Podcasts about hey tim

Chris and Joe are back for what originally was episode 18 of You Should Watch but has since been changed to episode 2 of Got That! The Podcast. It is the second episode of the new format and it seems to be going well. The guys talk Pandemic, the nightmare that is modern politics and the return of sports. They then go into a very well thought out discussion on bakery items. They wrap up the episode with their 4 recommendations. Hey Tim, if you see this, it's episode 18. Get it. 18. I mean it was but now it's episode 2 again.

In this interview Lisa talks to Dr Tim Ewer an integrated medical practitioner about his approach to medicine some of the complementary therapies he uses besides conventional allopathic medicine and what exciting research is happening around the world - they get into everything from laser therapy to light therapy to hyperbaric oxygen therapy and beyond.   Dr Tim concentrates on individual and personalised  patient care and combines the best of current western medical practices with evidence-based traditional and complementary medicines and practices. Integrative medicine takes into account the physical, psychological, social and spiritual wellbeing of the person with the aim of using the most appropriate and safe evidence-based treatments.   Lisa sees this integrated approach and open minded attitude that is constantly looking at the latest research and technologies and that focuses on the root causes and on optimal health rather than disease as being the way of the future. Dr Tim's Bio in brief  Dr Tim Ewer (MB ChB, MMedSc, MRCP, FRACP, FRNZCGP, DCH, DRCOG, Dip Occ Med, FACNEM) is vocationally qualified as a physician and general practitioner. Tim has been working as a specialist in integrative medicine for the last 30 years, before which he was a hospital physician for 10 years after gaining his medical degree and specialist qualifications in the UK.   Dr Tim's website  https://teora.co.nz/   We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:   For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com   For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/running/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.   Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/ measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home   For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit: https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetu-mindset-university/   Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds" Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information   ABOUT THE BOOK: When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn. She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying. This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy. Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine. This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.   Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book: "There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us." —Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening. "A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path." —Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.   Transcript of the Podcast:   Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits. The show that helps you reach your full potential with your host. Lisa Tamati brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:12) Well, hi everyone. And welcome back to pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you this week. I have dr. Tim Ewer, who has an integrated medical practitioner and physician who is based on the beautiful region of in the South Island of New Zealand. And Dr. Tim came to my attention because he has a really an amazing hyperbaric facility in this area. He used to work at the Christchurch hospitals and he's a hyperbaric trying to doctor he's also does a lot of complimentary and integrated medical approaches. So looking at everything from Eastern medicine through to, you know, acupuncture through to laser therapy. And in this conversation today, we have a good real in depth. Talk about where, you know, things are going some of the greatest and latest research and technologies that are coming on stream and some of the exciting developments and his approach to healing people and helping people. Speaker 2: (01:09) I just like to remind you, before I hand over to Dr. Tim my book relentless is now available in stores right throughout New Zealand. It's also available worldwide on Amazon, on audio books. It's in my website at lisatamati.com. I'd love you to go and check that out. And the book is titled relentless. And as the story of bringing my mum back after a mess of aneurysm and being told that she would never do anything again, and this was our journey back, it's a really insightful book that looks at the mindset of overcoming massive challenges. And I really love you to go and read that and to share that with your networks as well. Lastly, before I go, I'd like you to also follow me on Instagram. I'm quite active on Instagram and on my YouTube channel as well. Have over 600 videos on the YouTube channel and including a whole lot of my documentaries that I made from my beaches around the world. If you want to have a look at the YouTube channel that's just it just search for Lisa Tamati on YouTube, and that will come up and on Instagram, it's @lisatamati right now over to Dr. Tim Ewer and of the mapper health center in mapper. Speaker 2: (02:23) Well, hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show this week, I have a special guest, dr. Tim Ewer, Dr. Tim is sitting down and mapper and the views of DePaul sort of Nelson area. How you doing dr. Tim Speaker 3: (02:36) Very well. Thank you strangely a rainy day to day, but that's probably the rest of New Zealand a bit rainy. And normally it's always sunny here. Speaker 2: (02:46) Very sunny place. I was just saying I used to live down there for a few months when I was picking apples back in my young years, and it was hard work, but I'm very a beautiful area to live in. So yeah, you live in a piece of paradise doctor you are as an integrated medical professional and has a hyperbaric clinic down down that way. I don't want it to get dr. tim To talk to, I don't know if we have a doctor, Tim doctor, you are, what would you prefer? I've got to go back to share a little bit about the work that you do and talk about traumatic brain injury in particular as an area that is obviously my interest with my mum's story. So can you give us a little bit of background, your background and how you got into doing what you're doing and the integrative and hyperbaric side of things? Speaker 3: (03:41) Sure. I guess my story from that point of view, start it off. I'm originally from England. So I trained in England at one of the English universities. And even when I finished my training and I'd come out with distinctions and all of those sorts of things I thought there must be more to what medicine's about or what health is about. Let's say than what I have been told. And ever since then, I've been looking to find other ways to, to improve people's wellbeing. So I continued on with my specialist training became what's called a specialist physician. But at the same time, I would sneak off at weekends and go to the London college of acupuncture and learned acupuncture. And I learned medical hypnosis, and I ended up studying nutrition and some homeopathy and a variety of different things, including bioenergetic medicines over the years, of course I spent a bit of time working in hospital as a specialist. Speaker 3: (04:45) And that's actually where I came across hyperbaric medicine. That was in Christchurch where they had a big hospital. I was working in the hospital as a specialist and they had a big hyperbaric chamber there. So I spent seven years helping to run that we did it free and we spent our weekends or nighttime sometimes helping people with the Benz and carbon monoxide poisoning and all sorts of things like that. And at that point, I had a little bit of an existential crisis and decided that I wanted to leave the hospital side and develop my own integrative clinic, which I did. So we're going back 20 or more years now. Wow. And I moved up to this beautiful area and now in, and found a little place to work from and thought, well, if everything goes well, people will eventually just come to me and find me. Speaker 3: (05:35) And that's really what's happened. I started off way back then with just myself and a wonderful Mary receptionist. And now we have 23 staff and that part of the clinic so much so that I've now moved across the road to have a separate integrative clinic so that I can continue to just doing what I like to do with a couple of nurses and myself and two other integrative doctors and an integrative psychologist and these sort of people. So it was a matter of pulling things together over time to, to have a variety of options for people, a variety of it in a way of languages, how to understand disease and wellness. And what I've found over all of those years is that there isn't necessarily, as, as the great sages have often said, there's many paths to the top of the mountain. So it's a matter of finding the right one for each person versus a lot of Western medicine, which is very much scripted in terms of you have this diagnosis, you have this treatment versus you are this person with this variety of different things going on in your life. Speaker 3: (06:54) How can we find ways of getting either balance or detoxed or whatever needs to happen in that process to get it back towards house. Speaker 2: (07:06) So it's sort of looking more towards the root causes and, and as opposed to dealing just with symptoms and looking a little bit outside the box, did you, did you cop a lot of flack for that in the early days with, you know, coming from their sort of allopathic, conventional medicine world and, and looking then at things like acupuncture and you know, things that are outside of the, the standard box, if you like, has it been a difficult road or a in, have you seen that change over the last few years? Speaker 3: (07:42) It's a good question. I think originally I had to do it secretly and it wasn't approved and it was separate too. And I had to, I had to have two different lives as sort of Jekyll and Hyde components going on and you can decide, which is which out of mainstream or holistic. And so that was kind of difficult. But over the years what I found is if I started applying some of these techniques and people simply started getting better my colleagues would say, well, what are you doing? You know, what's, what's happening to those people that don't normally get better and now they're getting better. So that started me, gave me the opportunity to start talking about some of the things I did, but to be honest, while working in the hospital environment, it was quite difficult. So it wasn't until I moved up and started my own separate clinic that it gave me much more space, if you like to practice other things. However, I will say that the conservative elements of the mainstream still quite antagonistic to some of the things that we like to do in integrative medicine. And so there is that sense of walking along the brief tight wire, some of the times and having to basically practice really good medicine in a mainstream way, plus all the other things of both sides. Speaker 2: (09:17) Yeah. Being brilliant in both sides of that. So yeah, I, I mean, I th I see as a, someone who's come, not from a medical background but had a few issues along the way, shall we say, and going, okay, this isn't working, I'm going to look outside the box for myself. And having, you know, a couple of, with my mum, with myself with my brothers some very great success in, in looking outside the box. And I see a a massive movement of, of change and change in mentality now because we have access via the internet and the, and the stuff that we have available by a pub med and all those sort of great places where you can go and do your own research, that it's no longer completely controllable what what we do. And we can take ownership more, and we have the ability to take more ownership that we didn't have when we didn't have the internet and the ability to access great minds and great people and great research and the information that's coming out, you know, on a daily basis. Speaker 2: (10:25) I mean, no person on earth can stay up with it all. It's just so much. So if you wanting to do your own deep dive into a certain area, you can certainly find yourself down some very deep rabbit holes and becoming quite expert in a, in a, in a narrow field that you're trying to research. And do you see that in the people that are coming to you, that there is a shift in the people that are starting to come to you and say, Hey, I've seen this, I've heard about this, I've read about this as this something that's gonna help me. And people taking more ownership in that, in the, in the clientele that you sort of have, Speaker 3: (10:59) I think you're right. I mean, we're part of a informational revolution that's going on at the moment. I did say it's escalating all the time and it's growing and growing, which is a wonderful thing. Most of the time, it's the song, which is either contused or fake news, as they say. And I think being well-informed as the main thing, a lot of this, it is about helping a person become informed about what's going on. And so they can then take more control over themselves because they understand what it's about. And so that's the journey in a sense, it's helping to understand the person to some extent, walking in their shoes a wee bit to see, okay, what's going on? How can I put this together and express it back in a way where that person can make the right changes to bring about what they need to do? Speaker 3: (11:51) That's an edge, a very general of looking at it. Sometimes I had a great example this week of a person who came in a woman who was in her forties. She was well educated, but she had a whole selection of what, in Western medicine, we might consider the bizarre symptoms from neurological ones to skin, to all sorts of things. And she'd seen urologists and various people, and they'd all been scratching their heads about what's going on. She's obviously not, well, we can't put it together. But I said, look, why don't we, why don't we try a different language for this? And I then talked about the whole concept of low kidney energy and how it related to her tinnitus to her lack of mental agility to all sorts of components. And it's not to say it was just a way of bringing a whole raft of things together in a way that had a sense to it, rather than a sort of chaos, that, that chaos can be very unsettling and you don't know how to make sense. And particularly the experts can't make sense of it. Then you're kind of stuck with what the heck's going on. I might just going mad and, and she wasn't, she was just having a whole series of different things, which we could start bringing together under an umbrella of understanding. And even though we didn't have to use TCM as part of the treatment necessarily it gave it, she felt so much more at ease by the end of that, with an explanation that seemed to bring things together. Speaker 2: (13:36) Yeah. And it enabled her to maybe take a new approach to the way, say if you're getting disparate sort of information. Cause it was really hard when you're looking at sometimes your, your symptoms and then trying to go, well, where is this coming from? And what is it, you know? And it could be a myriad of things and trying to piece it together. You must have an incredible brain to be able to hold all of these, facets it without any sort of contradicting you know, dogmas even with an, in the knowledge that you have. Do you find that a bit of a juggling act at times, Speaker 3: (14:14) Strangely enough, not much. There are various possibilities for that. One is if you're into astrology, I'm a Gemini. I'm not a great, astrologist mind you, but there's two of me. And so we can talk to each other. I was brought up in a way where I, interestingly I don't want to get into my personal background particularly, but at one point I was went to a very expensive English school, but I actually stayed with my mother in a council house in a really poor area. So I went from one group of, in the morning to another one in the evening. Wow. And you had to talk the language of both. Yeah, yeah. To work it through. And I think that a sense of dance of life is good because it makes one, I'm able to cope with lots of different things at the same time, try and bring them together Speaker 2: (15:15) And being able to relate to people. It was, it wouldn't be a brilliant training and being able to be on every level and, and talk to people and communicate and, you know having this wealth of knowledge from all of these different disciplines and science areas, it must be very, you know, like to have that broad spectrum integrated approach. I think, you know, I wish there were more doctors available in New Zealand. There was, you know, we were starting to see more functional and integrated practitioners coming out and then you've got, you know, your, your whole health coach coaching in different areas. But it's a, it's a, certainly a changing world. And I'm hoping that there was going to be some change hopefully in the mainstream. Speaker 3: (16:02) Yeah. I mean, I've put up a little plugin and I may about those an organization called Amer the Australasian integrative medicine association, which is a mix of both doctors who do integrative medicine and also other health practitioners. And so on their websites, you can often get information about integrated doctors around New Zealand and Australia. Speaker 2: (16:25) Fabulous. That's a really good tip. I'll put that in the, in the show, Speaker 3: (16:30) Dub, dub, dub, amer.net.edu, but New Zealand. Speaker 2: (16:35) Okay. Well, we'll check that out. Cause you're getting in all sorts of lists of people. Now let's go a little bit into hyperbaric and I wanted to sort of touch on today. Some of the possible treatments for brain injury whether that's, you know, from stroke or traumatic brain injury or you know, concussions or aneurysms, in my case with mum your, your experience with hyperbaric in the, the medical grave facilities, I've had a mild hyperbaric chamber. My mum who might listen, sort of know my story with my mum. Four years ago, we had this disaster after three months in hospital, we've told, you know, put her in a, in a hospital level care facility and she'll never do anything again, she's major brain damage. I found hyperbaric on the internet and I managed to get a a commercial dive company that let me have access for a while. Speaker 2: (17:38) And then I had such success there that I ended up buying a mild hyperbaric chamber and installing it and out in their home and put her through she's had over 250 sessions now at 1.5 atmospheres that combined, and that, wasn't the only thing I did. And it ended up being an eight hour protocol every day that I sort of put together from pieces from functional neurology and nootropics and epigenetics and functional genomics and really diving deep for the last four years into the science and doing what I could, you know, it was either do everything I can or lose my mom. Those were the two options. So I was desperate to get her back. And on that journey, I've, I've hyperbaric is so powerful. His has so many things that it can be really good for. What, what are your experiences where that and the work that you did in the hospital and what it's actually recognized for versus what it overseas, perhaps as being used for two different things, aren't they, what's your take on that Speaker 3: (18:51) Sort of conventional set of indications for using hyperbaric? We still hospitals use we only have two hospital hyperbarics in New Zealand and one in Christchurch and one in Devonport which is really the Navy one rusty open hospital used us. Other than that, they're all private ones. So the hospital ones really is the history they came from. They came from a Navy based history for treating the bins really, or in the ancient days, you go back a hundred years, a case, some workers, which of the people that put in pylons for building bridges on the go of the water, they had to put the pylons in and they would get the bins and the bins. It was because when they came up, they were in pain and they were bent over because they were having gobbles coming out into their spine and their muscles. Speaker 3: (19:49) So yeah, the hospital based ones are really a very strict set of criteria. Like as I said, the bins various forms of severe infection, gangrene infections a few other conditions like carbon monoxide poisoning, possibly cyanide poisoning. But there limited number of conditions. It doesn't include brain injury. It doesn't include strokes. It doesn't include neurodegenerative diseases. It doesn't, Incruse clued fibromyalgia, a whole raft of things where we now realize there's reasonable evidence that it has some impact. One of the troubles with medicine is you'll know, is that it relies on this gold standard thing called a randomized controlled trial, where you have to do a very difficult process of having a placebo group and a treatment group. And for doing that, the hyperbaric is a nightmare because to try and have a treatment that isn't a treatment that looks like a treatment is quite hard. Speaker 3: (20:59) A lot of the work that's been done is kind of on the edge of how good it is. So most of the research we tend to see about is where we've used it lots of times and have said, ah, this seems to be working it's anecdotal it's case series. And there are some great researchers used, you'll know, like poor hearts in the States and so on. And to give some credit, the Russians have been doing it for much longer, but a lot of this stuff is unpublished. So there's a huge amount of volume of work going on around the world. And now one of the best units is in Israel. They've got some great work going on there. So, but these are the kind of these are the people going outside, the normal bubble of what's accepted as, okay. And yet they're getting good results as far as we can tell until you get that ask TT of gold standard, the conventional systems unlikely to change, that's the problem. Speaker 2: (22:02) And the, the having, you know, the randomized control trials is just not going to happen. And something like hyperbaric that hasn't got a patentable drug, realistically, the costs are too high aren't, they, Speaker 3: (22:14) It is high and there have been some trials, but they nearly always stop at 20 treatments. That that's the number that they stop at. Yeah. That's, it's kinda like I'm saying you've been on a drug per month and let's see how it's worked is it's kind of that way of thinking Speaker 2: (22:35) The genetic shifts happening, right. Speaker 3: (22:37) 200 hours of training as a whole lot of things that aren't going to happen in that time period, or they are, it's going to be fairly mild, not, not as far as you could. And as you know, one of things with the poor hearts researchers, he kept doing spec scans and checking up on patients and he found that they were still improving at 80 treatments, still improving. I mean, Hey, so we stop at 20 with our RCTs. It's not a great place to design. Is this working or not? Speaker 2: (23:08) And, and, you know, I mean, I know with, with mom I've yeah. Like I said, put her through 250, you know and I still continue to see improvements and I do it in blocks now, and then I give her a break from it. And it's in those breaks when you often get the next level of, of improvement. Speaker 3: (23:27) I think that is the epigenetic effect probably saying, Speaker 2: (23:32) Yeah. You know, to fix apparently 8,000 genes that can be influenced by these epigenetic shifts. And it's, it's, it's I like going to the gym, you know, I'm not going to go to the gym and then three weeks time out looking like taught. So they got, or, you know, it doesn't happen that quickly, but the NGO Genesis the inflammation, the STEM cell production, certainly at the higher or lower pressures they happen over time. Do you see also a benefit and stacking it for the ones who have a better word with other protocols? So, so other things like ozone therapy, for example, or P myth therapy or anything else that you find beneficial combining? Speaker 3: (24:23) I think, I mean, I would say yes in a, in a clinical sense of experience, but I couldn't say that there are trials with trials to say, like to have only one or two variables. They don't want to throw a whole lot in at once. You agreed, I would start probably with nutrition and there are a number of nutrients, which you know about that you can throw into the equation. I think as auxiliary treatments my particular interest at the moment is photobiomodulation, it's using laser treatment. Speaker 2: (24:56) Oh, I would be very interested to hear what you have to say about photos. Speaker 3: (25:01) So I think this to me is an up and coming thing. I've spent the last two or three summers going to a conference in Germany, a laser conference where some of the, the experts get together from around the world. And they talk about these things. I've also been to one in Australia last October. What, what we're now what we've known about. Okay. Let me tell the curve. Speaker 4: (25:28) Okay. Speaker 3: (25:30) Phases. We're not talking about cutting lasers, which are where you focus the beam to a point. So drill holes and things like James Bond. You know, that's not one of those, okay. We're talking about parallel, light photons. That is they're going side by side. So they're not drilling holes in you. And what happens with that? And there's a lot of great research, and this is where there's far more research out there than most people know about, because unless you're interested in this field, you don't go looking for it. I've got quite a big database now looking at all this stuff. And what we w one of the things that, that does, it does a whole rock to things a bit like hyperbaric. But it particularly affects the mitochondria because your mitochondria are the little components in every cell of your body, pretty well, that produces energy in terms of ATP and NADH as well. Speaker 3: (26:27) And those mitochondria, well, if we go back a little bit in time, those mitochondria, I actually what's called proteobacteria in the ancient of days, they were bacteria that had been incorporated into you carry out excels and also the cells, because they needed a bigger energy source. These provided the energy. So we became part of the place, if you see what I mean. So the interesting thing about mitochondria in their rules are what we call chromophores, which are proteins that react to light because that's how the bacteria actually got their energy originally, like plants. They were converting sunlight into energy. Okay. So how about how mitochondria respond to light at different frequencies? So different frequencies do dislike your different chemical reactions in the mitochondria. What so that's one little pack to hold onto it. And when that happens, a number of things happen. Speaker 3: (27:31) One, you get obviously the ability to produce a whole lot of repair mechanisms get stimulated energy mechanisms get stimulated. You turn off excessive inflammation, a whole lot of things you want to happen happen by getting your mitochondria to work properly. And in fact, one of the concerns that even about getting older and aging is that our mitochondria are not functioning properly, or we have less salt. It is the basis of aging really isn't it? Mitochondrial dysfunction, certainly one of the big, big keys. So different frequencies will do different stimulate different components. So we now know with lasers, we use different colored blazers to get different effects. However, the big problem is that if you try and print, since you use blue or yellow, the penetration is very small. So, but as you go towards red, you get more and more penetration. Speaker 3: (28:30) And what most of us now use is infrared. Infrared is the most penetrating of all colors. And what you can now do is, is get lasers that will penetrate right through bone, even through the skull, into the brain very effectively. I can give you a story if you want a story. It depends on what, what got me really interested in this area was another bit of serendipity where a number of years ago a patient in Oakland well, it's man in Oakland phoned me. I said, look, my wife has got this terrible thoracic vertebrae, vertebral abscess. So several vertebrae and unless she has continuous antibiotics she gets very unwell and in a lot of pain. And so she'd been on antibiotics for 18 months and every time she stopped it, it flared up badly to the point that they said, look, the only next thing we can do is do an operation where they go in through the past the lungs, through the anterior approach, which is to scoop out the dead material and pass and try and rebuild the spine, which is a dangerous operation horrific. Speaker 3: (29:53) And so the husband who was not an entrepreneur, he had did some research. He's a very bright guy and he came across hyperbaric oxygen. And so he found me because I, at the time was the only person with a high pressure, private hospitals refuse to do anything. That's fine. When in doubt we started treatment and we were part way through the treatment. And he came in to me and he said, Hey, Hey Tim, what do you know about lasers? And I said, well, not a lot, really. And it's developed, have you seen these papers? How power lasers at certain frequencies will kill bacteria, including staphylococcus, which she had. Wow. I thought, wow, that's interesting. And I read up on some papers and I then researched more and I came back to him a day or so later and say, Hey, look, you're right. This looks quite promising. Speaker 3: (30:50) He then said to me, okay, look, you find me the right laser. And I'll get it here in three days from anywhere in the world. I thought, wow, that's a good, I haven't been asked to do that before. So I found this one in the States, which was 25,000 U S wow. He had it there in three days. Boom. Wow. And we just started treating with both. And the long and the short is after two sets for treatments, she has been able to stop all her antibiotics and has stayed role for the last 18 months, two years while having any problem, it's amazing basically, and the MRIs improved and everything's, you know, there's new bone growth and so forth. So it just gave me that insight of, wow, there's so much information out there. Why didn't I know about it. So I got to know about it. Speaker 3: (31:42) I've been to these conferences. So now I'm starting to use a similar laser to the one he got just by the way, anyone who wants to get one, I found that his was actually made in China and I got it for a third, the price, what was it called? Because I'd love to have a look into that myself. Yeah. So it's a, it's a nice, it's a classical advisor. So you don't want to play there ladies as have class one to four and four is the most powerful, so you've got to be married. Yeah. So you've just got to be careful. Don't China in people's eyes and things like that. But anyway, so I've been using this for a number of different situations and there's some great research, randomized control trials of various things. One of them, which I found quite amazing is using it to depression, where they showed that if you did the left frontal area that in a randomized controlled trial, they improved similar to drug treatment. So there we go. Speaker 2: (32:46) Is that something looking at the vitamin D pathways or something like that? Or is it, Speaker 3: (32:53) I don't think so. No. I think it's a separate effect on we know from, in terms of depression also that often it's, so their frontal area on a QEG that's the main area, or if you do a functional MRI. And so it's just that, that was the area of this one to work on, to improve its functioning. So the thing with the laser is it's simply trying to restore a normal cell function as best it can. Speaker 2: (33:18) Is that laser available? Like, can you as a nonmedical professional get one of these, I mean, this gentlemen Speaker 3: (33:27) Far Mark Palmer exciting because a lot of this work's been done with the sort of laser that I would have the cost for, but then I'm realizing that low level laser treatment, L L T low level laser treatment, which is class three, but even on art seems to work. And what, when I say that, believe it or not is that this is something that's in the usually 50 to 500 milliwatt versus I'm using 15 Watts or 15,000 milli Watts. So what we initially thought is Hey, how can that possibly get through the skin, the underlying tissue, the skull, and into the brain and that level of power. It just didn't make sense. And yet the trials showed that it does. And what we now realize is that the skull, when you look at it with very high powered electron microscopes sections actually has this lattice works of tubules going through it, which the light can probably pass through. Wow. Because otherwise it just didn't make sense that something could hit this solid bone and still get through when, if you did it on the, on something similar thickness without those channels, it wouldn't so that, but anyway, so low level lasers are looking very good at the moment and they're much cheaper and much easier to use different ones. Speaker 2: (35:06) Yeah. I've got I've I've got two from via light. The 16, yes. I've got the two ones that go up up the nostril at the nasal ones at the, what is it? The eight, eight 55 or something in him. Speaker 3: (35:21) That's the nanometers. So that's the actual wavelengths of which is infrared. But then they piggyback onto that they what they call modulator. So that I think the one I've got the neuro one as well, which is still the 40 Hertz one. I haven't got that one, but 10 Hertz one. Yeah. That's the one that goes across the skull. Is it doing that? It's the actual, so what, this gets much more kind of exciting in a way, from my point of view, if you get, if you're excited by tech technical things, is that they, the wavelength of the infrared, which is the 800 to 800 to a thousand nanometers, roughly yes. Infrared that wavelength is what is going through into, in this case, the brain what you can do is you can pulse that process and that then becomes a frequency that's received by the tissue. Speaker 3: (36:24) So to some extent, the wave length going in is doing one set of things. And then on top of that, you can what I call piggyback, but the correct name is modulating the, so that you get a frequency, which has different effects. Now I'll give you an example a year or two ago a patient who was a local barista fell off his mountain bike and did the usual over the handlebars, hit his head, got concussed and tried to go back to work, but he is it problem with it. He had a cognitive deficit where he couldn't tolerate much noise people or anything, as soon as there was a lot going on his brain sort of short circuited, he couldn't think. And as a barista, that didn't work, he couldn't interact with people. So he had to stop working and this went on for months and he wasn't recovering. Speaker 3: (37:24) So he came to steamy and I said, look, okay, we'll use the laser. And we did a few sessions without obviously much improvement at what we call a continuous rate where it's just the infrared process. But then I looked at some of the research and I thought, what I can do on my laser, I can actually put in any frequency I want, I can change it. It's a sort of fairly clever one. And I, so I put it at 10 Hertz frequency that session from then onwards, he just got better and better and better and went back to work and he knew it the next day. He'd said, look, I'm so much better just from that one session once we did the 10 Hertz. So what we're understanding now, there's a lot of research going on around the world here. The guy cut in the States called Michael Hamblin. Speaker 3: (38:15) Who's one of the sort of gurus of this, but also in Australia and in Tasmania, interesting enough, they're doing a whole load of research. Look at these frequencies, looking at what's bears, looking at what how much you need and what they're finding. It's a little bit like hyperbaric. When I started doing hyperbaric, we used very high pressure as well, partly because we're treating divers, but a lot of the therapy was based on two to 2.4 atmospheres treatment and everything, as you know, what, what requirement is actually, some of the lower pressures are better for certain situations restore brain function. And they're finding that with the lasers, you don't necessarily have to hammer it in hard with a very high level. It's more of about the subtleties of the right frequencies, the right dose, the right evidencing. So this is where a lot of work's going on. I don't think we've got all the answers by a long way, but I think it's a very exciting field risk, low risk, you know, very low risk. What we do know about, as you're saying these lays, this sort of laser is pretty well without risk providing you don't look at it. And with the sort of laser I've got that if you hold it in one place, it gets too hot. So there's a heat element. Whereas the low level that doesn't happen, they using led lights now instead of laser. So Speaker 2: (39:43) I saw one just yesterday when I was doing some research on tinnitus I've forgotten the name of it, Luma meat or something like that. Laser therapy that they're doing the doctor in Australia was doing it for the inner ear to regenerate the hears on the inner ear to help, you know, tonight as suburb sufferers and his disease suffers. And then we're getting lots of success with that. And I certainly, you know, when I heard about it and did some, some research on it for mum, I think it's been a part of her recovery as well. I only had internet-based the nasal ones and I had one at the 600, the 600 in him and the other one at the eight, eight 50. But I'd like to look into this more. It seems to be a lot going on around frequencies general, whether it's light frequencies or PEMF pulsed electromagnetic field. Do you know anything about the PE EMF at all? Speaker 3: (40:42) Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really exciting area. It's it's, to some extent it started off with someone called Royal rife in the, in the States. Do you know, do you know about him? He's a, he was a doctor back in the 1930s, forties, fifties. It was really quite a brilliant doctor, but actually ended up in a sad situation because, well, I'll come to that. So he started looking at how frequencies could be used in medicine. And what he found is that by using, he had a cathode Ray tube in those days to produce them. And he also developed at the time, the most powerful microscope light microscope that existed a very intricate complex microscope that allowed him to look at cells while they're alive. What's called dark microscopy, which was very new at the time. Speaker 3: (41:43) And what it could do is look at cells and then the mom with his catheter, gray different frequencies and see what happened to them. And what he found is that he retained some frequencies and see different things. So he kept saying, you know, if you're trying to kill this by this seems to be the right frequency or this cancer, this frequency seems to be the right frequency and did a of research over a years and started getting some really quite astounding success with these patients. And a number of his close friends started their colleagues. We started using similar instruments and again, started doing very well until the FDA got winded at all. And they came in and Congress skated every part of his equipment that he had, and he was left in ruins. But and yet there's a huge amount of information left behind about what he was doing. And so a lot of the ideas of different frequencies for different illnesses came from his early work. Speaker 2: (42:49) That's right. I do remember that story now. And there is a few of his machines that have been Speaker 3: (42:54) Absolutely. So there are some original ones possibly when they say original, it's really hard to know because we don't know really what the regional ones, cause there's some sort of stronghold by the FDA got rid of them, but there's also some very modern versions of them now, which are computerized, which obviously he couldn't do. But so just to say that I think the electromagnetic field concept I mean, we're, we're in a very low electromagnetic field when we're not around other gadgetry and we're inside the field of the earth, which, you know, the Schumann frequency, which are an important frequency that have been there since, you know, we evolved. So they are part of our evolution. So they're part of what is normal for us. And so those frequencies are quite important frequencies. When we start coming in with very set frequencies, like 50 Hertz for electricity and all these other things, we're actually interfering with a whole normal ability to stay in homeo homeostasis, to some extent. Speaker 2: (44:06) And this is where, yeah, the EMF side of the argument, or, you know, the, the problems that we're possibly facing with, with CMS, it's from all our devices and 5g coming, goodness knows what's X gonna do. And PEMF is very different though. It's using the right frequencies Speaker 3: (44:24) That's and it's also using the therapeutic way. And by and large, in, in at a low level, rather than a level, you don't necessarily, again, have to use these massive magnetic fields to get the effect that you want. You can use really very subtle ones. Speaker 2: (44:39) And again, it's working on the mitochondria, I believe from the research that I've done, it's actually having an effect on the mitochondrial health and function. And I, I just, I wish we had a, I wish everybody could have access to a place where we had all of these things lined up next to each other and, you know, the ones that are lower risk at least that we could all, you know, be able to use without huge costs involved in a utopia, perhaps something like that. Yeah. Speaker 3: (45:08) I think we're moving a little bit towards that and I expect, and maybe on another occasion, I'll talk about sound therapy and how the that's another component of frequency, but I, I agree you can use to CS, which is cranial electric stimulation very simple devices like the alpha STEM, very expensive, what it is that almost immediately induces a sleepy, relaxed state. Speaker 2: (45:40) Yes. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be in that one too. So yes, Speaker 3: (45:46) It's kind of bizarre that you can just put two clips. I kept on each year and start the machine. And within minutes you're feeling drowsy and very relaxed, Speaker 2: (45:57) But it's mentioned and Ben Greenfield, he's a famous biohacker and trainer out of the States and his new book boundless, which is quite an amazing book. It's got, you know, everything known to man, and then he mentions the CES and using that to, to go to sleep every night and how it's improved as her sleep. So there's just so much things that are coming. And I, and I find it really exciting if we can integrate the traditional medical model with some of these like you are doing. And it's a really exciting thing for me. And I just wish we had more access for more people. It is, you see, before I don't need any promotion because I have so many people wanting to come to me and I can, I can truly believe that because there's such a need out there. Speaker 3: (46:49) The wonderful, unfortunately there are a few old phrases in medicine. One is that medicine changes coding. When the previous generation dies. It tends to prove slowly Speaker 2: (47:04) It's hard, Speaker 3: (47:07) People vote with their feet. And I think that's what we're seeing. A lot of people are actually saying, I don't want this. I want that. Rather than just accepting what's there, that's very healthy on the whole saying, okay, I'm, I'm getting quite informed about what I think I need. I just need someone to guide me through that process and if necessary me with some of the resources. And so I think that's a very important thing. And I think by and large, it is being embraced a bit in general practice to some extent, but probably less so as you move up the ladder into secondary and tertiary care, which is a kind of specialist areas, Speaker 2: (47:48) And this is why I think it's important that you know, where, you know, want to be in the preventative space where possible, so that we, you know, are looking at things before it gets to the point where everything's taken out of your control, because you're now in the intensive care or in the hospital, some where it's actually impossible to get any of these things. And it's important that we take control and ownership. And this is what the show is really all about is, is educating people about the things that are out there and the things that they can do their own research is it's a curation. If you like of information from brilliant minds in different areas, so that we can have, these can have these conversations and open up these discussions so that we can start to realize that there is more than just a pharmaceutical model or a surgical model, which is mostly what we were offered. I mean, those are very important and very good, but Speaker 3: (48:44) Yeah, they're largely the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. To some extent they have much more difficulty dealing with chronic longterm problems. They're good for the acute and the end, if, you know, if I break my leg, I'm going straight to the hospital. Speaker 2: (49:00) Yeah. Yeah. And then you might come home and do a hyperbaric session on the way home. Speaker 3: (49:07) Most of my I'd live in it. Speaker 2: (49:09) Exactly. I would tell you if I have one that you've got, that's brilliant. Just coming back to hormone sorry. I wanted to talk about hormones in relation to brain injury. Is there something you're seeing yes, under diagnosed often with traumatic brain injuries, especially Speaker 3: (49:28) A very interesting point. You bring up in time. I should I have a whole presentation on all of this, but one of the papers I'm just kind of going to, Speaker 2: (49:38) I have to get you back on to, to take us through the whole presentation. Speaker 3: (49:43) Okay. So this is, I'm just reading from my slide now, the prevalence of hypo pituitary ism. So you put your three glands just behind your eyes and produce several homelands in mild, moderate, and severe brain injury was estimated at 16.8% for mild. So that's nearly 17% interesting, only 10.9 for moderate and 35% for severe TBI. But what that saying is that people can have interference with some of their hormone production or a relatively mild event. TBI is common. We now realize one of the big things that's only recently kind of come to is how frequent TBI and what we call MTBI mild, traumatic brain injury, and eh, from sports through to domestic violence, through to all sorts of things where people are getting minor injuries all the time. When I say all the time, several in a row or within a period of time. Speaker 3: (50:49) And it can be that I had a sort of patient just this week, for instance, had come up from Christchurch to see me who had had an injury a year ago, where he had walked into a metal bar, cause he was looking the wrong way and wasn't actually knocked out. Then when I started talking about it, he said, Oh, well, yeah. And the previous year I did that. And then I fell over and hit my head, did that. And before that, and we had this whole series of minor traumatic brain injuries, and this was a store on the camel's back because since his last one he's hardly been able to work. He can't concentrate all these things that are familiar to us with MTBI. And so it's often that kind of background of quite a few, and then something knocks you out when they're not bad words, but something pushes you over the edge. Speaker 2: (51:42) And then you start to have, well, actually a year, we he's had some consult consults with me as well. And I've it, it, I think people think that they have to have her knocked out, had a major car accident before anything is actually a real problem or if they had it. So in the case of my brother who was a professional rugby player some of the things that I'm seeing in him now, and I have permission to talk about us information are signs to me of a delayed response to brain injury and, you know, helping him work through all of those, but often you, you won't know that it was the thing that you did 10 years ago, perhaps that can still be affecting your brain or that your personality has changed because of a brain injury or your energy levels, your hormones and so on. And this is why it's really important. Speaker 3: (52:42) And I'd also add in there that that store on the camel's back of that minor injury may actually be because there are other things going on, like other toxins, whether they're heavy metals are related to what you're working and so forth. So there can be a variety of other things that was sitting there in the background and until really challenged, didn't seem to have a problem with them yet when you're challenged, you do, and you then have to deal with those as well, come right through a detox process quite often to deal with some of the oldest. Well, some of the background stuff I should say. Speaker 2: (53:26) Yeah. And so, you know, looking at like with brain injury and optimizing brain health, we need to be looking at foundational health issues as well as okay. For the fancier things like the hyperbaric and the laser and all of those, the hormone assessment and, and starting to, to educate people around, you know, systemic inflammation and the job of mitochondria and all of these aspects, which heavy metal detoxing, which is something that we should all probably be interested in. And then layering on top of it. Some of these other therapies and that multipronged approach is something that I think has been the reason that I think I've been successful with mom is that having those, those layers and then continuing to look, what is the next thing, what is the next area that I can explore to bring the next but back? And as you say, it can build on each other. And as we get older, we build more toxicity in our body from metals. Most of us have got some sort of, Speaker 3: (54:27) We don't have history. Speaker 2: (54:29) We do, and we collect it and then it starts to it's that bucket there's that we sort of manage it to here and then it overflows and then it's all sorts coming out. So let's, you know, being in that preventative mindset of, okay, I'm going to help my body detox before I perhaps get something else happen to me. You know, it can be a good, a good way of looking at it. W we've covered a whole lot of areas everywhere. Just one last question for me, an area that I'm interested in, I've just got a new kit, new ozone therapy kit. What's your take on ozone? This is something I've just been getting into the last couple of weeks and researching is it, you know, like it seems to have some of the same benefits as hyperbaric in, in a way a different process and delivery, but it seems to be quite similar in some aspects. Have you had any experience with those on, at all Speaker 3: (55:30) A bit? I'm not an expert on it, so I'll say that, but I've read a fair amount on it. And I have a colleague working for my clinic now who has a perfusion equipment, which kind of topics I think like many things, it's a double edged sword. So people, first of all, must never have agree. Those are toxic to the lungs. So the idea that, Oh, I'll just get a kit and breed. Some is the completely wrong thing to do. So it has to be introduced into the body. And that's where we run into problems. First of all, because you can put it in through various artifices yep. Other than the breathing one. And that makes it plain or it can be given and it can be given intravenously in two ways. One literally as a bonus ozone, which is somewhat, could be risky. Speaker 3: (56:36) And although those that use it say that it isn't or you can take some blood off, mix it with Arizona and reproduce it, which is the one in Germany has been done for many years now. So there's quite a lot of research from them about its use. And I think it, it has a definite role as a, as a strong antiseptic for the staff. So in terms of killing bugs within the organism it probably has an anti cancer component. The problem with when we say probably is actually getting the research done. So again, this is more anecdotal evidence but it, it has a way of re oxygen icing, very similar, I think, to hyperbaric, but also sterilizing as well, which is slightly different from hyperbaric to barricade. It has to be an anaerobic bug for that to work. So I think it does have some definite roles. I think if you're doing your run, you you're talking, it's going to be very careful Speaker 2: (57:46) The home therapy. Yeah. That's ear insufflation and rectal insufflation cupping, that type of thing. But yes. Yeah, I think, I think it's a good thing to have a few obviously need to be taught and doing some training in it this week how to, how to use it safely. Definitely don't want it anywhere near your lungs. But it, it, that dangerous side, as far as the lungs is concerned, a very good thing to have as a basic first aid for any infection that you get, you know, speak Corona even maybe they are looking into the research at the moment is if it can help with the coronavirus. And I've got a dr. Rowan coming on my show next week, who's one of the world's top experts and ozone therapies are really excited. He actually went to Africa and the Ebola crisis got shut down, unfortunately by, shall we say the mafia somewhere over the, there, when he was treating patients and treating in training the doctors and it, but it is a very, it seems to have a lot of research over a long period of time. Speaker 2: (58:56) And again I think a very interesting one to do more research on yourself and to maybe add into the, to the, to the list of things that you can do. Speaker 3: (59:08) I definitely think so. And of course, you know, for me, I would be probably if I was concerned about personally concerned about Kobe, be using high dose intravenous vitamin C, which we do here anyway. So that's part of the same. But you brought up than I did. One of the research the Germans had done in Africa on malaria was using one of the blue lasers intravenously or into the vein while taking one of the B vitamins, which so this is using PDT, which is photo dynamic therapy. So photo meaning the laser dynamic, meaning you give something which sensitizes, whatever the target is to the laser in this case, it's the bacteria, or at least in his, but it's actually the malaria parasite I should say. And they showed very definite success with doing this wow light and the vitamin B irradiation. Speaker 3: (01:00:18) I think they call that. Yeah, there's UV radiation too. So this is a this is using PDT, which is similar, but using, for instance, one of the things that I've been working with is PDT here, where we use the infrared laser with the sensitizing agent, which is called InDesign and green. It's a green dye that they eye specialists use to look at the back of your eye and cancer cells taken up preferentially to normal cells and hold on to it. Whereas normal cells pass it through within 30 minutes. Wow. So what you do is you give this an hour or two before your treatment and then shine the laser light at the cancer. And I've had one remarkable disappearance of a cancer just doing that. So again, for everybody, before I get too many times, this is an area of interest and it's cool PDT photo dynamics. Speaker 3: (01:01:25) So using light with an agent that don't and I also use an ultrasound machine and the thing that sensitizes you to Roxanne is curcumin. So and using ultrasound and because Tim was hold onto it for a long time, you can use that to, Hmm, goodness. Isn't that funny? That's without me now, they won't go SPD T so no photodynamic therapy, right? I'm going to have to look at that one. Now this is experimental. So it's research stuff. So that's not something that's out there for everyone to go and get it's something being looked at around the world. There's a huge amount of research going on in medical circles and sciences to find the right agents, the lights frequencies and so forth, but a promising area using nanotechnology to deliver the sensitizer to the cancer as well. There's a lot of very fancy stuff going on. Speaker 2: (01:02:34) Wow. This is very exciting. Well, I think we've covered a lot of ground today. Heaven. We thank you so much, dr. Tome. I really appreciate your time. And the fact that you, we, you know, we have such a great doctor in our midst and who is looking at all of these very exciting areas and integrating knowledge from all areas and having such an open approach to it. I think that's absolutely brilliant. I wish you were bit more local. It would be good. I would love to have you again on the show to talk about, maybe do a presentation and the, the the information that you were talking about the just earlier at some stage when you have time, but I'm super appreciative of your time. Did I know that you're an extremely busy man? Is there anything that you would like to say to wrap up the show or any, any final words? Speaker 3: (01:03:28) I think just I'd support the whole idea of, of integrative medicine as a. And I think that can involve a whole load of different health practitioners working together to get that model by the way, rather than just one person as the way forward to the future for getting, not just from disease to some degree of wellness, but getting to full wellbeing, the next layer up. And I think that's really where we're heading and a lot of ways through lifestyle, you know, diet, all of these different things. And to me, like you've been talking about today, what excites me particularly is the idea of using light color sound and vibration as part of that journey. I think it's fascinating. I think we're only partway there. We haven't mentioned sound yet. That's another whole area, so there's some interesting things going on to try to make that happen. Speaker 2: (01:04:21) Very exciting times ahead. I can't wait for a little bit more research to happen and to make it more less expensive in more doable for people so that they can actually get up. Dr. Tim, thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it. And we hope to, Hey, hope to have you on again soon. Speaker 1: (01:04:42) That's it this week for pushing the limits, be sure to write review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Gather round the virtual campfire where fellow listeners and bike tourists join together to give all their reasons to say, thanks bicycle touring! Pedalshift Live Coming in December... Saturday 12/7 3pm EST! New tour reveal, revisiting cycling WNY and an AMA! See you in March! I'll be presenting at the 2020 National Bike Summit! Details to come, but looking to do a meetup if listeners will be in DC.  Thanks Bicycle Touring   Hi Tim, this is Vince Greco from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I hope this isn't too late to get into U. I know it's a day after the deadline but one of the share what I'm thankful for that bicycle touring. I am thankful for all the places and the distance that bicycle touring can take me, but this year in particular. I am thankful for a beautiful fall Gap ride with motion decent, although colder than I expected whether it was nice to see the Gap in a different season, cuz usually I end up writing in the spring or early summer, but I'm also very thankful for your podcast. Actually. I ended up adding the entire Montour Trail into my ride. In fact, I did a loop. I started in Cumberland went out to Pittsburgh on tour and came back to Cumberland again, but I heard about riding the Montour from your podcast and how to do that. So just wanted to say thanks.       Hey Tim, Brian Benton a long time listener and the podcast I think I haven't missed any episodes. So my my thankful thing I would say I'm thankful for the opportunity. I had this year off, you know and Gap trail with my son. He graduated with his PHD in physical therapy in May and then the Stars aligned we were able to do an eight-day Bike Tour since I'm a teacher. I had this summer off and he hadn't started his job yet. He isn't a cyclist but he was an incredibly excellent shape from playing college level Ultimate Frisbee on his biggest complaint on the trip was his butt hurt em, I think we can all relate to that and one of the best memories I have from the trip was standing at a waterfall on the gap for 30 minutes and neither of us felt the need to talk. I don't know if we'll ever get to do this again ever, but that makes this just an extra special trip. So I say thanks Tim for the motivation to do the CNO and GAP Trails. I have a memory with my son that I'll never forget dead. Thursday for the podcast    We don’t celebrate thanksgiving where I’m from (New Zealand), but practicing thankfulness is always nice so I thought I’d join in.    I’m thankful for the friendly and helpful people I’ve met through cycling. My local bike shop has been really great with helping me understand basic bike maintenance, and what I do and don’t need. I’m also thankful for the cool bike activist people in my area that I’ve met recently. They campaign for better cycling infrastructure, lawmaking, and driver/biker education, and I feel lucky to have made some awesome new friends. (Rory in New Zealand)     I have a kind of strange thing I give thanks for. I like to listen to audiobooks when on long rides; what I've found is that books, or sections of books, get linked in my mind to the places I was riding while listening to them. For instance last spring I rode down from Astoria (re)listening to mostly Robert Heinlein books. I was on a book called Friday in southern Oregon and I can't think of the Seven Devils without thinking of that book too. (Ray)     I think my reflections are like my fellow travelers.  Reflections of kindness, beauty, making friends, overcoming challenges and exploration fill the bicycle travelers' "carts."  I'm no different.   As a photographer I have always loved sharing (marketing) images of what I see around me.  One of my favorite slogans is "seeing is believing."  So many people in our face-paced society never or seldom take the time to SEE the world around them.     Seeing is much easier when you travel by bicycle.   You can actually choose to SEE and to capture a moment that is in front of you.  Sharing images are easy in today's world, so now everyone can enjoy it ~ not just you.     The opportunity to SEE is my favorite thing about bicycle travel.  SEEing never lets you down ~ it makes memories forever! (Keith)     I guess I'm thankful for buying an e-bike. It's kind of reinvigorated by love bicycling. I love riding it and it's just it's just the best thing it's kind of heavy, but it it gets the job done. It's a tract verb plus and got a good deal on it, and I put the 700 Mi on it since Memorial Day. (Mark)     I’m thankful for all of the great people I’ve met through biking. You won’t meet better people than you will in the cycling community.(Scott)     I'm thankful to have been blessed with a home on the C&O. I am especially blessed to ask passersbys if I can assist them. I've met some wonderful people who have stopped to use hose, have a snack or rest by fire pit. I am so very Thankful to be on the trail.(Clara)     I'm thankful that at 62 years old I can still cycle 50-60 miles a day. Thankful for all the friends I've made over the years while biking and the kindness people show you while on the trails. I had a flat tire once and every person that rode by stopped to offer assistance. A great group of people!(Diane)       Bicycling has really saved me from myself. At 345 and gaining my PTSD was making me eat myself to death. I was so depressed that I thought of suicide daily. I figured I could eat till my hearts content and be dead in a year. When it didn't happen fast enough I got hostile. Fired, fat and hostile I ran low on money and took to the trail for cheap transportation. 2 years ago and I'm 210 now, ride almost every day sometimes as far as 60 miles , sometimes pulling my dog to the park. I'm so thankful I stumbled upon this obvious solution to both my mental and physical health.(Paul)     I am so grateful that the Great Allegheny Passage runs through my home town of Connellsville. The town that boomed in the coal and coke era is slowly being revitalized thanks to the formerly under appreciated beauty of the area that is now highlighted by the trail. I am blessed to be witnessing that rebirth, and to still be able to enjoy the freedom of riding miles and miles with no traffic concerns. I am thankful to be part of the wonderful diverse community of bikers, all sharing a childlike joy found in biking to new places. (Barb)     Thankful that I am in my cathedral of light with the sunlight filtering through the green or gold in areas we would never see unless you are on the seat of a bike!(Mary Ann)         Love riding the GAP, Ive met people from all over, the scenery is 2nd to none, hope to ride again soon before it gets to cold.(Phil)     I am thankful for still being able to ride. I know it won't last a long time, but while it does, every ride is special! (Johnny)     Thankful I’ve been able to ride the GAP / C&O in it’s entirety in 2015 and many varying rides on portions of it. Riding in over a dozen MS 150 rides and recently riding a ride from Los Angeles to San Diego for The MS Society as well. Always feels good to help people as I’m riding & enjoying the bike.(Tom)     Thankful for all out great R2T trails for us runners to run on!!!!!!(Anthony)     I am thankful I got the opportunity to ride from Pittsburgh to D.C. this summer. One of my major bucket list rides checked off!(Ed)     I'm thankfull for two great rides on the GAP one in the spring and one in the fall. Thankful for the great weather I experieced on both occasions and spectacular color on the fall ride. Thankfull I have a friend who now has an eBike like me so we can travel together and thankfull we can cost share.(Roxanne)     The freedom, the openness, opportunity to just go. Im thankful for that. Grateful and blessed to have had what i feel to be an epic roundtrip on the GAP and C&O. It changed my life. The people i met changed me. And this was my first time being on those trails. Im thankful for it all!(Ryan)     I am truly thankful for the opportunity to explore and have crazy adventures on two wheels. To have a sister Kathleen who travels with me on long journeys, constantly inspires me to keep going & refuses to give up regardless of injuries, bike malfunctions and inclement weather. In addition.. she has opened my eyes to this great cycling community who are some of the most magnificent memorable people I have ever met! - Cheers to all & have amazing holidays!!!(Stephanie)     I am thankful for family and good friends. Bicycle touring is great but nothing replaces family & friends. Invite them along.(PPP)     I am thankful for all the wonderful people that I have met along my journey on the c&o the gap and also the Montour trail now. I'm thankful that my life is started over in a better way. Before I started my journey October 9th 2019 everyday I contemplated suicide. My depression and all had me so bad I didn't like people I didn't like my own life. But since I started my journey on the c&o in Harpers ferry I have met so many people, so many good people they have changed my outlook of life and now I can't see my life any other way thank you to everybody that has been there to help me out mentally physically financially, much love to everyone. (Michael)       I'm thankful for ALL of these, in terms of bike-touring! The people/experiences are perhaps at "the top", but everything else is "right behind" ;-] (Pete)     I am thankful for my health that allows me to feel the sense of wonderment that I experience when riding somewhere far from home under my own power. It is a feeling of vulnerability and excitement all wrapped up in one.(Chris)     I'm able to take something that I use for two wheel therapy, commuting, hauling from the grocery store, riding with friends & family, achieving personal stretch goals, and then take it on a vacation self-supported at low cost and low emissions to some of the most beautiful places in the world as well as down the road from home. From an over-nighter to extended travel, how could I not be thankful for that? :-) (Rod)     The communities and organizers who have created safe, integrated as well as alternative routes for me as I enter and explore different regions.(Paul)     I'm thankful to have access to a machine that lets me slow down and truly enjoy the journey.(Peggy)     I’m grateful that the bear on the trail ahead of us ignored the pebbles we were firing at it with our slingshots. We thought it would just leave and we could continue bikepacking on the trail. Instead we had to push our bikes through a river to get past it.(Adrian)     I'm thankful for my health and for the kindness of strangers (also, you have an awesome last name :) (Suzanne Mooney)     Nice surprises, like a beautiful sunrise in the morning when I didn't expect it. Thankful when I manage to weather difficulties, and come through them (Caroline) Pedalshift Society As always we like to close out the show with a special shoutout to the Pedalshift Society! Because of support from listeners like you, Pedalshift is a weekly bicycle touring podcast with a global community, expanding into live shows and covering new tours like this spring's DC to Cincinnatti bike tour! If you like what you hear, you can support the show for 5 bucks, 2 bucks or even a buck a month. And there's one-shot and annual options if you're not into the small monthly thing. Check it all out at pedalshift.net/society. Kimberly Wilson Caleb Jenkinson Cameron Lien Andrew MacGregor Michael Hart Keith Nagel Brock Dittus Thomas Skadow Marco Lo Terrance Manson Harry Telgadas Chris Barron Mark Van Raam Brad Hipwell Stuart Buchan Mr. T Roxy Arning Nathan Pulton Stephen Dickerson Vince LoGreco Paul Culbertson Scott Culbertson Cody Floerchinger Tom Benenati Greg Braithwaite Sandy Pizzio Jeff Muster Seth Pollack Joseph Quinn Drue Porter Byron Paterson Joachim Raber Ray Jackson Jeff Frey Kenny Mikey Lisa Hart John Denkler Steve Hankel Miguel Quinones Alejandro Avilés-Reyes Keith Spangler Greg Towner Dan Gebhart Jody Dzuranin Lucas Barwick Michael Baker Brian Bechtol Reinhart Bigl Greg Middlemis Connie Moore William Gothmann Brian Benton Joan Churchill Mike Bender Rick Weinberg Billy Crafton Gary Matushak Greg L'Etoile-Lopes James Sloan Jonathan Dillard John Funk Tom Bilcze Ronald Piroli Dave Roll Brian Hafner Misha LeBlanc Ari Messinger David Gratke Todd Groesbeck Wally Estrella Sue Reinert John Leko  Music You've been hearing about Jason Kent and his music for many fine episodes. Sunfields' latest album may be their best yet. Go get it.

James: Okay. So let's get started.  Hey audience, this is James Kandasamy from Achieve Wealth Podcast. Today, we have Tim Bratz from Legacy Wealth Holdings. Tim is a multi-family syndicator/sponsor who owns almost 3200 units almost valued at 250 million dollars in value. Hey Tim, welcome to the show. Tim: James, I appreciate you having me, buddy, thank you.  James: Absolutely. Happy to have you here. I've been trying to get you on the show for some time and we have been playing tag on the appointments. That's good. So, can you tell me which market are you focusing on right now?  Tim: I'm actually in six different markets, six different states. I'm pretty heavy in the Southeast. Majority of my property, about 70% of my properties are in South Carolina and Georgia, but I'm also in Ohio which is where I live. And then I'm also in Texas, Oklahoma and I got a couple of vacation rentals down in Florida as well. James: Okay. Without going too much into detail just quickly, how did you start? And then how did you scale to 3,200 units within how many years?  Tim: Yeah. Well, I mean, I was going through college when the last market cycle was going gangbusters. So 03 to 07, I'm going through college, everybody said if you wanna make money get involved in real estate. I ended up moving out to New York City because my brother was living out there. And I became a commercial real estate agent for businesses. You know, so I broker leases and I brokered a lease that was 400 square feet in Manhattan. It was $10,000 a month and so I was like the wrong side of the coin. I need to be owning real estate not brokering it. So I got into a lot of the residential stuff. I think a lot of investors get into real estate because of the lure of passive income and residual income, but then many of us get stuck doing this transactional stuff of flipping houses and wholesaling. And I went through that same phase, you know, I thought I had to stockpile my own cash. I didn't understand that you could syndicate, that you could raise private money and bring in equity partners and how your sponsors to then cosign on loans. I didn't know that that was possible.  So I went through the whole residential side of things and bought my first apartment building the end of 2012. So just like seven years ago. It was a little eighth unit building and I fixed it all up, put tenants in place and I was like man, I'm making better returns on this than I am flipping houses and it's way less headaches. And so I bought another eight-unit and kind of built up a portfolio about 150 units with some partners.           That partnership ended up going bad a few years later. In 2015, I ended up liquidating everything and then just going back out on my own. And so I started on my own and just kind of partnered up with a couple of people that they just started raising money for different projects and I partnered up with good operators and bring money to those projects and help sponsor those loans or I started buying my own properties here locally in Cleveland. And over the past four years, pretty much in August of 2015, I started buying my own stuff. So it's been right at four years now. I built up a little over 3200 units, 3207 units as of today, about 251 million dollars worth of property value and my model is based on the residential realm, actually. I buy properties and I got to be all in for 65% of the stabilized value because that's what the model was. I never read a book. I never went to a seminar before. I just kind of developed it myself and I started buying properties, apartment buildings, the exact same way.  So I have to be able to buy it, renovate it, be all in for 65% of that stabilized value. And so a lot of the buildings that I buy, you know, I'm into a building that's worth 10 million dollars for about six-six and a half million dollars. So on the 250 million dollars worth of property, I only owe to lenders and my equity investors, it's like right at 150 million dollars. So we have a lot of equity in our properties too.  James: Got it. Got it. So it's very interesting you bring up that 65% because that's the exact number that I had when I was doing my single-family for zero money down. So I counted if I get at 65% ARV, which is after repair value, you should be able to do a second load, which is I call it as a double closing of a loan. I have two loans; one loan is like you do like a short term loan and at 65%, you buy it, you take a rehab loan and then you flip it to the long term loan. Tim: Yes. That's my entire model. So I don't traditionally syndicate, I buy distressed assets. I'm bigger than some of the smaller investors but not quite a hedge fund or a Reit and I'm willing to get my hands dirty, I'm willing to actually do the work. So I take on a little bit more distressed type properties. I only buy in A and B Class areas, but the properties are typically C-Class type properties that need physical improvements, better management. Like really not just value-add but like a total repositioning a lot of times. We're remarketing, rebranding, all that. And so, we come in and we fix it all up and because we force appreciation because we can make it happen and really create the appreciation versus speculating on appreciation and hoping values go up over the next five years, we're able to create a lot of equity in that first 12 months and then we're able to turn around and refinance and cash out our investors.  So instead of selling, I just refinance at like a 70% loan to value that gives me enough money to then, pay off my bridge loan. Or that short-term construction loan is and it helps me pay off my investors and to me, it's more predictable. It's more predictable to know where interest rates and where the economy is going to be 12 months from now or 18 months from now than it is like maybe 5 or 7 years from now. Five or seven years from now, we could have a very different economy, very different political circumstances; could have three different presidents in the next five years, right? So we just don't know.  And for me, I like the predictability of buying at a wholesale price, creating an appreciation and then cashing out my investors. Now it's you know for lack of a better term house money in play, right? So now we can let the property ride and we can hit sit on it. It doesn't matter what happens to the economy for the next 10 years, I have a long-term, long amortization schedule fixed interest rate loan, non-recourse loan in place; where the market can go up it can go down, I still have tenants in place paying the debt service, paying the operating expenses, and putting cash in my pocket and I could ride this thing out because I don't owe any of my investors any more cash.  James: Got it. Got it. So yeah, that's exactly the deep value add, that's how I position it where you buy it at really good value; very, very low level.  You really put all your effort to push up the first appreciation and then you go and refi in 12 to 18 months, I guess right? Tim: And we built some new construction stuff too, down in the Southeast. We built some townhouses. Like we'll do new construction, it'll be like an A or B plus kind of an area but it's not luxury. We do only workforce type housing so we can build townhouses for about $85,000 per unit, 80 to 90,000 per unit and they'll rent for about 1,300 bucks a month for us. And so that allows us to get the values where we need it to then refinance and do the exact same thing just for new construction. So we do a little bit of that and more repositioning of existing assets though. James:  Yeah, very interesting. I really like the model. I was doing it like two-three years ago. I mean, for me, I got worried about the market and I start, not looking for deep value add and also deep value add is harder to find. Even though you find it, what happened the sellers are basically taking the value by pushing up the price on the deep value add and because of that, it's not a deep value add anymore. Tim: Right. I don't pay a seller for the value that I'm going to bring to the property, right? So there are some sellers that you know, they're like, oh, well, this could be worth this much. Yeah, but I have to create that value. You're not creating that value. So we find we're a lot of times direct to seller, off-market type property. You know, we're big enough now, especially in Georgia and South Carolina, we have the broker relationships where we're one of the top five buyers in town and you get those deals before they actually hit the market. But in a lot of other markets, I'm not, you know, the biggest buyer in town so I have to go off-market, direct to seller, kind of stuff. And we get a lot of our properties from Mom and Pops who have owned it for 20 30 years or inherited the property. They just didn't put any more money back into it. You know, the total debt on the property is very low if at all and they just don't want to put any more money into it. They don't want to do the work so we buy it from them. Or I buy a lot from smart entrepreneurs, really sharp people who make a lot of money in their traditional business and they just put their money in real estate and then they didn't have a joint venture partner. They never got educated. They don't know how to manage a management company or interview a management company and they just get abused in the business. So they're like I'm making too much money in my traditional business, this thing is going to sink me. Let me just fire sale this apartment building. So that's where we buy most of our properties from. And then again: we reposition it, we do the stuff that that hedge funds aren't willing to do, and we're qualified enough to take down a 200 unit building that needs a pretty heavy value-add. I do it that way. But like you said though, James, I'm starting to buy a little bit more stabilized assets, more like 85-90 percent occupied of just a little bit of tweaks in the common areas and amenities and then bumping up some rents. We're doing a little bit more of that right now just because of where we are in the market cycle.  James: Yeah, correct. But you gave a lot of details that I want to go a bit more detail into that. So you said you look for deals that are in class A and B, but more distress. And I mean you're basically shrinking your funnel as well because you're going for that... Tim:  Niche gets rich, right? James: Exactly. [11:02crosstalk] Tim: People say hey real estate's mine age. Now real estate's an industry, right? Apartments aren't even initial. You need to figure out what you are really, really good at. And one of the things that I'm really good at is 80 units to 100 units that are distress. It's bigger, it's too distressed for the small guys to get a loan on it because they don't have the background or the resume to go and take down that kind of stuff and the qualifications do that because they haven't done it before. It's a big project, big value add and at the same time, it's too distressed for the hedge funds because they just want to park money and let it sit, let it ride, and let it cash flow from day one. So this is my niche. It's A and B Class areas; good areas, desirable areas, just distressed kind of properties and we're able to get in there and we have all the financing, the relationships are all in place. We could raise the money pretty easily because we can cycle our money every 12 to 18 months. I don't have to wait five years to get my investors their money out; I can cycle at every 12 to 18 months. So as soon as I pay him back guess what they say, let's go do another one. And then they're involved in you know, three deals in five years versus one deal in five years and it makes my life easier because I don't have to go and raise money from new people all the time. James: Got it. Got it. That's a really good model. So that's the investors after you cash out when you pay them back, do they stay in the deal as well? Tim: Yep. So mine's a little bit different than traditional syndication. Usually me and my joint venture boots-on-the-ground partners, we keep 70 to 80% of the equity in the deal and then we pay a pref, a fixed pref to our investors regardless of the properties performance. So even if it's not cash flowing it's predictable because I know that if I'm borrowing 2 million bucks, I'm paying, let's say, 10% pref, I'm going to pay $200,000. That's just a cost of the deal. I got roofs, I got flooring, I got paint, I got cost of capital; it's an extra $200,000.  So I build that into my model and then I can make those payments to them. They feel more confident, more comfortable because now they have a predictable return on their investment. Then I refinance, they get all their money back off the table and then they still maintain 20-30% ownership without any money invested and we're able to do that again and again and again. And so, you know with traditional syndicators if I try raising money from somebody who's used to traditional syndication, they're like, why would I ever do that? Well, you get a predictable return and secondly, you get 30% ownership.  But if all your money is in three different deals, it's actually 90% ownership because 30% 30% 30%. And so overall, they're actually ahead of what they would do in traditional syndication where they might get 70 or 80% of the equity in one deal. So, it actually works out better for the investors, works out better for me but it's a lot of work on my part. We spend a lot of money.  Sometimes we spend a lot of money on advertising in new markets until we have those relationships built up and then, in order to find those off-market direct to seller deals and it's a lot of work. Like my business partner down in Georgia that I own a bunch of property with, he goes and sleeps at the properties for three nights a week. He spends four full days there, sleeps in a B-class apartment, you know, on a blow-up mattress, the guy is worth 25 million bucks. And then his brother who's our other partner is worth another 25 million and they're sleeping at the properties, doing the work, kicking the tables, making sure construction ends up on time, on budget and that's what you need to do man. I see a lot of people who are trying to be this puppet master and they're not willing to actually do the work of taking ownership over this thing. They just want to go and syndicate and then go back off to whatever they're doing. And to me, like there's something to be said about just having old school diligence and work mentality and what you can get done if you're willing to do that kind of stuff. James: Yeah, real estate is very, very powerful; especially commercial real estate where you can force appreciate. And especially if you are going to get the majority of the equity in the deal, why not I sleep, right?  In 12 months, 70 to 80% of this deal is going to be mine. Why not work hard, I'm with you. Tim: It's a season of your life. If you're putting your head down for a year or 18 months, but then you can generate millions of dollars of equity, why not do that? And so yeah, that's kind of the mentality that we take.  James: Correct. Yeah, it's very powerful to create wealth and I think the investors appreciate that as well because now you're able to give them back their money and all that. But your model is assuming that you are able to refi into a long term loan in the 12 to 18 months, right? So what happened if that model breaks? Tim: Yep, absolutely. So that's the inherent risk with our model is what happens if rates change, what happens? If banking tightens up, what does that all look like? So a couple of things. One, I don't think rates are going to change as much in 12 or 18 months as they would maybe in five or seven years. So to me, we underwrite the deal - like right now, I just closed on 500 units. I got 2 buildings, around 250 units each last month and I got a 3.83 and a 3.88 interest rate. Even right now, rates went up back; they're hovering around for four and a quarter right now for stabilized assets. We're underwriting the deals with 4.75 to five percent interest rate on the back end for a stabilized property. So we're taking on some of that, some of that, we're underwriting it for that. We also underwrite our rents very, very conservatively and we're at such a low basis in the property, usually around 60% of what that stabilized value is, we have options. So Fannie and Freddie are tightening up big time right now. That's okay because we're at such a low basis that we can still go over to CMBS - commercial mortgage-backed security - or a life insurance company and even though they offer a lower loan to value, I'm okay with that because I'm at a low enough basis. I can still cash out my investors.  So worst-case scenario, my investors still get their money back and we have a lower LTV loan. So maybe there's not some refi proceeds or anything like that that we can take off the table but at the end of the day, they're going to have more equity, you know, their equities gonna be worth more in the property and the cash flow is going to be more on a recurring basis for that. And the other thing is even when banks stopped lending to people in 2009-2010, guess what? They were still lending to somebody and it was the people with big balance sheets, with stabilized portfolios. And I have a big enough balance sheet and stable enough portfolio. I'll be able to get refinanced regardless of what happens in the next 12 to 18 months so I'm not that concerned about it. And again, because our basis is so low, we have such high cash flow on these properties. I have different options and have a good team of mortgage brokers. Who even if I had a slap another, you know three-year loan on there, even if it was at 6% interest rate or six and a half percent interest rate, I can still cash flow;  it's enough. It covers my operating expenses, it covers my debt service, still puts cash flow in the bank. You know, it's a crappy conversation that I have to have with my equity investors, but they keep on making ten percent on their money so they're happy.           You know, the worst-case scenario is they get their money back in 48 months; then, you know it is what it is. So I've taken a look at all the downside. I've talked to people with billion dollar portfolios and said, hey poke holes in my model. And that's the inherent risk is what if you can't refinance? So that's one of the things. The deals that I just closed last month, they were already in that 85-90 percent occupancy range. Like right at 90-91, I think is what they were. And so we got a Fannie Mae loan actually on it. That's a construction loan that we'll be able to put a supplemental debt on it. So, it's already a long term loan, 30-year amortization, couple years of interest only. And then, whenever we create the appreciation, 12 months 18 months from now, we'll be able to put supplemental debt, which is kind of like a second mortgage almost but through the same lender, so they're cool with it. And so the only real risk I'm taking is the interest rate on that portion of the debt. I owe 17 million dollar mortgage on it right now. And then the other will be about another 7 million dollars. So the only real rate risk is I'll get home at three point eight percent on 17 million dollars, even if the other 7 million goes a 5%, my blended cost of capital still four and a quarter or maybe a little less. So, you know, that's another way that we're reducing that ongoing risk.  James: It's very interesting. Now you're convincing me to do deep value add again. So because it's just so hard to mess up. Tim: I mean, the construction is where it all comes down to. I mean, if you stay on time and on budget, you're in good shape. But if you don't have a good construction partner like you can really get burn bad in the deep value add stuff. So you've got to understand what your team looks like, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are. And for me, we're okay with it. We're pretty good at it and we have a really good construction team.  My partner in Georgia, man, I put him toe-to-toe against anybody in the country from a construction standpoint. He can build new construction, he can renovate existing units. And because he has the mentality of 'let me go and sleep at the property' three nights a week, away from his family, away from his five kids, you know, he's willing to take that on because it's again a season of his life. Like that's kind of partners that I like to partner up with. James: Yeah. Hustlers, they will go really far in life and that's what we need. It's very interesting. So I mean, is there any deal that you find that you didn't do? That you think you should have done and after you passed on it, you realized, ah, should have done that deal? Is there a deal that you look at...  Tim: That's a good question.  Let me think on this. We try to kill deals. I try to kill every deal that comes across my plate, especially right now. I try to look for every reason to walk away from every deal that comes across my desk. If I cannot kill the deal then I know it's a good deal. And so, you know, as soon as you're like, 'hey, well, I think I can scale back construction and make it work', wrong idea, wrong strategy. Because the last thing you want to scale back is the construction of the value-add process. Because then your rents aren't going to hit where you expect them to hit because you're not able to attract better tenants or higher quality tenants and they don't see the value that you're adding to the property. At the end of the day, like people like, 'oh, I think we can make this one work.' No. The only way you can make it work is if you go back to the seller and negotiate a lower purchase price because that's the only variable in this equation. You know, what rents are going to be is what rents are going to be; what the construction budget is, is what the construction budget is. The only variable here is the purchase price. And you know, you make your money on the buy side. So are there deals that I passed up on that I should have moved on? Maybe but for me, man, I don't have much of a risk tolerance. I only buy stuff that I know that is very predictable to me. That's why I don't play the stock market. I can't control if you know Volkswagen -  I can't control if Elon Musk smokes a joint on public television and the stock drops by 15%; you know, I can't control that. I like being able to control real estate and having very predictable returns for me and my investors. And sometimes it's a gut check, you know. Even if everything looks good on paper, but my gut doesn't feel good about it, I'll say no to a deal. It's just that I've seen enough deals go south. And as quickly as we can build our net worth, being in commercial real estate, one bad deal can take out your legs and wipe you out totally. So I'm just not willing to take on that risk, especially when it takes so much work in order to get to where we are.  James: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I want to touch on your gut check thing because I know numbers don't lie and we are numbers guys and when underwriting, we want to make sure things work on paper and all that. But I've walked out of a deal because everything works very well and the numbers look good, but there is something wrong in that deal that I didn't discover and I've walked out from that kind of deal as well. And that's very important. I mean, real estate is not only science where everybody says a numbers game and people that are good in numbers will do it but there's a lot of odd to it as well where it's just something wrong somewhere and it comes from experience. Tim:  That's the only way you get that, from experience and it's usually personnel kind of things that make me walk from a deal. I'm just not comfortable with that joint venture partner, with that management company or with whatever the seller is saying. You can kind of see through the lines once in a while, whatever that is. Yeah, I mean my model is I'm really good at raising money. I'm really good at sourcing deals. We're pretty good at creating - like we can handle a lot of the back office type stuff.  I'm back in Cleveland, Ohio now, is where I live, we can handle a lot of the management side of things; collecting of rents, work orders, telecommunication; all that kind of stuff, all the administrative side. From here in Cleveland, we just need a local boots-on-the-ground partner and some local property managers, maintenance personnel, and I always have a joint venture partner locally. And so if that joint venture partner isn't strong enough, then usually I'll walk away from the deal. Because man, I think it's important to have somebody with vested interest, with equitable interest in the deal; who's local to the property, who can go put their eyes on it a couple of times a month; to keep everybody honest, to keep the management company honest, to keep the local property manager, maintenance personnel, leasing agents and just come in and kick the tables once a month and just let people know that we're paying attention. Because if you don't pay attention, then they take advantage of you.  James: Yeah, it's hard work. I mean, I know exactly how you feel in terms of how much hustle and how much detail and how much you have to be on top of the property managers because it's not their baby, it's your baby. And there's so much of details that if you don't ask them, they're just going to slack off right?  Tim: Yes.   James: They are paid differently from what we have paid for and we are the owners and it's just completely different ownership level, right? So that's very interesting. Is there any deal that you think after you bought it didn't match from what you thought in the beginning. You thought this is how I'm going to execute it but once you buy, it's like, oh, it's completely different from what I thought and how did you overcome it? Tim: Yeah, I mean every deal is a learning experience and you to get punched in the gut enough times and eventually you learn. Fortunately, you know when I was growing my portfolio, I bought my first building in 2012 and I bought an eight-unit building for $30,000. So I'm in Cleveland, Ohio buying units for $4,000 a unit. I put another, I don't know, 50 grand into it. So I'm all in for $10,000 a unit. And it's hard to lose. And so in 2012 2013 2014 as I'm growing my portfolio, while I'm going through these learning curves, the market is getting better and that was able to absorb a lot of my screw-ups early on. So I still made money on every single deal that I did even though I was learning on a lot of these things. There's only one building, a 44 unit building, that I bought about 2-3 years ago maybe that I've lost money on. It was one of those things, hey, I saw the leases, I saw the rent roll. It was 80% occupied and I bought it from a guy that I know, somebody that I actually know. And so, I bought 44 units and he's like, "Yeah, man, 80% occupancy." "Great, man. I'm going to come in, I'm going to renovate the last whatever 9 units and turn those over. I got a local team." He was out of state.  "So like my team can come in clean it all up clean up the common areas. I think I can make $300,000 on this thing in the next 12 months pretty easily and it'll cash flow a little bit in the meantime." So I buy it and I find out it's only 25% economically occupied. So there are 35 tenants or something in place and only 11 of them are actually paying rent. And so I learned my lesson there, you know. It's not about occupancy, it's about collections.  And this is a buddy of mine. This is somebody I've known for many years and grabbed dinner with him, his wife, my wife and not a lot of times but a few times and close enough where I call him a buddy. And all of a sudden, he sells me a building, tells me it's 80% occupied, doesn't tell me it's only collecting 25%. And all of a sudden, I had to kick out 24 tenants and turn over 24 additional units.  So imagine what that cost does now to the $300,000 I thought I was going to make? And this was one of the only times I brought an investor in and he wanted 50/50 of the deal: "Let me bring the money, you do the deal."  "Okay, cool."  And I'm stroking a check for about 35 40 thousand dollars when it was all said and done. And I could have gone to that investor and said, "Hey, man, I need 20 grand from you. I'm putting up 20 grand of my money. We're selling this thing. It's a pain in the butt. We're gonna lose money on it. But, you know, we gotta get rid of it. And that's part of the deal."  Instead, I stroked the entire check, gave him 100% of his money back and because he didn't make a return, I gave him equity in another deal of mine, without him having to put up any money just to kind of soften that blow. And so I think when you do the right thing by your investors word spreads, you know, he says great things about me, he wants to invest in more deals with me and stuff now. It is, do the right thing knowing that there's always another deal. There's always another opportunity.  That one, we could have held on to the property long-term and let it cash flow. That's a cool thing about buying apartment buildings. You can really screw up and if you had to, you can hold on to it, manage it, let it cash flow for the next 10 years and eventually, you'll actually make money on these things even with that big of a screw-up. But for me and where my long-term vision is and my team and everything else, it was just more of a C-Class type property. It took up too much management and too many headaches. It wasn't big enough. We couldn't really scale it. So we made just a business decision to sell it and to eat that loss. But it's the only building I ever really ever lost money on. Now we've gone through pretty much everything and we've gotten kicked in the crotch enough times where we know what to look for across every building. Like it's very hard to pull the wool over our eyes unless it's like grossly fraudulent on the sellers part.  Another big thing that I didn't know early on that I wish I should have done that's always a consistent issue with every building we've ever bought is like the plumbing and the drain tiles leaving the building. It's always one of those unknowns. So now, we spend three to five thousand dollars to scope every single drain line, in every building that we put under contract to ensure that there's not going to be this massive plumbing bill, unexpected plumbing bill, once we buy the property. So that's one of the things that's been a big deal.           And then just verifying collections. Like those two things from a financial due diligence and a physical due diligence perspective like those two things that we've dialed in now and we always did everything else. We always inspected the rooms in every unit, the electrical panels. One of the other things that I didn't do early on that I do now, we've done for the many years now, is I used to only walk the vacant units and the common areas and the mechanical rooms. And then all of a sudden, you realize that they're not showing you all the vacant units. There are other vacant units that they're telling you that they're occupied, they just didn't want you to see them. And like I bought buildings where tenants were turning on and off their faucet with a wrench because there's no actual faucet. So you don't realize a lot of that stuff early on when you're a dumb kid. But I've been through all man. I've been everything. We walk every single unit on a 500 unit apartment building. We will walk every single unit and we'll put a report together on every single unit. It's a one-page, just kind of condition report. We'll take 30 pictures of every single unit. We put it all into like a Google Drive or Dropbox folder. In that way, we have all the information we could ever need on this property. We're not relying on our memory to look up all that stuff. It's all there. Our contractors can see it during the entire due diligence period, all that stuff. And so I think everything's a learning curve. I think you learn from everything. The thing in this business though is like if you can get past all those learning curves, if you can get past some of those losses and some of those getting punched in the stomach, eventually, you're process is so dialed in.  Like they can't pull the wool over your eyes that you cannot lose on deals. And that's why we walk away from a lot of deals that we do because they're waiting for somebody who's an idiot who doesn't know what they're doing to come in and buy their property and overpay for it or not do the due diligence that they're supposed to be doing and all these other things. But eventually, you know what you're doing enough, where your risk is so minimized because you've done all the due diligence on these things, it's a very predictable business at the end of the day. Like you said, it's all about numbers, right? James: Yeah, I mean, it's crazy nowadays, right? I mean with the market being as hot as it is right now, with so many people looking for deals and so many bidding war. So nowadays, the smarter thing that a lot of brokers and sellers are doing, they say day one hard money. Now, they lock you in. So you go into a bidding war, you pay this huge amount of hard money and sometimes they don't even give you early access., So now you're locked in. You can find a thousand and one things and yet we are locked in. Tim: No, I don't do that stuff. I don't play that game. You don't need to if your off-market direct to seller. If you're going through brokers, they're going to do that to you, you know. And there are some people who have crazy money and they're willing to risk that; I'm not willing to risk any of that stuff. A lot of people, they spend a lot of time on ROI - return on investment. I spend a lot of time on return on ROI - return of investment, you know, and making sure I get all my money back. I never ever want to risk principal.   I mean that deal, that's just too risky of a deal. If they want hard earnest money from day one and I haven't already walked the entire property, I'm not interested in doing it. I think once you get to a point where if you're partnered up with a great sponsor or you are a great sponsor yourself and you have the business acumen that like you have James or that I have like I'm able to posture up with these sellers now and kind of say, "Hey. Yeah, no problem. You can go steal somebody's earnest money. That's okay. You can go ahead and do that. But they're not gonna be able to close on this deal because you're lying about the condition of the property or the financials whatever. Or if you're willing to actually sell it to me, give me my opportunity to do my due diligence and shoot straight with me on everything, I promise you, I'm more capable of closing than any of the other people that you're getting bids from right now or you're getting offers from right now."  And so I've been able to kind of build up my credibility in that way where sellers are willing to take less money and offer me better terms than they would maybe with somebody else because they know that I can close on the property. They don't want to get dragged through the mud.  James: Correct. Yeah, this is very interesting, nowadays, the way the market is being played. They're putting all these handcuffs of hard money, day one. And there's another handcuffed where they said you must do lending with our own in-house lending. So that's another handcuff. There are two or three handcuffs that brokers are putting on sellers. And the third subtle handcuff that they do; nowadays, when they close, they send out an email saying that, oh, this buyer paid day one, you know huge amount of money $500,000. They're telling everybody else. Tim: They're trying to set that expectation.  James: If you want to come and buy deals nowadays, you better be ready. So many handcuffs are being put on buyers. But I think a lot of sellers, you know, if they want to work with a good buyer, people who want to really do business, they don't know want to just make the money on earnest money and waste a lot of time getting people to walk through all their units and getting their stuff all being nervous.  So just find a guy who's willing to do it and who is the true buyer. Who knows what he's doing and can close.  Tim: The good brokers with long-term visions and long-term goals, know how to find quality buyers and that's better than just anybody who raises their hand with earnest money, you know. In every hot market, there are people who are short-sighted, who got into real estate real quick just because they wanted to get rich quick, kind of a thing. And they'd rather just do it that way and then anybody who raises their hand, they're willing to go with and those aren't the brokers you want to work with. You want to work with the people who have been around the block a few times, who understand what a good buyer looks like, can build those ongoing relationships. Because as soon as the market shifts, if things cool off, it's going to clean out all the unqualified buyers and unqualified brokers as well. James: Correct. So, let's go to a bit more personal side of things. So what I like about you is you're very, very positive. So you like to look at life very positively and you know, it's hard to do because sometimes you always have something negative that comes in. So do you want to explain about in this business, yeah, you always want to say something negative that you always want to talk about but how do you maintain that positivity?  Tim: Yeah, I mean, you know, I told you the story when we met up a couple of weeks ago or a month ago. I mean, just less than 90 days ago, I was out golfing and I got rocketed to the face with a golf ball, 100 miles an hour from about 30 yards away. It shattered my upper maxilla bone. It knocked out four of my front teeth and shredded my gums. And my lip opened and I was bleeding like crazy. I look down. I'm like, oh, I feel my teeth dangling from my gums and I look down at the ground and I kind of took a knee to make sure I didn't pass out. I looked down at the grass, I'm like, "Man, this grass is really well-manicured; like beautiful grass here, on this golf course."  And I'm like, How the hell am I able to keep up such a positive attitude in this?" You know, I'm thinking about my thoughts. I'm very reflective in that regard. And I was like, "Well, here's why I can see it positive because I got hit my mouth and not in my eyeball or my temple. I could be blind or dead if this thing was an inch higher than where it was."           And so, man, I don't know if it's the law of attraction. You can call it God, you can call it, you know the universe and call it whatever but I think when you put the positivity out, it comes full circle. It's kind of like you reap what you sow kind of a thing and I sow seeds of positivity. And so, I jump in the golf cart and I get taken back to the clubhouse. You know, who's dining in the clubhouse? There are two dentists and an ER nurse having dinner in the clubhouse. They put me in there. They look at my teeth. They drop what they're doing. They take me to their dental office, 15 minutes down the road. They stitched me all up. They put my teeth back in and I'm able to save my teeth and 90 days later, you couldn't even tell that this whole thing happened. Like I'm still going through some cosmetic stuff, but overall like it was a terrible situation, but I think because I was positive it all just kind of came to fruition.  So, you know, one of the things I've always practiced is not saying I have to do something but saying I get to do something. When I go out to dinner with a bunch of my friends and I pick up the tab, they're like, "Dude, you don't have to do that." " No, I don't have to do it but I get to."  The reason that I do what I do is so that I can help people out and I can pay it forward. "Oh, hey, you don't have to cover that bill. You don't have to do this"  'No, but I get to."           I had to eat soup for about a month afterward, but I'm thinking you know, I'm eating a tomato bisque basil soup. I don't have to eat mud pies like people do on the other side of the earth. I don't have to walk two miles each way to go and get fresh water like people have to do on the other side of the earth and some people on this side of the earth. I get to eat soup, I get to eat something that's a bisque that has basil in it. Like are you kidding me? Like there are people who would kill to be able to eat that kind of stuff. I didn't have 14 teeth knocked out, I only had four teeth knocked out.  I think when you just compare it and you put it in that type of perspective of, man, it could have been way worse, you know, like the situation could have gone - and there are still people even with me with my teeth dangling from my mouth, being in that circumstance, I'm still in a better circumstance than a lot of other people who don't have any food, who don't have any shelter, who don't have any clothes, who don't have any support. They're being trafficked by like human trafficking like all that kind of crazy stuff.  Even when I have to go out and raise - I had to raise 7 million bucks for deals last month, and now I don't have to raise 7 million bucks. I get to raise 7 million bucks; that's a pretty awesome problem to have. And I think just putting it in that perspective of shifting your 'I-have-to' to 'I get to', will really make you more gratuitous or have more gratitude for life. James: Was it because of your parents or do you think because you just had some event in your life that you think now I have to change my time or it's just how you have been? Tim: That's a good question. My mom as always been very positive. My mom as always been, hey, you have something else to compare it to. Compare it to this, compare it to that. And I think that's probably what planted the seed of always looking at it from, "Yeah. You're right. I guess it could be way worse, right?" It could have been totally different circumstance. She always used to say, "Hey, if that's your biggest problem today, you've got a pretty good life, Tim." When I was growing up: "Ma, I don't know what I'm gonna do like my basketball just popped." "If that's your biggest problem today, it's a pretty good problem to have." You know, you're safe. You're secure, you're healthy, you have a family, you've got people who love you, you've got food with food on the table and clothes on your back and a roof over your head. Like all those kinds of things like you put in perspective. There's people dealing with a lot worse things. And yeah, I think my mom kind of rooted that into me maybe early on and it definitely stuck and man, I just show gratitude. Especially once you have kids, you know, and you realize man like all I want is their safety and their security and their healthiness and their happiness and as long as they're happy and I'm happy. That kind of a thing that's really amplified it over the past four years. I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old now. And so just putting things into in the perspective that way has been a big deal.  James: Awesome. Awesome. Is there one proud moment in your life that you think you will be remembering it for your entire life?  Tim: That's a good question, James. You've got some good questions there, buddy. James: I want you to think and answer.  Tim: Yeah, you know, I mean, is there one... James: One proud moment that at the end of your life, you're going to say that I'm really, really proud that I did that and it's going to be you know. Tim: Yeah, I don't know if it's one specific moment, but maybe just like kind of how I live my life. I try to do it on a daily basis and maybe it's not something profound. Maybe it's not something that's like one specific thing that was a catalyst. You know, I'm driving to the office today to come and talk to you and some dude cuts me off. Maybe he's got some priorities or something going on. I don't know what other people are going through, you know and for me to judge or get pissed off because somebody cut me off, why would I do that?   I'll tell you if there's a really proud moment, once my kids grow up to be decent human beings, you know, and making sure that I want to live my life as an example of what an exceptional life can look like. So I want people to be like, hey, if Tim Brax, some kid from a blue-collar family in a blue-collar town, outside of Cleveland, Ohio can build up a big portfolio and still maintain good health and still maintain positivity and still maintain great relationships with his wife and with his children, with his friends and still engage and and maybe not be balanced but have harmony in his life, like if this guy can do it, I know I could do it.  If I can inspire people, whether that be one moment in time by a Facebook post or an event that I host or being on a podcast, if I can inspire people to just be their best which is what I have on my wall here and that's not 'do' that's 'be' you know, that's like consumed that all together. It doesn't have to be the best. It would be your best. There's always gonna be somebody more capable, more resources, more whatever. You know, I don't think it's healthy to compare yourself to other people but to compare yourself to yourself and making sure that you're advancing on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis is a big deal. And so, I think I just try to make my kids proud, make my mom proud, make my wife proud, make my friends proud. Inspire other people and I try to do it more in the daily activity versus just do it one time and look at that one moment. I try to give back and try to - like I had suites to the Cavs games when LeBron was here in Cleveland. All right, and so when was that, two years year to go? Two years ago, I think. No, it was last year, I think. And so last year, I had a suite to the Cavs. I got the entire series for the first series. I figured who they're playing, but essentially when you buy a suite, you get it for the entire series, however many games they play at home and they played four games at home. And so, you know the first game I went to, I brought some business partners and was able to pay for the suite that way. And then, the second game I brought some family and the third game, I'm like, hey, I was excited to go but like I'm not as excited as I was maybe the first or second time and I'm like somebody else deserves this more than I do because I've already had this experience right? Like, how can I pay this forward?  And so I posted on social media, "I got a suite to the Cavs game. I have 18 tickets that I can give away, a couple of parking passes. It's stocked with food and drinks and whatever you guys want. Like does anybody know of a family or a few families that I can give these tickets to that maybe wouldn't have this experience on their own but really deserve because of how good of a people that they are?"  And man, like it got so much momentum and got so many shares and then the news picked it up and came and did a story on it. And I had about 5-600 applications that came through for people nominating other people to get tickets to this Cav suite. And so, it was actually really hard to break it down and essentially I found four or five families. I think five families that four tickets a piece that I gave the tickets to. And it was pretty easy to narrow it down to like 25 because I wanted somebody who had maybe faced adversity, overcame the diversity and then found a way to pay it forward; not just overcoming it but actually paying it forward and creating a difference.  So, you know, there was one girl whose sister died of an accidental overdose of drugs and now, this girl who's still alive, her younger sister goes around and speaks at different schools about opioid problems and drug problems and how to overcome that and different resources to plug into for that, you know. And so I'm like, wow, this girl, at the age of 16 years old is making an impact on the world; like she deserves some tickets. There was another gentleman who lost his daughter to a congenital heart defect. She was 3 years old, you know and loses his daughter to this congenital heart defect. And instead of like, I mean, I can only imagine how dark of a place he must have been in and he ends up opening up a nonprofit organization to help families with other kids with congenital heart defects to give them the support and help and the conversations and everything and making a massive impact up here in Cleveland, Ohio. This guy is such a good guy. I give him the tickets and he gives them to one of the people that are in his nonprofit, you know. And it's like, man, these people are just amazing individuals.           And so I found five awesome families like that, that we were able to give the tickets to and like doing stuff like that really makes me feel good. And what's even better is that there were 500 people who I was able to create a catalyst by doing this who now, 500 people are thinking in a positive way about people who make a positive impact on their life. And just that positive ripple effect that's created, I think is really, really powerful and it was really, really cool to see. James: Yeah. When I talk to you, I get very inspired because it's not about the portfolio of real estate or [49:17unintelligible]  rights, it's how you look at life and how you look at things. How you think positive and that's the most important when I look at a person. Tim: Yeah. And you do an awesome job with it, man. I mean, you realize that it's not the portfolio, it's not the money that's noble. It's what you can do with the money that's noble and utilizing it for good. I could afford a really expensive fancy exotic car and I drive a $20,000 Jeep just because I don't really care. I know that there's a bigger impact I can make by being a better steward of my Capital, putting it in more deals or paying it forward in ways like that. So I get more fulfillment from that than from maybe driving something fancy.  James: Yeah, even for me, I can't really imagine driving exotic car because, do I really need it?  Tim: At the end of the day, it'd be cool. I'd rather just go and rent one. I know I'd have buyer's remorse. I just know myself personally and I know that as soon as I bought it I'd be like, I don't really need this. And here's the thing. I like watches. I like clocks. I like taking nice vacations. I like traveling first class. I like that kind of stuff. I like making memories and traveling the world; I love all that. So that's where I get my drive from on making a lot of money. For other people, they like fancy cars, they like fancy houses; that's okay.  I got a good buddy, man, he drives a Rolls-Royce and has multiple hundred-thousand-dollar watches, you know. But I know he doesn't do it for flashed and to impress other people. He does it because when he looks down at his watch and when he gets in his car, he always sits back and he's like, "Man, I had to overcome some adversity, I had to go through some shit in order to get this watch. In order to be able to afford this car. And I've had to grow as an individual, as a person and make an impact on enough other people's lives, positively, that then the universe came back and gave me enough money to be able to afford this car and afford this watch." And so, I think it depends on perspective and that's how you look at it. Like I have nothing against people who have fancy nice things, material type things. Because I know he's one of the most giving people that I've ever met as well and so it's perspective.  James: Yeah, it's perspective. Yeah, awesome, Tim. So why don't you tell our audience how to get hold of you?  Tim: Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty active on social media; you can find me on Facebook Tim Bratz. I run my own Facebook account, you know, it's not somebody else running it. I do some education stuff on how to get involved in apartments and things but hit me up with a message there if you're looking for formal education. I give a lot of away a lot of free content, a lot of free insight and I try to provide a lot of value on social media and stuff so just connect with me on Facebook.  That's gonna be the best way and, yeah, man, James, I appreciate all the value that you give and all the value that you create and all the content that you put out there and, man, you're creating the ripple effect yourself on making a positive impact on people's lives. So appreciate you too, brother. James: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks for coming on the show. It was really a very inspiring show. I'm sure for me and for my listeners and everybody's going to be enjoying it.  Tim: Appreciate it, brother. Thank you so much. James: All right. Bye.

“Hey Tim … how do we get started with Facility Budgeting?” I hear that a lot from pastors, XP’s, business admins, facility managers, and lay people. It is a universal concern. It is important to understand when you realize that the operation and care of our ministry facilities is almost always the second or third largest budget expenditure in a church budget. When you are budgeting for your facilities, there are four primary buckets that need to be considered. The 4 Buckets include: 1. Operations – the day to day stuff 2. Deferred Maintenance – a growing epidemic in the church world 3. Capital Reserves – planning for the inevitable costs of capital replacement 4. Projects – new shiny stuff Leader: Tim Cool, LinkedIn | Facebook Chief Solutions Officer, Cool Solutions Group, Charlotte, NC

“Hey Tim … how do we get started with Facility Budgeting?” I hear that a lot from pastors, XP’s, business admins, facility managers, and lay people. It is a universal concern. It is important to understand when you realize that the operation and care of our ministry facilities is almost always the second or third largest budget expenditure in a church budget. When you are budgeting for your facilities, there are four primary buckets that need to be considered. The 4 Buckets include: 1. Operations – the day to day stuff 2. Deferred Maintenance – a growing epidemic in the church world 3. Capital Reserves – planning for the inevitable costs of capital replacement 4. Projects – new shiny stuff Leader: Tim Cool, LinkedIn | Facebook Chief Solutions Officer, Cool Solutions Group, Charlotte, NC

Welcome to the first episode of a weekly podcast that we will be doing here at Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram! In this episode, we talk with General Manager and part owner of Miracle, Tim Galvin. Tim talks about his beginnings in the business, the history of Miracle CDJR, the values that have held strong in the company from day 1, and even about what he likes to do in his spare time. Enjoy! Transcript John Haggard: Welcome to the Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram of Gallatin podcast, where each week we hope you’ll be able to learn the best ways to purchase, maintain and accessorize your new or preowned vehicle and how to sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible, when you’re ready to do that. I’m your host John Haggard, and throughout each month, right here we’ll have different team members join us from Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram to bring you tips you can use. And by the way, we will also post a transcript of each podcast and that way you can easily refer to it for information that you would like to have right there at your fingertips. So today on the podcast we have Tim Galvin, the general manager of Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. Hey Tim. Tim Galvin: Hey John. How are you doing? John Haggard: Doing good man. Hope you are… Tim Galvin: Doing great, doing great. John Haggard: All right, great. You know people may not know this about you, but you’re actually more than just the general manager. You’re part of the local family that owns Miracle. So I thought it would be fun for folks to know you a little bit better since you are home town, you’re there at the store as opposed to some, you know, corporate owner who lives in another city. And the first question is, people always want to know about someone is how did you get started in the business? Tim Galvin: John, that’s a great question. I actually grew up in the car business. When I was in high school. I worked for my dad who bought the Ford dealership in 1980. I’ve worked every department in the dealership from washing cars to writing up service, worked in the parts department for two years, sold cars, did F & I… I was the F & I manager and worked my way up to the general sales manager. And then in 1994, February of 1994, we saw an opportunity to grow the Miracle franchise by purchasing a Chrysler Dodge Jeep store on the other side of town. So we purchased that in 1994, February of 1994, and I became the dealer principal over there, which was 25 years ago,. John Haggard: 25 years. You got any gray hair yet? Tim Galvin: No. Ha. I’ll tell you, this business just keeps getting funner every day. I tell you, it’s all about dealing with people and taking care of the people. John Haggard: Yeah, speaking of that, what do you see that’s changed, with a lot of technologies here now. You know, there are companies like Amazon that deliver to your front door and all of these types of things. What big changes have you seen in the car business? Tim Galvin: Well, John, customers, they just don’t drive around car lots like they used to. A customer doesn’t pick two or three dealerships to drive around. The Internet has made it, very convenient for the customer to go online. And we do a great job of, putting all our vehicles online to make it easy for them to have easy access so they can pull up a new vehicle or a used vehicle. And, we have the one pricing… we are very competitive in pricing. Our theory is we’ll take care of the customer on the price when they come into the dealership, treat them like family and then take care of them in the service department. And that’s where we really win the customers over, John… It’s in the service department. Anybody can sell a car. It’s what you do after the sale that wins the customers over, time and time again. John Haggard: Gotcha. You know, for a lot of people, Tim, a vehicle actually is the second largest investment they ever make besides a home mortgage. You hear a lot of dealers say, “we’re different”. Come see us, we’ll treat you right. What would you say to folks really that makes Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram different from all the others out there that are saying, hey, come see us. Tim Galvin: Well, one of the things that we pride ourselves on is the Miracle VIP Advantage. And that includes, starting in August, we’re going to add another thing to the VIP. We’re going to cover the, the powertrain of your vehicle as long as you own the vehicle. So if you buy a new Ram from us, as long as you own that vehicle, your powertrain is going to be covered the entire time. The other thing is we have different oil change packages and stuff that we provide our customers. So the customer comes back over and over for service and we’re gonna provide with VIP points that they can get to use in our service department or if they want to buy accessories, that type deal. John Haggard: So in other words, like the points that would apply toward the purchase of or discounts that type of thing? Tim Galvin: It can be, yes. It can be used at any one of our stores. The Miracle Automotive Group, Chrysler and Ford. So, they can have the vehicle serviced at any one of the dealerships. John Haggard: All right. And so having grown up in the business when you are not working in the business, like taking time off, what are some of the hobbies you have and the fun things you like to do? Tim Galvin: John, I like to spend time with my family and we have a farm that I live on… you might call it a farm. It’s five acres so there’s a lot of yard work we do. I like to that, and I like to play a little golf. I’m also a part time real estate investor. We buy properties and stuff and resell them. John Haggard: Oh, you do? Okay, like the, fix them up, and resell them type thing. Tim Galvin: Exactly. John Haggard: Gotcha. Okay. If you were going to say that there’s one thing that, as you leave people, that you would want to have in their mind… one thing about Miracle Chrysler Dodge, Jeep, Ram. If they don’t remember anything else, this one thing you’d want them to remember, what is it? Tim Galvin: I want them to remember when they come into Miracle Chrysler or Miracle Ford, that they walk away with the Miracle experience. That’s what they’re going to receive when they come to these dealerships is: we’re going to treat them like family, we’re going to give them the best price and the the easiest way to purchase it. We’re not going to play a bunch of games with them. You can come in here and buy a car and be out within an hour. And then when they get their vehicles serviced after the sale, we’re going to do our best to provide them with the Miracle experience that they deserve from the service department time and time again. John Haggard: All right. Tim Galvin, everybody, the general manager of Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. So join us again right here. We will have associates from Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram on the podcast throughout each month. Our goal is to show you the best ways to purchase, maintain and accessorize your new or preowned vehicle, and how to sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible, when you’re ready. And don’t forget, we have also posted a transcript of each podcast so that you can easily refer to it for information that you would like to have right there at your fingertips. I’m your host John Haggard, and we’ll see you next time.

Tips on how to delegate to improve your bottom line with Tim Francis I didn't know how to delegate and I didn't know how to lead and manage. What I discovered after my first failure with an assistant was that at least 50% of the problem was not with the assistant, but was with me. At the very top, which is what the surgeon focuses on and what I encourage entrepreneurs to focus on, is strategy, high-level skill, and high-level access. Everything below that we draw a delegation line and everything below that should be done by everyone else. Sooner or later there is going to be those rinse, wash, and repeat tasks that come up. They seem innocuous, but they really add up. The number one of the big six concerns when it comes to hiring an assistant was actually, I don't know how to trust and let go of control. I mean I am super passionate about a few things. One of which is actually our dinner parties. A horrible idea is going on Facebook and posting up, "Hey, who knows someone?" That's bad advice number one. Bad advice number two is hiring the first person that you meet, irrespective of how you find them. I actually think it's a great idea to go overseas if you are going to be delegating work that happens every week or every month and is a simple task that doesn't require a lot of decision making. But, to have someone with those three attributes, the culture, time zone, and language, you immediately solve at least 40% of the misunderstandings, maybe 50% of the misunderstandings that are happening. I think the other thing that people don't realize is how affordable it can be. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ HOW TO DELEGATE TO IMPROVE YOUR BOTTOM LINE [just click to tweet] HOW TO DELEGATE TO IMPROVE YOUR BOTTOM LINE I didn't know how to delegate. What I discovered was that at least 50% of the problem was not with the assistant, but was with me. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Doug: Hey welcome back another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Today in the studio I've got joining me, Tim Francis. Now Tim is a fellow Canadian, but he's also an NYU guest lecturer, certified Scrum Product Owner and lecturer at the University of Alberta. He's an award-winning entrepreneur and the founder of Profit Factory.com and the greatassistant.com. He's a graduate of the University of Alberta and in 2010, 2011 Tim was blindsided and he had a rare illness that left him unable to walk for three months. He nearly went bankrupt as a result of this, and he was re-forced to restart his business, and at that point, he promised himself that he'd never be a burnt out entrepreneur again. So I had a great conversation with Tim and we talked about why more entrepreneurs don't have assistants. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. You're going to want to make sure that you stick around to the very end as Tim rolls out and shares with you how he got his humble start and the challenges that he had to overcome to build his business to be successful and what it is today. Doug: So I'd like to welcome Tim Francis to the Real Marketing Real Podcast today. Hey Tim, super-excited to have you to join me as part of the Real Marketing Real Fast Podcast today, so welcome to the show. Tim: Thanks for having me, Doug. Doug: So we start talking a little bit before we started recording and I asked you what your superpower was and I'd just like you to recap that because I think it's so valuable. I mean, we have entrepreneurs and C-level business and executive guys on here and often they feel overwhelmed, there's lots of details and stuff to do. So do you want to take a minute and just give us a little bit of background on what you're doing and how you help your clients be more successful? Tim: So I own a company called Great Assistant, and we help entrepreneurs to get a great executive virtual assistant that's coming out of corporate America.

Tim and Jon respond to several questions, listed below. Isaiah from Georgia (1:40): Hey Jon and Tim! My name is Isaiah and I am from Lawrenceville, Georgia. I have a question concerning biblical law and God's nature. I've talked to some friends on this issue for some time, and their view is that God's nature was not fully revealed in the Old Testament. So God's will was not fully revealed. They believe this is why the Israelites thought they had to live under the law. They use Paul's writings to back that up. They also believe that the New Testament is the full revelation of God and his nature. And so we can see his full intent was to have a personal relationship instead of a list of rules to follow. What would you say to this worldview and why it should be changed? Rich from New York (13:10): I'm a pastor in upstate New York. Your series on the law is just outstanding. And yet I have a question. As you folks talked about the common law understanding of law that existed until the last few centuries, I found myself wondering about the understanding of law among the Pharisees of the first century, for example. It seems that their understanding wasn't just that the mosaic law was a snapshot in time but that it described how the law needed to be lived out in any age, whatever possible, more like statutory law. Or am I wrong about that? Victoria from Tennessee (21:45): Hey Tim and Jon, this is Victoria in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I've been really inspired by this conversation about the law, particularly the relationships of the New Testament to the Old Testament. I'm sure you're getting here, but I wanted to ask how we’re asked to understand our broad call to obedience when Jesus says something like in Matthew 5, “therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” What commands is he referring to, and is the spirit of the law or commands a filter for interpretation, or is there a place where we need to draw a line in the sand? Thanks. Joe from Cleveland (22:15): What I’m still at tension with are Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:18-19 where he states not a dot or iota will pass away from the law, and those who relax the least of these will be least in heaven. It seems we had agreed the Hebrew Torah showed itself to be flexible and not necessarily the final word in judicial cases. I interpret Jesus “dot and iota” statement as a more literal or explicit command to the letter of the law so to speak. Does Jesus’ statement raise that tension for you or is there another way of understanding it? Petra from the Netherlands (39:30): Hi Tim and Jon my name is Petra, I'm from the Netherlands. A lot of people consider the law as a guidance to obey God and to eternal life. As I have listened to your podcast, I get the assumption that you do not agree with that way of seeing the law, which I understand. What are your thoughts about a practical way to obey God through the Holy Spirit, by the Law, what are your thoughts about that? Thank you, bye! Laura from Iowa: (47:20) Is it important to differentiate between passages that are referring to the 611 laws, the Torah, the whole Old Testament, or the entirety of Scripture? And if that's important, how can an average Bible reader go about this? Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Tents Show Produced by: Dan Gummel Check out all our resources at www.thebibleproject.com Our video on how to read biblical law: https://youtu.be/Sew1kBIe-W0

Hey Tim and Julie! I wanted to share this with you, because I want you to know that I’m certain that you’ve completely changed the trijectory of my real estate career. When I thought all was lost and I was going to throw in the real estate towel... give myself and all my hard work up to go back to selling insurance, I found you. I began listening a week ago and your podcasts are a breath of fresh air. I began implementing the steps and action plans you offer and ....WOAH! I’m now taking action and I’m doing what I never want to do, and im doing it at a higher level than ever before. I’m calling this stage my “practice”. Because I know that I’m only going to get better with it. Do I feel like I’m starting over? Kind of, ya. I needed a slap in the face with a reality check and words of proven systems. I’ve been licensed for a little over 4 years. I Just entered my 5th year in August. I am a newer agent and I am what you call, the agent that waits for the ‘easy button’. And you’re right Tim. It’s Happy houndshit bullshit. Well, I used to be in this position. I now know that i won’t be a superstar waiting around for people to come to me. Thank you, a million times over. Thank you. I feel like I’m finally on the right path. Stephanie DiLorenzo Complete email on timandjulieharris.com -- Stephanie DiLorenzo

TSR Speed Shop RC podcast Hosts: Tim Smith and Matt Howson This week: Brought to you by the great people at MaxAmps Where have you been Smiley?   Tim Notes: New Teeth! What the HELL?!?! More doctors, more pain, more drugs and all the fun Sorry to all I harassed after my appointments and drug induced fun, I should really stay off the internet…. When I was growing up I always thought the truck driver, mail man, machinist, butcher all wanted to do the jobs they had? Now that I am older it seems like no one is happy with their job and thinks they should be doing more or better and then we spend out lives feeling like losers….. August is the month for speed, well I hope so anyways…. Cars need to be worked on and motors need to be changed. No Axialfest for Tim this year and this saddens me for a number of reasons….. John Schultz leaves Axial….. now what? Hey Tim, My Grampa talks about you a lot and says you are the fastest guy on the planet! News items  New ROAR President? Maybe its me??  JConcepts new drag tires RC Word of the Week brought to you by RC Driver mag Locknut A nut that uses a nylon insert in order to better grip the threads of a bolt or shaft and thereby preventing it from coming loose. It is used extensively for axles and other areas where nuts must stay secure, but it may need to be removed frequently for maintenance or repair. Main topic I keep buying cheap china crap from Facebook ads and I LOVE IT New Drag strip and the first time running on it in a couple of years, (prepped tracks are a new breed when you have been gone for so long) All the old and new faces. And my prostock records its first 1.6 run! Hey look I am the new MKS team manager! NPRC Update Facebook Questions Casey Santos First hope all is ok in regards to the fires. But are you ready to move away from those...we can drag race all year long in Arizona Richard Carter Hello Tim do a live show Joe Zaier Jr Do you think liverc polls have an impact on the industry or are they a nice 2 minute distraction on a Monday? Stephen A Nicholson Jr. Hahaha the points debauchery we had in Florida is a good subject lol Nate Hauger Thoughts on running one car in two classes. For example a car like your 55 in street eliminator and either 2.50 index or all run. Richard Carter Call in show Mark Pavidis How fast do rc cars go Darvione Huddleston Tim Smith did you do any major changes to the pro stock Randy Krol In the video of your car going into the other lane, how much damage does a car have usually after a hit like that? Are they pretty strong when it comes to impact like that or are you rebuilding and retrimming the whole front end? Jason Flores Tim Smith WHAT IS THE BEST STARTER PLATFORM TO GET INTO LOW CELL DRAG RACING? AND HOW MUCH CAN YOU EXPECT TO PAY FOR A STARTER PROMOD PLATFORM ? Joe Zaier Jr What kind of gyro do you use in your pro stock. Napoleon Solo What’s going on with HPI? They going out of business or something? Randy Krol With the fire going on I'm sure it's at a hault but how's your dad's truck going? JP Sweeck What are your most fondest moments/memories you had in RC? Desmond Dailey I got a plaque!!!! Chris Trudeau Shout out to Matthew for his recent MBM Show and Randy . (Who BTW, I would vote for ROAR President in a Heartbeat) What LHS do u frequent Tim and how often do you support the LHS vs your sponsors? Do you place special orders? What percentage of your hobby purchase is brick and mortar vs mouse click? How do you personally support the LHS, either thru promotion, purchases and other? What can your LHS do better and what are they doing right? (In part, asking for a friend who is slowly taking over an LHS, and trying to draw in customers) Desmond Dailey Is there any way to get a 3s castlev7700kv 2 pole caslte mm2 esc combo Over 100mph in 132ft? Michael Hahn Now that you have a track, when the boys with the large scale rides going to show up? Joe Zaier Jr Here is a non rc question. What do you think Matt will look like when he hits his weight goals. Whenyou go through something like that you don't look like your old self. You don't look like a skinny version of your overweight self. You look like a third thing. Like I look like nosferatu Josh Howard Did good at Lynnwood to fighting the gyro of this nitro motor.

SpecialiTEA 1 – Tim van der Zee In our first SpecialiTEA episode we talk to Tim van der Zee (@research_Tim) about error detection, navigating critique on social media, and the positive side of the replication crisis for early career researchers. Highlights [1:30] Hey Tim! What are you working on? [2:30] Tim: I am meta-science BATMAN [3:30] Error detection: Impossible numbers in papers [5:00] Tim’s favourite errors: we’re not naming any names, but Tim will talk about some food studies… [10:00] can you trust the results If the basic numbers are wrong? [12:00] But I still believe these findings… [15:00] critiques against error detection [18:00] Tim’s twitter feed (@research_Tim) – spot the lively debates and interesting insults [21:00] Effective communication [22:30] Should we be allowed to share data? Is it ever ethical? Yes, of course it is. [24:00] How do you navigate critical feedback, Tim? [26:00] Dr. Hannah Hobson’s (@HannahMBuxton) question “Do you think some fields have the reproducibility issue addressed already? If so what could learn from them (speaking as a psychologist)?” [28:00] We need the crisis, it’s a good thing. We should be questioning things. [31:00] Tim’s amazingly positive outlook Music credit: Kevin MacLeod - Funkeriffic freepd.com/misc.php

Get ready to laugh! We've got another Brilliant Business Moms team podcast! We’ve got Carlee, Ellen, and Victoria here, sharing how they’ve found work as Virtual Assistants and their thoughts on using VAs in your business. I know they get questions all the time about how they came to work on the Brilliant Business Moms team, and these ladies have a wealth of knowledge to share. Listen to the Podcast   On the Podcast 1:20 - How Our Team Came To Be 14:02 - What About Competition? 17:07 - Meeting Your Online Team In Person 20:50 - Working Well With Clients 26:18 - The Question Beth Anne Has Been DYING To Ask 36:31 - Riding Big Learning Curves 41:18 - Standards in Service-Based Business 44:06 - Setting Limits in Service-Based Business 50:10 - When VA Relationships Don’t Work Out 1:01:45 - Boss Perks Beth Anne: Ladies, I’d love for you to start by sharing how you got into work as a Virtual Assistant. 1:20 - How Our Team Came To Be Victoria: Sure, I can start! I got started a couple of years ago, and really out of necessity. I wanted to spend more time with my baby but I still needed to bring in an income. So I put together the work I had been doing professionally prior to having a baby, and thought maybe I could do that same type of work as a freelance contractor. We laugh about how easy this is, but I literally sent emails to a bunch of people! I sent about 25 emails in a week to different individuals that I followed online. (I do have a small blog, it’s not monetized, just a place on the Internet. And because of that I had knowledge and awareness of different mom bloggers out there.) So I sent these emails along the lines of, “Hey is there anything I can do to help you? Let me know.” The very first VA job I did was make a media kit for someone. I didn’t know anything about media kits or graphic design, but I figured it out and did the job. As far as my connection to Brilliant Business Moms (BBM), I was a long time fan girl of the podcast and the brand. I reached out to you, and Sarah at the time, and asked if I could be helpful, and eventually that translated into the working relationship we have now. Ellen, you started similarly, right? Ellen: Yes! I had a blog, but was really enjoying the behind the scenes stuff way more than blogging or creating things. Through blogging I knew a few others bloggers that I liked and got along well with. At first I offered free (or super cheap) work, because I really wanted to get experience. Most of that was raising my confidence, helping me know if I could actually do the more technical work and get paid for it. Working with those first few ladies that I really knew helped me realize I CAN do this, and I can keep going. I think I mentioned in the BBM group that I was looking for work, and either Beth Anne or Sarah reached out to me about doing a simple job. That’s how my work with Beth Anne started. I was copying and pasting names from a spreadsheet, and they were really happy with how fast I was! A tip for when you get started: If you are doing free or cheap work, make a boundary for that, maybe 10 free hours or 2 weeks, so you’re both clear on expectations--but it’s a great way to get started! Beth Anne: I think that’s a great way to get started, you two. When you reached out to us, Victoria, I remember reading your email and wondering if you were really offering to do things for free! We asked, “Is she crazy!? How is she this nice?!” At that time we didn’t take you up on the offer to do things for free, but we knew because we had that relationship you were in the back of our minds for as soon as we could afford a VA in our budget. One of your first tasks, Victoria, was helping format our ebook Time Management Mama. And then in the meantime your clientele built up a lot and I remember thinking, “Oh no! I think Victoria’s too busy for us now!” And Ellen, I remember Sarah finding your post in our Facebook group and reaching out. (And we still encourage moms to do that! Post in private Facebook groups. Share who you are and what you can offer. It’s a great place to get started.) And Ellen did work so well and so fast Sarah and I quickly started to freak out that we weren’t paying you enough! What you were charging at that time was such a small rate, but it’s good that over time you’ve built confidence and increased your rate. It’s really important as a VA to value yourself. Victoria: Beth Anne, this is so funny to hear from your side! I do want to add that, in that time of waiting for a job, or if you have someone you know you want to work for someday, in the meantime as much as you can be helpful, do it. Support the people and the brands you care about. The group was still close enough that Sarah and Beth Anne often asked for input on projects. It’s a good practice to give before you expect to get back. In life, that makes you a nice, moral person. But in business, it sets up the organic working relationship. Beth Anne: And Carlee! You’ve been so quiet, but I’d love to hear how you started! Carlee: I feel like the newbie and almost the imposter in this conversation! It’s really funny how I started. I’ve always worked from home, but with jobs like grading papers and tutoring: on my time frame and pretty minimal because I homeschool my kids. But my youngest turned 10 last year, and has been doing well and getting more independent in school, my husband and I realized that I could take on more hours. I even actually applied to some jobs outside the home, and had no peace about it. I didn’t want the jobs and I didn’t want to be out there, and we were still homeschooling. For those of you who don’t know, Ellen is my (little!) sister-in-law. She was hesitant to tell me about VA work because a lot of people don’t really understand it or get what it means. (And now I face that too!) But when she finally explained what she had been doing, she told me she thought I would really enjoy the work and would be a really good fit for VA work. So I gave it a try! I did the same thing, I posted in our Facebook group and fell in love with BBM from the moment I started. I got a client right away who was excellent and paid me in courses. She knew what she wanted me to do and what classes would be helpful for that work. So I was able to work and learn all at once. Rather than paying me in money the first month, she paid me in classes. When Ellen’s husband was heading back to work for the school year and Ellen needed to drop her hours, there was a scramble to pick up the work that Ellen couldn’t do any more. There was the problem of the inbox and a few other issues! And if i remember the story correctly, she asked Ellen what Ellen thought of me coming on. Beth Anne: Yes! I think that’s right. Because Ellen, I don’t think you would have suggested it to me first. For reference everyone, and I have to tell this story because it’s so funny, Ellen literally had Be Brilliant mugs in her house for an entire year and was shipping them for me - and it took an entire year for her to ask me if she could have a mug and could I take it off her paycheck!!! It’s like, “Ellen! You can have as many mugs as you want!” So that’s very much Ellen’s personality. She wouldn’t have come to me to say I have this sister-in-law looking for VA work and she’s awesome. But the connection did happen organically. Carlee’s daughter, Mckenna, actually attended one of our Pinterest webinars. And once I found that out I gave Mckenna the course to help with her Etsy shop. And then one day the lightbulb went off. I knew we needed to add another member, and I knew the team member would be primarily offloading tasks from Ellen’s plate. But I didn’t want to have to jump back in and be that person to explain to a new person how Ellen was doing everything! And I also knew Ellen, and that she would absolutely need to feel comfortable telling the new person exactly what needed to be done. So I thought, “What about Carlee?” Carlee: It came out of those relationships. And to fast forward, Ellen does not have a problem bossing me around. I’ve known Ellen since elementary school, and I have been the boss forever. So Ellen has SUPER enjoyed getting the chance to tell me what to do. Ellen: Oh, I do. I do. :) Carlee: I love it. And Ellen’s personality is so sweet and genuine. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. If someone told her no or had been incompetent, she would have just fixed it for them and not said anything. So it works well that she can tell me point blank, that’s not right - do it again. 14:02 - What About Competition? Victoria: I feel like this is fun to get Brilliant Business Moms history. And I think this is a good place to point out one thing Beth Anne has done really well in terms of building our team. It’s stereotypical to assume that anytime you get a bunch of ladies together there’s going to be a bit of cattiness and jealousy. This is such a good spot to say we have 0, no we have negative 50 million of that, on our team. I would just imagine in other settings, maybe you bring a new team member and - wait, what!? she’s related!? How did she get in here? I’ve worked in places before where people had that negative outlook on life. What I love about our team is there is none of that. We were very much, “Yay! Carlee’s here!! We can get even stronger!” And Beth Anne, I think that was good insight and foresight on your part knowing your team well, and knowing how we needed to operate together to be successful. We all play to our strengths. And we said in a recent episode, this past year was our most successful ever. And I think it’s due in large part by putting the exact right people together. For the business owner out there looking to put a team together, if you even see a hint of any negativity - stop it, cut it out. You want people who work so well together. Carlee, I think you said that a win for one of us is a win for all of us. Carlee: From the business owner end, I totally agree. As the team leader you have to be aware of your team and foster good relationships. You have to pick the right team and shut down negativity. From the VA end, and this is something Beth Anne shows in all her business practices, it is not about competition. Victoria and I are not in competition, and our jobs overlap all the time. There are times she does my job for me and I do her job for her. It’s not about if I do it better or she does it better, or who does more. We are a team. A win for one is a win for, and a loss for one is a loss for all. So when a babysitter can’t make it and you lose work time, we all chip in. Or, in my case I had a chicken emergency this morning (#WyomingLife), when those things happen we gladly jump in and fill in for each other. There’s only collaboration and not competition among a team. 17:07 - Meeting Your Online Team In Person Beth Anne: I have to say I don’t know if I’ve done a great job of fostering this, but I think you all are awesome and do a great job working with one another! You two, Carlee and Victoria, especially have jobs that overlap all the time and you manage it and figure it out and work together so, so well. One thing that definitely helped is when we were all able to get together in person at the Business Boutique in Nashville. That was the first time I got to meet Carlee and Victoria in person! All of us getting to be together really solidified the team. We are all coworkers, but we’re all friends as well. We care about each other as people and that’s really important. Carlee: I think it helped because we all have slightly different personalities in person than online than everyone expected. Obviously, I’ve known Ellen forever...so that doesn’t count. Beth Anne was a little different than I thought, and Victoria was too. But that was so good! We’ve talked since then about personality and communication styles and strengths and differences. Choosing to be friends and enjoy, and help each other has helped us communicate better according to each other’s styles. Victoria: Choose conferences wisely: whether you’re building a team, working on a team, or working as a VA. I would even say look at the calendar of where you want to go, and check-in with your groups to see who will be there, and choose which events to attend that way. It can be hard in the online world to know how to connect. Even if you’re simply trying to meet people to put on your team, conferences can be a great way to meet a bunch of people in one location. Our team was able to meet in person for a longer work session in San Diego, and I know not everyone in business is in that spot. Conferences are more accessible, and while you’re there do as many auxiliary events as you can to meet people and network. Beth Anne: I totally agree. I had only talked on the phone to all of you before working with you. For someone looking for VA work, if you can meet up at a conference and interact in person how great would that be!? It gives them a better sense of who you are and what you do. I think I can know how a person communicates pretty quickly when I meet them in person. And doing online work you have to be a good communicator. 20:50 - Working Well With Clients Beth Anne: So obviously, you all are rockstars and I love that you all work so well together. I would love it to share with everyone what are your tips. How do you work well with clients? What do those relationships look like? Ellen: It may be cliche, but communication is so big. Being able to communicate over email is essential. Don’t be afraid to clarify, or ask dumb questions. It’s better to clarify up front when you’re working with someone on a project, rather than move forward unsure and frustrating your client. Communication really is just such a key part; especially with online work, when you can’t just go down the hall and have a conversation. Up front, you want your expectations to be clear, and know it’ll evolve over time of your working relationship. And even something as simple as responding to emails with new tasks, “That looks great, I’ll take care of it.” and offer a time frame of completion can be helpful. Beth Anne: As a team leader, whenever you ask for clarification, I love it. It shows that you care about doing the job well and about my vision for things. There is no dumb question! I want you to ask as many clarifying questions as you need. Carlee: And sometimes we’ll do a project knowing it’s not totally perfect or exactly right and submit the draft to you for feedback and tweaking or vision and direction. Sometimes it helps for us to take what Beth Anne has said, put it on paper, and see what we’ve missed. Victoria: I second the practice of sending drafts and getting concrete feedback. Something I’m consciously working on (not perfect at it!) is to take detailed notes as I work, especially when working with several different clients. It’s important to mark differences in the styles you need to keep track of between your clients. Or you need to write notes about how a particular client handles a certain situation. Especially if you’re working with a bunch of different people, those details can get lost or muddled. I can be a very creative, free thinker and sometimes I’m tempted to make up the answer to a problem for myself, which works in my life but not when I’m working for other people! Maybe this habit of keeping notes comes naturally to you, but for me it for sure does not. But I’m making myself do it! In the same breath as talking about communication, I think transparency is really important. Maybe you need to send a note to say, “Hey, I’m really struggling to understand how your sales funnel is working, but I’m taking notes and will ask you again if I have questions.” I also try to be really detailed with my time records so people know how long a project took me. I think having strong communication and being transparent builds trust. Ellen: Early on in my VA work I had to face the fact that I am very much a people-pleaser. Before I got started I read the Bootstrap VA -- and it’s an awesome book. It helped me learn to be okay with criticism. I knew going in that would be my big struggle, so I made a very conscious effort to prepare myself. Getting feedback isn’t bad, and you can’t take it personally. You have to be able to take critiques, learn from it, and work with it. But this tendency is probably something a lot of people struggle with; I knew for me it would be a particular weakness and I wanted to be prepared to work on distancing myself from my work so I could take feedback well. Beth Anne: That is true - and I give all of you all tons of feedback! Which brings me to my next question that I’ve been dying to ask you all! 26:18 - The Question Beth Anne Has Been DYING To Ask About 6 months ago or so, you all confessed to me that when you first started working for me, the first couple of months, you thought I hated you. But when you guys made this confession to me, we were obviously past that point, and I thought you liked working for me at that point, but I still wanted to know: Why did everyone think I hated them!? What made you feel that way? And why in the world did you keep working for me!? Victoria and Ellen: *Not it* Carlee: Okay, Okay. I’ll start. When I came on the team, we pretty much jumped right into a Kickstarter campaign - and then straight into our gigantic FB Brilliance course launch. Side note: If you’re going to do VA work, don't think you’re going to do only do one thing. That doesn’t actually happen. I was hired to handle our inbox. I had been around about two weeks, and suddenly I was writing a refund policy. I think the policy was for our planner. In my draft of the document I used lots of formal wording, which defaulted to my love of English grammar. Then I got an email from Beth Anne that said, “Never use the word ‘therefore’, ever again!” I was like, “Okay then. Sure.” Needless to say, we didn’t end up using what I had written! It was comical Early on I did lots of screenshare hangouts with Ellen as she was handing off tasks to me and teaching me how to do certain things. During one of our conversations I said, “Ellen, I don’t think Beth Anne likes me! I don’t think she’s happy with me.” And I kid you not, Ellen’s exact words back to me were, “Oh I’m so glad you think that because you’re one of the most confident people I know, and I feel that way half the time too, so if you’re feeling that way then I feel better about myself.” It was great for me. Because I knew Beth Anne loves Ellen! Beth Anne thinks Ellen is the best thing ever. So if Ellen is thinking that about Beth Anne, but Beth Anne totally likes her, maybe she totally likes me! So we just worked through it. Ellen and I helped each other through it. And when Victoria hit that same spot, Beth Anne told her, “Go talk to Carlee.” And so she did. (And Victoria made sure I knew Beth Anne told me to talk to her. It was not gossip!) We talked it through, and I was able to help Victoria see that’s Why did we stick around? Because we’d all rather have the person who says, “Never, ever use the word therefore!” than someone who will dance around and not give a direct answer. I don’t want to deal with the game and fluff; I want to be told what’s great and what’s not, and be done. It’s a waste of time to do it any other way. It’s a respect level. Because even when I questioned whether or not Beth Anne liked me, I knew I liked Beth Anne and I liked Brilliant Business Moms, and I wanted to stick around and get better. Beth Anne: I feel like the mean head cheerleader or something! And my team is all, “We like Beth Anne but she doesn’t like me!” Ellen: For me, because my feelings happened very early on, I knew I was learning how to handle criticism. I learned that I do like the direct feedback. I’d rather know exactly what you want, and move on with that. That’s just part of the working relationship--we have to learn to deal with criticism! Victoria: Okay, guys. I would not hate it if you threw a fluffy pillow to me and then gave me criticism. Just saying. But yes, at the end of the day, we all pursue excellence in our personal and professional lives. And it’s good to get it straight, and know how to move on. I also feel I need to be the voice of practical necessity here. In addition to what you guys just mentioned, part of me is like, “Well, I still need a paycheck, so this is going to be worth it.” On a very real level, there’s a sense of knowing that it may be hard, but it’s going to be worth it. Man, this is getting very deep quickly. I’ll just say that I’m painfully extroverted. I’ve been noticing in my life that I like to work really hard, but as soon as the work gets challenging, I want to sprint on to the next thing. The best things come from more of the marathons and not the sprints. I also realized in myself that it’s a sign of maturity to believe it’s worth sticking through the hard things, and having an uncomfortable conversation or two to get through the tough spot - and, in our case, preserve the team and progress we’re making. I don’t know if that’s a VA thing or a work thing. Carlee: It’s a work thing. I’ve worked a lot of jobs and they all come with great parts and hard parts. I can honestly say at this point, even if I couldn’t have those first few weeks, I’m living my dream. This is my dream job. I’m so happy to be here, but it doesn’t mean it’s always easy. The other day Ellen and I had to redo a project we spent a lot of time on, but that’s the nature of the job! It’s the nature of the fact that we’re all moms, working in the margins, doing our best. It can’t be personal. And it can’t be all fun and sunshine and rainbows and then when it’s not I’m out of here. That’s not any part of life--not marriage, or parenting. And that’s the best part about our team! On the hard days (and hard because they’re busy, not because they’re bad, they are hard because our to-do list is longer than the number of hours we have) we talk to each other and pick each other up. What’s great is the other day I was having a very hectic day and Victoria reached out to me and said, “What can I do for you?” Victoria: See? Here’s a fluffy pillow! The fluffy pillow is valuable sometimes! Beth Anne: Victoria you’re such a nurturer and I love that about you. You pick up the slack for others. Victoria: And vice versa! It happens to me as well. Beth Anne: I am learning more and more as a team leader to get better about knowing how my team likes to be led. So, Victoria, I know in some cases it would be better to pick up the phone and have a conversation with you, than just send an email - which is my default. That’s part of my responsibility as a team leader. When it comes to all that hard stuff, it’s the same for me too! There are days that I don’t want to get up and do the work I need to do that day, even though I run the show. Assembling a team that cares about the mission makes a big difference. 36:31 - Riding Big Learning Curves Beth Anne: And Victoria, I know that the podcast has been one example of how you pushed through something that was harder was working on the podcast. I’m sure there were times you were tempted to say it’s not worth it! But everyone is so excited to have it back and you’ve created a great system for us. Victoria: Yes! I can talk about that. But first I do want to say, we all do care about the higher mission. We have all bought into Brilliant Business Moms. And if someone is having a bad day, the other has good day. If you run a business or work in a business, you make a commitment. That basic level commitment is, “This work has to be done because it’s what I agreed to do,” and sometimes once you work through that basic level, then the higher level love feelings come back about why you’re doing it. I hope it didn’t come out crass to say working for a paycheck is sometimes what keeps you going, I didn’t mean it to! Beth Anne: No, it didn’t! Victoria: Right, it’s just that sometimes you have still put one foot in front of the other. Speaking of that, the podcast is a good example of what we’re talking about. Around the time of our San Diego trip we had a team growing experience. We had a show due on Monday, and in my mind I had it basically complete and ready to go, but it was not that way. Carlee and I proof for each other, and I sent the transcript to her for proofing. Since we were in person, Carlee looked over at me and said, “Victoria, these shownotes are awful. They’re not done at all. You need to go back and fix it.” At first, I was mortified. Then I went through the stages of grief, getting angry then accepting what I had to do. This all occurred later at night, pressing up against the deadline. We worked through it and we hurried to get the show finished on time, and I swore I’d never work that late again! And you guys still heard a great episode that day, having no idea what happened behind the scenes! It was good for me to see that Carlee didn’t hate me, she just made a judgement call on the work. Carlee: And that’s it! My thought process was, “You usually do this fabulous job, and this is not up to your own standards.” I wasn’t mad, it wasn’t personal, they were just bad notes. There’s no hidden meaning with us, and that’s how Beth Anne is, too. Beth Anne and I are similar in that, we really shoot straight but there’s no deeper, read between the lines insult. Victoria: We really learned as a team, that we’re all here for the listener. We’re here for the community, to put out good content. It’s time like that the bigger mission does help. 41:18 - Standards in Service-Based Business Victoria: I think anytime you’re in a service-based business, it’s so hard to not directly tie yourself to your service. I feel like with product-business ladies, it’s kinda nice to be able to hide behind the product. With a service-based business, it’s just you. You’re providing the service. And you have to work extra hard to separate the value of the service from the value of you as a person. As a BBM team, we will always fall short in some way,  but we have a lot of grace for each other. Carlee: And you’re making such a good point for anyone looking to be a VA or be on a team. If you’re not working in person, you have to over communicate. Honestly, in this moment I should have explained what I was actually thinking, “These are not up to your own standards, did I miss something?” And really I was wondering, “Are you okay? Is there anything going on? Victoria: And on my end I was thinking, “Nope, I just didn’t get them done as well for whatever reason this week.” Carlee: You’re so honest, Victoria. I love it. This is the real deal, guys. Victoria: Aren’t we calling these BBM Confessions!? It fits! I think you have to be honest, and call each other out, but also give grace and be willing to move forward together. That’s why we’re all here, Beth Anne. Beth Anne: As a team leader one of the things I can improve on is communicating when I need to give feedback or ask for something to be done to another standard. I always feel really, really bad when I want you guys to change something last minute. I don’t want to be that boss who controls every hour of your day. But because I’m such a work under pressure and last minute person, and I know I drag you into that. 44:06 - Setting Limits in Service-Based Business Beth Anne: So I want to ask: how do you set boundaries on your time? For example, I know that Victoria has set work times with childcare. Ellen and Carlee’s worktime feels more fluid. How do you make sure I don’t take over your life!? Sometimes I know I do! That really concerns me. Carlee: But you..so...okay *laughs* You do and you don’t. Especially for Ellen and I, you do take over our lives sometimes - but we know that in advance. It’s not a daily thing. But we are aware of an upcoming big launch or big webinar, and during those times Ellen and I structure our time around work. On the days when we have a work event at 6pm at night, my crew knows we’re going to eat at 4:30 and then Mom is going to lock herself away. That’s a choice we’ve made and we don’t have to make it. Ellen: And it’s not every day. It’s rare. Carlee: Yes. But what people should know too is we can literally say, “Hey, I’m leaving town for 3 days.” And while our tendency is to follow up with, “But I can still work!” Beth Anne says, “No! Take time off!” We have crunch time, go time, all hands on deck -- but we also get the rest time. It wouldn’t be possible without the rest time. Ellen: But there are times Beth Anne sends me a task on Friday night but she says it can wait til Monday. And often I will do the task that weekend, only because I usually work Saturdays, but there’s no pressure. Victoria: Communication is good. My tendency is to do everything, but because my kids are little younger and I have very structured work days, I’ve tried to get better about projecting when a task can realistically be done instead of saying, “Sure I’ll get that done tonight!” Early on as a VA I tried to do it all right away, and it wasn’t healthy! When given a job I would say, “Sure sure! I can do it” but I really couldn’t, and it was resulting in stressful moments for our family. But now, we have clear times - ‘This is when I work, and this is when I don’t work’ - and planning in advance has been helpful. We haven’t talked about working with a bad client yet, but in my bad client experience it was expected that I could drop and do whatever this person needed right away. But setting realistic boundaries and communicating them clearly is good. Now I try to answer, “I’m done with work for today, but I can do it first thing tomorrow.” Beth Anne: Carlee and Ellen, I would totally understand and appreciate if you want to be more structured! I want you to be happy with your work and stick around for a long time and I would have no problem with you telling me what works for you with your life. Carlee: We are happy! And we promise it’s working. We as a team assign tasks according to those schedules, too. For example, I homeschool from 8 to 11 am, so I don’t have tasks that have to be done at 9 am. Victoria’s jobs are things she can do ahead of time, for example. Ellen: For me, the late-at-night stuff isn’t good, but early morning is my time. Beth Anne: And let me say what I love about Ellen’s early morning time is that I can go off to bed with a wishlist of items I’d like done, and by the time I wake up and have actually logged into my email Ellen has them done! Carlee: Me too! I’m a late night person and just recently I sent Ellen a few corrections to landing page at like midnight or 1 am. I was worried I had woken her up with all these crazy messages! She wrote back first thing in the morning and said, “Hey thanks! Those were great. Changes made.” It had only been 5 hours since I sent the corrections and they’re done! 50:10 - When VA Relationships Don’t Work Out Beth Anne: So let’s start talking about when the relationship is not working out. And this still cracks me up, because I’m still confused about the warning signs! You all thought I hated you, but kept working anyway! Victoria: Honestly, what we just described is more a of a challenge of working online. Working in-person you can joke around at the beginning of the day, have a conflict in the middle, but end with a joke. I think the barrier of the screen means you have to overcompensate. It’s just hard! I still contend that online is what makes it weird. And on a blog or business, you can always put the best version of yourself out there. But when you’re working with someone online you don’t always get the time to polish in between. Beth Anne: Okay, that makes me feel a little better. Victoria: And you’ve done well at helping us compensate! Getting us together at the conference and again in San Diego, that was huge. Carlee: Oh Victoria! You are such an extrovert. This won’t be true for everybody. Victoria: That’s true. Carlee: For me, I haven’t worked for a bad client. But for me, the product is my big determiner. I have to believe in something. I have to look at the product and believe there is great value going out into the universe. I have to get behind something, so I guess I work at a philosophical level that way. I’ve said no to, and had a hard time working with a product that I just wasn’t able to personally endorse. Whereas, Brilliant Business Moms is totally a brand and business and community I can get behind. Ellen: If you feel uneasy at all about something..and uneasy is different than having hard times. There’s going to be hard times...but if you feel uneasy about the client or the work they’re doing, it’s better to say no and back out than put yourself in that situation. It’s better to be 100% confident about the people you say yes to. Carlee: So true. And sometimes the uneasiness might come later. We talked about boundaries previously, and if someone doesn’t understand or respect your boundaries it won’t work. And maybe it’s as simple as time zone problem, where the times they want you to work you’re putting dinner on the table. But everyone has to be on the same page. For me right now, I just don’t have the hours to work with additional clients. I’ve had to drop clients because I simply don’t have time to give them what they need. Ellen: That’s usually the issue for me, too. It’s not a matter of not wanting to work with them, I just don’t have time. In fact, I’ve had to fire a few clients because my plate has gotten full and I literally didn’t have the time to do the work. Victoria: Being realistic with what you’re able to provide is key. And be okay that you’re not the right VA for everyone. The case when I had to end a working relationship. The client wasn’t a bad person or anything. It was just that the things I needed to do I wasn’t able to do. There was a big task that had to happen every morning, very early. I tried so hard to make it work for a long time, but with two little kids it wasn’t possible. As we were talking I just pulled up my breakup email with this client. I wrote, “I don’t think I’m the right VA for you. I’m not able to give you the support and assistance you need on a daily basis. I’d love to keep working until you find a replacement.”   Peace out. (Just Kidding!) I do worry if I say no to a job, I’ll never get another client, or that they’ll think badly of me. I often worry about my name or reputation, and that if I end a relationship will I ever work again? But truthfully, the sooner you realize it’s not working out the sooner you can prevent those unrealisitic fears. I think as women we want to do everything and be good at everything, and that person doesn’t exist. Beth Anne: Right. No one is good at everything all the time! So much of what we’re talking about comes back to honesty. I give you honest feedback about the work, and you give me honesty back with your schedule or a job you can’t do. Carlee: And we’re getting so much better at saying No right away! Ellen: I love Beth Anne’s video feedback. I get giddy and tell my husband, “Hey Tim, Beth Anne sent me a video!” It’s so great to be able to watch one of her videos and know exactly what she’s thinking. Carlee: Ellen I don’t know if Beth Anne realizes that our entire families watch her feedback videos with us! If you haven’t had the privilege of meeting Beth Anne in person, she is exactly who she seems to be: strong, a spitfire, kind, genuine. So her videos are seriously so funny. She tells us everything good about what we’ve done, and everything really really not good. Ellen: Tim will ask why I’m laughing, and it’s because Beth Anne sent a video. Carlee: Ellen and I will watch your videos at the same time and just message back and forth and we laugh so hard. Ellen: It’s my favorite thing. Iit’s great to see the video, because I can go fix exactly what needs fixing. Beth Anne: It really is the next best thing since we don’t have an office. And working in different time zones is a struggle, so it’s much easier to give feedback via video. We can’t constantly schedule a Google Hangout to go over things! I try in my screencast videos to pretend you’re right there. Carlee: And usually in these videos she tells us stories or something that’s going on, which are always hilarious. Victoria: And my favorite is when you comment on your environment, like a car driving by, and it tickles me. Carlee: You know, I hadn’t put it together with that whole “walking down the hall...” but you really can’t email us to say, “There’s a line with the wrong shade of pink here.” It just wouldn’t make sense in email. The videos are great, and they do reveal your personality. Beth Anne: Ellen sees the most of my videos because she also sees my raw course videos - and there are some where I go off on a rant where something isn’t working and I am so frustrated. Ellen: My favorite is when I talk back to you and say, “Oh gosh! You just have to click the button, Beth Anne! CLICK THE BUTTON!” My husband will ask what I’m doing and I’ll just respond, “Talking to Beth Anne.” Carlee: In one of your recent videos Beth Anne was concerned that we hadn’t published a pretty important page. We actually did have the page published, she was just looking on the wrong screen. Beth Anne was saying, “We’re at crunch time, guys! This needs to be done!” Ellen: “Just click the button, Beth Anne!” Carlee: And that just reminds us that there are things we do more naturally than you, and vice versa. Beth Anne: It’s an ego boost for you guys! You get to see me at my best and worst. You know I’m a flawed human, and that’s good. 1:01:45 - Boss Perks Beth Anne: One benefit of being the “boss” is that I get to collect a team who all have strengths different from me. We show this face to the world, and it all looks pretty and fabulous and polished. And I feel like I get credit for all of that! And, not only that, but I don’t have to do the things that aren’t my strengths, hardly ever, because I’m the boss and I just get to tell someone else to do it. And sometimes it does feel unfair! I do acknowledge that. There are lots of things I totally stink at. Carlee: There has been a shift in the last couple of months. You’ve said more often “you and the team” are doing a project. And you’re asking us to put our name on the work. There’s more of a shift to ‘us’ rather than ‘you’. None of us want to be the face of Brilliant Business Moms or to be Beth Anne. It’s not a competition. But it is fun that you’ve started putting, “Beth Anne and the Brilliant Business Moms Team” because we are a team and it takes all of us to get all of these crazy things done! Victoria: And it’s nice of you to admit. I imagine it would be tempting to and easier to just speak in the first person always. It’s nice to share the credit. It’s tricky to walk the line and preserve the brand that you’ve built up and who you are and how you help people, and acknowledge the team. Beth Anne: You don’t want to work for someone who takes all the credit all the time. Victoria: But I’m saying you could, though, if you wanted! It’s your brand. But it’s so nice of you to include “and the Team’. Carlee: And it’s practical. Because we get emails, addressed to us, in the inbox that you’d just pass along to me anyway. It’s more efficient. And it’s good that people know who to talk to. It doesn’t all have to come from Beth Anne all the time, because you can’t be everything to everyone. Beth Anne: It does set expectations up in a better way. This is a total team effort. I like that we get emails addressed to the team, like, “Hey, Carlee!” or “Hey, Ellen!” or “Hi Beth Anne and Team!” because it means they don’t expect email answers only from me. And I’m not setting people up for disappointment. Ellen: And it fits really well with the BBM brand. How it started was a podcast that is all about the community and these women who are building businesses, it’s always been about that. And it’s neat to see the community come about as a team, too. Our team is a small part of the community, and we are also part of the bigger community, and we’re all working together. Beth Anne: Yeah, I have no intention of being a weird internet celebrity where people care about what I eat for breakfast. That’s totally differently than saying, “We are Brilliant Business Moms.” I would never want to be BethAnneSchwamberger dot com. That would be stupid long, for one. But it goes back to the brand always being about a community of moms, not one person. Carlee: And there are plenty of questions we get that both Beth Anne and I know Ellen needs to answer. It’s not even just the four of us, it’s the four of us and these incredible women in our community. We learn from them every day too, and they know things we don’t know. Brilliant Business Moms as a whole is not about celebrity. We’re about community. Beth Anne: Well thank you ladies for hanging out with me today. I feel like you each have a lot more to share because you’re all fabulous employees and I love having you on my team. And just an aside, this is seriously how much fun we all have together. We literally just got off topic for 30 mins talking about childbirth and labor because these ladies are awesome. Thanks for listening. Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant!

Rising Tide: A MCU Podcast - Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Sea4 Ep 9 [Broken Promises] Hey we are back! Hey this episodes late. Hey Tim threw out his back... and his shoulder... and his truck died... and he broke a tooth. No for reals dog. Sorry for all the delays! Episode is what we are covering in the title read it! Remember to leave us a review on Stitcher and iTunes and check us out and follow us through and at: Main Webpage: www.dynamicworksproductions.com Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/RisingTidePodcast Tumbler Page: http://risingtidepodcast.tumblr.com Twitter Handle: @RisingTidePod eMail Address:RisingTidePodcast@icloud.com iTunes Podcast Store Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rising-tide-agents-s.h.i.e.l.d./id718751067 Stitcher Radio Network Link: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/dynamic-works-production/rising-tide-an-agents-of-shield-podcast Also remember to buy my book “The Citadel: Arrival by Tim K.A. Trotter” availible right now on Amazon Kindle store & iTunes iBookstore for only $2.99 get a book support this show! FREE Previews are available for both markets! If You’d like to connect with Tim socially check all these out! Tim K.A. Trotter’s Youtube ID: Dynamicworksproductions Tim K.A. Trotter’s Twitter ID: Tim_T Tim K.A. Trotter’s Twitch ID: Tim_KA_Trotter Tim K.A. Trotter’s PSN ID: Linuxisthedemon Tim K.A. Trotter’s XBL ID: Tim T Want more podcasts from us? Check out our BRAND NEW PODCAST Agents of The Nine: A Destiny Podcast iTunes Podcast Store Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dynamic-works-productions/id703318918?mt=2&i=319887887 Additionally you can find our company by any of these links> Corporate Website: http://www.dynamicworksproductions.com/ Coporate Facebook: www.facebook.com/dynamicworksproductions Corporate Twitter: @DynamicWorksPro Corporate eMail Address: dynamicworks@mac.com  

Tim takes on a recent initiative of Amnesty International to "Legalize" prostitution. His issue with their policy lies in the difference between "legalization" and "decriminalization". He argues that what they are proposing would endanger more children and ultimately undermine the efforts of many people to save kids from sex trafficking.   Tim: Hi! Thank you for joining us! This is a very special bonus edition of the Slave Stealer podcast. If you have been listening to us for a while, you know that there are a lot of aspects to human trafficking. So many drivers, so many factors. Sometimes we don’t always get the chance to elaborate within the context or whatever it is that we are talking about, but one big issue that deserves more treatment is this current push by Amnesty International to legalize all prostitution. What they are trying to do now is go out to all the countries and influence them to legalize this work. Now, there is some merit to parts of their argument, but I contend, and I contend passionately, that this legislation, if it got that far, would absolutely devastate millions of children who would be caught up in the wake of prostitution. They would be caught up in the wake... They would be caught up as victims, they would be rapedthemselves. So after we spoke with President Vicente Fox of Mexico, we got on the topic of Amnesty International’s plan, and I think I got a little fired up, so I want you to go ahead and hear what I had to say. So, let’s go and roll that.   Tim: And, people don’t believe us sometimes - "Oh bull crap, we don’t believe that"- or they will see a trafficking case, we will show footage and they see what looks like a victim going willingly into this place: "Well, they walked in. They weren’t dragged in by chains." And, I get it, but it is also very offensive because I know that these kids are slaves. I see them before and during and after. We could have Elizabeth Smart come in sometime and talk about that. Don’t say anything like that in her presence because she received that criticism: "When you were in captivity, why didn’t you just run away? Why didn’t you tell the policeman who you were when he confronted you with your captors in the library that day?" And she will tell you that a child’s mind doesn’t think like an adult’s mind, and it can be very easily manipulated and really brainwashed and rewired to the point that when Elizabeth was rescued, she didn’t even admit who she was. She was still denying who she was as she was even put into the police car and taken to her father, ok. And that’s the thing people don’t understand about human trafficking, and so they misidentify the victims. Police departments have been doing it for decades. I think...in the last decade or so, I think they are trying to get out of this where they treat all prostitutes as criminals. They didn’t even stop to ask the question, 'How did she get here?' Maybe she is 19 years old, but did you know that she was kidnapped at 12 and forced into this life? And yeah, now she is acting out, and she is yelling and cussing at you, and she "doesn’t want to be rescued." But she is a victim, and she needs to be treated as a victim until you figure out what is going on. And a lot more needs to be done there, but progress has been made where these women and children are not being seen as criminals anymore but as victims, but much more needs to be done in that area. Mark: That is a legislative issue, obviously. Are those national statutes that need to be passed or are they local? Explain prosecution of prostitutes. Explain that whole dilemma to me, I don’t get it. Tim: There is some legislative there, but there is also a lot of just how you administer or how the law enforcement administers or what questions they ask, right. Because to be prosecuted for say prostitution, requirements within that statutes have to be met. And part of that is willingly, and it was your intent to do these things. And it is easy just to make the assumption, 'that was your intent, you wanted to do this, and so you’re guilty.' So sometimes, it is not just the laws. The laws can be clarified, sure - you can always, you should add a requirement and say even if this prostitute, this person you have brought in...even if they are an adult, you have to prove that they meant to do this, that they wanted to do this, that this was the life that they chose. Mark: They weren’t coerced. Tim: They weren’t coerced into it. Mark: Ok. Tim: And so the questions, but the questions... The problem is, even when you have decent legislation and decent statutes, you don’t have law enforcement asking the questions, digging deeper: "Who are you? Where did you come from? How did you get into this? How old were you when you got into this?" And if they would ask that, then they would see that there is coercion here. They are not going to bust out their pimps.   Mark: No, they are scared to death. Tim: They are scared to death. Their pimps have been beating them for ten years, since they were ten years old. So, you have got to stop and ask the question. You need experts in the field - social workers, psychologists in the field - to be able to be there and take this victim aside and talk to them. Frankly, in my mind, every country, every jurisdiction - whether it is federal, state, whatever - they all need to have legislation that decriminalize prostitutes altogether, absolutely. Every prostitute, in my mind, should be treated like a victim. Mark: So, you are saying legalize prostitution? Tim: I am not saying... No, you don’t legalize prostitution at all. You legalize prostitution and that means that the pimps and the johns get away. Mark: Ah. Tim: You criminalize 100% for pimps, for johns. Mark: But you can’t criminalize the prostitutes... Tim: You don’t criminalize the prostitutes. Mark: I like that. Tim: Yeah, I mean, there is Norway and Sweden who have both adopted that, and it is very effective. What happens there, when you do that, is those countries and those cities stop becoming havens for sex, for paid sex. Because you are criminalizing the johns and the pimps, johns and pimps don’t want to work there. Mark: So what you’ll have are a few entrepreneurial women who are kind of like 'Ma and Pa' stores, but you wipe out the industry? Tim: Yeah. You would wipe out the industry because the pimps and johns can’t... They are scared to go there. Mark: Yeah. Tim: And this is a huge debate right now going on with the Amnesty International’s new policy this summer they came out with in August, I believe. They came out with the sex worker shield where they are basically wanting to decriminalize prostitution for everybody - pimps, johns, and what they call sex workers - and make it legal. The idea is bring it all out into the light, and then you can take care of the sex workers and treat them like legitimate workers. You know, it is all focused on helping the sex worker. That’s their choice - they want to be a prostitute, support them, help them. And to do that, you can’t criminalize the pimps who, in Amnesty International’s words... This is very controversial. I mean, this is Amnesty International who is supposed to be looking out for the victims. And they feel like sex workers - who they call sex workers, others might call prostitutes - have been victimized and demonized and not supported in their occupational endeavors. And the problem is, is by decriminalizing this - and I see this in my work - by decriminalizing the whole process so that the sex workers can be seen as legitimate workers, like any other professional in the world and be given all the benefits... Mark: I think the middle management and HR and marketing...they get all the departments wrapped around them: "Hey, go see the marketing guy!" Tim: That is right! Mark: "Make a brochure on this chick." Tim: That is the idea! That is the idea, like you are not letting them live their dream. Mark: Wow. Tim: And then the argument is this - let’s play with it a little bit because there is a strain of logic to it, right. So, the idea is you get them structured that way and then the government...because then my question is, "Ok, what about the kids?" Two million kids or more are being trafficked, sold. How do you protect them in this? Amnesty International says, "It is very easy!" All you do is you tell these jurisdictions and the police officers... These pimps get licensed; they are a licensed business. You go to them and they have to show that they are not selling minors: "We don’t sell minors. Here, look - it's all willing adults." Mark: "Look at our brochure!" Tim: "Look at our brochure! It is very clear." Mark: "No kids!" Tim: And I am thinking to myself, "Ok, you are talking about these underdeveloped countries that, at Operation Underground Railroad, we are filling up their gas tanks so they can drive from point A to point B. You are telling me that your police force is going to have enough resources, time, manpower, so forth, to go and regulate these legitimate brothels to make sure that there are no minors?!" Do you know how easy it is going to be if you are Fuego, right? Fuego, who is the guy… Mark: I remember Fuego. Tim: We met Fuego on the beaches of Colombia and... Mark: And you took his hat! Tim: I still have his hat. I still have his hat. Mark: That guy is such a douchebag. Tim: Can you imagine… Can you say douchebag on this show? Mark: Hey, if I put a little E next to the...we are now explicit. Tim: Ok. Mark: No, douchebag is not explicit. Tim: Is "Slave Stealer Radio" an R-rated show? Let’s just talk about this and figure that out. Mark: I think we are PG-13ish. Tim: I just want to know what I can get away with. Mark: In context, we’re probably considered like an X-rated show just given the general theme, but we don’t really get explicit yet until we get you on the wrong moment. Hopefully we edit that out. Tim: Ok! Mark: Yeah. Tim: So, Fuego... You imagine Fuego, right. How hard is it going to be for Fuego? This is Amnesty International’s plan - Fuego should be a legal vendor as long as they are adults. The kids will be safe because they are safe with Fuego, aren’t they? You spent time with Fuego. Would you trust a 12-year-old girl to Fuego? I mean... Mark: Friendly guy. Tim: Here is what is going to happen: he will line up his 18-year-olds and 20- year-olds, and he’ll say, "Here’s all I got!" And those cops are not going to go the two miles down the road into the little storage facility, right, or the tractor trailer with the ten 12-year-olds and the three or four 9-year-olds. Mark: And they are not going to check his phone to see... Tim: No! Mark: ...you know, all the 10-year-olds with pagers. Tim: Right! He will have those, he will sell those. They are premium! You are going to sell those for $1000; these 18-year-olds you are going to sell for $300. He is going to have those. The infrastructure to sell those little kids is now supported by the state. And he will be able to make money, he will be able to invest whatever he makes legitimately, he will pay his taxes and everything else. He will be a businessman! He is going to sell the premium because it is too easy and now you have just supported his infrastructure. How are you going to protect those kids? Amnesty International decided to ignore those kids. Those twelve kids in the back of the tractor trailer down the road - they have ignored them. And now, guess what? You have created an absolute sex haven. And let's say that they decriminalized it like this everywhere in Cartagena. Every gross tourist from America, Canada, and Germany, and everywhere else - they are going to go to Cartagena, they are going to enjoy the adult sex, and then they are going to make a deal with Fuego on the side and say, "Hey, where do I get the 11-year-olds?" "Well, you come to this other place down the road." And it is a booming business. I am absolutely just astonished and sickened that Amnesty International could be so incredibly short-sighted and idiotic that they don’t see that they are completely neglecting the children. They are creating safe havens. They are making it so easy for the johns and pimps to rape children. Mark: That is pretty inflammatory. Tim: It is inflammatory! Mark: You just called them idiotic. Tim: They are idiots! Mark: What if we need their help? Tim: Well, we won't need their help. Mark: Ok. Tim: But do you know who does need their help? Fuego needs their help, and apparently he is going to get it. Mark: So, an entire industry... You might shut down an entire industry. There might be jobless Fuegos all over Colombia, all over Mexico. Tim: How sad. Mark: Have you ever ordered the 'Sin City'? Tim: No. Mark: Smashburger. You go down, and it is kind of like In-N-Out burger. You can show up and there is the menu, right, there is a Smashburger menu (and they are not a sponsor of this show), but you can order the ‘Sin City’ which is not on the menu. And it is kind of a niche thing for people to go in and they give you the wink and they say, "I’ll take the Sin City." Tim: It is like In-N-Out burger, it is the same thing. They have their Animal Fries, Animal Burgers. Mark: Yeah, the Animal Style. Now, I see prostitution becoming like that. Tim: That is exactly right! Mark: Under the Amnesty plan. Tim: Absolutely! It is exactly what it is. Mark: I’ll take Sin City (wink, wink). Tim: It is exactly what it is. Mark: She is in the back alley. Tim: It is exactly what is going to happen. Mark: It is a brand extension. Tim: It is exactly what is going to happen. And we know this! I know this! I know these guys! I have negotiated with them undercover, I sit across the table from them. And if it was legal to sell, for him to sell adults - which it is not in Cartagena frankly, ok. But if it were, if we all follow Amnesty International, and if they make it legal, and I am sitting across from him... Think about this, just play it out in your head - I’ve been there a hundred times. "Hey Tim, come to my office with the sign that says, 'Beautiful women for sale,'" right, because this is a legal business. I walk in there... I mean, we have set him up, he is totally legitimate. And you don't think we are going to have that little 'Sin City menu' talk? Absolutely we are going to! Because he is going to make double or triple off this sick, horny American who is sitting across from him. Mark: Yeah. Tim: Right? It is so unbelievable! When I saw Amnesty International’s policy, I thought there is no way, there is no way they are going to vote. Sane minds will prevail here. And they didn't. Mark: Who voted for it? Tim: It is the board of Amnesty International. This is a powerful organization that has done good in the world - they are all about human rights. They have done good in the world to protect innocence. Mark: Well, traffickers are humans. They have the right to traffick. Tim: Traffickers have rights too, I guess. Mark: Apparently. So now... Tim: It is unbelievable.   Mark: So now, Amnesty International, for the uninitiated like me, Amnesty International now goes and lobbies the UN, they lobby Washington, they lobby... Tim: They lobby countries all over the earth. They will be going and saying, "You need to decriminalize prostitution!" And don’t get me wrong, I totally believe in decriminalizing prostitutes. They should all be treated as victims, absolutely, even if they are saying, "I’m here because I want to be - arrest me!" No, we are going to treat you like... We don’t know your story. I agree with that, that’s right. But what they do is, because the sex worker can’t provide her service if johns are scared to come buy them. So, who they are really protecting are the johns and the pimps. And they say that in their legislation, or in their proposed legislation. They say that... They don’t call them pimps, they are very careful with all the wording, but they call them 'security': 'security for the prostitutes'. Mark: They call them security? Tim: They need to have their infrastructure, they need to have their security, which means that there could be other people helping and facilitating in their business. So, it is unbelievable. Now, will there be a prostitute that would benefit from this? Will there will be a prostitute that would say, "I truly do want to be here"? Absolutely! I believe there are prostitutes who want to be there. And might they say, "We need this policy so that we can sell ourselves freely and be sex workers by choice," and all this, and this would help them. Yes, that would help them, but you have to weigh that against the twelve 12-year-olds who are sitting in the tractor trailer down the road from the legitimate brothel. Mark: Whom you have seen. Tim: I have seen them! They are everywhere! There are 2 million of them. And you have completely thrown them under the bus because you are so worried about the few prostitutes who want to be there, who love their job, and whatever. Mark: The company guys. Tim: I can’t say I am completely unsympathetic to that - maybe that is what their choice is and I am a libertarian in that way. I want people to be able to choose. But it is a balancing act and when you are choosing that over the children who will now be raped because you have provided the infrastructure for them to be raped, you are in the wrong. I mean, it is so clear that you are in the wrong. I know from our perspective, you know, we spend a lot time in the trenches and we see this. Perhaps the folks from the Amnesty haven’t. I have to assume they haven’t seen this, and see how easy they are making it now for children to be raped.

Cloud TnT talks with Alicia Schmidt and Marc Baizman from the Salesforce Foundation about building strong and successful Salesforce nonprofit community, the need for nonprofits to have excellent planning for Salesforce adoption, and a number of jokes were made along the way. Hey Tim, what's the word for using Twitter?