And that will especially be true if this thing scales in the way that Hession believes it will. Imagine this: you live in Houston. No one in your family skis and so you’ve never thought about skiing. You’ve never even seen snow. You can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to. It looks cold, uncomfortable, exotic as moonrocks, and about as accessible. You’re not a skier and you probably never will be.But, what if Big Snow sprouts out of the ground like a snowy rollercoaster? It’s close. It’s cheap. It could be fun. You and your buddies decide to check it out. Or you take someone there on a date. Or you take your kids there as a distraction. Your lift ticket is well under $100 and includes skis and boots and poles and bindings and a jacket and snowpants (but not, for some reason, gloves), and access to instructors in the Terrain Based Learning area, a series of humps and squiggly snow features that move rookies with the ground beneath them. You enter as a novice and you leave as a skier. You go back. Five or six more times. Then you’re Googling “best skiing USA” and buying an Epic Pass and booking flights for Denver.And if that’s not you, how about this scenario that I face all the time: nonskiers tell me they want to try skiing. Can I take them? Given my background, this would not seem like an irrational request. But I’m not sure where to start. With lift tickets, rentals, and lessons, they’re looking at $150 to $200, plus a long car ride in either direction, just to try something that is cold and frustrating and unpredictable. I’m sure as hell not teaching them. My imagination proves unequal to the request. We don’t go skiing.Big Snow changes that calculus. Solves it. Instantly. Even, as Joe suggests in our interview, in places where you wouldn’t expect it. Denver or Salt Lake City or Minneapolis or Boston. Places that already have plenty of skiing nearby. Why? Well, if you’re in Denver, a snowdome means you don’t have to deal with I-70 or $199 lift tickets or figuring out which of the 100 chairlifts in Summit County would best suite your first ski adventure. You just go to the snowdome.The potential multiplying effect on new skiers is even more substantial when you consider the fact that these things never close. Hession points out that, after decades of refinement and tweaking, Mountain Creek is now finally able to consistently offer 100-day seasons. And given the local weather patterns, that’s actually amazing. But Big Snow – in New Jersey or elsewhere – will be open 365 days per year. That’s three and a half seasons of Mountain Creek, every single year. Multiply that by 10 or 20 or 30 Big Snows, and suddenly the U.S. has far more skiers than anyone ever could have imagined.Mountain CreekThere exists in the Northeast a coterie of unimaginative blockheads who seem to measure their self-worth mostly by the mountains that they dislike. Hunter is a big target. So is Mount Snow. But perhaps no one takes more ridicule, however, than Mountain Creek, that swarming Jersey bump with the shaky financial history and almost total lack of natural snow. Everyone remembers Vernon Valley Great Gorge (as Mountain Creek was once known), and its adjacent summertime operation, the raucous and profoundly dysfunctional Action Park. Or they remember Intrawest leaving Creek at the altar. Or that one time they arrived at Creek at noon on Dec. 29 and couldn’t find a place to park and spent half the afternoon waiting in line to buy a bowl of tomato soup. Or whatever. Now, based on those long-ago notions, they toss insults about Creek in between their Facebook posts from the Jackson Hole tram line or downing vodka shots with their crew, who are called the Drinksmore Boyz or Powder Dogzz or the Legalizerz or some orther poorly spelled compound absurdity anchored in a profound misunderstanding of how impressed society is in general with the antics of men in their 20s.  Whatever. I am an unapologetic Mountain Creek fan. I’ve written why many times, but here’s a summary:First, it is close. From my Brooklyn apartment, I can be booting up in an hour and 15 minutes on a weekend morning. It is a bargain. My no-blackout pass for the 2019-20 season was $230. It is deceptively large, stretching two miles from Vernon to Bear Peaks along New Jersey state highway 94. Its just over thousand-foot vertical drop means the runs feel substantial. It has night skiing, making it possible to start my day at my Midtown Manhattan desk job and finish it hooking forty-mile-an-hour turns down a frozen mountainside. The place is quite beautiful. Really. A panorama of rolling hills and farmland stretches northwest off the summit. The snowmaking system is excellent. They opened on November 16 this year and closed on April 7 last season, a by-any-measure horrible winter with too many thaws and wave after wave of base-destroying rain. And, if you know the time and place to go, Mountain Creek can be a hell of a lot of fun, thanks to the grown-up chutes-and-ladders terrain of South Peak, an endless tiered sequence of launchpads, rollers and rails (OK, I don’t ski rails), that will send you caroming down the mountain like an amped-up teenager (I am more than twice as old as any teenager).I don’t have a whole lot to add to that. It’s my home mountain. After spending my first seven ski seasons tooling around Midwest bumps, the glory of having a thousand-footer that near to me will never fade. The place isn’t perfect, of course, and no one is trying to tell that story, including me, as you can see in the full write-up below, but when I only have two or three hours to ski, Creek is an amazing gift that I will never take for granted:Podcast notesHere are a few articles laying out bits of Hession’s history with Mountain Creek:New VP has worked at Creek since his teens – Advertiser-News South, Feb. 22, 2012Mountain Creek Enters Ski Season With New Majority Owner Snow Operating – Northjersey.com, Nov. 23, 2018I’ve written quite a bit about Big Snow and Mountain Creek over the years. Here are a couple of the feature stories:The Curse of Big Snow – Sept. 30, 2021The Most Important Ski Area in America – Jan. 13, 2020This is the fourth podcast I’ve hosted that was at least in part focused on Mountain Creek:Big Snow and Mountain Creek Vice President of Marketing & Sales Hugh Reynolds – March 3, 2020Hermitage Club General Manager Bill Benneyan, who was also a former president, COO, and general manager of Mountain Creek – Dec. 4, 2020Crystal Mountain, Washington President and CEO Frank DeBerry, who was also a former president, COO, and general manager of Mountain Creek – Oct. 22, 2021Here are podcasts I’ve recorded with other industry folks that Hession mentions during our interview:Vail Resorts Rocky Mountain Region Chief Operating Officer and Mountain Division Executive Vice President Bill Rock – June 14, 2022Mountain High and Dodge Ridge President and CEO Karl Kapuscinski - June 10, 2022Alpine-X CEO John Emery – Aug. 4, 2021Fairbank Group Chairman Brian Fairbank – Oct. 16, 2020Killington and Pico President and General Manager Mike Solimano – Oct. 13, 2019Here’s the trailer for HBO’s Class Action Park, the 2020 documentary profiling the old water park on the Mountain Creek (then Vernon Valley-Great Gorge) grounds:Hession mentioned a retired chairlift and retired trails that he’d like to bring back to Mountain Creek:What Hession referred to as “the Galactic Chair” is Lift 9 on the trailmap below, which is from 1989. This would load at the junction of present-day Upper Horizon and Red Fox, and terminate on the landing where the Sojourn Double and Granite Peak Quad currently come together (see current trailmap above). This would give novice skiers a route to lap gentle Osprey and Red Fox, rather than forcing them all onto Lower Horizon all the way back to the Cabriolet. I don’t need to tell any regular Creek skiers how significant this could be in taking pressure off the lower mountain at Vernon/North. Lower Horizon is fairly steep and narrow for a green run, and this could be a compelling alternative, especially if these skiers then had the option of downloading the Cabriolet.Hession also talked about bringing back a pair of intermediate runs. One is Granite View, which is trails 34 (Cop Out), 35 (Fritz’s Folly) and 33 (Rim Run) on Granite Peak below. The trail closed around 2005 or ’06, and bringing it back would restore a welcome alternative for lapping Granite Peak.The second trail that Hession referenced was Route 80 (trail 24 on the Vernon side, running beneath lift 8), which cuts through what is now condos and has been closed for decades. I didn’t even realize it was still there. Talks with the condo association have yielded progress, Hession tells me, and we could see the trail return, providing another connection between Granite and Vernon.Creek skiers are also still obsessed with Pipeline, the double-black visible looker’s right of the Granite lift on this 2015 trailmap:I did not ask Hession about this run because I’d asked Hugh Reynolds about it on the podcast two years ago, and he made it clear that Pipeline was retired and would be as long as he and Hession ran the place.Here are links to a few more items we mentioned in the podcast:The 2019 Vermont Digger article that lists Snow Operating as an interested party in the Jay Peak sale.We talked a bit about the M.A.X. Pass, a short-lived multi-mountain pass that immediately preceded (and was dissolved by), the Ikon Pass. Here’s a list of partner resorts on that pass. Skiers received five days at each, and could add the pass onto a season pass at any partner ski area. This was missing heavies like Jackson Hole, Aspen, and Taos, but it did include some ballers like Big Sky and Killington. Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, which includes Fernie and Kicking Horse and is now aligned with the Epic Pass, was a member, as were a few ski areas that have since eschewed any megapass membership: Whiteface, Gore, Belleayre, Wachusett, Alyeska, Mountain High, Lee Canyon, and Whitewater. Odd as that seems, I’m sure we’ll look back at some of today’s megapass coalitions with shock and longing.This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 19. Free subscribers got it on June 22. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 67/100 in 2022, and number 313 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe